[00:00:00] Speaker A: Lunch. They dropped us off at a beautiful little French bakery that had like some great sandwiches. And my husband and my son just like they ate a baguette with butter. That was pretty much the lunch that day.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: I mean, you can't go wrong. No notes. 10 out of 10.
[00:00:27] Speaker C: Welcome back everybody to this week's episode of the DCL Duo podcast. Where to you by? We do travel, right? And Sam, it's jingle time, so you know what time it is. Hope you did your vocal exercises this morning.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: You know I didn't, but I'll, I'll, I'll give it a go either. Anyway. All right. Simply the best.
Better than all the rest.
[00:00:47] Speaker C: All right, this week's listener review comes from KJS 0922. So there you go.
I'm gonna call you Kevin or Kimberly. We'll figure it out. All right, here we go.
This review reads the best of the best. Thank you, Brian for consistently bringing new and exciting content to all DCL fans. I appreciate your knowledge of dcl, your honest but positive reviews and the diversity of topics you bring to the to your listeners. I look forward to listening to your show every week and you really are the best of the best. Thank you.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Oh, that makes me like, just gives me all the feels. I love that. Thank you kj, Whatever. And all those numbers tugs at the
[00:01:27] Speaker C: cockles of your heart. Sam, I think that's. Yeah, there you go. All right. Well, yes, thank you for that review. We really appreciate it. As always, remember, one of the easiest ways helps the show head over to Apple Podcast. Hit those five stars. If you leave us a written review along with your five stars, we will read it on the air at the top of one of our main episodes. And if you are listening to us anyplace else, Spotify, YouTube, all those places. Hit those like subscribe buttons, give us all the popcorn buckets, thumbs up hearts, bear hugs. Like whatever they give, give it all to us. It helps bring the show to more listeners. So with that, Sam, I'm going to throw it over to you to introduce our guest and our topic for today.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm super excited. We are welcoming a first time guest but not first time cruiser to the show.
Welcome to the show, Heather.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: Hi. It's great to talk to you.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: It's great to have you here.
Now we are going to be talking about a very special itinerary you sailed on the Disney Destiny, one of the seven night itineraries. You were there even for 4th of July, I believe or deboarded on debarked on 4th of July.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: We debarked on the 4th of July. That wasn't quite the end of our vacation though. We spent two nights at Disney's Vero beach resort for the holiday weekend afterwards. My birthday happens to be on July 5th, so we just, I just decided that flying home for a holiday weekend and spending my birthday doing laundry was not for me.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: I love that. Oh, well, then you get to do like the fireworks and stuff at Vero but not on the ship. Right?
[00:03:00] Speaker A: We actually skipped out on fireworks. So.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: Heather, they're for your birthday. How do you not even like.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: It's a little off topic. I know we're here to talk about the cruise, but we. Vero beach is like our little hidden gem. Before or after a cruise? Sailing. I hate that I'm talking about it on a podcast now. It's not going to be a hidden gem anymore.
Vero does not do fireworks for the fourth of July because they are very concerned over there about sea turtle conservation.
Vero beach is one of the like premier sea turtle nesting sites anywhere on the eastern seaboard.
And so of course, course, and the, the summer is their high nesting time. So to do fireworks on the beach at that resort would obviously not be very friendly to the sea turtles.
You can drive into town because Vero beach is actually like way on the outskirts of the actual town of your beach, the Disney resort.
But we were, we were sort of tired and worn out from the cruise and Vero beach is our little hidden relaxing gem. Like I said, after we debark across cruise. So we, they do a campfire with s' mores and songs and so we just kind of, we all wore our matching fourth of July outfits and we partook in that and we, we got to know a family who goes there for 4th of July every year. We had like a little low key celebration, but it was more like holiday weekend away for my birthday that year than it was like doing a big America 254th of July celebration.
But yes, we did, we did get to enjoy, you know, there was some buildup to the 4th of July on the ship while we were there though.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: I love that. Love that. Now this was your 10th cruise, so this was. Welcome to Platinum, your next cruise when you sail.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: I am so excited for my fancy lanyard and my free brunch at Paulo.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: We do it all for the brunch.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: Worth every penny of 10 Disney cruises.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Now tell us like, when did you start sailing with Disney? And I imagine, I mean you're, you're DVC owner, you know, you love ve like you like, when did the love for Disney start versus when did the Disney cruising obsession begin?
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I grew up going to Disney, you know, as a kid. A few big family trips. We were in Philadelphia. I grew up in New Jersey.
My husband did not really grow up as a Disney kid. And so when we were getting married and planning our honeymoon, I convinced him to do something Disney adjacent for our honeymoon. Neither of us thought going to the parks was going to be our jam. That was not the relaxing honeymoon experience we were looking for. So we said, why don't we try one of those Disney cruises? And this was back in 2009, and I knew I would have a great time. But I don't think my husband quite expected to be the person out of the two of us who was like, you know, he was dragged kicking and screaming off the ship basically. You know, how do we turn around and get right back on the magic?
And so we caught the bug.
We did four cruises before we ever had our children.
We took our first cruise with our daughter when she was just an infant in 2017.
And it just kind of has gone from there. We've done a few different Caribbean sailings. We've done Alaska because we're in the Northeast. We've done two different sailings out of New York City. We've been on all seven of the ships that are in North America. I don't know if or when we'll ever get on the adventure because I'm pretty sure the flight there and back is longer than the cruise would be for us.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: Um, yeah, I mean, I, I, I think you're correct about that. Unless you do back to back, the flight there in back is gonna be long.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: So. Yeah, so who knows, who knows if we'll get on that ship. But Disney cruises are a happy place for sure.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: I love that. I love that. Well, I mean that's a lot of sailing over a nice period of time. I'm kind of amazed that you were able to convince a non Disney person to go on a Disney cruise for a honeymoon. That's like pretty incredible.
[00:07:02] Speaker A: You know, I mean, he was, his heart was open.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: He wasn't like an anti Disney person. He just wasn't a Disney person.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Not in the least. He grew up, you know, he had done kind of, I had done a few trips as a kid and his family was more that we're going to do the one big trip to Disney World as a kid. So yeah, he was definitely, you know, open to the idea. And then I think that sort of, you know, Going on that first cruise, especially because it's, you know, it's all the magic of Disney without waiting in hot lines for hours and hours and hours for a two minute ride. You know, the lines for the characters are so much shorter. It's so much more about like the cruise experience, the food, the relaxation, seeing different destinations, you know, around North America, around the world. Like there's just more to it and less of the inconvenient, uncomfortable parts of going to Disney.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: Yeah, the rope drop and the, and the waiting in lines and all of that. So that's how we feel about it. We feel like it's got, got the magic of Disney storytelling with less of the negative things that, and not to say and the parks are great but like there are some negative things that you that are just less of an issue on the cruise line than they are in the parks. Well, let's, let's dive into this cruise. Who are you sailing with and why did you choose this itinerary in particular?
[00:08:22] Speaker A: So this was my immediate family, so my husband Colin and I and we have a nine year old daughter and a seven year old son who are themselves now experience Disney cruisers. I think my son is gold. After this sailing.
So it was just the four of us, you know, family vacation, I'm a teacher. So the timing of this sailing really worked for us. And again, we're sort of, we've been on enough sailings and we seem to manage to have gotten ourselves on all of the ships. So it was really neat to look at the destiny say, okay, are there any sailings on this new ship that will work for our family's schedule? And those two seven night sailings popped up, went oh my gosh, we can kind of kick off summer vacation. Leading right into my birthday weekend. Seven night sailing to two ports that Disney doesn't typically go to. The sailing went to Lookout Key, which we had not been to before.
And then we got to go to San Juan, Puerto Rico and we got to go to St. Martin, which St. Martin and I had never been to before. We had been to San Juan one previous time on an Eastern Caribbean sailing on the Fantasy, but hadn't gotten to see and do some things we wanted to do there. So you know, sort of ticked off a lot of boxes that our family is looking for. And you know, again, it was just a fun, slightly unusual sailing. It was going to really give us some good time to get to know that ship.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and we, you know, we've said on the show so many times the four night Itinerary, five night itinerary on the Destiny. It's really hard.
Nothing wrong with it. It's just a matter of if you want to do a lot of the new things that are on the destiny. And do you know the old staples that you love, like, you know, trivia or bingo or whatnot? Like, it's really hard to get everything you want to get done on a four or five night itinerary because there really just is a lot packed into those days.
