Disney Cruise Review

On this week's episode, Jared reviews his recent trip on the Disney Fantasy. 

Transcript

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In this week's episode of A Dryer Dose of Disney, Jared reviews his recent Disney Cruise. Intro Music Welcome to this week's episode of a Dryer dose of Disney. I'm your host, Jared dryer. And today we are going to be talking about our wonderful cruise that we went on recently as a family. We went on the Disney fantasy on an Eastern Caribbean cruise, and we want to give you our feedback of the Disney cruise, what we loved about it while we may not have liked so much about it and tell you all the fun things that happened on that cruise. And then on our next episode, we will be talking about. Are Disney cruises worth it. So I know a lot of people have asked that since we've gotten back. In fact, that's the number one question. We've gotten from both friends and family since we got back. Is, it worth it? How wonderful is the Disney cruise and is it the best time you've ever had? We're going to dive into all of that, between these two episodes, starting with this episode this week, where we're going to be going over a review of the cruise and all the fun things that happened on the ship as well as in the ports. And we're just going to tell you about the great time that we had on the Disney fantasy and just highlight all the different aspects of it. But before we dive into that, we do want to say wherever you're listening to us find that pause button, or if you're watching us on YouTube, find that pause button and then go click subscribe. So that way you're going to get this content delivered for free into your inbox each and every single week as we upload episodes weekly right now. Now, in addition to that, if there are any tips or tricks that saved you time or money, you can support us over at Patreon by throwing us a couple bucks over there. But if you want access to our number one biggest Disney tip or trick ever. That is over there on Patreon, on the top tier. And the reason we put it at the top tiers, because it's such a good tip or trick. You're definitely gonna want to check that out. And then of course, for our podcast, we always celebrate our, I can do this all day tip of the day. Which we do have one on this episode and it's tied to this pirate shirt that I'm wearing today from Tommy Bahama. So we'll be talking about that here shortly. But if you want to get a hold of that, I can do this all day tip of the day gear. You can see the water bottle over my shoulder. If you're watching us on YouTube, or if you go online into our Facebook page, you can see that icon out there with the captain America shield. You're able to get that material through Etsy and you could find our store there under a dryer dose at Disney, and we've got all kinds of cool park gear. And we were to the parks and we get asked about it all the time. So it's a lot of fun. But I want to dive right into it. I want to talk about the fun time that we had on the Disney fantasy. I have a lot to cover today. So this may be a little bit longer of an episode. I did write out the notes for what I wanted to cover today. And they are lengthier than a lot of the other show notes that I've done, but I wanted to include a lot of detail. So I'm going to be referencing the page here in front of me. If you're watching on video I may be looking up and down quite a bit, but I want to make sure we covered everything. But let me take all the mystery and wonder out of this. This was the best cruise that we've ever been on. No question about it. Now, in our next episode, we will be talking about whether or not it was worth it. But this is hands down, the best cruise that we've ever been on. We have been on three other cruises prior to this one, so that was our fourth cruise that we just went on with Disney. And we're going to be talking about the differences between all of the different cruise lines we've done. And Disney on our next episode. So you're definitely going to want to tune into that. Today, we're only going to be talking about the Disney fantasy and the cruise that we actually just went on. And this was like I said, our favorite, we love so many elements of it. Disney definitely goes above and beyond and they kill it. They do awesome. Which you guys know if you've been to a lot of their parks of their hotels, they do a great job. It's no different on the ships. They definitely kill it. So today we're going to be going through the ship. We're going to talk about the room, the food of the entertainment, the ports and excursions. We went on. How the service was as a whole, and then any additional things that we learned. And then at the end, like I said, we've got a great, I can do this all day tip of the day for you for this episode. So you're definitely gonna wanna stick around for that. Now on this cruise, if you've listened to our other podcast episodes, we did a cruise episode with Anthony and Lisa, and we were fortunate enough to go with them on this cruise. And so it was great having another family there with us because that's the first time that's happened for us. Usually it's just our family alone. So having another family with kids, our daughter's age definitely heightened the experience at gave Daphne a chance to go out and hang out with her friends and to cruise the boat sometimes alone with them when they were doing the teen club stuff. And it was just a ton of fun for everyone in the family. So I definitely want to highlight that going with our friends, Anthony and Lisa definitely made the experience that much better. And he's got a new nickname. It's now cruise Tony. That's what he put on the app. And that's what we called him the entire time. So it was a. A lot of fun being with them. On this trip. But I do want to start. Like I said, we're going to start with the ship. So we were on the Disney fantasy. This was an Eastern Caribbean cruise. So we did do three stops. We stopped at Tortola, which is in the British Virgin islands. Then we went to St. Thomas, which is in the us Virgin islands. And then we came back to Castaway Cay and spend a day at Disney's private island before coming back to port Canaveral, just outside of Orlando. Really a fun time on the ship that we did seven days in total. We did have three days that were just on the ship, just cruising. Which were totally awesome. And in fact, I really enjoy those days quite a bit because there's so many fun things you can do on the ship and we're going to cover all those. But the ship was really nicely decorated. It had Disney art everywhere. And because we went during the Halloween time. They did have this really cool spooky tree in the lobby. With pumpkins that were all lit up as Jack lanterns, hanging from the tree. They did one show the first