[00:00:00] Speaker A: My nephew, he, he's a speedy one and he's very food motivated.
So at the end, like, he, so he won. He ended up winning everything and he became like cruise famous. All the, like, little kids would be like, oh, congratulations.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Like,
[00:00:25] Speaker C: Welcome back, everybody, to this week's episode of the DCL Duo podcast brought to you by. We do travel, right? And S.A. do your jingle.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Simply the best.
Better than all the rest. I kind of want to redo that, that one. Can we do take two? No, I'm just kidding.
[00:00:40] Speaker C: But it's more than adequate for, for our purposes.
This week's listener review comes from hdjb. It's maybe high def jb.
[00:00:51] Speaker D: I don't know.
[00:00:52] Speaker C: Anyway, hgj, HDJB writes great DCL Duo podcast.
Look forward to all the great shows each week. Love all the great guests and Brian, Sam and Nathan all rock. Keep up the great work and keeping it real. So there you go.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Say we're keeping it real.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: We're keeping it real. I love that. I love the shout out to Nathan most especially, even though he hasn't been on the show in forever, because we. I'll, I'll tell people this. I've told. I've said this on the live show a couple of times.
We. Every time we go on a sailing, we kind of say, hey, Nathan, do you think you want to come on the show? And he's like, maybe. And then we check in with him the day we're recording. Recording. And he's like, nah, I'm playing with my friends.
[00:01:34] Speaker C: Can't talk. Robloxing.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now it's Kerbal Space.
[00:01:41] Speaker C: I. I plan to interview him when we're on the River Cruise. The podcast River Cruise. I plan to get him back on a mic because when he's out and about, he's like a little bit more cool with it than when he's at home. So hopefully.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it's funny because this episode is going to come out after that River Cruise episode because we'll do probably right.
[00:02:01] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't know.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: I can't keep all three of my head.
[00:02:03] Speaker C: That's why I have databases.
But anyway, let's. Let's get on to our guests and our topic. Sam, actually, before, actually, I forgot my psa. Please remember, if you're out there listening, one of the easiest ways to help support the show, head over to Apple Podcast, hit those five stars. If you leave us a written review with your 5 star rating, we will read it on the air at the top of one of our Main episodes.
And if you happen to be listening to us on YouTube, Spotify, any of the other great platforms in which you can listen to and consume podcasts, whatever rating system they have, whatever recommendations they have, please, please, please, like, give it all to us. All the hearts, the popcorn boxes, the confetti containers, whatever it is, like, give it to us. It helps us reach new people who are interested in Disney Cruise Line but have maybe not yet sailed. So with that, Sam, now over to you to introduce our guest and our topic for.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I love First Timer episodes. It's been, I feel like too long since we've actually done a First Timer episode. It's definitely been a couple of months since we've interviewed a first timer. And so I'm super excited to have a First Timer episode for our audience today.
Welcome to the show. Longtime listener, first time caller, Soshin. Welcome, Soshin.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Thank you very much, both of you for having me. Possibly the only person more excited to be here than you is me. So thank you again for having me.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: I love it. I love pre show. You were like, I'm so excited to be here because nobody else wants to listen to me talk about this.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Like my wife has heard that was there.
Everybody else that kind of hears like two words about it. And now finally somebody that's here to listen to me talk about my cruise. No better gift.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I want to hear all about it. But before we talk about your first cruise on Disney Cruise Line, we've got a dive back into your Disney history.
This is your first cruise ever, right?
[00:03:53] Speaker A: Correct. Yeah. I'd never cruised before. Never really had any thought or idea of cruising before until basically probably a year and a half ago when we started planning this trip. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: Well, what got you even thinking about, you know, Disney Cruise Line? Are you like a longtime Disney fan? Has Disney been a part of your life for more than just the past year and a half?
[00:04:16] Speaker A: So I grew up in California and we lived close to Disneyland. We lived in la, so we would go there not infrequently, and that was a large part of childhood and such. And then eventually I left California, moved over to Boston. Now was in New York for a while. Now I'm settled in Connecticut. And it was really kind of in 2020, around Covid times, where the passion for Disney kind of came back a little bit. I met my wife and then Covid hit, so. So we had a lot of quarantine time. It clearly went well.
But as the time was getting closer and things were kind of opening up a little bit more. We were looking forward to doing a vacation. She had gone to Disney World a bunch as a kid growing up, but I had never gone. And that was something that was fairly open. So we kind of started planning for a trip there. And with that, we effectively just got immersed into the world a lot more. We watched a lot of like. We got into, like, vloggers. We read a lot of content, started listening to more stuff just to get excited about the trip. We ran into my sister who was getting married just shortly after we would get back from our trip. And for their honeymoon, they were actually planning a trip to Disney World as well. That kind of blossomed the whole, like, oh, family kind of reuniting aspect of it. We did our trip, had a ton of fun, and then effectively started going back probably annually, roughly.
We usually do it as a family trip with my sister and her family that's kind of been growing our family that's been going.
The few times we didn't go with them were times when we would travel to other places. Like, we went to Japan and of course we still. We went to Japan for our honeymoon. And of course we still did some time at Tokyo Disney and Disneysea and so forth and so forth.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, once you're already there, you have to go, right? It's supposed to be the best of all the Disney parks. So if you're traveling to. If you're traveling to Japan and you're gonna be anywhere near Tokyo, I feel like it's like a must do if you're a Disney fan.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: Oh, by far. Yeah. Disney sees was a phenomenal park is what I'll say. It's the amount of money that was poured into it and the amount of imagineering and attention to detail and stuff.
It blew my mind. Love Disney World. DisneySeas. A single park is probably better than anything else that I'd see.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: We are dying to get there. Soshin. It's not. It's not planned yet. It's going to be planned once we know when the OLC ship is coming out. And then we will start planning that Japan trip. Because we want to do a whole bunch of stuff in Japan, so we may have to take a couple of weeks to go do that.
Well, so tell me, how did, like, what did the. Where did the cruise come from? Like, you. You started going to Disney every year, but you had never sailed on a cruise.
Like, what was the. Where did the interest of, oh, I might want to do a cruise? Like, where did that come from?
[00:07:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it's kind of funny. So my wife had cruised a little bit as a teenager, I think on Norwegian and stuff. And she didn't like it as a teenager. She kind of like hated it effectively because as a teenager it's kind of boring, there's not much to do and so forth. It wasn't until. So my sister ended up booking a cruise with her, her husband and their little one who was just about eight or nine months at that time. And they went on the fantasy on a Western Caribbean and they really, really enjoyed it. I think honestly he enjoyed it more than visiting the parks and so forth. She was kind of 50, 50, but they effectively suggested it to us. And at first I was like, well, I don't know, I'm a little prone to car and such. I like the parks and stuff. But I was a little worried about getting kind of bored on the ship and so forth. But they were really excited about it and I'm kind of okay doing new things. So I was like, okay. We planned for a trip. We planned for that trip initially to happen. Oh like some like two years ago, a year and a half, probably about a year ago or a year and a half ago. And then my wife, we, we got pregnant. She got pregnant. So we had to delay the cruise because of the 20 week and 6 month type of thing.
So then we ended up replanning it at that time.
So like about a year and a half ago for this past June because of the way scheduling worked out and so forth.
And then we ended up going on it without any issues or anything of that nature.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: I love that. Now for those who are listening and don't know what social is talking about as far as the timing goes, if you are more than, I believe it's 24 weeks pregnant. You cannot get on a really any cruise. It's not just Disney Cruise Line. And that's because they're worried about you giving birth on the cruise. And they don't have the proper equipment for an infant or a brand new infant, especially a preemie. They don't have the proper equipment in the medical center on board.
