Mickeyphile Podcast Episode 179 - Disney Fantasy 7 Night Cruise
We are back from our 7 night cruise aboard the Disney Fantasy. This is the second part of our great trip. We had 2 stops in the Virgin Islands and a day at Castaway Cay, plus more live shows, more great food, and more fireworks. And we finished it all up spending times with great friends at Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Magic Kingdom. It’s episode 179 of the Mickeyphile Podcast.
Highlights include
Tortola, British Virgin Islands
Pirate Night and Fireworks
St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
Frozen (Live Show)
Disney’s Believe (Live Show)
Palo Brunch & Dinner
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/946434275769168/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mickeyphile_podcast/
Music: “Cân thema (Mickeyphile Podcast Theme)” copyright Scott Daves 2023
Mickeyphile Podcast Episode 179 - Disney Fantasy 7 Night Cruise
We are back from our 7 night cruise aboard the Disney Fantasy. This is the second part of our great trip. We had 2 stops in the Virgin Islands and a day at Castaway Cay, plus more live shows, more great food, and more fireworks. And we finished it all up spending times with great friends at Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Magic Kingdom. It’s episode 179 of the Mickeyphile Podcast.
Highlights include
Tortola, British Virgin Islands
Pirate Night and Fireworks
St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
Frozen (Live Show)
Disney’s Believe (Live Show)
Palo Brunch & Dinner
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/946434275769168/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mickeyphile_podcast/
Music: “Cân thema (Mickeyphile Podcast Theme)” copyright Scott Daves 2023
We are back from our seven night cruise aboard the Disney Fantasy. This is the second part of our great trip. We had two stops in the Virgin Islands and a day at Castaway Key, plus more live shows, more great food and more fireworks. And we finished it all up spending time with our great friends at EPCOT, animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom. It's episode 179 of the Mickey File Podcast.
Speaker 2:Welcome back everyone to episode 179 of the Mickey File Podcast. I'm Scott and with me is my lovely wife Karen. Hello everybody, it's part two.
Speaker 1:It is part two.
Speaker 2:Seven days a long time it really is, Especially to talk about a trip review. I know A lot of stuff went on. That cruise is like the Star Cruiser.
Speaker 1:There's so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you don't have time for everything on that cruise. Right, there were places we never went.
Speaker 1:No, there's places and things we never went to or did.
Speaker 2:Right, like we never did the aqueduct.
Speaker 1:No, we didn't go up to satellite.
Speaker 2:The adult bar that was outside Never went to that one yeah no, didn't need to, but we did a lot, we did a lot, we did do a lot. So we're going to talk about, yeah, that stuff. And then we had two more days at Disney World when we got back, because we had a bunch of friends that were there Exactly Waiting on us.
Speaker 1:Yes, patiently waiting just for us, yeah. Yeah. That's what we're going to say, right, that's a story? Sure, we'll go with that. Yeah, that's our story.
Speaker 2:We're not going to spend a lot of time on news. For one thing, we've got a whole bunch to talk about. Also, we're recording early because we have a whole bunch to talk about, right, and we don't want to have forgotten any of it, correct?
Speaker 1:Because it's already starting to get tiny bit foggy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, but there's a couple of things. One is well go ahead.
Speaker 1:The Disney Visa card promotion is available for rooms at Walt Disney World beginning March 25th. Through June 29th you can get up to 35% off select rooms.
Speaker 2:So basically, it's just extending the one that is currently going on. Great, but that's cool. Apparently, they're just going to keep giving discounts until they sell out of rooms.
Speaker 1:Discounts are good though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then the other one is Carl Weathers, unfortunately passed away in his sleep two nights ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a couple of nights ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was 76.
Speaker 2:I think it was announced on Friday, which would have been the second.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's all the details we have, but it was, well I know, part of our movie history growing up, so you know yeah.
Speaker 2:Rocky. Happy Gilmore, happy Gilmore, oh, come on, he was hilarious and happy Gilmore Arrested development where he taught you how to make free soup, yep. And most recently, the Mandalorian. Yes, that's the Disney tie. Yes.
Speaker 1:And that's for news.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a shame. He'll be missed. Yeah, he will. There were a lot of very touching tributes to him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there really were.
Speaker 2:You know Stallone and Gina Carano and a lot, so it was a very popular man. One thing on DVC news Thursday, the first for existing members the cabins at Fort Wilderness went on sale. Yes 225, a point, which was what we had been told to expect. Right, but the dues yeah 12 something, a point, yeah 1215 or something like that.
Speaker 2:A point A lot, that's a super high 50 point add on is $608 in dues and, by the way, they want them this year Like they're not even open yet, but they want $608 in dues this year, right.
Speaker 1:And then I even open till July 1st Right.
Speaker 2:They want full year, due for six months. Yeah, so Wow.
Speaker 1:And 12 something a point yeah.
Speaker 2:Four bucks of it is transportation and housekeeping. Yeah, so there's a lot of discussion already Like is housekeeping $3 a room, doubled basically everywhere else on property, six times what they charge at boardwalk per point? But is that because they're going to be dog friendly and we're all going to pay on that?
Speaker 3:That, yeah, Well, I won't be paying on it, because I'm not buying a resort with $12 dues.
Speaker 1:No, no, and I didn't. I did not expect it to be that high, just for points either. Nobody did on a new resort.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean the 225 everybody you had to assume. I mean there's nothing except for Hilton Haddon, vera Beach, that's under 200. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I thought maybe they give some special you know, you know new thing for a period of time. If you buy in the first month or something, it will give you this special.
Speaker 2:Oh they are. You can save two to $13 a point on promotions right now. To add on Right, which is also like who cares? Yeah, so if I buy a hundred points, you'll give me $2 a point off. Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then and you want $12.
Speaker 2:And you want $1200, with my closing costs, to pay for dues, for something I can't get into for another five months. Right, think we'll be passing on that and maybe just buying more Saratoga points.
Speaker 1:Right, so we'll be looking at the seven month mark to try to get into those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Yeah 12 bucks is absurd, that's astronomical. So, anyway, that's our thoughts on the cabins. All right, let's just jump in both feet here and start talking about Tuesday on our cruise, I know. So that was Tuesday would have been one, two, three, four. That's the fifth day since we got on the boat and we woke up in Tortolo in the British Virgin Islands. Yes, and it was beautiful, beautiful.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, it was sunny, the weather was perfect.
Speaker 2:Not as windy as it had been getting there Right Still some wind, but not as bad as it was Right. But it was a reasonable wind, yeah Right.
Speaker 2:Beach, wind, right, right. So what a beautiful island. Oh yeah, mountains and lush and gorgeous, and we were fortunately on the side of the ship that we had the mountains. Yes, because the other side of the ship had a little cruise ship Martella, martella, martell, martell, whatever park next to us, and it was a little ship for a cruise ship. Yeah, but still a cool looking boat, just a little. Yeah. So it was pretty, yeah, the harbor was beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 2:So we're sitting there and all of a sudden, on the speaker in the room after they had told us you know we won't be making lots of announcements in your room, right Got like four announcements that were all directed at the crew. Yes, after the third one, or maybe after the second one was an announcement of the following announcement is only for our crew members, because I think people were freaking out because kept saying about like report to safety zone, whatever. And you know, and we were in port, so why would you report to a safety zone? Just have us get off the boat, right. But they were doing like safety drills, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we looked out, we were walking around the ship later and we looked out and there's, you know, lines of crew members in their life jackets like marching around the ship. So they were just doing drills. Yes, that was kind of neat. It was neat. It makes you feel safer to know that they're doing that stuff when they're in port, exactly. But the other part was then we heard this like whining yeah, we're like what is that? And looked out our off the veranda and they were lowering some of the life boats, not like all the way, but like moving them, which was kind of interesting to see too, yeah.