night. Where they talked about the tree and the tales of the tree, and really just had a great spooky time very much on par if you've ever seen the legend of Ichabod And Mr. Toad. DVD or movies that are out there on Disney plus. It's the legend of basically a sleepy Hollow's the legend of a Ichabod Crane. So that one, it was a lot of fun and this was very much in line with that. It was a great time. So it's decorated very well. You do come in on the atrium, which is on level three. That's midship. They do call out your name and introduce you when you come to board which is a ton of fun. So that was really awesome. And then it's Disney. So it's touched with Disney throughout the ship. So there's hidden Mickeys everywhere. There's Mickey's in the carpet. There's Mickey's in all the designs. You have designs that are on each level that showcase a lot of the different cartoon characters over the years, mostly Mickey and friends. So you're talking Mickey, Minnie. Pluto goofy, Donald Daisy and that whole group chip and Dale they're on quite a bit. And then you even had Huey Dewey and Louie. Donald's nephews were in some of the stuff as well. It's really that Mickey and friends is throughout the entire ship. Engraved into different areas, which is a ton of fun. And then in each of the stairwells, there's three main stairwells going up and down. They had art for different Disney aspects. And what I mean by aspects of they do have some of the shipping built. They do have the different cartoons or the different movies over the years. Some of the design concepts, which was really cool. You'd see a picture of a sketch of Peter pan or Tinkerbell. Before they made the movie, did the animation for it. So the design may look a little bit different, but it was done by a Disney Imagineer, an animator, and it was really cool to see that old stuff. As well as then they have this really cool. Mickey detective agency thing you could do. And so some of the pictures came alive to be part of that. So that was a lot of fun. So think like Harry Potter, where the portraits are alive. Similar to that. To do the detective stuff. But just a ton of really cool decorations throughout the entire ship. And then of course, then in your state room, which we'll talk about here in just a second it continued in there as well. So you've got Mickey everywhere throughout the ship, which was a lot of fun. On the ship, you also have three main dining rooms that you're going to be experiencing through our seven night cruise. We went to each of them twice and then one of them a third time. And they've got two on the third level there. And then one on the second level. We'll be talking about those restaurants here in just a few minutes. They're called the Royal table and enchanted garden and animator's palate. They were all amazing and the food was amazing. So we'll talk about that as well. And then on the third floor, they also have all the shops. They have the main theater that has all the evening shows in it on the fourth floor. They've got some of the bars and meeting spaces that you did. Trivia or bingo and, some of those fun things, as well as they had a movie theater on the boat. So the boat is just going to be full of different activities top to bottom. Now on floor number five, a, which is the floor that our room was on. They all said the kid clubs. So you've got the, it's a small world for the nursery. But then you have the kids club. On the fifth floor as well. And there's a lot of cool things there, but the fifth floor also looks down, obviously over the fourth and over the third and the main area. And that was a really cool spot for people watching and to see some of the activities that were going on. And then throughout the time, and we'll talk about this morning entertainment. There are character. Meet and greets everywhere throughout the ship. And so you could see those from above and see the really cool characters and maybe even run into them. There were a few times that we ran into Daisy duck, or we ran into some of the princesses. My favorite was I ran into Thor and the cast member who was doing Thor on the ship was amazing and he was right on character and did really well. So that was a lot of fun. And I got some pictures with him. Which are going to be on our Facebook page. But it was just a great time. So lots of cool things there now from floor number five, you're going to jump up through the ship because floor 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 are all just rooms. So there's nothing to see, nothing to really do on those. We have a philosophy when we go on a cruise, we try to never take the elevator. And I think in our group, I was the only one who was successful on that for the full seven days. At some point or another, everyone else took an elevator at least once. But we do a lot of stair climbing to try to work off the calories because you're going to be eating a lot when you're on the cruise. From floors five to 11, there's not much happening there, but once you get up to 11. That's the Lido deck. That's where a lot of the activities happen. That's where a lot of the fun is. That's where the pool is and the water slides. Now the waterslides obviously go up to higher levels. To come down from a level 11 on the pool deck, the Lido deck. Is where you're going to find those. They also had kids areas. Splash pads and other little protected areas for the little kids. To be out there in the water as well. And then you had cabanas, which is their buffet on a deck number 11. That's huge. It's in the back half of the ship. Ah, that's awesome. And we'll talk about cabanas here in just a second, cause I've got a really good tip for you guys on cabanas and the food. There's great. They have the ice cream there. They have another shop for swimsuit stuff. If you need any of that. But then on deck of 11, That's also where they have the spas and the adult areas and all that. Deck 11 is just going to be a lot of fun. So really your fun is on levels three and four, and then 11. And then from there, when you go up to 12 that's the, wraparound level that you can look down on two 11, which we'll talk about in just a little bit here as well with our tip of the day. But then that's where you can do the water slides. They have a basketball court, they have a mini golf. They've got another splash pad area and just a lot of really cool things. Really when you're thinking about it, you're going to spend the majority of your time between decks three and four and then 11 and 12 or so. So that's where you're going to be running back and forth. Through all day. So the boat was awesome. It was huge. There were thousands of people on there, but you really wouldn't notice it. With the exception of right when he first come on board. So right when he first come on board. Everybody