And then the other issue is your child can't be under 6 months of age for most cruises. So even if you've had the baby, the baby needs to be over six months. Now I say for most cruises because there are some cruises that are like transatlantic Panama Canal where you're sort of at sea and away from land for longer and those the minimum age is a year old for babies. And so yeah, so the minimum age for any cruise, at least on Disney Cruise Line, I'm not sure if that's across the industry is, is six months and so. So you and your wife then had to wait for your, your baby. Your, your baby was like seven months on this cruise that we're going to talk about. So just past that barrier.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Effectively we were looking at different times. My wife's a teacher, so like vacation Tim, bit tricky. So we were like playing around with the times. April was, break was a little too early. It was like five months or something. So summer break was when it worked out.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: Nice, nice. Now which itinerary did you choose? And you sailed with your sister and her family as well. Right. So tell us like who, who's a part of that family?
[00:09:58] Speaker A: So we sailed. It was me, my wife and our little one and then my sister who has two little ones and her husband, a three year old and a one year old. We ended up doing. So they had done the Western Caribbean on the Fantasy and we ended up doing the Eastern Caribbean on the Treasure because we're big parks people and it was a bigger ship and they kind of wanted to try that experience, which was fun.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Any hesitation about doing a seven night cruise as your first cruise in particular as someone who has, you know, some car sickness, some motion sickness that you've
[00:10:28] Speaker A: dealt with in the past, in hindsight, probably. But at the time of booking, like we do all our trips, we take off a week. It doesn't feel like a vacation if it's like too short because then you're working, worried, you're just getting used to it and then it's almost time to leave vacation. So I planned for a full like 7 week type of vacation and my sister actually brought a ton of medicines because she wanted me to have a really good experience.
So we had available like every form of patch, every form of like pill, every form. I had like ginger tablets, every band of it and so forth to make sure that I wouldn't get sick. I was actually eventually getting more nervous that I would get sick from like medicine rather than the actual species.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: But yeah, you might like take too many different medications, like mix too many medications. Check all the labels before mixing medications, people.
Not all.
[00:11:17] Speaker C: And sometimes or before taking a bunch of Dramamine and having like too many drinks.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: Cocktails. Exactly. Absolutely. Yeah.
Don't mix Dramamine in cocktails for sure. Especially not the regular version of Dramamine. But so tell us like what kind of planning went in in advance of this cruise. Now your sister was the expert having Been on one cruise. You're the newbie.
Did you start listening to our show before your cruise? Like, what kind of things did you do to kind of familiarize yourself? I mean, some people don't. Some people like to go in blind and just kind of go with the flow. And other people are type A planners. Which one are you? So shin.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: I like to get an idea of what's going on. Yeah.
So my sister and wife are a little bit more like, very like, like having a structure and more of the planning type. But I definitely like to go in with a lot of knowledge base. So I started listening actually in anticipation of the first cruise we, we booked, I started listening to you guys as pretty much the, the biggest content that I kind of consumed. We watch like videos and stuff like that.
And that got me more and more excited and more and more hooked on something that I hadn't done yet, which was good. I guess so. And that actually reassured me a lot as well because again, the other thing I was a little nervous was about it was just getting bored on the cruise and it sounded like there was a lot of things to do.
So I did a lot of that. After a bit of time, I probably consumed more content than the rest of the families combined in terms of listening to you guys and just watching stuff in just terms of excitement.
So it went from them being the expert to me being the non cruiser who probably knew more random facts and things like that than anybody else.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: I love that, by the way.
That's awesome.
[00:13:00] Speaker C: I'm a repository for random Disney Cruise Line facts. Sam. Much more. More. So I tend to. I don't tend to focus on the details as much as Sam does. She knows all the restaurant names, everything. And I'm constantly like, what was the name of that restaurant on which ship?
[00:13:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Or he'll ask me which show is on which ship. And it might take me a second because I have to think about it so I don't confuse them.
[00:13:20] Speaker C: But like, but I talk people's ears off about Monica Blue all the time.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: So yes, but I will say, like when people ask me like, what's the stern character on the ship? That's the one thing I can, I can't keep straight for all of. I know most of them, but I can't keep them all straight. But yes, I am a repository for probably useless Disney Cruise Line facts, but not useless because we have this podcast. Right.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: And I was going to say useful in many other ways. Like on the cruise there's like the trivias and things like that?
[00:13:47] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, what kind of stuff did you plan in advance? Like, you were going on Eastern Caribbean, so we're talking Tortola, St. Thomas and Castaway, assuming you were on the regular sort of Eastern itinerary, not one of the other Eastern itineraries. But did you plan, you know, excursions? Were you trying for, like, Apollo brunch or Apollo dinner or Enchante, perhaps on the Disney Treasure?
[00:14:12] Speaker A: So we played around a lot with some different things. I think what we really wanted to do was try to do Apollo brunch. And then my wife and I kind of enjoyed the tasting menus and fine dining and so forth. So we were kind of excited to try Ashante if it worked out on a day where we weren't missing a fun main dining or something of that nature.
My sister had done, I think, a mojito tasting on the Fantasy, and they had a ton of fun with that. So we wanted to try to book maybe one tasting as a group or something of that nature.
And we did. We used the travel agent that kind of helped with the booking. But in terms of booking individual things, we kind of just woke up at midnight and kind of did all that, which was a lot of fun. We ended up booking before the cruise. My sister was silver, so she got Apollo brunch, I think, on day two, and they got, I think, like a chocolate and liqueur tasting.
And then we. By the time we got there, we were able to book the Ashanti dinners. All the dinners were available, but all the brunches were gone, and pretty much all the tastings were booked out at that time.
In terms of excursions, my sister was contemplating doing an excursion to, like, a beach, I think, on St. Thomas or Tortola.
I think they ended up just getting a cab and going to a beach on Tortola, kind of hoping for the best and making it back safely. So we ended up not planning any excursions, mostly because we weren't sure, like, the options with the seventh month old and just kind of easier being close by in case, you know, she started crying or got fussy or something of that nature.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Now, did you book time in the nursery in advance or did you wait to do that on the ship? I know you can book some hours. I don't remember the exact number, but they. I do know they let you book some hours. And for those who are. Who are. Who don't know anything about the nursery, nursery is for ages 0 or really 6 months to 3 years old. And that is really anyone who's in Diapers, typically if you, if Your child is 3 and is out of diapers, they can go into the regular kids club. But you do, you do pay a fee, but it's cheaper than any babysitter I've ever heard of in the world. So it's totally well worth it. But. And you can book some hours ahead of time. Were you able to book some?
[00:16:21] Speaker A: Yeah, so we ended up, we booked some hours ahead of time. We booked, we like, we were fairly confident about the Ashante, so we booked that we were going to try to get ourselves added on to the Paula Blanche. We booked that just in case and then we booked. I think those were the main times we initially booked and it was like dirt cheap, relatively speaking, for like daycare prices. As you were saying. I think it was like 10 bucks an hour or something of that nature. And I think we could book like something like 10 or so hours or before.
Once we were on the cruise we did get, get some other stuff and we added on a ton more time with the nursery. The nursery people were just, just phenomenal people. Very nice, very caring, very like detail oriented.
Just a wonderful crowd to work with. So we ended up adding on a good, some of the evening times that overlapped with some of the bigger shows and some of the other times that overlapped with like any tastings and stuff that we ended up getting.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: That's a great planning on your part, especially on the Apollo brunch. So this is like a, this is a really good first timer tip. If you're sailing with friends who are able to get Apollo brunch and you're not able to get Apollo brunch brunch, you have a decent chance of being added onto their Palo brunch once you get on the ship. Because most of the tables, especially on the newer ships, are four tops. Most of them are not two tops. And so you are likely to be able to get, you know, get added on to their brunch reservation. And so if you plan as if you're going to do that, I mean, worst case scenario, you can cancel the hours at the nursery later. Right. If you aren't able to get added. But better to have them and then cancel them than to not have them at all. So excellent, excellent planning. Soshin, I have to give you like a round of applause for that.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: And I'll give you the round of applause because I picked that up from. I'm pretty sure you guys hearing it on some of your podcasts, hearing some of the people going like, yeah, we tried and hearing probably those exact same words before.
So I'll say excellent tips.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: Well, thank you. I'll give myself a little pat on the back there. I'll give Brian a virtual pat on the back since we record in separate rooms.
