DisLove E35 Very Merrytime Cruise & Disney Cruise Line Review

In this special episode, Kris and Vanessa share their experience on Disney Cruise Line including some information about the Very Merrytime Cruise options during the holidays.  Hear the ins and outs of cruising for anyone considering their first Disney cruise.  Kris also shares his experience as a first-time cruiser.  

• Disney Cruise Line Official Site
• Very Merrytime Cruise Overview
• 2020 Cruise Itineraries 
• DCL Podcast

For all the latest news about our episodes follow us on Instagram @dislovewithvanessaandkris or on YouTube.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

[inaudible].

Speaker 2: 0:06

Welcome to the DisLove podcast with Vanessa and Kris. I'm Vanessa Ferguson. Kris Johns, we'd like to welcome you to show number 35 and for any listeners joining us for the first time, our show typically features things that we love at Disney and in each episode we usually have a guest who creates Disney magic for our listeners at home or on their Disney vacation from vacation planners to product producers. Our guests bring Disney magic into your life and on today's episode it will be one of our special additions where we are diving into a topic from one of our recent trips. And just as a reminder to our listeners, we appreciate you taking time to leave a review for us on Apple podcasts or Google play, any of the platforms where you listen to the podcast to help more listeners find us and of course we will always give you a shout out on a future episode and thank you to all of you who've left us. Those customer ratings, especially those five star, we greatly appreciate those as well. And today we are going to talk about our recent experience going on a very Merrytime cruise and in early December we went on a four day cruise to The Bahamas with the Disney cruise line and we're going to talk about our experience as Kris is a first time cruiser. Yes I am or I was in this case. Yes and I consider myself basically a first time cruiser. I went in the early two thousands and so I had only been on one cruise and this was my second time, but it'd been so long. Everything was really new for me as well. So we're going to talk a little bit about our experience and then share just a few tips about some of the things that we or rather I stumbled along and learned along the way. We did go with a large group because as we've talked about on this podcast before, we were married at Disney world and there are gatherings of other couples who get married at Disney. And so we were on the cruise with a large group of over 20 of us that have were other couples that have gotten married at Disney as well. So we had some fun experiences while we're on there that you might not normally get on a regular cruise, but we're going to just talk about for the average cruiser and a little bit about it. So Kris, as a first time cruiser, what was your overall impressions? Just if you had to kind of summarize to someone who had never been on a cruise or particularly a Disney cruise, what would you say? I thought it was very well done. The boat is really the first time being on a ship that large with the exceptions of really watching the boat leave dock. I don't, I think it's very hard to know that you're on a cruise. I mean, unless you're outside looking at the ocean. Disney once again, I mean the inside was impeccable. I mean just of course all the attention to detail. I thought it was very well done. Now, same thing for me. One of the things that I like is that wherever you go is impeccable. Like there was nowhere I saw that I was like, Oh wow, this needs work on or that needs work on. Everything on the ship was nice. We were mostly adults in our group and the, when you go into the adult areas, it was just as nice as when you were in the family areas, so it was a great overall experience. The restaurants were really unique and fun. I enjoyed all of those experiences. I think the only thing that we kind of all agreed on is that while the food was good, it was not as exciting as I think the in Parker at the resort food, what would you say?

Speaker 3: 3:36

100% I think that's really the glaring difference of Disney is that, you know, in park and I understand it's a cruise they need to manage cost and, but with the exception of kids who I think would probably eat just about anything for adults, you cannot expect, whether it be food court level food or even, you know, of course park level food, the food was okay. I think some of the, you know, all day buffets were good. Um, but unless you're going to a restaurant at night, like the, again, the dinners were of course much better. But I would say the breakfast and lunch food was okay at best.

