[00:00:00] Speaker A: Ryan, you're probably, you don't care about the amaretto souffle and you'd probably be happy to try a limoncello souffle.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: I'll be happy to try it. But more fundamentally, we can't ask them for new menu items and expect it like this. Can't. The Disney Cruise Line is not going to become the Cheesecake Factory in terms of the size of its menu.
[00:00:17] Speaker A: So, like,
[00:00:17] Speaker B: we can't have our souffle and eat
[00:00:19] Speaker A: it.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Welcome back, everybody, to this week's live episode of the DCL Duo podcast, brought to you by WeDoTravel. Right. Remember, life is short. Take the trip. Let the folks over at WeDoTravel, right, handle the planning so you can focus on the relaxing. And also a special shout out to our live and bonus show sponsor, the good folks over at DCL Magazine. If you have not already, head over to dcl-magazine.com that is dcl-magazine.com today to subscribe to the magazine. You can get it in print, you can get it in digital. They even have magazines for both of the U.S. parks, Disneyland and Disney World. They have calendars. They've got all kinds of stuff over there.
So head over there, check them out today. And if you use code DCLDUO, that's all caps DCLDUO, you can take 10% off everything in the store over there. All right. I am a little discombobulated tonight. These five o' clock starts for these live shows are tough.
When for
[00:01:31] Speaker A: the West Coast? For the west coast, pm. For those on the east coast
[00:01:34] Speaker B: rushing home from work. And I must give a disclaimer this evening because I am running out of steam. I have a surgical procedure tomorrow, a dental surgery tomorrow, and they're going to knock me out. And so I can't really eat anything today. I've just been filling up on liquids as best I can until midnight.
And tomorrow will be fun because normally I don't mind going under anesthetic because I get a good nap and I wake up and I get to eat something good tomorrow. It's all soft foods after this. So it's going to be really fascinating to see how this goes. But with that, Sam, why don't you introduce our guests this evening and we can bring them in and start talking some Disney Cruise Line news and then dive into the topic.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Yeah. So we have two fan favorite guests with us today. They are a mother son duo who sail together sometimes with other family members, but often just the two of them. We have had the pleasure of getting to Spend time with them on board several different ships on several different cruises. And I'm so pleased to welcome back to the show Vanessa and Andrew.
[00:02:38] Speaker C: Hi, how are you tonight? Happy Halloween. I guess we should say
[00:02:42] Speaker A: Happy Halloween. And Andrew, I've got to tell people about your YouTube accessible adventures with Andrew.
Andrew has a YouTube where he highlights all of his adventures including some really fun parks and parks visits, some really fun cruising videos, as well as some videos around the community. And I really love it. Love following along with both of you guys. So thank you for being here.
[00:03:11] Speaker C: Oh sure, you're welcome. I'm excited. We love talking Disney, so.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Yeah, well, we love talking with you all. I wanted to start with some of the news.
There's a couple of news items that came out this week, some of which have been brought to our attention by other listeners or other creators out in the community and some have which we've been able to discover ourselves. I'm going to start with pricing issues on the website.
So one of my friends a little less than a week ago reached out to me via text message and said, hey, I'm getting a weird thing on the website where I check prices and it's showing me price per person instead of price per double occupancy. Do you know what's going on? And I responded, I have no idea what you're talking about because for me it was still showing double occupancy. And then I started seeing reports from other people on Facebook who were seeing the same thing, although I kept seeing price for double occupancy.
[00:04:10] Speaker D: And
[00:04:11] Speaker A: I think that it was inconsistent because I know Vanessa, you and I talked pre show and you were also still seeing price for double occupancy. Well, I've been able to circle back with those friends and apparently they are now seeing double occupancy back again.
So I think that Disney Cruise Line was maybe testing out showing pricing for single persons, which I'm going to say I think is super misleading on the part of Disney Cruise Line to do that because on dcl, unlike some of the other cruise lines, the minimum you can pay to get on a ship is double occupancy. So even if you are a single person sailing solo, you have to pay for two people because each room is priced based on double occupancy. So you might as well bring a friend along even if you're going to planning on sailing solo. There are some other cruise lines that do allow for single occupancy because they have like these really tiny cabin spaces where you can actually that really only hold one person. There aren't that many out there. There are other cruise lines who, like Disney, require double occupancy, but because you have to pay for two people, it's, I think, misleading to advertise what the price is for one person.
And it makes it really hard for people to compare different cruise, different sailings. Right. So, anyway, I wanted to put that out there because it looks like Disney changed it back.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: I should say I'm not opposed to them showing both. Right. Like, it
[00:05:38] Speaker A: can't make sense.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: Like, when we did our bookings for the. The Believe. Like, we did look at, like, what is the cost per night? Or what is the cost per person per night? Like, just to understand and compare things. But, yeah, I. It is totally misleading.
[00:05:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: You could pay 868 bucks a person for this cruise, unless you're traveling solo, in which case it's actually 1600. But we're not going to tell you that until checkout time. So, yeah,
[00:06:05] Speaker A: absolute.
Anyway, yeah, I want to point out the comments. Vanessa's got a great T shirt on today. It says it's Monica Blue.
And I know it's been called out in the comment section.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: I might be wearing almost Monica Blue tonight.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: You are wearing almost Monica Blue. I don't
[00:06:24] Speaker B: quite match the ship in the background, but
[00:06:26] Speaker A: yeah. I want to tell you, my shirt says no strings attached, so. Like the NSYNC album, but it's Pinocchio. Get it? Anyway, I just. Yeah, I had to call that out. Okay.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: By the way, looks like he's rocking a Roosevelt shirt, so.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Of course.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: Right, yeah.
[00:06:43] Speaker C: No, yes.
[00:06:44] Speaker D: Disney.
Disney brand.
Disney
[00:06:48] Speaker A: brand.
[00:06:50] Speaker C: Yeah, it has the ship on it and some other little spooky characters and stuff, so.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: So I'm the only one lacking any kind of Disney tonight.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: Well, you've got the shit behind you. All right, so the next thing I want to mention is those placeholder deals. A lot of people are getting emails about those placeholder deals going up to 20 or 25% instead to 10% off. And people are just finding out that their cruise happens to be on essentially a special rate, and so they're just getting notices about that. So, again, we're seeing more deals than we've ever seen with Disney Cruise Line before, and we'll see if that continues, especially as the fleet grows.
Another thing that happened about five days ago, I want to say Disney was highlighting its Bahamian educational program. So Disney invests a lot of money in the training and education of Bahamian folks because obviously they've got these partnerships where they go to the Bahamas. Their ships are flagged in the Bahamas. They've got two private islands in the Bahamas. They want to have this goodwill relationship. And they've got a lot of employees that are from the Bahamas as well. So they brought a lot of young adults on board one of the Disney Cruise Line ships. They brought some to Disney, Walt Disney World also for training programs. So that was pretty cool to see.
Another thing that happened just today is Disney Cruise Line sent out a press release. It was actually Disney Experiences sent it out, but highlighting some of accessibility. Actually,
[00:08:15] Speaker B: what we discovered is it was Disney public relations.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Yes, but there. But the website is the Disney Experiences website. So not on Disney parks, but it is on dcl, I believe, Experiences. And they've been highlighting some of their accessibility efforts on Disney Cruise Line. Specifically, one of which was haptic vests that you can borrow for silent disco parties. And those are for deaf or hard of hearing people so that they can feel the music even if they can't hear the music. And the headphones, which I thought was a really cool highlight. Another highlight that they put out there was braille and tactile maps for those who are visually impaired, particularly on the private island. So they weren't ship maps. I wish they would do maybe a ship map, but they did a map for lookout key and a map for castaway key that were either in with braille or were tactile maps. So that was pretty cool. And then of course, they've highlighted the mobility mats on the private islands, which if you haven't watched our show with Vanessa and Andrew about access, actually that was the first time we had them on the show.
You should go into our back catalog because it's a fantastic episode. I would highly recommend watching it on YouTube, just like if you're watching today's show on YouTube because we'll have some great visuals to show you what we are actually looking at on that show in particular.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: I actually have a. I have a question for you, Vanessa.
Seeing these announcements, sailing Disney Cruise Line as often as you have, maybe it's two questions. One is how would you grade Disney Cruise Line in terms of its accessibility from your standpoint? And what's the biggest one or two challenges that you still face from an accessibility perspective on the cruise line?
[00:10:05] Speaker C: I think they've gotten better over the years. I was probably one of those people that kept saying, can you please put Moby mats on this beach? Can you make it so we can get places without having to switch into one of their wheelchairs? Which Andrew does not fit in very well. So we were usually just stuck on their island. It's just on the hard surfaces.
One of the biggest challenges we still have, and this is something they probably can't fix, I know, is getting on and off the ship sometimes. But their security offices are great about helping us down and back up. I just have to let them know when they come down and do it or take us down again. The islands are improving.