No, love that. I, I think it's really smart planning and I love that. You know, of course across a seven night cruise, the 10 hours or whatever you can book at the beginning is not a whole lot. And so it does make sense like once you're on board that you'll be able to and want to probably book more time. I think it's smart also to book, you know, those show times as well because, you know, a seven month old probably not going to be the best experience to be holding them in the middle of an hour long show.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: Yeah, and we were, we were so we were early dinner and late show and it was way past like, you know, it'd be her bedtime effectively.
So it kind of worked out in that respect. I guess I can go into it later too. But we did take her to some of the afternoon shows and she tolerated one. She tolerated one far better than the other. She tolerate. She really liked Beauty and the Beast is what I'll say. She was not as big into Moana.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: She.
That's hilarious. She didn't like warrior face in Moana. That was the issue. But she, you know, she loved all of the set changes and all of the, everything that was happening in Beauty and the Beast. She just, she has excellent, excellent taste. I love that. Well, let's talk about, you know, embarkation or traveling down to Port Canaveral and then embarkation day. You're coming from Connecticut, so I'm imagining you're traveling down at least the day before. Because friends don't let friends fly in on embarkation day, right?
[00:19:53] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. So we flew down. So there's like a small, like little airport in New Haven that we're close to that basically flies one airline to like. And 90% of their flights are basically Florida. So we booked with them and they're kind of, it's kind of like a budgety kind of, you know, 50, 50, you'll arrive on time type of plane flight. So we booked it early the day before and we made it safely. It was not a problem.
We stayed similar to my sister. They booked in, flew in from, they're from Rhode island, so they flew in with that issue too.
To make it simple, we actually stayed on Disney property and took a bus, the Disney Cruise Line bus in, which was kind of fun. They Gave us a fun little magnet. And the day before we stayed, I think it was Port Orleans, French quarters, which was a lot of fun. And got to see I think that evening. Yeehaw Bob. Which was quite a spectacle.
It was probably the greatest thing I had seen in Disney from that perspective.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Oh, I love that.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: I don't want to.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: I've heard of him, but I have not seen him.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: And I won't go on the tangent of him, but I'd say I had heard of him. I went in just by myself and he was quite the entertainer.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: I love it. Now, did you bring a car seat with you in case you were going to do taxis? I mean you have an infant that you're traveling with so it's a little bit different than like traveling with a toddler. I know a lot of people book Disney transportation so they don't have to worry about bringing a car seat. But when you've got an infant they're in that bucket thing.
You know the bucket car seat that you use as a carrier. It also might click into a stroller. Right. Like it's kind of a multi use device that you just. I remember when Nathan was little we brought that thing with us everywhere. Did you guys bring that with you?
[00:21:33] Speaker A: We contemplated it. We contemplated it but we ended up in the past. We had in for this trip, we decided to leave that behind and we went without a stroller because she mostly likes being held. So we have like this little strap thingy that we used a lot and we held her on the airplane with the Disney Cruise, Line bus and so forth. You didn't need it. So we figured it would probably just be a lot easier not having to lug that along with like the two massive luggages, diapers and stuff like that that she had. My sister also didn't bring any car seats, but they did bring a stroller.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: Yeah, well. And they've got two and ages three and one a little bit different because the one year old you can carry but three year olds are real heavy. They it's carrying them is not the same. But those like ergo carriers we. I remember I used to have one of those and I thought that was excellent. That was really great for just walking around. It was much easier than a stroller was in sort of navigating spaces.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And I kind of enjoyed the aspect of holding her and walking around. I'm a big walker and so forth. So I enjoyed the aspect of holding her. And we used it throughout the cruise walking around in circles. It would help her Fall asleep.
And it was a ton of fun. The crew members start to kind of recognize you as like the one with a little, little kid who's always walking around in circles. So they come by and have fun. But it worked out really well not having a car seat in stroller.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: Awesome. Now you have to bring a lot of stuff when you are traveling with an infant. Like what were like the, what are like the main things that you're like, okay, we have to bring this with us, obviously, diapers. But what are the sort of the other things that you're like, I've got to bring all this stuff especially for a seven night cruise. That's a lot of stuff I'm imagining.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: So we, we, we brought a ton of diapers. We brought. She's mostly formula. So we brought a bunch of formula. We brought a set of. We have like a locked and loaded diaper bag type of or like all utility bag that has. So we brought three or four bottles because we'd have them with us and when we were out, you know, she'd eat every couple hours. We brought a. I'm blanking on the name of it, but it's like a type of device, a noise making equivalent to help her in terms of sleeping.
[00:23:37] Speaker B: Yeah, Asleep. Like noise machine. Yeah. I will tell you, we sleep with like white noise machine, basically.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: Oh man. Yeah, it was great. So she was. We were all in one cabin room and it helped us fall asleep too. It worked out really nicely.
We brought some toys.
A couple of different things in that respect. We brought her spoon because she's just entering eating age. So she has like a little spoon and bib and stuff like that to kind of help out.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: What about clothes? Did you like, babies that age go through way more clothes than like toddlers do. Right. Because they might have a blowout they may spit up. Right. Like, especially when you're first introducing food, it's totally a mess. Like, did you bring a lot of extra clothes? Did you plan on doing laundry on board?
[00:24:25] Speaker A: Oh, we brought laundry. We planned on doing laundry and we ended up doing laundry like three times or something between all of us. So. And given that we pack like my wife and I pack less clothes effectively to make more room for her clothes. We packed her like two or three sets of different outfits. Not just because she needed it, but because, you know, there's like the mini outfit and then there's like the Pluto outfit and there's like the princess outfits. So those took up like a bunch of space as well.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: I love that for those not watching on YouTube. Like, I've got Brian and I both have like grins ear to ear because we're like imagining the seven month old in all these different outfits.
[00:25:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: And it was fun. Yes.
We tried to plan it with character meet and greets. Yeah. And I like the things that she enjoyed it. She didn't voice any concern.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: She didn't object. I love it. All right, well, let's talk about. Okay, so you're up early, Port Orleans. You are on the bus headed to Port Canaveral.
What did you think you first. Your first, first time seeing the ship? You hadn't seen a ship in person, even though you'd seen a bunch of videos. Like, was it what you thought it would look like?
[00:25:37] Speaker A: It was fascinating though. One thing I will say is for the bus, I guess we were supposed to go and check in and we didn't realize this at all. And everybody else was there, so they called us and were like, where are you? Basically?
And that was one thing that I didn't realize beforehand that I wanted to mention, just because it caught us really off guard. Seeing the ship was very. It was spectacular. It was just so big and so it was very magical. And we were in a bus full of people who were also really excited, obviously because they were staying at Disney and taking the cruise line bus. So there was just a lot of oohs and ahs and photo taking.
I lucked out. I was on the side of the bus that was closer to the ship. So I got a couple of pictures there and getting off and all that stuff. They were very efficient, which was nice. I enjoyed kind of the efficiency. And that was one of the appeals of cruise. Cruise ships are really, really efficient in terms of waste management, food management and all that.
Once we got off, they took us in. It was just like going to Disney World. You stood in a line until you got to another line and then you got into another line and then we were ready to kind of prepare for boarding. But security, all of that, everything was very smooth. And once we were in there, they actually, we were. We kind of perused the app throughout the time, waiting up to it in there. We actually were able to book a few more things that we hadn't been able to book before. We booked, like some tastings. We booked a tour of the ship type of thing, like one of those hour tours.
And we booked, I think, Royal gathering for both our side of the family and their side of the family.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome. And because you were linked, you're able to, you're able to book for the others in your party. If you're not linked, you don't have your reservations linked. You are only able to book for your own cabin. But once you're linked and once you've passed sort of whatever that deadline is right. For first time cruisers, then you can, you know, book whatever for the entire party. And I love that you're smart looking at the app. Right. When you're in the port, you look at the app and if there are things you weren't able to book before, definitely check because they open up additional spots that they weren't that they don't have available for pre booking. So Royal Gathering is one. Some of the drink tastings, there might even be some adult dining reservations available. And then of course, the imagineering the ship tour or Art of the theme ship tour on the older ships, that's only available once you get on the ship. Wi Fi, you can't book that in advance. I mean, you're booking it in advance, but not in advance of the cruise. You can book it on the first day of the cruise, essentially for one of the other days. So. Yeah. Very good. Good work, Soshin. Good job listening to all of our tips and tricks.
