[00:00:00] Speaker A: They were not interested. We managed to convince them to poke their heads in the door. I mean, my youngest really wasn't interested. Even though I was saying that this is your one chance to be in the same one.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
At least four years.
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Yeah. She was so uninterested. In the end, my eldest convinced her that they should at least try. But unfortunately they went and poked their head in the door while an organized game was going on. And so they opened the door and everybody turned, like went quiet and turned to look at them and they turned around and walked.
[00:00:44] Speaker C: Welcome back everybody to this week's episode of the DCL Duo podcast brought to you by. We do travel, right? Remember, life is short. Take the trip. Let the folks at WeDoTravel right handle the planning so you can focus on the relaxing. Sam, it is time for your listener review jingle.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: All right. Simply the best.
Better than all the rest.
[00:01:05] Speaker C: All right, this week's Listen review comes from George, 2314, who writes great podcast. Just listened to episode 466, chapter by chapter. That's just as a side note, that's the episode we did with Stefan. Is it Stefan? Stefan, Steven, the writer, the author who came on. Yeah. About his transatlantic cruise. Also helps put it into context. She's talking or this George is talking about episode 466 and we're on episode 692 where clearly, clearly, clearly a little behind, but chapter by chapter. Best trip.
Best trip recap episode ever.
Interesting to hear about the cruise as an experience rather than a checklist of items. Even his less than favorable comments were kind of under were kind and understanding rather than snarky. Bring him back after all his cruises. Thanks for the great podcast. Well, thank you for that note and thank you for those kind words about our guests. We really do appreciate our guests out there in the community who take of their time to come on the show and share their experiences with all of you.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: If we could cruise all the time, people could listen to us just drone on about a cruise line, but we unfortunately have to have full time jobs and so we can't cruise all the time.
[00:02:16] Speaker C: Let's just be honest, if we could cruise all the time, I'm not sure we'd have a podcast. We'd just have a private jet and be cruising everywhere. But anyway, I just want to thank George for leaving that review. We really appreciate it. And as a reminder for everyone out there, one of the easiest ways to help support the show, head over to Apple Podcasts, hit those five stars. If you leave us a written review along with your five star rating, we will read it on the air at the top of one of our main episodes. And if you are listening to us on any other podcasting platform, if you have the ability to leave us a review or rate us, please do so. It really helps bring the show to others who might be looking to know more about Disney Cruise Line. All right, Sam, over to you to introduce our guests from all the way across the Atlantic tonight.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Yeah, super excited. We have a returning guest who comes to us all the way from Scotland outside of Edinburgh, to be specific.
But welcome back to the show, Anna. Welcome back, Anna.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me again.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: It's so lovely to see you and to catch up with you. Now we're gonna talk about your second Disney cruise that you just took out of Southampton recently.
But before we do that, we need to remind listeners of your Disney background. Your Disney cruising background, I know, is just your fantasy cruise last summer. I love that your repeat cruiser now. Welcome, by the way, to castaway club status, your sil member.
But yeah, why don't you tell folks where your sort of love of Disney came from? I know your husband is not such a Disney person, but you're converting him one cruise at a time.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Yes, he's definitely converted to Disney Cruise and we're slowly getting there with the parks. I got him back to the parks this year because we also had another cruise, so he was willing to do that. I'm very much growing up watching the Disney films and wanting to go to Disney World and we brought our kids up watching the Disney films. But yeah, like you said, my husband didn't grow up watching them at all.
So we've gradually been working on converting him to enjoying going to the Disney parks and tolerating some films as well.
So as of this year, we've been to, well, me and the girls have been to Disney World four times. He's only been three times because we did leave him at home one time. And as of last year, we've now been to Disneyland Paris three times as well. But we still haven't ventured to other parks. So that's definitely in the future, hopefully in amongst the cruises we'll now need to take now that we've decided we really like cruising, well, Disney cruising, at least we don't know yet if we like any other type of cruise thing.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and, and spoiler, you, you have a cruise on another cruise line actually booked for. You said about seven weeks out.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: Yeah, seven weeks. Tomorrow it leaves. We're trying Royal Caribbean because we had an idea of wanting to. Where we wanted to go and we wanted to see, at the very least Greece, maybe Italy and, you know, Royal Caribbean. From listening to mainly your podcast and hearing people talking about other cruise lines, that seemed to be perhaps the closest to what we were used to. So we're giving that a try.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:20] Speaker C: I'm curious, your last sailing on Disney, where. Where did that depart from?
[00:05:24] Speaker A: So we departed from Port Canaveral. We were April last year. We went out to Port Canaveral and we did the duo dip to look out and Castaway.
[00:05:33] Speaker C: Okay, so you don't. You haven't left out of Dover. I was curious to know if you had any insights on the differences between Dover and Southampton. But you haven't gone out of Dover.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: No, I've only gone out of Dover on a ferry as a child.
Probably quite a different experience.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Yeah, different experience for sure. Well, and it's interesting because your, your first cruise happened to be on the Disney Fantasy, if I'm remembering. And then this cruise is on the Disney Dream. So you got to sail on the sister ship and. But don't tell us yet, but maybe hopefully next year you'll be sailing on the Disney Wish.
Now tell us what made you choose this particular cruise? This just. The only stop was Bilbao, Spain, and it was out of Southampton. But tell us why you chose this cruise in particular.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: Yes, it was very specifically this cruise. We were always going to use our placeholder to go somewhere, but specifically we chose this one because two or three years ago my husband told me that he would really like to see the solar eclipse in 2026 and that it was going to. He showed me a map with the path of totality covering Spain and Iceland.
And, well, we went to Iceland on the way to Florida last time for our cruise. But the. My husband and children have never been to Spain. So we'd sort of been thinking, oh, maybe we'll go to Spain for a week or something in the August.
But of course I started looking at maybe there's a Disney cruise that goes that's going to be there. And then discovered this perfect fit.
The cruise was Monday to Friday. It was going to be in Bilbao, which is in the path on the day of the eclipse, so that as we were coming out and traveling north again, we would be in the path of totality. It just seemed the perfect fit. It was meant to be. To be. It was meant to be that it took no persuasion to, because as soon as I said that, he said the idea that, you know, trying to see it from Sea where we'd A, you know, the captain could hopefully move us into a good position and that would, you know. But B, there's nothing in the way of seeing this. So it just seemed like it was meant to be. So that was why we booked this.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: Well, and if you're out at sea at the time of totality, right. You don't have to really worry about lights and stuff from, you know, city, land, whatnot. Right.
Our son Nathan is super interested in astronomy and when there's some like planetary alignment or meteor shower or whatever, he's always asking to try and go see it. The problem is that while we live in the suburbs of Seattle, it's pretty dense suburbs and so there's just too much light. We really can't see a lot of these things.
[00:08:17] Speaker C: That's not really an issue for a solar eclipse.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: Not for an eclipse. Not for an eclipse.
[00:08:21] Speaker C: But it's just you're shutting off the light.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: That's fair. That's fair. But like, I just think for when you're like that being out at sea for any kind of like astronomical thing is like, seems just like a really cool way to do it. Right. Like it's just an awesome.
[00:08:38] Speaker C: I want to go on one of the cruises that they park the boat right on the international date line at the equator and they kind of anchor it so the, you know, the ship is turned across both sections. So if you're in the back, you're on this side, in this time zone, you're on the front, you're standing on the line that a couple times. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: Well, and I got to ask like, in terms of planning, was there anything that you all were wanting to plan, like you know, any of the drink tastings or Apollo brunch or Apollo dinner? This is a four night cruise, is that right?