Speaker 2: 4:18

And I would say probably my favorite meal we did of course on the different ships there are those restaurants where you can pay up fee to go to. We did pay on our last evening, the upcharge to eat at Palo and that was probably my favorite meal of the entire cruise. Of course you do pay more for that. But the restaurants themselves, like animator's palette. Um, when we were at now, we did not eat dinner at the one restaurant. We did eat breakfast there because we had upgraded to Palo. But, um, the meals were good. I had steak in different things, but like Kris mentioned, they're just not the same. Like, Oh, I'm dying to go back to that restaurant. Like Ohana is in some of the restaurants at the resorts that we would enjoy. But that being said, Disney still does the food very well and we did enjoy it. Now what would you say for, we did go on one of the very Merrytime cruises, which are a little bit more expensive than cruises at other times a year because we were going with a group. So we went when the group was going, but overall, the value we paid, it was 2,400. We paid for a higher level in terms of up higher on the ship. We were on the ninth floor, one in the ninth deck, I guess that floor on the ninth deck, um, for just overall motion and all of that. I tend to have some motion sickness. So I wanted to have um, a good spot for that. I think our location of our room. What did you think about that? It seemed very[inaudible]

Speaker 3: 5:48

wonderful. I mean we were less than probably 20 to 30 paces away from the elevator and the stairs. That was nice. You not tell at all the traffic in the hallways cause really everybody down that wing had to walk past our room to get to the elevator and the stairs. I it was not noticeable. I mean I think even at Disney, if you're in a hotel you still hear general noise. It was not anything more than a hotel resort.

Speaker 2: 6:17

And in full disclosure, in terms of the amenities on the ship, we did not go to the spa. We did not use the pools. We did do the Waterslide one day, but it was a little chilly on this cruise. So we did not take advantage of some of the, like the water things on the ship. So that's one thing to know. We didn't get that chance to experience those cause it was in the low seventies, which is still not swimming weather for us. I don't think even being from Michigan. So overall it we did enjoy the environment of the ship. The value I thought was well because as we talked about of course if you're not familiar with cruising, your meals are included. We enjoyed the dinners as we talked about animator's palette and enchanted garden. We did not make dinner at Royal palace because we were at um, we were at Palos that night. But overall there's also things like ice cream on the deck. You can, there are those cabanas, which is all you can eat restaurant that is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Overall, I thought the value was fairly fairly good for what we paid and there's a lot of great character experiences, which I think was nice that granted there are lines for the characters but not near what you[inaudible].

Speaker 3: 7:39

I would wait from the park. What did you think about the lines that we waited? Oh yeah, very manageable. And I think just the nice thing is that there was enough going on. Is that maybe the longest line we waited and was maybe 20 minutes if I had to make a guess. But overall I thought the experience was very nice. I think the really, the one very key thing is just how nice the staff were. I mean you to the degree that you can build a relationship, but there was just one gentleman, I know that when I was getting my pizza, you know, he, that he was working pizza during the day and then he worked in the dining room at night. But he remembered me and we, you know, was friendly and I made sure to say goodbye to him. But I know we made a connection with one of the photographers and I thought that was very nice. But overall, I mean the staff had a personality. I think on the entertainment we had the show, the entertainment was amazing. Correct. And I think just the, the energy they bring in and get it is Disney. So Disney is hiring for aptitude. You know, people who are sad and are not expressive, probably don't make the cut. And so as a result, you do get a level of people who are workers. But then in terms of the folks who are more crew facing are very entertaining. I thought it was very nice. And like when Vanessa mentioned the price again, I don't pay for Disney. I don't, um, when she's, I thought it was$2,400 a person.

Speaker 2: 8:51

Yeah. He thought he goes, Oh, that's no good. Oh, that's not bad. I mean,

Speaker 3: 8:56

considering, you know, all your food and everything, to know that they covered two people, it was exceptional. And I thought the ninth floor room was very nice. I mean, is it something I would do every year? No, but I could see this being in the rotation of maybe every third to fourth year doing it in a different location, different time of year. And I think Vanessa had done something very correctly for us. You know, being a Michigan in December, it's cold. So in the forties would be a warm day. But the downside is like being in the Caribbean in the 70s we were swimming in the water. It was chilly. It was not really, the water was not enjoyable. And so that was something that Vanessa needed for a couple of minutes. But when you went on the bike ride after that, things were very nice and it wasn't hot. Like when we went into Nassau, we were, uh, we did a fair amount of walking and it wasn't so hot where you're sweating. So that was the upside. I think it's a case of if you want to swim, you know, late fall, December, winter might not be your best choice, keep it to spring break. But that said, um, I was very impressed. I thought it was very well done. And I think these boats are a bit older. I mean, they're not, these are not new boats by any means.