The other big obstacle right now is there still aren't very many accessible port adventures for us to go on.
We're booking. We're going to san Juan and St. Martin in February, and I have to book differently for this one in St. Martin. And now they're trying to coordinate with the onshore people to see if they can really do the van or the. Even though it says it's accessible. And then they change. Andrew, you know, it's. It's a lot of paperwork behind the scenes, and then you hope it works when you get there. So I think they really need to work on that because you go places and they have the vehicles and stuff. They just need to be able to book them.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: What kind of grade would you give the cruise line overall?
[00:11:27] Speaker C: Oh, me?
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:11:31] Speaker C: Well, say I've been on 41 of them. I think nine or ten.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: Pretty good, right? Right. Pretty
[00:11:37] Speaker C: good.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: Andrew. Andrew, what kind of grade would you give the cruise line? Let's say a scale of 1 to 10. 1 being the lowest, 10 being the highest.
[00:11:47] Speaker D: 9.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: A 9.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: That's pretty good.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: That's
[00:11:50] Speaker A: pretty good. It's
[00:11:51] Speaker B: pretty
[00:11:51] Speaker A: good. Yeah.
Obviously, port adventures, while they're important, they don't make or break the experience you have on the ship. So that's kind of. I feel like that's why you're still going, right? Because you still love all the time you spent on the ship.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: Vanessa, you were going to
[00:12:07] Speaker C: say. I was going to say that, yeah. About the crew members are great with Andrew and working with us. Even for photos.
Most of the time our servers are helping me. Like, they'll even just cut up his steak. And some people don't like that. But I'm like, one less thing I have to do. I'm really on vacation.
They just take an interest in us and stuff, and we know a lot of them already, and so it's fun to repeat with everybody.
Again, just being remembered is always great.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: Yeah. I feel like all the crew on all the ships know you guys. I feel like every time we sail with you, like, like, you're. You're recognized by all of the. The or many of the crew members especially that I feel like the entertainment crew, you
[00:12:50] Speaker C: know,
[00:12:50] Speaker A: they. Because they interact with guests so much. So I love that. I think that's wonderful. Okay, my last announcement before of news, before we get to this amazing PowerPoint slide that Andrew and Vanessa put together is Paulo, dinner changes. Okay. We knew these were coming because they announced.
What was that a couple weeks ago about the price fixed menu going viral
[00:13:13] Speaker B: week Sam
[00:13:13] Speaker A: last week. Okay, well, whatever it was, whatever it was, it feels like forever ago. But anyway, they announced that and then we saw there were actual menu changes, not just the removal of the preso fiso, which is fixed price and Italian menu. So I have actually confirmed with friends who are on board right now that the brunch menu does not appear to have any changes to it. So that's good. Knock on wood. Or knock on my head.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: If they take away that lasagna, I am switching permanently to another cruise line. I'm staying.
[00:13:48] Speaker C: Yeah,
[00:13:49] Speaker A: but the. But they did. They have changed the dinner menu. So it's not just like taking away the price fixed part. They have actually taken away several dishes and they've added some dishes as well.
Some of the additions, I will say, look really nice. I'm not going to go through all of the changes. I did post about it on our Instagram and our.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: I haven't had time to keep up. Did they get rid of the Dover sole? That's all I care about.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: No, they did not. And they've added a Chilean sea bass even. They did get rid of the white bean soup and that was good. Yeah. And they did get rid of the mescaline salad, but they've added a salad.
But the most important thing that this is from my heart.
They have gotten rid of my amaretto souffle and replaced it with a limoncello souffle. And I know that Brian and I are going to have different takes on. So I'm going to preemptively say this is a terrible change because Limoncello can never replace amaretto.
I'm not saying they should or shouldn't do anything with the chocolate souffle. I know that some of you who listen to this show, including our number one fan, Tracy, are stands for that chocolate souffle. So I have. I will take no position on what they should do with that chocolate souffle. And I will tell you it is still on the menu. However, I am very upset and I'm going to pour one out for that amaretto souffle and put a Stake in the ground that the limoncello cannot replace it. I will say I have heard from folks who sailed on the Disney adventure because that has the limoncello souffle. I've heard that it's fabulous. I do not like lemon flavored desserts, so it's not going to be something that I choose.
It's probably going to be the case that I skip dessert at Palo dinner. I always skip dessert at Palo brunch. I'm, as people know who listen to the show regularly, I am team Savory. I'm not team Sweet in general, but there are a handful of desserts that I break that rule for, and I consider Mickey churro waffles to be one of those desserts.
But, yeah, anyway, I had to say that because I'm very upset about the amaretto souffle being gone. I. Like I said, I think, Brian, you're probably. You don't care about the amaretto souffle, and you'd probably be happy to try a limoncello souffle.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: I'll be happy to try it. But more fundamentally, we can't ask them for new menu items and expect it like this. Can't. The. The Disney Cruise Line is not going to become the Cheesecake Factory in terms of the size of its menu.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: So like,
[00:16:20] Speaker B: like, you know, even my comments up front about the lasagna, look, if they get rid of the lasagna, but they replace it with something good, I. I'll. I'll cope. Right. Because we're constantly asking them to change the menu. So
[00:16:31] Speaker A: we
[00:16:31] Speaker B: can't have our cake and we can't have our souffle and eat it
[00:16:35] Speaker A: and eat it too. I know. I just. It's like there aren't that many desserts that I really love. That's the thing. So it's. It just hurts my heart that the one dessert that I actually really love is the one dessert that they got rid of. Like I said, I don't eat dessert at Palo brunch. I don't find any of them to be desirable for me, and I've tried quite a few of them. I will occasionally have like a scoop of gelato, but I'm just sad. I don't know. What do you guys think about it? Andrew, are there any favorites that they took off for you? What do you get at Paulo?
[00:17:08] Speaker D: We usually do the brunch.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: The brunch? Yeah.
[00:17:15] Speaker C: We don't like dinner, but I was in sticker shock of how much things cost. I'm like, well, we're gonna Go right through that $55 credit really fast. I know you can share things, but it's like they're really hefty prices that it's like, well,
[00:17:32] Speaker A: I
[00:17:32] Speaker C: can only have this or I'm gonna be paying a lot more, you know, with a.
With the credits and everything. So we'll see how that plays out.
[00:17:40] Speaker A: Let's dive into talking about Vanessa and Andrew's side to side cruises. They went on I. I misspoke twice, apparently on our. Both our last two shows, I said that they were going on the Dream and the Destiny, but I was wrong because that's what they did a previous time. This time they were going on the Fantasy and the Wish side to side. And so they went on the Fantasy first. First they had one night in Port Canaveral, and then they went on the Disney Wish. They also had a change of ports in terms of going from Terminal 8 to Terminal 10 or vice versa on the Disney Wish. Right. You guys started at one terminal and ended at the other terminal. So we're gonna dive in and talk about these cruises.
Let's start. Vanessa, you have been on all the ships. You and Andrew have been on all the ships. You mentioned 41 cruises.
Why did you choose these two cruises? They're both Halloween on the high seas, but obviously on two different ships and two different classes.
[00:18:40] Speaker C: Well, the first one on the Fantasy was booked last year when the itineraries first came out. It was going to be over my birthday. So I brought my two daughters and Andrew on that cruise. So that one was planned long ago. And then when they did talked about the believe reveal gonna be on the Wish, we jumped on that with. And with that one, we brought my friend Stephanie, who sa a lot with us, like when we need the third person or she wants to go because we're both racing to get on Castaway key on the the boards for 50 cruises. So any chance we can get to get on a cruise together? Just leave
[00:19:15] Speaker B: one plank for us. Vanessa.
We're a little behind. We're trying to catch
[00:19:19] Speaker C: up.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: Yeah,
[00:19:20] Speaker A: yeah. Now are you gonna get it to say like, the Prince family, or is it going to say like Vanessa and Andrew, like, because you guys are ahead of the rest of the family. I know. Like, what's the plan in terms of the. The plank on Castaway?
[00:19:34] Speaker C: Oh, the Prince family and my family's done a lot. They're all platinum. They're just lately, since they've been in college and stuff, they haven't sailed with us as much, so.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: All right, fair
[00:19:45] Speaker C: enough.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: All Right. Well, I love these pictures, both in front of the pumpkin tree in the grand hall, the atrium and the grand hall. Let's get to the next slide.
Talk to us about the decorations, the differences.
Obviously, we have an atrium and a grand hall, so there is a difference in terms of size and whatnot. But is there one that you like better, perhaps in terms of the decor, particularly for Halloween on the high seas?