[00:09:10] Speaker A: Yes, four night. Only four nights like last time. But this time we had two sea days and one port day. So the opposite to what we'd had before. And our port days last time had been two where we knew we really wanted to be off the ship for a long time. So we hadn't felt like we'd had too much time on the ship. And it was our first cruise, whereas this time we had the two full sea days. So we've partly why we're doing lots of holidays this year is it was our 20th wedding anniversary earlier this year.
Thank you. That's why we did Disney World and a cruise and another cruise because we're having a big year of celebrating. So we decided we would Try the Paolo brunch this time as a nice celebration too. And we, well, I'll maybe say this later but we did get a nice surprise experience from them because it was just when I phoned to book, they'd asked if we were celebrating anything. I'd said it was our 20th wedding anniversary and it was noted and observed during our cruise. So that was nice as well.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Well, we'll talk about that. I love that. I will say I think it's a little easier to book things if you're a silver gold. If you're sailing out of the UK because you're not competing with those Pearl and Platinum cruisers. There aren't very many on board during the European season in general, it's mostly, at least for your sailing, probably mostly folks from the UK and then some folks from mainland Europe.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: I think particularly the short cruises.
My sense is that perhaps the longer ones that are more people who travel over from them. I mean there definitely were, there definitely were North Americans. I heard quite a lot of North American voices and there was people traveling from North America. We had a very active cruise group with some fantastic people who organized that.
And there was people traveling from all over for it, I think possibly even Australia. There were some people from all over coming for this and a lot of people were coming for the hopes of seeing the eclipse. But it was primarily specifically English people because it was sailing out of England and definitely our experience of trying to get Paolo, we just, you know, I didn't even remember in the whatever time I would have had to have woken up at 5 in the morning. I forgot, I remembered later that day and logged on and had my choice of times.
So that was quite easy to get and I think, I suspect I'll be disappointed in the future if we're trying to book it.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's, there's a couple of issues there.
[00:11:32] Speaker D: Right.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: You've got two sea days as you mentioned, so that helps too. Right. Because it alleviates a little bit of the demand because there's just more supply. And then also just having any castaway status is just going to make, you know, you're ahead of the first time cruisers.
[00:11:45] Speaker C: Although we just did our cruise bookings for a cruise over Christmas on the Destiny, so newest ship in the fleet over a holiday and I was blown away because we did log in and there, you know, there were some connectivity issues, whatever had come to be expected. But there were like what, a dozen cabanas still left on Castaway Key and like for Pearl cruisers and I was, I was shocked. I was shocked at the amount of inventory that was left.
[00:12:10] Speaker B: We're just shocked that they hadn't been snatched all or that more had it been snatched up by the concierge cruisers. But I think that's again also a supply and demand issue. We didn't check for Lookout, but there are so many now because of the new cabanas on Castaway and the cost is pretty high too. So I think that, you know, that factors in and that I think that factors in for a lot of people sailing for the first time out of the UK or, you know, from, from either England or the Greater British Isles or, or from mainland.
A lot of they're looking at sticker shock already for the price of the cruise as compared to other lines, as compared to European lines. And they're like, I'm not paying extra for, you know, a meal out that I've already included a meal.
[00:12:56] Speaker C: Although I will say this, I just for fun, I just went on our, our booking page for our cruise. There's still, there's still at least actually two dozen cabanas available after Pearl Booking opened last night. So.
Unreal. Unreal. Disney. You may have priced yourself out of.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: They may have, they may have that
[00:13:15] Speaker C: or there must be a lot of concierge inventory left in our ceiling. But anyway, let's talk about this sailing.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, all right. Well, and let's start with getting there now. You, you all are coming from Scotland, I mentioned, outside of Edinburgh. How are you getting down to Southampton for this, for this sailing? And, and when are you going? You know, when did you go there in advance of your sailing?
[00:13:37] Speaker A: We always decided that we would drive because we felt we wanted to make it into a longer holiday with it only being a four day cruise. I think a lot of other people coming from Scotland chose to fly because it is quite the drive. And although we've driven to the south of the country quite a few times in the past, we always forget how horrendous the traffic is down south. It's just not like that. Once you get north of about Manchester, the traffic eases off so much and we'd forgotten how long the driving would take. But we did decide to break it up. So we left on Friday, which would have been the seventh, and drove down to York, which is pretty much halfway down the country. My husband and I lived there for a couple of years years ago. We've taken the girls before and they really enjoy it. So we had two nights there and then we drove down to Southampton where we stayed just the Night before the cruise, we had the four nights on the cruise and when we came off the cruise, we drove to the Midlands to visit Alton Towers, which is a UK theme park, probably the most popular.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Oh, I've heard of it, yeah.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: Ye. So my husband had been when he was 10, but other than that none of us had been. And obviously it's changed quite a lot since then. So we had the Saturday there after our cruise finished, partly because the trip down the stop was the request of my eldest. My youngest asked if we could do this on the way back.
She's always wanted to go, so sort of that's why we'd done those as either end. And it just made it a slightly longer trip.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Now, how long is the drive? How long was the drive to York and then how long was the drive to Southampton? Like how many hours are we talking?
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Yeah, they all turned out to be longer than predicted on Google Maps. But the drive to York, which is very predictable for us because we have. We lived in Yorkshire for five years, so we knew that would be kind of four, four and a half hours. And it was at the longer end of that.
And they went to stop on the way.
It was meant to be about that to Southampton, although it was longer because of traffic. So maybe closer to five hours by the time we got to the Midlands. Again, it was meant to be three, I think, and it was closer to four. And actually then we had a fairly smooth run back up home at the end of that, kind of another five hours at the end. So we sort of were splitting it into four or five hour chunks, which we then can have a stop on the way as well. And it is quite a long drive.
[00:15:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, eight to nine hours of driving, that's. That's a bit of a long trip.
[00:16:05] Speaker C: Let me ask this, Anna, because, you know, obviously we have a huge US based listener audience who may be taking these cruises. We also have sizable, pretty sizable group of people listening to us in Canada, the UK and elsewhere, which blows my mind. But if people are considering coming over and doing a Southampton cruise, I think they usually think, oh, I'll just stay in London the whole time and then travel down from London.
What's Southampton like? Is there a reason to spend or. There is always a reason. That's the wrong way to phrase it. But is there, like, should someone consider spending, you know, a day in Southampton?
[00:16:35] Speaker A: I don't know. To be fair, we didn't arrive till maybe 5 o' clock on the Sunday night and. But we'll get into it later, you know, again, silver status. We had quite a good port arrival time the next morning, so we didn't really have any time that first evening. The weather in Southampton was beautiful. I think it was. I don't know what this is in Fahrenheit. I'm going to guess it was in the 80s when we arrived at 5 o' clock in the evening.
And so there were some lovely parks in the centre. We were able to walk around, get different bits of food and then that after the cruise we knew we had to spend a little bit of time in Southampton because of when our check in time was at the place we were traveling to. So we went to the Titanic because it was built there. There's a Titanic exhibit which one of my children is very interested in the Titanic. So we went to that when we came off the cruise.
But really we were only there for an hour, hour and a half. There may well be other things you can do.