Seven nights gives you a better opportunity to, to do all that stuff without feeling as much pressure not to say you're still gonna get like everything done. I still think on a seven night cruise, there's almost always something that I feel like I didn't get to do.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: Always. And the beauty of being, you know, a family like ours, we feel so privile that we get to cruise as often as we do. But you let go after that first sailing or two of the feeling that you need to do everything and you have a much more enjoyable vacation because of it. And the things you didn't get to do, you sort of, you know, again, we're a very lucky family that we do this as often as we do. But then we say, okay, that means that's on the list. That becomes top of the list for next time. The thing that we didn't get to do this sailing.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Absolutely. Now, in terms of that, like prioritizing what you want to do, were there things that you wanted to book in advance in terms of either, you know, adult dining or drink tastings or excursions, like on the planning side of things?
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Yeah. So for Apollo, brunch is a non negotiable.
So that's always top of the list to just get a few hours of adult breakfast to ourselves. You know, we gotta go have these on the lasagna and the chicken farm.
Non negotiable.
This time around we, we had some beverage tastings that we hadn't been able to do on any previous sailings. And we got really lucky. We got into them. So we did prima note Apollo for the first time on this sailing. And we got to do the old fashioned tasting in Hook's Barbary. So, you know, our booking night came around and I was crossing my fingers that we'd be able to snag them and, and we were able to. As far as excursions, we've sort of moved away from booking excursions through Disney. We have just found the way that we tend to plan those port days.
We can have some fun. I'm I'm kind of a type a trip planner and so I love doing some homework on the places we're going to visit, finding what are some of the top things to do, where we're going to visit there, and then trying to plan out how do we get to those things on our own for a little less. You know, it's our way of like saving a little bit of money on the cruise to book on our own, finding some third party tour offerings that might be able to get us in a smaller group to some, to more places than we'd be able to get to. So in San Juan we actually didn't book anything. We sort of developed little walking tour that we were going to do. And then in St. Martin we booked a third party tour and we were able to take like a little bus ride on a small van of like 10, 15 people. We did a loop around the whole island and got to see a lot of the highlights of the island that way. So there was really no pressure to kind of like, you know, jump on right at midnight to book those things and lots of time to do our research and figure out what was going to feel like a good fit for our family excursion wise.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: I feel like that's such a great pro tip because I think a lot of first time cruisers are hesitant to do that and that's okay. You know, I, I think staying with the Disney excursions, especially for your first several cruises is a great sort of introduction to, you know, cruising and then you get more comfortable and realize, okay, I can plan not in every port. In some ports you really, your options are kind of limited and you kind of have to go through Disney, but in other places you have a lot more at your fingertips. Well, let, let's talk about, let's dive into the actual, you know, trip and the, and getting there and all of that. When did you get down to Florida? You're coming from Philly and you're sailing of course out of Fort Lauderdale. Did you go like to Florida to spend time at Disney World or did you head directly down to the Fort Lauderdale area?
[00:13:53] Speaker A: So we flew, the cruise was Saturday to Saturday. We actually flew down on Thursday. We always try to, you know, that's the number one pro tip, right? You never fly down the day of and I've actually found if the flight is usually a little cheaper, if you even push it back, if, you know, if you can add an, an extra day, all better. So we flew down the Thursday before into Fort Lauderdale. The World cup was going on during our cruise so not only in the Miami area, but all the way up to Fort Lauderdale. Hotels were pretty expensive.
So our plan, again I'm the type A researcher. We drove down to the Florida Keys for two days before the cruise.
We, we stayed at a hotel in Marathon Key.
We went to this place down there called the D and Research center that was up the road from our hotel that we enjoyed with the kids. Hotel had a great pool and a pool bar. So we just spent, you know, it's a couple hours long drive but we took an early flight out in the morning again had two really relaxing days away from all the, the World cup hubbub and expense. I think if we had been a family, no shade on the families that went and enjoyed some of the World cup festivities happening in that area. At that time it just wasn't anything that our family really wanted to do but it really fun. In the Facebook group and the WhatsApp chat there were a lot of families who had some fun, you know, going to restaurants and some bars and lounges and like, you know, playing up a pipe. But we went and had a little bit more of a relaxing time before the cruise. Drove back up to Fort Lauderdale on embarkation day and we were on the, you know, we were on the cruise. Our port arrival time was around 12:30, so you know, we didn't have to leave too, too early. Had a beautiful drive back up that morning, dropped off the rental car, took a shuttle, got right on the truck ship for lunch.
Awesome.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: Sounds fantastic. So like, honestly I never would have thought of going down to the Florida Keys before a cruise. But when you're sailing out of Fort Lauderdale or Miami, it's really not that far.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it's about a two, two and a half hour drive from the airport, so not bad at all. We had, we found a great local brewery in Islamorada for lunch that was like halfway from the Fort Lauderdale airport to the hotel we were staying at in Marathon. Just a great, great two days of, of again like super chill and relaxing that kicked off the trip.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: I love that. I'm gonna, I'm, I'm, I'm putting, I'm gonna put a note down for myself as an idea for either before or after cruise, depending upon when we have time. But because we loved Key west so much and I've not seen any other part of the Florida Keys, so yeah,
[00:16:31] Speaker A: Key west would be for me at least Key west would be a little bit far to drive to. It's gonna be another good 90, if not more.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: Oh wow.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: It's because it's pretty slow going once you get down there ont Route 1 once you're in the Keys. But to get to Marathon, which is kind of about like the halfway point down in the Keys again it was like two. We definitely, we definitely got it done in under three hours if we had driven straight. But with the seven and a nine year old, we knew there was going to be a lunch pit stop anyway. And our, we're big beer, craft beer enthusiasts. So I was like, where is there a local brewery to stop at for lunch? And that was the perfect place to go.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: Well, anyway, back onto the ship.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: Yeah. How, how did the check in process go when you got to the port?
You know, they like you mentioned at 12:30 port arrival time. I'm imagining things are going smoothly by then typically because they've already been sort of letting people on for maybe 45 minutes to an hour at that point.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean lines were backed up but moving. Right. So we dropped off the bags.
They actually let us. We were probably about 10 minutes before our port arrival time, but it was close enough. They let us get in the line, dropped off the luggage, kind of like waited in the line as it was slowly, but it was constantly moving.
Got right inside the terminal, like weaved through that line, got ourselves checked in, got the magic bands going.
And so again, my guesstimate, if our port arrival time was 12:30, we were probably on the ship eating lunch by 12:45. 12:50.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, and speaking of that, we always have to. Well actually before I ask your embarkation day tradition, I gotta ask you what you thought of the atrium or the grand hall because you, this was your first time on the Disney Destiny. You had been on both of her sister ships though, so you knew kind of what to expect in terms of, you know, scale and size and all of that. But what did you think of the atrium or grand hall? I keep using the term atrium, but it's grand hall on the wheel.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean beautiful like just. And so, so, so similar and yet so different in terms of the way that they've done it from the other two ships.
I think that's sort of what's fun about the way that they've done the wish class is in many ways all three and soon to be four of those ships are probably, you know, they're carbon copies of each other in terms of layout. But they really have done, I think, an amazing job especially with the destiny of giving each ship its own personality. Right. So it was really fun to walk in and, you know, right from the get go, you get that heroes and villains, Black Panther is there. Black Panther was up on the little balcony greeting us as we walked in. You have, like, the music going. The, like, vibranium light show thing on the chandelier is going. So, I mean, you know, everything we expected to be really, really beautiful. I think if I. If I have to still name a favorite, the Treasure is still my favorite.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: We hear that a lot, Heather. We hear that a lot. I feel like. I feel like people. People love. Well, it's funny because when the Wish came out, everybody hated it, right? Well, not everybody, but a lot of people hated it. But now, like, it' feel like now everybody loves the Wish class. But when we ask, like, between the. The Wish, Treasure and Destiny, I think most people, especially with the grand hall, just, like, love the. The color, the richness of this.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: Absolutely. That, like, it's just. It's somehow they take that huge space on that ship and they make it feel warm and cozy and so welcoming. So I would say, you know, the Destiny definitely has a different feel. I. It's a Heroes and Villains theme ship. It's not supposed to feel warm and cozy. It's supposed to feel exciting and epic. And I think that's exactly, you know, what they did when we got on.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: I love that. All right, well, your first, you know, what's your first plan of action? Like, are you dealing with, I don't know, things that. Guest services? Are you headed to Marceline Market? Are you headed to the pool deck? Are you headed to sit down lunch? Like, what's. What's your first plan of attack once you're on board?
