[00:00:00] Speaker A: I lived for the ABBA sing along.
And it was the first night we had done it on the retreat. But having it in this space on the edge class was so much better. And it was just the most fun that I was like, okay, my cruise is over.
I've done everything I need to do.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Welcome back, everybody, to this week's live episode of the DCL Duo Podcast, brought to you by my Path Unwinding Travel and also our good friends over at Backwards dcl. I can't get it in there.
[00:00:47] Speaker C: You got it right there.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: DCL Magazine. Yeah, look right there. Right there. There's the article. There's the infamous article by me. It keeps getting screwed up on my fake green screen here. But yes, if you have not already, head over to dcl-magazine.com that's dcl-magazine.com today to subscribe to the DCL magazine. I have another article I have to Write by the 30th to get over there. So there'll be another article from yours truly in the DCL magazine. One of these days we're gonna get Sam to write something because I'm writing all the articles around here. But head over.
[00:01:21] Speaker C: I edit them.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: You do? You do Head over there today to check out their magazine. You can take 10% off every everything in the broader portfolio of the DCL magazine, the WDW Magazine store. If you use code all caps dclduo. That's all caps DCL Duo. So head over there, check them out. It's a great publication. We love the whole team over there at. At the DCL Magazine. So shout out to them. And with that, we have to bring in our guests this evening from our fabulous show sponsor, My Path Unwinding Travel, we have Karen and Kaylee.
Welcome, guys, to the show.
[00:01:58] Speaker D: Welcome back.
[00:02:01] Speaker C: We're super excited to have you guys back on. We were saying it's been. It's been a while or it feels like a while. It's been certainly a while since we've had Kaylee on. And Karen, we had you on for a guest spot about a month or so ago, but it's always lovely to have you guys both on.
For those who don't know, Kaylee is the advisor to the duo and Karen is the owner, manager extraordinaire. Everything of My Path Unwinding Travel. So we're super excited to have them on. We're going to be talking about Celebrity Cruise Line today. The Celebrity Ascent they just went on. They were sailed in the retreat. We're going to talk all things about that comparing the retreat to DCL's concierge as well as comparing some of the overall offerings. But before we do that, we've got to talk a little bit of DCL news.
There are a couple of news items just to touch on. None of them should be very lengthy. But the first one is DCL announced earlier this week or last week, I should say that kids, that another kids sale, 50% off promotion. So it only applies to certain sailings. So of course contact your travel advisor. Maybe my path unwinding travel. If you're interested in booking and you're not sure whether or not your sailing qualifies or if you're already booked, you can also even find out if your sailing qualifies and then Disney will apply that, that benefit to your sailing. Of course, if you, you can't double up, I think on promotion. So if you've got a placeholder discount or the kids sale 50% off discount, you're gonna have to choose which discount to apply. And one might be better than the other, but your travel advisor can help you figure that out. So something to note. You have to be sailing two full price passengers first. So full price adult passengers in the cabin and then for each child thereafter, it's.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: That was a caveat. I wanted to ask Karen and Kaylie because this, I mean, you see kids sale 50% off, but then you realize that they're like the $600 passenger in the stateroom. So it's not, it's, it's not. It doesn't feel like as huge of a deal as what it sounds like. But am I getting this wrong in some way?
[00:04:14] Speaker A: You're completely correct. And it has to be a child 17 and under. It can't be a third or fourth adult in the room getting that promotion, which is different than what sometimes happens on, let's say, Royal Caribbean where sometimes they have kids sale free and sometimes they have third or fourth and fifth guests, regardless of age. Sale free or 50% or whatnot. Disney was very specific that it's kids.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And Tracy's saying in the chat I'd have to borrow someone's kid. Tracy, we can send Nathan your way if you'd like to pay for 50% off on a cruise to start to catch up with us a little bit in his castaway club status. All right, the other news item, again, not earth shattering, but some friends of ours over on Threads Kingdom Adventure Travel are reporting that if you're sailing on the Disney Dream or Disney Wish in May of 2026. So Disney Dream or Disney Wish in May 2026, you may be able to participate in a pilot program that allows guests to pre purchase Internet plans for their entire voyage at 15% off.
So that would be new. Normally you have to wait to book your Internet packages until you get on the ship.
They do offer discounts for length of sailing and added devices. I will tell you, the pro tip that we have is to.
Sorry, there's like ringing coming through my ears. There we go. All right.
The pro tip that I have is when you get on board, if there's three of you, one of you buy the package for multiple devices because then you can just use all the same login. If you have more than, you know, the three devices or whatever, you can just kick somebody out and log in that device so you save more. Don't buy each person their own plan because if you bundle multiple devices together, you do get a little bit of a. Do get a little bit of a discount. So.
[00:06:11] Speaker C: And it sounds like this is like booking. This will be like booking the photo package in advance where you get a discount for booking it in advance as opposed to buying it online limited package on board. So that's really what this is doing. One other quick thing is I had heard this a few weeks ago, but it's now Been confirmed by LaughingPlace.com Laughing Place is a blog all about all things Disney. We have some friends over there. They just released an article either earlier today or yesterday about Lorcana offerings on the Disney Magic. There's some special Lorcana cards that you can get based on Lorcana being.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: For anyone who doesn't know Lorcana being the Disney card game that is like kind of like Magic the Gathering or something like that. You're not already playing Lorcana. Fun game. Fun game, but.
[00:06:56] Speaker C: Right. So it's a trading card game and there are some special promotional cards that you can obtain either by making purchases on board Disney Cruise Line on the Disney Magic specifically, or by doing some quests on the Disney Magic. And you have to reserve some of these things in the app. But if you're really, if you're interested in the deep dive, if you're playing Lorcana, you probably already know about this. But if head to laughingplace.com and you can find out all the details. It's only on the Disney Magic and I do not know how long this is going to last, but I know it's currently happening. We have a friend, Linda, I'm going to give her a shout out. She's actually on board right now and she's signed up for both of the activities that get you those cards. And with that I think we're ready to talk about the celebrity ascent.
Let's, let's start with Karen and Kaylee. You guys have both sailed on Celebrity before, but not as much as you've sailed on Disney. So let's start with why. Let's start with Kaylee. Why did you book this sailing? And I know it was both of you and your husbands on this sailing.
[00:07:59] Speaker D: Yeah. So my husband, my husband Rob and I have sailed with Celebrity. But it had been a long time. It had been over 20 years since we had been on board a Celebrity ship. So we were very excited about this new Edge class getting on board one of the newer ships.
It's very rare for a celebrity to have these three nights, especially on this class of ships. So it was a little window in between their normal seven night sailings and a transatlantic. And we were talking with Karen and her husband Harv about what we could do and where were we going to go and we needed to see each other. And when we landed on this, it was a no brainer for us to get to check out the ship, the retreat, spend some time together and just make it a fun long weekend.
[00:08:45] Speaker C: Love that. Karen, why did you guys choose the retreat specifically in Celebrity? I know you've sailed on Celebrity before. In fact you sailed on Celebrity recently, I think this past summer I believe.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: Actually I was on the end of January with Leah for a quick four night getaway on the reflection which is not Edge class. So it doesn't have all the retreat bells and whistles.
And so this was opportunity to experience the retreat on a short cruise because as Kaylee mentioned, the, the best experience for the retreat is on Edge class. The other ships have, you know, some aspects of it in some cases, but not really the whole, you know, all the areas that we'll talk about in a moment. And so just to have this opportunity to experience the retreat for our clients because we do have several clients that have either sailed in the retreat or are really interested as Disney Cruise Line concierge cruisers to see how it would compare. You know, how does that translate? And I love that we can be the Disney, Disney cruise translators for our clients.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: How does that, how does that, how does the pricing stack up as between like Sailing and Celebrity in the retreat and like DCL on concierge? Is it fairly comparable or are there, I don't know, is it discounted as compared to Disney? I'm just Curious what the pricing stacks
[00:10:17] Speaker A: up like in general, it is a much better value, especially when you consider everything that is included with it.