I don't know.
We knew we wanted to do these other things so we weren't really thinking about spending longer, to be honest. If we'd been spending towards the bottom of the country. Nick is from the southeast of England and has lots of family around London. So we probably would have spent time with them rather than extra time in Southampton. I'd never been to Southampton before this either. So I feel like other than the Titanic exhibit, which if anybody's gone to the one in Orlando, we preferred the one in Orlando. So I'm not sure it's worth going if you have real interest in it. But otherwise maybe not.
There probably are lots of other things to do there. But because we didn't have a lot of time in Southampton, I don't know what those would be.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, let's talk about embarkation day. You mentioned you had a good port arrival time. What's a good port arrival time for you, Anna?
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Well, so because the first time we went we were going out of Port Canaveral as first time cruisers. I think we were group 19 and our time was 12:45 and we didn't even get there at 12:45 because we'd had a hoo ha with the car park and it was horrible.
The trauma of the parking park.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: And making everybody reverse out of the area so we could try all the different money machines.
Yes. So we didn't have that issue this time. Thankfully we got group six with a port arrival time of 11:15 and I thought that meant arrive at 11:15. The parking is very straightforward. It's a lot more expensive the parking there than it was at Port Canaveral, because it was obviously a similar length cruise and we paid more in pounds than we paid in dollars for the equivalent.
So it was maybe just under 100 pounds, which is what, maybe about $130 for the four nights. But it's not as close as the one right opposite at Port Can Actual, but it's very close by, it's a few minutes walk. And we thought 15 meant arrive at 1115 and we got there maybe about 10 past 11. No, they'd already taken. There was no line that said 11:15 because they'd already taken all those and they got us to go through the concierge line because arriving at 11:10 for the 11:15 time, we were the only ones. So yes, they got us to go through the concierge line. There was nobody in the concierge line. Obviously by that point we felt very special. And then security was very quick as well and we were right upstairs. The only thing that was in a wee snag for us is that after I had done our check in online the previous month, people had started talking in the cruise group about how much time you needed on your passport after the trip. Now, my children's passports were due to run out February next year, so they had six months on them. And I know that to travel to Europe as normal, you need three months on your passport. So I hadn't thought anything of it. I didn't know that Disney Cruise Line want you to have six months after the return of. Now, I don't know if this is just an in Europe thing, but they want you to have six months from the date your cruise comes back on your passport.
And so this was being talked about in the cruise group and lots of people panicking.
The slight complicating factor I had was that between my check in online and going on the cruise, which was only a few weeks, but I was going to Paris with one of my children and we'd already checked in for that flight with her old passport. So I couldn't just send the girls passports off and get new ones back, which probably would have happened in time because I needed one of those passports in the meantime.
Yes.
So I had to book. We have like a fast service we can do that's like a one week service and there's a few places around the uk. Our closest one's Glasgow. So the day after I got back from Paris, I took both my children through to Glasgow and got the service and then we, the passports arrived back with us. Two days later, which still gave us just over a week before we were going. But that meant that I had different. They had different passports from what I checked in with. Right.
[00:21:43] Speaker B: So you had to update at the port. They had to essentially rescan or whatnot for your passport.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: I wasn't able to change it online, I think because everything had been confirmed by that point. By the time I got my new passports, I couldn't do it on the system. It wasn't a problem. We just queued for one section and then they said we had to go over to the sort of special assistance check in, but there was nobody waiting there. And we got, you know, they got that sorted out pretty quickly. I know we weren't the only people who were going to be in that situation, but I think it's probably just something for people to be aware of.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a really good tip because, you know, I think it's the same in the U.S. typically that, you know. Well, one, if you check in with a passport and then you renew your passport in the meantime, you are going to have to sort of redo things at the port and you can't redo them online yourself after Disney's already sort of of giving you the thumbs up. So that is, that's the same. And I think in the US typically, if you're. If a passport is required for the cruise, which of course, for all folks sailing out of the U.S. who are not from the U.S. you absolutely have to have a passport. But there are some differences in terms of U.S. citizens. You might be able to sail without a passport if you're sailing and returning to the US but it just depends on the itinerary and so check that on the website. I'm not going to tell you what to do other than to check on the website. But. But typically when you're, when you're going traveling outside the U.S. it seems like we need six months on our passport, essentially for all. For most places.
And so, you know, six months.
[00:23:09] Speaker C: Three before six. Three to check the specific place you're traveling. I don't want to give everyone blanket guidance. You need to.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: Well, sure, I'm.
[00:23:17] Speaker C: Specific destination.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Exactly. I'm just saying a lot of the time it's six months. And so that is something. It's good that the folks were talking about this in the cruise group because this is something that people need to be, you know, aware of because you don't want to show up and then get turkey burned away because you don't have enough time on your passport.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
That was a real fear. And if people hadn't been talking about it, I just wouldn't have known that because I know that I can travel in Europe with three months on my passport. And I had assumed because I was going to Spain, which if I'd flown to Spain I could have done with three months on my passport. But I don't know if it's maybe because it's an American cruise line in Europe, but they needed the six months, so I was glad to have that. And you know, we didn't, they weren't calling, they hadn't let anybody onto the ship by that point. So we were straight through and sitting down. They hadn't even gotten, got the concierge people on at that point.
So I think it was about half eleven. They started getting them on and then it was fairly quick from that point onwards.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: That's great. I have to say. You know, Disney Cruise Line will sometimes, as they did on your cruise, be checking people in earlier than your port arrival time. It's just it kind of depends on what the, what, what they're told by customs essentially. Like has the ship cleared customs in whatever country it's in and are they allowed to start checking people in. And then of course the boarding will be when the ship is also ready. So that has to be like an okay from whatever local customs. Plus like the ship's got to be ready in terms of they do some cleaning for that turnover in between one cruise and another. And I don't just mean the staterooms but even like the main general spaces as well. Well, Anna, so you, what time did you approximately did you get on the ship? And, and what did you guys think when you walked onto the beautiful Disney dream? You had been on her sister ship?
[00:25:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that we probably got on it was very quick once they started calling groups and because we were only six, it really didn't take too long. So we were Maybe on quarter two, 10 to 12.
Totally different. I mean last time we were all completely frazzled because of this horrendous parking experience and didn't appreciate walking in or getting announced or our first look of the atrium. It was all quite tricky. So it was lovely to almost have a redo of that in a very similar looking ship.
Obviously the colors are quite different, but other than that it's very similar.
It was lovely. So it was lovely walking in, all feeling quite relaxed and like the morning had gone well and it felt like a redemption from last time.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: I love that. Now what did you guys head to first? Are you, you know, checking out the kids clubs. Are you heading to cabanas? Are you heading to sit down? Lunch? What's sort of the first, first order of business on the ship?
[00:26:03] Speaker A: Yeah, it was Guest Services because last time we had had fantastic luck with getting the Princess Gathering. My husband had been doing it at the same time as I'd been doing check in.
I had a horrendous time with check in, which took an hour and a half. Last. The first time we did it, he got Princess Gathering straight away at a perfect time. This time, check in took me again. Not very many, you know, people checking at the same time. I mean, there must have been other people checking in for other cruises, but. But I know that for hours there probably weren't that many silver people, comparatively. It took me about 10 minutes to check in. But he could not get the Prince. He couldn't even get it to load to look at it.
So we went straight to Guest Services.