Speaker 2: 10:02

And they do have two new ones coming out. You can't

Speaker 3: 10:07

you know, they're not brand new, but you wouldn't, they're not also 10 years old. I mean, they've been kept up very nicely. And so I thought it was exceptional.

Speaker 2: 10:14

And another thing I did forget to mention when Kris was talking about a room, we also had a balcony room. So if you're looking for something more affordable, there are those lower decks, even interior rooms where you have, or the porthole rooms. Just for us, because it was kind of a first time cruise experience. We went, I guess you would say all out, but your family does have more affordable options now. Touching on the entertainment that Kris mentioned, we did see the beauty and the beast show, which was excellent. We were in the front row with our group. It's really great. We did, unfortunately miss Disney's believe it was on the night that we were at Palo and really we were in the restaurant for both times of the show, so I'm a little bummed. We miss that, but we also partook of, we went and saw a movie, went and saw frozen two in the theater. That's great. That's all included. We also, because we were a group of adults, we enjoyed some of the entertainment. We did Disney trivia. One day I actually went to, they had a scrapbooking thing where I was able to get scrapbook pages and they had where you could do things. We went with our, some of our friends and we did trivia. We did like, um, I think it was a theme song. Trivia was in it. Yeah, movie theme songs. And then we did like a music trivia and it was just a lot of fun. And one of the things I can say is, I guess I would say I'm kind of a prude with things and it was clean fun, but people could still enjoy adult beverages and people had fun but I didn't feel like it was like a spring break atmosphere. The adults I think had fun in that environment where I felt comfortable

Speaker 3: 11:49

what Vanessa's referee referring to. Like there was a place where we did trivia, we did a handful of things. Evolution, it was like word. There was no kids allowed. And so I think, but we went to one event where there was like, again we don't drink, but there was open alcohol and I think it was like you paid a flat price. But there was people who were drinking a lot. But that said it was by no means body by any part. I mean you didn't really see anybody overly intoxicated. It was fun. I think games to only games. Oh, correct. I mean there was, there was an adult edge to it, but I thought it was really nice. I think my one thing is, and again, I love my wife, but I think I enjoyed the cruise because we hit other people around us and it was fun to go and do things with other people. Correct. Um, to ha I think I would've had a much different experience if it would have been Vanessa and myself alone each night, um, by being with the group and not to see that we didn't initially split off, but we hit our tea time together during the day and the different excursions. But at nighttime, like especially at dinner, it was nice to be around people that you at least had some sort of connection with. So, I mean my big recommendation would be if you had the opportunity, whether it be another family and another couple planned to go together just because I think um, it just offers a little more because there is a lot to do on the boat and you know, there was times where Vanessa went and did her scrapbooking thing. I think I just took a nap on the deck. But by being with other people, I think it just like it makes the night club piece because again we would have had fun her and I, but when you added those other people that we got to meet really for the first time and some were people that we've known for years that made it a lot of fun. And I think it really took what Disney does really well, which is providing an experience and for us to be able to experience that with others. I thought that was really nice. And again, I like to experience new things. I think with Vanessa and I, we do a lot of things together. We would have went to the tr the trivia, but it would just been most likely us two sitting together versus having that fun of others. And I can say too, even when I went on the cruise many years ago, it was not, I went with my parents, but we also had some other family members join us. So I've never cruise just with my immediate family. There's always been some other people there. And to me, I think that's half the fun is going with a group or with at least a few other people to experience that. And as Kris mentioned, they make it fun. I think even their one thing they did have, if you are so low, they even have meetups and things for solo cruisers. So if you are somebody who travels, yeah, they had meet ups for solo cruisers and things in the navigator where you could have, they had special gatherings and stuff. Well, I mean, I can understand maybe going to Disney by yourself, but to go on a Disney cruise by yourself, that is, that's of your mom travels a lot by yourself too. Yeah. But she would never want a Disney cruise. No. But she would do other things. Correct. I just buy it by me. I think overall for the value, it was very nice with us. We were able to, you know, enjoy Disney on the front end and so that really I think made it nice. And I think I would just go back to just my big recommendation is to go with a group because don't you get a bit a bit of a price break if you hit book together?

