[00:00:00] Speaker A: They take such good care of everyone on that ship and they really strive to get to know each and every family so they can start to anticipate some of what you may need throughout the experience or the trip. So I cannot say enough good things about these folks. They bring the magic all the way to Europe and onto the ship and make sure that you just have that little dose of Disney that you need if you're doing one of these. So it's great.
Foreign.
Welcome back everybody to this week's live episode of the DCL Duo Podcast. And you will notice I just had to pause there because we are not Brought to you by MyPath Unwinding Travel. We have a little announcement to make this evening we elected not to renew our sponsorship with My Path Unwinding Travel for the coming year and sponsored not out of any disappointment or dissatisfaction. We love all of the folks over at My Path Unwinding Travel. I want to send a very heartfelt thanks to Karen personally for sponsoring the show and allowing us to partner with her and we would not be for
[00:01:17] Speaker B: the past four years, for the past
[00:01:19] Speaker A: four years we would not be where we are today without her support.
I also just wanted to say a heartfelt thank you to Kaylee over at My Path of Wanting Travel for being our personal travel agent for the past four years. We're, we're, we're heavy. We're heavy users and big pains in the butt. No, I'm just, I'm kidding.
We're, we're pretty easy going people. But we just want to let you know all out there, we are taking a month off from sponsorship. We do have an exciting announcement that we will be making in the beginning of August. But since Karen and team over there helped us plan our river cruise, we really just wanted to take some time, breathe a little before we bring our next show sponsor on board. So just stay tuned for that. I don't want to reveal anything this evening, but we are very excited for the new sponsor but also very, very appreciative of Karen and team over at My Path Unwinding Travel and have absolutely nothing but good things to say about the whole team over there.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: So yeah, especially for helping us plan both podcast Cruise number one and podcast Cruise version 2.0 that we're going to be talking about today tonight. So great things to come, but great things in the past. So want to say a big heartfelt thank you to Karen, Kaylee, Angie, Karen, everyone over at the Margaret, Sarah, Kelsey, everyone over at My Path Unwinding Travel who, who has helped us along the way who has come on the show as a guest and who has supported the show. So we very much appreciate you.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: They are all welcome back anytime they want. And if you're using my Path Unwinding Travel currently, we love them, have nothing but great things to say about them. So with that though, we do have our other show sponsor and we've got Danny coming on from DCL magazine and we wanted to say hi to Danny. Hey, Danny.
[00:03:11] Speaker C: Hey, Sam, Brian. Always a pleasure to come on and chat cruise stuff with you guys.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Great to see you.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Yeah, we're super excited to see you. How are things going over at the Parks and Pages podcast, by the way?
[00:03:23] Speaker C: You know, we're having a great time at Parks and Pages. We have new episodes coming out every week on Tuesday. In fact, we just, we like to publish the episodes Monday night to make sure all the networks and distributions pick everything up. So our newest episode, I just got the alert is live and ready. And I don't know about you guys, but we couldn't wait to talk about the holidays. So we have a brand new episode out on Parks and Pages halfway to the holidays.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: Yeah,
[00:03:50] Speaker C: I'm all about it. I know some people are like, no, you have to wait. It's not like, you know what? If it makes people happy, let them have this joy.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: Disney made a bunch of weed merch out already, Danny.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:04:01] Speaker C: Like, Disney's making announcements about Mickey's very merry party and Jollywood Night. And like, I'm ready to talk about the holidays. So if you're interested, parksandpages.com new episodes come out every week, but we're here to talk about Cruise tonight.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Yeah, well, we're here, we're going to talk, we're talking about adventures by Disney River Cruising tonight. And we'll get to our trip report in a bit, but we wanted to, we got to hit news first. Disney Cruise Line News. And then we want to get some some photography tips from you, Danny. Danny is an amazing and accomplished photographer.
Takes a ton of the pictures that end up in DCL Magazine, WDW magazine and DLR magazine and of course all over the websites as well. And you know, travel photography is something I'm always working to get better and better at. In fact, just so we're going to see some of it tonight in the PowerPoint that Brian and I have put together.
But Danny's going to give us some tips. But before that, we got to get to some news. So Disney Cruise Line news, stuff that happened while that happened the past like week While we are away, our website updates to the Disney Cruise Line website. So the website was down for, was it a day or two and it's back up.
I will confess I have not had a chance to toy around with it. I've just seen a couple of screenshots that people have posted.
I don't, I can't say if it's more user friendly or less user friendly. Maybe we'll have comments on that next week when we've had a chance to play around with it. But the interface looks different.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: I did have a chance to play around with it a bit with Craig who may be watching out there where we were on the river cruise. It did seem like a lot more steps for certain things. I'll just say it that way. So it did seem like there were quite a few more. They have modularized it a little bit. That's not a word. I'm making it up. But they've made it more modular to use correct English.
It looked more mobile friendly a little bit, which was nice. But it did seem like there were places where it's like click here, then click here. And if you need to change something before you got to go back and it was breaking things up. So anyway, well, if it makes the it more stable, you will hear no complaints from me to have to click around a little bit more than I might otherwise. So yeah.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: All right, second piece of news. I want to put my sleuthing Sam hat on but I didn't bring it out because a couple weeks ago I told everybody to start spreading the news.
I'm leaving today.
All right, New York, right?
We talked about it a few weeks ago. I said it's coming back. I don't know when but all indications are that it's coming back soon. So I thought it might not be coming back on the schedule until 2028, but now it's looking maybe like fall 2027.
On both the. The New York City like port has listed like three different ships on its website. It's listing, I think the Magic, the Treasure and I can't remember what the third one was, but basically giving indications that New York is oh, Disney Dream, I think is the other one that New York is coming back on the table as a Disney Cruise Line port. It's also on the Disney Cruise Line website now. It's been on the Disney Cruise Line website before, but it was. It's been gone for a couple of years and now it's back on there as well. Even though of course there are no cruises listed as available. And I will say that's not always a great indication because there are some other ports that Disney used to go to that are still listed on the website that don't necessarily look like to be on the schedule anytime soon.
But anyway, that's an indication. There's more indications about New York City than there were even a couple weeks ago when I was talking about it.
Another thing that has been indicated, the Port of St. Martin. There is an enhanced or increased commitment to the Port of St. Martin. So in the past Disney Cruise Line has gone to St Martin on its Eastern Iter itineraries occasionally. But more, more recently it's been really just Tortola and St. Thomas and then every once in a while they'll hit St. Martin. Well, starting in 2027, there's 14 calls on the schedule with further growth anticipated in 2028.
So I've been hearing rumors that the new ship, the Believe might be going out of Fort Lauderdale. And so we might be seeing like seven night itineraries or more 554 patterns out of Fort Lauderdale with, you know, additional ships going out of there. So I wouldn't be surprised if once we. I'm not sure what itinerary the Believe is going to be doing. I'm not saying it's going to be doing a seven night itinerary, but I just wouldn't be surprised if we see a ship out of Fort Lauderdale doing like an Eastern Caribbean, but a Saint Martin, another port and castaway out of or maybe even look out of Fort Lauderdale. What do you guys think?
[00:09:03] Speaker A: Another ship? I believe it could happen.
[00:09:06] Speaker C: Oh, I see what you did there.
I'm very excited about this. I like it when they mix up the patterns of the ships. One of my biggest question marks, I guess you could say has been about the Treasure just constantly sailing this seven night itinerary.
And I think it's an odd choice because people, especially people who are completionists who want to, you know, be on all the ships. A seven night cruise is a very large commitment and you know, so varying up the patterns and I think just adding additional port stops, both ports that they're departing from and ports that they are going to visit. It gives more flexibility when you're building in these arrangements and it allows ships to move around and like right now the Treasure has been doing that same route to again and again and again and again and again. So you know, maybe if there's new ports in the mix, it'll start doing a five night sailing and then that leaves room in the Schedule for other ships to work in. And you know, I like the variety.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: Absolutely. And with the Wish, the Wish is similar to Treasure. Since it launched, has been doing that three, four night itinerary. Now we know it's switching it up when it goes to Europe, but we don't yet know what it's going to be doing when it comes back from Europe. So there's a lot of opportunities to switch those up. Maybe the Treasure goes and does three and four night. Maybe the Believe that comes online does a seven night itinerary out of Fort Lauderdale. Maybe Wish the seven night itinerary out of Port Canaveral. Who knows? We have a. There's just a lot of things that could happen with this new ship coming online.
All right, so another thing that has been indicated that's been talked about online, but the indications are pointing that the Wish is going to do a second European season. So right now we know Wish is going to to Europe for 2027, but it's apparently on port schedules in 2028 as well. It's showing up on some European port schedules. So all indications pointing that she's going to do a second European season. To me this makes sense. She's doing her dry dock in 2027. It's going to be a short dry dock of I think there's only like a two week hole in her schedule. So it's got to be, you know, less than two week dry dock, which makes sense. It's her first dry dock. She probably doesn't need a lot of work.
But nobody is other than Magic and Wonder, which are going to be coast for likely for another Alaska season.
None of the other ships will be due at that time for a dry dock. So it wouldn't be super surprising to see the Wish go back to Europe and do a second season there. It seems like Disney Cruise Line likes to send ships over for at least two years because sort of once they learn how to do the European season, it's easier to send that same ship over to Europe. So I think, you know, I think that makes sense. I'm looking forward to it. I think the European market is looking forward to having a Wish class ship. In general, they have not had one. They're looking forward to that in 2027 and I think it could help with sales in 2028 as well. What do you guys think?
[00:12:08] Speaker C: It's not like we're going to have a shortage of ships over here in North America, especially with Believe coming online.