I'm gonna give the tip and trick for the bus.
You wanna be on the driver's side of the bus if you want to see out the window and have the first glimpse of the ship when you're coming across the causeway.
[00:28:21] Speaker C: So specific. Oh, my gosh. That very minutia. Disney Cruise Line facts. Driver's side of the bus.
[00:28:29] Speaker B: Yeah, driver's side. If you're taking Disney Cruise Line transportation. But.
[00:28:33] Speaker C: But if you're on the driver's side of the bus as you go over the causeway, you're not going to get
[00:28:37] Speaker D: the full view of the ship, right?
[00:28:39] Speaker B: No. You will if you get. If.
[00:28:41] Speaker C: No. When they turn on to the.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: When they turn into the. When they turn into the terminal. When they turn into the terminal. Yeah. The other side of the bus will get a slightly. Well, it just depends. But slightly better view. But you'll get. If you want the first view of the ship, you want to be on the driver's side of the bus.
[00:28:55] Speaker C: But what movies are playing on the bus?
[00:28:59] Speaker B: I don't.
[00:29:00] Speaker C: What's the show? What's the show schedule, Sam?
[00:29:02] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: The ship is a little bit better of a movie than anything they played on the bus. There you go, there you go.
[00:29:07] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: Sometimes they're just playing ads on the bus too. Sometimes they're not actually Playing a movie. Well, okay. Well, so let's talk. So you.
It sounds like it was pretty smooth sailing as far as check in goes.
You walk across that gangway into the atrium of the beautiful Disney treasure that is decorated like Agrabah from Aladdin.
What was that first moment like for you, for your wife, for the rest of the family? Because they hadn't been on the treasure. They had been on one of the older ships.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: Yeah, correct. They had been on the fantasy. So it was. It was. For me, it was just amazing because before getting on, it was almost kind of like boarding an airplane. And except once you get in, it's completely different. It's just massive.
There's a lot of people. They announce your name, as everybody knows, but they announce your name and everyone kind of claps. And yeah, the. The grand hall was very spectacular. It was huge. The artwork was just phenomenal.
It was very, very fun. I think my sister liked it a lot, a little bit more than the fantasies, because she described it as bigger and a little more grand. But it was just. It was. And the other aspect of it is now you're like. It's kind of like the first step to vacation. Right when you're waiting in line, it's not that fun and stuff. But now you're like, we were finally on the ship and ready to go, which was a lot of fun.
[00:30:22] Speaker B: Fun. I love it. What was your first plan of action? After? You are amazed, of course, by the grand hall, and then you decide, okay, where am I going? Am I going to Marceline? Am I going to the pool deck? Am I going to Tritons to deal with Apollo reservation? What was your plan of attack?
[00:30:38] Speaker A: It was basically go to Tritons and Guest Services equivalent to figure out all the stuff that we hadn't figured out. I think I had learned here that it was always Tritons for the Apollo dining stuff. We went upstairs, I think it was the fourth floor, where there was guest services. And there. The wording of the sign was very confusing. It basically said dining and then a bunch of little words. So I was like, oh, crap. Pardon me. Sorry. Oh, my mistake.
It must be here instead. So I got in line there and my wife went up to Triton's and she fixed all our. So we got added onto Palo brunch.
And that went very well.
We ended up going to the guest services to see if we could get added onto my sister's tasting, but we couldn't do that.
My wife had booked a gin tasting for one and they did let me add on to that as well. So we got all of that stuff sorted out. Then we went to the nursery to basically finalize all the times that we now knew that we needed more of.
And when we were there, that's when we also were like, okay, well these show times are probably going to book up fast and stuff like that. So we booked those as well. And then finally after that, we ended up doing the sit down lunch because Mars.
Yeah, buffets are fun and so forth. I think my sister and her husband had said it was kind of like the wild, wild west when they did it the first time they were there.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: That's a great description.
Especially if it's later.
Like if you're there right when it opens, it's not. It's a little calmer. But if you're there, I don't know, 1, 2 o', clock, it's the wild wild west. I agree.
[00:32:10] Speaker A: Yeah. So we ended up doing the sit down, which was a lot of fun. It was in Coco, so the theming was kind of fun and nice and it was mildly hectic, but still very, very. Well, like, much calmer is what I would say. Much calmer. And the food was good. So we, we got a lot, a lot of. We tried a couple of the different things. I think they have beef empanada.
I think I got like a salmon salad or something of that nature, which I enjoyed a lot. And then the desserts were. I think it was like a cookies and cream, like cheesecake thing, which was like.
Wasn't the greatest thing. It wasn't the worst thing. It wasn't the greatest thing on the cruise is what I'll say. But it wasn't the worst thing.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: Yeah, because it's not the original Oreo cheesecake. It's the imitation version that they have on the, on the wish class. That is just not. It's not good. It's not bad. It's just not good. I want to give you. I want to point out another thing that you mentioned you did though, which is going to the nursery and booking those additional times. I think that's also really smart strategy for two reasons. One, it does take some time to sign up your kid or to finalize all the sign registration at the nursery. It takes longer there than for the kids Kids club because there's a lot of information in the intake because they want to make sure they understand the feeding needs, the diapering needs, you know, does your kid have any, you know, allergies, sensitivities, all. There's a whole bunch of you know, information that they do at that intake that's much more extensive than with the kids, with the older kids.
And then also prioritizing getting those additional times. As you mentioned, the shows are going to be the times that are probably the most desirable because most cruisers who have children, who have children of your child's age or, you know, under three are going to want those times. And so going there early on the cruise, you're going to have a better chance of being able to secure those times than if you wait until, let's say day two or day three or even just later on day one. So really, really smart.
[00:34:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it took our luggage. Once we got all that settled, it took our luggage a bit of time. Our room was ready fairly quickly, it felt, but it took our luggage a bit of time to get there. I think it was until after dinner.
I think it was still before the show. But so we, that still worked out well. They had a pack and play and stuff like that ready in the room for us. They had a diaper Genie. So while I was, I went to do all the nursery stuff, our little one and my wife stayed and they took a nap. The paperwork was very extensive and it was kind of nice and reassuring in one sense. The registration was a bunch of paperwork. And then every time you went back to drop off, you had to go through and say like, this is what she has. This is like what, you know, what temperature she likes the bottle at if there's a specific time you want to give it. They were very, very like specific, which was nice.
We were fairly lax, but it was nice for others.
[00:34:56] Speaker B: That is really nice. We've heard that from other folks too, and I love that. I think it's great to mention that you, you know that you mentioned that your luggage came later because it is important to make sure you've got, you know, enough diapers, for example, enough of whatever you're going to need because you might not get your luggage. And we try to remind people like Disney is often very good at getting your luggage there earlier. But once in a while it does take longer and it might not get there until after, you know, first seating of dinner or in between the dinner and the show if you're doing first seating of dinner. And so it's one of those things to just be aware of, like make sure you have all of your essentials on you, medications, diapering, needs. If you are specific about what you want to wear to dinner that first night in your sit down restaurant, rotational dining. Like if I'm Like I want to wear my Lion King shirt at Pridelands, and I happen to be eating at Pride Lands on that first. Or not Pride Land. Sorry, Coco.
That first night, then I've got to make sure I've got that packed in my carry on. Unless I want to, you know, switch it up to a different day. So yeah, super, super good tips.
If you're listening to us right now, chances are pretty good that you love Disney vacations as much as we do. But even seasoned travelers know there's a ton to keep up with when it comes to Disney Cruise Line. From cruise itineraries to the perfect stateroom for your family, shore excursions and onboard experiences. And if you're planning to visit the Disney parks before or after your cruise, then there's even more to plan. From the perfect resort to lightning lane strategies, dining reservations, park tickets, special offers, and much, much more.