Speaker 1:So that was.
Speaker 2:that was pretty neat to watch and it was happening like right below our balcony. So, yeah, it was really cool, just cool to see yeah. Especially in a non-threatening time, to see the boat exactly being worked on and get even cooler insight on that the next day.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So we went into tortola briefly, like a couple hours.
Speaker 1:I don't even think we're there two hours.
Speaker 2:We had planned on using the boat we had planned to do that day to do stuff on the ship, which we did, right. But we did go into tortola and right when you got off, they actually had a nice little area with a lot of not really food trucks but like boots, but like the concession stands. You know you have at the fair that kind of thing and some of them were permanent stands, right, right, you know, lots of hamburgers, lots of jerk chicken and, yeah, jamaican beef patties and right, all of that stuff that you would expect. But very nice, clean little shopping area, well maintained, yeah, well maintained, yeah, you know, with souvenir shops, crocs, a lot of jewelry, yeah, yeah, but I mean they were nice, I mean they were nice stores yeah.
Speaker 2:Tobacco store, liquor store, yeah, so we wandered around there for just a little bit. Didn't have any off ship activities planned, right, but that's what we did, yeah, and it was cool. So now I can say I've been to the British Virgin Islands and that was mostly the thing.
Speaker 1:Now I did notice the one thing when we were walking around, like where that little DJ guy was, there were signs saying please be careful If you're leaving, if you're going on the island, please be careful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there were.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I was comfortable with where we were.
Speaker 1:Right and especially it was so nice looking in there.
Speaker 2:I was.
Speaker 1:I think I was surprised at how clean and maintained it was.
Speaker 2:And yeah, honestly, especially compared to the next day, Right, for the same type of area Exactly. Now, I did hear, we did hear from the people who we sat next to at dinner Right, once you got out of that little area, tortolo wasn't much Right, so kind of the opposite of the next day, of the next day right, we did the rainforest room at Stenza's spa. Yes, up on the 11th floor, I think 11th or 12th. Maybe, 12th, wherever it was deck, not the floor. It's super cool.
Speaker 1:It's very cool, the heated bed, the heated tile bed, things are so nice.
Speaker 2:And way more comfortable than you would think for laying on tile. Yeah, so comfortable yeah.
Speaker 1:Steam rooms. That super dry one was really nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cold saunas, dry saunas, wet saunas. And then they had the different showers with the different they had different water temperatures in the showers, so that was a really cool experience. The hot tub we didn't get in because they were in use.
Speaker 1:Yeah, every time we show it. And a great view, oh yeah, it's beautiful, it's all windows.
Speaker 2:All windows on the one side, so you just laid there and you could look out at the island Great or look out at the ocean. Yep, it was just beautiful, yeah, so that was super cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they were so nice there too.
Speaker 2:They were yeah, yeah, and compared to what like an hour massage for $200 cost Right, that for the whole week was a great deal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really was.
Speaker 2:After we did that it was pirate night, eh, eh, argh. And so first they had early Mickey's Pirates of the Caribbean, which was really cute. Yeah, it was Mickey, minnie, donald and Daisy, goofy and Pluto All pirated up and I can't remember Were Chip and Dale part of that.
Speaker 1:I cannot remember.
Speaker 2:Can't remember. I don't think so. I don't think they were. I don't think they were either, but the fab six were definitely part of it. Cute little interactive, you know call and response kind of show. And then Captain Hook and his crew and Mr Sme came out and threatened to take over the ship. Yep Dude repelled down the not really the funnel, it was like the- there was a platform at the top of it, basically yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean it was like where they drive the boat, like it was up there, you know, right the con or whatever you call it, on a ship. Right.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so it was really cool and it was, I don't know, maybe 45 minutes, I'm not even sure it was that long, so it wasn't. It may be about a half hour, it wasn't more than it wasn't more than 45 minutes for sure, right, definitely. So it was kind of right before dinner. Mm-hmm. Yes, so they needed it to be short, right, and things on that boat, on that ship, are very timed out. Oh yeah, they are. You know, there's not a lot of down time between things, but you're not late getting to a show or dinner. Because they didn't allow enough time, right, but they allowed the exact amount of time, exactly.
Speaker 2:Then we had dinner. That was at the animators' palette that night, the only time we had dinner there, yes, which was a shame, but also because, because we did two dinners at Paula, right, so it was our choice. Yes, I had beef Wellington. That was what the beef Wellington was supposed to be, not what they're selling it up caught right now. Yes, and it looked amazing it was, it was fantastic. Mm-hmm, you know that rotational dining is a lot better food than you expect before you start going to it, right, you know it really is, it's, I mean, I'm not gonna tell you it's Paolo or Remy level, right, but it certainly is very, very good food. It's not. It's not Disney home style dining, it's signature restaurant level, for sure.
Speaker 1:Oh, definitely yeah, and I had a steak that night.
Speaker 2:Yes, you did. Yes, I did, because I picture it. Yeah. Yeah, we had very good food, yes, every night, but that night was really good.
Speaker 1:That night was really good, because the other nights I'd been doing like foods I wouldn't normally get you know, because that's kind of the thing you try something different. If you don't like it, they'll bring you something else, right? So? But I'm like I could use a steak.
Speaker 2:I got a steak, yeah, and the steak was good, Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Well, I was dressed as a pirate. Why would I not get a steak Right? And we went full pirate.
Speaker 2:We did. We had our costumes on. Yeah, I got beads braided into my beard.
Speaker 1:I know, oh, tell them about that whole thing.
Speaker 2:I mean, it wasn't a whole thing. Well. So we were on the 11th deck up by the pool that was doing hair braiding and Soria, soraya.
Speaker 1:Soraya, I think.
Speaker 2:She was from St Lucia and so she was doing braiding. Now the funny thing was then we saw her like three or four more times during the course of the cruise, and she worked in housekeeping, but in the afternoon she braided people's hair on deck.
Speaker 1:I know, I think that's so cool.
Speaker 2:Everybody's got two jobs on those boats at least, yeah. And I went and asked her. I'm like, hey, can you do this? She's like, oh, yeah, sure, and it it didn't take. She did eight braids. It didn't take more than a half hour and I don't think it took that long, but it was only 12 bucks, yeah, so including the beads. So a buck 50, I don't know, you know, like regular hair, if it's a dollar 50 a braid, but it was a dollar 50 a braid for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and she did a good job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she did.
Speaker 1:And they stayed. They stayed nice and tight yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for four days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but they weren't too tight, that it we didn't take them out till Monday. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so that was fun, you know. Then you had guy liner on, and then I was gonna die, yeah.
Speaker 1:Then you had guy liner on and everything.
Speaker 2:Right. So it was fun. We got into the whole thing and they did the second part of pirate night at about 10, 15 that night, after dinner and the late show.
Speaker 1:And Sandy and Pat held the spot for us too, up there they did so.
Speaker 2:Thank you guys, thank you very much for doing that, for finding spots for us to watch things.
Speaker 1:And it was a perfect spot too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. And so was the last night, yeah, so the second pirate night they came out and they had their you know pirate crew and did a lot of stuff with kids, brought a bunch of kids up on stage and did a singalong and that kind of thing. And then all of a sudden, here was Jack Sparrow yes, did another song for like everybody on the ship and he started the fireworks. And then the fireworks started. So we had our second fireworks display or show on the cruise, and this time it was not as windy, so it was really cool. Yes, it's cool. Fireworks are cool. Anyway, fireworks at sea are pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially when they're basically almost over you. It's just really neat yeah.
Speaker 2:And the guy who did Jack Sparrow was he was a good Jack Sparrow. Passable as Jack Sparrow he was, so it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the entertainment on the ship is very, very impressive. Very good yeah.