[00:20:13] Speaker C: My personal one is the Fantasy. I thought it felt more Halloween with the darker colors. The swags are actually like a burgundy brown color. And then it has the pumpkin mickeys on the swag, and it was just prettier. I thought even the pumpkin tree, I kind of like it better than Boo over on the Wish, because the wish, if you look at its swags and stuff, it almost looks like silvery white pine boughs with pumpkins stuck on it. Yeah. It
[00:20:43] Speaker A: just didn't
[00:20:43] Speaker C: feel. Yeah,
[00:20:44] Speaker A: it kind of feels the same to me with Christmas, too. Right. Like, the wishes decorations are a lot of, like, silver and stuff rather than, like, the rich gold, red, and green for Christmas. And I feel like the same for Halloween.
Andrew, which do you like better in terms of the Halloween decor between the two ships?
[00:21:06] Speaker D: Probably the.
The wish, maybe.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: Really?
How come?
[00:21:13] Speaker D: It just looks funny, in my opinion. In my opinion,
[00:21:18] Speaker A: it is. There's something very elegant about the wish. Yeah. And that's the, like, it's. That's why I feel like it's. The Fantasy has the more traditional Halloween look and same for Christmas. The more traditional Christmas look. And then the Wish has this more elegant or elevated and so kind of depend what. What vibe you're. You're going for. All right, let's go to the next slide. Pumpkin trees.
Tell us, are there differences in terms of. I know they do the pumpkin lighting on both. The first night of all. Both cruises. They do that on every Halloween on the high seas sailing. Are there differences between sort of how that goes or the story they tell?
Tell us about that.
[00:21:57] Speaker C: Yes, they're very different.
So I don't know if everybody knows, but each ship has its own tree and its own name. So on the Fantasy, it was Mucklebones, and it's Boo on the Wish.
And they had different stories which we've been on the one on the Wish, but I couldn't remember the story being that different.
So the first one on the Fantasy, they told the story of Sleepy Hollow.
The caretaker came out and gave, like, a creepy little story about that. And then we all had to help light the pumpkin tree. And then the tree will Stay lit for the rest of the cruise.
For the Wish it was. I had to write this down. Bramble Weatherby, and she's the gardener.
She came down the steps and told this story about how Boo the tree helped the fairy godmother get the pumpkin that created Cinderella's stagecoach to go to the ball.
I actually went back and re listened to it because it was very interesting and I was like, wait, what did we just hear? So the story's totally different.
The other thing I noticed that was different. If you even look in the photo on the Fantasy they held it at 7:30 between the two dinners and on the wish it was at 5:30 and there was like nobody there.
Yeah, ours was packed. I mean Andrew and I. I don't even know if Andrew could really even see. I had to stand way back, try to shoot over this guy's hat. You can see his hat in that picture.
But I don't know. People were just going to dinner at 5:45.
I mean, we walked up a little late and actually sat next to a tree in the accessible area because that was a difference. Also, there was not an accessible area on the Fantasy. There was on the Wish for wheelchairs and special needs.
Other than that, you know, went through the whole thing where you had to help wake up the tree and everything. So it was fun. I mean, I enjoy going to that even though I've seen it so many times. It just kind of helps you get in the mood for Halloween and the cruise and everything. Everything.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: Did they, I'm wondering, did they double? Like why. I wonder why they did it at 5:30. Do they like have pirate night or something or.
[00:24:07] Speaker C: That was the first night. Yeah. So.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: Weird.
[00:24:10] Speaker C: I don't know and I don't. I know some of the Believe Reveal stuff interfered with what normally would happen on the Wish, but I don't think on this night it was. We had nothing different. I mean we had Aladdin. No, we didn't have Aladdin for the show. What do we have that night? I can't even remember. But it wasn't. Oh no. It was Cesia Dentra on the Wish.
I don't know why they changed the time on it. I just felt it was a little.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: Yeah,
[00:24:35] Speaker C: but you know, even the 7:30 you're still getting ready to go to dinner, but not till 8:15. So you still have more time.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: Maybe
[00:24:41] Speaker C: people just didn't know about it. There were a lot of first timers on the Wish.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: Yeah, it seems, it seems like that sailing maybe. A lot of people signed up for it after they announced. Some people, of course, had booked it ahead of time. And then like you, some people booked it after they announced that this was going to be the Believe Reveal cruise. I know we're going to talk about that a little bit more later, but I'm surprised that this was not crowded.
Andrew, did you have a favorite between the pumpkin stories, between the Fantasy and the Wish?
[00:25:17] Speaker D: Probably the fantasy version.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. It's more. I like the classic spooky. I mean, not spooky in a scary way because that's. She was kind
[00:25:27] Speaker C: of creepy.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: Was she?
But I also like the idea of tying in Cinderella's story and it really does work on the wish. That's actually easy to do because of the pumpkin stagecoach. All right, well, very cool.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: Hold
[00:25:40] Speaker A: on.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: I wanted to highlight something from the chat.
Fun of Ed is commenting. He was surprised there was no accessible area on the Fantasy. I got to say that that shocks me as well.
So not sure why that would be the case, but man, I hope, I hope that's not like, I, I hope there was some miscommunication that it's not the norm for that.
[00:26:02] Speaker C: If they had one, maybe it was really small and we couldn't find it. But
[00:26:06] Speaker B: yeah,
[00:26:06] Speaker C: like I said, there were so many people that we couldn't get through to get, you know, but I really didn't even see any other wheelchairs or anybody kind of in a little area. So again, it could have been there. We just couldn't find it very easily. So,
[00:26:20] Speaker B: yeah, there's a good question in the chat. We're going to talk in a few minutes here, Beth, about what the experience was like with
[00:26:29] Speaker A: the
[00:26:29] Speaker B: crazy media folks on board. Not crazy. Some of them are our friends. We love these.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: Listen, we know many of them and there's some great pictures of Vanessa and Andrew with a couple of our friends later on. And we're definitely going to talk about that, but we want to talk about the Halloween elements and the differences first and then we will get to more.
More believe stuff. So, yeah, Masquerade party. Trick or. And trick or treating.
Is the masquerade party the same meaning? Is it the same deck show or almost the same deck show? Obviously the decks are.
The layout of the decks are different. So I imagine like not everybody's standing in the same places. But are we talking the same deck party? As a general matter?
[00:27:12] Speaker C: Pretty much. You know, where they're up there and then the, the characters kind of rotate through and do different Halloween dances and stuff. But the big one, I think you kind of See it in here, the picture up on the left, that's on the Fantasy and they had the accessible seating like way over to the side. And then the characters came where you can see that blue. They kind of walk and they go around. The pool is elevated. So they have to kind of go around the pool and come back where on the Wish they just stayed in the front area and didn't interfere with anything.
So I think it's just the layout of the ship that makes it awkward for other people. And I'm sure we weren't the only people that couldn't see if you were down low because that middle section is raised up so high compared to the stage.
But you know, we had a great
[00:27:54] Speaker A: view of
[00:27:55] Speaker C: the
[00:27:55] Speaker A: stage arrangement. Yeah, yeah. The stage arraignment being different definitely is going to alter where the characters are doing their dancing and they're interacting with the crowd. So that makes sense. What about trick or treating? Were there differences between how trick or
[00:28:09] Speaker C: treating was done? Let's go back a sec though. Sure. Because here's where we're going to start getting some of the differences with the two sailings and how they altered the witch that sailing. Because for the Mousequerade on the Fantasy we had two shows opposite of your. It kind of worked like you went to trick or treating and that one we actually trick or treated in cabanas given an empty bag and you went to like six or seven stations and you can see the one crew member there putting candy in bags. And they do have the allergy free or friendly treats for people. You just have to ask, go to that station which they had at every station another allergy one.
So they had two shows on the Fantasy so it wasn't very crowded. Now the Wish one, they only had one show because we were also. That was the night of the Believe concert and the reveal was at 4:30. So it was kind of
[00:29:02] Speaker A: packed.
[00:29:03] Speaker C: Packed. Yeah.
But also on the Wish we were just given bags of candy when you walked up to the pool deck. So we didn't do any real trick or treating like they've been known to do. I mean I've been on a couple where you're actually going to on around the atrium to different levels, which is really hard for even kids, you know, because you're going up and down steps or in elevators.
So I think having it like in Marceline and or at cabanas makes it a lot nicer and you can see everybody's costumes as they walk by.
So
[00:29:32] Speaker A: yeah, I think we've done it.
We've done Halloween on the high seas on the Wish, I believe a couple of years ago, maybe in 2023. And we had done it previously on the Wonder and it was different. In fact, I think on the Wonder we were went kind of all around the ship, kind of up and down as you mentioned, kind of central ship.
And then I think on the Wish we went through, I want to say it was going through Marceline Market, but we did get to Trick or Treat. We did have stations. We weren't just given a bag of candy. But it does seem like it is not for those listening. We've talked about this on other shows. It is not consistent how trick or treating is done on the different ships, but even sometimes sailing to sailing. And we're not sure why that is.
If it has to do with maybe how many people are on the sailing or what their staffing looks like or what we're not sure. It doesn't surprise me on this Wish Sailing though that they would just give out bags of candy because they were packed in terms of events that particular night because of the. The Believe reveal you mentioned 4:30 to 5.