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[00:37:12] Speaker B: Let's dive into some of the stuff you guys ended up doing. It seems like you did a lot,
[00:37:17] Speaker A: so I was very fortunate. So I'm probably. I enjoy doing stuff. I'm very active and frankly I get bored if I'm sitting at home for too long, so forth. So I'm very active. My wife enjoys more quiet time and so forth, so it kind of worked out well because she would kind of relax in the room sometimes with the little one or go do something. We had a veranda room mostly because I was nervous about seasickness and plus again, it was kind of pleasant to have it. So I was able to kind of go and do a lot of different activities and especially the nighttime activities. The days when we had nursery we ended up kind of both doing it, but I was able to kind of hit a lot of the different spots and it was just a ton of fun in terms of stuff that I really enjoy. So we did a Couple trivias together. That was a lot of fun.
My wife's very big music buff person so we did like 2000 music trivia.
She really heard that, which was like they play little jingles from either music or from ads or from movies and then somebody representing your side would go up and try to buzz in to get it. And it kind of rotated through. So that was fun. I went to who's your mate? That was a lot. That was a lot of fun. That was quite fun. And then I went to a lot of the live music that was kind of going on in the evening hours when my wife, my sister's family, all of them would be kind of more sleepy and tired. I would go and listen to music. So I listened to a lot of the doublooners. I think they were at Skipper Society. I tried out all the like different spots and Scat cat had a really good piano. Tennis who was singing along and a lot of. I think his name was Julian and I think it was his last cruise. So he was, he was really enjoying it. He was, as he would describe himself, very unhinged, which was a lot of fun.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: Unhinged. I like that a piano player describes themselves unhinged. That's hilarious. Did you end up getting to go to the Indiana Jones choose wisely adult only show? I know obviously you had. It sounds like you got to do actually quite a few of the adult only activities because your wife was okay with going to bed early. It worked.
[00:39:19] Speaker A: So they actually that one, my wife and my sister, we left brother in law in charge of all three kids. They were sleeping so it was okay. But he was in charge and he was tired so it kind of worked out well. But all three of us went to the Indiana Jones choose your own adventure which was a lot of fun. Sage and coriander did a really, really good job. And the, the adult entertainment guy, his name was Frank, he went by Frankie. He was really good in terms of just like with the props. They have very minimal props and basically just util lighting and shadows and stuff. They made it very fun and it was great. It was good.
[00:39:53] Speaker B: I love that. I think it's a great show.
It's such a really well done and like you said, simple props, lighting, a flipboard. It's really incredible how they do that. Yeah.
[00:40:07] Speaker A: And I had never. I've seen bits and pieces of some of the Indiana Jones but I wasn't too familiar with it and so forth and I still enjoyed it a ton.
[00:40:14] Speaker B: Awesome. So you can be a non Indiana Jones fan and still enjoy it.
That makes sense.
Um, what about some of like the family activities? What did you all do on the ship as a family that you enjoyed?
[00:40:27] Speaker A: Uh, we did, we did, we did some of the royal gatherings and meeting meet and greets. That was kind of fun. Um, and that was just fun, kind of seeing the kids get pictures with all those. Um, most of our family time together would be either poolside, like funnel vision or kind of like splash pad, or we did dining and like kind of some of those shows. Um, we. So our adult time was at Palo brunch and then the evenings would be with like the dinners with the kids and everything else, which was a little bit more like energetic with like, you know, a toddler and two kids and stuff.
Otherwise we would like, my wife and I would go do some stuff, my sister's family would go do some stuff. We'd intervene here and there. We had no qualms, kind of like splitting up as we needed to, depending on people's needs.
[00:41:13] Speaker B: And that's the nice thing about cruising. You can kind of of, as we like to say, sort of choose your own adventure. Right? Like, I don't have to do everything with Brian. He doesn't have to do everything with me. We don't have to do everything with Nathan. We'll, we'll come together for certain activities and of course we come together for dinner in main dining. And so that, that part is, you know, really fun. And that's your sort of check in for the day. So it's a really, it's a really nice way to cruise.
I'm curious. Did your little one, did she like being at the nursery? Did she like the character meet and greets? Like, it's hard. I mean, she's only seven months. Months. But like, I know she's not going to remember any of this, but like did, did it feel like it was a good experience for her and was it stressful for you and your wife traveling with a child so young?
[00:41:58] Speaker A: Not at all. So she is at the stage where she kind of smiles and stuff. So she did a lot of smiling and she. The meet and greets, like the most of them that we did were princesses and she really, they did a good job kind of engaging her and she could recognize the faces and smile and they did a good job kind of playing around with her at the nurseries. It was very similar. She got along well with all the people and the people there were really, really kind. I think maybe by sheer like just coincidence, everyone, almost everybody there was from the UK in some way or form.
So they were like, they spoke very good English and not that anybody on everybody on the ship spoke great English and stuff, but by sheer like coincidence it just happened that they were all from the uk which was I guess in hindsight kind of weird. But everybody, they're Barry Poppins.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: Makes perfect sense.
[00:42:47] Speaker A: Sense.
Everybody was really kind to her and it was the first time we dropped her off we were a little nervous because sometimes you would get, every time like we would get the alert, like she's a little upset but we're calming her down, it's okay.
But effectively the only time I think we had to call down was once and I think she was just a little bit fussy. Oh, I think they wanted to know if they could give her her bottle early or something of that nature. And we were like, yeah, that's fine. Nursery worked out well for both our, mine and my sister's one year old. The three he, they tried Oceaneers Club and he did not like Ocean Club. The short answer is he was that into it. We got away with it. We tried it on Palo brunch. Paolo brunch was on day two, so we did that as a group of four.
So we got away with putting him there and trying it out and we got a lot of alerts.
So he made it through the brunch. I think he, he had a little accident. So they did have. So I think my brother in law went and called them but they were, they were like, he was like, I'm ready to come down, I can take him and stuff. But they were ready. They were like, oh, we already changed them and stuff like that.
So after that I think that was also part of the reason we never like fully did a bunch of five, like seven people family things because they were entertaining the three year old a lot.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: Three is a hard age for that because sometimes they'll have that stranger danger thing. They're not necessarily quite as independent. I mean even if they are potty trained, they might still have accidents. Right. So like it, it is hard and they don't, it's their, they can go to the nursery but it's not really entertaining for them. Right. Like it's not really stimulating. It's stimulating for the younger, you know, sort of infant or maybe 1 year olds. So yeah, it's hard and especially in the kids club, there's nobody there who's like, do you need to go potty? Like you're expected to go toilet yourself and so that can be really hard. For like a three year old or even a four year old as well. So it's.
[00:44:42] Speaker A: I think. Yeah, that was a lot of it. Yeah, he kind of gets a little bit of, I guess FOMO in some sense, like fear of missing. Once he's engaged in something, he just, he loses his focus. Right. And then if no one's there to remind him, stuff, stuff like that. And I think he's a little bit more of a enjoy like in that strange. Not stranger danger per se, but enjoys the family time. I don't want to say clingy, but like just enjoys that family time.
[00:45:07] Speaker B: I wonder if we should talk about food next.
We haven't gotten there yet. You did of course go to sit down lunch on the first day. But I'm curious how, how dinners went in particular because dinner can take a little bit longer and you have a three year old with you, a one year old, a seven month old with you. Right. So that can be a little tough when you have a longer dinner. How did that go in general and how did the show aspect go with the little ones as well?
[00:45:38] Speaker A: So it went pretty well. So my sister had done the cruise with. Hers was like eight or nine when they did their first cruise cruise. And I think the thing that they came back with from that was halfway through. It was a big struggle with the length of the dinner halfway through. I think either the servers realized sometimes they would have to leave early that they wanted it faster, or they may have just mentioned it and that kind of sped it up a lot for them on their last cruise. So this cruise, probably the first thing that they said to our server after hello and stuff like that was, hey, we have three kids here.