And does that align with what you Traditionally, on a Disney cruise, we tried
[00:20:43] Speaker A: to mix it up. This time, we are typically a buffet family, and we said, well, let's get, like, let's. Again, it's the 10th cruise. Like, if you don't mix it up once in a while, you don't know what you're missing.
So we made a plan. We said, let's go sit down in Pride Lands and see what the sit down lunch is like.
Is it going to give us a more relaxed start to the trip? I think right now it's sort of of. If you're following a lot of Disney Cruise, Line social media, there's a lot of people who are recommending that as like a, you know, a different thing to do, a way to beat the crowds. I think maybe the word is out. I actually have to say, I think we'll go back. We'll go back to being a buffet family after this sailing.
I think it just, it. It took a little longer than we want. And this is like, again, nothing against our servers, nothing against the people we were sailing with. You know, it definitely just took a little bit longer for us to get our food than we were accustomed to. The menu choices are obviously a little bit more limited. You know, we. We certainly had a great food, you know, a great food experience there. But I just enjoy that, like, when we get to the buffet, especially now that our kids are getting a little bit older, and it's not overwhelming for us to be juggling four people's plates of buffet food. They can walk through the buffet line with us after we get a table. You know, it's easier to. To just get in and out, even though it's a little bit crowded. But we still, we had a great experience. Our, you know, our kickoff cruise memory, that was sort of fun. You can't get Mickey bars at the buffet, so we all get a Mickey bar for dessert, for lunch. And we, you know, we all toasted to the beginning of the cruise.
[00:22:19] Speaker B: You cheer us. Your Mickey bars.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: I love that we got a great, like, family selfie of us toasting to the beginning of the cruise with our Mickey bars. So that is an experience you couldn't get at the buffet.
But I think all things said and done, we'll probably go back to the buffet next time.
But I think, you know, a different family in the same position might have. Might make a different choice and say, wow, it was, you know, it was relaxing. We were able to take our time and take a breath and enjoy something on the forced burning of the cruise. It's just not exactly what, you know, wasn't the ideal for our family. We realized we had been making the right choice for us up to that point.
[00:22:56] Speaker C: So heading onto the destiny you knew a lot about, I'm assuming, the sort of meet and greet opportunities or the meet and play opportunities on board. Did you have any in mind that you were really hoping to do?
[00:23:07] Speaker A: Um, I don't know if I went with anything in particular that I felt like was a. Was an absolute must do. Um, but I think what was cool for our family with those opportunities, my. Our family, we are not wait in line to meet the characters, people. Part of the appeal of a cruise anyway is that there are shorter lines to meet characters and there are parts.
And in particular, you know, you find so many characters that roam around on the ships in general. So our kids are. They are so spoiled in some ways, but they're like, we don't. If there's more than a few people in line, we'll catch a character while we're walking around. We don't need to wait in line for that photo with Mickey. We'll probably see him at some point this week and we'll say hi that way. So what was neat about the personality of this ship is it gave our family a chance to have some meaningful interactions with the characters or see the characters. You know, even if it was more of a show opportunity, you got the interaction with the characters without waiting in a 30 or 40 minute long line for your 2 minutes of chit chat and take a picture and then you move on. So for a family where that's just not part of our usual cruise experience, I think we actually got more time with characters than we would have. You know, it wasn't one on one time, but we got to see and interact with and feel that storytelling that those characters have to give. So that was, I think, a plus for me. And it was something that I walked away from the cruise not thinking I was necessarily going to enjoy because it is such a character heavy ship. But the way the characters are done on that ship is so different from any other sailing that it was definitely a plus for us by the time the cruise was over.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: That's such an interesting take, Heather, because I think a lot of people have come away from the Destiny being like, oh, I hate that there's all these lines for these meet and play actors.
But I think you're right. There is. There are more sort of interactive character experiences from the show side of things. Like in the grand hall, you get those. The Loki show, you get the Loki and Black Panther show, you get. If you go into Saga, you can do the Maleficent show, right? So you. There are a lot of opportunities that aren't waiting in line necessarily. You might want to wait a little bit to get a spot, you know, a decent viewing spot in the grand hall. But you don't really have to wait, you know, long.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: I don't think we ever waited for a show. Like we knew the show was coming up and we went to the grand hall or we went into Saga and we just found whatever seat was available. And then my daughter walked away being like, that was so cool. We got to see Maleficent. That thing she said to that other family was really funny because she, again, she doesn't feel the need to be chosen for the show or have the one on one interaction. But it's neat to watch the characters improvising and again telling their stories.
So, yeah, absolutely. I think that was a cool experience for the family who's not going to wait to meet the characters. We even got lucky. I'll bring up, speaking of not waiting in lines, we got really lucky. We did the troublemaking with Cruella, just my husband and I. And it just so happened. It was probably one of the first times it was offered. It was very early in the cruise. I wish I could remember which day. And we saw the line sort of forming, but it didn't look too, too crazy long. And it was only about 5 or 10 minutes before they were going to open the door. And we said, all right, let's get in the line. And if we don't get in, we've only wasted five to ten minutes of our time.
And if we do get in, great. We can check a thing off the list that we, you know, again, I wasn't going to be willing to wait hours for that experience. We were one of the last people let into the lounge. But we got in and I mean, and it is, it's a really fun interaction with Cruella. You don't necessarily, again, you don't get your, your perfect picture. But I think to me that was a, it's a more meaningful and fun way of interacting with the character than waiting on the line for the picture.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: That's a fab. I think that one is. If I'm going to wait for anything, I'll be honest and say that's the one I'm waiting for.
Aside from, like, aside from this main stage shows, because of course I'm waiting for those. But like, yeah, I would say that to me, the, the best one is the Troublemaking with Cruella show. It is adult only, so it's one of those things where your kids need to be doing something else. I don't, I don't think it is adult only because it's like racy or anything. It, I mean, I guess it could be depending upon what suggestions come from the audience. But it's more about.
It's just a small, it's a small space and the space it's held in happens to be one of the adult only bars as it's Deville's Lounge. So yeah, I love that you got to experience that one. Heather, I'm curious, in terms of like main stage shows, are you guys, you know, people who go to all of the shows in the Walt Disney Theater or are you like, I'll go if it's convenient or, you know, or maybe I'll skip it.
[00:28:07] Speaker A: It really depends on what our mood is in that day. And it also depends on whether we've seen the show before or not. So for this cruise, we had obviously not seen.
We had not seen Hercules before because that's unique to the Destiny.
We also happen to have not seen Frozen before.
You know, again, we've been on a whole bunch of sailings, but it just has not worked out with the particular sailings that we've been on.
We had seen Seize the Adventure because that's on all of the Wish Class ships. So we had Prima Note at Paulo scheduled, like I think I had mentioned. So we skipped the show that night. Kids were thrilled to just hang out in the Kids Club. That is their. That's their happy place on the cruise. They don't mind being left behind there. To them, that. That's their vacation from their parents. Right?
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
That's kind of the perfect age, by the way, for the Kids Club. You know, Obviously it's ages 3 to 10 in the Oceaneers club, but I think like 7, 8, 9 is kind of that perfect because they're like, like not all kids, of course, but a lot of kids are like, okay, I'm not like, I don't feel like I have to be attached to my parents and they like the idea of making new friends and they're interested in like a lot of the activities that are happening in the Kids Club.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: Absolutely. I mean, that's something maybe for a little later on in the, in the show, but our kids, like, they are in the sweet spot for the Kids club and they're two years apart and they're both under the age of 10, so they can kind of be in there together. They, they certainly played together as far as I know, for some of the time.
They definitely have very different interests. So they played a part for a lot of the time too. But anyway, they, they enjoyed time in the Kids Club that first night. They had no regrets about having to miss one show.
We really enjoyed that time up at Palo, so we were happy to skip the show we had seen before.
But we, we saw and enjoyed Frozen.
We actually, we did again, we try to do things a little differently on every cruise. See and do things that we haven't done before. So for Frozen, we went up to the higher level of the balcony and we, we kind of gunned it for one of the boxes along the side. We had never sat there for a show before, so the kids really enjoyed. If you sit there, you do miss some of the, like Projections and backdrops that are right in the center of the stage, but you can get a little peek into the wings and see some of what's going on off to the side. So the kids thought that was so cool that they could, they could the actors like while they were waiting in the wings before they got on the stage. And there are some projections, especially in the Frozen show, that happen on the stage where if you're sitting in the orchestra level, you don't quite get to see. So that was a really cool view.