You also had the masquerade party on the pool deck and you had the concert with Susan Egan and friends. That was. Was honestly amazing.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Here's my idea for Disney because I feel like people really want to have more of a trick or treating experience when they do a Halloween on the high seas.
I wonder why? Because they don't use marcelines or cabanas on these ships for dinner really anymore.
Like why they couldn't do some special decorating, like turn the sections within cabanas and Marceline into like, like little haunted houses or something. Right. And then people move from station to station and get their candy and it's more like a kind of normal trick or treating experience. Like a
[00:31:22] Speaker C: trunk or treating thing.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: Yeah. You could even turn this into something fun and like crew morale. Like each, each, each department gets to decorate its house. Right. And like, you know, so
[00:31:35] Speaker A: it would be super fun. I think the issue is probably just like set up and take down. Right. It's just
[00:31:41] Speaker B: they deal
[00:31:41] Speaker A: with
[00:31:42] Speaker B: it
[00:31:42] Speaker A: all
[00:31:42] Speaker B: the time. I
[00:31:43] Speaker A: know, but it's because they use. They need cabanas, Marceline to be fully open during the day and they can't sort of have these things.
Andrew, I want to ask, did you have a favorite between the masquerade party on the Fantasy or the Wish and it might just be because your view is better.
[00:32:02] Speaker D: Not really.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: Not really? Yeah, I mean they're pretty similar and Obviously, I'm going to say that I'm guessing you guys enjoyed Trick or Treating on the Fantasy more because he actually got to do trick or treating first.
And
[00:32:15] Speaker C: they actually gave you more candy, too, so
[00:32:17] Speaker A: there you go.
Well, pre filled bags are never going to be as much as cast members just, you know, throwing punks.
Yeah, no. Did you guys do any kind of costume?
[00:32:28] Speaker C: No, not for these sailings. Part of it, like the. The Wish one was just kind of last minute for us. And then my daughters didn't want to do anything Halloweeny, so I just wore my new DVC pumpkin ears.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: Very cute.
[00:32:43] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: All right, now you've got Halloween Isn't Just For Kids and Oogie Boogie's Villainous Nightmare Bash.
The screen tell us what is Halloween isn't Just for Kids. Is this an event on the Fantasy?
[00:32:56] Speaker C: Yes, and we've been to it before, I think on the Dream and maybe, I don't know, one other one, but it's the adult party only. This one was held in the tube and they usually have a costume contest. Andrew and I won one year. We were Mary Poppins and Bert. So, you know, it's all voted on by the guests and everything. They have different categories, which makes it more fun and stuff, but it is just for adults.
But then Oogie Boogie's Villainous Nightmare Bash is for families, and it was held in the hero zone and it was actually kind of fun.
They had the kids all dancing. You can see in the one picture, Oogie Boogie's out there.
One of our crew member friends, I think his name was Emilio, he was really good with the kids. I mean, he had them doing conga lines and he even included Andrew and stuff. And it wasn't just kids. They were adults doing everything. So it was fun A little.
Yeah.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: I gotta give props to Disney for hauling Jessica Rabbit out as the icon for Halloween Isn't Just For Kids. That's
[00:34:05] Speaker A: kind of
[00:34:05] Speaker B: a deep cut these days to go with.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
We have not experienced Halloween Isn't Just For Kids. And we did experience Oogie Boogie's Villainous Nightmare Bash on the Wish a few years ago, but when we did, it was adult only. So I'm actually. I'm happy to see that change that to a family. There's no reason why it couldn't be family friendly. It was just later in the evening. That was the only.
But it didn't have any. There was no alcohol being served. It wasn't anything that seemed sort of adult, but it was in the
[00:34:34] Speaker C: adult area. Bars, so maybe they keep it.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: Well, was in hero zone though, right? Wasn't it?
[00:34:40] Speaker C: Yeah, there's no bar there, so.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
[00:34:44] Speaker C: But also, I think Halloween isn't just for kids. It must be on the first four ships because we've done it on the Magic before. Also. Also. And some other ones.
[00:34:52] Speaker A: It might have been on the. It might have been on the Wonder when we sailed, but it was. That was Nathan's first cruise and he would not go to the kids club really very much on that cruise. That was. It was a wonderful cruise in some ways and really eye opening for us and not so wonderful in other ways. And so there was no way we were going to be able to go to a late night event on that sailing. But I love that they've opened up Oogie Boogies to families. I think that's a. That's a great. It
[00:35:19] Speaker C: was fun.
And I just threw in our staterooms real quick so you can see
[00:35:25] Speaker A: what
[00:35:26] Speaker C: accessible ones. Now. This is a new to US stateroom, this 5552. It's actually on the fifth floor right near the forward elevators.
And as you can see, there's this huge extended balcony or veranda.
But the problem with that was people from above can look down into at a certain point. So sometimes like, oh, yeah, wait, people can see us if we're standing at the rail.
But it was nice. I never heard noises. The only time I heard up because it backs into the Buena Vista Theater where the bed is. I'm like, oh, God, we're not going to sleep at all because we'll hear all these movies. I didn't hear the elevator. I only heard one movie the last night. And I looked it up real quick. I'm like, what is playing in the theater? It was.
What was the Avengers one that just came back out, End game or something. What was that?
[00:36:12] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, they were really
[00:36:14] Speaker C: like that fighting scene. I'm like, oh, that makes sense, you know, because the room was like rumbling. But it was a nice location. I'd take this location again.
[00:36:23] Speaker A: Yeah, we love a forward seat room.
We don't find that they have significant movements. I know people are always worried about movement of the ship. We always find that the aft of the ship to us feels like there's more movement because you feel the engines more in the aft. But I know that midship is technically speaking the best if you are someone who deals with motion sickness.
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[00:37:58] Speaker A: Let's look at your Disney wish state room. I love when you share us, share with us. By the way, I also love that you like you let me come into your stateroom the last time we sailed together so that I could see one in person because I, you know, these are, they're really nice and spacious and they're really, the, the layout of the bathrooms is really nice. It's a, it's. They do a really, I think a really nice job with the accessible seat rooms on, on the ships.
[00:38:24] Speaker C: Yeah. I call this like the pie shaped corner room because you can see it's like angled a little bit.
And then the veranda does wrap around so you can see the aft of the ship but also part of the side. So we were on port side so you could kind of see.
But again, plenty of the only problem on the wish class is getting back to these after rooms.
It's not a straight corridor. You're winding your way around and everything. And it's like, oh, don't forget something in your room because it'll take forever to get there. And sometimes I'll just leave Andrew at the elevator. I'm like, I'll be right back. And I go running onto the back of the ship.
[00:38:57] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and that's just a great reminder for the show we did with you guys about accessibility.
While all of the ships have good and bad in terms of accessibility, the Wish grant class because it has the two elevator banks, you are further away. The both elevator banks are kind of closer to the center of the ship. And so if you are really far forward or really far aft, you are further away from the elevators. And those hallways, as you mentioned, are not a straight shot and they're a little bit narrower. And so getting around, for example, the stateroom attendants have their.
Their trolleys. Right. So getting around their trolleys and also getting around people. People's food trays. This is another reminder. Stop leaving your dirty food trays in the hallway. Leave them in the room. Your seat will. Yeah, or you can call.
You can call to have the. The folks who you order food from, they will come pick it up. And they're
[00:39:55] Speaker C: fast. They're very fast.
[00:39:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Or you can leave it and your stateroom attendant will kindly take it for you at. When they get a chance to. But don't leave them in the hallway one, because other guests might step on them and they're smelly. And then also because guests with mobility issues might trip over them. So just be.
And don't run
[00:40:12] Speaker C: right into them. Yeah,
[00:40:13] Speaker A: exactly.
[00:40:14] Speaker C: And then real quick, all of Andrew and I film all the state rooms and different things. We even film, like, walking to all the Moby mats on castaway key and stuff, so. And lookout key.
So if you go to his YouTube channel, Accessible Adventures with Andrew, we have videos of everything individual and by cruise. So if
[00:40:34] Speaker B: you want
[00:40:35] Speaker C: more details,
[00:40:35] Speaker B: you two are both, like, so generous with sharing information and helping people out. I cannot recommend enough Andrew's channel. Vanessa, even you personally, at times, I think on like, platforms like Instagram, just, just being a resource. Instagram,
[00:40:52] Speaker A: Facebook, all of the. I
[00:40:53] Speaker C: get messages all the time. Yeah.
[00:40:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, and there's a great. There is a great Facebook group for folks with disabilities. I'm a member of the Facebook group. I know Vanessa's a member of the Facebook group. And it's really a wonderful resource and people ask all kinds of questions and people like Vanessa share their knowledge because, you know, Vanessa and Andrew are the experts in this space. Brian and I are just amazed to be playing with.