And there's a couple of different levels of retreat.
The very top suites, including the one that Kaylee sailed in, has even more inclusions and she'll share about that. But the base level retreat not only just includes access to the concierge, you know, retreat areas, but there's a private restaurant for retreat guests.
Retreat guests get Wi Fi and the premium beverage package included.
So that in itself creates a lot of value there.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure, for sure. All right, let me switch this over to our PowerPoint. Yeah, here, let me switch this over. Let's do that.
And I'll just, I guess take us.
[00:11:13] Speaker C: We've got some helpful visuals that Karen put together so that we can kind of understand some of the benefits and some of the spaces in the both the retreat, but also on the edge class as a more general matter. So on the ascent, these pictures are all from the ascent specifically. So Karen, let's start with what are we, what are we looking at here?
[00:11:33] Speaker A: So I just, you know, kind of put together a few photos to talk about our experiences. And the first thing is the arrival experience.
And so just like on Disney Cruise Line, the retreat guests can arrive at any time. There is a separate line to go in.
What's a little bit different is that you go through security completely like separately. They bring you into a private elevator and whisk you upstairs where you go through security.
And then you are right in the lounge at the other side of the security experience.
And there is where you complete your check in and are brought on board. And that lounge not only has beverages, but also has some light snacks and food and whatnot.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: I was going to ask, is the bar pictured here a part of the pre boarding experience?
[00:12:38] Speaker A: No, unfortunately I realized that we didn't have enough pictures of that because we kind of got whisked on and didn't stay too long in that area.
I do have some video of it somewhere, but there was a nice little spread with some kind of, you know, hors derby type things, lots of different beverage options, you know, and it was a nice spacious area. Although I think Kaylee, you said when you got there was a little bit busier. We got there a little bit not too long after Kaylee and Rob. But,
[00:13:10] Speaker D: but what's nice is that, you know, when you're checking in for your Disney cruise and you go up to the desk and you meet with the person and you give them your passports and they take your photo and all, all of that is done at your seat in the lounge. So you're sitting and enjoying, you know, whatever treats gotten from the spread that they had there. And then they come to you and they do it all right there. So it was a very nice welcome.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: What about before you get to the port? Is there, you know, we have the Shoreside concierge concept on Disney Cruise Line. Do you do anything similar with celebrity or is it more like Virgin where like, you know, Virgin might reach out to you about a week in advance, but they've got you covered once you get on board.
[00:13:49] Speaker D: So we got a phone call. We were staying in the Edge Villa, which is considered one of the like similar to a royal suite. I think it's the second from the top. And we did get a call from.
I can't remember what they called themselves, but it's similar to Shoreside concierge going over all of our preferences and what kind of pillows did we want and what kind of bottles did we want on our bar? Give you complimentary bottle of wine or champagne or. And the one that I got the kick out of was how would we like our pajamas to be embroidered?
We did get some very fun pajamas as part of our stay in the Edge Villa, but other than that one phone call that was all we had beforehand. I don't know what Karen and Harb
[00:14:34] Speaker A: had and I'm going to be honest, we were not very planful in this trip. It was very, it felt very spontaneous. We kind of said we'll just show up and figure it out.
And we might should have planned a little bit more because on a three night cruise it's a bit harder to get into some of the experiences.
Especially because it turned out there was a big group on board.
Shout out to my friends over at Marvelous Mouse Travel who had 100 travel agents on board and they had a buyout, they had a buyout of the steakhouse one night. So, you know, it turns out that we, you know, if we had really needed to get into the steakhouse, which we had great alternatives anyway, we probably should have planned that ahead of time.
Normally it's not as urgent.
Leah and I on the celebrity reflection, ate in specialty dining every night with, you know, and had no issues getting reservations.
[00:15:38] Speaker C: Yeah. What's it, what's included in terms of specialty dining? I know we're going to talk about the dining offerings, but I'm curious as to like is you mentioned there's a suite only restaurant, but is specialty dining included or. Or is that an add on or does it end on what level? You're sailing within the retreat.
Sorry, I'll throw that to Karen.
[00:16:00] Speaker D: So for my. Okay, okay Karen, you take it.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: Okay. So for the regular retreat level, specialty dining is not included except for Luminae, which is the retreat restaurant that's available for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You do have a lot of included options on Celebrity, but not the specialty dining.
You can like you can with, you know, anybody sailing on Celebrity.
Pre purchase specialty dining packages, either an individual reservation or unlimited or three restaurants or whatever.
But for Kaylee's Edge Villa. Go ahead, Kayleigh.
[00:16:44] Speaker D: So for the Edge Villa it did include unlimited specialty dining. So we were able to. I don't know that there was any place on the ship that we would have had to pay but like Karen said, it was sort of an exercise in winging it for we did not plan ahead because we were confident that there were going to be great options no matter what for our three nights. So.
[00:17:05] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So it sounds similar to Royal in that sense.
[00:17:09] Speaker D: We had one lunch I think where Karen had to pay and we didn't have to pay. So that, that was like the only difference with the, the specialty dining tiers, if that makes sense.
[00:17:21] Speaker C: Yeah, well it sounds like it sounds similar to Royal in the sense of like there are different tiers within their suite class and they have different inclusions and excl as to what's included. We've got some pictures of your beautiful Edge villa here. Kaylee, you've got to tell us.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: I've seen some of these photos online. Like not these photos but I've seen photos of this villa online. It looks, it looks stunning. Was it everything you imagined it was going to be?
[00:17:46] Speaker C: Kaylie, Brian wants DCL Duo pjs.
[00:17:49] Speaker D: He's saying in the comments it was absolutely incredible. I mean it's basically it's like an apartment. I mean you walk in on the main floor and there's a little kitchen area and a living room and it goes out to a very sized veranda with some loungers and the hot tub that we're in which is, they call it a plunge pool. It is three feet deep. I mean it's a pretty significant tub.
And then you go up this and there's a full bath downstairs and then you go up the stairs and there's an unlimited amount of closet space. I mean was ridiculous really on a three night and then another full bath, shower, bathtub and the bedroom and you can see the, the view from the bed is just, it's a wall of Windows and it was really, really spectacular.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Plus a private hot tub here outside. Right. So.
[00:18:36] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's it. Just to answer a couple questions in the chat here, some.
Alicia and Nathan are both asking where, where did you sail out of? Was this Miami or where did you head out of?
[00:18:49] Speaker A: This was out of Fort Lauderdale.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: And Celebrity has a great cruise terminal in Fort Lauderdale. And if anybody wants the experience. I don't know if y' all have talked about the Omni in Fort Lauderdale, but I did get a chance to stay there, which was a great experience and super convenient for Celebrity Sailings.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: And then two, two other questions we got in the chat that I'll lump together. One is kind of how big are the. How big are these ships? Like how many people do they hold? But also kind of what's the age demographic like on Celebrity cruises for those interested?
[00:19:25] Speaker A: So I'm going to say that the age demographic is going to vary on, on this because it was a three night. I think it was a bit younger crowd than usual. I think it was very. There was, you know, much more, many more folks in their probably 40s and 50s where celebrity has historically skewed a little bit older than that. But they are actively trying to bring it down with their offerings and their activities and their itineraries.
So I mean, they just. We can talk some about some of the things that we experienced on board, but it's a. It was a very, very fun, vibrant vibe. Not like crazy party, but really just fun.
[00:20:13] Speaker D: We did have the one server who actually mentioned that to us and said that this sailing had. Was so much fun because it was a much younger demographic
[00:20:24] Speaker C: because she was used to having people in their 60s and 70s and said she was having people in their 4th or 50s, 30s, 40s, 50s. Yeah.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: But you know, just to, you know, it should be noted that Celebrity does have kids clubs.