There was nobody at Guest Services at that point, I suppose only Group six. There wasn't, you know, there weren't too many people on the ship yet. And I said about four people. And she said, I was really sorry, there's not anything. And I said, what about if they was 3? Because my husband's not going to come anyway other than to take some photos. But actually this time we'd got the photo package and last time we hadn't. So he didn't even need to be there for that. And she said, oh, three, Yes, I can do that.
So that was fine. And she did manage to get us what she thought was the last slot. So that was really lucky. We got that on our last cd. So once we'd done that, we decided. So I think I have heard enough on your cruise to know that sit down is the way to go. The first time we'd done Cabanas because it had been later on and we were frazzled.
So we weren't going down that route again. We did the Sit down in Animator's Palette and it was delightful.
[00:27:34] Speaker B: Oh, good. I'm so glad to hear that. I think it can, you know, everybody has to sail in a way that works for their family. But I find Cabanas, that first embarkation day, that first day to be just chaotic. I mean, if you're there early, it's. It's less chaotic because, of course, it's not full. Like you mentioned having, you know, only six groups boarded onto the plane or plane boarded onto the ship.
You have less people on board. But still, most people go to the buffet. And so you're going to have a more relaxed experience, but it's going to be a lot slower of a lunch. So it's kind of a trade off of what. What works for your. For your family. Remind me, Anna, how old are your girls?
[00:28:15] Speaker A: So they're now 14 and 11, their weeks off being 15 and 12, but they are 14 and 11.
[00:28:21] Speaker B: Nice. So they're both Edge kids, although the older one could be in Vibe. I'm curious, I know last time we didn't do really kids clubs. I'm curious, did they even check out the Tween club? Were they at all interested?
[00:28:38] Speaker A: They were not interested. We managed to convince them to poke their heads in the door. I mean, my youngest really wasn't interested, even though I was saying that this is your one chance. Plans to be in the same one.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: Yeah, at least four years.
[00:28:51] Speaker A: Yeah. She was so uninterested in the end, my eldest convinced her that they should at least try. But unfortunately they went and poked their head in the door while an organized game was going on. And so they opened the door and everybody turned, like went quiet and turned to look at them and they turned around and walked out.
Yes, yes. That felt so uncomfortable that they just didn't want to do that. And I think I maybe said last time they get on really well with each other. The first time we all wanted to stay together, whereas this time they wanted a lot of time, just the two of them to go off and explore. They weren't that bothered about going and meeting new people on this short cruise when they had each other. And I think that put them off poking their heads in and yeah being really embarrassing. So we'll never know really whether they.
Because it looks like that's just not in the plans for them. And then by the time we next. But I mean it is weeks till they're 15 and 12, so it'll be a long time before they're both eligible to be in the same club again.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's. It's one of those things where I'm going to put a recommendation out there just to the community. If you've got a kid who is going to Edge or Vibe, like look at the Navigator app and try and get them go to go when they're doing like an icebreaker event where, where they sort of get to know you events, that's probably the best way to get sort of introduced to one of those clubs. If your tween or teen is at all interested in, in checking it out, it can otherwise It's a little bit harder to. Yeah. If you go in when there's an event going on.
Yeah. You might feel awkwardness. Listen, as an. As an former awkward teenage girl, I completely understand your daughters.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: They've never done. They've never. We've never gone on the type of holiday where there's been kids club clubs. This is the only time we've ever been somewhere there's been a kids club. It's just not the kind of holiday we've gone on. So they've never experienced a kids club on holiday before. So it's not that it's something that they've got any expectation of or that they're really keen to seek out because it's just not something that they know what that's.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: Yeah, they're not for them. They're not missing anything, really. Right. Because it's not something that they have done like at a. All inclusive or something like that. And so. Yeah, no, that completely makes sense.
[00:31:09] Speaker A: Sense.
[00:31:09] Speaker B: Well, and I'd love to talk about the solar eclipse. So let's like start there and start. We'll start with Bilbao and the solar eclipse because that was all the same day. What did you guys have planned for that day?
[00:31:23] Speaker A: So we decided that we would not get off till a little bit later. We tried to take advantage of a slightly quieter ship we had gone on the. So I think the very first time we went on the fantasy, only my youngest and I did the aqueduct and we had to wait 45 minutes for it. So I wasn't really keen to repeat that. So we had managed to get on once the day before without too long a wait. But it would be building quite quickly.
So we decided that we would try and do that in the morning and maybe have a dip in the pool, which, you know, the. The girls have thought was kids soup the first time, so hadn't really wanted to go in with lots of little kids. But again, we thought if we get up, most people are going to get off quite early. We could see them our veranda overlooked where people were getting off on the buses. We could see all these people going off the ship from our veranda that worry. So we thought, we'll have a slow start, we'll go and use the pools and then we'll head into Bilbao a little bit later. So that was the plan which we did manage. That worked out really well. We were able to do three goes on the aqueduct back to back with only a few minutes wait each time. And it was. Was really warm in Bilbao that day. I Mean, it actually ended up stopping us from really seeing Bilbao because it was so hot. But for being on the ship, that was lovely. We were then able to get in the pool, watch a little bit of Lucca, which I think was what was on the funnel vision. We'd not done funnel vision yet because again, there's so many people around those pools on the sea days, but there was hardly anybody. And so we spent a little bit of time at the pool, had some breakfast from cabanas and then went off and had our showers and got ourselves ready. So we probably didn't get off the boat until, oh, must have been about 11 or 12 possibly.
And there was all. It was very quick to get onto the shuttles into the centre of Bilbao. So it's about a half an hour shuttle into the centre of Bilbao from the port.
There was lots of air conditioned buses waiting right there. We were straight on and it's beautiful, the drive into the center with the mountains. And we got out in Bilbao and quite near there, there was one of these electronic signs that said it was 37 degrees, which I think must be about 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It was so hot, oppressively hot. But I don't think we quite realized how hot it would be either because down at the sea where the port is, it was a little. You had a little bit of a breeze. It wasn't quite as bad. The heat hit us like a wave. And straight away we were all saying, this is like being in Orlando. It was that sort of hot, but quite humid as well.
So they drop you off, it's quite nice. The bus drives you past the Guggenheim Museum there, which is a beautiful building, and they drop you off right in the centre beside these lovely gardens. And then you can go and explore. But we were so hot, we walked around, went into a few little shops, walked around the gardens and admired them. And then we're probably back on the bus about an hour later because it was too hot to wander. And there's not the same. It's not like wandering around in Disney World where there's good air con you can just pop into anywhere.
Even the shops that had aircon, it was particularly strong. We were still using our fans inside them. So yeah, we had a little view. We'd actually, we'd love to go back. It was beautiful, very green in the center, very pretty.
But we just got. We were really lucky again that there was three buses when we got back and we just managed to get on the last of those ones. So we didn't Have a wait out in the sun.
And as we drove off, there was no more buses there and there was all these people starting to queue up in this heat. So we were quite lucky, timing wise, because I don't think that would have been very pleasant. And then we were just back to the ship after that and got a late lunch with the pool food. That's something that had changed. I know this is on the Fantasy now, but there was no.
What's the place called?
[00:35:18] Speaker B: The Cantina. Ramon. Ramones Cantina. Yeah.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: Remember what was there on the Fantasy before? And I know the Fantasy has that now.