[00:41:21] Speaker B: We play one on
[00:41:22] Speaker A: tv. Yeah, no, listen, we're. We're more experts in general DCL knowledge, but Vanessa and Andrew are the experts on accessibility issues, particularly on wheelchair accessibility issues. Obviously need to know more about accessibility in terms of someone who's hearing impaired. You should talk to someone who is hearing impaired, who sails Disney Cruise Line or to special services. Special services can always give you more information regarding whatever your disability Is.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: So Ed has a good question in the chat for you, I think. Vanessa, given the limited supply of accessible rooms, do you guys have any difficulty booking the rooms that you want?
[00:42:01] Speaker C: Yes, sometimes. Well, I know even for the believe maiden voyage, I didn't get my number one choice, but lately, because we're Pearl, we don't have that.
[00:42:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:13] Speaker C: Unless we're booking late like we did for the Wish. I only had two rooms I could choose from, so, you know, but none of the rooms are really bad. There are some that have poles in them for support for the decks and we try to avoid those. And now they're actually listed on the website that'll say there is a pole. It does not obstruct your. Your accessibility into the room, but just know there's a pole,
[00:42:38] Speaker A: so you have to navigate around it in the room and that's important to know. Or
[00:42:42] Speaker C: it's the people out of the wheelchair that walk into it at night, you know?
[00:42:45] Speaker A: Right, right. No, that. That absolutely makes sense.
I. I will say to your point though, you, like us, tend to book on opening day when you are planning your cruises. And so it's only those last minute ones where it becomes harder if you are somebody who has pearl status or platinum status, an easier time choosing whatever room, whether that be a accessible room or just a standard room, you'll have. You'll have that. Let's talk entertainment.
Do you have a favorite? I'm gonna ask Andrew this question. Do you. Which, which one do you think has better shows? The Wish or the Fantasy?
[00:43:25] Speaker D: I like them both for different reasons.
[00:43:28] Speaker A: Okay.
What do you like about the fantasy? Is it Aladdin or is it something. Something else?
[00:43:34] Speaker D: I like the signature show.
[00:43:36] Speaker A: Yeah, the signature show. Yeah, yeah,
[00:43:38] Speaker D: yeah.
[00:43:38] Speaker A: I love that. And then is the. Do you like the. Do you like Little Mermaid? Then on the Wish? I guess that's their signature show, right?
[00:43:45] Speaker C: Yeah,
[00:43:46] Speaker D: I do. But she.
[00:43:48] Speaker C: I don't like. I don't like Little Mermaid.
I preferred Aladdin. So.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I. We didn't even
[00:43:55] Speaker C: go to Little Mermaid. Yeah,
[00:43:56] Speaker A: yeah, yeah. All right. Well, what I
[00:43:59] Speaker C: was showing was the difference here.
Aladdin happened to be on both of these cruises, so it was very interesting to see the difference in the technical aspects of the shows.
Even though they're starting to do. They do the projection now on the fantasy and stuff, but just Aladdin blows the other on the Wish. Blew the other one away on the Fantasy.
[00:44:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:20] Speaker C: And we also on the Wish, I believe they were Broadway stars that were Aladdin and Jasmine, not the ones from the Believe concert. But different ones.
[00:44:30] Speaker A: So they're
[00:44:31] Speaker C: amazing. Amazing.
[00:44:32] Speaker A: Okay, well, that's always gonna. Yeah, that's always gonna. The performers, the quality of the performers is always going to. To make a difference in terms of the production. Even if everything else about the production is the same. Which of course they're not identical. Although, I mean, the. The shows are the same. The staging and some of the set stuff is different because of what's available on each of the ships. All right, let's get to the next slide because we do have some believe stuff I think to chop about.
[00:44:59] Speaker C: This is just Pirate Night because they are totally different.
On the fantasy. I've never say it right. Buccaneer blasts or bash or something where it's just like some piratey people, pirate crew members and the guests are helping them make up some pirate songs or adding things. And then Jack Sparrow comes out where on the wish, it's
[00:45:23] Speaker A: the parlay party.
[00:45:24] Speaker B: Pirates Rock and parlay party.
[00:45:28] Speaker C: Say
[00:45:28] Speaker A: that five times fast.
[00:45:31] Speaker C: And I love it because I love the music on that. And it just gets you ready for the fireworks. It's live music played throughout the fireworks in the show. And it's just a great, better show, I think, on there.
[00:45:42] Speaker A: Yeah,
[00:45:42] Speaker C: they're both. I always go to. I love the fireworks at sea. You know, just that it's being fish food and everything too. It's not like, oh, they're just throwing all this stuff in the ocean. It just makes it fun. You know, other ships kind of gather around to watch our fireworks. So
[00:45:57] Speaker A: super fun. I agree.
[00:45:59] Speaker B: Andrew, do you have a
[00:45:59] Speaker A: favorite.
[00:46:00] Speaker B: Do you have a favorite version of the party? The Pirates Rockin Parlay or the
[00:46:06] Speaker A: Buccaneer Blast? The
[00:46:06] Speaker B: Buccaneer Blast, yeah.
[00:46:09] Speaker D: Pirates Rocking parlay party.
[00:46:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
I hard agree. The music on that one is just so like, it's giving me all the vibes. So yeah, it's
[00:46:20] Speaker A: all like 80s hair band music.
[00:46:23] Speaker C: Yeah. And then before we move off of entertainment, we were talking to a crew member on the wish and the storytellers are not there anymore. Remember, they used to do like fairy tale in a minute and different things. So my guess is hopefully they're reimagining their roles and we'll make them how they are. On the Treasure and the Destiny, like a more interactive. Do something to make it more fun and pull the whole thing together.
I just don't think they had time when the wish came out or didn't think that far out. But they're not there anymore.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: It's also hard. They seem to always play a lesser role on the Wish just because the cruises were shorter and so like, you know, it's hard.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: Yeah,
[00:46:57] Speaker B: yeah. Ye
[00:46:59] Speaker C: Wish was runs four and three. Well, that's Wish I'd like. The Destiny will run a four night too. So I don't know. But
[00:47:06] Speaker B: yeah,
[00:47:07] Speaker A: I think they. I agree with you. I think they. I'm hoping they will revamp that because they did have storytellers.
I can't remember even their names, but they were kind of. They weren't as. As involved in the entertainment as they are on the Destiny and the Treasure. But it seems like this is an. Especially with this. With the Wish sailing to Europe and moving to mostly seven night sailings, it's a great opportunity for them to kind of revamp that. We'll see if they do that then or if they do it when she comes back, who knows? Because obviously the European crowd won't know what they're missing in terms of what's on the Destiny and the Treasure.
[00:47:43] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:47:44] Speaker B: All right, so I've advanced us on to hear more about the Disney Believe reveal. I want to hear all about it, but I got to start with one question that I've asked others, which is, so you watch the reveal, you're among a crowd of Disney Cruise Line fans and people who are sailing with. With you. What was the mood like following the reveal? Were people excited? Less than excited. Like, what was the chatter like about the reveal?
[00:48:13] Speaker C: I know sitting out on deck watching it on Funnel Vision, you could just feel the. When they announced like Oaken's, whatever it's called, everybody just went, oh.
[00:48:22] Speaker D: So
[00:48:22] Speaker C: it kind of brought everybody down. And it was in the beginning, it's like, you got to bring us back up to want to see more of everything.
I mean, I kind of even sat back and I shook my head like, really? Like we're getting that again. So. But I'm starting to like that one. But I think a lot of people were just kind of talking about the different spaces and how they probably wouldn't have done what Disney was doing.
[00:48:46] Speaker B: You can always rely on Disney Cruise Line fans, including us, to second guess
[00:48:50] Speaker A: every
[00:48:51] Speaker B: decision Disney Cruise Line makes.
[00:48:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:48:54] Speaker A: I'm curious now, could you have watched in the theater? I imagine that there was probably limited number of people if. Well, obviously all the media folks were in the theater. I wonder, were regular guests able to go to the theater or did they just expect regular guests to be on the pool deck and watch
[00:49:12] Speaker C: the night before? We were given a nice little note that said at 4:30 you can go to watch it on Funnel Vision. Or you could go to the Wonderland Theater. So if you didn't want to sit out in the heat. Cause it was hot.
And we had just spent the day at Castaway Cay too. So you were kind of worn out, but yeah, a lot of people did. I don't know how many people they could fit into that because it's not that big of a theater.
But they were showing it there.
[00:49:36] Speaker D: And you could watch it from the steam room too.
[00:49:39] Speaker A: Oh, from the Stateroom tv. Yeah. That's a great.
[00:49:42] Speaker C: I didn't know that.