You know, they tend to be smaller, they have less bells and whistles than Royal or Disney Cruise Line, of course, but a lot of families enjoy that because they're quieter, they're less stimulating and the kids get more attention. So, you know, they do have activities and the clubs for kids, but they don't have a water slide or a sport splash pad, that kind of thing.
[00:21:03] Speaker C: You're going to have a lower counselor to kid ratio. So those kids that are in there are going to get a lot of like more one on one or two on one type attention. And that's. I think that that's definitely the feedback we've heard from people who've sailed with kids on celebrity in particular, that it can be a really good experience if your kids don't need the bells and the whistles. But like that more sort of more targeted attention from the counselors.
So. Yeah, really interesting. All right, well we get some really beautiful. These are some really beautiful spaces that we're seeing here from the retreat sun deck that you've shared with us.
Kayleigh. Tell us like what's available to retreat guests specifically.
[00:21:47] Speaker D: So the retreat sun deck is.
The lounge is on deck 15 and then the sun deck is 16 and 17. So it is two, two stories and it has multiple seating areas, all kinds of, you know, from couches to loungers to. On the left there is the, the cafe that's outside on the sun deck.
This was a very full sailing and it never felt crowded up there on the. There was always a nook or some little place that you could find.
We spent a very, a fair amount of time out there and never had any kind of issue being a party of four, finding you know, an area for ourselves. There's also a couple of hot tub and a really nice sized swimming pool. I mean, swimming pool, it's. It's kind of similar to the pool, the adult only pool like on Magic or Wonder where it's just sort of, you know, narrow and deep.
Not, maybe not quite as deep, but it's, it was a really nice place to hang out and have some cocktails.
[00:22:44] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean it's like any pools on cruise ships. They're not, they're not very big. They might be deep or they might be wading shallow pools, but they're, you know, they can't be that big because of the weight issue is really the issue.
That's lovely. So I gotta ask coffee, because coffee's always important to me. You mentioned cafe.
[00:23:05] Speaker B: Probably more important to me, but. Yes.
[00:23:07] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean it's important to both of us. But cafe. I take it you could get like specialty coffees and stuff included at this cafe that's within the retreat.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: So this retreat.
[00:23:19] Speaker D: Go ahead.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: Sorry, Kaylee.
The retreat sun deck Cafe has actually a full bar and so it's not pictured. It's just the left. So that's the full bar. And because you're a retreat guest, that's automatically included for everyone in the retreat.
The retreat itself has. The retreat lounge has, you know, one of those great espresso machines.
And then in Luminae you can get, you know, with your meals, any coffee type beverage. And then in addition there's Cafe El Baccio that there's a couple of locations. Actually, there's three locations on the ship of Cafe Al Baccio. That's a full coffee bar. And all retreat guests who, you know, they automatically have the premium beverage package. So that is also included.
[00:24:18] Speaker C: I love. I love a premium beverage package that includes coffee. I gotta say. I mean, I know that sounds silly, but I just think that that's something that should. I think that Disney Cruise Line should offer some kind of beverage package that includes specialty coffee. Specialty coffee.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: I don't want them to offer beverage packages. What I want them to do is include alcoholic beverages for concierge guests because.
[00:24:40] Speaker C: Okay, fair.
But maybe coffee beverages in Cove Cafe should be included also for those concierge.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: Why not? Yeah, let's throw it all.
[00:24:49] Speaker C: Yeah, let's go to the next slide here, Brian.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: All right.
I just want to ask one more thing. Is there an indoor analog space for the retreat? Because, like, you know, on Virgin, right, you just get Richard's rooftop, but there's no indoor section.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: That first slide that showed. Yeah, that first slide that I showed that bar, I don't think I included a picture. There is a huge, beautiful lounge with lots of window space, lots of seating, kind of light bites, I think lighter than really Disney's concierge lounge because they have the full restaurant for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
[00:25:28] Speaker D: And the bar in the concierge lounge is open 7:30am to midnight.
[00:25:32] Speaker C: Holy cow. Okay, so you don't. You really don't have to worry about having a beverage package and going someplace else like you'd have with your villa. But because Karen could go to that bar anytime and get a.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: So all retreat guests include the. A premium beverage package. So we could go virtually anywhere on the ship and have a cocktail up to $19.
And if you ordered something which was very rare for anything to be more than 19, you only paid the difference.
[00:26:04] Speaker C: Oh, that's better than on Virgin where you have to. If it's over 25, you have to just pay for it. And they don't discount it by the $25 limit. That's. That's great. This is a beautiful pool. This is what you described, Kayleigh. I. This looks great to me. I. It looks. Looks plenty big for, you know, for a suite class. And this ship has what, 3,3500 passengers? Something like that?
[00:26:30] Speaker A: About 3200, maybe a little bit more if there's, you know, many triples or quads, which is going to be less common on a ship. Like celebrity.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: Yeah, sorry, Sam, I missed it because I was looking at something in the chat. I was curious how full this space gets. Were you able to find space here if you were looking for. To hang out by the pool or did this get really fun out in
[00:26:49] Speaker D: the pool every day, all two of them?
We wanted to get a spot in the pool. We just sort of, you know, somebody hopped in and people moved around. I mean it wasn't like it wasn't packed at all. It was a comfortable.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: It wasn't well to wall.
[00:27:03] Speaker C: It wasn't adult soup.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: Yeah, no, no.
[00:27:07] Speaker C: Yeah. And this is the retreat is not an adult only space, but obviously it's gonna within celebrity being very skewed adult heavy to begin with. And then the retreat, I imagine is gonna askew heavily adult as well in that sense. Is that. Is that a fair assessment? You both nodding yes. So all right.
[00:27:25] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: One other question to go back to your edge class villa here, Kayleigh, was did you use the butler? And if so, what. What kinds of things did you have the butler help you out with?
[00:27:37] Speaker D: We sent out laundry both days.
Laundry was included, which was nice.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: And we, Sam's love language now
[00:27:47] Speaker C: asked
[00:27:48] Speaker D: for some help with dining.
And we asked for.
We asked for two out of three choices and he was only able to get us one. Like Karen was saying, we didn't really plan ahead and it was fine, but we didn't. We didn't exercise using our butler as much as some people may.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: I will say that we also had a butler. I don't think the butler is as attentive. We were in a sky suite, but. But both of us had access to our butler via WhatsApp, which is really nice. So you can message the butler with questions.
We could have asked the butler to deliver us coffee in the morning or anytime.
We just kind of didn't.
But you know, the butler is available for, you know, those kinds of requests too.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:28:42] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: The only time that I've sailed celebrity both or I think both times I've sailed celebrity, my parents picked this outrageous suite on one of their much older. I think the ship that I initially sailed on a celebrity has now been fully retired and scrapped. But you know, and their butler was like there every day in his tuxedo and was like, whatever you need, I'm here to do like you like the macaroons. Here's three plates full of them. You know, like, whatever you need, I'm here for. I was unbelievable. The level of service.
[00:29:09] Speaker C: So luminae, before we get there, Lindsay is asking, I think a question we just answered which Is, are children allowed on the retreat pool deck and in that pool? The answer is, yes, it is. It is not an adult only area. It just tends to skew more adult because the retreat skis more adult.
[00:29:28] Speaker A: And there is a pool on the. On Celebrity, the solarium pool, which is adult only. That is, you know, an enclosed glass enclosed pool. And that area is adult only.
[00:29:39] Speaker B: Let me step back before we dive into luminae here. And this looks like a fabulous photo, by the way, and it's making me salivate.
Just dining and bars on board. Like, what are we talking about in terms of range of offering?
My memory is Celebrity still has a main dining room and then specialty offerings outside of the main dining room.