You know, they've got ships on the West Coast. They've got ships on the east coast.
Maybe, you know, we're going to start having multiple east coast departure locations if New York comes into the mix, you know, like it's not like they're going to be missing the capacity. So why not get the crew really well trained, really familiar, really comfortable with the European season with the various ports, with the flow of that kind of cruising. It makes sense to me.
[00:12:43] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Maybe we can wave at her. Well, I don't want to give away the ending of our, of our show, but let's just say we'll be back in Europe next summer. Were hoping so. Yeah.
Nice.
[00:12:55] Speaker C: I have, I have a question about the Wish dry dock. This is just blue sky speculations over here on my part, but. So the Wish has Star wars hyperspace Lounge, but then both the Treasure and the Destiny have Haunted Mansion Parlor in the same spot. And my brain can't wrap around, you know, so they're all sister ships, they're all in the same class. So part of me. It makes sense for them to all be the same specialty lounge, but it also makes sense for me for them to all be different. Except that we already have two the same.
Do we think that the Wish is going to convert hyperspace to Haunted Mansion Parlor?
[00:13:32] Speaker A: I'm just hoping some Disney executives did some dumpster diving around the torn down shell of the, the Star wars space.
[00:13:41] Speaker C: Are you, are you hoping for another Star wars lounge space on the upcoming believe?
[00:13:48] Speaker A: No, I'm hoping they just upgrade the space on the Wish. But I think that will only happen if they are having like. If that is like consistently empty and they're not getting the kind of sell through they want on drinks and stuff out of that bar, then I would, I would think that, that they, they could upgrade it. But I have a feeling the only thing that's certain about a Wish dry dock, they don't have to add a tower suite. So there you go.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Yeah, it's already there. I'm going to answer a question and say it's not happening. The, the dry dock is too short. The dry dock is too short for them to do a total redo retheme.
I'm. I like Brian would be hoping for an upgrade to hyperspace just like theme it out even more. I don't even think we're going to see that. I'll be perfectly honest. I think what they're doing with bringing like a droid in the bar space, maybe they'll do some character meet and greets in the space. Maybe during the day when they're not serving alcohol, things like that. I think that we're more likely to see stuff like that happening experiences in that space in order to draw people in rather than them.
Rather than them plussing or plushing up, up that space. All right, well, Danny, we want to talk travel photography.
I think this applies to wherever you're traveling in the world, whether you're on a cruise, whether you're on a river cruise, whether you're on a land adventure with adventures by Disney or when you're. Whether you're using some other travel product out there. But taking great pictures is really important for people, whether that's a great selfie or a great picture of a church or what have you.
Tell us like, a couple of top tips.
[00:15:23] Speaker C: Okay, so I'm gonna focus this on mobile phone photography because the majority of people, you know, I'm the guy on the cruise lugging around a big telephoto lens and a whole full frame camera setup. But I do this for work. This is professional. And, you know, I'm taking pictures for the magazine. You don't have to worry about all that stuff. We're gonna assume that you're working with a new ish smartphone. I'm an iPhone guy, so some of this might be a little bit tailored to Apple, but I'm sure the Android folks can follow along.
A couple of things.
One, clean off your camera lenses. People get so sweaty on especially these like, Caribbean itineraries. You know, you're putting on sunscreen, you're hot, you're by the pool, you know, or people they love in the pool. Those waterproof phone pouches, those leave a, like, film on your. On the back of your lenses. If you've ever taken a picture, especially if there's like spotlights and you notice that the lights look really, like, streaky. That's your first tip. Clean your camera. It doesn't have to be fancy. Just, you know, wipe it on your T shirt. That'll help so much right up there.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: The other thing, that's a great tip, Danny. I'm doing it on my shirt right now. Brian's doing it with a little soft cloth. Never think about that.
[00:16:35] Speaker C: No, these things are durable and you're not gonna hurt your phone. Give it a wipe down. Especially, you know, sunscreen on your hands. It gets everywhere. It's gonna make your photos look smudgy. Okay, the next one. And this is it sounds like it should be common knowledge, but think about how you're holding your.
Because I see people all the time waving their phone around or trying to get up over someone's head or, you know, they're balancing a soft serve cone in one hand and the phone in the other. And like, you might get a nice picture doing that. Absolutely. But, you know, and you don't always have to do two hands on your phone, you know. But I like a good secure grip, something that I like to do. I have slightly larger hands, but this works for me. I use my pinky finger along the bottom of the phone to support it, my index finger on the top of the phone. And then I've sort of got, you know, two fingers against the back and it's a very nice stable grip, you know, that I'm a little more intentional with how I'm taking my photos. You can go vertical, you can go horizontal. Take some horizontal pictures once in a while. People live in a world outside of Instagram.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: Can I get one? Can I build on.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: I don't live in the world outside of Instagram. Danny, tell me, Brian, tell me.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: Build on that tip. When you say hold your phone, I'm also going to give you the T.
Sometimes holding it like this can give you a more interesting photo.
[00:17:56] Speaker C: I was about to. That was my. You, you. You took the words right out of my memory.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: Oh, sorry.
[00:18:02] Speaker C: It's good.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: It's.
[00:18:02] Speaker C: It's perfect. So here's the thing that I see all the time, especially with food photos. So you've got, you know, your lovely cocktail and you're going to take a picture and you're holding your phone, you're up above your drink at like a 45 degree angle. That's why everybody, that's how everybody holds their phone. That's why everybody's photos look the same.
The small shift of taking your phone and turning it upside down, don't worry, your camera software is going to automatically flip the image right side up. But that small, it's only a couple of inches from the top to the bottom. But that perspective shift totally changes how the images look in your photos. And it's going to take your picture from looking the same shot that everybody else is taking to looking a little bit different. Now, sometimes you need that overhead angle because maybe you went to cafe and they printed a character on top of your latte. You're not going to see that with the upside down trick. But especially if you have like a beverage and a clear glass or you're trying to capture a little bit more of the background behind whatever it is you're photographing, that perspective shift will make a world of difference.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: I Love that. I love that. That's so great.
[00:19:14] Speaker C: Danny, my last quick tip, and this is all sort of related to the same thing. You'll notice that none of these tips are about your camera settings. They're not about your megapix.
Honestly, that stuff doesn't matter, especially if you're just sharing on social media with your friends and family. Maybe you're printing out like a little four by six or something to put on the fridge. You have more than enough camera power in your phone. Don't be concerned about that. What you need to be concerned about is composition, what's actually in the photo. So don't just think about the thing you're pointing your camera at. Think about the scene around and behind you. Because that's the difference between a throwaway photo and something that you frame and becomes an important memento. So whether you're, you know, taking pictures of your food, because we all love to do that, think about what's in the background behind you. Is it somebody else eating their lunch? Is it maybe a beautiful ocean view? Is there, you know, an outlet on the wall behind you? These are all things to consider and position accordingly. Also, if you want to get a picture of you and something beautiful in the background.
So this is. It's called a parallax effect. It's the way the camera sees the difference, the distance between the camera, the subject and the background. If you want to capture yourself plus some scenic background behind you, you'll have better luck. If you step away from your subject and then zoom in with the camera, it creates a compression effect and it makes the background look closer to the subject. And then. So that's how you get the. You ever taken a picture where you're like, we're in Paris and there's the Eiffel Tower behind me, but it looks like a little, teeny, tiny little speck on the frame.
The way to correct that is have the photographer take a step back from you, but then zoom in to two times or five times. And what's going to happen is it's going to compress the distance between the foreground and the background. Makes your background look bigger, makes it look like you are standing in. In whatever scenic view it is that you're trying to capture.
[00:21:27] Speaker B: That's so cool. I have never. Okay, I'm definitely using that tip because I've never tried to. And that sounds like an amazing way to take a great photo. I will say I will sometimes. If I don't like the background, I'll sometimes just put it in Portrait mode so that the background's all blurry.
[00:21:44] Speaker C: Another.
No, that's a technique a hundred percent. When you're taking a photo, if you're thinking about shooting, you know, with a proper camera and lens and a full manual setup, one of the decisions the photographer makes is how much of this picture is in focus. You know, do I want to see everything behind my subject or do I just want the nice, attractive bokeh? And that is absolutely a good choice. And you can do it on your phone. They call it portrait mode. If you're shooting with a camera with adjustable aperture, you're going to want to go to the smallest number possible if you want a really swirly bokeh background. And you're going to want to go to the largest number possible if you want more of the whole scene in focus.
[00:22:26] Speaker A: I was gonna say do not sleep on portrait mode. I've even found it very effective with food photography at times. So. Yeah, yeah, no, these are all great tips, Danny. I know we promised you a whole show, so we're gonna have to, like, bring you back anytime you want.
[00:22:41] Speaker C: This is one of my. I do this for work, but I also do this for fun, you know, on the weekends and stuff, I take out my camera. It's my hobby. It's a passion of mine. I love talking about it. I love talking about cruise.
Anytime you guys want to have me on, I'll talk your ear off all night about camera stuff.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: All right, well, thank you, Danny, for joining us. We're going to head over to talk about our river cruise. Now, we got a lot to cover over there, but super appreciate you. And if you have not already, please head to dcl-magazine.com.
i've got it scrolling across the bottom of the screen here. It's in every show note we publish since we've started our partnership with DCL Magazine. There's a code in there, all caps, DCL Duo you can use for 10% off. And definitely head over and check out the Parks and Pages podcast. It's fabulous. We love it.
But subscribe today, the DCL magazine, we've got our subscription. We love it. We love every issue. So thank you, Danny, so much for joining us.