[00:49:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, that makes sense. Well, it is. It's hard, right. Because there's all of these media folks on board and invited guests. And there's only so much space in the theater, in the Walt Disney Theater for the live performance. Right. And so I don't know if that was communicated ahead of time. Actually, I'll ask. Was it communicated ahead of time and was it a disappointment when you got that note in the state Room that those were your options because you were then watching it streaming into another place rather than watching it live, for example?
[00:50:14] Speaker C: Right. Well, we knew ahead of time that it would be on Funnel Vision. Okay.
[00:50:18] Speaker D: I
[00:50:18] Speaker C: knew it was on Funnel Vision.
[00:50:19] Speaker A: Yeah. I
[00:50:20] Speaker C: think it even
[00:50:20] Speaker A: said
[00:50:20] Speaker C: on the first press release. Yeah.
[00:50:22] Speaker A: Okay. Andrew, what were you saying?
[00:50:24] Speaker D: It was a disappointment for me.
[00:50:26] Speaker A: It was a disappointment for you. I can understand that. Because I'm not sure that I was clear on how that was gonna go ahead of time. But of course, I wasn't receiving any emails from Disney. Cause I wasn't booked on the cruise, so. Okay.
[00:50:37] Speaker C: And I don't think they knew what they were doing either, because first they were taking the chairs down. Then all of a sudden they're bringing them back out. And I just parked Andrew right up front, and we just sat and we finally brought the chairs over.
But it was fun. I mean, they served us champagne or cloud em to toast the believe and everything. So it was fun to do.
I mean, leading up to that, the night before we had. Or the day before, we had a trivia game to play, 20 questions. And that is where I saw the most meaningful media people was at that event. Because it was everybody, not just guests or not just media.
So they had. I thought the questions were very easy until they got to the tiebreakers. Those were like, what?
[00:51:23] Speaker B: Like one of them was like a runtime. Like, how long does this movie run? Yeah.
[00:51:27] Speaker A: Yeah. How long does Snow White run? I've got to ask.
Okay, so obviously here, the picture on the left is from the trivia. The Picture in the middle is the print that you all got. Is that correct? And then the picture on the right is the concert that you got to go to. And they had the concert two times. They had essentially to. To instead of a show. So instead of seeing.
And I think it was instead of Seize the Adventure that you guys had this. No,
[00:51:55] Speaker C: we saw Seize the Adventure.
[00:51:57] Speaker A: Okay. So this was instead of whatever the additional show or variety act or movie would have been.
I want to ask, though, more generally about the media thing happening. So it was like influencers, international media, fan media, who a ton of whom are friends of ours. And then there were travel advisors, some of whom were friends with as well.
I'm curious, was, did that impact the guest experience? And I want your honest opinion, Vanessa, because I feel like people were talking about this in the Facebook groups. And I commented on a few people's posts when this was announced, warning people this. Yes, this is a passenger cruise that you can book, but your experience may be impacted by the media events going on, meaning spaces may be closed at certain times for these events. Did you feel like those closures or the existence of all of these people with their cameras, let's be honest, filming every little thing. We know that that's what happens because
[00:53:04] Speaker B: we've done it ourselves. Yes,
[00:53:08] Speaker A: but we've done it on a preview cruise. Everybody was.
[00:53:13] Speaker B: No lookout key. I was
[00:53:14] Speaker A: on the lookout
[00:53:15] Speaker B: cruise, and I can tell you passengers were not excited to have the number of media on board that ship and they felt like their experience was being degraded. Whether it was or not is a question, but that was the feeling that we. We heard. So, yeah, I'm curious, Vanessa, did it impact your cruise in a media.
[00:53:32] Speaker C: No, it did not.
And to be honest, I didn't see a lot of them. And we were in the gift shop and Tim Tracker came up to us because we've met him, know him, you know, off the side, and he kind of surprised us. But then he. He chatted with us and then he did his quiet little filming there that night. But he was saying that, you know, they started early in the morning at like 7, 7:30, so they weren't out. And then he was telling us about these constellations on one of the portholes. We went looking for them. They must have literally put things up and taken them down as soon as people were done with their different hunts. I mean, I went looking for things and I couldn't find anything. And then I know they had some big event in once they did all their scavenger hunt things and then they. But again, because it was behind closed doors, I had no idea it wasn't a place we would go anyways. What's the name of that room, Andrew? I can't think what they were. Oh,
[00:54:24] Speaker A: the Hideaway.
Right.
[00:54:26] Speaker C: So that's not where I would go any, you know. And then the only other
[00:54:28] Speaker A: time I used was a teen space or extended scene space. Yeah,
[00:54:33] Speaker C: yeah, Castaway. There was a line of. Over by the new cabanas area by Serenity Bay.
But again, they didn't bother me at all. So, you know, we ran into our good friend Lou Mongelli. You know, different people.
You'll see a little. We had, you know, some of your sponsors and, you know, so it was fun.
It didn't bother me. And I saw a lot of the comments that people were making and I'm like, just, regular guests can be annoying too. So Andrew and I could be annoying because we're filming everything. So
[00:55:07] Speaker A: listen, I'm happy to hear that. I also think it's good that they started a lot of their events early in the morning because you're right, that's less likely to impact guest experience because guests are on vacation. They're mostly not up at 7 o' clock in the morning.
Well, let's jump forward.
We have a couple of our friends that you got to meet and take some pictures.
[00:55:33] Speaker C: I wanted to talk about my little. Go back to that one real quick.
Sky Gazers.
So you guys are talking about this on your reveal discussion. And I think it's going to be really cool because if you look at how they presented the signs, it's the signs of the zodiac. And you can see with the scorpion ones, the actual constellations are there. So I think it's going to start off with just the regular night sky and the constellations, and then they're going to slowly fill in with the characters that are there because you have Gemini is Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Joy's holding scales. Leo's the line. You know, every. If you look at the one on the left to the one on the right, they all kind of match up.
[00:56:15] Speaker A: Oh, that's really cool.
I'm glad you pointed that
[00:56:19] Speaker C: out.
[00:56:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm glad you pointed that out because I'm not sure that I. Well, we didn't clock that. Let me just be really honest about that. We definitely didn't clock that. I want to answer Ed's comment in the chat about. He didn't know media events were at 7am that's the definition of working trip. I. I want to Tell people that, because I know people get a little jealous at times when somebody gets invited on a media trip, for example,
[00:56:44] Speaker B: I see it. I see it on like threads or wherever, where it's people like creators. Why didn't I get an invite? Like, you don't know what you're asking for, right? Like, it is. It is exhausting. It is work. Is there downtime and drinks and camaraderie with some of the.
It's more like you left work and you're going out for a beer after work and then everyone's going to bed because they got to get up. And it is nonstop trying things, filming things, interviewing people, getting all that stuff posted. So, like Disney doesn't hand out these invites to media as like a reward for your coverage. They hand it out to you because they expect you to be working hard while you're on there. And if you're not, you may. May not get invited.
[00:57:31] Speaker C: I think.
Didn't they have to produce so much stuff too? Like, I think they were, you know, you can't just go enough. Say something about it.
[00:57:39] Speaker B: For the influencer crowd, I would suspect that they set some minimum. Like you need to do one reel and so many posts or so many. But the media crowd is. Because it's spread out with bloggers, podcasters, vloggers, fan sites, all of us, sort of stuff they had not traditionally provided us with. Sort of. Here's what we expect now for this event. We have heard and from others in the community that a lot of people got invited. They were invited on with the expectation of real time posting about the scavenger hunt throughout the event. They
[00:58:14] Speaker A: were encouraged. I don't think there was a minimum set.
[00:58:17] Speaker B: There was no minimum. But I think the expectation was you were doing something sort of live as it was occurring and so that you know that it is. I'll just cap this off by saying I could talk about this all evening. It is work. It is work.
[00:58:32] Speaker A: I
[00:58:32] Speaker B: have never been more exhausted than when I've gotten off some of these, like, preview cruises and that. And even when you get off, it's like the work is still going because you still got tons of stuff
[00:58:40] Speaker A: to
[00:58:40] Speaker B: do. So, yeah,
[00:58:41] Speaker A: the one thing I will say is the travel advisors who get invited on, some of them treat it as a reward trip and some of them treat it as a working trip. So there's a lot of variation there in terms of terms of how travel advisors use those trips. So I and theirs are based on sales. So that's completely a different. It's. They're at a completely different category than the media folks or the influencer folks. Here are some of our friends on the
[00:59:05] Speaker C: left.
[00:59:06] Speaker A: On the left is Stephanie Schuster from the WDW magazine, DCL magazine, DLR magazine. She is obviously a common face on this show.
They're one of our sponsors of our bonus live shows. We absolutely love Stephanie and Danny and their whole crew. And then on the right is our friend Jeremiah who works for Laughing Place.