But how does dining on board work? And what are kind of the places you can go get something to eat?
[00:30:04] Speaker D: Who's going?
[00:30:06] Speaker C: Yeah, you gotta get throwing.
[00:30:07] Speaker B: I gotta throw it to somebody.
Karen, let's go with you.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: Okay, so there's main dining on Celebrity, and you can either choose a designated dining time, kind of like, you know, early or late. And there's anytime dining. And there's three main dining rooms. Each have a little bit of a different theme. Each have rotating menus.
There is also an extensive buffet that is open like, I think almost all the time. It's open very early till very late. And the food offerings change. So if you don't want to, you know, eat in the dining room, you don't want specialty dining, you can go ahead and have the buffet. There is quick service, kind of hot dogs and things like that poolside.
There is the cafe that I mentioned that has specialty coffee, has little sandwiches and pastries.
And those are all included and quite delicious.
So am I missing anything for included Solarium Cafe?
That's right. So the Solarium Cafe has like.
[00:31:29] Speaker D: Yeah, go ahead.
[00:31:30] Speaker A: Cafe has like kind of healthier, lighter options.
And then, Kayleigh, do you want to kind of go through the rundown of the specialty dining?
[00:31:40] Speaker D: Oh, gosh.
There was the steakhouse that we were not able to get into.
There was Raw and Five, which is the sushi bar. And we did that for lunch one day.
There's Eden, which is the, I believe, Edge class. I think all the Edge class ships has an Eden, which is this very unique.
I could be wrong there, but very unique concept of sort of eating in like Eden, where everything is greenery and floral and the food was very interesting and unique. We had dinner there on our last night and it was fantastic.
What else am I missing? There wasn't an Italian restaurant, which we were surprised by yeah, there was the
[00:32:31] Speaker A: rooftop garden grill, which we ended up eating at on the first night in lieu of the steakhouse.
And I was a little, like, concerned. I truly was concerned. Like, is this going to be good?
It turned into, like, an incredible meal. And we didn't need the steakhouse because three of us got beef tenderloin, a filet mignon, you know, for our entrees. And it was really, really good. And we were dining al fresco. So I think it was actually better than the steakhouse because you could not get weather.
[00:33:03] Speaker D: And this morning, I think that was my favorite meal of the trial.
[00:33:07] Speaker A: Yeah, it was.
[00:33:08] Speaker B: It was really.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: And then there's like a kind of Michelin, you know, chef restauran, the tasting menu.
Le Voyage, which is a tasting menu, you know, kind of fancy French restaurant there is. Le Petit Chef is available at dinner, which is kind of, you guys know, like sort of that animated projection set dinner.
There's a bistro cafe during the day for lunch. That is the same setting that they have Petite Chef in the evening, I think we may have covered.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: That's a lot.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: All of the specialty.
[00:33:49] Speaker B: If you didn't get them all, you're missing, like, an ice cream stand somewhere or something. I mean, that sounds like a lot of food options.
How does the food stack up for a Disney cruiser? You know, I will say, typically, Disney gets high marks on food. More recently, we've heard some inconsistency in some of the main dining experiences and things like that. But overall, how does celebrity stack up? My sense is they have really tried to massively improve food quality over the last last 10 years and really up the offerings. But. But what. What's your sense of where the food stacks up?
[00:34:21] Speaker D: I will say that it's a little hard to answer the question because we didn't do any main dining. We only did specialty restaurants. Everything that we had was fantastic.
You know, some things may be a little more fantastic than others, but the. The variety of offerings, whether from. From the variety of restaurants to even the variety of things on the menu, is just amazing and much more than what Disney is offering with regard to that.
[00:34:51] Speaker B: What about you, Karen? What did you think?
[00:34:55] Speaker A: I agree. And having eaten in main dining on Excel on the preview cruise back in the fall, I could say it was very strong.
I think all the restaurants that we ate at during this, it was just a thrift night, had some standouts and some very good. I think the only meal that honestly I was disappointed in was our lunch on the first day in Luminae. And there were A couple things that we heard were kind of like must haves and I think we were disappointed in those. So you know, the lobster quote unquote, lobster roll and the, the Luminae burger, the retreat burger, I think were overhyped but, but still, you know, it's n have those options. But overall I think, you know, I'd be, I'd be really happy on Celebrity for even like a 10 night cruise and don't think I would get bored with the food.
[00:35:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:35:55] Speaker C: And I think, I think if you lean into specialty dining on most of the cruise lines that are in the sort of, let's call them, luxury space because celebrities certainly in that luxury space like Disney Cruise Line is, I find, I think people are going to most of the time be happy. I mean we, we've even, we've even experienced that on Royal in their specialty dining. The food qual quality is very high. It's very good. You have much more inconsistencies in the main dining options, including on Royal, the coastal kitchen, which is the suite class, you know, main dining and or you know, specialty restaurant like Luminae. So like I, those are supposed to be a step above main dining. I think that's, that's probably where you get like that hit or hit or miss and that your mileage may vary. But specialty dining, I think on Celebrity, Royal, on Disney. Right. All very high quality offerings because you're paying extra for those things either by being in a higher level room or by paying for a dining package above your regular dining.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: So a couple questions in the chat. So Chris is asking, did you ask for anything off menu at Luminae and how accommodating were they?
And then any elevated room service options. And I'd add to that question, maybe is room service also included or was there an extra charge? So Karen, you want to tackle that first?
[00:37:21] Speaker A: So for Luminae we did ask, actually we were getting ready to ask about off menu items and then it was volunteered to us that oh, here are all the other things you can get that are not on the menu. And we were really thrilled because I was about to ask for a Caesar salad which was, I was kind of surprised it was not on the menu. And you know, so it turns out there's many things you can get anytime in Luminae, including escargot, French onion soup, which are, you know, standards for me, cruising. And you know, kind of sad that escargot not available on all the new Disney ships anymore.
There was, you know, you could always get like a Steak, shrimp cocktail, I think like a chicken, a salmon. Like, there were several things that are kind of like the anytime standards that you could get in addition to, you know, really nice offerings.
And I also believe that you can order from any of the main dining menus in illuminae. I think it would probably, if you have something you really want, you'd probably be better off requesting it in advance just to have a smoother experience because the dining rooms are a bit far apart from each other.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: Yeah. What about room service options on board, Kaylee? Did, I mean, assume they have room service? Is it included and I don't know. Did either of you try anything room service related?
[00:38:47] Speaker D: We did not try anything room service in our Edge villa. We had a full dining table and we had the ability to order from any of the specialty restaurants to our suite, which was a very nice option. We did not do that because we were only on the street.
Yeah, room service. I, I don't know what the.
I don't know.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: There was a room service menu and I have a picture of it somewhere. And it was a hot menu for the retreat guest. And I believe it was included without, you know, probably just the gratuity.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, fair enough.
[00:39:21] Speaker C: Awesome. Yeah, I mean, I, I'm with you, Kayleigh. I probably wouldn't order like a full meal in the room if I'm only on a three night sailing. I also just don't like having all the dirty plates and stuff room after. And so I'd actually.
Yeah, yeah, I'd rather go to the restaurant, be served, have my food really hot and then have everything like cleared and cleaned up there and have. Leave my room nice and pristine. I don't mind having snacks in my room.
[00:39:51] Speaker D: Yes, I'm the same way.
[00:39:53] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:39:54] Speaker A: You know, I think I just want to add something about Luminae because we really were comparing it to Paulo. That was the, the, the vibe. Wasn't everything as good as Paulo?
Some things were, some things weren't, but this, the, the, the experience, like the atmosphere and the level of service feels like, you know, kind of that vibe there. So I think that's important to note. That's, you know, it's like that, you know, having the amuse bush, you know, at the beginning of your meal and just having these really beautifully plated, elevated options.