The faster food comes out, we appreciate that even better. Just because we don't know when one melts down will happen and stuff like that. So I think our heads, our main server, he was great. He was just phenomenal. He had had some kids and they were growing up now, but his name was Umesh and he, he was just wonderful with them. He would kind of play around with them. He would cut up their food and he was basically like, okay, today. I can't guarantee it because, you know, we're just meeting you and the kitchen's kind of crazy and stuff like that. But tomorrow everything will come out fast, fast, fast. And we'll make it happen from there. The next tomorrow we're going to have purees ready for like the infants if they're eating. What do you want? Like you want us. I think we were just like Surprises, you know, bring whatever you want and stuff like that. So he was like, don't worry about it. We're going to make everything perfect. We're going to try our best tonight. But our first night was in Marvel, which I think everyone was kind of tired. It was a little bit more crazy and cranky from the kids because they had traveled. We were just getting on the ship. The show's a little bit more intermittent. So like when the show was on, on the screens, they like loved it. And then there would be a bunch of downtime and then the show would be on for like five minutes. And they liked that we made it to about half of that show. But the food in, in due respect, they still brought out the food very quickly. So we made it through the entire meal, which was kind of nice.
After that, they enjoy like, I think us adults enjoyed cocoa. It was a little overstimulating, I think for the three year old and maybe the one year old, our seven month old enjoyed it as much as she had no issues with it. And then 1923, I think we just enjoyed that was a little bit more quiet and probably the most kind of benign in that respect.
So all those dinners went really well. We did our Ashante on day four, which was Pirate's night. So we were kind of like okay with that. We were like, well, you know, we'll probably, probably go on a cruise again and Pirate Night kind of happens a lot. So if we miss that menu, we'll probably survive. And from what it sounded like, it's not the greatest menu in the world.
So for that we enjoyed that. And our Apollo brunch. Oh yeah, yeah, that was on day two. But didn't g.
Those two meals were really, really spectacular. I mean all the sit down meals were, were great. There were hits and misses for sure. In terms of some appetizers on our cruise, we like the tomato stuff was really good. So I got like an heirloom tomato salad I think at Marvel that was phenomenal. Everything I got with tomatoes focused was good and the lamb was particularly good.
And we're people that like lamb and stuff. So the beef dishes, the steaks and stuff were good, but they tended to come out a little bit more overdone and, and well done, which wasn't bad. It a well done cut piece of meat. But we I think preferred it slightly more like towards the medium rare, medium aspect.
Desserts were amazing. I, I don't know if there was a dessert. Like I was full but I, I was like consuming more food than like enough to feed like, you know, three nations or something. But by the time dessert came, I would still eat like three desserts and stuff. So all the desserts were a big hit, especially with the kids and stuff like that. The three year old was a little bit more of a picky eater, but they started to figure things out a little bit there in terms of like, they kind of were like, oh, he, he really likes those Mickey ice cream bars. Bring those out a little bit earlier and stuff.
[00:49:18] Speaker B: Well, and I think it's really great that your sister thought to tell them on night one, hey, like this is what works for us. And then they could at least try to accommodate as best they could. And it sounds like they did a really good job of accommodating because it is, as I mentioned, you know, it is a longer meal for the younger kids and that can be hard to sit through, but if they can pace the food faster and yes, you may miss some of the shows show because you might be completely done before the show, but you've now avoided a meltdown. So that's. Yeah, yeah.
[00:49:51] Speaker A: And they were very good about it. I think maybe once or twice, like if something happened, they would let us take our dessert to go and stuff like that.
So. Or I would stay behind, gather everyone's desserts and take them back and stuff like that. So they were really accommodating.
I was going to say the.
The. Our favorite meal was probably still offhante. That meal was very pleasant. We did it when we left, left Tortola, I think it was. That was that sea day, if I'm remembering correctly. And our timing worked. It was like at 6 or 6:15 or something like that. So we not only caught like the boat kind of leaving and watching the island kind of go away, but we caught the sunset. The service was really nice. We ended up, I think Enzo, we. It was kind of funny. He made a joke about this. He. Enzo was our server and he's the only Italian that according to him is there at the French restaurant. And Yuri was our server. Yuridis was our server on Paulo, who's the only French person who's in the Italian restaurant. So he was like, oh.
So he kind of had fun with that. But he was great. He was like very engaging, kind of cracking kind of fun jokes and stuff. The service was really good. The food was good.
The dessert experience was phenomenal.
But that was probably our favorite meal overall.
[00:50:57] Speaker C: Nice. What about the shows on board?
What did you think about the, the, you know, the, the shows in the main Theater.
[00:51:04] Speaker A: They were. The big three shows were really impressive. We had Seize the Adventure, which we watched at 2pm which was really, really impressive. I was not expecting much from it and I was. Was just kind of like my jaw kind of dropped. Just. It wasn't like. Compared to the other two, it's not as good, but just compared to what I was expecting, it was a phenomenal show. And then Beauty and the Beast and Moana, we. We watched as well. So Seize the Adventure. I did the two and I watched it again actually in the evening because the timing worked out. Beauty and the beach, we. We did the 2pm show. Unfortunately, the evening was when we had a like a gin tasting.
I ended up being my brother in law and myself. So we missed the evening show. But we watched it again on TV at like 10:15. And then Moana.
I watched like half of the 2pm show because the. The little one got a little bit fussier and my wife watched that and I watched it in the evening. They were phenomenal. The stuff that they did was just amazing. Like I've watched. I lived in New York for a while and enjoy. Like I enjoy Broadway shows and stuff. And I would say those two were probably comparable, if not better than some of the Broadway shows I saw, for sure. But I enjoyed it.
[00:52:10] Speaker C: Did you take your kiddo to the show or.
[00:52:14] Speaker A: So we took her to. We tried. We tried.
So we. I took her to Beauty and the Beast and she seemed to enjoy that. So I say seem to enjoy. She fell asleep for the first 30 minutes or so of the first one, which worked out well. But once she woke up and she. She like kind of enjoyed watching it and was really quiet through it and just kind of, I think the lights moving and all the. The action and stuff like that. So she enjoyed that. So we made it through that show without any issues.
We took her to the 2pm Moana showing, which was.
She didn't enjoy that as much and it was probably more timing related. I'm sure she had not as much of an idea as what was going on or maybe the lights were too flashy or something. But so that one, I think after she was a little bit fussy, so I took her for a walk and basically my wife ended up staying to watch it with the. And I watched the. Watched her during that time and we switched off. I watched the evening out.
[00:53:06] Speaker C: I think you mentioned you did some drink tastings on board. Which ones did you do?
[00:53:10] Speaker A: We did. So I did the. So it was my birthday during the cruise by coincidence as well. So on my birthday my wife got got me the reserve whiskey tasting. That was a lot of fun in Hooks Barbary. And then we did. My wife and I were initially going to do the gin tasting. Towards the end it was I think day night six but she felt a little unwell that that even so I ended up going with my brother in law and that one was a ton of fun. The host was great. I think. Yeah, he was a lot of fun. And I think I mentioned that my wife wasn't feeling well and he was like I should have come. Jin's gonna make her feel a lot better.
So it was a lot of fun. And then my sister and brother in law, they did a chocolate and liqueur tasting.
I think the winner amongst those three for all of us was from description was probably the gin tasting. That guy was that, that house was amazing. He was hilarious.
[00:54:03] Speaker B: The bartender that sort of hosts it and, and teaches you whatever you're learning, right.
That makes the experience really. It's not. I mean you might have some really good drinks also, but I feel like whoever is doing the experience is really going to entertain you, teach you, right? And, and that can really make or break that experience. I, I soan. I feel like you did so much on this cruise. I'm like this is a like a even. I know it's a seven night cruise, but that's a lot for a first timer like you. You're like me, you have to like run around and do stuff like. And it sounds like your wife is like Brian and has to kind of like chill. Like did. Do you feel like she had as much fun as you did? Like I'm curious because obviously there's different personalities and different styles of vacationing there.
[00:54:51] Speaker A: I think so. So we kind of, we know each other like obviously we've married for a couple years, but so we know each other pretty well and we've kind of established like she, she enjoys kind of downtime to recharge.