And we're not a sponsor of the show, but they are a regular partner with us. We absolutely adore them. We've had Jeremiah on the show to talk about the Disney adventure. We've had Benji on the show several times as well and we've had Doobie on the show as well. And just fabulous folks. And we're so I'm so excited that you got to meet them and I have hopefully connected you and Stephanie, Vanessa, so that you were maybe going to maybe help with an article for the DCL magazine about accessibility, which I know is a topic that they wanted to write an article about and share with the community. So I love that. I love that you got to meet them. They're wonderful people.
[01:00:10] Speaker C: And then we also met up with Lynn Wu who's been on your show.
[01:00:14] Speaker A: Lynn is great.
[01:00:16] Speaker C: We're a trivia show. Were you two on DCL Duo? And we're like, yeah. So we just immediately struck up a friendship that right at that moment and hung out with the rest of the cruise. So she was all by herself on that cruise and with, you know, again we all kind of met up together and did trivia together and different things. So. And this picture was taken really late at night too, so.
[01:00:35] Speaker B: Oh yeah, I love that story. Vanessa, for no other reason than our whole goal here has been creating a community to connect, you know, like minded DCL people together. And so the fact that that happened and we weren't directly involved is amazing. So I'm so happy that that happened
[01:00:52] Speaker A: and I can't wait till we sail together again, which I know is coming at least on the Believe. I'm hoping that we'll have something
[01:00:59] Speaker C: together. Yeah, lives on the Maiden too.
[01:01:01] Speaker A: Awesome. Awesome. All
[01:01:02] Speaker B: right, before we get to the last slide, which is the.
Which goes back to my like, be careful what you wish
[01:01:08] Speaker A: for.
[01:01:09] Speaker B: There's a couple of conversations that I just want to be really clear. Like yes, we were not on the preview or the sorry, the Believe reveal cruise who Disney invites and doesn't invite. It's a list that constantly changes, expands, contracts. Like we are still in lots of conversation with media relations over at Disney. So it's not like they've forgotten about us. Just wasn't the right opportunity for us this time around.
We get it. I will say to the other comments in the chat, yes, I might have left the Believe reveal feeling a little less whelmed if I had been able to get all of the information that some of these folks had on board. And that's sort of why we brought Danny and Stephen, Stephanie on to get that viewpoint. And it did alter a lot of my thinking after hearing from them. So my excitement level went up because we got that information. So. Yeah.
[01:02:02] Speaker A: And I think seeing that concert, which of course you all did get to see, I think also helps that level of excitement. That was a fabulous concert. I wish that they had.
I wish they had streamed that. We'll also say that the number of invited guests on that cruise was smaller than, let's say on a preview cruise for a new ship, because it's not the. The whole ship. And so there was. We are kind of in the bucket of fan media and there were only so many fan media slots and so we
[01:02:32] Speaker C: had to fit in Sarabi.
[01:02:34] Speaker A: Right, Exactly. So we were. We were. We. We didn't make the A list. Let's just put it that way. Okay. I hope we'll make the A list next time. Maybe the list has to be a little bit bigger for us to make.
[01:02:44] Speaker B: Keep listening, keep rating, Tell your friends about us. If you want us to have that kind of access.
It just. We've got to show Disney and we have been showing tons of data about our show and how to think about podcasting in this space. But the number one thing that we. That helps us out is more people listening to the show, so. Or watching on YouTube.
All right, Vanessa, I'm going to let you tee this up. It's your slide. I literally guests send us the slides and I queue them up for our ecamm lives, but most of the time I don't have a chance to go through them. So this was a surprise to me.
Sandy.
[01:03:23] Speaker A: I saw it a few minutes. So
[01:03:24] Speaker B: she's prepared. I am not. But Vanessa,
[01:03:27] Speaker A: only a little bit. Only a little bit. Yeah.
[01:03:29] Speaker C: Well, you put us to a challenge last week, you know, on your live that, you know.
[01:03:34] Speaker A: So
[01:03:34] Speaker C: Andrew's like, of course we have to.
[01:03:35] Speaker A: I love that you rose to the challenge. Now, did you all discuss these questions together and come up with them?
[01:03:42] Speaker C: Yes.
Andrew came up with a tagline. Be Careful what yout Wish For, Brian.
[01:03:47] Speaker B: Thank you.
[01:03:47] Speaker A: I love it, Andrew. That's the best.
That's the best.
[01:03:51] Speaker B: A real time lesson, Actually, I'm gonna continue the call. I love this. I love.
[01:03:54] Speaker A: Yeah, this is great.
[01:03:55] Speaker B: I love this. So if you're coming on a live show with us
[01:03:58] Speaker A: reverse rapid. We're gonna call this reverse rapid fire.
[01:04:00] Speaker B: It's your show. You get to do reverse rapid fire. All right, so, Vanessa, is the first question which we would choose here.
[01:04:07] Speaker C: Yes. Would you prefer in your state as a stateroom, the concierge level or just a veranda stateroom?
[01:04:13] Speaker A: Oh, that's an easy answer. I say.
[01:04:15] Speaker B: Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Is money not an object, or
[01:04:18] Speaker A: do we have to factor in
[01:04:19] Speaker B: pricing?
[01:04:21] Speaker C: Well, I don't know. For us, it's a object. Yeah.
You know?
[01:04:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:04:26] Speaker C: Or what ship even is better for it? Maybe.
[01:04:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna answer and say, like, so if. If I. If my budget is very high, I would always choose concierge over a regular seat. I'm not saying I need concierge. I absolutely don't need concierge.
I would be happy to be in an inside stateroom. I'll be completely honest.
But, like, if I. If money' an object, I'm always choosing a concierge stateroom. I'm going to say I'd even choose the ocean view concierge stateroom, which on the wish class, there are a set of ocean view concierge staterooms that just have kind of a wall of windows, and your view is to the front of the ship. It's basically, you are under the bridge by a couple of decks.
Anyway, I.
And so you don't have a veranda. I would choose that over a veranda with one exception, which is if I'm in Alaska. If I'm in Alaska, I need that veranda. A stateroom, regardless of where it is on the ship. But, yeah, I would. I would. If money's not really a factor, I would choose concierge because I do think the level of service is wonderful, even though it's not. The price tag is. Is. Is prohibitively expensive for us to do that on every cruise or even on most of our sailings. Yeah.
[01:05:41] Speaker C: Yeah. But would you do it on a maiden voyage?
[01:05:44] Speaker A: No.
[01:05:45] Speaker B: No.
[01:05:45] Speaker A: Actually, no. That's a good question. I would not, for a couple of reasons. I. I would not do it on a maiden because of the even more prohibitively expensive price tag, but also because I feel like if I'm staying in concierge, I want to experience the concierge areas of the ship, and I'm not out exploring the rest of the ship. And on a maiden voyage or on a new ship, I want to be spending my time exploring the ship and getting the regular guest experience, partially for myself, but also so we can share it out in the community. I think that's really important, and I don't think you get that when you stay conceited. So, yeah, I wouldn't sail for that.
Brian, your thoughts?
[01:06:30] Speaker B: All right. I would say I would prefer concierge aboard the Wonder, the Treasure, or the Destiny. All other ships. I'll take a veranda state room. That's kind of where I land. And I think concierge has a special place in my heart on the treasure. We haven't experienced a Destiny, but I love the outdoor deck. That's the thing that.
[01:06:53] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good. It's a really nice deck. And the
[01:06:54] Speaker B: Wonder also has that. That's the magic doesn't. So I think those ships are great. I. I am actually not super psyched about concierge on any of the dream class ships. Even. Even. Even though they've made some upgrades to it, it's just not. It's just not my favorite. So. Yeah.
[01:07:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:07:10] Speaker A: All
[01:07:10] Speaker C: right. Okay. So for a private island, do you prefer Castaway Key or Lookout Key?
[01:07:16] Speaker A: Hot take. Hot take. I'm going to give it to lookout Key.
[01:07:22] Speaker B: Yeah, same. I think. I think Lookout Key. Lookout Key. I think Lookout key has so much promise.
That promise is starting to wear off in my book because they're not like it just. And we haven't been in a while, so maybe I'll change my mind when we go back.
[01:07:36] Speaker A: We'll go in December. But
[01:07:37] Speaker B: I feel like I got really psyched about it because I saw a lot of potential. I'm not seeing Disney fully realize that potential, which is making me concerned. So for a complete full island experience, I think Castaway key is great.
For an island that is really great with lots of future potential. I. I go to Lookout. I prefer lookout for the beaches. Yeah.
[01:08:01] Speaker A: That's why I pick. That's why I pick Lookout, because I just think the beach is so gorgeous, and I like the. I like the waves. I like a little bit more of the waves.
Whereas Castaway is just a little too quiet and we don't have enough water. I feel like it's like we miss out on all the water. Okay.
[01:08:17] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:08:18] Speaker A: Adult dining.
[01:08:19] Speaker C: Dining. Paolo or Remy? Enchante.
[01:08:23] Speaker A: Oh, this is so hard. I
[01:08:24] Speaker B: know my answer. I'm gonna go first. Remy. Remy.