I can't even remember what was changed, but I really enjoyed that food.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it was. I. I don't remember if it's enough. It was another window for the burgers or if it was something, I can't
[00:35:38] Speaker A: remember, separate from the hot dogs before.
[00:35:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it might have been.
It might. I can't remember, to be perfectly honest, how it was set up because it's been such a long time now. It's been a couple of years since we've been on either the Fantasy or the Dream. Yeah. I honestly can't remember how it was set up, but I feel like it was two different windows. Maybe one.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: Anyway, it's a wonderful addition because it is. We always. We call Donald's Cantina Chipotle at Sea. But that's what Ramon's Cantina is also.
It's really.
I mean, I think the food.
[00:36:14] Speaker C: Excellent. Oh, it was Flo's Cafe, which was
[00:36:18] Speaker B: the burgers and stuff. Right.
[00:36:20] Speaker C: Chicken tenders and burgers. Chicken tenders and salads. So they must have, like shrunk that down. I haven't been on the fantasy. We haven't been on, as Sam was saying, since they made the change, but
[00:36:28] Speaker B: yeah, yeah, well, yeah, it's a great, great addition.
I will say, just for those listening, I think, you know, Anna sort of alluded to this. Air conditioning is in. In mainland Europe in particular, is not like air conditioning in the United States. Like, we have like our ac, especially in places like Florida. It's like blowing super, super strong, super cold. You do not get that in most of mainland Europe, probably because you're talking older buildings and, you know. Yes, they've added, you know, AC in a lot of places, but just not the same level of, you know, the electricity is also really expensive. So running AC is really expensive in Europe. Well, Anna, let's talk about this solar eclipse. Did you guys get to see it? Did you end up in the path,
[00:37:26] Speaker A: yes, it was perfect. We had been slightly unsure if it was going to happen because there were certain cruise lines that were advertising their cruises as eclipse cruises around about that time, and they weren't ones we were looking to go on just to do with the kind of dynamic. And we had placeholder, and this one fit better.
But I think people were saying in the cruise group, you know, we have to be bearing in mind that Disney's not marketing it this way. We don't know whether they'll try to take us into the path, whether they'll be able to.
And. And I mean, we actually only saw our head server once for a few minutes on the whole time we were in the dining room and my husband said something to her about the eclipse and she very quickly shut it down and moved on. And we were like, oh, no, does that mean we know they're not going to be looking at that? But actually, that night we were at the show and the cruise director came on and said straight away about what they would be doing to try to get us into the path to the night before it, what they would be trying to do to get us into the path. They would be leaving a couple of pairs of the viewing glasses in each stateroom. Now, we obviously bought our own and brought them because this is why we were going on it. But not everybody knew about us and not everybody had brought glasses. So that was lovely that they. They left those in every stateroom that day so that everybody would be able to view it.
And then they said, you know, the captain's going to do his best to get us into the best position. And we'll announce on the night where you should go. And I had booked us a portside cabin because I knew we'd be heading north, would be best to be on portside because the sun would be over that side as it was starting to set.
And they did position us exactly like that. And they said. They announced that maybe about an hour before they announced that that's how we'd be setting up. So we knew we were going to be on our veranda watching, otherwise we would have gone to the. And I think people.
Yeah, there was lots of people on deck four, because we could hear them and see them just down below.
And then there was a lot of people on the top decks as well.
But it was lovely the idea that we could be just the four of us on our veranda experiencing that together. And while none of the rest of us are as into that as my husband, he really is interested. I Guess like you're saying your son is in space and astronomy. He has a gigantic telescope like this. I can't even show you on the screen that he takes out through the winter, he takes out in the garden and none of us are as interested, but it was an amazing experience and even my kids, who hadn't really known what to expect, were quite blown away by it. My husband had actually seen a solar eclipse in the UK, in Cornwall, which is the very Southwest, in 1999. And he still talks about what an amazing experience that that was. And that was quite a cloudy night.
So see it being out at sea there, very few clouds, we could see it perfectly. And that eerie thing as it begins to go dark, we could hear people on their verandas and the people down below, everyone getting so excited. Actually just down below us there was a little gap between the two lifeboats as well. And we could see several crew members there with their little glasses. And my husband was so pleased, he's like so pleased. So many of the crew have been allowed to come out and experience this as well because it's such a unique experience. And there was lots of them down there with their cameras with the filters on it and their little viewing glasses as well. So it was everything he hoped it would be.
It was so, yes, completely worth it.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: That just like warms my heart and I love the way that Disney handled it and I think they probably did it it that way on purpose like because they don't want to over promise and under deliver. So they don't say anything until the night before because they probably they have a pretty good idea as to. Because obviously all of the path is a prediction, right? The what the path is is a prediction of course based on scientific evidence. But like it's the closer you get, the more, the more precise that prediction can get, right. And so you know, and, and then of course they've got got to deal with sea conditions and things like that, right. So they have. And if they had had a medical emergency for example, they might not, it might not have been able to be in the path. They might have had to go back to Bilbao or to another port or whatever, right. So there are a lot of factors that go in. So they don't want to over promise and under deliver. And now those other cruise lines who are advertising are, are doing exactly that. They're over prom. Well, I shouldn't say over promising because if they're able to deliver, great. But if you promise something and then something happens and you're not able to able to deliver, then you're going to have a bunch of disappointed people. And so it's a smart, it's a smart way to hedge your best Disney Cruise Line, you know, definitely.
[00:42:26] Speaker A: And in fact, my husband did say we'd actually just thought she was, we couldn't decide whether she was sort of not saying much about at the time. We thought, oh, maybe she wasn't saying much about it because they're just going to pretend it's not happening or.
But actually I think probably they'd all been told not to say anything because they wanted the cruise director to make the announcement spent.
[00:42:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's always a, it's just one of those nice surprises. I mean, not, not a surprise if you're aware this is happening, but sort of a nice surprise in the sense of like, you know, not saying anything until you, you really think you're going to be able to, to make it happen.
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What all did you guys get up to on those sea days or on those relaxing times when you're not standing out on that balcony waiting for solar eclipse?
[00:44:27] Speaker A: Well, there was the Polo brunch and that was on our first, first, first CD. We'd managed to get it for 11:30. We thought if we make it close to lunchtime, it can be instead of lunch. My husband was saying that he Was just not going to have breakfast. So that he was. His stomach was nice and empty. I can't not have breakfast. I have to eat.
And I have to eat quite a lot at breakfast. So I probably didn't go into it quite as hungry as him. But he deliberately ate nothing so that he could eat as much as possible. And then that could be our lunch.
[00:44:55] Speaker B: That's what we do. That we do exactly what your husband does. We have our coffee in the morning.
If I need to put something in my stomach, I might grab like a croissant or something. But like, generally speaking, we're. We're usually making like an 11am or noon. We're trying to get it close. As close to lunch as possible.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: And.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: And I'm. Yeah, I'm just waiting to stuff my face.
[00:45:18] Speaker A: I mean, I get hungry again. But lunch, I'm hungry quite a lot of the time, so it was okay. I mean, I was never going to eat quite as much as he was either. I tried to stick to kind of. Of mainly fruit and yogurty type of things for breakfast that weren't going to sit too heavy on my stomach for later.
But that. That was, yes, everything I hoped it would be. And actually, I know I've heard people speaking about, is it overpriced? But we thought it was really good value. And I don't know if that's partly to do with the exchange rates. Okay. For us. Just now we were thinking that much food and a drink. Think if you were out at a local restaurant, you could spend that and it wouldn't be the same quality.