She's extroverted but enjoys that time to kind of recharge. Whereas I'm like, I get kind of bored and like antsy if I'm like sitting too much. So we kind of timed it. The stuff where we were like some of the stuff we were like, okay, I know you want to do this and I know I want to do this. So we're going to make that work together. Like those are the things we booked for. And some of the stuff she was like, I don't really care that much about doing this or I'm going to go and relax and kind of sit in the veranda or something of that nature.
So she ended up enjoying it a lot as well and it kind of worked out in that respect. I think the only aspect she was really, she got a little bit of an upset tummy on I think day six, so she had to miss the gin tasting and stuff like that. So that was probably the only thing that she was kind of like a little bit bummed out about. But you know, you always need a reason to go back. So it kind of worked out from her perspective.
[00:55:51] Speaker B: Exactly. You always need a reason to go back. She'll do the gin tasting the next time with you while baby is in the nursery or maybe the kids club by that, you know, depending upon when, when you're able to fit in a gin tasting.
So is there anything that we missed? I feel like we've covered a ton in terms of activities, food tastings, adult dining shows. I don't, I. You did some, some trivias. You did some music trivias as well.
[00:56:20] Speaker A: The one other thing that we had fun with was the Jack Jack Baby Dash. That was pretty cool. Oh.
[00:56:26] Speaker C: So we had a.
[00:56:26] Speaker B: Did you participate?
[00:56:28] Speaker A: Oh my God.
[00:56:28] Speaker B: We participated.
[00:56:29] Speaker A: And the one year old participated because he was not walking. He's not walking still yet. But so we participated. It was a lot of fun. It was probably the most crowded I ever saw the grand hall from that perspective. Our little one can't crawl and she could kind of now she can roll but she waited like two days to start really rolling like effectively. So she did like one roll.
[00:56:51] Speaker B: Recording this. You only got back like a week ago as we're recording this. Right. And then, then babies really do change a lot in like that age. They can change week to week, day to day. But yeah, so she's kind of rolling but not really.
[00:57:04] Speaker A: She got like one roll, like a half roll and then kind of stopped on the ship and now she can't stop rolling.
But the. So my nephew, he, he's a, a speedy one and he's very food motivated. So at the end like he, so he won, he ended up winning everything and he became like cruise famous. All the like little kids would be like, oh, congratulations.
[00:57:25] Speaker B: Like, like you know, that's the Jack Jack champion. Oh my God. What, what was his. So he obviously won like his heat and then he won the finals. So for anyone who hasn't seen Jack Jack's Diaper Dash, it's baby racing. It's baby racing, but only for crawling babies and they're On a mat and there, if there are enough babies in, then they do multiple heats and then they do a finals from the winner of each heat and then there's a prize for the winner.
What was his prize?
[00:57:53] Speaker A: He got a medal. He got a medal, which I, I think it was Donald Duck, I can't remember exactly, but he got a medal and all the rest of us got like little bibs, which was a lot of fun. He won his heat. He was a little lucky in that his heat had like our seven month old, another seven month old and like seven and a half. Nobody everybody else was very close at the beginning of the race is what I'll say. But the finals were really close. That one came to a.
A photo finish.
[00:58:17] Speaker B: A photo finish. Just that baby won by a nose like love it. I love it. Oh my God, that's so, so fun. And I love that your nephew was cruise famous. It's kind of like the people who are in match your mate but they're cruise famous for very different reasons than the baby. Who wons? Who wins? Jack. Jack's diaper Dash. I love that. Awesome. Well, I think we've reached that time. Brian, wait, hold on.
[00:58:44] Speaker C: I just want to know like the penultimate question here before my last question of the show, which will be after Rapid Fire, which is just, would you go back on Disney again?
[00:58:52] Speaker B: Oh, he's hooked.
[00:58:53] Speaker A: Oh, definitely. It was a lot of fun. I was honestly again, I was worried that there wouldn't be enough things to do and there were so many things to do and I could have probably stayed on the ship a couple more days to do more. There's always just more things to do in terms of just relaxing on the verand just. But yeah, the short answer is yes.
Yeah. And there's already plans made. There's already plan, but I'll wait.
[00:59:13] Speaker B: I have to say when you said that your fear, you know, before getting on that your original fear about cruising was there wasn't enough to do too, I was like, ah, this is not, that's not like on Disney Cruise Line. That's not something to be worried about on some of the other cruise lines. Depending upon the ship and the itinerary, I would say that is an issue. And I, and I would generally say that Royal has lots of great options for cruises for families, but not if you sail, for example, on some of their older ships, then there's not quite as much to do. Right. And same goes for some of the other cruise lines. Like they're the newer the ship, the more amenities and Things that are, you know, sort of spaces that are designed for things to do for families. I will say I think the older the ship, the more it's just kind of like a casino and maybe a couple of shows and not as much sort of activities going on except for maybe like you, they might have a little library you can borrow a book from. But that's not really what you're going to do with like a toddler, for example. So yeah, I think cruising has definitely become more family focused and that's why we see the cruise lines building ships that have all these amenities. But on Disney Cruise Line, you never have to be worried about being bored. There is too much to do. You can't do everything that you possibly would want to do. If you're somebody like Soshin and me who want to do all the things, like if you're somebody who just wants to relax, like Brian or Soshin's wife, then you could just relax and sit on, you know, the pool deck or on your veranda and it just enjoy the scenery.
[01:00:47] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I think we've reached that point in the show then, Sam, where I need to have you ask Oshin some arbitrary questions, apply some arbitrary rules, and perhaps even more a dash of judgment around we know as rapid fire. So take it away.
[01:01:01] Speaker B: All right. Okay. You knew this was coming. We talked about a pre show. I'm going to ask you some Disney favorites and some Disney Cruise Line favorites. I'm going to say right now your favorite ship is the Disney Treasure. So we'll set that aside and we'll start with who is your favorite Disney character? And Disney means anything and everything that Disney owns.
[01:01:21] Speaker A: I'd probably have to say like either Ratatouille or Wall E. Just very much enjoy both those kind of like fun little characters that, oh, Wally's just adorable. And Ratatouille, kind of just a classic exploring your dream. And the movies I enjoyed as well.
[01:01:34] Speaker B: We love Remy ourselves and love Wally as well. All right, so are those also your favorite movies?
[01:01:40] Speaker A: Would you say, say so in anticipation of this question, on the ship I kept asking my brother in law, my sister and like what's my favorite movie? And they kept going, it's obviously Pocahontas. Because as a kid. So it is Pocahontas.
As a kid we watched, we had VHS's and such and we would like, you know, it took like 10 minutes to rewind the thing, but we would watch the movie like on loop, my sister and I and that song. And our room was actually Pocahontas theme, too. So that kind of thing as well. But I'd say Pocahontas, actually.
[01:02:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, I love that. I think that's awesome. All right. What's your favorite Disney song? Is it Just around the Riverbend?
[01:02:17] Speaker A: So it should be. I went with what I probably actually listened to the most on Loop on Spotify at this time. And it's from. So it's from Tokyo Disney. It's called B A Y M A X Baymax. They have a little ride. It's themed to the alien swirling saucers, except infinitely better, and has an extremely long line. But they play different songs and people gather around and it's super energized, energetic. So probably that one. It kind of goes like B A Y M A X A Maxima, the best and so forth. It's very catchy on Spotify.
[01:02:48] Speaker B: I. So I actually have a. You can't see it because it's all the way up the top. I have a. From Tokyo now. We've not been to Tokyo. Brian ordered this for me online.
I have the popcorn bucket that is the Baymax in that ride vehicle. And so it was made years ago. So I know what. I know exactly what ride you're talking about. And it's exactly the same is Alien sorling saucers. It's also the Mater's ride at California Adventure. It's that you know, sort of kind of spinny ride, but not completely spinny. Anyway, I have that ride.
Popcorn bucket. So I love that.
I don't know the song, though. But now I'm gonna. I'm gonna look it up on.
[01:03:26] Speaker A: There's a whole song track. There's like six songs. It's phenomenal.
Very easy listening, very upbeat is what I'll say.