is waiting for the rooms to open up. They haven't had a chance to go drop off their backpacks or. They're carry on luggage yet. And so it's very, crowded, especially in cabanas, up on deck 11. Because the buffets are open, so they want to feed you lunch because that's usually when people are getting there. Is during lunchtime. And they want you to go and enjoy the food and enjoy all the cool stuff up there. So it's very packed at that point in time. And then usually about a one to two in the afternoon, the rooms all start opening up and once people are able to disperse and set their stuff down and start unpacking into their rooms. The crowds really do start to diminish and it becomes a much more comfortable place to be. So lots of fun happening on this boat. There were tons of people, tons of kids. And other than that first day, when you first get there, it wasn't crowded. Despite there being thousands of people out there now. If you're waiting for certain things, like if you want to meet a character, that line may be long, or maybe you want to go to the show and the theater is going to be packed out. That's all going to be true. But outside of that, for the most part, everyone's got a set place or time that they're trying to go to or be at including mealtimes, which really helps a lot. Because they stagger them in the evening and half the people on the boat are eating dinner at one point while the other half are watching shows and then they flip flop. So that definitely helps. A ton keeping the crowds low. So don't think about it like this crazy chaotic place. Now again, there were a lot of kids on the boat. We'll talk a little bit about that in a second here. But for the most part, Disney does a great job. Keeping the kids corralled, keeping them busy with different activities. And really keeping the population seeming pretty low. Which means that you have a lot more exclusive space and a lot more fun to be had on the ship. Now. Let's go back down to deck number five, let's talk about our room. And we actually picked our room with an extended balcony because it's on the same level as the lifeboats. So we love getting a balcony room. We've done it on our last three cruises as well. That just gives us a chance to get some fresh air, see the sites and all the different ports that you're traveling to. And it gives us just a little bit more space now on the fifth deck. Now this is what I would recommend to other people. If you've not gone on a Disney cruise, is the deck above the lifeboats are where they're hanging from. Those decks have extended balconies because they covered the same distance as the lifeboats. So our balcony was huge. As a matter of fact, they had eight different chairs out there and it was extended because we picked a corner one. And so we just had a ton of room out there on the balcony where our friends could come and hang out. We could all sit up there together. Everyone would have their own chair and it was a really great time. So I definitely encourage you when you're selecting rooms, go through, click through the pictures. You can even Google it online. And a lot of people have videos of their rooms, so that. You can get a really good idea of what you see out there. But we absolutely loved it on the fifth floor with that extended balcony. We're only one floor above the clubs and the bars and all the cool activities there, which we'll talk about in a moment. And we're about two floors away from dinner. So we'd only go up and down one or two floors when we wanted to shop eat, or when we were doing the show. And then anytime we wanted to go up to the pool or cabanas, it was about six floors up. So a little bit of a lengthier climb then at that point in time, but we loved it. We didn't, it was never bad. And the stairs in a cruise. Aren't terrible. They're not like these really long, extensive staircases that are very short and that you get up there really quick. Now, like most state rooms on a cruise. The rooms were a little bit tight, so this is going to be true of pretty much any cruise line. We'll talk about that more on our next episode when we compare them, but we did have three people in our room, so my wife and I had our. The one main bed that was put together and then they have a couch that turns into a bed as well as one that pulls down from the ceiling. So you could sleep for pretty comfortably in there, as long as your kids, aren't super tall. Maybe if they're a high school. Basketball player or something, they may be a little bit long for some of those beds. But then they'd probably be long for the general bed anyways. What we found is we actually wanted our daughter. To sleep on the bed that came down from the ceiling. So that way the couch would always be free for people to sit. If we ever wanted a chance to sit. So she loved that. She thought it was cool to climb up. She's never had a bunk bed before. After about the third night she did ask if she could move back down to the couch. Because we found one of the really cool treats about being on a Disney cruise. Is the room. Stuart came in every day and made the couch and flipped it back over to a couch every single day. Meaning. We always had a place to sit once we were up and out of the room and we came back later in the day and then that room Stuart would then flip it back to a bed in the evening, right before we'd come back to go to sleep. But we loved having the bed picked up every single day. So that gave us a little extra room and our space there which made it a lot more functional for us and gave us more places to sit. Our recommendation, anytime you're getting into a room. Is obviously have multiple suitcases for all the people traveling, unpack them. If you're trying to live out of a suitcase, you don't have room to put it on the floor. If you're lifting it off and on the bed, every time that you want to use the bed, that's going to be a pain. They do have drawers. They do have closets. I recommend, we always unpack into the closets and into the drawers and everybody gets their own. So that way we can put those suitcases underneath the bed and we free up some of the floor space. That helps a lot. We have seen other people's rooms where like walking down the hall they may have the door open where there are suitcases everywhere. And it's just not very convenient. It's not very nice. So you definitely want to unpack and get yourself situated into the room. That's going to help you a lot. In the room on the Disney cruise. The beds were really comfortable more comfortable than the other cruises we've been on. Again, we'll talk about that next week. And the best part of the room was the bathroom was split into two doors. With two different elements. So one side was just the shower with a sink and a mirror. The other side was a toilet with a sink