Speaker 2: 15:04

No. Well Oh well. But we had a good time. Yes. And a couple other things. That is nice too. If you have little ones now our group, only one or two people had brought their little ones with them. There is great childcare in offerings for all age ranges that you have the ability in kids really I think have the best time because they have some really awesome things for kids to do. Teenagers to do and something I had never thought of. But Disney did well. I noticed in the navigator they had gatherings throughout the cruise for 18 to 20 year olds cause I didn't think about that. But when you are in that age range, you're not old enough to go to the bars, but you don't want to hang out in the teen club either. So Disney even has special things for the, for the 18 to 20 year olds, I think it was like the 1820 club or something like that. So there's lots of things and the value, I think the great value is that Disney offers a wide array of entertainment. There's, you're never going to be bored. Even at our day at sea, this was the first time I had done a Disney cruise with a day at sea. I spent the day doing stuff all day. I think that was the day that you ended up taking a nap. But I was out doing stuff on the ship pretty much all day. So it's nice because there's never downtime unless you want it. If you want downtime, there's the quiet places to go. I know you went and in the adult area and laid in the chairs and took a nap the one day. Like there's quiet places to go, but if you want to be busy, busy, busy, there's also that opportunity as well. So this comes down to, I think you kind of mentioned this, Kris, would you go again? Would you go on a Disney cruise again? I'm not hooked on cruises. No, I'm not.

Speaker 3: 16:49

The crews like we know folks in our family that they, the cruises is their number one thing and they love it. And so, but that's their preference. I think for myself in the same way. Like I could see us in the future, like with Disney, maybe making like half Disney and then half universal or SeaWorld. There are other things. I could see this getting in the like every third or fourth year rotation. And especially if you go to other places, I know we've talked about potentially doing something in a couple of years where maybe doing like a West coast trip, if that's an opportunity, I would be open to it. And I think this was really nice as it. I mean it gives you the Disney amenities because you know, you've heard of horror stories of other cruises that people are getting sick and just things not working and not happening. That's not a fear you're going to have here.

Speaker 2: 17:34

Um, and I think really the main thing is the staff is very attentive in,

Speaker 3: 17:41

they're very personable and they know they're on a Disney cruise, Disney quality service. That's what you have. And I think that's other nice thing is the staff is very friendly and I think they also really made the trip cause I think like with our servers that we had each night, that was very nice. And then like the one night that we were at Palo, you know, I think the food was very good, but it was the server that really,