[01:03:33] Speaker B: Highlight. Love it. All right, we're going to move over to Disney Cruise Line. You've got three shows to choose from. It sounds like you enjoyed all of them. I mean, you saw all of them twice or one and a half times, if you count Moana having to leave. Yeah. So seize the adventure. Beauty and the Beast. Moana. Which one was the best?
[01:03:51] Speaker A: Oh. So I. My personal opinion was Beauty and the Beast. I like Moana as well. But I think the story and the nostalgia, having grown up watching Beauty and the Beast is the end the. And just the. Both Moana and Beauty and the Beast had really good puppetry and really, like, good lighting and stuff. But probably Beauty and the Beast. And also that was the one that came first. So see, the adventure was good. But then watching Beauty and the Beast and then the next day, Moana, you're kind of going from zero to, like, nine, and then maybe from nine to, like, nine point something. Right?
So I'd say Beauty and the Beast.
[01:04:22] Speaker B: Love that. Love that. All right, rotational dining. Which one was your favorite? You, of course. Again, three to choose from from 1923. Worlds of Marvel and Plaza de Coco Prob.
[01:04:34] Speaker A: Probably from the overall perspective. 1923, I think one of the first night menu we actually enjoyed, but I enjoyed the vibe a lot. The second night menu was actually, ironically, probably our least favorite, but just the vibe of the restaurant and just all the artwork and stuff like that. It was also a little quieter, so it kind of worked a little better with the kids. The shows at. The show at Coco was phenomenal. Phenomenal. I think the food. I think if you're wanting, like, Mexican food that night, then it's going to be phenomenal. But if you're in the mood for something else, I mean, there's other options as well, but the options were a little bit more limited at that time.
[01:05:10] Speaker B: Yeah, excellent point. All right, speaking of food, favorite sweet item and a favorite savory item on board your cruise. It can be from specialty dining. It could be from the pool deck. It could be from main dining, dining wherever. I mean, it could be Mickey's popcorn. It doesn't matter. But let's start with a sweet item, because I like the savories. And we save the best for last.
[01:05:31] Speaker A: I think probably the. We enjoyed the panna cotta at Apollo brunch, and then main. The churro waffles were also. Really.
[01:05:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Gotta give a special shout out to the churro waffles. All right, what about a savory food?
[01:05:44] Speaker A: Probably. I think. Actually my wife and I both share the cheese plates at Ashanti, and the. The tomato was a close second. The tomato, like, seven ways or something like that.
[01:05:53] Speaker B: But yeah, she like that.
That tomato water, right?
So good.
[01:05:59] Speaker A: Yeah. And it was like three ingredients. The guy kind of had his guess, and I was like, oh, wow. It's very. It was simple, but good.
[01:06:04] Speaker B: Yeah. For those who don't know if you haven't eaten it Enchante or Remy. Not all the time, but it seems like more often than not, one of the courses is this, like, amazing tomatoes course. That's like a tomato pie, tomato water, something else that you dip in some kind of like, tomato, kind of a ketchup. Anyway, it's like tomato, like, five different ways. And it's. It sounds weird, but it's incredible. It's like One of the best things I've ever eaten in my entire life. Like no joke. All right, let's talk favorite activity. What was the favorite like thing that you would want to do more than once? Not like something you is like a 1 inch done probably.
[01:06:41] Speaker A: Honestly, I enjoyed going to both the pub and the like different place the pub to watch. Like I was there for the Knicks game, game four and some of the World Cup. So that was just very energetic and stuff. That was a lot of fun. And then listening to the music probably I enjoyed the doublers band a lot as well as the pianist in Skat Cat. Just, just those vibes.
[01:07:02] Speaker B: Awesome. All right, well, I already asked you your favorite ship. Of course. That's the treasure.
I've got to ask you your bucket list cruise. If you could go anywhere in the world on a Disney Cruise Line ship and of course it's not the eastern Caribbean because you've already been there someplace maybe you haven't been, where would you go?
[01:07:20] Speaker A: Probably Japan. So we're looking forward to the ship when it comes out as well.
We like going to Japan. We like going to Disney stuff. We now like cruising benefits. All three.
[01:07:32] Speaker B: Perfect. I love it. Check. Checking all those boxes is the way to go. So A plus plus. I love all your answers. Remy, Wally, Beauty and the Beast. I mean I just, yeah, pass the flying colors. Which means you can come back anytime.
[01:07:49] Speaker A: Which means I probably won't do as well if I ever do come back to A plus plus. Hard to beat.
[01:07:52] Speaker B: True. You can't really beat that. Yeah, you can't. You can't get better than perfection.
[01:07:56] Speaker C: Well, I would love to know what's next.
So what have you got planned?
[01:08:02] Speaker A: So we do have. When we were at the parks, there was like a, I think discount if you booked within a couple of days from being at the park. And this was before our cruise actually, so it was probably a little bit ambitious. But we booked a with for my wife's spring break in April of next year or April coming up, we booked the dream out of Fort Lauderdale to San Juan and it goes to both islands. So that was one of the appeals. And I enjoy going to Puerto Rico. So I think it lands. I forget like on a Thursday or something. It's like, I think it's a fortnighter, so it lands a little early. And then we're going to stay in Puerto Rico for a couple of days and enjoy that.
[01:08:37] Speaker B: Oh, fabulous. You know, I realized I didn't even ask you about the ports because we spent so much time talking about this ship experience. But did you love Castaway? Just tell me.
[01:08:46] Speaker A: Castaway was our favorite port by far. Yeah, it was a hot day, but like, oh, it was a ton of fun. Very relaxing. A lot of chairs available for us. A lot of the food was fun. The characters were kind of fun. I did the 5K. Castaway was phenomenal. That was by far my favorite favorite part. The others, we spent like five minutes. We went out and came back. So.
[01:09:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Well. And now you'll get to experience, as you mentioned, look out, look out and come do the compare contrast with Cast Away. They're both amazing. You'll see they're different, but they're. You're both incredible in their own right. Well, Soshin, thank you so much for coming on the show.
You're welcome to come back. It's wonderful that you have your next cruise booked. Did you also book a placeholder on board?
[01:09:26] Speaker A: We did, so that one is pending.
Yeah. We're trying to coordinate again for another family cruise. This dream one is just our family, but we're trying to coordinate them.
[01:09:36] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, you'll have to come back to tell us what you think of the Disney dream. With that, I'll just say thanks for coming on and sharing your first time on Disney Cruise Line with us.
[01:09:46] Speaker A: Thank you again. Just the podcast has been really helpful in getting me excited for it and I look forward to hearing more about other people's cruises as well. Thank you for having me and thank you for doing what you guys do.
[01:10:00] Speaker D: All right, that's our show for tonight, but thank you so much for listening. If you're not subscribed yet, please fix that right now. Head over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hit that subscribe button. We're dropping at least two episodes a week plus we're live each and every week over on our YouTube channel, YouTube.comdclduo come hang out with us for a live. It's a blast. You can ask your questions in the chat and really join the conversation with us and our guests. If you're enjoying our show, one of the easiest ways to support the show, head over to Apple Podcasts, hit those five stars and while you're at it, leave us a written review with your 5 star review and we will read it on the air at the top of one of our main episodes. If you're listening to us on another platform, Spotify, YouTube, Castos, there's so many third party podcast apps and players out there. Whatever form of reviewer rating they have, give it all to us. Show the show some love. It keeps us going, keeps us putting out great content week to week. Are you ready to set sail? Book your next Disney Cruise Line vacation with our show sponsor WEDOTravel right the crew that handles the planning so you can focus on relaxing. Head to wedotravelright.com DCLDUO today to get started. Or you can reach out to them directly. Just let them know the DCL Duo sent you. Subscribe today to DCL Magazine. They put out a great product head over there. It's your go to guide for DCL tips and tricks. Just browse to dcl-magazine.com that's dcl-magazine.com and use code DCLDUO all caps DCLDUO today for 10% off everything in the WDW Magazine store. And if you want to directly support the show, join us on
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[01:12:33] Speaker B: Sam.