It wouldn't necessarily be my recommendation for like a first timer listening to the show, but I think if you're an experienced cruiser or you've seen that show before and you want to have a different experience seeing it sitting, sitting in those boxes, it was very easy to go set up there. I thought there would be. See some other people kind of wanting to sit in that spot, but we were able to get one right away.
We also set up in the balcony for Hercules. There was just going to be less of a wait to sit up there. So totally worked out fine. Loved that show.
And we also made it to most of the other shows that happened in between the main stage shows. So I know this is your shout out. We did get the Broadway stars on our show.
We get to see Zach, Ben Call and Michael Mollycall. I hope I'm saying their names correctly.
Michael was a longtime actor in Aladdin on Broadway. And then Zach.
Their shtick. Both. We saw both their adult only performance and saga and we saw the main stage show. I guess they're friends in real life or at least that was their shtick that they both acted in Aladdin and Zach is actually one of the side sidekick characters. If you've seen the Broadway musical, they've added those characters in because they took away a boo in the Broadway musical. So they added. So according to the two of them, by the end of our cruise, they had sung every single Broadway and Disney duet written for two male actors at the same time.
[00:32:18] Speaker B: And you know, there aren't that many,
[00:32:23] Speaker A: but they were, I mean, they really were. They were just a delight. So I wanted to. I had some notes specific to that because I knew. I know that's one of your favorite things on any sailing.
So I, you know, we went. We made sure to go see the two of them. There was a great musician, magician, sorry, who's actually hails from Philadelphia. So we got to check. Check in with him. Eric Jones.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: Oh, yes, we've seen. Yeah, Eric Jones is great. Yeah.
[00:32:47] Speaker A: Yes. So we Got to see him. He's terrific. And yeah, he's a Philly boy, so he appreciated my Go Birds.
And. And we got to all also see a. He's like a magician contortionist. Oh my gosh. I'm trying. I'm like, I didn't. Oh my gosh. I didn't write down his name, but he's fantastic. It's going to come to me at some point too. Like, wow.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: I mean, you went to a. You went to a lot of shows. Because that's pretty much every night. Except for you mentioned the first night because of course you've got like a pirate night, which usually there's like a movie night on the night that's pirate night instead of a main stage show in the Walt Disney Theater.
[00:33:26] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: And we skipped out on the movie. It was Toy Story 5.
We were thinking we might wait and try to see it. And then my daughter actually really wanted to go see Toy Story 5. It came out the weekend before our cruise and I said, yeah, sure, we'll go to the movie theater. So we had already seen it and it was, you know, again, we were okay skipping out on that so that we could enjoy some of the pirate night stuff.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I want to ask about Prima Note. Had you guys done it before on any of the ships or was this your first time doing it?
[00:33:57] Speaker A: This was our first time doing that tasting. We've done a number of the other tastings. We've had dinner plenty of times at Palo. Again, brunch is sort of a non negotiable for me, like I said. But we had never been able to get into it before.
It's a, it's a newer offering, I think in general. Again, we were, even though we were gold, we went on the Treasure last summer and it, you know, it was gone before we could get to it when our booking window opened.
And I don't think it was just on my radar as something to try. If we had had brunch and dinner, say. But we didn't have Palo dinner booked, we just had brunch booked. And we said, let's try this as something different. It was lovely. It was just a great way to experience Palo in a slightly new and different way than we were used to. They had some really great wines. All of the small bites that they offer, there are not things that are really on. I was thinking we would come and there would be like maybe a little bite sized chocolate souffle or a little bite size like the annulotte. I love the anulati I love that, you know, Lottie or you get the. Your little amused bouche when you go to dinner is always the one little gnocchi. And I'm always like, why is there only one?
[00:35:06] Speaker B: I know 20 of these.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: Can I. Can we just order?
[00:35:10] Speaker B: I will, I will. I will tell you. I got two the last time because I mentioned how much I loved it to the chef. Like, the chef had come by. We were there for dinner.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: Excuse me.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Write a little note.
[00:35:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:21] Speaker B: Heather's writing down the chef. You know, the chef, during brunch or dinner sometimes will come around and, like, you know, with the sort of manager, and they'll kind of just say a quick hello to. To all the different tables. And they happened to come by the last time we were on board during dinner. And I mentioned how I just love that gnocchi amused bouche. And, like, he quickly looked away from
[00:35:47] Speaker C: the table and like, shouted to someone, like, two more. Amuse. And like. And like.
[00:35:51] Speaker B: So we each had a. We each had a amused.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: On one hand, it's a hot tip, and on the other hand, it's. It's a Disney cruiser's rookie mistake. It's like saying that you can't decide between two entrees. Or I think both of these appetizers might be delicious. Or did you know, I really like the truffle presets. And then magically, you have, like, three of them.
[00:36:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:16] Speaker A: Amazing. I love that.
[00:36:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: But, yeah, so we went into it thinking that, like, maybe our small bites would be some, like, Paulo's greatest hit. And in fact, the. The little small bites offerings are all things that you kind of can't get unless you go to that Prima Note tasting.
So again, it was. It was just a way of seeing Palo with fresh eyes, even though he had been there a number of times before.
And the wines are delicious. So about. We found out from one of the servers, half of the service team at Palo, they dedicate to doing that Prima Note tasting. So in spite of the fact that you're only there for an hour and you're just getting these small bites, and it's a relatively small group of people, people like you're getting that high level Palo service. Like, you have, like, multiple people dedicated to your little table, like, you know, asking how things are, asking if you want a little bit more of something to take. Like, it was a great way to. To kick off the cruise.
[00:37:10] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. It's such a good thing. You know, it's funny. It's the. Our last couple of cruises. We haven't done it because we've done it a couple of times. But now talking to you, Heather, is making me want to book it for our Destiny cruises in December. Because you're just like remind. Because I think, think it's. It is pretty much the same. I have heard from a couple of listeners that they've gone and it's been different, but generally speaking, it's pretty much the same menu across the fleet and same wines even across the fleet. Probably it might be times where they run out of things or if you're like an allergy person or a you or you don't eat like a particular, you know, either, you know, shellfish or something like that, they will make you something special. But like, generally speaking, it's the same. So it's. You don't have to repeat it.
[00:37:56] Speaker C: Right.
[00:37:56] Speaker B: It's one of those things. You could do it once and never go back again. But it's, I think, so good.
I. I wouldn't want to repeat it every cruise, but I would repeat it again for sure.
[00:38:06] Speaker A: I mean, last I checked, the menu at Palo brunch is also the same fair across much of the fleet and people seem to have no problem going over.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: So, so true.
Excellent point, well made, Heather. We will repeat. And it's not like I order different things every time I go to brunch or every time I go to dinner. In fact, it's the opposite. I pretty much order the same thing every time I go to Apollo brunch or Apollo dinner.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: Although actually, I will say if we can skip ahead in the cruise, or maybe we're. We're skipping ahead time wise, but we can stay in the same location. So we did not do Apollo dinner this cruise. We. We really enjoyed having dinner with our kids in the main dining room every night. That was of our family time every night. But we did do Palo brunch because again, our kids have never complained when we say, we're gonna need you to go to the kids club for a couple. And they're like, great. No parents like, bye, see you down the slide. Away we go. So we went to Palo brunch and I had, I kind of went on a mission to say, like, I order. We ordered the same things every time because we, you know, you just get so upset. You're like, ah, the chicken parm and the lasagna. And then we can split it half and half like the grape and gorgonzola pizza, the antipasti platter. And so I said, I want try a couple of Things that I've never tried before. So two things we've tried before. I got the. The blueberry lemon pancakes, which are fine. They're delicious pancakes. But the star of the show at this brunch, there is a dessert. I think it's like a chocolate amaretto cake, and it has like a little like hazelnut gelato. Am I describing it right? You are, you are.
[00:39:46] Speaker B: It's like a. It's a. I think they call it the chocolate lava cake maybe, but it's something like that. Or it might not be called that, but it's something.
[00:39:54] Speaker A: Never gotten that dessert because we always go for. There's like that delicious panna cotta with the beautiful little chocolate garnish and the little popping pearls. Love that. My husband, really, he's like a lemon fiend. So he likes that limoncello cake. I had. I looked at the dessert list and I was like, which one of these have I never gotten before? And I'm like, that's what I'll just try for dessert this time. And if I only a little nibble of it. Oh, well, I've eaten 17 other courses for brunch today. I'll be okay if I don't love the dessert. Delicious. Star of the show. I think that's my new favorite Palo menu items. Like absolutely delicious, delicious dessert.