[01:08:27] Speaker A: I knew you were gonna cheat. I
[01:08:28] Speaker B: love Remy. I will eat at Remy anytime I Have a chance to. I just. It has my tugs at my heart. I just love the theming, the food, the whole experience. I think it's great. Yeah.
[01:08:37] Speaker A: Yeah. It's funny because, like, I. I think we both agree that Enchante is actually at the bottom of the list. Not because we dislike it. It's just Remy we like a lot more. We like there's something warm about Remy and like the decor and feels like a little too cold in its decor.
But I'm gonna say Paulo, I honestly, like, I. I think it's probably because I'm not a, like a super picky eater. I am. I am pretty adventurous when I go to Remy or Enchante, but I. At heart, I'm actually more of a traditional food person. And I find I love all the food at Palo. I can eat so many dishes and be happy at Palo and at Remy, nonchante. It kind of tests me. And so I will say I'm always comfortable. And it doesn't. It could be brunch or dinner. I love them both at Palo. Whereas I don't really like the I know now lunch, but was a brunch experience at Remy and Enchante. I would only go to dinner at those. So, yeah, I would. I'll pick. I would pick Paulo, but I'd say Remy. Remy. Dinner is like, really close to that. It's really wonderful. But yeah, I got to give it to Paulo
[01:09:46] Speaker C: real quick in the chat. No, they have not done the 5k yet. Lookout key. We were
[01:09:51] Speaker A: just
[01:09:51] Speaker C: there on the fantasy and it's still not up. The signs are there, but nobody's running it, so.
[01:09:56] Speaker A: And you can still. You can run.
You can run it on your own, but yeah, there's no organized anything. Yeah.
[01:10:04] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay. So for theme sailings, do you prefer Halloween on the high seas or a very merry time time cruise?
[01:10:11] Speaker A: Brian.
[01:10:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
Halloween is not my thing.
Christmas is my thing. I love Christmas, so I love very merry time.
[01:10:21] Speaker A: I'm actually very conflicted on this. I am not a Halloween person. I posted about Halloween. Like, I'm not a Halloween girly, but I actually really love Halloween on the high seas because I don't like anything spooky. I like. I'm one of those people who the commercial for the, like, horror movie comes on and I'm like, closing my eyes and plugging my ears at the same time because even the music gets me really scared.
But I actually really like Halloween on the high seas.
But if I'm honest, I actually really love.
I love Christmas on a ship. Like, I, not just very merry time, but specifically like spending Christmas on the ship. I really love that even as somebody who didn't celebrate Christmas as a child because I'm Jewish and so I celebrated Hanukkah. My family, we didn't celebrate Christmas. I celebrate Christmas now because of Brian.
And I'll be honest, we celebrate, celebrate it in a. I'm sorry. For people who celebrate it religiously. We celebrate Christmas in a very secular way because we are raising our son Jewish and because I'm Jewish.
But I really love all of the, the outfits. I love the decor. I love a tree. Like, I, I think on board Disney Cruise Line, it's just so beautifully decorated. I also love holiday music. Most of the, mostly Christmas music.
Hanukkah music's great too. But I love, yeah, I love all the, the holiday music. And I also really like when they have the, when they have the singers, the carolers. I love the carolers. And I'll be honest, I love like Santa Goofy and he comes out on maritime cruises, so he also can come out at Aulani. So, yeah, I, yeah, I just love Disney Christmas.
[01:12:01] Speaker C: Yeah. Cookies and hot cocoa. Who can go wrong? Can you.
[01:12:04] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Christmas morning on the ship. Oh,
[01:12:08] Speaker C: yeah. Santa's there.
[01:12:10] Speaker A: Santa's there. You're wearing your pajamas like you're getting your cookies and hot cocoa. You might get, you might get chocolate chip cookies and milk to put out for Santa from the dining room the night before. I love, yeah, I love all of that. So, yeah, I'm a Hanukkah girly who loves, loves Christmas.
Yeah, I love it.
[01:12:31] Speaker B: All right, well, thank you for everyone out there who has hung in with us for the full freak of this show and
[01:12:39] Speaker A: our audio
[01:12:40] Speaker B: difficulties
[01:12:40] Speaker A: in the middle there.
[01:12:41] Speaker B: But Vanessa, can you tell people how they can find you and Andrew and all the things? Because you guys, as I said before, wealth of information and super helpful to the community and the accessibility space. So tell us where we can find you. Follow along with you, all of those things.
[01:12:59] Speaker C: For me, it's Vanessa Prince, but I'm on Facebook but also on Instagram. I'm magically Vanessa, and I'm going to be trying to push out more cruise line tips and stuff through that platform. It's my goal for next year. So you can reach out to me, message me if you have any questions because like I said, I've gotten quite a few over the couple years since we've been on the podcast asking specific questions.
[01:13:23] Speaker B: Yeah, Andrew, tell us how people can find and connect with you.
[01:13:27] Speaker D: Facebook, YouTube is accessible invented with Andrew Instagram Andrew on Arp.
And my email is on my YouTube about page.
[01:13:40] Speaker B: Great. And we will make sure to link to all of that stuff in the show notes so you can find Andrew and Vanessa again. Wealth of information.
Sam, you're gonna have to remind me what's happening with our next live show.
[01:13:56] Speaker A: That's a great.
I will. I need to check the calendar because it's I.
We've got, we've got Karsh coming on.
He was on the Disney Dream. It actually you have it written as a Halloween on the high seas. It actually wasn't a Halloween on the high seas. It straddled the end of September into early October. We were supposed to have him on a couple of weeks ago but we had to cancel. Last minute mutual conflicts. But he's a fabulous returning guest and we're going to be talking about his daily Disney dream sailing. So that will be it. In terms of Halloween live shows, we do have some more Halloween shows that we'll be pushing out over most of November. So you can look forward if you're interested about more to hear more about Halloween Now High Seas. We have plenty of episodes that we've recorded this month and at the end of September that cover those sailings and they will continue to push out through November because our recorded shows are about a month behind in terms of release dates. So that's why we love to bring you this time timely content on our live shows as best as we can. So yeah. So we'll be back next week, 5pm Pacific, 8pm Eastern.
I want to say thank you again to Vanessa and Andrew for being such wonderful guests and for joining us for the third time. We love having you guys on the show.
[01:15:15] Speaker B: You
[01:15:15] Speaker A: are of course welcome back anytime. I know you've got sailings coming up next year as well.
[01:15:21] Speaker C: Yep.
[01:15:22] Speaker B: And one quick reminder for folks we love, love, love, love guests. And so if you've got a sailing coming up, best tip, we have reach out at least 60 to 90 days before you're sailing because we do book up quickly with our recording schedule as you're thinking about your holiday sailings coming up. We already have recordings opening in January, so and we're getting full, I think for November and December. I think we're all full for November and
[01:15:53] Speaker A: then full for November. I think we might have one record open in December and then we are about halfway into January right now. So
[01:16:02] Speaker B: so
[01:16:02] Speaker A: reach out. So it. So reach out early if you want to be on the show. We love having new folks on the show. We love having returning guests on the show and if we turn you down, it. It's. It's not you. It's not you, it's us. Yeah, it's just our schedule gets full and because we have full time jobs that are not the podcast, we can only do so many recordings and push out so many episodes every week. So we love you all. Thank you for join. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Thank you everyone for watching and we just appreciate you all.
[01:16:33] Speaker B: All right, we'll see you next
[01:16:34] Speaker C: time. Thank you.
[01:16:41] Speaker B: All right, that's our show for tonight, but thank you so much for listening. If you're not subscribed yet, please fix that right now. Head over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hit that subscribe button. We're dropping at least two episodes a week week plus we're live each and every week over on our YouTube channel, YouTube.comdclduo come hang out with us for a live. It's a blast. You can ask your questions in the chat and really join the conversation with us and our guests. If you're enjoying our show, one of the easiest ways to support the show, head over to Apple Podcasts. Hit those five stars and while you're at it, leave us a written review with your 5 star review and we will read it on the the air at the top of one of our main episodes. If you're listening to us on another platform, Spotify, YouTube, Castos. There's so many third party podcast apps and players out there. Whatever form of reviewer rating they have, give it all to us. Show the show some love. It keeps us going, keeps us putting out great content week to week. Are you ready to set sail? Book your next Disney Cruise Line vacation with our show sponsor. We do travel right the crew that handles the planning so you can focus on relaxing. Head to wedotravelright.com DCLDUO today to get started. Or you can reach out to them directly. Just let them know the DCL Duo sent you. Subscribe today to DCL Magazine. They put out a great product head over there. It's your go to guide for DCL tips and tricks. Just browse to dcl-magazine.com that's dcl-magazine.com and use code DCLDUO ALL CAPS DCL Duo today for 10 off everything in the WDW magazine store. And if you want to directly support the show, join us on
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