Speaker 2:And when we did the cruise on the wish you know, we had eaten, I think, on the fourth floor or maybe on the third floor and dinner had gone a little long, and we had to try to get all the way to the top deck Right Biled by 10, 15, in like 15 minutes and the elevators were in the heart and the elevators were just packed and so I skipped it last time. So this time I was glad we were able to get up there and yeah, they definitely timed it better.
Speaker 2:Well, and we were. We also went all the way to the back of the ship and took an elevator up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we found better ways of getting around.
Speaker 2:Yes, so it worked out a lot better and I'm glad I got to see it this time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was good.
Speaker 2:It was a very fun night, it was so, and we went back to the back to the room. After that we really didn't hang around much longer, Cause we had a pretty big day and knew another one was coming up. Right, you know the first what? Three days we were on the water, but now we were into ports.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and that's when we had the swan tied with the pirate anchor chif on our bed yes, the kissing swans. And then two little washcloths made roses in front of it, right, and he had the gold coins, gold chocolate coins, yeah, and he was very cool over it, I know. So it came out really cool.
Speaker 2:It did. Yeah, yeah, he was very good. You know what he was. I think we may have brought this up last time. He did not have the personality that Orlin had the time before, but he was really good at his job and making sure that anything we needed we had he would open the door for us as we were coming down the hallway, right, he would make sure when we were leaving to point us In the correct direction, which way we were going to, where we were going, right, he was very, very good. I was very happy with that Right.
Speaker 1:I think it just made you know, it just shows that you know it matters to him. So he wants to make sure people are taken care of and I thought that was really neat.
Speaker 2:So this Wednesday was at St Thomas, which is the US Virgin Islands, right.
Speaker 1:So how far is it?
Speaker 2:Well, according to my GPS at the time it was 22 miles, which is funny, right. I had heard from someone maybe it was 40, whatever, we had all night from like six o'clock until I don't know what time. We docked the next morning to go 20 miles. It was early and put it in perspective, the first three days we went 1200. Right, right. Now we had to go 20 miles, right. So there was a lot of turning circles in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, killing time as we went from island basically, to the island next door.
Speaker 1:So it was a very drizzly rainy day. It started out that way.
Speaker 2:It did, and so that was the first cool thing. So when we went out to get off the ship they had a table set up. Now apparently earlier in the morning we weren't particularly early going, but apparently first people off the boat they had people handing out ponchos. Then we got down there, they were just ponchos on a table as you went out to the gangway to get off the boat, so we got two free Disney ponchos. That was when our winning streak started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is the winning streak started. But the reason we didn't go off earlier is because we had the Goofy's golf simulator.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did. We did the golf simulator up on the 13th deck.
Speaker 1:Yes, which was fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and outside of that they had a little pup-pup golf course set up. They had basketball. Miniature golf. You know they had a basketball court.
Speaker 1:I think they had wall climbing or something in there too, something in that little area.
Speaker 2:And then we went inside and they had two simulators One was for golf, football and baseball and the other one, girl, was playing soccer.
Speaker 1:Right, and I don't know what else they did, and something else, and I can't remember what else she was doing, yeah but it was funny. Probably a Frisbee or something, yeah, but then once she kept making herself feel like a, like a zombie and she was playing like the characters that were on her team were all zombies. It was just really funny. Yeah, I didn't see that, I just kept watching her while I was trying to watch you. It was really funny, yeah.
Speaker 2:But we hit balls for an hour in the golf simulator, so that was neat yeah, cheap yeah.
Speaker 1:It was like A half hour was like 20 bucks. Yeah, it was like 28 bucks a piece is what it was 28 a piece, yeah.
Speaker 2:Not a piece 28 per half hour. Right, yeah, right. It's pretty cool and you could play courses or you could just hit like a driving range. We've like tried to actually play golf. The only thing that sucked is you didn't putt. Well, I mean a lot of things sucked about it Right, like they basically had one right-handed set of clubs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then like three left-handed sets of clubs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was really weird. Yeah, they had one driver and you never got to putt.
Speaker 1:Right, if you were anywhere near the green, you just three putt it, or two putt it, or whatever.
Speaker 2:And it was really weird. Yeah, like I hit two great shots and then it has me three putt from 18 feet which doesn't happen, right. I'm just saying right now doesn't happen, right, anyway. So that was a little depressing when you have a good one going and you never made a long putt.
Speaker 1:Right, right, you never made a long putt, nope.
Speaker 2:You three putt it from me range. So that's just complaining for first world problems, right, but it was annoying, but it was fun and it was inside while I reigned, so that was fun. Yeah, and it was just the two of us there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was just the two of us too, so it was nice, yeah. Then people were just coming in and out, which was fine. It was just, you know, yeah, there were people that came in to watch, yeah, because there's really not. Everybody was going on shore, so there really wasn't really anything else to do up there for you to come up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and at the time, because of the rain, for some reason the aqueduct was closed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:I don't understand, because it's in closed tube other than getting on and off. Yeah, and it's rain Plus it's water and it's raining. Yeah, but it was closed, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we went back to the room before from there and just like you know, cleaned off a little bit because we've been hitting golf balls and grab stuff we wanted to take on the island. And about then we heard that same wine that we had heard the day before and looked out, and so the boat that was immediately the boat that was immediately at our lifeboat, at our veranda, they were lowered all the way into the water and unhooked it and started driving it around. Yeah, those things fly.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like they go super fast. Yeah, it was really cool, which I guess makes sense because you know you are a few hundred miles from land, a lot of that cruise.
Speaker 1:Right so, but they had a guy in the front and the back and basically a captain. Front and the back are the ones that unhooked it and hooked it to the winch, and then you had the captain. Yeah, or the pilot or pilot whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it was cool just to see it how it worked and how fast those things went.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then watching him line it back up and pick it back up again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was just neat to see.
Speaker 1:Just something you don't enjoy it. You wouldn't expect to see Right, it's probably a better way of describing it.
Speaker 2:So then we decided okay, we're going to St Thomas now, right, and we went down. We got our ponchos For free. We got free stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but we didn't end up using them because it was just a tiny bit drizzly.
Speaker 2:It drizzled for like five seconds.
Speaker 1:Like these things are folded up right now. I'm going to leave them folded up, right. I'm going to take them Now. We have Disney ponchos, right, but I thought that was really cool that they gave this out. It was. That was very classy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause people didn't have umbrellas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why would you bring an umbrella on a cruise?
Speaker 2:So we went to St Thomas and the first thing we noticed is they have the same kind of setup when you get off, right Shopping center kind of set up right man, way older and more rundown than the one on Tortola. Yes, now I've heard that because of the hurricane, like Tortola had to rebuild all that stuff. Right, that's probably why.
Speaker 1:That's probably why, because of the hurricane- Right, but it was much different.
Speaker 2:Now also heard that once you went out of that area, st Thomas was beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yes, so we could see. The area looked beautiful, the mountain looked beautiful.
Speaker 2:No, I mean like everything outside of that area was nicer than Tortola.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's what we were told.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we just had no desire to go on any excursions or anything.
Speaker 2:No, they're expensive. I mean, even just a taxi tour for two hours is over $100. Right, and you don't know what you're getting, cause it's not a Disney employee. So you know it could be great, it could be mediocre, it could be worse.
Speaker 1:I'd rather do stuff on the ship.