[00:40:33] Speaker B: I will say, based on our last experience in Palo, if you enjoy the amused bouche and you compliment the chef about it, he will have two made hot and fresh and sent right out
[00:40:41] Speaker C: to your table for a second round of do that.
[00:40:45] Speaker B: Do with that what you will.
But, yeah, I mean, that sounds impressive because even the. The suite class dining, I forget the name of it. On Coastal Kitchen on Royal, it's good, but it's not anywhere near palate. We didn't think so.
[00:40:59] Speaker A: Yeah, we didn't think so. It's definitely more elevated on celebrity.
[00:41:02] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a question about formality on. On celebrity, sort of. I. When I say formality, I mean like the way people dress, for example, for dinner. That's because during the day, I'm sure casual wear is acceptable pretty much anywhere. But I'm curious, in the evening, do they impose any kind of dress code in any of the restaurants or dining rooms?
Because we don't see that in dcl, except for Paulo and Enchante and Remy. Right. And even those have been relaxed quite a bit. So I'm curious what it's like. Karen, I'll. I'll throw that to. Since you're nodding your head.
[00:41:36] Speaker A: Technically, the rule is that men must wear pants at dinner, so. And we didn't test that, so I don't know if it's enforced, but I feel like. I feel like people were wearing, like, you know, men were wearing pants in the dining room or the, you know, specialty restaurants. And, you know, if you didn't, then you would probably be dining in the buffet.
[00:41:59] Speaker C: That's good to know.
[00:42:00] Speaker A: Otherwise, it wasn't like, fancy, but it was just like, you know, a little bit, you know, like you're going out to dinner. Right.
[00:42:08] Speaker C: A little bit more smart casual as opposed to casual. Yeah, yeah.
[00:42:13] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:42:13] Speaker C: All right, well, we've got the pools up here.
[00:42:16] Speaker B: Can I just start this segment by saying, dear Disney, can you please put an indoor pool on your new class of ships? Because there's nothing worse than being at sea. And you can't really use the pools because it's too cold outside for whatever reason. Reason. And so everyone's bunched up inside the ship. So, like, give us a solarium. How about that? Anyway, keep going.
[00:42:38] Speaker C: Yeah. So, so tell us what kind of amenities are on board the ship more generally. Obviously we see some pools here, but I'm curious about, you know, are there karaoke rooms? Are there. You know, I don't know. Go karts. Like, what. What is the ship? What does the ship have to offer? I know this is not an.
I know, I know this isn't an icon class royal ship, but I also know it's not a Disney Cruise Line ship. So I'm just curious, like, what are the things. And this is Edge Class specifically, we're talking about the ascent, as we mentioned earlier. But like, what kinds of amenities and things are available on board for people to do?
We'll start with. We'll start with Kaylee on this.
[00:43:22] Speaker D: There are no go guards.
There's no rock wall. There's no go karts. There's no mini golf. There's nothing that.
Karaoke rooms.
I don't think there were specific karaoke rooms.
No. Lots of bars and lounges. There's the outdoor pool, the solarium, obviously. There's a beautiful fitness center, a beautiful spa.
[00:43:50] Speaker C: I don't know.
[00:43:51] Speaker B: Is there a. Is there a running track on board? Someone's asking.
[00:43:54] Speaker C: I'm almost positive.
[00:43:56] Speaker D: The coolest track.
And it's really a unique one. And I. We use it every single day as a walking track, not a running track. But it actually. It spans two decks, but it's. So it ramps down and then ramps back up on decks 14 and 15. So it is the full, you know, distance around the ship. I think it was.
Is it eight times around? Was a mile or something like that. But it was a really unique. It was.
My husband Rob kept saying this is intentional. Like, this is really well thought out because it allowed you to go through and see different parts of the ship and it gave you the little challenge of the ramp up. And it was really. It was nice.
[00:44:37] Speaker B: Nice. Yeah. Not the Disney Cruise Line, 20% grade up two places. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:44:44] Speaker A: Right.
There also is. They do set up pickleball on the deck. There's a rooftop garden area that has like a big screen that they can show movies at. And then they can change that over into a pickleball court that is not regulation size, but, you know, it's there.
There is a.
A space called the Club, which on the new Excel has a secret speakeasy through there.
We. I'm hoping they'll add that to the other Edge class ships. But the club is a place where they have you sorts of entertainment. They have games like giant, giant cornholes, you know, that they run.
I think on the top floor there's, you know, kind of like table games like foosball and electronic tables and darts and things like that.
[00:45:45] Speaker D: So.
[00:45:45] Speaker A: But, you know, there's not like a lot of bells and whistles like you would see on Royal Caribbean.
[00:45:52] Speaker B: Was there enough. I mean, these pools look fabulous. So I'm curious, how crowded did they get? But also I'm curious, you know, setting aside the pools for a second, did you feel like there was enough to keep you occupying. This is A three night sailing. So but extrapolating out here, is there enough to keep you busy and interested kind of throughout the cruise or is it really much more focused on like sit by the pool, relax, read a book, like that's your primary activity.
Kayleigh.
[00:46:18] Speaker D: I mean, I definitely felt we did sit by the pool and read a book and relax. But if we wanted to go out, there were things to do. I mean there were things in the daily program. There were were things like trivia and puzzle. Daily puzzle and things like that that you could go and do there. A lot of the activities took place in the space the club that Karen was just talking about.
But the schedule is not packed morning to night the way that you would expect on Disney for sure.
[00:46:48] Speaker A: Also keep in mind there is a casino on board. So that's a differentiator.
And we haven't talked much about entertainment, but they do have there' live music. Well, you know, there's another slide where we can maybe touch more on entertainment in a minute. Yeah, perfect.
[00:47:07] Speaker C: All right, Brian, let's hit.
[00:47:09] Speaker B: I'm going. I'm trying to advance not being. There we go.
[00:47:13] Speaker C: There we go. Ooh, this looks promising.
Where. What are we looking at here?
[00:47:20] Speaker D: Heaven.
[00:47:21] Speaker C: Heaven.
That's. I mean that's the moment, right? Like that's the, the money shot of the Royal Beach Club pool. Cabana is the label.
[00:47:32] Speaker B: This is the new thing in Nassau. This is the one you have to pay to go to. Did this, was this an add on or was it included?
[00:47:40] Speaker C: For Celebrity is owned by the same company as Royal. They're owned by the same umbrella company. Yeah, Karen, tell us about this because this looks fabulous.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: So Royal Beach Club is an add on. It's not included. It's different than perfect day at CocoCay for example, if you stop there on Royal Caribbean or Celebrity, you can get off the ship and experience much of the amenities on Perfect Day included with your cruise. Royal Beach Club is like booking an excursion. You have to pay for it and so you can book it just to go and like sent the beach and there's food included and beverages or you can book a range of cabanas. So if you book the cabana that includes your entrance to the Royal Beach Club to get there. It's a specific ferry. They have have an incredible operation. I mean it. The amount of infrastructure that they had to build to have all these ferry boats, you know, loading people and unloading them and the docks and all of that, it's, it's really impressive what they put together.
And cabana number 17. Yes. AKA heaven.
This pool cabana was. It was just an incredible day.
[00:48:54] Speaker C: This is awesome. Now, is this a private.
[00:48:56] Speaker A: Not at Cobra Day at Royal Beach Beach Club.
[00:48:59] Speaker B: Is this a private pool?
[00:49:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
Tell us, is this a private. No.
[00:49:04] Speaker A: This was the very end of like a long, like a long skinny pool with multiple cabanas in front of them. So we were at the very end cabana, which is why it was the best one. And then if you kept going, it opened up into a pool bar and more of like a public area for anybody that wanted to get into the pool pool.
[00:49:24] Speaker B: And, and how.