[00:23:35] Speaker C: Always a pleasure. Brian, Sam, thank you guys so much. And I'm going to tune in to hear how your river cruise went.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: Sounds good.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: Thank you. Tell Stephanie we hope she feels better, too.
[00:23:44] Speaker C: I will, of course.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: Thanks, Danny.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: All right, thanks, Danny.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: All right, we are going to head over to. My computer is being super slow. There we go. And that is not what we want to see either. So we're going to fix that. There we go. All right, so we're going to be talking about our Holland and Belgium river cruise. Buckle up. This show's gonna go longer than normal. I can already tell, even with two of us. But we've got a lot to talk about. So obviously we're gonna be talking about our adventures by Disney. Holland and Belgium river cruise on the Amalea.
That was a one change that happened to us before the cruise were originally supposed to be. I think it was on the AMA Stella Sam that we were supposed to be on and switch us over to the Amalea. There are some water level issues right now in Europe. So they switched our ship ship. But we had a fabulous time. There's a sister ship of the Amistella, so really nothing all that different for us.
Let's dive in.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: And technically it's actually two years newer of a ship. So basically the ship that was supposed to be ours was stuck at sort of the other end of Europe because of water levels. Water levels by us were not an issue at all. So we did not have any changes
[00:24:51] Speaker A: when we got off. They were. Because cruise was saying, yeah, yeah, it was after hours.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: But it was because where they were going, they were headed to Switzerland. And so they were going to have issues. They were going to have one time where they had to change from one ship to another because of low water levels.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: So we. We started in Amsterdam and we flew into Amsterdam several days before.
We stayed at the ABD Hotel, which was. Which was perfectly fine. I will say if you're ever considering doing this cruise, that that ABD selected hotel sits a little bit far outside of the downtown central area than. And I think I was accustomed to sort of being on these types of cruises.
But it was. It was. The hotel was perfectly fine. The restaurant was actually pretty good. We had to eat there one night or decide to eat there one night. And of course, we love the ABD transfer. The other lesson I learned this time is really read the information they send you because Sam and Nathan and I exited with all of our luggage from our flight and there was no one waiting for us. And we're like, what? There's no ABD transfer? We started thinking about an Uber. Were thankfully some friends of ours who had arrived earlier, the moral family.
Craig may be out there watching, Kelly may be watching. Hopefully reminded us there was a meeting point at the airport. And so we went to the meeting point. Driver was there, helped us with our luggage, whisked us into Amsterdam. We had a great Time.
We spent what, like a day, two and a half days in Amsterdam before the. Before the cruise.
I'm not. We're not going to get into detail over what we did in Amsterdam.
There will be an episode of our podcast, audio only, coming out in the coming weeks. A bit of a different format for the show, but it will be coming out where we will be talking about some of the things that we did in Amsterdam through the eyes of the people who we did it with. And so you can see here, we did. We did spend our time walking through the canals. Nathan's there in the photo and he had a. A great. A great time.
Just briefly. So, you know, we did a Jewish tour of. I will say the pre Amsterdam time for me was a little emotionally heavy because we did.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: It was.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: It was great, a Jewish tour of Amsterdam. So you can see on the screen, we went and visited the Portuguese synagogue there in Amsterdam. We visited the Jewish memorial in Amsterdam. It has 102,000.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: The Holocaust Memorial.
[00:27:09] Speaker A: 102,000 bricks in it for each of those from the Netherlands who lost their lives in.
To the Holocaust in World War II.
And then we did a tour of the Jewish museum, which was also fantastic. Very rich history, just very emotionally heavy.
We did do a fun and fabulous food tour that I will be happy to send to anyone interested.
Michael sent it to me earlier today. He arranged it. So Michael and Tracy were with us on this food tour. Fantastic. More food than I can imagine. And just lots of interesting food because the Dutch have such a rich history of multiculturalism and multicultural food. So we ate everything from Indonesian to sur amis to stroopwafels and more. So fabulous food tour that we did before the cruise. And then that afternoon we visited the Anne Frank house.
So again, a very emotionally heavy topic. You can see on the screen here they have a replica of her journal. Her actual journal is on display in the museum, but they have a replica here that we took a photo of Sam standing there out in front of the Anne Frank house. And that is a statue of Anne Frank that does not sit outside the Anne Frank house. It sits a couple blocks over. But we passed on our way to the Anne Frank house and took some photos. Again, we will have a podcast episode about what we did in Amsterdam pre cruise. We want to focus today, though, on the cruise itself. And so we're going to start by talking about the Amalaya. Sam, you want to talk a little bit about the ship and our room and all of that fun stuff? Sure.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: Okay. So the Amalaya is a River cruise ship. If you've ever been on another river cruise line, I will tell you they're all kind of similar, although not exactly the same. If you've been on another AMA ship, AMA Waterways is the company that runs the ship, then the ships really are almost identical. The, I should say there are different classes of ship, but the vast majority of the ships are similar to this one. So this ship actually holds, I believe, 154 passengers total.
We had 119 passengers traveling on our Adventures by Disney River Cruise. Plus of course the five adventure guides. So that's a total of 124 in guest cabins.
The, the cabins are generally speaking for two people, but there are some cabins like ours that will fit three people and then there are a couple of suites that will hold four people. I think I want to say there's maybe four of those on board. There's not a whole lot in terms of the amenities of the ship. There is a very small fitness room which is literally just a room with a treadmill built into the floor with a couple of bikes and then a small area for lifting. And then there's like this one cable machine. If you look on our Instagram, there is a reel that I posted that shows the fitness. There's a tour of the fitness room. There's also a reel on our Instagram that shows you our entire stateroom as well as our friends the Morals who had a. They had adjoining state room. So each of their rooms fit two people, but theirs were adjoining, meaning there was actually a, this pocket door that joined their two rooms. So instead of it just it's within side within the rooms. Now they each had a balcony. The balconies do not join, but their rooms joined very seamlessly.
So most of the rooms for two people. When I say three people, you can see in this picture in the middle here that is essentially a one person couch that is turns into a sofa. It's a sofa bed essentially. And so that was Nathan's bed. It does fit an adult. Fry was chatting with the folks from AMA Waterways and you can book this room. Brian and I thought you could only book this as a three person room with Adventures by Disney, but that's not correct. You can actually book it with three adults. I will say it's kind of small for an adult.
So I, I don't think a large adult would be quite very comfortable on Nathan's bed. But Nathan was perfectly comfortable. He slept very well on that, that bed. In terms of other ship amenities, there is a spa which is essentially I think also like one room. You can basically get a massage in there. I have not gone in there, so I can't tell you the quality of it. I imagine it's probably very good.
But you. There's really no time. When you're on an Adventures by Disney River Cruise, unless you're going to skip an excursion, there's really no time to be able to do a spa appointment. I know because our friend Tracy looked into it.
There is a large lounge. You'll see be a picture of us in the lounge later in the slideshow. But there is a large lounge which is essentially your hangout space, meeting space, muster space, entertainment space is kind of an all in one all purpose space because there aren't multiple entertainment spaces. Like there isn't like a theater and a D lounge and all that kind of stuff that you have on a cruise ship. And then the other spaces on board are really your food spaces. So there's the main dining room called Journeys. That's your restaurant that you go to for pretty much all your meals. Meals. The lounge also serves food at certain hours.
Think small. Breakfast buffet, continental breakfast and then a couple of hot dishes. And same for lunch and dinner as well. And if they have a Junior Adventure Night, that's where the junior adventurers get served their dinner.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: It sits right atop the main restaurant. So there's actually a stairway into the kitchen.
[00:32:43] Speaker B: Kitchen connects. Yeah.
[00:32:44] Speaker A: So they can bring food up.
[00:32:45] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And then there is a chef's table restaurant at the very rear of the ship on the top floor where included in your cruise. This is both whether you're on just a regular AMA or if you're on Adventures by Disney is one Dinner at the Chef's table. And you can sign up for that at any point, any night of the cruise.
You can sign up as soon as you board for which night you want to go to the chef's Table. We chose to do it on one of the nights that was a Junior Adventure night because we knew that Nathan would not really eat at the chef's table because it's a fixed menu.
[00:33:20] Speaker A: Can I correct one thing the other? So one is, one is included. But if they have space available later in the cruise after you've eaten there, you can go back again. And there's no added charges. Basically you're going there instead of going to the main dining room, which is called Journeys. I also want to flag. We, we. We discovered something new this trip. Right.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: So yeah. So new, newly added, which wasn't the case two and a half years ago when we went on our Danube river river cruise is the option to go to the chef's table at lunch. Now it's not a chef's table at lunch. It is Italian meal. And what I mean by that is they have like panini sandwiches on focaccia breads and they also have like a pasta of the day, a caprese salad, usually one other, a soup. So it's basically a, an Italian themed lunch. It does, it's not an extensive menu, but you can look at the menu each day at lunch and journeys and look at the chef's table lunch menu and decide where you want to eat. We didn't do that until the very last day of our cruise, but we found it to be a great option. I had a fantastic mushroom pasta.
They did actually make me a pasta for Nathan with just plain tomato sauce because he wouldn't eat anything else on that menu. And then Brian had one of the focaccia sandwiches. The food overall on AMA Waterways was fantastic.
They always have options like, like chicken breast and steak at dinner. But the, the regular options on the regular menu which change every day are just really phenomenal. We had some great food. I would say the food we actually had in Journeys on the whole I thought was maybe better than what we had even in the chef's tasting menu. I, I, this time I actually thought the chef's tasting menu wasn't quite as good as the last time.
It was good, don't get me wrong. But I, I actually thought we had some better meals in Journey's restaurant.
[00:35:14] Speaker A: So Ed, to your question, what was the age group of the passengers on board?