and the mirror. Which gave us two functional spaces. Where on other cruises you usually have one functional space. So that was really great because then it enabled two people to get ready or use a sink and mirror at the same time. While we were trying to get ready for our day. So that helped a lot. And then it was nice that the room got very dark, very quiet. There is a curtain you can pull between the bedside and then the couch and the pull-down bedside. So parents, kids, you can pull up a curtain if you want it or need it. To give you a little more privacy. If you'd like that. But the room was great. We actually like having noise when we sleep. So we used our phones and made the little white noise app on the phone and use that at night just to help us sleep. But it was really quiet and we absolutely loved the room. Now, let's talk though about one of my favorite parts, if you've listened to other podcast episodes and that's the food and the food was amazing, it was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. So like we talked about, you have cabanas the buffet up on deck 11. You can go there whatever you want. And there's usually going to be some kind of food open. Now, if it's not open, so they do close it down for a couple hours between breakfast and lunch, and then a couple hours between lunch and dinner. They do have another spot. On the same deck, just a little further down that you can always order a sandwich or always get a piece of pizza or always get a salad. You can always get food whenever you want to. From there. So that way you're never going to go hungry, or if you're on that weird schedule, maybe slept on the little too late and it's not time for lunch yet. You can still find something to eat. So a deck number 11, cabanas, the buffet is great. Now here's your tip for cabanas. Okay. So this is not an, I can do this all day tip of the day, but it probably should be because it is that good of a tip. When you go to cabanas, cabanas is shaped like a horseshoe on the back of the boat. So you can come in from either side from the left or the right side, or a port or starboard side of the boat. So when you're going in there especially on the first day, the lines are going to be long and you're going to have people probably coming out the door, lined up, waiting to go for the food. Now the buffet line. Actually has two sides, meaning you can come in from the front or you can come up from the rear. What I would recommend is if you're going in and you see a long line, Walk past all those people. Go into where the tables are in that area. And then look for the backside of the line that's coming forward. We were in there a handful of times, and we did this almost every single time. And where there may have been the slower days, there were like three or four people in front of us. The busier days, there were 15 to 20 people in front of us when we would walk to the backside of the line and come back forward. There were like maybe two people in front of us, if that and you're able to get to the food a lot quicker, plus they, there's more of the food. They're not swapping it out because so many people are going through the front side. They have to swap it out and you may be waiting for a minute for that food to be replaced. On the backside, it's all sitting there ready to go, and it's a lot easier to navigate. Plus at the same time, since you're already in the room and you're getting your food, you can also look around for a table that's available. And if you have somebody in your party that's old enough, responsible enough. You could send them to go get a table and claim it. If it's empty. And I will say that's one of the best parts about the service that we saw on the Disney cruise was in cabanas because there's so many people in there trying to turn tables so quick. This attendance are watching these tables and as soon as someone stands up, They have that table cleared off, cleaned up and ready for someone else to sit down. So we would be watching. And as soon as the table freed up either we'd send my daughter, I may go grab it. And then they'd save my spot in line or we may swap. But that was the way to get the table for our bigger group, since we had a couple of families and that made it very easy. So if you go on a little further, you get a chance to see a little bit more of the tables and what's going on in there. So that's awesome. Now each night they did a different restaurant, like I said earlier in the podcast. We started an animator's palate and then our second night we went to the enchanted garden and our third night, the Royal table, and we kept that sequence. Twice. And then our seventh night, our last night, we got to go to animator's palate a third time. Which was really exciting because that was our favorite restaurant. The reason it was our favorite, it is the most interactive restaurant and there's a lot of cool things that happen there now, the food. So the foods. Incredible, which we already said. But it's all prepared in a single kitchen, meaning that regardless of where you're going for the night, the menu is pretty much going to be the same from my understanding. So whether you're in this restaurant or that one, you're going to have the same food that really helps a lot with your serving staff because they know what's coming up each and every night. And it doesn't matter where you're going to be eating. And the serving staff follows you from restaurant to restaurant. So they get to know you if you have dietary needs. So maybe you have an allergy. We did have somebody with a gluten allergy on ours, or if. Your kid has a favorite drink. So we all the kids in our party. Had Shirley temples and they had them ready for them. Every single night I would drink a diet Coke every night and when I would show up, they would have a diet Coke ready for me. So that was awesome. So the food is really good at these sit-down restaurants. Now, the food is all prefixed. In the sense of you get your menu, you're going to be able to choose an appetizer, a soup or a salad. Then you're going to choose your main course. And then at the end of the meal, you're going to get your dessert and then they have specialty drinks and other things you can order as well. So it's a really filling meal every single night. And if you don't like something. You can let them know and they'll bring you something else. Or maybe you really love something and you want more, they will bring you more. It was really good food each and every night, they always had a selection of some kind of usually fish. Some kind of chicken our white meat, and then they would have some kind of dark meat, like a steak or different beef type thing. And it was wonderful. And then usually they'd have a pasta in there somewhere too. They always had vegetarian options, gluten