Speaker 2:Right, but the first thing we noticed at the stores is that every store saved two was a jewelry store, like they all were, so I even started taking pictures because it was so weird.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Right. So we went to majestic jewelers liquor, tobacco, cigarettes and you come in and one wall has got jewelry cases and shelves of liquor. Behind the jewelry cases, right. And then they have racks down the middle with all kinds of surfboard name plates and T-shirts and that kind of stuff, and then some coolers in the back with beer and sodas and water Right. Every single place almost was like that. Yeah, jewelry and T-shirts, jewelry and Tobacco, tobacco I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it's a law that all of the stores there All retail stores in the US Virgin Islands must be jewelry.
Speaker 2:I don't know, it was so bizarre though. Yeah, just one of those weird. Just one of those weird things that I don't even care, other than it's just weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it just had a different vibe than Tortula did to me.
Speaker 2:I think so. I mean the couple of stores we went into. Everybody was super friendly and yeah, Just I don't know, but it did. Yeah, but we decided after five days on the boat we just wanted a greasy hamburger. Yeah, so we went to the Deli Deck. Deli Deck, that's what it was called. Yeah, the Deli Deck Bar and Grill, I think. Yeah, the chicken Wizard Pizza station also fold new, but so curious to know what fans who were familiar with the Deli痛 was like. And yeah.
Speaker 2:Around 12 miles away, we got foods that I'm craving and we're hearing from an amazing conversation that I could see and ate, because, man, it was amazing how much thinns and we put it all together or hit the spot it did, and it was a greasy fried burger, but man, it was good.
Speaker 1:It's that perfect one where they haven't cleaned it thoroughly or changed it all.
Speaker 2:Right, they're still using the same grease since they opened? Yeah, yeah, it was just perfect, yep. So that was fun. And then we realized that we kind of had to get going because we had a chocolate and liquor class on the boat, so we had to haul it a little bit, yes, and then we had to get back. That class might be my favorite of those types of classes that we've done. Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:So we started off. We had champagne with like a liquid mix of white and dark chocolate. Yes, and it was weird like it was mixed in the cup half and half.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was like a martini glass and they poured the chocolate and the white chocolate and the dark chocolate in on each side and then they met together.
Speaker 2:They didn't mix. They didn't mix and they were separated like vertically. Yeah, it was really cool it was actually very cool.
Speaker 1:I think they must have poured them at the same time. That way they met together yeah well yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know how they did it, but it was super cool. Yes, then there was a red wine which I think was cab.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And they gave us with that dark chocolate pieces, milk chocolate and white chocolate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, solid pieces of chocolate, yeah.
Speaker 2:Then we had a port and that was a 10 year port Right. You know that that was actually paired with Parmesan cheese, not chocolate, right, it was probably the best Parmesan cheese.
Speaker 1:I've ever had. Yeah, there was a little swig of chocolate thing like that swirl thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah like a stick Stick.
Speaker 1:Yeah stick.
Speaker 2:And then the last one was a, I think, glen Moringie scotch that apparently is like a 20 year old scotch, and it was paired with a dark liquid chocolate. So it was all like. You know, this one take a sip of the drink and then taste the chocolate, and this one put the chocolate in your mouth and let it just like go away naturally and then take the drink Right. It was very interesting All about. He told us lots about each of the four drinks that which is very cool when they're from and how they're made and how they get the color and all the rest of that Right.
Speaker 1:And he was our Somalia the first night.
Speaker 2:He was the Somalia Apollo Right Doing this class Right and he was. He was funny, he was informative. It was a really fun class. And then they had four really good. I mean, when you say top shelf, I don't remember, I don't know that, the champagne which actually wasn't, if I remember right.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, it was, no, it was so champagne.
Speaker 2:Yeah, plama-ry, I've never heard of A brute rose champagne.
Speaker 1:It was good, though, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I wouldn't know champagne if it wasn't, you know, Moe or Right Don Perignon. That's like the only ones I could tell you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was the one was a cab, yeah, but they were all like I said, it was a 10 year port. It was a apparently the scotch thing. Now they're not putting like ages on them anymore. Oh really, I had to look that one up on the internet and it turns out it's aged like 21 to 23 years depending. Yeah, and at the bar, at the bomb voyage bar, they had a bunch of I don't remember which scotch, but they had a bunch of bottles of these of the scotch that all had names instead of 10 year, seven year whatever.
Speaker 2:Right, okay, so apparently it's like a thing they're doing with scotch now I don't know. Okay. But that one he said he had to look it up because they didn't tell him how long it was on the bottle. Right, I don't like scotch, but it was a pretty good scotch. Yeah, it was smooth.
Speaker 1:Chocolate was delicious too. Yeah, because I'm a chocolate person. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We went, we left there. We basically went upstairs and got dressed for dinner and had the frozen live show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and remember. We looked out and saw those yachts outside.
Speaker 2:Oh, there were some crazy yachts. Yeah, I'm saying Thomas, I mean like ones with helicopter pads on them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like crazy yachts yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was the big time. And then One had one of them had two boats on it. Yes, two boats on the yacht.
Speaker 1:Right, and all. That's the one with there were big boats. Yeah, and that's the one with the helicopter pad too.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah. So I don't know who that guy is, but he's rich yeah.
Speaker 1:Now I will say it was earlier, when it was drizzling. There were some really beautiful rainbows that were coming off with that Like just really vibrant, like the rainbow was going like directly into the water in front of us. Yeah, it was really cool.
Speaker 2:After that we went to the frozen live show Mm-hmm it was so good.
Speaker 1:It was so good.
Speaker 2:It had puppets, yeah. So, like when they started it was the story of frozen in an hour and 15 minutes had a little bit of a late start because they had to recalibrate some of the effects due to the rocking of the ship yeah, at that point we had left port, yeah, and it was rocking and rolling, yeah. So that was interesting, cause there are a lot of special effects type stuff in these shows, right. So it started off when Anna and Elsa were little girls and the actors came out and worked puppets and did the dialogue and sang a song.
Speaker 1:And then they changed puppets when they became a little bigger. Yeah. And it was the same people doing the puppets.
Speaker 2:And then eventually they became adults and it was the actual actresses, right. So the whole off was a puppet, yeah, and the person doing the voice stood there and worked the puppet. It was cool.
Speaker 1:It was really neat. So they don't allow photography or anything like that during their shows, any of their shows.
Speaker 2:Photographs, video or audio recording.
Speaker 1:It's strictly prohibited.
Speaker 2:Which is a shame.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Because people who don't go on cruises don't know how great those shows are.
Speaker 1:I mean, they're Broadway shows. Oh yes, 100%.
Speaker 2:And the amazing thing is, the same cast does three shows in a week. Three different shows in a week, right Two per day.
Speaker 1:Right, and some of this cast is doing other stuff on the ship too.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, other entertainment yeah, playing Jack Sparrow and playing Right Whatever that frozen was so so good, it was really good.
Speaker 1:And then they have the graphics all around the theater and everything else.
Speaker 2:Yes, so, like when it started, everything started freezing. They had projections all the way around the walls of the theater.
Speaker 1:You could hear it kind of like becoming ice all around you.
Speaker 2:It was really cool, yeah, like I almost wanted to skip dinner and watch the late show Just to see what you miss, because you'll be watching something and all of a sudden go wait, where did Olaf go?
Speaker 1:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:You know, Mm-hmm. So, god, it was good. Yes, and we had dinner that night at Enchanted Garden, yes, which I think was the second time we had. Yeah, it was Second time we had been to Enchanted Garden, right.
Speaker 1:And it was delicious, as usual.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know. By the time 8.15 dinner, by the time you finished dinner, it's 10 or later. Mm-hmm. So once again, back off to bed. Actually, we met that night. We didn't go back to bed, we went to a bar upstairs. That was the most quiet spot we could find. Yep, and that was when we recorded the podcast for that week. Right, ken and Judy and Pat and Sandy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was like 10, I think we met up there like 10, 15, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 10, 15, 10, 30. Yeah, so we got to compare notes and that was so much fun. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:So and that night when we got back to our room, we had a turtle right. Was he a crab? It was a turtle. And then they had a big cling he had put on the veranda window door saying Pixar at sea.