I will say that this was a pretty decent spread of ages, I think. Kids, I thought, I think most of the adults were in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, maybe some in their 80s.
And a good amount of kids on board. I'd say there was probably 12 to 20 kids and teens of varying ages is maybe a few more than that.
[00:35:41] Speaker B: I think more, I think more like 30. Brian, because there were a lot of, there were a lot of young girls on this sale.
So think like ages 8 to like 10 or 11. There were quite a few in that age bracket. But yeah, I would agree with Brian. Like most of the adults on board were in their 40s or 50s with definitely a few multi generational groups which included, you know, grandparents who are in their 60s or 70s. There was one, there was at least one passenger who walked around with a cane and one passenger who walked around with a walker.
You do have to be able to ambulate on stairs. It is not.
I. It's not a fully accessible cruise. So if you're a wheelchair or scooter person, river cruising is not for you.
[00:36:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, there was an elevator for those who are having a little bit of problem with the stairs, but it doesn't go all the way up to the top deck. So that's kind of off limits unless you can get to stairs.
[00:36:37] Speaker B: And you also need to be able to get on and off the ship. And sometimes that includes a small number of stairs or a steep ramp.
[00:36:43] Speaker A: Yeah. The entry to the ship changes depending on the river level. So on this cruise, we enter through the main entry.
We had to go up a ramp to the top deck and down a couple of times to get into the ship. And then there was one day that we were rafted, meaning they had two river ships next to each other and they were both below ground level. So we actually walked across the top deck of another ship, then onto our ship, then down the stairs into the lobby. Ed, to answer your question, how fast was the dinner service given? There is enough dining staff in there to get dinner out quickly. Dinner started around seven and entertainment in the lounge started around nine. Nine.
You could have a leisurely dinner of two hours, or you could be in and out in about 90 minutes. So it's. It's all very fast. And I will say this too. The food comes out extremely fresh and hot. I have never.
I saw bowls of soup that were still steaming that they were so hot when they were served. And I commented actually to Sam, I was like, I have never seen that on Disney Cruise Line where the soup is so hot it's actually steaming as it's saying they're waiting to be served.
[00:37:42] Speaker B: So, yeah, Nath Nathan, Nathan's oatmeal. One day he had to wait to eat his oatmeal because it was too hot by the time time it came to the table. So breakfast, you can also all of the meals. There are some items that are sort of in a buffet, and then the rest of the items are ordered from a menu. But you can do a combination of both or you can just eat from the buffet. The buffet always includes cheese at like lunch and dinner and then always, like some salad, stuff like that.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: All right, so next up, I've got a slide up here for again, for those of you who are listening to this later, you can always head over to YouTube to see the slides and the photos that we're sharing.
These shows sit under a live episode tab and they're all there forever once we broadcast them. But I want to talk for a minute about the adventure guides. I think so many people look at the price tag and Adventures by Disney and are like, oh, like it's expensive. River cruising is already kind of expensive because the ships are a little smaller. But you do pay a premium to go on an Adventures by Disney. And I will would say the differentiator across the board for an Adventures by Disney are the adventure guides. So you will see here. We had five adventure guides. We had George or Gargu, Gabby, Clement, Gina and Adri.
And they were absolutely fantastic.
24 7. They were just great.
Each and every one of them. Of them. We didn't get to spend as much time as we wanted with Clement, but the time we did spend with him, he was fantastic.
They are there. They are. They are on board. Disney customer service making sure you are safe, you are fed, you are hydrated. If you need a band aid, they've got it. You need a phone charger while you're out on tour, they've got it. They've got the schedule practically memorized.
You need a recommendation for where to go to lunch, they've got it. Like if you're off the ship and you want to have lunch. So they took such good care of us. And for me, that is the difference maker between an Adventures by Disney and just sailing with Amma at this point. They're also so fabulous with the kids, so they host the Junior Adventurers nights.
They take such good care of everyone on that ship and they really strive to get to know each and every family so they can start to anticipate some of what you may need throughout the experience or the trip. So. So I cannot say enough good things about these folks. They bring the magic all the way to Europe and onto the ship and make sure that you just have that little dose of Disney that you need if you're doing one of these. So it's great.
[00:40:24] Speaker B: And for these guides, two of them are European and three of them are American. And our group, Clement is from France and Gerga is from Hungary. And so both of them are European guides. They have other jobs during the year and say the rest of the year when they're not working as guides. And same goes for the American guides, Adri, Gina and Gabby. They all do other things when they're not working as Adventures by Disney guides. Clement actually works for Disneyland Paris, I believe. So all of these folks are incredible.
I gotta give, you know, special shout out to Gina and Gerga, who made amazing Connections with Nathan. I love all of the guides. I mean, I clicked with Gabby immediately. We actually got to interview her. You'll hear that in an episode coming in a week or two, hopefully.
[00:41:15] Speaker A: No, it's not going to come in a week or two. It'll be out in late August, but never mind.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: Anyway, she, she's like incredible. All, all five of them are just incredible people. And like Brian said, they're there to anticipate all your needs. The other part of the difference with Adventures by Disney, not just the people, but sort of the type of service you get, everything is already planned out for you. You don't have to plan anything. You just choose which excursions you want to do and then everything is taken care of for you in terms of transportation and what you're going to do and reservations and things like that. So it's really fabulous. There's a question about tipping for ab. I know Brian answered it in the chat, but I'll just say on the audio version, for those listening ABD river cruises, all tips are included. So there's nothing you have to worry about in terms of tipping guides or even the staff on that's different for Land. But Disney publishes recommended tipping amounts and also some. You can talk to different travel agents. They may have recommendations as well. All right, so talking about embarcation day, we were at the hotel Movenpick, which was basically our ship was docked behind the hotel Movent Pick. That was why Disney chose that hotel. We dropped off our bags in the morning between 9 and 11 at a table where two or three of our adventure guys were sitting there waiting and they would tell you, okay, you can go to the the ship really anytime if you wanted to. You could go to the ship anytime.
I think like that morning, it started immediately.
[00:42:45] Speaker A: So once they had your luggage, you were welcome to go down. And we'll talk about this a bit more at disembarkation. But you're welcome to head down to the ship.
I will say on an Adventures by Disney river cruise, I'm just going to be blunt. Is a waste of time to get on the ship at ten o' clock in the morning. There is nothing to do do. You're just sitting in the lounge, go explore the city. And they told us you need to be on board no later than four because they have to do. Even though the ship wasn't leaving that night, they have to get you checked in. They want to do the muster drill. It's not really a mustard drill. We'll probably talk about that as ice worship Introduction, you sitting in the lounge and they bring people out and they do some safety stuff. But you're not moving from a comfortable.
[00:43:24] Speaker B: Yeah, but, but they do have a light lunch on board starting at 11am but it's again, you only have access to the Loun at that point.
You don't have access to your room until. I think it was 3:30, something like that.
[00:43:39] Speaker A: No, they promised by three. But they also said Amma always strives to go above and beyond. And in fact our rooms were ready closer to 2 or 2:30.
And when on the cruise behind us, we happened to be sitting in the lounge waiting to get to the airport and they were announcing the 300 level was ready at about 2 o' clock when we were leaving by 2:30. 3200 level was. So like they're going to try and get them done earlier, but they tell you no earlier than three is kind of the guarantee. And then, yeah, so then we, we got into our room. We, we embarked on the 4th of July, hence all of the banners and Amma kind of went out of their way to try and make us feel welcome on board for the fourth of July.
[00:44:21] Speaker B: There was another cake, another cake with there that was decorated with berries that looked like an American flag. I just couldn't fit everything on this page. As you can see, we had some friends sailing with us. This was podcast cruise version 2.0. So we ended up having 10 rooms officially booked with us and then two additional families that were, well, just say kind of with us.
[00:44:43] Speaker A: We should say thank you to those families, by the way, on air. I just like the morals sailed with us. The Andrakos, the Burns family.
Cindy Leichner and her husband were on there with us. Sam, you're going to have to help me out. I'm running out of memes in my brain.
[00:45:00] Speaker B: Cynthia and Alex Milanowski, you mentioned the Burns family.
We had the Tom Proses with us, I think. Is that everybody? I'm trying to remember if there's. I hope I haven't missed anyone. Then we also had the Swartz and then we had Maria and Jeff and Patty. They were not officially with us, but we made them hang out with us in spirit.
But it was a really wonderful group group. And I know that sounds like a lot of rooms, but remember, most of the rooms are only for two people. So like the Burns family, they have four kids, they had three rooms. So to answer special thank you all of those folks.
[00:45:42] Speaker A: To answer Ed's question in the chat, yes, you can actually you drop your luggage off with the adventure guides inside the hotel. Everyone doing an ABD river cruise has to meet up at the hotel to meet the adventure guides. Check in, they take your luggage down to the ship and then you are free to roam the city until the alternate aboard time which was for us was. And that's exactly what we did. We dropped off our luggage, we had a little breakfast at the hotel and then we hit, we headed out to walk around Amsterdam and I think we ultimately boarded around 2:30 in the afternoon. And then shortly thereafter our rooms were ready and we went and unpacked and we're back in the lounge by four for the festivities to begin.
[00:46:19] Speaker B: So now if you did not opt for checking in at the hotel, you could bring your luggage to the ship yourself later and they would load it on as you got on, which, which absolutely can do. But I'm not sure if you could drop off your luggage. Actually, I think you can drop off your luggage earlier because I think CT and Kelsey did that on their river cruise.
[00:46:39] Speaker A: Well, there were people, there were people coming up to the ship when we were up in the morning to disembark. I mean, people are leaving and they're coming and going. It operates much more like a hotel than a ship. This is not. They don't have to clear customs because they're all sailing within the Shenzhen region.