Speaker 2: 18:05

and little Disney magic touches. Like every night we came in the room, there was some sort of cute towel or blanket arrangement. The one night they had swans in roses, Rose petals in our room. And those were not things that we ordered. Those were just things that the Kevin crew did. We also had paid for because something I would suggest is look at and see what some of the in-room offerings are. We got a Christmas package and it, it was really had a lot of different nice things in it. Blanket decorations, fish extender which we'll talk about what those are in a little bit. Um, a nice pillow, nice little Christmas decorations for a fairly affordable price. So we're going to talk about this kind of our overall impressions. And now I want to give you a few tips about some things that we learned along the way to hopefully help you if you're a first time cruiser. And then I also at the end, if you're really looking into doing a Disney cruise, give you some information about a great Disney cruise line podcast that's out there as well. And one thing that I'd like to mention as Kris talked about is if you're looking at doing this in the future where you go on a cruise and you're like, this is great, I want to do this again. They do offer when you're on the cruise and something we did as kind of a place holder for two years from now, you can put down a deposit and save 10% off a future Disney cruise with. That's about the best deal that I think you're going to get on a Disney cruise. So if you go on one and you enjoy it, check out and make sure that you talk to them and get a deposit down where you can save on that future sailing that's well worth it as well. So let's talk about a few things. There are some things that I happened to stumble across that are nice and unique and I think that many people might not know about them. When you are in your Disney cruise line on the website, one of the things that's fun in particular if you have kids, and I just did it, I scheduled it because we were traveling shortly after Thanksgiving. So I scheduled it to happen on Thanksgiving. You can have a character call, you can have where Mickey or Minnie or both of them call you and on it they, you can schedule a time for a future date or you can have where you have them call right away and it's fun and they talk about your upcoming cruise. And so you can schedule those character calls, which is nice to do. And you do that right on the Disney cruise line website. Another thing that is something that I had no clue about was a sin called fish extenders. And I don't know if this wasn't a thing when I did the cruise many years ago, but these fish extenders are right outside the rooms of the, of your cabin. There is a little hook that has like the name of your, or like your cabin number is above it. And then there's these little hooks and they look like a fish. And I guess on some of the cruises they look like a sea horse. Um, so what people have done is they get these little fabric hanging things that have pouches and people exchange little gifts. And when I ordered a fish extender or what did you say Kris? I had no clue what she's talking about. She, she just kept going. What should we put our fish extender? I had no clue. No. When you see the fish it makes sense. But to the layman, and again I'll put myself in the generally disinterested category. Um, there's just a whole nomenclature of the clubs around with Disney cruising. Yes. That it was baffling because I'm not really paying attention to begin with. And then when you start to include things like a fish extender, it really now, and once you see it, it makes sense. But there was nice because I think it again, this where I, my to my previous statement about going with the group, this really puts some nice touches on the trip. So what with that fish extender, you have this decorative pouch that has you little pockets that you put things in and essentially you join groups and you give gifts to other cruisers. Now because this was our first time doing it. We only did it with a small group of our immediate travel party with that group of 20 or so. But there are huge groups that you can join. I encourage you, once you have your sale date booked, look on the disc boards.com. I'll put a link in there as well as check on Facebook for groups for your particular sailing. There are groups and threads started for each Disney sailing and you can join a fish fish extender group. And what will happen is they will say, okay, we're looking, if you want to join a fish extender group, you'll be given 10 cabins. And what you do is you get some sort of gift to give to these individuals. It could be candy, it could be a theme thing related to the cruise. It could be something for, um, it could be something related to a character. Sometimes people do homemade things. Sometimes people just have a, like it was Christmas time. People do ornaments, um, for, you can also do magnet exchanges because people will decorate their doors. We decorated our door for Christmas, but people often just even all year they'll have decorations with magnets, with names and things about