free options. Like I was saying, And it was just, the food was amazing. It was so cool. That on lobster night. So they have a night where you can get lobster. I ordered the lobster and I, I just ate it really quick. It was so good. I was really hungry that night. And the attendant, the server came over and said, I can get you another lobster tail if you'd like another lobster tail. And I was like, why not? Yeah, I'll take another lobster tail. So they brought me another one. There was a night where my daughter had two desserts. So it was a really great time. Really, good food. Throughout the cruise every single night, I would talk about with our group, what the best food was. And some of them, I can remember some of them, I can't. But I can tell you if I went through all the foods, this podcast episode would be an hour and a half to two hours long because every single night we found two or three things that were amazing. And I can't guarantee that won't go through rotation, meaning that they won't sub out the foods. So I'm not going to get into a ton of detail on every single night. But I will tell you. Listen to your servers. They know the foods, they know them well. They always made really good recommendations for us, but I would encourage you. And this is something we've said on other episodes, try something new. So if you see something out there, That you've never tried before. And you think, Hey, I'd like to try that. You can try it because if you don't like it, you can send it back at something different. But I encourage you try something new, try something exciting. Live it up a little bit while you're out there. So the meals in the restaurant were amazing. Okay. Now on ship days, travel day. So days when you're staying on the ship all day. I'm the kind of person I would like to be waited on. So I would rather go to a, they'd have Royal table open for breakfast and for lunch. I liked to do that. I want to go sit down and have the servers again. Wait on me. And get a menu with all the different options and Customize my meal a little bit. So that was a lot of fun. I encourage you guys to do that. And then on days that you're in port a, you may arrive 7 30, 8 in the morning to the port. Those are the days to go hit cabanas, go do the buffet, go pick what you want. Go sit down quick, eat, and then get off the ship. So that way you can go have some fun. So I do want to encourage you on the ship days when you're on the ship. Go eat breakfast and lunch at the Royal table at the main restaurant that's open. And you can find that all through the Disney cruise line app. So a lot of cool options there. Now talking a little bit about the restaurant. So like I said, animator's palate was our favorite one. When you go in there, of course, all the restaurants are white tablecloth service. It's, they're really fancy. They're really nice. But at animator's palate, you've got these screens all over the walls and they're showing different animations of different Disney cartoons over the years and how the animators were drawing stuff, which was really cool. But then each night they had a different thing happen. So the first night we were in there, they did turtle talk with crush. Which if you're familiar with Disney world or Disney land, and you've done turtle talk with crush, that's an interactive experience where Crush, swims up to the window and talks to someone in the crowd and they do that. So they've got screens throughout the restaurant and they just rotate through and each little section gets their own little turtle talk time. So that was really cool. Our second night, there was pirate night. So again, I'm wearing my pirates of the Caribbean Tommy Bahama shirt, and they did a whole tribute to the pirates and it was awesome. So that was a really cool event. And then our final night there. We had a chance to draw our own character on a predesigned little format. So I don't think you're going to have to come up with something from scratch. They give you the outline of basically a person and you get markers and you're going to fill it in and draw their face or draw their shirt or draw their pants or draw their shoes. And then you're going to create your little character and then they take them away and then they scan them on the back. And then they do this whole thing with all your characters on your side of the screens. So though the restaurant's huge and you've got screens everywhere. They're only dealing with a handful of tables at each screen. So that way your character and all your people at your table, their characters are up on the screen. And that's a lot of fun. So animator's palate was awesome because it was by far the most interactive. Now, the next one that we went to is enchanted garden, and this was a really cool laid back restaurant similar to at Disneyland or magic kingdom. Like the crystal palace. It's very much. Like that same design. Where you've got lattice everywhere. And by lattice, that's the crisscross white wood work that you may see in a garden. They've got a lot of greenery in there and then they have screens all the way round, but what the screens do is they take you from daytime to nighttime. So you get a chance to see a sunset and see it get dark in there. And so that was a lot of fun. Now the final restaurant was the Royal table, and this is designed to be like the princesses castle. So you're going to go in there. You're going to get a mosaic tile structures all around the room of the different princess stories from the Disney cartoons and movies. And those are really cool. It's designed really well. I want to say this is the most formal of the three, but they're all formal. If that makes sense that they all the white tablecloths and linens and all that. So they're all about the same level. But this one, the wait staff is dressed up just a little bit nicer, like they work in a palace. And like I said, it feels a little bit more formal than some of the others. So all three restaurants are great. Again, animator's palate was our favorite because it was interactive. The other two aren't as much. But you're going to have a chance to rotate through all of these on each of the ships that you go to. And each of the ships do have a different set of restaurants. So do be warned that that when you get on your ship, they may not have the same three ones that I'm talking about. But on the Disney fantasy, obviously we do. Those are all assigned again. And then based on your eating time you, go and show up every single night there. And then, because we were traveling with another family, we sat with them every single night, which was totally awesome. Let's next talk about entertainment because this is one of the highlights of the cruise. But entertainment is where Disney really excels. So you guys already know that through