So basically there are, there are times or moments where new passengers are on the ship at the same time the old passengers are, so they don't have to zero out the ship before they can reboard.
So think about this more like you're checking in and checking out of a hotel. If you want to come drop off your luggage and then go explore the city, you can do that. They will take it to your room when your room is ready. So unlike a Disney Cruise Line ship, your luggage also isn't sitting out in the hallways because the hallways are very narrow. So they put your luggage into your stateroom room when it's ready and close the door and then you check in, someone walks you to your room, opens it, makes sure everything's to your liking, all of your luggage is there and then they leave you to unpack.
[00:47:34] Speaker B: So yeah, yeah, it's great. It's seamless. All right, so our first, we had an overnight, as Brian mentioned on the previous slide, you can see there was a picture of a singer. We had evening entertainment. I will say the evening entertainment is sometimes entertainment that are local, that come onto the ship and do performances. And sometimes entertainment is done by the adventure guides like we did. There was A Family Feud night. There was a movie night.
So it just depends on the evening. I think we had maybe four different nights or this was an eight day, seven night cruise. I want to say there were maybe four different times where we had performers from outside come on and then maybe three nights where we had essentially Adventure Guide provided entertainment.
[00:48:21] Speaker A: We had, we had the singer the first night and we had the guy on the last night who it was was pretty, pretty like he didn't know. He was not well attended.
[00:48:29] Speaker B: Yeah. But then we had the three guys that the group, the Groovy Gentle.
[00:48:33] Speaker A: I think it was three times. I. I will say this is a point that I sort of stuck with me. The entertainment on the Danube river cruise, I thought was a lot. I don't want to say better. It was just. There was a lot more cultural kind of entertainment this time around. It seemed to pivot to a couple of singers brought on board. Now, they were fantastic. And the, the woman that we. I picture of before was, was above and beyond. She was great.
But then there was like Family Feud night, trivia night, movie night, one night. And I was like, you know, it felt a little bit lacking there. And I don't know if that's just because, you know, I don't think Disney had that many cruises on this route this time around. So they may not.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: They only had the one.
[00:49:15] Speaker A: Yeah, they only had the ones. They just may not have been able to secure the contracts with the entertainment they were hoping for because I think they had planned, planned three or four of these cruises for the season and several of them were just canceled. So.
[00:49:25] Speaker B: Yeah, so they did this route on in the tulip season and Gail and Kara did one of those. They either only had one or two sailings of that and then they only had one summer sailing of this itinerary this year. And I think next year they have one itinerary that's the end of March. I was just looking at this earlier today and one itinerary that's the very beginning of July. So basically a tulip version and a summer version. Tulips are in blue bloom in March and April, not in bloom in, in July.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: So we are. Yeah, so we overnighted in Amsterdam.
It was stayed right where we were. We didn't move anywhere. There's no having to pull away from the dock. You could have gotten on and off the ship in the evening. You just tap in, tap out.
The next morning we did a river cruise through Amsterdam. So you can see one of the boats there on the screen. So we did A canal tour, sorry, river cruise. A canal tour of Amsterdam. So we sailed through the different cast canals. I'd say, all told, that took about 45 minutes.
[00:50:24] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe an hour.
[00:50:26] Speaker A: And it we walked from the ship, you know, down a dock and the boat was there. We took off from there. The boat returned us back to the place that we had left from. So, I mean, it was a pretty seamless morning. And then after that boat trip, there was an all aboard of 11am and we sailed to Utrecht. And in Utrecht, we did a fabulous tour of Slat Zuil Castle and Gardens.
You know, it was a lovely afternoon, I think made all the more interesting by the fact that they had a fencing tournament going on on the castle grounds. So we got to see some of that.
But, you know, as tours go, it was an old castle in Europe.
[00:51:06] Speaker B: So the outside of the castle was a lot more beautiful and interesting than the inside of the castle. I want to say I thought the gardens were beautiful and I thought the. There were these huge stork nests on top of the chimney stacks on the castle. You can kind of see them in that photo. You can see them a lot closer if you could zoom in.
But one of the greatest things though about this excursion was there was a scavenger hunt. So you see a little like bookshelf picture with a little mouse. There were like 13 mice throughout the castle. So the little stuffed mice and the kids had basically a guide with the pictures of the mice and their different outfits and they had to go around and find all 13 mice throughout the castle. There was no prize that I'm aware of, but it was something that made it interesting, interactive for the kids though. But it was really beautiful. And sailing, sailing during the day was also lovely. We actually got to sail several times on the ship during daylight hours because sunset was so late at night, literally like 10pm or later.
So there were several evenings where. Where we were a sail and we got to watch ourselves go through a lock or sailing down a river. And it was just really incredible. Okay, so the next day we were. We.
We set sail that evening to Rotterdam. The next morning we wake up, we're in Rotterdam. Rotterdam is the second biggest city in the Netherlands, second only to Amsterdam.
There were different options and we split up for this day. Funny enough, this was Brian and my anniversary, our 18th wedding annivers, and we spent it apart. Brian and Nathan went to the Delft factory and then did a city market food tour. And then myself and Michael, because Brian and Nathan went with Tracy.
Myself and Michael went to do the other tour, which you'll see on the next page. But I'll let Brian talk about this one because I wasn't there for any of this.
[00:53:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And so the reason I chose to go the Delft tour for full transparency is my mother collects or collected Delftware. So Delft is a. It's not china, it is earthenware.
And it's famous because they, they painted in these blue colors that you can kind of see. They also painted in other colors, but there's a sort of famous earthenware that then has blue designs on it. Some of it is hand painted at the factory.
Some of it is stenciled or, or they do a transfer of the design on and it's painted that way.
So it's a lovely tour. I thought it was.
They do a really nice job at Adventures by Disney by trying to make it just a little bit educational and a little bit interactive. Right. And so we got there in the morning. We had an opportunity to sort of the way the tour was set up because they couldn't have everybody go through the factory all at once. We split into groups. Our group got to hit the store first and then go through the factory.
And so we, we, we, we bought a small version of the figurine that you can see there. It's called Proud Mary. She's the, you can kind of tell from this, that's her dress. And then the upper portion of her dress. And then kind of like the white frilly, sort of frilly, sort of neck collar. Yeah. And then it's her head. Is the mirror there? You can kind of see a little bun sticking out. So she's kind of the mascot of the Delft factory there. So we walked, we did the store, then we walked through the factory itself. We got to see kind of some museum quality pieces and things that they have made, some historical pieces that they have made. And then we were taken into the factory. Factory to see how the, the Delft earthenware is made and hand painted.
I think they had an F1 trophy in there that they were making.
But we got to see the whole kind of process and how it was done. And at the end, you can see on the left here, there's a photo of us. We each got a tile and we could pick a tile that they had pre stenciled. And then we were sort of painting along the stenciling to try and make our own tile. And at the end they put it into a special package because it was still kind of drying. They put in a Special package, package to send home with us. So we have these Delft tiles that we all made together. And that was just a lot of fun. Nathan had a lot of fun painting his tile. I think we all had a good time that day. And it was a fairly short tour. It was only a couple hours and then we were, we were back on the ship. So.
So yeah, it was a fun day overall in the afternoon because Sam did a full day tour. In the afternoon.
I got back off with Nathan and some others and we did a food tour. I was will say this food tour not as good as the one we did in Amsterdam. The Amsterdam food tour is now my gold standard of food tours, to be perfectly honest.
But this one, we went to a food hall. I think part of the reason that it wasn't as great is that we were there on a weekday and the market only happens kind of over the weekends. And so we're kind of in a really, really, really, really nice food court with lots of, you know, different kinds of vendors and food to eat. So, you know, we tried some again. The Netherlands is a very international culture, so a lot of the food they're drawing on are from different areas.
I think our tour guide in Amsterdam is something like, Dutch food is not the world's greatest food, so be thankful, you know. But we did have a couple of Dutch delicacies in Amsterdam, but. But we tried a bunch of different. Such some stroopwafels, some pizzas from. Some Mediterranean style pizzas.
We had this like tapas plate of these toasts with different toppings that included things like, like pickled herring.
There was a crab salad with an anchovy on top of it. I tried like I was someone trying all the exotic foods. You can see me there eating a pepper that was on top of one of the sandwiches that somebody didn't want. And so I was like, oh, I love those peppers. And I was eating them. So I was very adventurous. I tried everything and it was all very, very good. It was just not quite to the level of the food tour we did in Amsterdam, but it was, it was a fun time.
After the food tour, we decided to stay off the ship and we kind of wandered around the city a little bit.
I really wanted to go back outside because apparently in the middle of Rotterdam there's a wave pool where people learn how to surf. And if you were at all listening to this show, when we did our Munich cruise two years ago, there was surfing in the middle of Munich in December. So I was like, this is becoming A theme. I need to go out and see this happen. So I set out there and took some videos. Spoiler alert. We're going to try to put out a kind of a YouTube recap of our, of our, of our time as well. So you get to see more visual of everything that was happening.
But I had a great day. I had a great time. Thanks, Tracy. If you're out there watching for spending some time with me on my anniversary, she's asleep.
[00:57:35] Speaker B: She's there for another couple days. She'll watch this on replay though. She'll love the shout out. Brian.
[00:57:42] Speaker A: Yep. All right. And then, Sam, you.
[00:57:44] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:57:45] Speaker A: Had a cheese filled day.