the cruise and all of that. And also the, as I mentioned, there's ornament exchanges, so lots of different exchanges that you can do. They vary depending on the cruise. If you go on Etsy you'll see lots of cool things. I can tell you, even with our small group, I enjoyed it. It was fun. You never knew what you were going to get. Sometimes people do exchanges of things from where they're from. I know with our fishextender gifts, we did little, we did ornaments for individuals based on their favorite characters, which they had shared with the group when you filled out the form. But we also included some candies and things from where we're from and so those are some things you also want to keep in mind. What happens is you put those in their little pouches and they don't know. It could be the first day, last day. I know they say to try to not do it the last night cause people are packing up their things. But those are some things to be aware of. So fish extenders. It was fun. I enjoyed it. Um, and I think it's, it was a learning curve for Kris, but would you do something like that again Kris? The fish extender? Yeah, if you're doing it yet and then if you have little but you enjoyed what you got. I don't know. I couldn't even know where to start to get some of that stuff. Yeah. But like again, there's a place that is nearby us and like there's some machine made candies. Those were nice. I mean it's, it's fun. It's fun. Yeah. And there's just some little things and it was a nice time. And you can also, there's ones that are just for kids only to which it can be fun if you have little ones traveling in your group. So check out the disk boards, checkout Facebook groups for your sailing. That something that is a fun thing to do. Another thing that I didn't realize before we went on the cruise is that there are certain character meeting meet and greets that you can book in advance. And in fact, when we got on the cruise, I had, man I had stumbled across on the Disney cruise line website. Most of our travel party didn't know about this either. And I signed us up for a frozen meet and greet and then also a princess gathering. So what we were able to do is on, I had a prescheduled time, almost like a fast pass time where we had, for the princesses, we had Tiana Rapunzel and who was our third princess? Tiana Rapunzel, Belle. Belle H ad on her Christmas outfit. That's why I didn't remember off the top of my head and Belle. And we also did the frozen meet and greet, which the frozen meet and greet was kind of cool. What did you think about that? Where they had the backdrop and stuff? It was awesome. Yeah, so they, in a nimator's p alate, they had moved away some of the tables and they had A nna and Elsa. Kris was b ummed because who was not there. Y eah. O laf was not there unfortunately, but they had it set up. U m, they do have their photographers a t all of these locations. T hat's something that you can pre-buy the photos, a photography p ass. We ended up, we didn't pre-buy, we bought u m, a 10 pack once we were on the cruise but they will also, as long as there's a Disney person there, they'll take a photo for you as well. Um, so on we did the princess gathering and frozen meet and greet, I guess there are on certain cruises they have Disney jr character breakfast. They have a Disney VIP character breakfast and they also have a Royal court royalty and these are on select cruises. But these are things that you would reserve tickets in advance. Now for the princess gathering and frozen meet and greet, you had to get a scheduled time but there wasn't any additional costs for that. But that was something you had to schedule in advance if you did not though. They said that if you checked on the cruise, you could see the day that we got on board. There might be some available slots and there's different timelines based on if you're a first time cruiser, a silver Castaway club, gold Castaway club or concierge guest. Now that's something too with Disney, the more you cruise, the earlier you get to book things. Like for instance, we were considered silver Castaway club, which means it was my second cruise. So when we came onboard we had not only the advantage to be able to book things a little earlier, we also had in our room we had a backpack and we had some other little things that we received. Um, a lanyard. I got so little things. The more you cruise with Disney, the those kind of benefits you get and you do get to to book some of these things in advance. So those special character gatherings. Another thing that if even if you're a first time cruiser, you probably know about excursions. You book those in advance. One thing I didn't really realize, and I don't know if it's true of all excursions, but at least the ones that we did in Nassau, you book them in Castaway Cay, you book those, but they didn't actually charge to our card until we were on the boat, so we were able to make changes up until a couple of days ahead of time. When we were in Nassau, we did do an excursion to where it went to two of the forts in the Junkanoo museum. Did you enjoy that excursion? What was your thought on that?