the parks and seeing the nighttime shows. And the nighttime shows and parties on the ship are no different. So we saw every single show that they had. They were all awesome. They did a Broadway version of Aladdin and frozen. And those were great, but they weren't our favorite. Now that may sound surprising to a lot of you because a lot of you may think, oh, that's why I want to go. That'll be amazing. And they are amazing. So let me reiterate that they are amazing. The cast that does, those shows are so good. They sing so well. It's like seeing the actual Broadway version of the show. They're amazing. And we have seen the Broadway shows here in Denver, at the Denver center for the performing arts. For most of the Disney show, so totally awesome. The reason that we said that they weren't, our favorite is we've seen them. We knew exactly what to expect. We knew what it would be like. We've seen obviously a, whether it's the movie version or the animated version of these, we've seen the Broadway versions of these. So we knew what was going to happen now in Aladdin, the genie was awesome. He had so much personality, and I know that's true on all the ships when they have Aladdin on the ship that the genie does Awesome, which is so cool. However, when we're looking at the live shows, our favorite was the final night. They did a show called Believe. And in the show, believe it's really a great heartwarming story about a father and a daughter, but they touch on multiple different Disney franchises. Different songs, different acts and scenes from different Disney movies. And it's like a hodgepodge of Disney culture over the last 50 plus years. And so that was totally awesome because a, we didn't know what to expect. We had never seen it before B it was totally unique to us and that experience and C, it was a lot of fun, really funny, and they did fantastic like they do on their other shows. So believe was by far our favorite show. Now, in addition to that, They also had a night where they had a ventriloquist. She was really good. She was really funny. And then they had a night where they had a juggler who was really good as well. And he was just like caricature of just a mix of all these different people up there. And he was really good. So we did get a chance to see every single show that was on the ship. And we loved every single one of them. Now, one major call-out that I do want to talk about that kind of, I don't want to say it ruined our experience, but it definitely took it down a level. And I want you to be aware of it is every single night that we went to the show, there were a lot of little kids in the show. And when you have a lot of little kids in the show and by little, I'm talking three and under usually they could be crying. They may be loud. They may be. Yeah, screaming. And what was disappointing to me was when a kid would start screaming or be really loud nobody did anything. The parents didn't do anything. So I've. I was raised in the environment, especially going to church and whatnot. That if your kid starts crying as the adult, you stand up and you walk out with them. So that way they're not disturbing the show. That did not happen on the cruise ship. When you're in the show, you could have it like an Aladdin. The genie is up there doing something really funny. He's quick, he's quirky. And he's doing all these quips with Aladdin, or maybe with people in the crowd and you could have a kid, a row behind you screaming, and the parents just sitting there doing nothing about it. And the show keeps going obviously. And so you may be missing some of that. So do be warned that there are going to be kids in the show and they're going to be crying and screaming now. From what I have heard. If you choose the late dinner the ship is full of families and full of kids. More of the older kid crowd is going to go to the late dinner because they don't mind it as much. The early dinner, usually your little kids are going to go to, which means that they're going to be in the, when that flips the later show which was the group that we were in. Do know that if you want to go to these shows without the kids, I would encourage you to select the late dinner and see the early show because most of the kids are eating during that early show. Then they did have movies playing in the theater, the entire cruise, which was really cool. And they were recent ones. So like I said, this was an October, they had the haunted mansion movie playing, they had Indiana Jones and the dial of destiny. They had elemental, they had all the recent stuff that was up on those movies screens. And then up on the 11th deck on the Lido where the pool is, they have a huge screen over the pool. And during the day they're always playing movies on that as well. And they're the animated ones. From the last like 20 to 30 years. So you're getting everything from Coco. To frozen and to cars and all that, those were up on those screen. So that was a lot of fun to always have that entertainment going. What I really love though on the cruises is I like looking for things like trivia. I like looking for activities that are crafty. So they always have the animators learn to draw the character stuff. I loved each and every one of those, we got a chance to learn how to draw a few different characters, including Mickey, which was awesome. And so us as a family, we would go and enjoy that and do that. And then through the cruise app, you can always check and see. When the next trivia is, or the next animators thing is, and then you can get a plan your day around it. So that was a lot of fun. And then we would go do trivia because I love it now. With trivia. I will tell you right out of the gates, it was hard. The trivia questions were very difficult. I'm really good at trivia. And I know a lot about Disney and most of these were Disney oriented. But it was very, difficult. So for example one of them on the Marvel quiz, because I love Marvel movies is they asked what race Gomorrah is in her planet stuff. That's how difficult they are just to give you a taste. That was one of the questions. That I didn't know. And most of the people didn't know, but it never failed whenever we were in trivia. They may do 20, 25 questions. Some group got like 24 out of 25. We were always coming in close to 21, 22 out of 25. But there were groups that were getting 24 out of 25. And all I can say is they probably had the internet plan and we're Googling some of those. But we hope that's not the case, but they were really good at these trivia questions. They have really fun things. They always have bingo. So if you're into bingo and doing a little gambling you do have that available and they'd both have the digital as well as the dobber and the sheets. So that's a lot of fun. So lots of great activities now. The