We were blown away by the food. It was everything we hoped it would be. And the experience was lovely. Bizarrely, they'd never offered us to order any alcohol. I don't know if they looked at us and thought they shouldn't be allowed alcohol, but we got our glass of bubbly.
They didn't bring us a wine menu or a cocktail menu or anything.
I don't know why.
[00:46:26] Speaker B: You know what? I don't think as an as a matter of course. I don't think we normally get handed a wine menu or a cocktail menu at brunch either. I think it's. I think, yeah, I think you can. You absolutely can order a cocktail, but it's. I think they just kind of presume that most people don't want to. I don't know why necessarily, because it. Especially if it's like, you know, 11 or noon. Right.
[00:46:51] Speaker A: Like, and an anniversary meal.
[00:46:55] Speaker B: Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. I don't Think I've ever been offered a cocktail or wine list at brunch at dinner? Always.
[00:47:01] Speaker A: But yeah, Yeah, I mean, and actually, you know, in hindsight we could have asked. I mean, I'm not a big drinker. I rarely have more than kind of one or maybe two drinks.
So it was fine and it was fairly early in the day, but we just thought it was a bit strange not to even be offered. But we then didn't want to ask because we thought, well, maybe we shouldn't be asking for that.
So we just drank our included drink and enjoyed that.
[00:47:25] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you can always ask. But I'm going to agree with you very strongly. I think that brunch and frankly I think Palo dinner, I think both are great value in US dollars. It's $55 a person for brunch or for the fixed priced dinner. And now brunch is a fixed price and you can order as much as you like. Dinner is different, but where there is a fixed price menu that has a sort of a set options, right, Like a normal price fixed menu where you can order a, you know, a salad, an appetizer, a main and a dessert. And so it's sort of. But it's a set menu or you choose from, you know, two, three, four things.
But you can also add on a la carte items for dinner. But I, I think both are a fantastic value, especially brunch because it is order as much as you like and it's a mix of breakfast items. And I'll call standard Italian fare and all really, really good, plus dessert, plus bread, plus. I mean it's just like, you know, and soup and it's just everything, everything you could possibly want. I gotta ask Anna what were. What was maybe the standout dish or two at brunch?
[00:48:39] Speaker A: I did ask my husband this cause I was intrigued to know he said the lasagna, which wasn't what he was necessarily thinking about getting, but the server we had recommended it. So he got that and he said it was absolutely delicious.
I hadn't expected. So my husband loves eggs Benedict and he knew he was going to order that. But I would never, I never have anything like that and I don't know why. I like a muffin and I like a poached egg.
Obviously I'm not going to have ham because I'm vegetarian. But I decided to have the vegetarian one which had, I think, I can't remember the sauce it had. Now it wasn't the hollandaise, it was a different sauce and it had spinach and.
[00:49:23] Speaker C: Oh, it's the.
The Bernays.
[00:49:26] Speaker D: It's a.
[00:49:27] Speaker C: That one. That's really good. Yeah.
[00:49:29] Speaker A: That was my favorite thing that I ate. I was so surprised. I absolutely loved that.
Definitely my favorite. And I think just because it was such a surprise as well, the hunting expected that to be my favorite.
Gosh, I can't remember what my main meal was.
[00:49:45] Speaker B: Did you get the ravioli? That's a really wonderful.
[00:49:48] Speaker A: Yes, I did. Was delicious. Yes.
[00:49:50] Speaker B: That's better than. They have an eggplant. I think it's an eggplant rollatini, maybe also. But I think that the mushroom ravioli is much better than the eggplant dish.
[00:50:00] Speaker A: That's what they call.
[00:50:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
And I'm not a vegetarian. I'm very much a meat eater. But it's that of all of the. All of the pastas at Paulo, whether the. The mushroom ravioli at brunch or the lasagna or of course, the dinner agnolotti. And they're. I mean, they're just all. They're so good. Everything is fresh, made in house and fabulous. I don't know what they're using, but it's like the magic pixie dust something in their pasta. That's just incredible. Now, you mentioned, because this was your. Your 20th anniversary, you had mentioned that when they asked if you were celebrating a special occasion, which I gotta put in a plug for that. Do that, because if you do, you often will get some extra pixie dust. So if you are celebrating something, whether it's a birthday or an anniversary, let Disney know.
What was the pixie dust that you all had at your anniversary brunch?
[00:50:59] Speaker A: Well, it wasn't at poor Polo. It was in the main. It was in the main dining room.
Yep. Apollo. They didn't mention it. They knew nothing about it. Wasn't. Wasn't. Well, I don't know whether they knew nothing about it or it wasn't on that reservation. It was on our main reservation.
So we were in. I. So we were in Royal Palace, I think we'd say, like, I know I got it wrong.
[00:51:24] Speaker B: Everyone. Yeah, they're the same.
[00:51:26] Speaker A: Yeah, we were at that one anyway.
And we had just watched a child have Happy Birthday.
I'd actually said to my husband, oh, God, that'd be awful.
And then as our servers, we had an amazing serving team this time. I think I'd actually finished our last. The one I was on last time, seeing how we'd had very efficient servers. But they were there and away and we barely ever saw them. And they Barely interacted with us this time. We had an amazing serving team and. And the main server had whispered something to my daughter and I said, what did he say when he came with some of her additions? And she said, oh, I didn't. I don't know. I didn't really catch what he said. I was too embarrassed to say that was just a lie. He'd said, we're going to do that for your parents for the anniversary.
She was like, oh, I don't know. I just didn't catch him.
Yeah, it's funny. She does want to be an actress. And actually she completely fooled us. We were like, oh, right. Okay.
And then a few minutes later, a group of servers came round with a pudding, a special extra pudding with something sparkly in it. And I can't remember what it was. Just. I can't remember what was in it.
Something.
Maybe it was just one of those things that's got glittery bits on it.
And they sang Happy Anniversary to you, to both of us, but I was mortified.
But it was lovely. And then our servers gave us a card that they'd written from our main server and our assistant server and signed it from them.
And it was just so lovely. It really touched me.
They were just such a lovely team. Both of them were brilliant. Really efficient service, chatting, doing nice things with the kids. Everything you could have hoped for from a serving team. And then this card as well. So that was just lovely.
[00:53:15] Speaker B: That's the Disney touch. You don't always get it. As you mentioned, your team was fine last time, but they were efficient but not real friendly. And you didn't really get to make that personal connection with them because they just, Just didn't give that kind of a vibe. Right. And so, but when you do get a serving team that is really friendly and really wants to, you know, gives you sort of the.
I don't know, like, it's, It's. Vibe is the only word I can think of, but gives you the vibe that they want to get to know you. They're interested in. In chatting. Right.
It's so nice when you get to kind of. You can like, learn about where they're from and their families and then they'll do the same with you. It's, it's. It's such a. An amazing, wonderful part of sailing I. On Disney and, and. And on some other lines as well. If you get a good serving team, it can be really, really wonderful. I'm curious, what did the girls get up to? You know, they had a lot of freedom on the ship, you know, and especially because it's the two of them and so you feel of course comfortable. And this is their second time on, it's really the same ship. Even though it's, it's sister ship, it's the same layout. So they, they kind of can figure out their way around the ship pretty easily. But what it, what were the things that they really enjoyed the most from this sailing?