Speaker 2:Right, and he left us one in the room on the backer too for that. So that was neat. Yeah, so right, because the next day, thursday, was the Pixar day at sea. Right, it really wasn't any different than any other day at sea, except that the character meets all day were Pixar.
Speaker 1:Yes, and all the stage show things were Pixar. You know it was. You know they had little shows going on. Yeah, up top Right.
Speaker 2:Right, they did the Pixar celebration that night yeah.
Speaker 1:And they had the baby races. Oh, they did.
Speaker 2:They did diaper races, yes, and everyone was very excited about them and it was a little bit of a let down, but they had started announcing those the night before that we're doing this at 130 tomorrow. 130, 130, 130. We got there before 130. It had already started, so that was depressing. Yeah, we didn't get to see it all, but they had a little mat laid out with five different lanes, you know, like it was a racetrack, right, and babies had to go from one end to the other, yep. So you know, usually dad was at one end holding the baby, yep, and mom was at the other end trying to get them to come to them, enticing.
Speaker 1:So everybody had keys and iPads and and hats and sunglasses and it was really fun yeah.
Speaker 2:Trying to get them and you'd see a kid every race. One kid would just take off and all the other ones were like yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like I don't want to leave you, daddy.
Speaker 2:Daddy's right here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then you had one that took off. It's like, ooh, the side of this thing looks, side of this mat looks really cool, the little girl kept just like completely distracted.
Speaker 2:She'd go like four steps crawling and then stop and sit and look at the side of the or try to climb off the side of the mat. Right, it was funny. It was really cute, though. So in the final, the one girl took off, got all the way to the end. Well, in front of everybody else, right before she crossed the finish line, stopped and started watching the iPad. Her mom had a movie playing on.
Speaker 1:Right, because she, because that's what she did is she sat about a foot and a half away from the iPad and watch iPad?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then she couldn't go any further, right, and another little boy ended up winning. But they called it a tie, because she did what she was supposed to.
Speaker 1:That was fair. Yeah, it was really cute, though. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it was so funny. Everybody was cheering for the little girl and all of a sudden she stopped right before. Yeah, and all of the adults watching it were like oh no, you know, and you saw it, she got right there.
Speaker 1:She got right there so she could see your iPad.
Speaker 2:She got up and sat and just started watching the iPad.
Speaker 1:And if mom had moved the iPad back three feet she probably would have scooted the extra foot and a half. Yeah, probably it was just funny.
Speaker 2:Right, that was fun.
Speaker 1:We also had Palo brunch with our friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did. Yes, how good is Palo brunch? Uh-huh, 50 bucks. Yep, they have a lot of different food. They had eggs Benedict. It was really good. Yes, the flatbread was good.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh, the um basically like it wasn't charcuterie, but it was like charcuterie. Yeah, it was charcuterie, right Meat and cheese and Then they had a seafood and a pasta type tray thing. Right.
Speaker 2:Which was delicious. Yeah, I had the veal Southumboka. Um. What did you have? The?
Speaker 1:chicken, yeah, parmesan chicken.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was all really good at full menu and you could have got whatever you wanted.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:You know it was not price fix, it was just a flat price. You could order as many of whatever as you wanted to order, right, and then dessert. Right. And it was all really good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, pat had lasagna. I don't remember what Sandy had. Oh she had the chicken.
Speaker 2:Right, judy and I had the veal. I don't remember what Ken had. I don't either.
Speaker 1:I think he got the chicken as well. It was recommended and it's delicious, but but we all had something a little bit different.
Speaker 2:They had a A salmon eggs Benedict. They had a regular eggs Benedict and there was a third one. I can't remember what. It was. Right but my complaint about. So, like Gran Floridian you know everybody loves the eggs Benedict to Gran Floridian but the English muffin has been like cardboard for the last year and a half. Right, Um, this was not. This was like legit. It was a very good one.
Speaker 1:It was a perfect.
Speaker 2:Well, but they also said they make, they make them, they do everything on the ship. They have a bakery, right. So, and then we got dessert. They had A sticky bond. They had what I got, which was the lemon cello like cheese cake, basically, right.
Speaker 1:Um camera for what you got. I'm trying to look. I had the oh, the choc, the chocolate, the chocolate cake. Oh yeah, it was the molten, yeah, the chocolate.
Speaker 2:Chocolate. Chocolate, yeah, chocolate, the molten cake cake, chocolate cake with chocolate icing and chocolate sauce. And chocolate, yeah.
Speaker 1:It was chocolate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, that's what he said. He goes if you can't get enough chocolate. This is what you want Cause it's all chocolate yeah.
Speaker 1:And one of the things I love there is that celery soup. It's so refreshing.
Speaker 2:The celery soup is great. Yeah, you know how good Disney is at mushroom soup. This was the mushroom soup, but with celery, yes, and it was just so good, so good, and it had sausage in it. Yes, it was so good, so good. So that was brunch. There were lots of pictures and lots of trivia games again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all Pixar related Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you went on the all right. So at that point I was falling behind a little bit on my plan of how I was going to get my schoolwork done for the week. Right. And I had that six hour assignment I had to do of listening to music, right? So you went to the art of the theme show tour and I stayed in the studio and listened to 1980s electro funk and rap and picked out samples and tea changes and breakdowns. Yeah, tell us about the tour.
Speaker 1:Sure, the tour started at the meridian up next to Palo and each and the meridian is allowed. It's allowed right outside of Palo.
Speaker 1:Right, right outside of Palo and I got some beautiful pictures right at the back of the ship after the ship. It was just beautiful and Justin, who was he, was our tour guide. He had a very interesting backstory, that he actually came from a family of Disney cast members. His father is an Imagineer and his mom was a cast member. So as he describes it, I was destined to be a cast member.
Speaker 1:So the art of the theme show tour is basically describing items on the ship of the fantasy, because it was done in a very different mindset. It was done at the way of. You know, each theming of theming in the art describes an area or divides it from one floor to another, rather than just a theme. It's the artwork or the, the not obvious artwork that's around there, which is a weird way of saying it. So, for example, at the meridian bar, all the wood in the in the floor, has a purpose for the direction of the wood. The ceiling has a direction for the, for the design which describe. You know something specific with. You know who designed this particular room. Then you would go down the stairs and the color of the carpet or the size of the design on the carpet would change depending on what floor you're going to it was very, it was very.
Speaker 1:It was kind of an obscure tour because it gave you more of a theory behind the ship rather than how the ship got its name and why the design appeared. Does that make sense at all? Yeah, so one of the neatest things that they showed is that floor five is the smallest height wise of floors. So it is about a foot and a half shorter than any other floor and you don't notice it until you're going downstairs rather than the up the stairs, because when you're going upstairs everything always looks taller. And they said the reason they did that was because floor four and floor six had to accommodate.
Speaker 1:Like, floor six was rooms and floor four was for dining and shows and they had to accommodate the size of the theater. So they made floor five physically shorter and they put all of the kids stuff on that floor because kids are shorter. Yeah, so like all the ocean years clubs, bippity, bop, boutique, all of that. So I was like, wow, you don't realize it until you are shown it the difference on that. Yeah right, there was this really cool artwork coming down from floor 12 to 11. There's a giant Remy painting and it's original conceptual artwork from the movie Remy and it shows Remy over there, but over on the far right hand side there's a shadow of the partner statue.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was. We got to see the $25,000 bottle of cab which was talked about in the movie Remy, that the one food critic ordered to have with his meal. So they had two on the ship. They sold one of them last year but there is still one remaining on the ship.