activities. That's what is happening on the ship. So you can always be on the ship and do all that. When you get to port, you can always go off the ship. And go on excursions, which we love to do because we love to see the country that we're in and experience it and see what's unique there now. In the countries that we went to. So we went to Tortola on the British Virgin islands, and then we went to St. Thomas on the us Virgin islands and Castaway Cay. Now.'cause we'll probably never get to these places again. We wanted to see the local area. So we like to get out, like I said, we like to do adventurous things either. Like zip-lining, we've done cave, tubing. We like to snorkel. I do scuba dive my family. Doesn't I saw I'm always looking for a partner or a friend to go with to be my scuba buddy. But there's so many different things that you can do now. On this cruise. What we found was it had a lower selection of excursions than what we've seen on some of the other cruises. We'll talk about that on our next episode. But they were all very consistent. So again, this is Disney, so they did very well. There's a lot of really great service that happens on these excursions. We went on a catamaran and went snorkeling at a shipwreck, which was awesome. We do have a video of that on our YouTube page. So go check that out as well as it's on our Facebook. And then we did a zip lining on Tortola, which was really cool. Cause we were high up. And like the hilly side of the island and we could see the port, we could see the boat, we could see all that again. There's videos of that. And then a Castaway Cay. There's just so many things to do. We wanted to rent a sailboat that actually didn't happen. We did have it reserved, but all their sailboats were damaged in a storm. A few weeks prior to our arrival. And there was no wind that day. It was a little bit raining, so we wouldn't have enjoyed sailing anyways. But you can get the water bikes, you can do jet skiing can do all those kinds of things. But my highlights, honestly, for excursions was on Castaway Cay. I took my own snorkel gear and I went snorkeling out there on their beach and they have sunken statues and different things out there. And again, I've got a video of that on the YouTube as well. So go check out what I saw there. We saw lots of stingrays, lots of different fish. But that was a lot of fun. So all in all Castaway Cay was the best stop out of the three. And it's largely because that's Disney. It's Disney's island. They have lunch served there. The food was great. Again. A really good shopping and really cool things. Now Disney does service better than anyone else. What are my favorite? YouTube authors out there that does videos, his name's Dennis Snow. If you've not listened to Dennis Snow, I encourage you to do he really helped build the Disney culture around service cleanliness and how to really keep things up there. And the cruise staff has no difference. They're great cast members. They are amazing now, like I said, our dinner staff was the best. We had a server and an assistant. They were amazing. They knew each of our orders. They, like I said, they knew our allergies. They knew what we wanted. They made really great recommendations and they were super friendly. So it was awesome to have them follow us each night. So they were in our restaurant every single night. And like I said, they got to know the family really well knew all of our names, the moment we got there, which was cool. I'm sure they've got some kind of database of who their families are. But it was awesome to get to know them. And then our room steward. That staff person was amazing. Like I said she was changing the bed into a couch every single day. When we asked if we could go from the high bed down to the couch, she did that. She was awesome. The room was super clean. She always had towel animals or blanket animals put together. They had chocolates out there. Every single night. So it was really awesome. Now around the boat also, you've got just your other staff, your general staff. See if people at the customer service desk, you've got captain and crew, they're always walking around. They were very quick to clean anything up. So just like in the Disney parks and they were very attentive and very observant. So they could tell if somebody was having a bad time or something was happening and they would go intervene and make sure that their day was magical and they would take care of them. So it was amazing to see these people in action. We did pre-paid gratuities, which is something you can do on a cruise, which makes it a little bit easier. So you don't have to worry about gratuities later on. But these people earned every dime of that and even more so it was amazing to see them work in their element and do really well there. Now what we learned Disney definitely goes above and beyond. There's no question about that. But if this is your first Disney cruise. Know, that all those people that have cruised with Disney before get to check in before you do they get access to the excursions before you do they get to pick their dining time before you do know that on your first Disney cruise, especially if you're going with other people, like we did. Your cruise mates may be selecting all their stuff and you don't even have eligibility yet to do that. So we found that and it wasn't super frustrating and it wasn't bad, but we would find like our online check-in process to figure out what time to arrive at the port. Our friends got there two weeks before we did because they'd cruised with Disney multiple times. And then by the time ours came around we were a couple hours later in the day to get checked in. But again, still not late just a little bit less time on the boat. Know that going into it. Out of the excursions, they get to book excursions before the first timers do. There was one excursion at one-stop that we thought looked really cool. And by the time we got in there to book it, it was already booked up and gone. So again, not a big deal and it was actually at the same stop. We did the snorkeling on a shipwreck and those were my top two choices. So I knew I'd have to pick between those anyways. So it didn't impact us a whole lot, but know that's a piece of it. Wifi. So you can get an internet plan on the boat. We did get it for just one device. That's all I would recommend because you could swap. Between your devices. So that was really cool. I like to check in with work and make sure everything's going well at home as well as then my wife is working on her master's right now. So there were times she had a log in and do some assignments or comment on some discussion boards. And so we would just swap back and forth and be able to update our social media and do all that. The internet wasn't super fast, especially days