[00:57:47] Speaker B: I had a cheese filled day. Okay, so first, the first two pictures. So the left and the middle picture are from, from I'll call it a farm, factory, whatever you want to call it. It's really, it is a farm. But we didn't get to see any of the animals that were actually producing milk. This is one of the. I did get to, to meet a couple of cows, but not the ones that are actually producing milk. So we visited a farm and cheese production facility where they explained how they make Gouda, which is what we call in the United States Gouda. That's also the name of the town. Now the, this farm is just outside of the town of Gouda. But we did actually also go visit and I didn't post a picture because I wanted you to see these pictures.
So we basically this, it was a full day because we, we bust not super far. I want to say maybe 45 minutes to the farm, then maybe, you know, 20 minutes to God. And then from there another like 20 minutes to Udawatr, which is another town. But all of these towns are these adorable canal towns. Pounds. So we did walking tours.
[00:58:55] Speaker A: Oh, Brian, you've got, I don't know what's happening there.
[00:59:00] Speaker B: Yeah, so we, we did, we went to the farm, we tasted some cheese. Delicious, by the way. All of the cheese we tasted was phenomenal. We tasted some young Gouda, some aged Gouda and some mustard seed flavored young Gouda. I also was able to buy some goat's milk cheese. Now these are, this is non pasteurized cheese that they're making at the farms. So if you are looking for real Gouda or howa cheese you want to get farm cheese, that's what you want to ask for. Not factory cheese. That they're not the same.
And this is, you're going to be having unpasteurized cheese.
The reason they, they're only allowed if they're doing unpasteurized, they're only allowed to do one animal. So they can't. They can't make cow cheese and goat cheese or cow cheese and sheep cheese. They choose one or the other. But they're able to sell their neighboring farms cheese. So I was able to buy some goat milk cheese as well. And yes, I was able to bring them back into the States and you cannot ship them back home. So you can bring them back home in your luggage if they are factory sealed. So that means either they need to be completely sealed in vacuum sealed property plastic or it needs to be sealed in the casing. So if you bring back a wheel. So the, the young gouda that I brought back is a small wheel.
You can also buy a large wheel, but if you buy it in a hunk in a wedge, it needs to be sealed in, in vacuum sealed plastic. So if you buy it, you can't open it while you're on the trip and then bring the rest of it home. You've got to keep it sealed the whole trip and then bring it home. Which worked out fine because we were able to have gouda in several places along this trip.
Cheese was phenomenal. You cannot order it in the United States because it's not pasteurized. So you can't order it from the farm. They do ship to other places internationally, but not to the United States or Canada, I believe.
And I actually believe you can't carry it back into Canada. So if you're a Canadian who listens to our show or watches our show, I'm sorry, you can't take this cheese home. You can buy it there and eat it, but you can't bring it home.
[01:01:16] Speaker A: And it has to be for personal consumption.
[01:01:19] Speaker B: So. Yes. Yeah, so we're not talking, but you can bring a big wheel, apparently.
But it's. Yeah, it's for personal consumption. So you can bring it back to the States, but you cannot ship it back to the States. It needs to be. It can be in your carry on luggage or in your checked luggage. That doesn't matter. But you also have not have need to. Have not been to a farm. And we were told what we visited was not technically a farm under the rules.
[01:01:42] Speaker A: That that's the explanation. We're sticking with it. But Sam, you also need to tell them about being weighed to determine if you are a witch or not. Sorry.
[01:01:50] Speaker B: In. In Otawater, the Odawater is. Is famous because this is the place where basically Europe had their own version of the Salem witch trials. So women especially, but Even men were at times accused of being witches. And the way that you would tell if somebody was a witch was how heavy they were based on their size. And if you were too light, you were a witch and you're going to be burned at the stake. So they had this great.
[01:02:19] Speaker A: You didn't tell me that about the. This. Because the. Because that makes. It makes a ton of sense because they're eating all this cheese and stuff, so of course you should be heavier.
[01:02:29] Speaker B: Yeah. So we went and got weighed and it's actually like the other side has actual, like, weights and they do it in kilograms and they tell you, like. And I have. I literally have a certificate.
I'm going to show it here because this is verifiable proof that I am not a witch.
And this is. This is. The officials of Woodwater have had this honor of being able to certify whether or not somebody is a witch for years. But, yeah, this is from the Netherlands, so it's fabulous. Not a witch.
[01:03:05] Speaker A: We.
[01:03:05] Speaker B: We got. We did some great city tours there in both of these places, like walking tours that were incredible. There's just too much to cover on this show because I know we are, like, already over time and still going.
[01:03:17] Speaker A: So I want to head over to. So after we got back on board from Rotterdam, we sailed to Brug. Is. I want to comment one thing on the sailing. So on the Christmas markets cruise, we had like one afternoon of sailing and there was some other assorted sailing in the evening, but we couldn't see it because it was so dark outside already. Because it was in the middle of the winter this time. You know, the sun's not setting until 9:30 or 10:00 clock at night. And so a lot of times we were having dinner, we were able to watch the ship sail. We got to go through some locks. I mean, the ship went through a ton of different locks to the point. Point that our Bruges arrival, or, sorry, our Ghent arrival, was significantly delayed due to heavy river traffic which were tying up the locks, which means we got into Ghent about two hours later than we thought we were going to. Now, I was worried because our Bruges every. Let me start by saying everyone told us to go to Bruges. All of you, all of you who have done something like this, like, sorry, Bruges, I keep saying Bruges. All of you told us we need to go to Bruges. So we went to Barouche.
I was a little worried that it was going to get cut short or curtailed in some way. I think they did slightly modify things in order to account for the fact that we were like two hours delayed into getting, getting into Ghent.
I will also say this. Several people commented that they had a fabulous time in Ghent. And I think there was a tour guide on a later section of the cruise that commented to Michael or Craig or somebody who said something like, so you went to Ghent, did you go to Bruges? And he said, because the right answer is staying in Ghent. And so I would say the next time if we, if we did this again, I would stay to see what Ghent was like. But I had a wonderful time.
[01:04:57] Speaker B: We loved it. And our adventure guides and even our tour guide in Bruges said that the cities are very similar. Now, Bruges is slightly a bigger city than Ghent, but they're both again, canal cities. And spoiler, that picture on the left is us doing a canal cruise. That was the first thing we did after our tour guide kind of walked us through town and started giving us a walking tour as we're going in. But we got more of a walking tour later in the day.
But it was fabulous. I don't think you can go wrong in terms of picking saying in Ghent or going to Bruges. Now if you go to Bruges, it is a full day excursion versus if you go to Ghent, it is only a half day excursion. But most of this day was filled with walking tours. Canal cruise.
I think we went into a church at one one point. You can see in the middle there are some, some Belgian frites. So this is our first stop in Belgium.
I need to give an apology to the people of Belgium because for years and years I've been calling these tasty, delicious potato things French fries. And they are not French fries. They are Belgian fries or Belgian frites, as they call them. And the only reason we call them French fries here in the US and in other parts of the world are because the American soldiers who were over in Europe during World War I saw the Belgian people eating these tasty fries. And they were in places like Bruges where the majority of folks are French speaking. So in Belgium, they speak Dutch or French, depending upon where you are, but both are the two official languages.
Their Dutch is actually called Flemish because it's a different dialect of Dutch, but it's like English English and American English. They say they can understand each other, they just have a few words and different accents. But the American soldiers heard people speaking French, saw them eating fries and said, they're French fries because we're in France they didn't know where they were. That's how dumb us Americans are.
Anyway, Brian, I'm making a joke. But anyway, I have to apologize to the people of Belgium because Belgian frites are incredible. Incredible. They're twice fried.
I don't eat them with mayo, but I ate them with parmesan. I ate them with cheese sauce. I ate them with ketchup. It didn't really matter how I ate them.
[01:07:21] Speaker A: What she's not telling you is the story of the day that we got the fries because the restaurant owner loved me.
When he came by. I'll just quickly recap it. When he came by, we went to a. So let's actually talk about what we did here before. You've been doing a love affair of fries. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna walk. So we did a canal cruise in the morning, which was in a little bit of a walking tour. It was a little bit of a hike to get into the city from where the bus is parked.
And so we. We hiked into the city. We did a little bit of a walking tour, then we did a canal tour.
And when the canal tour finished, we did a little bit more of a walking tour to orient ourselves and see some of the sites that ended up in this square where you see the photo of Nathan before this sort of large central square, cloth clock tower. And we were basically told, okay, you have time for lunch on your own. They gave us, by the way, if you ever want Disney to give you some money, go on a river cruise. Because they gave us each €25, so €75 for our family to pay for lunch, because lunch was included in the tour. And so they gave us the money. They had a list of recommended places to go. We obviously picked a place that was like the Frite House or something.
[01:08:27] Speaker B: It's called Free Bar.
[01:08:29] Speaker A: And then they said, basically, be back here by. By this. By some time. I forget the time. 2:30, I think it was. Or 2:15, if you want to go on. If you want to go on the. If you want to go on the walking tour. Or you can skip the walking tour and continue to explore the city on your own. So we decided not to do the walking tour. We walked to get our fries at the Frite bar.
We sat down. Sam was like, can you do three checks? After we had waited, like, 15 minutes for a very small place that I could tell. Look on the guy's face. Face was one of really. And so I said, you know what? Just bring me the bill and I'll pay And he said, I like you better already. And so, so anyway, so we had our French fries, we went next door. Michael and I got a Belgian waffle, not to be confused with the stroopwafel from the Netherlands. We got a Belgian waffle that was fantastic.
[01:09:14] Speaker B: It was very oaty. It was from Otto's Waffles, by the way. Excellent. They're gluten free, just naturally based on what they use. But they were delicious.