Speaker 1:If you go down like he took us down to, we're on five and all around the atrium there's that, there's these, I guess, like gold banners not really banners, I guess they're gold artwork all around the railway, not railway, the handrail, but it's when you're in the atrium looking up you see it. But it's all of the Disney characters, every Disney character. At the time that the ship was built, all the Disney characters are in one of those gold panels. Oh, that's so cool and it's one of the 19, kind of the 1940s, the Walt Disney era. It had it more of a majestic type look. So that's why it has the. It's the peacock feathers, is the light fixture in the middle and then it has all the gold banners all around the outside. So it was just a really neat tour just seeing all these. You know why that one has so much dark wood because it's that time, that 40s, 50s timeframe. 40s, 50s, 60s timeframe.
Speaker 2:Right, that the whole atrium is themed to Right right.
Speaker 1:So even like you know, the atrium and even down where the stores are, it's all the dark wood and it's the you know kind of the mood lighting and it was. You know, it was kind of the high time. You know it was just really neat hearing the theory behind some of it. It was, it's one of those I'd like to hear. I'd like to go on the tour again and have somebody else to see if because each one kind of had their own tour and what they like to show on the ship, which was neat, right.
Speaker 2:So, and that's the same way with all the tours, obviously.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You know like, for example, when we went on the safari the other day, that girl just kept pointing out the same antelopes because she likes them, Right, you know right? It was also a weird safari and we'll get to that later, right, all right, so then we did the. We did dinner at the Channing Garden. They had the Pixar menu, which was a different menu, but it was not. It wasn't really. I mean it was Pixar theme because everything was called like Jack Jack's this and Frozone's that and whatever. But I mean it wasn't really like it was still regular food for the cruise.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So yeah, tenderloin with all grottin potatoes and green beans. They did have the drinks. They were different and the barata was cool. The barata was three tomato slices with barata in between the slices. It was very good. Actually very good, yes, and that night they did the Pixar celebration show up on the top deck. It did not have fireworks, but it did have a bunch of Pixar characters. It was another show.
Speaker 1:It was another show, it was cute.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and all these shows are like at 10 o'clock at night. Yeah, and you know there's kids on the boat, but all the shows were like at 10 o'clock at night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Pixar celebration Because of dinner Right.
Speaker 2:That one wasn't. That was early, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this one was like six thirds, it was like six 15. Right so, and they had, like you know, to celebrate the supers and the pirates.
Speaker 2:Those were 10. Yeah, but you have to, because it's six o'clock, people are eating. At eight o'clock people are eating, right, so?
Speaker 1:Yes, you have to have two different shows to be able to accommodate that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or just do it once late, which is what they were doing most of the time, right. So Friday when we woke up, we were at Cali, we were at Castaway Key, and I still had some stress about that because I had heard that there were several cruises that could not dock there. Right, but we didn't have any problem, we were there and it was actually a beautiful day. It was beautiful Not too hot, nice breeze, sunny, beautiful day. First thing we did well. Second thing we did so. The first thing we did is we stopped at some stores, right, because there's stuff there for Castaway Key that you can only get at Castaway Key. They don't even have them on the ships. Right, and there was a shirt that I had wanted last time that they didn't have, yes, but they did have it this time.
Speaker 1:So you were happy about that, I was yeah.
Speaker 2:And I've worn it twice already, I know. And then, and we were walking further onto the island and you heard your name, I did and looked over and it was our favorite bartenders from the Bon Voyage who were at the bar coconut something First bar on the island they were there.
Speaker 2:So we changed our plan and stopped and had a drink. But our plan, our focus of going to Castaway Key was that we replaced Right so almost two years ago now, year and a half ago for sure Right Our friend Jeff Kessler had put a treasure box on the island with a very detailed map, but like a scavenger kind of pirate map. You had to figure out clues and Right, it would lead you to the treasure. Yes, and apparently sometime this fall late summer fall, one of the storms.
Speaker 2:One of the storms must have washed it away, right? And I say that I mean not that some Disney cast member didn't pick it up, except two things. One was where that treasure was hidden. We stood there and looked and there were basketballs, like so it was on kind of the edge of a slope and it went downhill. And then back into the trees. There were basketballs, there were empty beer cans, like they're not cleaning that area out, right. So, and also, we know from our experience that the cast members didn't care that there was a treasure hidden on the island. They thought it was super cool that we were doing that as a group.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I don't think some cast member picked it up and plus, yes, there was stuff in it, but it wasn't super valuable stuff, so I don't think anybody picked it up and kept it. Maybe some random guest did, maybe, maybe. But anyway, we replaced it. Yes, so it is back and it is in the location where it was. So Jeff's map is still operating. Yes, that's the controlling map.
Speaker 1:So we probably need to let people know it is an orange treasure.
Speaker 2:It's an orange box. This time it's an orange box this time.
Speaker 1:So you only know what I could find. That's what Walmart had. Yeah, the only thing I could find.
Speaker 2:Last minute, but it's been replaced. So if you're going on a cruise, go find it. Yes, then the map is still accurate and Judy and Pat didn't go look for it, so there's stuff in it. Yes.
Speaker 2:So we walked all the way out there, ended up doing the 5K Yep and came back and ran into Judy and the guys were snorkeling, yes, but we went to lunch and we went to Cookie's Barbecue. So that's the first one. There are two cookies on site. There's Cookie's Barbecue and Cookie's 2, where you can get the lunch buffet. We went to Cookie's Barbecue. Apparently, the Ludwigs and the Collins went to Cookie's 2. I guess they were probably closer to where they were. Oh okay, lunch was pretty good. I mean, it was mass produced buffet barbecue, yeah, but hit the spot and they had hamburgers and hot dogs.
Speaker 1:And chicken and everything else. Yeah, the fruit was delicious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the sides were really good. The pasta salad and the potato salad were both delicious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I had the pasta salad.
Speaker 2:The meats were. You know when it's barbecue but you don't have a smoker Right. It was what it is. Yeah, but it wasn't bad. Oh, no, I mean, we ate plenty of it. Yeah, you know. Mm-hmm. And then I went and got on the tram. Yeah, because I was on, because I haven't been on a Disney tram like forever, right, so I did that tram.
Speaker 1:And I was involved in something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you were Trying to figure out.
Speaker 1:Capture your moment.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's what it was Trying to reschedule or capture, the moment that we had scheduled for the next day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when we realized that was not gonna work out Just wasn't gonna happen.
Speaker 2:No, and they had all kinds of little photo ops. You know they had characters around the island. They have a spot where you stand under this archway that says Castaway Key and the boat is perfectly centered in there to get you and the ship.
Speaker 1:It's the Disney way. Yeah, just really cool photo ops yeah earlier in the day they had all the characters out and they had transport for them, so but yeah, and that was when we decided to leave.
Speaker 2:Right after lunch we went back to the ship because we had a beer tasting to do. We did that was in O'gill's, which is the like sports bar on that ship. Yeah, that's right. I can't remember what the one on the wish was called, but it was basically the same bar, but it was like an Irish pub but with a lot of TVs. Yes, would have been a cool place to watch the playoffs, had we needed to, right.
Speaker 1:And Friday was a busy day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, friday was a busy day, so we did the beer tasting. That was Dwayne from Jamaica, he was fun and he was really fun, very good at beers, like really good at telling you all about beers. Yes.
Speaker 2:So there were like five different beers we tried. They weren't anything crazy. You know, Sierra Nevada, it was red stripe, Guinness, a Belgian wit, something else can't remember exactly right but oh, a sour. And he told you all about why it's this and why it's that and why it's the color it is again. And I ended up winning a free red stripe because he asked what color Guinness was and I knew from looking at it, because I did not know this before that, that it's a red, Right, Just a really dark red, Cause everybody's oh, black, brown, you know, Right. And I looked at it in the glass and I'm like, dude, it's red. He's like you get a red stripe and you get an open bottle.