[00:54:28] Speaker A: Going and getting food. So last time they'd really enjoyed going to Vista Cafe and asking for multiple treats.
It was a little bit odd. On the Fantasy, there was only one person at the Vista Cafe ever and they were sort of behind the bar and then you had, so you had to go up there and ask them and they would come around and get them. Whereas this time there was someone behind the bar and there was also someone just standing behind the case just ready to give you things. And so they felt very comfortable going up and asking for, for multiple things. So I know they went there a lot, just like they had last time. And this time I think my youngest felt more confident to go up and say I'd like three crispy marshmallow treats please, and get them all put in a bag. And she said to start off with she thought she had to pretend they were for other people. Like if you want to go up and ask for three, they're not going to bat an eyelid. They won't care whether they're for other people or for you. So I know they went and got food and drink quite a lot.
[00:55:19] Speaker B: I love that. I love that. You know, I, I think people like don't realize that that's even available on the, on the Dream and the Fantasy because it's not. On the Wish Class ships, there isn't a case where you can go and get treats from now on. On the classic ships. They also have a lot of treats in Cove Cafe, but they haven't brought that into the Wish class. The Wish class is just a coffee bar so you can't get all these little yummy bites and charcuterie at dinner time. I love that. We always love that about the classic ships, being able to get a little plate of, you know, cheese and meat.
But yeah, it's a really, and it's a really nice thing at Vista because it is accessible to kids because that's right off of the atrium, you know, one level up but off the atrium. So it's, it's not in an adult only space.
Now did you all get to get any adult only time?
You know, did you get to make it to any of the adult only activities or adult only shows late night?
[00:56:19] Speaker A: No, the only time we spent well, so the only things we really did on our own. So when the first day we got on the cruise, after we'd had our lunch at Animators, the girls were like, bye. They just wanted to go off for a little bit. We went and sat on quiet loungers in the adults area because I hadn't even made it to the adults area last time. I was the only one of us who hadn't because my children didn't know where they were going and walked into the adults area last time. So they walked in and then looked around and there was only adults and they thought, oh, oh, this doesn't feel quite right. Backed up a few steps and saw the sign and dashed away. And my husband had gone in one evening when we'd all gone to bed. So I was the only one who hadn't seen that area. So we did sit and enjoy the view before we even left port that day. And obviously we had our dinner together. But to be honest, most of the time we sat on the veranda if it was just the two of us, because my husband wants to see the sea. That's his favorite thing. So, yeah, we would spend quite a lot of time just sitting out there on the veranda if they were off together doing something. I mean. And sometimes we sort of split up different ways. Just like last time. My youngest and I really like going and looking at the doors and delivering pixie dust.
Sometimes they would go and do that together, but we would also. Yeah, yeah, Split up differently to do the mini golf or.
My eldest and I went to some of the craft activities in the. Is it the D lounge? Is that that sort of general space? We went there to do some craft activities sometimes.
My husband actually went with my eldest to do it once as well. So we just sort of mix and match. But we didn't do anything that was a specific adult activity really, other than going for the Paolo brunch.
[00:57:58] Speaker C: Nice. Let's talk about entertainment on board.
What did you think about the shows on board in the main stage Theater?
[00:58:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, the shows after last time. We went to every show last time and we loved them all. We were going to go to every show this time as well, even though. Though we saw Believe on the last ship. So the Golden Mickeys and Beauty and the Beast were new to us, but we knew we'd be going to all of them because it had been such an important part of our experience last Time.
We even tried sitting downstairs this time because we'd actually, I think the last cruise we'd gone upstairs the first time and so we just ended up doing the same thing every other night. So we decided this time we would stick with what we knew for the two new shows, but we would see Believe downstairs because we had already experienced that upstairs and we were like, oh, this is. Is better being downstairs, so maybe we'll do that again in the future.
But we really enjoyed all the shows again. We didn't all have the same opinion on shows, but all of them were fantastic and the performers were excellent.
[00:58:59] Speaker B: Love that. All right, well, have we missed anything, Anna, or do you think it's time we do a little. I'm going to do an abbreviated rapid fire today.
But have we missed anything that you guys got to experience either differently from what you had previously experienced on the Fantasy? This was of course on the dream.
[00:59:19] Speaker A: Probably they did Pirate Night last time. We hadn't really. We'd been exhausted. I think also we were still jet lagged and my husband had seen some of it. My youngest decided she didn't want to stay up for Pirate Night. She found it all quite busy and noisy when everyone was all together.
So she actually just went back to the room and chilled out at that point and the three of us went and watch the show. There's no fireworks on it being a European cruise, but we did, we did enjoy seeing the show. So that was new to us because. Not new for this cruise, but new to us because we hadn't experienced that last time.
[00:59:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, well, and I mean, it's a good reminder for folks if you're sailing in Europe, most of those cruises do not have a fireworks show. And it's just based on the location that, you know, the. They're not allowed to. Not in, not everywhere, but in most of most European sailings, there aren't. There aren't fireworks. All right, well, I think we've reached that point in the show, right, Brian?
[01:00:20] Speaker C: Yes, we have reached that point in the show where Sam needs to ask you some arbitrary questions, apply some arbitrary rules, and throw in more than a dash of judgment to the round we know as rapid fire. Sam, take it away.
[01:00:32] Speaker B: All right, so I'm going to skip over General Disney because I already asked you those last time. I'm doubtful that they have changed, but I want to ask some new Disney Cruise Line questions because now you have a couple more things to compare because previously, of course, your favorite ship was the Disney Fantasy, but now I don't Know if it's the dream or the Fantasy. And I also want to ask you about shows, so let's start there. We're going to start with now that you have seen five different shows on Disney Cruise Line, because you've seen Believe on both of the ships. As you mentioned previously, you saw Aladdin and Frozen. Now you've seen Golden Mickeys and Beauty and the Beast. So you have a lot to choose from. Now, Anna, what's your favorite Disney Cruise Line stage show between the shows on the Dream and the Fantasy?
[01:01:20] Speaker A: For me, absolutely. Beauty and the Beast.
[01:01:23] Speaker B: That's the right answer, Anna.
[01:01:24] Speaker A: That's the right answer. Belle's my favorite princess. I love that story. It's just. I was blown away by that production.
[01:01:32] Speaker B: Absolutely. It's such a good production.
Listen, everybody has their own preference about where to sit in the theater. I will continue to maintain that downstairs in general is better because you don't see, like, the trap doors and things like that. And you get, like, sort of a full view of the stage if you want to sort of suspend disbelief and not see some of the. Cause if you sit up above, you will often times see some of the sort of set things that you're not really supposed to see. And so it can kind of take you out of the experience. But I say you want to be down, kind of as center as you can get, and you don't want to be front row. I know people will maybe be surprised by this, but being front row, you're kind of too close. But anywhere kind of in the middle of the theater, whether that's five rows back or the first row of a sort of second section on, like, the wish class, but like, anywhere sort of towards the middle. Middle, I think, is your best view.
But of course, choose your own preference. All right, Anna, now I got to ask you, now that you've been to Apollo, I've got to ask you those food questions again because I know, Listen, I know you loved the truffle presets last time around because you guys are pasta fans, but let's talk savory and sweet items. I'm curious if they have changed in terms of favorites. But let's start with with favorite savory item on board.