[01:09:25] Speaker A: And we did not do we. So I. You do not need to do research on what to do during your. I mean, you can, but the adventure guides have sheets for any city where you're going to go that, that you have free time. They have sheets for shopping, food, site. They. They gave us sites that we might want to see. So, in fact, after we had our waffle, Sam and Nathan went and did a VR experience that they had talked to us about. We tried to climb this magnificent tower that was behind us, but found out that the tickets were sold out. And that turned out to be a blessing because it was actually a fairly warm day, hot. All would have died walking up that tower in the afternoon.
But Michael and I went to a shop down the street. Michael, Tracy and I went to a shop down the street because there was a place they called the Beer Wall that they had also told us about. Went down there, walked into what I can only describe as the world's greatest library of Belgian beer and bought some bottles of Belgian beer. Turns out one of them is the rarest beer in the world, which we were both pretty excited to try.
We were able to get a beer out of the cold case. It was legal to just have him open it. We could drink it as we were walking grounds. So we had a beer. We hit up several chocolate shops in town to buy some chocolate. And then we all met up to walk back to the bus and head back to the ship. So one of the great things about ABD is they've got all of these recommendations and they have local adventure guides and local guides who will tell you, hey, this is the place you should really go to if you're looking for chocolate. This is the place to go to to experience beer. Right. So, yeah.
[01:10:48] Speaker B: And the museum that Nathan and I went to to was called the Historium. And it was. Our admission was actually we were given a voucher mission for both the VR experience and the museum experience.
And so basically what it was is think of like a Disney walkthrough ride. But we started off, we did like a 10 minute VR experience learning about Medieval Bruges. And then we did this sort of walkthrough that had animatronics and screen that taught screens that talked to us and taught us about medieval Bruges. So it was a medieval museum, but it was like an interactive one that was good for kids that was a little bit long. I would have still done it and done the VR experience, but it didn't leave me extra time. I had wanted to do a little bit of shopping and I didn't really have that time.
[01:11:32] Speaker A: All right, so after Bruges, we got back to the ship, we did the whole dinner entertainment session on board. We sailed to Brussels in Belgium, and in the morning we all did a tour of a comic book museum in Brussels. Brussels is known for comic book artists. The Smurfs, Tintin are some good examples where they have a rich sort of history of comic book art.
[01:11:54] Speaker B: And in Brussels, the second most important country in terms of comic book art, the first being the United States.
Belgium is the second sort of place where comic book now, of course, Japan and manga and all of that is now in modern times. But they're like two original countries for comic book art were the United States and Belgium.
[01:12:15] Speaker A: So after the comic book museum, we did a walking tour of the city again. We decided after the walking tour, I believe we stayed. Did we stay? Yes, we stayed out, didn't we? For a bit. Bit, yes.
Stayed out for a bit to kind of explore the city. And then we. When you stay out, what you miss is the bus ride back. So you have to get yourself back. Now, the ship is for, in our experience, was mostly within walking distance. If you didn't mind a 20 or 25 minute walk to get back to the ship. So we walked back to the ship, we had lunch on board, and then we split up for the afternoon to do Sam and Nathan went and made chocolate, and Michael, Craig and I went. Went and drank beer.
[01:12:53] Speaker B: So, yes, the chocolate making was like learning about chocolate production, tasting a bunch of different chocolate. And then we made both a chocolate bar, a milk chocolate bar. And then we made dark chocolate shapes. I'll call it like I made little Mickey heads, Nathan made hearts. And we got to put whatever topping. So what you see in front of Nathan in this picture is the tray of the different toppings that you could add to the chocolate. And then right in front of Kelly is a tray that we did the milk chocolate chocolate bars that the chocolate went into. So we got to actually put the chocolate into the bar mold. And they were in. It's kind of like A think of like a piping frosting thing, but it was paper and so you kind of squeezed it like, like toothpaste. You squeezed it out and then added your toppings. This was a. I, I loved Brussels.
Had a great day. Between.
I feel like we got did a ton. I actually think we went back to the ship this day, Brian. I, I But we had. Yeah, yeah, but we had such a great day at the comic book museum. That great walking tour that in the middle, we're in front of the most famous fountain slash mascot of Brussels. Kid you not. It's called Mannequin Piss. It is a what looks like a small child peeing into a fountain, but that's what they're famous for.
[01:14:18] Speaker A: And with that, can I talk about my beer tour, please?
[01:14:20] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. Go ahead.
[01:14:22] Speaker A: So anyway, Michael, Craig and I went to a local brewery and basically we had a fantastic, fabulous guide.
We got to try beer just from this brewery. And I will just say that was a, it was a little bit of a letdown for me. I was hoping to taste kind of more of the different kinds of beer that that they make in Belgium. I will say the most interesting part was we started with beer as it would have been made way back before modern fermentation processes when they just figured out, well, if I put this stuff together in water and let it sit outside and it gets hot, it ferments in some fashion. And it was the yeast coming in the air into tank and fermenting it. So it was like 1% alcohol and it's what they drank instead of water because that was the only way they had to effectively purify the water was to ferment it.
So it was really interesting to taste. The beer was okay, but it, it, it just didn't feel like a good representation. When we get to Antwerpen or Antwerp later in the. I think it's the next stop, actually.
That was interesting.
That was an interesting tour, an interesting beer. So I would say the beer tour on this one, if I had to do it over again, I might have done the chocolate making. So.
[01:15:33] Speaker B: All right. The chocolate making was fabulous.
[01:15:36] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. So with that, we sailed over to Antwerp the next day in the morning, this was a city where I think everyone had to do one of two things. I don't think there were many options on this day. So we did in the the morning this cathedral tour. You'll see this cathedral behind Tracy and Nathan there are standing in front of. So we walked the city a bit and then we did this cathedral tour. I will Say we.
[01:16:02] Speaker B: The.
[01:16:02] Speaker C: The.
[01:16:02] Speaker A: The guide was okay. We spent way too much into the time in the cathedral in my opinion. I mean like we're getting into the minute detail of every painting in the cathedral when all we really wanted to do was climb the tower that's. That's pictured here, not the one on the left. That tower is owned by, by the city. The one on the right that's shorter is a tower they never really finished. They had grand plans to extend the cathedral. They didn't fully finish it and it's owned by the church there. And so we did all hike up this excessively spiral staircase up 265, 256
[01:16:36] Speaker B: steps and it was, what was it, 63 meters, something like that? I think it was 63 meters tall.
[01:16:45] Speaker A: So we walked up, we got to stop along the way, which was nice. There are different floors and also because it's only one staircase, they have to pull you off so that other people can walk down. And so you move up floor by floor until you get to the top.
And so that was really interesting.
The church was gorgeous as well. Like it is, it is an amazing looking church on the inside. I think we just spent a little too much time on that tour.
There was also some confusion between the local guides and the ABD guides over like, oh, I thought you'd space them, right. Or there were three groups going. I thought this group was the group that didn't want to go up the tower. And we're like, no, we never said we didn't want to go up the tower. So we did that tour in the morning and then we did elect to stay in Antwerp between tours. So basically when you do that, they basically say, here's the meeting point for the next tour. It was a central square in town and it was like, I don't know, two minute walk from where we were.
[01:17:33] Speaker B: Yeah, it was basically where we had started our walking tour for that morning walking tour.
[01:17:39] Speaker A: And so we split up and Michael and Nathan and I went and found a cafe and had some coffee and shared a sandwich basically. And Sam and Kelly and Tracy went off to have pizza because they really wanted to have pizza.
So we did that. We met back up, we did a little shopping through the tourist area and then we had what was one of the better tours I've been on on ABD is not quite the top. That's going to remain the salt mines and the Christmas markets and some other things. But it's a really great tour. So we picked up a tour guide and we went on a food tour. Of Antwerp.
[01:18:11] Speaker B: She was fabulous. She. She didn't just do the food tour stuff. She also gave us more of the historic tour of like some of the stories. She was one a 100% fantastic storyteller. And so in addition to the food tour, I felt like we got a great city tour out of her. We were also really lucky because we had the best order of food, which was of course frites beer and then waffles. So we started with the same savory, then we had the beer just be soaked up with the fries and then we had the waffles. We also stopped at a believe a chocolate shop and also got some cookies, these hand cookies that are kind of the symbol of Antwerp. And that has to do with this story about this giant that was protecting or forcing people to pay him a toll before they could cross into the city. And then somebody stood up against him and ended up chopping off his hand. So the Steve Antwerp, literally the translation is thrown hand or something like that. And they have these hand cookies that are like shortbread cookies that are delicious.
[01:19:22] Speaker A: But. But the star of the show here is Sam. Found a beer she'll drink and I bought two bottles of it to bring home. So like that is a huge achievement. She is. She's never liked beer.
[01:19:32] Speaker B: I've never liked beer. We tried three different beers.
Sorry, go ahead, Brian.
[01:19:38] Speaker A: The beer, the beer tasting here was what I was hoping we would have gotten the day before on the beer tour that we did. But yeah, we tried three different kinds of beers.
They got excessive. One of them was 8%. One of them was 8 and a half percent by volume.
We had sort of one to start that was kind of a traditional sort of lager style Belgian ale. That was okay.
I mean I liked it, but not everyone did. The beer you see Sam drinking here, I believe is the.
[01:20:07] Speaker B: The cherry.
[01:20:07] Speaker A: The cherry flavored beer, which was divisive on tour. A lot of people said they felt like it tastes like cough syrup. I didn't, I didn't get any of that medicinal flavor. And I'm usually pretty sensitive to that myself. But Sam enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. We loved it. Unbeknownst to me, Tracy was pouring portions of her beer between my and Michael's glasses as we go. So I had a little bit more than three full glasses of beer. The last one was kind of a more traditional, lighter Belgian ale that I enjoyed. I think a lot of people did on the tour. Not Sam's favorite by any means, but it was just. I mean these were not full glasses of Beer, but pretty heavy pours of beer.