Speaker 2:So, yay, yay, who read beer? So that was our second free thing on the cruise. Yes, and we're going uphill. We've gone from ponchos to beer, beer, beer.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:When we left there that was from like 430 to 530 at 615. Yes, we had to quickly change, yeah, and get back to the theater for Disney's Believe yes, which was another live show, and that was the best show on the cruise. It was, and I was shocked at how empty the theater was For that show. I was too, you know, because it wasn't frozen and it wasn't Aladdin, yeah, and people were, I guess, stayed late on castaway and took their time and I guess.
Speaker 1:But if you didn't go, you missed the best show on the cruise you missed. Yes, it was amazing, you know, and it's funny because the story was.
Speaker 2:They keep saying you know, this is an original for the Disney cruise show. Right, and it definitely was that because of story. Yes, it was my hot take. That show was an hour and 15 minutes. Okay, basically, stretch it out to like an hour and 40 and release it either live or live, and you can do that pretty easy. You add a couple of princesses or something. Yeah, right, well they had because, because it was such a good tribute to Disney magic and the hundred years of Disney.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, like it's what wish we were led to believe that wish was going to be. Uh huh, right, yeah. So you had the genie. Yes, you had blue. Peter Pan, cinderella, aurora, mary Poppins, mary Poppins, bert Bell, uh huh, mary Poppins and Bert. Yep, you had Merlin. Yes, you had Mickey Mouse and his sorcerers apprentice outfit. Uh huh, right you had what makes? The garden grow twice. Yes, in the show, like it was a hundred years ago, it was a hundred years of Disney's cool stuff and you could call it Disney. Believe In an hour and 15 minutes.
Speaker 1:Right, just keep the name the same.
Speaker 2:And it won't confuse people because you didn't name a movie after your new cruise ship, right, but it was so good, like that one needs to be. I don't care if they do it animated, because it would work. They can do it live action, because it would work. They can do like Hamilton and just record it on the cruise ship and put it out on Disney plus Yep, but that was such a good tribute to a hundred years of Disney at their best.
Speaker 1:Yep, I cried twice Twice.
Speaker 2:I don't know about that, but I did.
Speaker 1:I didn't bawl, but I well, one of them I did. I had a lot of tears. The other one, as I teared up during it, it was fantastic.
Speaker 2:It was great. It was a great show, so that one I really wanted to stay and watch again Now. So we had the Stadford, stadler and Waldorf seats right Right, the little round like opera seats Up in the balcony, second level, right at the right side of the stage. Yes, and it was great because you could see everything.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:No one was in front of you. There was one other couple that came and sat, but there were six seats up there, yeah, and the four of us spread out. So you weren't right on top of anybody else, right? You didn't have cup holders because they were regular chairs, yes, but that's okay. The beer bottled sap fine, and the beer mug sap fine, right on the floor next to me, and when I had to get up and go to the bathroom I was in back and missed one song.
Speaker 1:I didn't think you missed a whole song.
Speaker 2:Oh, by the way, it had Pocahontas in it too. I forgot about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, forgot she was in it.
Speaker 2:yes, and I'm sure there were other ones that we're forgetting right now too.
Speaker 1:Tiana.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, a whole Tiana thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just forgot about that, Tiana.
Speaker 2:yeah, and Mama, whatever her name is, yeah.
Speaker 2:And they used the screens, they used projections, they had effects. They were down on the ground. So what was super cool about our seats? Yes, the stage opens and closes and things you know. Come up from underneath the stage and go back underneath the stage throughout the show, where we were sitting way up high and unobstructed. We could see not only the stage open but, like the actors getting ready for when the stage rose, mm-hmm. And then they would, you know. So the stage would open up and the genie would come and stand in the hole, mm-hmm, and then they'd blow smoke up from the floor and the thing would raise and the floor, the platform, would raise and there's the genie when the smoke clears. Right, well, where we were, we were kind of behind the smoke, yeah, so we could see, like, how it actually worked, which was like super cool.
Speaker 2:Watching it made it even cooler made the show even better Behind the seats watching the show, like you know and where we were, like we could see where actors were hiding in a chimney or Waiting to?
Speaker 1:yeah, slide down the whole thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was so cool to see like how they did all the stuff that you see in the front row. Right. So now I only want to sit in those seats every show.
Speaker 1:Right and before the show.
Speaker 2:Oh, so before the show there was a girl that was playing violin every night in the atrium, mm-hmm and doing anything from you know Maroon five to Disney classics on the violin, and so she came out to play Beauty and the Beast and some other song before the show started. I mean, she was so close I think I could have leaned over and grabbed her dress, yes. So it was really neat and I took some video of her playing and she basically like saw that we were filming her and was like playing to the camera. It felt like, oh yeah, she definitely kept turning towards us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause. I filmed the whole, her whole. Thing. Yeah, it was really cool yeah.
Speaker 2:Being that close, and she was really good Like I enjoyed her all week.
Speaker 1:Yes, Very talented. Yeah, you could tell she was really enjoying what she was doing. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:For sure. Well, what a great job. Go play the violin on a cruise ship for six months or whatever. Exactly that show ended. We had dinner at Apollo. Yes, again, and we had a different server. This time we had Scott. Oh sorry, we had a different server this time. Oh sorry, we had Boris for brunch. By the way, boris was great. Yes, he was from Ukraine.
Speaker 1:Yes, he was, he was very, he was very good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, gave good recommendations. If you went against his recommendation or recommendations cause I did I will go back to him and we'll come back to Scott in a minute. Right For brunch I was like I really want that mushroom ravioli and he goes what appeals to you by that? And I was like he goes to the mushrooms and I was like, yeah, like you guys do good mushroom ravioli, he goes why don't you get the veal and I'll bring you the mushrooms, the ravioli on the side, right, and he brought it out and he goes. He goes this is actually the full portion. It had like six ravioli in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was not very big.
Speaker 2:No, right, and it was perfect the way he did it. So he was. He was making sure that we had a good brunch Right Friday night. We had Scott from South Africa as our server. He also made sure we had a really good dinner. All three of the servers there were outstanding. Yes, and you kind of expect that when it's the signature dining cruise ship, right? I know there's one that's technically probably above it, but which?
Speaker 2:is Remy yeah, you know, look, our meals were already paid for, and those were $200 dinners on top of the meals that were already paid for.
Speaker 1:So they weren't expensive dinners, yeah.
Speaker 2:And all three of those people made sure that none of us were unhappy when we left any of those meals for sure Right. When we had run into our favorite bartenders, Gabby was like, make sure you come and say goodbye. We gotta get pictures, you know. So we left Paulo, we went down to the atrium and there was a show again at like 10, 15 in the atrium Right.
Speaker 1:It was the goodbye show.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or see you later.
Speaker 2:I think see you real soon show or something like that. Or, as the guy said, it was the Disney fantasies version of the kiss. Good night.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so we went down and we stopped at Bombay-Age to see our friends Yep, and we won the cruise. We did win the cruise. We got the magical moment certificate from the staff at Bombay-Age bar, which was so cool, like how neat was that? I know, I didn't even know that was a thing Disney did. I didn't either. What do you get for it? You get a certificate.
Speaker 1:You get a certificate and you get hugs.
Speaker 2:And a lot of fun memories of the three of them?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So if they're listening, thanks, gabby and Howard, and King Kong, yes, thank you guys very much.
Speaker 1:We loved it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you guys made it a great week.
Speaker 1:Yes, appreciate it yes.