[01:02:58] Speaker A: It was that poached egg dish I had at Paolo. Absolutely was the best thing I had on board. I still enjoyed the black truffle presets this time. We all had them again this time, just like we had last time. We all enjoyed them again, but that was absolutely the best thing. I ate the Egg dish.
[01:03:14] Speaker B: Love it. All right, so a notch on the board for eggs. Benedictive hollow. All right, favorite sweet item.
[01:03:21] Speaker A: It was still the soft serve.
I love the soft serve ice cream.
I enjoyed my dessert at Paolo. I had the.
Is it like an amoretto chocolate thing?
I can't remember the word for souffle. Yes, yes. And I enjoyed it.
But I think it's tricky when you have a dessert at the end of a meal. You're really not hungry anymore.
And I am a dessert person. I really like sweet things. My husband isn't particularly a dessert person. He could quite happily skip dessert. But actually also I had a really nice key lime pie in. Where would that have been? Where was I on my final night?
[01:04:05] Speaker B: Was that enchanted?
[01:04:08] Speaker C: I think it was animators. Yeah.
[01:04:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And actually I possibly preferred that to my polo dessert. But soft serve still reigns supreme.
[01:04:18] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, I have to ask you, favorite chip, which ship do you like? But I mean, I know they're, they're, they're real similar.
You know, they're. Of course they've got some different colors, as you mentioned in the, in the atrium.
But which, which one do you like better? And sometimes it has to do with itinerary, not actually with the ship itself, but.
[01:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:04:40] Speaker B: Which one would you say is now your favorite?
[01:04:43] Speaker A: So I think there will always be a fondness for the Fantasy for me because it was the first one we went on and I quite like that slightly more muted decor. My kids said they preferred the Dream slightly brighter colours. I did really like the dream colours as well, but I was more relaxed on this cruise because it had a better start to it and because we had more time at sea. I absolutely loved what we did last time the port stops of, you know, Kastowiki. And look at. He made being on the Fantasy a lovely experience. But there's something about feeling like, you know where you're going, you know what you're doing. And I can't separate that from being on the dream. So I was saying at the end that probably the dream is my favorite because I can't separate out that feeling of relaxation from the ship.
[01:05:29] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[01:05:30] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, slightly the dream.
[01:05:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's, I mean, we feel the exact opposite way about the dream and the fantasy. We would choose the fantasy over the dream. But it's because we did seven night cruises and an 11 night cruise on the Disney Fantasy and the Dream used to do only three and four night cruises. So, you know, it was doing just the sort of castaway sea day type of thing that the Wish is doing right now. So it's, it has nothing to do with the ship itself really, but the experience you have on the, the ship can really color that. Now there are some, you know, some rankings that I'd say are also impacted by experiences you. That one ship has that another ship might not have. But I will say when it comes to shows, the dream beats out the fantasy. Just because of Beauty and the Beast. That's just the, you know, just having Beauty and the Beast on board is. Gives you that level up just in the main stage theater. Even though Frozen and Aladdin are also great production.
[01:06:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we've been slightly spoiled because our Aladdin last time had had a Broadway performer, so it was a sort of standout performance. But we do all enjoy, we even all enjoy the medley shows as well.
I mean, nothing. I'm not sure anything's going to top BC and the Beast for me. We'll see in the future. But yeah, all the shows on both the ships are fantastic.
[01:06:44] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, Bucket List cruise. You're going on a bucket list cruise next month. And just as we mentioned, seven weeks you're going to Italy and Greece.
Setting that aside, what is, what's another bucket list cruise? Another place you would love to go that you haven't been and you'd love to go on a Disney cruise.
[01:07:07] Speaker A: So last time I think I said Alaska and I suspect I probably still would say Alaska. I think that's somewhere I'd love to go.
Very different. I've not had a cold weather cruise obviously so far, but I would say still love to do Alaska.
[01:07:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's a, it's definitely an incredible itinerary. Well, Anna, thank you for playing you a.
Because you, I mean, as soon as you said be in the Beast, I knew you were going to be fine.
Nobody needs to worry.
But tell us like you, you've got this, this cruise planned in seven weeks on Royal Caribbean.
Did you get another placeholder for Disney? And if so, what are you, what are you looking at? Have you booked anything? Or what are you sort of, what are you waiting for in terms, Would you like to book next?
[01:07:53] Speaker A: I don't know because right now obviously we've only got released as far as would it be the end of September next year? So we used our last placeholder obviously on this one, but I've already booked another one without having a placeholder because as you know, as you predicted, the Wish is coming to Europe next summer. So I knew we were going to book on That I think I'd even said to you last time, my daughter absolutely loves Aladdin. She loved the Aladdin show. And you were saying, oh, she'll need to go on the Wish. Wish. So as soon as the Wish was coming, yeah, we were all agreed we had to try it and we wanted to try a slightly longer itinerary. So we're doing the Wish next summer. It's a six night repositioning leaving from Barcelona and coming into Southampton. I think sometimes, and I think sometimes that repositioning is seven nights. Unfortunately it's only six nights this time. But the port sounded really interesting to us. So it's stopping at Gibraltar, which I've been to but nobody else has in my family. Then Lisbon, which none of us have been to Portugal, and then Vigo. So we were quite interested in the stops as well. And I think there's something about it being repositioning. We're not having to do a loop, you know, we're getting to go a little bit further, see a little bit more. So we're excited for that. And then obviously we've got placeholder. So we'll just have to keep an eye out and see, see what the next release holds.
[01:09:18] Speaker B: Well, and it'll be fantastic because you'll get a chance to get on a Wish class ship without having to travel that far. Right. Without having to travel over to the States to get on that Wish class ship. So you know, I think there's going to be more, you know, we've talked about with the believe coming. We don't know yet as we're recording this where it's August 22nd and so we don't yet know that new release has not come out yet to tell us where the other ships are going to be. But I still suspect we're going to see a shakeup in terms of where the ships are all going to be positioned and what itineraries that they're going to be doing.
But I wouldn't be surprised if Disney sends a Wish class ship back over to Europe for 2028. So we know for 2027 the wish is going to be going over.
It might be the Wish again. I wouldn't be surprised. It's not uncommon. Obviously if something works, you know, if they planning for it to do one year, they often plan for it to do two years over in Europe. But we'll, we'll see because I don't think any of the ships will be due for a dry dock that year. And the reason I think they're sending the wish over next summer is because the Wish is going to be it's going to be time for its dry dock and so it'll do a dry dock over in France during the early during the European season. But yeah, well it'll be interesting to see what comes next. And Anna will definitely have to have you back to talk about that repositioning cruise. Those are always interesting itinerary wise and of course to hear what you think of being on a Wish class ship now that you have been on both Dream class ships. But thank you so much for joining us. We I know it's 10:30 in the morning here. You're coming to us from the future. It's 6:30 in the evening where you are, but I was looking in the future.
[01:11:06] Speaker A: It's been a good day.
[01:11:07] Speaker B: Okay. All right. We have a lot to look forward to to thank you so much for joining us, Anna. And as I mentioned, I hope you'll come back and join us again next summer and perhaps if you book something before then, perhaps even before then that
[01:11:20] Speaker A: doesn't seem likely I suspect. We know we're, we're now thinking maybe we're going to be a once a year family.
We'll just, we'll wait and see.
[01:11:29] Speaker B: Absolutely.
Foreign.
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[01:14:10] Speaker C: Good night.