[00:40:33] Speaker B: Well, that's the plug for trying something new. I mean, right? Like you tried. You mentioned you like to try different things. You know, switch it up every so often. Like going to sit down, you know, lunch. So maybe that wasn't the you. That wasn't the discovery of a lifetime. Okay, you guys, you figured you. You guys are Marceline market or cabanas people on embarkation day lunch. But now you figured out you are this chocolate lava cake person instead of the panna cotta. Even if you love. Still love the panna cotta.
[00:41:02] Speaker A: Could be. Or. Or, you know, again, I might accidentally tell my server that I'm having trouble deciding between two desserts. And who knows what could happen?
[00:41:10] Speaker B: Who knows, two. Two desserts might appear instead of one. I mean, here's the thing though. For those listening, listening, you can order two desserts and they will bring you both. You don't have to do the wink, wink, nod, nod. You can actually just order them. The only time you can't do that is at dinner. And it's not at dinner in Paulo because you're paying a la carte for dinner at Paulo.
Brunch at Palo. And all of the meals at main dining, they are order as much as you like. If you want four appetizers, you go ahead and order four appetizers. If you want two entrees, you order two entrees. If you want three desserts, you order three desserts.
[00:41:47] Speaker A: Desserts, absolutely. And we did plenty of that in the main dining room at Psycho Ways. As an experienced cruiser, kind of one of my top tips, if I'm not sure what I'm going to like and my server has recommended two different appetizers without shame. They're, you know, they're constantly turning that food out and you have already paid for all of it.
So try two appetizers. If you only like one, great. Then you found an appetizer that you like. And often if I try two things, the one that I like more is often surprising to me. The thing I thought I was going to like more sometimes is disappointing. And the thing that the server recommended that I never would have picked for myself.
That's almost always the way to go. Those. Those servers, they. They know those menus inside and out, and they watch day after day after day what gets eaten and what doesn't. So it's always fun to take their recommendations. And again, even if it's throwing something else onto the table that I wouldn't have tried, sometimes those things are really pleasant surprises, too. So, yes, always a great tip for everybody.
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[00:44:02] Speaker B: Speaking of main dining, tell us what you thought. I know you had already eaten at Worlds of Marvel in 1923 on the Sister ships, but you got to eat there again, of course, and you got two nights at all of the restaurants, plus a bonus third night at one of the restaurants.
Yeah. Tell us what you thought of dining on board. And then, of course, specifically prior to Headlands.
[00:44:25] Speaker A: Yeah. So, I mean, again, the, the main dining. I actually think the main dining on the Wish class might be a lot of my, my favorite dining menus across the fleet. I remember we, we went on the Wish in summer of 2022 during its inaugural, like, pretty close, actually, to its maiden voyage. Closer than we expected because there was a delay. Right.
I just remember being so delighted and pleasantly surprised at all of the new main dining menus. I felt like the quality of the food was like a little bit of a step up in that they were willing to try new things and push some Disney people out of their comfort zones into different kinds of cuisines.
So it was really fun to go back to 1923 and Worlds of Marvel. We had had both of the menus at both of those restaurants before. It was great to, to, you know, retry some favorites. And then Pride Lands was a new one. I loved the food there, actually. I know there's some mixed reviews, but I think it's because, again, it's a place where Disney is trying to push people out of their comfort zone just a little bit. Do some of those African inspired and Indian inspired foods. My husband and I are definitely pretty adventurous eaters, and so we're not afraid to try something new or we get excited when we see something along little out of the ordinary that's not your basic, like steak or chicken. And there were, there were some great choices on those menus. I think you had to definitely listen to the servers and take their recommendations. But we tried the, the, the shrimp curry entree was awesome.
And there is also. Oh, jog my memory. There's two. There's a couple of appetizers there that people rave about. And they were. Oh, the chicken skewer.
[00:46:10] Speaker B: Yes, delicious.
[00:46:11] Speaker A: And actually, I mean, I was like, oh, my gosh, look at this. Disney's doing dark meat chicken with like a really nice marinade to it.
Absolutely delicious. And then they have that Peri. Peri shrimp appetizer that's also just cooked really well. It's a great food in the dining room. Now, I will say, in terms of the entertainment at Pridelands was fun. It was lovely. It was really fun having the singing up on stage. I think it was actually a less obtrusive show than you see on some of the other. Other ships in the wish class. So I actually think that was a plus. But I knew going in I was probably going to feel this way, and it was true. It did not beat the Coco dinner show for me on the Treasure.
That show in that dining room. I definitely cried multiple times when we saw Treasure last summer. So I knew. I was like, it's pretty rare that a dinner show on a Disney Cruise Line is going to make me cry in the middle of eating my appetizer. I don't think that's. I can't. We can't go 2 for 2. And we did not. But it's super entertaining. You know, again, you've got. Is there any music more iconic than that Lion King music? And I actually think, like, the minimalism of that show compared to the Frozen show and the Coco show on the other two ships, again, makes it. It's less obtrusive to your experience while you're dining. Like, it's okay to just be listening to that music in the background while your family is having a conversation. Whereas during that Coco show, all conversation stops because you want to be engaged with what the characters are doing. We really enjoyed all of the main dining. All the main dining rooms had great experience. We had amazing servers. Our servers were Van from the Philippines, who was really experienced and had been on multiple ships throughout the fleet. And then we had Ella as our assistant server. She was from China. She was newer, but she was so sweet, super enthusiastic. So always a shout out to them if people are going in the Destiny and they're. They're looking for two great servers to request. I would definitely say they were. They're a fantastic team too.
[00:48:15] Speaker C: Let's talk a bit about the. The ports you got to visit. So let's. Let's start with Lookout. What did you think about Lookout Key and what did you get up to there?
[00:48:25] Speaker A: Had never been there before, so it was really fun to experience that for the first time. For us, we really just treated it as a nice, relaxing beach day. We didn't have any excurs booked. The goal was sort of just explore the new island, see what it's like. See how it's different than Castaway Key, which we've been to a bunch of times.
First and foremost, I'm sure many people have said this. The walk off of the pier is not anywhere near as intimidating as it looks, I think it, it looks worse in pictures and video on the Internet than it looks in person when you're looking out your window and then when you're actually walking it. I think a surprising thing for me, you're over that beautiful clear blue water, which is creating a really nice ocean breeze. At least it was for us. We had great weather on our Lookout Key day and so no one in the family was hot or sweaty or felt the sun beating down on us.
They have those couple of spots on that pier where you can take a quick picture and grab a drink of water and they give you nice cool towels as soon as you get to the end of the pier.
So we had no trouble getting onto the island. The kids really, they enjoyed it. They splashed on the beach. They enjoyed the big splash pad area that they have there, which is really cool and different from what they have on Castaway.
Just enjoyed a bunch of great time together.
One thing that I did, I left my family for just a little while and asked if I could go take a walk just so I could really get the layout of the new island.
So I took a walk all the way down to that southern tip of the island where those beautiful white limestone, they're limestone cliffs are.
And I don't know how I went into it totally. I went into it totally spoiler free, I guess that those existed. But that is the hidden gem of that island. Going down to that spot and just enjoying. There's no people down there. There aren't any amenities or chairs. If you take a walk all the way down to that southern tip of Lookout Key. But again, these beautiful cliffs, you can kind of climb in and out, scramble in and out if you get there at low tide. I was high tide, but I had heard later from some other people who have visited, you can go out around the water and you can actually get a view of the ship from around the far side of those cliffs. I didn't quite get there, but that to me was the highlight of the day. Just getting, you know, taking a walk by myself and really getting some relaxation time down there. We saw the little Junkanoo show on the island as well, which was so, you know, Mickey and Minnie are so cute in that show. I think it's really cool that they've got some, some Bahaman people coming in to share the culture and the music of Junkanoo.
And so, yeah, for us overall, it was just a really, really relaxing chill day. My husband will tell you he thinks Lookout is the superior beach to Castawa Key.
And can't wait to go back and check out that island again another time.
[00:51:20] Speaker C: No argument from us. I completely agree. I think the beach at Lookout is just so much nicer. I'm curious, what did you, you think of the food at Lookout Key? I mean, they've kind of standardized some of the food options now over to Castaway, but it was before, you know, Lookout had some unique items. And I'm just curious how you found the food to be.