out at sea, but it wasn't bad. So though there may be some lags once in awhile. It's way better than dial up of the old days and just not as fast as your internet, probably at home. Keep that in mind. On Disney, your soda is included. So that's something a lot of other cruise lines make you pay for. So that was really nice. They did a fountain drink dispensers throughout the ship. Which was nice on deck 11. And that's not the case everywhere else. Like I said earlier in the podcast, we traveled with another family. We are a family of three, so it's my wife, myself and our daughter. And when the three of us travel, our 12 year old daughter is stuck with mom and dad. Following us around the ship, what we want to do and don't get me wrong. There's been times she'll go to the teen club and go hang out with all those kids and stuff. But for the most part, she wants to be with mom and dad. And so she's doing what we want to do, or maybe we'll go see a comedy actor show she wants to do, and we definitely go back and forth on that. But she stuck with mom and dad. Having another family there with kids. Her own age was a huge blessing because it gave her a chance to interact with kids, her own age, the entire cruise. And because they're. It tweens. So they're not super old yet, but they had a daughter who is an older teenager. They were able to go roam the ship on the days at sea and go hang out and go do the Aqua duct, which is the cool water slide and stuff like that. Get their ice cream. And then we would stay in touch with them on the app, make sure that they were doing okay. But it gave her the chance to go. Explore the ship on her own with our friends and have a good time. So I would encourage you if you have one kid. Try to find another family to travel with or people that have kids, your kids age. So that way they have someone to interact with. If you have multiple kids, they'll probably interact with each other, or if they feel comfortable going to the teen club, they can do that. But this was one of our best cruises because of that, because she had friends there. Now on Disney, you have to know that there's a ton of kids. There's more kids on a Disney cruise than there have been on our other cruise lines. We've been on. We'll talk about that more next week. So know that there's a ton of kids running around doing all the character, meet and greets the lines for those can get to be a little bit long occasionally. So do keep that in mind. If you have a character you want to meet, you probably want to get there a little bit early, but I would say if you have kids in the four to 10 year age range, this cruise is ideal Disney. Like I said, goes. Above and beyond, they're going to get to meet their fun characters that they absolutely love, and they have great clubs that you can drop the kids off at all. The entertainment is kids friendly. They have movies playing all the time. So this is definitely the age range that I would want to go to a Disney cruise on is that four to 10 years of age. Our daughter loved it. Like she said, it was her favorite cruise, partly because she had a friend there with her. But she did say that the other cruises we've been on have been just as entertaining. And we'll talk about that next week and what some of the other cruises do as well. So know that four to 10 age is really the sweet spot for Disney cruise. And at that point in life, I would say it's a definite must do because Disney does so well with them. Now all in all, I said this at the top of the episode. It is the best cruise we've been on. No question. Without comparison. It is the best cruise. Is it worth the money? That's what we'll talk about next week on our next episode. But before I leave you today, I do want to go over our, I can do this all day tip of the day, because this is an important one. Okay. So on the Disney cruise, we did the the Halloween party cruise. So we had a Halloween party one night, which was fun. We all got dressed up. They do a little trick or treat and get some candy. But on most of the cruises, they're going to have pirate night which we had as well. Pirate night was a lot of fun. They had a great show. It was very entertaining, but then they do fireworks off the edge of the ship and that is later in the evening. So that way everyone gets a chance to go see that. Now with the fireworks, here's the tip of the day is the fireworks are going to be shot off from one of the top levels of the ship. While we recommend is you go to the level above the pool. So for us, that was level 12 with the wraparound where you can see down into the pool. And when you go up to that higher level, They will usually block off one side of the ship, meaning. One area of the ship, usually close to the smoke stack is going to be blocked off and they're going to have cast members they're blocking it off and they're mopping the floors. Okay. And the reason they're doing that is that's where the fireworks are going to be shot off from. They want to keep the floor wet. So that way, when it shoots in there sparks flying or whatever, they don't set anything on fire, which is safe. What you want to do is you want to position yourself close to where they block things off. That is going to be the best view of the fireworks. Now I would recommend get all the way up to the bar where you're on the side of the ship, and you're not looking down into the pool. That's where we were. We got all the way to the edge of the ship. We had a great view of the fireworks with no one in front of us. It was awesome. It was Disney. It was magical. It was a lot of fun. They played great music now for the shows part of pirate night that it's done down on the pool deck one deck below, but you can see down. In there. But they video it and they put it up on the huge screen that you can see from deck 12. So what we did is we stood where we wanted to be for fireworks. We watched the video up on the huge screen, which gave us a better view anyways, than if we'd been watching it directly because they zoom in on the characters. You can get a lot more of the facial expressions and all the fun they're doing. And since it's scripted the camera, people know exactly where to go when. So we could see everything from there. And then by the time the fireworks went off. We had the best seat for fireworks. So that is our, I can do this all day tip of the day to get the best seat for fireworks. Go up to that deck above the pool, look for where they've got a blocked off and they're mopping the floors. And that's where you want to stand as, as close to that as possible. With that we wish you a magical week as you're planning your next vacation to Disney or universal, we will talk to you next time about whether or not the cruises are worth it. And we hope you have a great week. Bye-bye. Closing Theme Song