[00:49:25] Speaker D: The area in front of the cabanas, there were maybe six pool cabanas in this section and that area, like, if somebody came into that area who didn't have the cabana bracelet on, the lifeguard was shoeing them out. So it's not like it is not technically a private pool, but it's a private area of the pool.
[00:49:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And. And how does this stack up in terms of cost for like a Disney Cruise Line cabana for this kind of a pool cabana at the Right. Royal Beach Club?
[00:49:51] Speaker A: It's a little bit more, however, and the, you know, what Celebrity and Royal Caribbean does is their prices are dynamic. So, you know, you could catch a sale and it might depend on the, you know, the date of the ship of the sailing, but it's a little bit more. But you have to also think about what's included, because when you go to the Royal Beach Club, your beverage package from the ship does not carry over.
So it does include your beverages and your adult beverages for the entire day.
And then when you're in the cabana, they bring you, you know, you have cabana service. So they're, you know, we had an incredible cabana attendant that was bringing us, you know, from the moment in the morning, you know, having like, snacks and, you know, then our cocktails and then our lunch and then ending the day with this incredible box of pastries. And I mean, all of that was included, included in, you know, an unlimited fashion. So I think it was, you know, very well worth it.
[00:50:58] Speaker C: Yeah. And I love Alicia's question, but do they kick you out at 2:30? And we know why she's asking that because they basically, you know, we were joking last week, but telling it real that, you know, one of the problems with Disney Cruise Line Castaway Key Cabanas, at least with the Mickey and Minnie Cove cabanas, was how early, early they start to sort of clean up and kick you out of that cabana. I'M curious how, how long of a day do you truly get at the Royal Beach Club pool cabanas, if I'm not mistaken?
[00:51:30] Speaker D: I believe all aboard was 4:30 on the day that we were.
[00:51:36] Speaker A: I think it was like the last ferry was 4:30.
[00:51:39] Speaker D: Oh, okay. We're about 3:30. And there were plenty of like, we were not feeling rushed out at all. There were plenty of people who were still solidly enjoying their cabanas or the island. It didn't feel like we were being kicked out at all.
[00:51:54] Speaker B: Nice. Nice.
[00:51:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:51:56] Speaker B: All right, we gotta talk about entertainment because if we don't talk about entertainment, then I gotta live with it for a week in our household until next week's live show. So tell us about.
[00:52:05] Speaker C: We don't have a live show next week, remember Brian? But we'll talk about that at the end of the show.
[00:52:09] Speaker B: All right, so, yeah, tell us about. So it looks like we have an Abba sing along along.
I love these shots of the bar because I used to see Captain Kate up there pouring drinks for people and I always thought there's no way a Disney Cruise Line captain would stand on a bar and pour drinks for everybody. But yeah, tell us about some of the, the entertainment on board. Kaylee, you want to start first?
[00:52:27] Speaker D: Sure. Well, we're looking at the martini bar on the left there where a couple times in the evening they do this very elaborate martini show where they're tossing bottles in the air and you can see he's pouring like a pyramid of martinis all at once, which is very fun. People love the Alba Sing Along. The highlight of the entire weekend for Karen was an absolute blast where they basically just show, they play album music and they put the lyrics up and everybody sings and dances. We saw the comedian who was over on the right there. That was an all ages show, but there were no kids at all there.
He took advantage of that and, and he came, he did another performance later in the cruise at night and he was hilarious.
Are we talking about shows also?
[00:53:16] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:53:17] Speaker D: At this point, Rob and I did go to two of the shows.
[00:53:22] Speaker B: Oh, I'm going ahead.
[00:53:23] Speaker C: Just go back.
[00:53:24] Speaker B: I'm going. I've stopped. I've stopped moving.
[00:53:26] Speaker E: The screen
[00:53:29] Speaker D: was called Residencies and it was a sort of compilation of artists who have had residencies in Vegas.
So, you know, one act from each of these artists and it was, it was good, it was entertaining. And then the other one we went to, I can't remember what it was called, Awaken or something like that. And it was sort of the concept of, like, the main character falls asleep and then has all these dreams.
And so that was, like, very strange and very sort of quirky and out there, which you can do because it's a dream.
And both were entertaining. And Rob and I talked a lot about how, you know, for us, we really like to go to the show. We like the sort of cadence that it gives to your day that, like, that's what you do in the evening is you, you know, go to dinner and you go to the show and you go get a drink. And they. I wouldn't say that. For me, I don't think they compare to the Disney shows. I didn't really have any connection to them. There were no heartstrings were being pulled, but I was entertained for, you know, 40 minutes both night.
[00:54:30] Speaker C: So, yeah, we got a great question from Chris in the chat. Did you get any reserved seating for any of the entertainment? Whether that be the shows you just mentioned, Kaylee, or any of these other, you know, the. The comedy show or obviously the sing alongs? Probably everybody's standing around, but yeah. Was there any sort of resource benefit?
[00:54:50] Speaker D: I can't tell if I'm glitching.
[00:54:53] Speaker C: Karen, I'll throw that to you.
[00:54:54] Speaker D: I lost you guys.
[00:54:57] Speaker C: Oh, there we go.
[00:54:58] Speaker A: Yeah, we just froze up for a second, but I think we're back.
Harv and I chose to have sunset cocktails and listen to live music rather than go to the main stage theater shows. But there is reserved seating for retreat guests if you get there early. It's not like on Royal Caribbean, where if you have star class in the Royal Genie, where they actually reserve specific seats to your preferences, but they have a section available. But it also, you know, Kaylee can jump in. It doesn't sound like it was really an issue to, you know, need those seats, but in the other activities or entertainment venues, there's no reserve seating. But I just have to say that I lived for the ABBA sing along and it was the first night we had done it on the retreat. But having it in this space on the edge class is. Was so much better. And it was just the most fun that I was like, okay, my cruise is over.
I've done everything I need to do.
[00:56:06] Speaker C: That's hilarious.
[00:56:08] Speaker A: It was just the best, like, so much fun. And apparently it's offered on every celebrity ship. So if you're, you know, I think they should start adding, like, more types of music. It was. It was just like, I absolutely loved every moment of it.
[00:56:21] Speaker C: Yeah. So I got to answer Tracy's call in the chat about signing that. I would sign that. I'd be like, first to sign up. I got to actually say no to that because I am not a huge ABBA fan. I did see either.
[00:56:35] Speaker B: I feel like I don't know who you are now.
[00:56:37] Speaker C: I definitely went to see Mamma Mia. On whatever ship it was on that we were on. It was one of the Oasis class ships on Royal. I don't remember which one because we went on to.
And I will. I mean, I went to see it because I was like, that's the only show that's offered on the other ship that we were on. Cats was offered. So there was no way I was going to see that because I literally hate Cats more than anything as far as shows. Like, I've gone to see it in person before when it was doing its national tour and I. It was just as terrible as it's always been. I did see Mamma Mia. The production was very good. The one I saw on Royal, obviously, Royal Celebrity have a deal with abba, but I gotta say, it's. I think it's like one of the weakest musicals out there.
Also, it's not as bad as Cats. It's not unwatchable like Cats is, but I just don't really love abba. So, like, I would. I would love a sing along, but just not an ABBA sing along. I'll take a different artist, like give me, I don't know, Michael Jackson sing along or something. I'm. I'm all for it, but.
Yeah, so I got. I just had to answer that call in the chat. Chat, because.
No, thank you. No, thank you.
[00:57:47] Speaker A: We can still be friends, Sam.
[00:57:48] Speaker C: We can still be friends, Karen. Absolutely. Absolutely. I do like Dancing Queen. That's the best of their songs. I mean, it's fun. It's just. I just don't really want to do an Alba sing along. I want to do something else. How about a Disney sing along?
[00:58:01] Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah, I. I don't think they're going to license that over Taylor Swift.