[00:51:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it felt to us, it did feel pretty similar to what's on Castaway.
We didn't. Again, it's been so. Look, it has been open for, what is it, two. Two years now? 20, 20. You guys would know better than I would. When it, like, debuted, you probably would have been, you know, again, for us, it was our first time and we, we kind of waited on purpose.
I knew, you know, there. There's going to be kinks to work out with anything that's really, really brand new, and I really wanted a chance. The vegetation there is grown in and I mean, it's really just beautiful down there now. And I figured any other kinks in terms of food service? But maybe our downside is that we, we're not getting as many of the unique, like, barbecue lunch items. But, I mean, lunch was delicious. The lines weren't too, too long. We got lunch nice and early.
You know, there's plenty of, like, salads and fruit, things that, like, the kids enjoyed.
We sat down, we made friends with another family.
We had daughters that were about the same age and met in the kids club. So we sat and ate lunch all together. And yeah, it was, I mean, super enjoyable to me, pretty similar to the experiences that we've had on Castaway.
[00:52:44] Speaker C: We gotta ask about the pier. I mean, how much of an impediment was it for you and your family to get over there? Some people find it to be too long. Some people are staying on the ship, not going off Lookout, which I think is the big mistake. Like, you got to go see this island. But what did you think of the pier?
[00:52:59] Speaker A: No, I mean, like I said, I think. I think it looks more intimidating in pictures and video on the Internet than it is in real life. And then I think once you're actually on it, it's even less intimidating than it looks. I did kind of just for my own curiosity. Like, I took a quick glance at my phone when we started walking, and then I took a glance at my phone and we had finished walking and it was 10, 12 minutes of walking, which I think is And I don't think I'm the first person to say this either. About the same amount of time it takes you if you're going to do the walk to the family beach on Castaway. You kind of walk past where all the characters are rather than riding the tram.
Pretty much the same amount of time. You know, you might complain there's no characters, but again, the water is beautiful and the ocean breeze is beautiful and there's a spot to stop and take a really nice family picture and then cool towels and water while you're waiting. So nobody in my family really noticed or minded at all.
We let the kids go in blind and say anything to them about, like, there's going to be a walk along a long pier before you did not say a word. Nobody noticed, cared or complained. Actually, I'll say even the. The pier was almost a highlight of the day for me coming back. The rest of my family also, like, they, they went back on the ship a few minutes before I did. I wanted to take like one, one look around the gift shop before I walked back on the ship. And they didn't have any desire to do that, so they walked ahead of me. I did my shopping and then I had like a really peaceful walk all by myself.
[00:54:31] Speaker B: And again.
[00:54:31] Speaker A: And there was. The walk back is a lot less crowded than the walk out. And, you know, you've just got your, your tropical Disney atmospheric music playing. The beautiful, like, turquoise blue water, the view of the ship in the background, the breeze is blowing. I was like, I actually could walk this pier all day.
Pretty happy about it. So, yeah, I would, you know, for any listener of the show who has not done it, don't let the pier intimidate you. It's wonderful.
[00:54:59] Speaker C: So let's, let's, let's head over to San Juan.
We know we stopped in San Juan. I will say we did not have the best day in San Juan. It was, it was all right, but we happened to be there overlapping with, I think it was like the celebration of the new mayor. And there was parade.
[00:55:14] Speaker B: Yeah, it was the governor's. Like, it was their, like, inauguration day. So a lot, lot of things were closed and we knew traffic was going to be bad, so we didn't book anything.
[00:55:21] Speaker C: So I'm curious to know where first, where did you dock in San Juan? Because the pier we were on was in sad shape when we were there. But I'm curious where you docked in San Juan. And, and you. It sounds like you did your own walking tour of San Juan. So tell us more about that where you found it? What you did?
[00:55:36] Speaker A: Yeah, we did. Well, we, so we, we docked right downtown in Old San Juan. It was the destiny's very first visit there.
So everybody was sort of excited to be exploring a brand new port. We again, we had been once on a kid free trip. So with the kids we were excited to just explore Old San Juan. We didn't get to do that. We had done a, a Disney excursion to the Bacardi factory kid free years before. That was not going to be an option for the seven and the nine year old.
So we got off the ship. I had actually just done some, some Googling myself. Had a list of, of a few places that I wanted to try to hit upon and let the Internet and Google Maps kind of help turn it into a little walking tour loop for myself.
The highlight was going to be to hit El Morro, which is the fort that overlooks the ocean, you know, all the way out on the edge of town. So we sort of made our way there past a few really nice landmarks. That's it on the corner. When you get to the fort, there's always a couple of guys selling piraguas, which is like Puerto Rican shave ice with all kinds of different flavors. Flavors Let the kids get a couple of those while we, while we walked up to the fort, enjoyed a sweet treat. The kids loved climbing around the fort.
It really, it wasn't too crowded there that day at all. There was at least one other ship in port with us.
The day was a little bit hot, but especially once you get up to the fort again, you're by the water, there's a really beautiful breeze. And then we took our time walking back from the fort back to the ship. So there's a landmark called the Parque de las Palomas, which is like a the pigeon park. And lots of tourists stop there to feed the pigeons. So our kids thought that was absolutely hilarious. At the edge of the park there's actually a beautiful view of the pier and the ship stopped for some popsicles. I think I mentioned before we're big craft beer aficionados. So we found a local craft beer bar called the Taberna Lupelo. Would highly recommend it. Amazing beer list if you are, are a beer fan at all. They imported stuff from Europe. I know you just went to Belgium. Lots of great Belgian beers there, oddly enough, and lots of great brews from all over Puerto Rico. All sorts of local breweries. So we got to try a few things. And then we actually by that point we had a Lunch reservation.
We had snacked and drank enough as we were walking around downtown. We actually just decided to go back to the ship for a late lunch rather than stopping for lunch in Old San Juan. I had a place in mind that we didn't get to, but overall, I mean really just a great day enjoying some time together with like the, the list of stops that I had on my phone to hit.
[00:58:21] Speaker C: So no mufongo. It sounds like no mufongo.
[00:58:24] Speaker A: Yeah, sadly. I know.
[00:58:26] Speaker C: And, and how did you, how did you. Sorry if I missed it. How did you, how did you organize this tour? Did you just do your own research and put together an itinerary for the walk or you know.
[00:58:34] Speaker A: Yeah, so like a couple of things. Did my own research and then had kind of a bulleted pointed list of some places we wanted to hit. Plug them all into Google Maps to kind of see how feasible it was to walk. Very feasible to walk all over downtown Old San Juan. And then did actually let ChatGPT help me out a little bit. Plugged it all in there and said how does this look and can you help me make sure I'm taking a route where I don't, I don't have to back up track.
It was all surprisingly easier than I thought it was going to be. And again, we, you know, we probably were off the ship for a total of three or four hours.
You know, got off nice and early in the morning so we got to the fort before it was too hot. Again, we're back on board for a late ish lunch at probably about 1 o'. Clock.
And again I, you know, that's sort of my style of planning a vacation. I would love to do the research and then be able to find a few places that are, you know, rather than doing the, the, as the. As the AI generated song goes, rather than doing just tourist stuff, trying to find some places that match, you know, things that are just going to be of real interest to our family. So great day. Just exploring on our own.
[00:59:44] Speaker C: Nice. All right, well after San Juan you hit up St. Martin.
What did you do in St. Martin?
[00:59:51] Speaker A: We did. So I mentioned we. We booked a third party tour on our own if I can plug them because they were wonderful. They're called Bernard's Tours.
It was a hour little tour and like a really small bus. So there may be 5ish other like little groups of people or families. I'd say about, you know, it's like a 15 passenger little bus.
We did a loop around the entire island. The, the French and the Dutch Side. So if people don't know, Saint Martin is basically divided evenly in half. Half of it is French territory, half of it is Dutch territory. Two totally different cultures. Two like, you know, even though they're both on the same island, two different feels.
So we got about an hour break on a. On the French side.
We made a little stop. The kids got to feed some of the native iguanas around the island.
We stopped in Marigo, which is like the capital of the French side, for lunch. They dropped us off at a beautiful little French bakery that had, like, some great sandwiches. And my husband and my son just like, they ate a baguette with butter. That was pretty much the lunch that day.
[01:00:56] Speaker B: I mean, you can't go wrong. No notes. 10 out of 10.