Speaker 3: 28:33

Yeah, the Junkanoo the kind of Christmas cultural tradition of The Bahamas. That was interesting. The forts were a Fort. I mean the bottom line is nothing really happened in The Bahamas or regards to between the British and the French and the Spanish. So as a result there, therefore it's that never saw a battle. They never saw battle. So I think if they would have maybe face some more intense scrutiny, that would've been a little different. But it was a nice history and again, the Island is not that big. It was interesting, especially when you can look at like Google earth, like where the boats go. I mean I would recommend that. Look at Google earth and look at Nassau or Nassau. Nassau saw Nassau. Um, in regards cause there's actually a Disney cruise boat in the the dock or in the Bay. Oh that's cool. And this town is not that big. Very interesting. And so I think though the highlight was definitely the junk and new museum. And one of the things that I think is true for most Disney cruises. I know when we were in town I happened to mention we were one of the shops about going to that museum and they said, Oh they opened it. They do that

Speaker 2: 29:42

for Disney cause they were talking about how, I guess they mostly do school groups but Disney has some deals worked out with them. And I've heard some really excellent things about Disney excursions in Alaska. So I know Disney kind of goes that next level. Just like when you think about those adventures by Disney trips that are kind of off the chart even for their cruise line excursions are a little bit different. Um, one thing that is important, if you do go on a cruise in The Bahamas and you get a chance to go to Castaway key, make sure that you check out the full Island. We were there the day we were there, unfortunately. What, what kind of happened that day, Kris? We're at Castaway key. The weather. Oh, it was just chilly. Yes. Well, and the wind was so bad. A lot of excursions got, it wasn't so bad. I mean we were supposed to go parasailing and it was canceled because of the wind. And then also the, we went to the adult beach and when you go over there, the waves were a little higher. So people really weren't out using the tubes or anything like that. But we biked and I enjoyed that. Did you enjoy biking and stuff on the Island? And they have a nice, um, if you, when you go to Castaway key, they do a nice meal right on the Island. So we were, they do that at both at family beach and the adult area. So you can experience that. Disney's Island is impeccable. I've been there many years ago. It was just as nice this time. The weather is much better when I was there on my first cruise, but we still had a great time and definitely get off the boat and enjoy Disney's Island because I've been to other islands and Disney's the Island is exactly what you would think. It's like Disneyesque. So it takes some time to enjoy the Island. I know a lot of people end up staying on the boats those days, but get out and enjoy everything on Disney's Island as well. So excursions, take your time, think about those, investigate those. And like I said, you're able to change those out up until a couple of days before your cruise. Another thing that was kind of a surprise, and I didn't think about until about a week before we left. A lot of cruises, depending on your itinerary, are going to have a pirate night. And so for the pirate night, people get dressed up. We actually, I at the last minute had gotten, I was in some of these threads. Some people go way all out like Halloween costume level. Really cool things. People had some really cool costumes. I mean there was some very detailed like Vanessa, we were going to have some sashes. The unfortunately didn't make it to our, our luggage when we went down to Florida. I mean I'm not a real dress up kind of guy. Um, and so I didn't really mind not being dressed up as a pirate, but there were people like no, you and your best day. We're not even going to be not seeing you Vanessa. Like they are not going to be close to some of these folks like it was full on. But then the other auditioning for a kitchen. Now the one thing though I can say is that there's also a lot of people that don't get dressed up. I kind of stressed over this. I had some sashes for us, like Kris mentioned, they didn't make it into our luggage. I ended up wearing a little bit of a track book, cool shirt. But Disney goes, does give a bandana to everybody. So you get a pirates of the Caribbean bandana you can wear. And in the end, I don't think it was a loss that we weren't dressed up. Now if you are dressed up though, they do have like Mickey and Minnie in like pirate gear you and I think I saw Donald, like you can get some cool pictures with the characters and the pirate gear. They also, the dinner menu will include, it will be like pirate theme that night. So we were at the, we were at the same restaurant that we had eaten at the night before and it was all pirate themed and that was fun. So they, and then there's a pirate show, a deck party, a pirates in the Caribbean deck party and they did fireworks, which we did go up and watch that. And that was fun. That was really nice. So you get that experience and even as a second time cruiser, it totally slipped my mind. So keep in mind, a lot of itineraries are going to have that pirate at night if you want to get dressed up. It's a fun thing to do, but you need to prepare and think about it ahead of time. They do have a small pirate shop like we are on the Disney dream. They had a small pirate shop where you could buy tee shirts and things, but you might want to prepare for that in advance. So that's something to think about. Another thing that as first time cruisers we didn't really think about was the pirate night and then finally bringing things on the crews. Now up until a couple of days ahead of time, I didn't think about this when you're on a Disney cruise, your non alcoholic beverages are included in the restaurants, but if you in there on our ship, there was on the 12th deck there was access to drink stations, but that was the only place was on the 12th deck. So if you're like us, I wanted to have some drinks in our room and I didn't want to run up to the 12th deck and I don't even think it's open 24 hours. So you want my, you want to bring some bottled water with you. There's a couple of things and other drinks with you. Bottled water has to be sealed. It has to be in a sealed container, like a sealed package. So we had bought a package when we were in Florida a couple of days ahead of time and you have to bring it with you with your carry on. Luggage can also bring, we had some leftover pop and I think we had like some of the ice waters, those ice flavored waters that we had from our hotel room and they were sealed. So we were able to bring those with our carry on items. The other thing is that if you do want to bring on alcohol, because alcohol is not included on the Disney cruise, you have pay purchase that. So if