[00:58:06] Speaker A: That would be the next sing along.
[00:58:08] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:58:09] Speaker D: All right.
[00:58:09] Speaker B: Well, I think we talked about some of the dining options aboard. I got to say, these drinks and food look amazing.
Karen, you mentioned listening to live music.
Like, what is the nightlife like on board? You know, Royal, you go from the Disney end of things where it's like, there's one space you can really go to and hang out and maybe a couple bars on the Wish class ships to Royal where you can stay up all night and have all the fun you want.
Where's Celebrity fall in terms of. It's after dinner and I want to go have a nice drink and maybe listen to some live music. Do I have a lot of options or just a few?
[00:58:43] Speaker A: I think you have a few options. You know, of course, like, you know, the. The casino is popular on Celebrity, but that martini bar is the center of the ship on edge class. It's kind of, you know, at the. The bottom floor of their atrium kind of equivalent. And they have a live band there, like, throughout the evening with, you know, of kind. Kind of like, you know, different types of music going and, you know, people are dancing and having a great time.
We actually saw at the last night after dinner, the best silent disco I've ever witnessed on a cruise ship because it was in the atrium and people on like, three floors had their silent disco, disco headsets on.
And it was kind of like a competition sort of thing. I don't know if we. Did we ever figure out exactly what was going on, Kayleigh? I don't know what was going on.
[00:59:47] Speaker D: It was chaos.
[00:59:51] Speaker A: It was like chaos. It was like beautiful chaos. It was so much fun, like, looking down and seeing all these people dancing and some, like, you know, there was people singing, like, Journey, Don't Stop Believing comes on and like the whole atrium, you know, or half. Whoever had that on their silent disco headsets start, you know, shouting that song, singing that song. It was just so much fun. I've never seen, like, that much energy and that many people doing son, like disco at once.
[01:00:21] Speaker D: I love that, like, skylight disco is usually in a small space.
So that. It was very different than anything I had ever seen.
[01:00:28] Speaker C: Yeah, that's really fun. That part is.
[01:00:31] Speaker B: Which restaurant is this at? The Mediterranean. This looks amazing.
[01:00:35] Speaker D: The rooftop garden. It was a Mediterranean. The. The al fresco dining, it was just.
[01:00:39] Speaker A: Yes, it was so good. Like, the appetizers with, like, the hummus and tzatziki and baba ganoush and like, the water, like the feta salad. And then everything there was really good. And you could. I mean, it was a perfect evening. And it, you know, it was like, maybe a little cool and they offered blankets. So it was just really, really lovely. It's a great space. You can't.
[01:01:03] Speaker B: I was gonna say, you can't be. I mean, you're sitting out outside on a ship on the. I mean, this just looks fantastic.
[01:01:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:01:09] Speaker D: Beautiful views of the cruise.
[01:01:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah.
[01:01:13] Speaker C: And this is your first night?
[01:01:15] Speaker A: Yeah, that was our first night. It's one of these things that, like, you think about when you don't have all these kids spaces, you can take a ship that's similarly sized and put a lot of other things in it. Right. Because they don't have, you know, and so then you get to have those other experiences we had.
[01:01:32] Speaker B: We have heard rumors that originally there was going to be some outdoor. I mean there is on the fantasy and the dream, right, A little bit of outdoor dining space for Palo. But there was supposed to be this on these other ship classes. And we've heard that there was a problematic design at one of the classes where the water would just keep rolling off under the tables that were directly beneath it.
But this idea of outdoor dining, I'm just sort of surprised that Disney hasn't sort of figured that one out. Because you're out in the ocean, you mostly in warm weather for these cruises out of Florida, for example. So.
[01:02:03] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And the only option is like during breakfast or lunch in cabanas, you can go on the little deck area.
[01:02:09] Speaker B: Seagulls fight the seagulls. Yeah.
So as we start to wrap up here, because we're a few minutes over, I got a couple questions for you.
I'm going to use this esteemed panel to do a little research for my own personal needs.
So Sam and I, right, we've sailed Disney, we've sailed Virgin. Love them both. They have their places. Celebrity.
Are we quite at the point in our lives where celebrity would make sense for us if we wanted to do kind of an adults only sailing? Or like the last time we were
[01:02:40] Speaker C: in Celebrity with Nathan.
[01:02:42] Speaker B: We're sailing with Nathan. Sure. The last time we were in Celebrity, we felt like the adorable young couple that everyone was, you know, looking at.
But like now, like, how do you think we would fare on Celebrity as opposed to saying, you know, going on Virgin?
Yeah, Karen, I'll take, I'll take your opinion first.
[01:03:01] Speaker A: I think you would love it. And yeah, you are, you will be, you know, a little bit on the younger side. But no, you won't be the adorable, you know, youngest.
There will always, there will be, you know, there will be people younger that I think you're, you're starting to get towards the age that celebrity wants to target and they're working on it actively to bring the age down. And I think it's happening.
So some of it is just going to be finding the right itinerary to experience it.
But there's, there's definitely a vibe that feels like Virgin on Celebrity. We talked about that, like in that atrium, that martini bar area with the live music and then the cafe. It kind of has a similar feeling to Virgin but you have way better spaces if you're going to be in their concierge type equivalent, you know, because Virgin does not have that true club space.
And Richard's rooftop is great, but not as great as the Retreat. So I think you should definitely give it a try and that you would actually have a lot of fun.
[01:04:09] Speaker B: Yeah,
[01:04:12] Speaker D: I echo everything Karen just said. I think that you guys would have a fabulous time on Celebrity. I, I think that would Nathan have a fabulous time. I don't know. It kind of depends on the vibe in the kids club, you know what I mean? And how that worked out because I feel like it could be hit or miss.
But for the two of you, I would not hesitate for a moment to recommend it.
[01:04:35] Speaker B: So thinking about this for a second in terms of like you said, you find the right sailing, like what do you think the sort of things you should be watching out for for that sort of right sailing to try Celebrity for the first time if you haven't done it before.
[01:04:46] Speaker A: I would, I would say a seven night Caribbean sailing would be, you know, for, for somebody that's new to celebrity transitioning from Disney Cruise Line, a seven night sailing that goes hopefully go perfect day at Cococay.
So you know, if you're used to kind of having that castaway key or lighthouse point experience or now there's a reason to go to Nassau. It's kind of crazy to say but there's a reason to get off the ship at Nassau.
So you know, we did not get off the ship at Bimini. We did not mention that. But the other stop was Bimini. Bimini because it was just a three night. We wanted to experience it the shit more.
But I think a seven night Caribbean would be, you know, the great, the great experience for new to celebrity transitioning from, from Disney.
[01:05:41] Speaker C: Yeah. And you don't want to do like a 14 night on celebrity if you're, if you skew younger because that those sailings are always going, I mean on any cruise line those are going to skew older. Right. The longer the sailing. So that 14 night sailing or that 13 night sailings, anything like that, that no matter what cruise line you're on is going to skew to that whatever the older, oldest demographic sales, that CRU Cruise line is going to skew. So if Celebrity already skews in the 60s and up, then it's, that's. That sailing is going to really skew in that sense.
[01:06:15] Speaker A: Exactly.
[01:06:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:06:17] Speaker A: And I'd say too that we, we did kind of scour the schedule to find another short sailing on an Edge class ship. And I think we found just one so far.
And it's like January 4th of 2027. So, you know, reach out to us if you're interested. I mean there's Celebrity Reflection does three and four nights and it's a great ship, but it's not Edge Class.
And I also just want to give a quick plug that we do have some onboard offers that we can share with our clients. So that's something that Celebrity and Royal Caribbean lets us do as travel advisors is to purchase onboard offers that we can then share with our clients that are, you know, haven't tried it before. So it's a little, little extra incentive to reach out to us to get that booked.