[01:01:01] Speaker A: There are people who go to the French pavilion in Epcot and that is also their lunch. I think there are probably people in actual Paris who just eat a baguette for lunch that they do. So stopped at that French bakery. And then on our way back to the ship after we drove around part of the Dutch side, the iconic beach in St. Martin is Maho beach, where it butts right up against the fence for the St. Martin's International Airport. Airport. So you can sit on the beach, and about 20ft above your head, there are commercial jetliners flying over you. So I would not say in terms of a beach stop, not in a quiet, idyllic, fun beach stop, but certainly something to experience for like 30, 45 minutes before you get back on the ship. So it was a great tour. Really gave us, like, a nice highlight of all of the different islands. And totally would recommend that tour to anybody who winds up on St. Martin, which hopefully some people will, because I've heard that Disney Cruise Line seems to be ramping up their visits to St. Martin.
So again, we were the first stop the Destiny never, ever made there. But I know in the future they'll be making some more stops there too.
[01:02:12] Speaker B: You mentioned. Sorry, you mentioned that you had done a couple of drink tastings on this sailing that you had not done before. One being the Old Fashioned tasting. And I can't remember, you said what
[01:02:23] Speaker A: the other old and Prima note.
[01:02:25] Speaker B: Oh, Prima note was the other. The other tasting. Okay. Yeah, we've talked about Prima Note, but I gotta ask. Brian, of course, is a big Old Fashioned fan. Me, not so much, but I'm actually hearing that maybe I should be trying it because it's not like the traditional Old Fashioned. You get to try lots of different flavors. What did you think of it?
[01:02:42] Speaker A: Yeah. It was lovely. It was really different. It was a little different than I was expecting. I had heard that, yes, like it. You're not just going to be drinking a bunch of bourbon based cocktails.
So Amit was our bartender for that and he's a very experienced Disney Cruise Line bartender. Some of the other people we were sailing with who were experienced cruisers were talking about. He was their, their bartender bunny buddy from some other sailings.
So he, yeah, he put together four old fashions and if I'm remembering correctly, I think only one of them was even bourbon based.
So one he did there was like a gin based one. I think one was a rum based one.
So he was really taking the idea of an Old Fashioned and finding different ways to blend different styles of bitters, different garnishes, different add ins to like expand your idea of what an Old Fashioned was or could be.
I actually I, I really like an Old Fashioned.
I have a frequent Old Fashioned drink. So for me it was, it was a really interesting tasting. I actually don't know if I would repeat it again because I was kind of looking forward to like four takes on one of my favorite cocktails and this was a lot, this was a lot broader than that. So it was a cool thing for us to try once. I think if you are a person who's not into drinking a lot of bourbon, it's a great way to try something new and different. And it was definitely something where like all of the knowledge he was throwing out at us, which is I think half of what you pay for in those tastings, it was really broad based knowledge of the spirits that we were tasting. The same way you'd get at or like the mixology tasting or some of the other liquor tastings.
So that was a really, really cool aspect to it.
I, I enjoyed my, my Old Fashioned highlight of the week actually. Shout out to the, the bartenders who were in the Sanctum that week.
That was our hangout for a lot of evenings on the cruise. And if anyone's going to the Destiny anytime soon and Davis is still there at the Sanctum makes a wonderful.
So he was my actual, he was, he was my bartender Budd week and made a great classic Old Fashioned. Found a few ways to mix it up but overall the tasting it was a great time. Hooks Barbary is just such a cool venue to do that tasting in as well. So it was really cool and we did that on the very last night of the cruise at 9pm so that was just a great way to like tie a Bow on the whole week and have, you know, some cool one on one time with my husband to as a finale to. To our awesome week on board.
[01:05:21] Speaker B: I love that. Now you mentioned your kids both love the kids club and you know, we talk about how they are kind of the perfect ages.
Did they have any specific, like favorite activities or favorite things that they like to do in the kids club now that they're kind of. They're pretty experienced cruisers by their own right.
[01:05:40] Speaker A: Oh, they're especially on the Wish class because again, we've done. We did the wish in 2022. So my dog, they were three and five that summer and then we did the Treasure last summer when they would have been 8 and 6 and now they're 7 and 9. So they have memories of all three.
My daughter loves the.
It's in like the imagineering area. They have that like ride simulator where you create your own Disney roller coaster and then you get to pretend you're riding on it.
I think she could do that over and over and over again.
My son loves the Marvel Room and the interactive game that's in there where you tap your magic band, you design your superhero suit, and then you get to play pretend superhero again. I think he would spend hours and hours and hours. He was on a mission. Apparently there's some Easter egg in that game where you can get Golden Iron Man. He was on a mission to do it. He made buddies with one of the counselors in the kids club. Again, shout out to Steven. He had been with us on the Wish. I didn't realize this actually until I came home. I had a list of I love to write to Disney about anybody who made our experience experience great. He was on the list in 2022. And like, once again, I don't even think. I'm not totally sure he remembered us, but I think it's really funny. Like he and my son found each other on two separate cruises. So Steven informs, he's like, I've been with the cruise line for four years in the kids club. I've seen exactly three kids manage to unlock this Easter egg. So we had to mitigate his expectations about getting Golden Iron man, but loves that room, loves that game, loves that experience.
And something else they both loved. I was actually asking the kids before we got online today, you know, is there anything fun that I should make sure I mention on this podcast for other kids? And they both wanted to make sure I mentioned the the Happy. Not the Happy. The Happy Hunts the Ghost game. That's what we wound up calling it all week. The Haunted Mansion Happy Hunt where you tap your magic bands against the screens and then you go hunting for all these interactive elements, you know, that they didn't do on their own. We were kind of with them, you know, anytime that they were exploring. But you know, on some of the sea days that was like took up a big chunk of our afternoons. And they had so much fun just being able to explore and run over the whole ship and again unlock all of these things that were, you know, you're in a curio cabinet, you think this is just a cool bit of decor and then you realize, oh, there's actually like the hatbox ghost is in there. Or this building has this little animated element to it.
So outside the kids club, that's what they would name as one of their favorite activities too.
[01:08:20] Speaker B: Love it. Well, have we missed anything before? We maybe subject you to some arbitrary rules. Have we missed anything either that was remarkable or memorable from this cruise that you wanted to make sure people know about any tips and tricks or anything you learned from this cruise maybe that you hadn't learned learned before?
[01:08:43] Speaker A: I think we hit most of it. I'm really, I'm glad I managed to sneak in my again. My husband and I love just chilling in lots of the bars and lounges around the ship. Just taking an hour or two to ourselves like after dinner while the kids are in the club. There's not a show going on or, you know, in between some of the adult entertainment.
So one of our secret goals all ship long, we actually had a magnet on our door to this effect was our own Death Destiny Pub crawl. And we said we wanted to try to get one beverage, alcoholic or non, from every single bar or lounge on the entire ship. And we managed to do that, you know, counting that was counting my coffees in the morning from, from the. The Cafe Merida and Cafe Negera. So we. So one thing to point out, it is possible to do it. We really enjoyed so many of the bars and lounges and in particular particular sitting at the bar at the sanctum just proved to be a great time. The magic of Disney is always the people.
And so we love just getting to know some of the crew and getting to know the bartenders. One other highlight, I love to take the ship tours every time we go on a cruise, especially if it's a ship I haven't been on before. Even if I've been on that ship. There's. You get a different tour guide and they have different Easter eggs and details from around the ship. To share.
So our ship tour this time was really great.
We had a tour with a cast member named yo yo, who is apparently the longest tenured entertainment staff member that's currently on the cruise line. He's been with the Cruise line for 20 years, and he was a wealth of trivia. Like, I'd been on 10 cruises, even though it was my first time on the Destiny. Like, all right. And, you know, you watch a few vlogs, you listen to a few podcast episodes before you on the ship. He. He had so many bits of trivia to share that I had never heard of before. So I almost don't want to spoil any of it, because if someone's going on the Destiny and he's running your tour, he just had so many cool things to share with us. He knew every detail of that ship inside and out. I'll do one thing that I think some other people have discovered. We were in Caskin Canon, and some people hopefully know that the ceiling in Caskin Canon, which is the pub on the deck, Destiny, has a bunch of Easter eggs and details that are like homages to all of the Pirates of the Caribbean attractions at Disney parks around the world. There's one little Easter egg in there. Gilligan's island is actually listed on the ceiling of Casting Cannon as well. So there's like. So I was like, would not have noticed that. Would never have picked up on that. On his own, as the first thing he pointed out, he was like, does anybody knows Gilligan's island on the ceiling of the ship? So just like, yeah, taking those ship tours. And in particular, he did an incredible job with the one that we took.