you're 21 and older, you can bring up to two bottles of unopened wine or champagne and there are restrictions on the size and then you can bring that or six beers, no bigger than 12 ounces. So if you're someone who wants to bring alcohol on board, you can bring wine, champagne or beer, no hard alcohol. And that's one of the reasons why Fred, where I, you have to have a sealed package of bottle of water from the store because they want to make sure people aren't sneaking in hard liquor. So make sure you keep that in mind. Can also bring on snacks on board as long as they are sealed and not open. When we are going through, we had I think had some goldfish crackers that were still sealed and like Kris had a thing of nuts but it ended up, he didn't remember but he had opened it so they had to throw that out. You can't take anything that's, that's been opened onto the boat. So those are some things to consider. These things, all of these sorts of beverages that you bring in snacks, you should bring those with your carry on luggage that you're going to bring through the port and check-in. Now another thing that, so those are some things when you're thinking about bringing items on the cruise. Now when you're checking in for the cruise, that's something to think about as well. You're going to want to try to get, here's the thing, people told us, get our early check in time. So we had an earlier check in time, but our travel party had a check in time that was two hours after us. So I called ahead of time and they said, well if you have an early one you can come later. Well the advantage of why do people want to get on earlier, people will want to get on to go to lunch because you can get lunch on debt, on boat before it ships. We didn't see all, I think it was around four o'clock maybe. Yeah. When we sailed. Here's the thing are we ended up going later with our group, which was fine. We got to Port Canaveral. We had lunch actually. I thought it was nice when we got there. The, the um, it wasn't busy getting on because we went, I was probably a little bit after one, I think when we went to check it. Yeah. So it was a little bit after. One in the morning is when there's a rush really long lines. We waited maybe 10 minutes or so. Our party got right on. The nice thing is our room was ready because by the time we got on the boat is around one 30 the room was ready so we could take our carry on luggage right to our room, which if you get on early you'll have to lug your luggage around with you. We didn't have to do that. We had had a nice lunch in Cape Canaveral, so we weren't hungry. Come to find out. We talked to other members of our larger group that had gotten on early. There was long lines for the restaurants. Some people didn't end up getting lunch because they didn't want to wait in line and their rooms weren't ready. I don't know. My personal preference was I liked how we did it. We got there at one we're on the boat by one 30 rooms were ready. It was to me, a seamless process. I don't know if I would have wanted to get on earlier, lug our stuff around, waiting along line for lunch. What w what's your thought? Correct? Yeah. For our personal preference. That worked well. How we went. Everybody's going to have their own preference. You may want to get on earlier and try to see chance your luck with that. Totally up to you. But hopefully some of these tips can help you out with in terms of arranging character things, what you can bring on the ship, thinking about pirate night, little things like that. Hopefully these tips can help you if you're planning your first Disney cruise or like me, your first Disney cruise in a very long time. And if you're looking for more detailed information, I'll put a link in the show notes, but definitely check out the DCL podcast, Disney cruise line and travel information. Christie, who is on episode six of our podcast from pack your pixie dust. She's one of the cohosts for that podcast and they have over a hundred episodes about things with cruising this, we just wanted to share our experience and share some of the things that we learned from it and in the future when we go on future cruises. Uh, we'll definitely share some of those experience with you as well. Hopefully this is all given you some help and maybe encouraged you to make that leap to make your next or your first Disney cruise line vacation book booking that travel. And when we were on the boat, they did have itineraries out through all the way to 2021 there are some of those itineraries out the full years. Itineraries aren't yet out yet, but go ahead and start planning your next Disney cruise and hopefully this has helped you out. I will put all of the links to the, some of the different things that we've talked about in the show notes to help you with your planning and to kind of end out our show. We're going to end with our trivia and our wisdom from Walt quote. So Kris, what sort of trivia do you have for us? This is related to the boat. Okay. The boat. The Disney dream. The Disney dream. Okay. And traditional lifeboats are painted. What color? Yellow? No, no, they weren't yellow. Oh my goodness. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, traditional traditional regulation colors for lifeboats are I think white. No, no, I don't know that orange. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. Like orange fests. But the Disney cruise line was the first cruise line to have yellow lifeboats. They got special permission from the U S coast guard to kind of keep the special color theme with the ship. Wow. I was going to say when you said they weren't, ya know what I said yellow? I thought I remember looking down at him so that I just imagine in that case cause I'm going to get Disney's so fussy about descent. Imagine having that boat

Speaker 4: 41:21

[inaudible]

Speaker 2: 41:21

well there's orange is not a very common color and that would not go with the blue and the red and the white. So that's interesting. Very interesting. Yes. I can think my friends@dcnews.com very interesting. So we're going to end with our normal wisdom from Walt quote. And this one was just talking about kids and things that they, their senses of humor and things and there's a lot of kids on the bow and it reminded me of some of these things. So child childishness, I think it's the equivalent of never losing your sense of humor. I mean, there's a certain something that you retain. It's the equivalent of not getting so stuffy that you can't laugh at others. And so true. Hopefully on your Disney vacation at Walt Disney world, Disney land, or anywhere around the world, or on your next Disney cruise, you can have some fun and re and reconnect with your childhood as well. So thank you for joining us on this episode of the does love podcast with Vanessa and Kris. I'm Vanessa and I'm Kris

Speaker 5: 42:29

[inaudible].

Speaker 3: 42:33

This podcast is not affiliated with the Walt Disney company or its holdings, and it is intended for entertainment purposes only.