[01:07:10] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, those are really nice because it's, it's like booking a placeholder on Disney Cruise Line, but they're transferable and Disney Cruise Line doesn't let you transfer placeholders. You, you have to be the one booking. You can book two rooms so you might be able to book family members to sail with you, but, but you can't just book for somebody else with the Disney Cruise Line placeholder. Whereas some of these other cruise lines like Karen's talking about, like Celebrity allows the travel advisors to be able to purchase pre purchase essentially placeholders and then apply them to their client booking. So the client may maybe get some onboard credit, maybe get some discounts. There's obviously different offerings depending upon when and which cruise line. But these are really nice things that you can get that you would not be able to get on your own as a first time cruiser because you obviously wouldn't have that sort of placeholder discount or what we think of as a placeholder.
[01:08:00] Speaker B: All right, I've got one last question. I'm going to send this one to Kaylee. We got to talk about, I'm going to say this. We got to talk about the elevator in the room because all of these ships. These elevators.
[01:08:10] Speaker C: Elephants in the room.
[01:08:11] Speaker B: Nope, the elevator in the room. Because all of these Edge class ships have one distinguishing feature, as I recall, which is a big thing hanging on the side that almost everyone says in the Facebook groups. What in the heck is that thing hanging off the side of the, of the celebrity ship?
[01:08:24] Speaker D: So magic carpet.
[01:08:25] Speaker B: There you go. So tell people what the magic carpet is.
[01:08:28] Speaker D: So the Magic carpet is a flex space. It's sort of like a bar, like a lounge, and it goes up and down from all the way down to Deck 2 all the way to the top of the ship. And it is a bar.
Most of the time it's a bar. It's a point where they use it for tendering boats and places where the ship is tendered.
And then they also offer a dinner experience on the magic carpet. I can't remember. Dinner on the Edge it's called.
And it's one of the sort of signature dining offerings.
We did not spend much time in that space on this ship. We went into it and we sat in there and we took some pictures, but it was like 7:00 in the morning, so there was bar service at that time. But it's a really cool space and it's really a beautiful, beautiful view of the sea. I mean we were still sailing at that time that we were out there, whatever hour it was. And it's just views in every direction. Really, really beautiful.
[01:09:35] Speaker B: I'll tell you the other most often cited question I see about that space is so when it moves down the ship, can they just see into people's staterooms? And I have heard repeatedly it is empty when it's in motion. So they can't.
[01:09:48] Speaker D: You know, on some of the royal ships they have the bar that goes up and down constantly in the center. I can't rem what it's called right now.
[01:09:57] Speaker A: Rising tide.
[01:09:58] Speaker D: Rising tide while you're on it. You know what I mean? It's like it, it, you're not, you're not going up on it.
[01:10:05] Speaker A: I'm not sure that it actually ever moved on our sailing. I think it just stayed up there on deck 14 for the three nights, so. But it is a really cool space.
[01:10:14] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's pretty cool. Sam, any final questions from you?
[01:10:19] Speaker C: I just want. Karen, why don't you tell us if folks want to book a celebrity cruise, a Royal cruise, a Virgin cruise, Disney cruise, land based vacation. Like how can they reach out and let you know that they're interested and let you know that DCL Duo sent them?
[01:10:38] Speaker A: Please visit mypathunwinding.com forward/dclduo or email us at dclduoypathunwinding.com awesome.
[01:10:55] Speaker C: Perfect.
[01:10:56] Speaker B: Well, we always love having you two on to talk about your fab. You guys are always out on adventures and we can't keep up. But we love hearing about your cruises, about all the fabulous things you're doing.
So first and foremost, thank you for taking time out of your evenings to come on and share this experience with our audience.
For our audience out there listening or watching.
Sam already gave away the lead here, which is we will not be back next week for our live show. We, we've been trying to hunt down guests and such and we just, it did, we had some things that were supposed to happen didn't happen.
It just, it didn't make sense for us to continue with a live show next week. So we are going to be putting out a recorded episode that we have. We have plenty in the hopper. Which leads me to one more bite at the PSA here for all of you out there listening if you are interested in being a guest on the show. We love, love, love when you reach out, but when you reach out after you've sailed, you've, you've, you've coming too late. Uh, so our, our recording windows or recording slots open up about 90 days in advance. It's a rolling 90 day calendar that we publish. We always encourage. We love having guests on. We do. We rarely turn people away unless it's just a topic we don't want to cover.
So we love having guests on. But you need to reach out to us about at least 60 days ahead of your sailing so we can get you into our booking system and you can find a slot to that works for you. For reference, like, we have no recording slots left this month. We have like almost none next month. And so no, we have none.
[01:12:24] Speaker C: We have right now we are booked May, June and July through July 27th. So we are, we are fully booked for the next 90 days as of today.
And we are trying to slot folks in where we can if we have additional time. But if we turn you down for your recording just because of timing or because we don't have a recording slot open, it is not anything about you or about your sailing. It's just a matter. We have only so many hours in the day for which we can record and only so many hours in which to put out episodes. Because I know you all would love to have 24 hours of content every day from us, but we just can't really do that.
[01:13:07] Speaker B: I like the idea, but no, I'm just 24.
[01:13:11] Speaker C: 7 DCL Duo TV is what we would call that. But anyway, we will be back with our live show in two weeks. We will be talking with guest Sarah about a spring break Destiny cruise. I'm excited for that show. We're going to hear about her family's experience on the Disney Destiny. But as Brian said, we're going to have a recorded episode and very soon we are going to have. We have some great guests lined up for various with folks who have like deep knowledge of Disney and travel and theme parks. And so I'm super excited for some of the guests we've got got coming up. Some of them are going to be live guests, some of them are going to be recorded shows. But we've got, you know, we've got some great episodes in the Hopper. And I mean we just recorded two awesome episodes this weekend about the Disney adventure. So plenty of great stuff coming to you. So thanks for listening, thanks for watching. Thanks to Karen and Kaylee once again for joining us. And with that, we'll just say we'll see you real soon, everybody. Thanks for watching.
[01:14:11] Speaker B: See ya.
[01:14:12] Speaker D: Bye.
[01:14:13] Speaker A: Thank you.
[01:14:18] Speaker E: Well, thanks to everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows. So be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us alive, we have a live show now every week, Monday nights, 5:30pm Pacific, 8:30pm Eastern over on YouTube.com DCLDUO so be sure to head over and check that out. If you want help support the show, be sure to hit those five stars on Apple Podcasts. And if you leave us a written review, a five star written review, we will read it at the top of one of our main episodes. So please head over there and hit those five stars. Of course you can also help support the show by supporting our fabulous show sponsor, My Path Unwinding Travel. You want to book your next Disney vacation? Head over to MyPath Unwinding.com or email them at DCLDuoyPathUnwinding.com so they know we sent you their way. If you've got questions or you'd like to connect with us, the best way to do that is to head over to DCLDuo.com it's got links to all of our things. Full catalog of the podcast episodes including a searchable catalog for the podcast, links off to our vlog, a link to our Etsy store where we sell some fun fan inspired magnets. Link to our Patreon if you'd like to help directly support the show each and every month, just head over to the website or patreon.com DCLDUO also has a way for you to sign up for our substack newsletter that we're hoping to start really pumping out monthly here at least, and a few blog articles that we've written. So DCLDUO.com is the best way to connect with us. You can also, of course, email
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The DCL Duo Podcast is not affiliated with Disney Cruise Line, the Disney Company, or the Disney Family of theme parks. The views expressed on the show are solely those of the individuals on the podcast and in no way reflective views the Disney Company or Disney Cruise Line. If you have questions about a Disney Cruise or Disney Vacation, please contact the great folks over at My Path Unwinding Travel or Disney directly or your own travel agent. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time for another fabulous adventure with the DCL Duo.