[01:11:35] Speaker B: Awesome. I love it. For those who haven't heard us mention this before, the tour that Heather is talking about is called Imagineering the and it's Wish, Treasure or Destiny on that class of ship. It's called the Art of the Theme ship tour on the older ships. And you book that once you're on board or once you're connected to the ship's wi fi, you book it through the app as an onboard experience. And it is adult only, so anyone 18 or older can book that in the app.
[01:12:05] Speaker C: All right, well, we have reached that point in our show, Heather, where I need to hand you back over to Sam for some arbitrary questions, some arbitrary rules, and dash of judgment of the round we know as rapid fire. So, Sam, take it away.
[01:12:17] Speaker B: All right, Heather, you knew this was coming. I'm going to ask you Disney favorites and then some Disney Cruise Line favorites. The only ship that is off limits to you is the Disney adventure because you haven't been been on it yet. I confess we haven't been on it yet either. But that gives you a lot of choices. So we're going to start, though, with your. Your favorite Disney character. And Disney means anything and everything Disney owns. Who's that?
[01:12:38] Speaker A: Belle.
[01:12:38] Speaker B: Love it. All right.
[01:12:40] Speaker A: She's the nerd princess.
[01:12:41] Speaker B: I love fits. I love it. It fits me, too. All right, what is your favorite Disney movie?
[01:12:51] Speaker A: Beauty and the beast.
[01:12:52] Speaker B: Wonderful. I love that. All right, what is your favorite Disney series song?
[01:12:57] Speaker A: Oh, gosh. This is. My husband and I have had a lot of conversations about this. That's a. Gosh, that's so tough. I should have come prepared for this. All right, I'm just gonna stick with a theme and say, be our guest.
[01:13:10] Speaker B: I love it.
[01:13:11] Speaker A: That's actually my real answer. But that's the first one that came to mind.
[01:13:15] Speaker B: And it can be one of your favorites, right? I have like 12 different favorite Disney songs, depending on genre, right?
[01:13:21] Speaker A: Depends on the day, actually, right now, let's just say because I keep singing it in my car in cruise withdrawal. The. The sail away. Let's set sail song.
[01:13:30] Speaker B: Let's.
I love it. All right, fair.
That's a great one. I like to use that for Instagram reels, but I also enjoy that song. All right, we're moving on to the ship. What's your favorite Disney Cruise Line? Stage show? Heather.
[01:13:46] Speaker A: Stage show. Oh, my gosh.
It might be. You know, just because it's so current. Hercules was actually amazing. I know it like. Like bit of a controversial. That or Moana.
[01:13:56] Speaker B: They're so good. Yeah.
[01:13:58] Speaker A: I think maybe because it's just more recent in my mind. Hercules.
[01:14:01] Speaker B: Yeah. So good. Such a great show. All right, favorite activity to do on board a Disney cruise?
[01:14:07] Speaker A: Hollow brunch. Yeah, it's the fourth time. Hollow brunch.
[01:14:12] Speaker B: I mean, you can't go wrong. And like you said, you guys go halvesies on the lasagna and the chicken parm. You don't have to choose. You can have both.
[01:14:19] Speaker A: It's the way to go.
[01:14:20] Speaker B: It's the way to go. All right, all right. Favorite rotational dining restaurant?
[01:14:25] Speaker A: Coco on the Disney treasure. Like I said, it's the only rotational restaurant that's made me cry.
[01:14:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you can't go wrong. All right. Favorite sweet food item on a Disney cruise?
[01:14:38] Speaker A: Chocolate souffle. Apollo.
[01:14:41] Speaker B: Favorite.
[01:14:42] Speaker A: And now my other chocolate.
[01:14:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
All right. And what about your favorite savory item on board a Disney cruise?
[01:14:51] Speaker A: The annualotti at Palo at dinner.
[01:14:53] Speaker B: So good.
[01:14:54] Speaker A: Or the Osso Buco?
[01:14:56] Speaker B: I mean, you can have it. All right. Why not order both?
I love it. All right, controversial question. Aqua Dunk, Aqua Duck, aqua Mouse.
[01:15:08] Speaker A: Ooh, AquaDuck. I think, actually, although we rode, my kids would probably tell you the Aqua Mouse. We wrote it so many times this past careers, I think they would. They would rank it number one. But I still, I love me some Aqua Duck.
[01:15:23] Speaker B: All right, fair enough. Okay, another controversial question. Which one is your favorite ship? I think you previewed this, but that could have just been your favorite wish class ship. I don't know if it's your actual favorite ship.
[01:15:33] Speaker A: It is still the Treasure. Although the Destiny, I think is now has slid its way into my heart as my second just again, I think it just.
It has personality in a way that none, even the Wish and the Treasure don't quite have. Again, it's just a ship with a personality.
And I. I don't think until you've experienced it, you can really, like, understand exactly what that means.
But just in terms of the aesthetics, the Disney parks IP that the Treasure is still number one. Jeffrey R. Love it.
[01:16:04] Speaker B: Love it. All right, well, the last question of my rapid fire is what is your bucket list cruise? Meaning if you were going anywhere in the world on a Disney ship? So it needs to be someplace accessible by water, but it doesn't have to be someplace that Disney Cruise Line currently goes, but should be someplace you haven't been yourself.
[01:16:24] Speaker A: Where are you going right now? That bucket list is either a Hawaii cruise or the Norwegian fjords. We've start some, like, I don't know, just this week, my husband and I started. Started life. We've done Alaska, and I feel like there's a. A similar yet completely different vibe to that cruise. And I think that that might be something that we. We make sure we check off the bucket list someday. But Hawaii. Hawaii as well. I'm a teacher, and there's never been a Hawaii cruise that ever even comes close to aligning with something I could do. But I don't know, maybe someday in retirement, the Hawaii cruise will happen too.
[01:17:02] Speaker B: Both of those are excellent choices. Heather, you have passed with flying colors.
A no notes. All of your answers I love correct.
So good job. No judgment. No judgment at all. I'm a little surprised you didn't choose Beauty and the Beast for your favorite stage show, just given how much you love that movie and Belle.
[01:17:23] Speaker A: But, you know, it's based off of the live action movie version, which I have controversial thoughts on for another Time.
[01:17:32] Speaker B: Listen, you're not the first person who said this to me. I'll tell you, you're wrong about that. But I love all versions of Beauty and the Beast, so that's where I come from. I love all of the versions of it and I think the stage show on Disney Cruise Line is just phenomenal.
[01:17:48] Speaker A: It is beautiful and it's really fun and it's well done. So I'll grant you that. But I don't know if it's my personal favorite. That's okay. You have different opinions.
[01:17:56] Speaker C: Yes, you can. As long as you don't live in the same house with Sam. But that's Heather. I want to know what's next. What do you. Do you have anything planned?
[01:18:05] Speaker A: Do not have another cruise planned. If you believe it, I have two placeholders burning a hole in my pocket.
As of when we are recording this. This is late. It's late July. I know it'll be a little while before people get to listen to this. But as of right now, Disney has not released late 2027 into 2028 sailings.
So we don't have a sailing plan for next month summer. And if we go beyond that, we just don't quite know what they're going to offer.
So we're waiting for two things. We're waiting to see where the believe is going and what it's doing so we can continue checking ships off of our list of ships we've been on. There's also that heavy rumor of Disney coming back to New York City and we're waiting to see if that's true or not. For us. New York City is just a two hour drive from our house and, and we've sailed out of New York City before, parked right at the port. So I'm hoping one of those two things will pop up and we can book it again soon.
But we just kind of have to see. That said, we're going to go to the parks in December in Florida.
Believe it or not, we've not been to the parks with my kids since my son was a baby and he is now 7 pre Covid. We've been to Disneyland and we've done a lot of cruises. But the time is coming. My daughter is going to be finishing up elementary school soon.
This is just, I think this is the time and the place. It's going to get a lot harder to pull her from school to go to the park. So we're going to do a week at the parks in December. So that is what's actually next. But hopefully A cruise comes up on the to do list soon as well. Awesome.
[01:19:40] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, Heather, thank you so much for joining us. I'm sure you're going to find something to book in that next itinerary release, and when you do, you'll have to come back and join us for another show. It's been great having you on.
[01:19:53] Speaker A: Absolutely. It's been a pleasure. It's great getting to know you guys. Have a great day.
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[01:22:28] Speaker C: Good night.
[01:22:30] Speaker A: Sam.