Speaker 2:We did the show and they had boy, all the Disney characters.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And princesses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so Mickey, Captain, Mickey, Captain Minnie first mate Goofy or first mate Donald, I can't remember, you know, but Donald and Daisy and their sailor outfits Goofy, pluto, chip and Dale for sure, this time, yes, tiana and Aurora and Cinderella and Belle and probably some that we're forgetting. But everybody came out and they announced them all and then they posted up all over the atrium for pictures yeah, for about 20 minutes, I think is what they allowed for that and then came back and everybody's saying we said goodbye to all of them and saying the Mickey Mouse Club theme as a group of hundreds of people in that atrium, right, and then they shot off Streamer or confetti Mickey shaped gold confetti.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, onto the crowd band. There were people that had it all over their hair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fortunately, we were the level above looking down at it, so we didn't get it in on us.
Speaker 1:That's good, which was good, yeah, and we did get to meet the star of belief.
Speaker 2:We did Ian, I think was his name. And he also played Jafar and Aladdin and I'm sure something in frozen, because that's how that works, right, super nice guys stopped and talked to us for several minutes and we got pictures. And what a super nice guy, very nice guy and just walking through the cruise ship yeah, you know, with friends or something, all of them in street clothes. So I don't know, maybe other cast members and how bad it would be that we didn't recognize any of them.
Speaker 1:Right, well, but they're in this full makeup with wigs and stuff. You wouldn't Right, right.
Speaker 2:Where he was dressed as himself in this believe show, right. So that was super cool, and when it was done, we really had to run up and finish getting packed because we were supposed to have our bags outside by 1030. Yeah, and carrying, although we had been told we had to like one o'clock and got all our bags out Yep, all the stuff that we were checking anyway.
Speaker 1:That they were taking yeah.
Speaker 2:And next morning we woke up. So I do not remember this from the wish, but they were very clear in their instructions that you had to clear the room by 8am on debarkation day.
Speaker 1:And I don't remember that from the wish either.
Speaker 2:No, but it was fine. I mean, at that point we were looking out and you're at Port Canaveral now, and you know what? Now I'm ready to go Right.
Speaker 1:Well, we also had to be on the bus by nine. We had to already get. We had to get down there, get our luggage and get through security Right and cut through customs.
Speaker 2:So we had a very quick breakfast at Royal Court. That was where breakfast was. They had two seatings for that, seven and eight, 10.
Speaker 1:Right, and I'm glad we went to have breakfast because the mad dash when we first got down there to get out was crazy. It was wrapped, it was wrapped around Royal Court.
Speaker 2:It was wrapped around the entire first floor or third floor, and I went no, no, but by the time we ate breakfast and came out at eight 10, it was nobody. We walked right out.
Speaker 1:Right and there was three lines. They go no waiting, here you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we could tell we were back because the guy that checked us off the ship, scanned our cards, was from, as I said to him, dune Den.
Speaker 1:Dune Den yeah.
Speaker 2:Done Eden, which is a place over by Clearwater, but Right.
Speaker 2:And he started laughing when you did it People who are see it's funny because it's done. Eden. I have heard like we have a friend, Jean, who's lived here for 25 years, who told me one day that he was looking at a house in Dune Den. Most of the locals make fun of everybody by calling it Dune Den, but it's done Eden, Home of the Blue Jays for spring training and their Florida State League affiliate. Right, and yeah, we went off. We got on the bus a little bit before nine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a little bit before nine. Going through customs was simple.
Speaker 2:I mean that was yeah, and it was last time too, yeah, but we got on the bus a little bit before nine, pulled out a little bit before 930, basically as soon as it filled up Right, we took off and Luckily it went to Saratoga first. Went to Saratoga first. So, yay, so we were able to get all of our bags and drop them with Bell services and went and got in our car which was waiting at Saratoga for the whole week Yep, and went to Epcot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Now what did you tell the lady at Bell services?
Speaker 2:She asked she's like, did you enjoy your cruise? And I was like, is it weird that I'm like disappointed to be at Saratoga?
Speaker 1:We both felt that way, though, yeah.
Speaker 2:We're like we're left the ship Our favorite resort at Disney, and it was like uh.
Speaker 1:I know, and our room wasn't ready Cause it was what before 11 o'clock.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was not any later than 11. Right, it was nice to have some room, some space, you know, as opposed to a 240, 280 square foot room.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I don't remember how big the ones at Saratoga are, but they're a lot bigger than 280. Yes, four feet, yes, so that was nice. Plus, we'd left a lot of bags. You know, didn't have everything unpacked and all that, right, right. And we went to Epcot, I don't know, till about five o'clock probably, and hung out with our friends Jason and Nick and Dave from the Disney Crush podcast and Kurt from Geekin on WDW, and we let's see who else was there Judy and Ken were there, margita Deirdre we went, we didn't ride anything. No.
Speaker 2:We went and saw the Pixar shorts. We went up to the DVC lounge for a little bit.
Speaker 1:Which was nice.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that was great.
Speaker 1:Oh, Michelle was with us up at the DVC lounge oh yeah, michelle was, I forgot right.
Speaker 2:And after that we all just kind of left and went our separate ways. For the night we were lucky enough to be invited to the Disney Crush VIP suite and Animal Kingdom for dinner yes, we were, that was cool. Mm-hmm Sunday. So we only had Saratoga for Saturday. Sunday, we ended up spending the night at the residence in Flamingo Crossing Mm-hmm, and that was as it always is. But we did go to Animal Kingdom on Sunday morning for a little while, mm-hmm. Well into the afternoon. Yeah, the biggest thing we did on Sunday. Now, we hung out with Jason and John, our friend John, and David Veronica, and that was really it. I mean, we ran into people throughout, but that was pretty much who we were hanging around with and we did do this far. But we had lunch at Yakineti and that was the first time we've been to Yakineti.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And maybe one day we'll do a more in-depth review. Okay, but just quick, I mean it was fine. Yeah, right, I think the conversation that I had with my friend John was just remember it's owned by the same company that does rainforest and T-Rex, right, right, right. And they're fine, you know they're fine, they're solid Right. It wasn't Nine Dragons and it wasn't Morimoto for Asian food Right and it wasn't you know well Tokyo dining that we've been to, but it was fine, it was, you know.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll talk more about it one day. Right, it was solid. We did hop over to Magic Kingdom and we did Haunted Mansion and Pirates and it was getting really cold. It was getting very cold and late and we had had a really long week. Mm-hmm, and about eight o'clock we all said we're out and everybody headed to their hotels and that was it for me. You stayed a little bit on Monday, but I was done at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I went home, yes, the next morning, first thing.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:That was our cruise and our before and after.
Speaker 1:Yes, it was a long trip. It was a very long trip.
Speaker 2:The longest trip we've had in a long long time? Yes, and it was great.
Speaker 1:It really was.
Speaker 2:So I'm sure that other things happened that we've totally forgotten about already and we'll remember later but Probably. We'll talk about it on Facebook or something. There we go. That's gonna do it for this week, because we're in an hour and a half. We went long, like we thought we would.
Speaker 1:We did, which is why we broke it up in two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh God, yeah, it'd be a four-hour show otherwise, right, well, it'd be two and a half. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So thank you again, everyone for supporting the show, for listening to us, like we always say, check us out on Instagram mickeyfile underscore podcast. Facebook. You can like or follow or both, I think our page and join our Facebook group. The mickeyfile improvement district Podcast is available everywhere. You find podcasts, as you probably already know, and please remember to like, subscribe, follow and tell someone you know about the mickeyfile podcast. You wanna catch us on email mickeyfilepodcastatgmailcom. Goodbye, good night everybody.
Speaker 1:Thank you, ino.