[01:20:46] Speaker B: And I couldn't finish any of them. But they were. Yeah, it was not. They were not a full. Like we. We saw the full glass. The full glass was probably like two to three times the size of the glasses. But the glasses we had were a decent size pour.
But that Belgian waffle, oh my God. Was so. I mean, both were all. Everything was good on this tour other than I' I don't eat mayonnaise.
Not especially not on top of fries like that. But really just fabulous.
All right. The last full day was another fabulous one. We went to. We. We were docked in the city of Dordrecht. We got off the ship and we were literally parked next to a windmill. Not this windmill here on the right. This windmill here on the right is in Kinderdijk, but we were parked next to a windmill, essentially. We did a walking tour of Dordrecht. They took us to a Poffridge's place, which is these little, little tiny pancakes that are covered in powdered sugar and given a pat of butter. And they are just delightful. I could eat. I ate my whole plate of them and then half of Nathan's because he wasn't into them. But they were just fabulous. The city of Dordrecht was having a music festival.
And so lots of things like the statue behind Nathan in the picture on the left were decorated for the festival. The colors for the festival were like Mardi Gras colors. So there were basically Mardi Gras decorations all over this city.
And then we stay. We chose to stay in the city to walk around and do a little bit of shopping rather than take the bus back to the boat. Because the bus or the boat was only maybe a 25 minute walk from sort of the center of Dordrecht. And so we chose to do a leisurely walk back to do some shopping.
We had lunch on the ship and then we took a bus to Kinderdijk, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site, where there are 19 different windmills, all of which have like, historical significance. And it was incredible.
[01:22:44] Speaker A: Can I say I want to go back? Because we short sold the morning that there was a full walking tour of the city of Dordrecht. So, like, we saw lots of sites. We saw another church in the interior of it.
We saw, walked over most of the city again, another city of some canals and harbors and things like that. And so got to see all that. So it was a full morning of walking.
And then there was one long street that we went shopping down. I thought it was Actually some of the better souvenir shopping that we, we had on the trip. So it was a lovely, lovely city to visit.
But the windmill tour, I was looking forward to this the entire trip, and it did not disappoint. So Kinderdijk has 19 windmills. As Sam indicated, they are a UNESCO World Heritage site.
We did a cruise through the canals of the windmills to see some of them, but the real intent was to take the boat down. We turned around and docked and got to go up to this windmill you're seeing in the photo.
And the miller was there and she showed us how to operate, how she operates the mill, how she breaks it, how she furls and unfurls the sails, how she gets the windmill spinning. We got to go inside to see the windmill works, you know, all the wooden cogs and wheels turning and, and pushing water out of the dyke. The windmills existed primarily to control the water, water levels in, in the Netherlands, because without these windmills, the whole. Now it's all done by electric pumps. But without these windmills, the whole country would just be under water by that point.
[01:24:11] Speaker B: So it was really interesting this, these, this port Dor Direct and Kinderdijk were back into the Netherlands. So we were in. We started in the Netherlands. The first few days in the Netherlands, we went into Belgium, several days in Belgium, and then we're back in the Netherlands. And then of course, we went back to Amsterdam the next day. I had to include this slide because this. These are the stars of the DCL Duo podcast Cruise version 2.0. These are the folks who, who chose to come with us on this journey. We had such a fabulous time, like hanging out with them. Now. One of the great things about river cruising is there's no assigned seating in the dining room. So you can sit with whomever you want. You can sit with different people every day. You can sit with the same people every day. They even had have a couple of small areas that are like, with the larger table that have like. One of them was always reserved for the teens, but that never got used because the teens didn't really socialize with each other. On this cruise, which was a little bit different than our last cruise. The younger kids definitely socialized with each other. I think it's just a matter of the mix of people. But we ended up taking over one of those tables a couple of nights so that we could sit with different people from the group and kind of bring larger groups together because that table would seat 10 people, whereas most of the tables in the Dining room. Room only sat four, five or six.
But it was really wonderful getting to know some of these people that we hadn't spent as much time with and also getting to spend time with folks that we had previously cruised with.
[01:25:41] Speaker A: I I also wanted to say this.
We will have another Sam mentioned the adventure guide. We're hoping to have that interview in an episode toward the middle end of August.
But we're also going to bring you some of the stories from these fabulous people who sailed with us so you can kind of of experience the cruise and what they took out of it in their own eyes in their own words as well.
Sam, we promised people a verdict. I think on this ABD river cruise is our second ABD river cruise.
What's your verdict? Is, is it worth the expense and the cost of an ABD to do this kind of thing?
[01:26:17] Speaker B: Like yeah, 100% this. We had a. I had a fabulous time. I think I liked this one even more than our Danube cruise.
I think you probably would vote for the Danube. I think I vote for this one.
With one exception. The Salt Mines is still number one excursion ever. None of these excursions beat the salt mine excursion. But this was so wonderful. Sailing in the light.
The weather was beautiful, even if at times a little bit hot. We had amazing, amazing service from all of the folks on ama. I have to give a huge shout out to the service servers.
The Matrix D. Sarah is like my favorite person ever.
We just had such a fabulous time on AMA and additionally in these towns and cities.
It was just phenomenal. I think Nathan is the perfect age for this. I will say I've got a question on social media.
What are the right ages for this cruise or for an ABD in general or ABD river cruise? I'm going to say very strongly follow Disney's recommendation. I'd say age 8 and up is like perfect. I think you could do fine with like a 7 year old if they're a good traveler, an 8 year old if they're a good traveler.
I don't think you should wait until your kids are 12 or 13. Don't wait till they're teenagers who don't want to spend time with you.
You know I think starting them earlier but not at age like 4 or 5. I think the minimum age for a lot of these ABDs is five or six. I think some of them it might even before.
But you have to know your kid with Nathan was able to do this. But there were days where he when we came back to the ship, whether that was at lunch or in the Evening. He really needed to decompress because it had been a long day. And so for him that meant getting on his device, putting on his headphones and not talking to anyone. And that was fine for us. But I do think you just have to know your kid and what they can tolerate in terms of can they tolerate full day tours or only half day tours. And so I do think this is a little bit easier than land based because we don't move from hotel to hotel.
We got to stay on the same ship. So that was easier. And most of our bus rides were relatively short. So that's my verdict. I loved it. I would do it again. We're already thinking we haven't booked anything
[01:28:44] Speaker A: but we're already taking all my thunder. I didn't get my verdict yet.
[01:28:49] Speaker B: We're already thinking about the next one.
[01:28:51] Speaker A: You just took my thunder.
So I was going to end it. I think that ABD is.
I think ABD is a fabulous product. I love the river cruising for all the reasons that Sam said. And I have no better verdict to offer than today.
We booked another Adventures by Disney, so I'm not going to get into the details of it, but we have another one booked and so we will say more about that later. But we are super excited for it and can't wait for the next one.
With that, I will wrap up there and I will say that we have.
We are not going to be back. Well, I don't know that we're going to be back live on Monday next week.
[01:29:33] Speaker B: We're not going to be back live on Monday. Yeah, yeah.
[01:29:36] Speaker A: And so we are not going to be live back on Monday. I have a work conference next week, unfortunately, and it's going to preclude us from going live. And so we're working with the guests to figure out how to bring their fun story to you. And we will have have that soon.
But we are super excited for that.
So. No, we won't be here next week, Sam. We will be back in two weeks on our regular slot, I think. No.
[01:29:58] Speaker B: Yes, we. But I have no idea. I don't remember who because you didn't give me time to look at that.
[01:30:03] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:30:03] Speaker B: We definitely have a show planned in two weeks. I just couldn't. I can't tell you off the top of my head who it is, Brian.
[01:30:09] Speaker A: Well, I can look really fast here, so just give me a second. I'm firing it up.
So we will be back on Monday, July 27th. How could you forget this? Sam's with Ashley.
[01:30:21] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. So our friend Ashley is right now actually still, she's not watching just like Tracy, she's in London. But Ashley is actually on a game drive right now in South Africa trying to see the big five. So we will be talking about her adventures by Disney South Africa Africa trip. We had June on earlier in June to talk about the same trip, but that was a an adult only version. This is the version that allows kids on and her daughter Catherine and her husband Daniel were with them. And so we're going to hear all about it from the kid and adult perspective.
[01:31:01] Speaker A: And I should say one last thing. Mark your calendars now because we first firmly believe 2028 will be or if you saw that fun photo of all those people having such a great time, 2028 will be our next official podcast cruise and we are looking at Alaska to go back to Alaska. So no, no firm announcement of a date or anything yet. We're going to be working through the other big announcement we have coming up in August and then we'll start to plan for that.
But mark your calendars now for summer of 2028. If you're interested in joining us, you could join Podcast cast cruise version 3.0. So there you go.
All right. With that, our food is growing cold on the porch as it's dinner time here.
So we're going to say good night and thank you for hanging in with us on this extended edition of the show. Watch your feed in the coming weeks for some more coverage of our fabulous adventures by Disney Trip. And with that, we'll just say see you real soon and good night.
[01:31:57] Speaker B: Good night.
[01:32:05] Speaker A: Well, thanks 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 to help support 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. 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 We sell some fun fan Inspired Magnets minutes 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
[email protected] or reach out to us on our voicemail line at 402-41-355.
That's 402-413-5590. 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. Use the Disney Company or Disney Cruise Line. If you have questions about a Disney Cruise or a 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 listening and we'll see you next time for another fabulous adventure with the DCL Duo. Good night.
