207. Rediscovering the Disney Magic

Think of a cruise that gives more than sunsets and selfies. We set out from San Juan on Disney Magic after a 15-year gap, fresh off real-life health hurdles, and built a trip around slow joy: a food-forward Puerto Rico layover, a rum masterclass at the Bacardí Founders Experience, and a calm-first plan onboard with concierge comforts, spa therapy, and long, quiet reads on the veranda.

San Juan set the tone. The Flavors of San Juan tour steered us to small, soulful hits—guava-butter croissants, passion fruit paletas, ceviche, alcapurrias, and DIY mofongo—before a standout dinner at La Central reset our steakhouse expectations. At Bacardí, we tasted the spectrum from raw, punchy spirit to oak-softened elegance in their rackhouse, then bottled and waxed our own distillery-only reserve. Pro tip: skip the ferry and rideshare straight to the pavilion for smoother timing.

Onboard, we leaned into what felt good. Animator’s Palette still crescendos to Sorcerer Mickey, while Rapunzel’s Royal Table brings ruffian comedy and a lantern-lit second act. Palo remains the surest bet—go a la carte at dinner for gnocchi and soufflé bliss, and protect brunch appetite for savory stars. Soul Cat Lounge became our hangout, with Soul Duo’s live sets turning evenings into an easy groove. Not everything sparkled: bar service across ship and islands felt green and slow at times. Kind people, longer waits—worth noting if timing matters to you.

Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point impressed. The landscaping has flourished, shade is thoughtful, and Serenity Bay’s sand feels like powdered sugar underfoot. The water clarity blew us away, and the Goombay Cultural Center’s Junkanoo celebration added authentic Bahamian culture you don’t get at Castaway Cay. Speaking of Castaway, our short day still delivered familiar joy and a peek at upgrades coming to Serenity Bay. We wrapped in Galveston with decompression time and an unexpected Wicked screening, then headed home grateful for an itinerary that prioritized restoration.

If you love Disney Cruise Line, San Juan food, rum tasting, Lookout Key insights, and real-world tips for sailing concierge, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with a Disney-loving friend, and drop a review with your pick: Lookout Key or Castaway Cay—and why?

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Adventures & Mousecapades is a passion project from Alicea & Nathan Novak - two Seattleites addicted to The Mouse. We are not affiliated with Disney, nor are we travel agents. Opinions are our own.

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Transcript

Welcome Back To Disney Magic

Nathan 0:03

Please stand clear of the doors. For favor, mantengan seal the buttons.

Alicea 0:16

Please stand clear of the doors. Hello everyone, I'm Alicia.

Nathan 0:25

And I'm Nathan.

Alicea 0:26

Welcome to episode 207 of Adventures and Mouse Capades. It has been 15 years since the last time that we were on board the Disney Magic. Back then, she was doing the seven-night Eastern Western Caribbean itineraries, and our daughter, who can now drink with us in public in certain jurisdictions, was only five years old. The third restaurant was still Parrot Key. The aqua duct didn't even exist, and the so-called duck tail on the back of the ship also didn't exist.

Nathan 0:59

So we went looking for an opportunity to rediscover the magic and not in the match or mate game show kind of way. What we found was a repositioning sailing from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Galveston, Texas, neither of which we had been to before, with a stop at Disney's newest private destination of Lookout Key, which we also had never been to before. Pile on a significant medical diagnosis and open heart surgery for Alicia over the summer. And what resulted was a relaxation and celebration vacation that we both absolutely desperately needed. Yes. So let's do a trip report, shall we?

Alicea 1:41

All right, let's dive in.

Nathan 1:43

Yeah. And just a point of order, you may or may not hear a little bit of extra noise from uh Alicia's microphone as we record while she talks. Um, welcome to Seattle in November, December. Welcome to a significant atmospheric river. This is a category five atmospheric river. It's raining. And I know that may sound weird because it's Seattle. It does that all the time, but it's actually legitimately raining here. Yeah. Not just like drizzle. It's actually raining.

Alicea 2:14

It rains here, but it doesn't rain here, but it does rain here. Yeah. That totally makes sense. But it doesn't rain here. Unless you unless you live here and know exactly yes, exactly. That's how it is.

Nathan 2:26

Exactly. Think think London. Think Misty. It's raining. You can walk through a normal Seattle rainstorm and not get wet. That is why we don't use umbrellas. Because you don't need them. You need right now, though.

Health, Rain, And Why Relaxation Mattered

Alicea 2:42

You do absolutely right now. Yes. Yes. All right. Let's dive into our actual trip.

Nathan 2:49

Oh, wait. You actually want to do like a podcast on the podcast of stuff?

Alicea 2:54

Talking about warmer weather.

Nathan 2:56

Yeah, let's do that. All right. So starting off, we had some travel drama. Well, we had potential travel drama that actually turned out to be very smooth. Yeah. But um we left in early November when uh the government was starting to cancel flights down. It was it was great. It was just so fantastic. So we spent days on end going, like, are our flights going to get canceled? Because, dear reader, neither Alicia nor I do red-eye flights. Yep. They're just not our thing. I made the mistake of doing one last year. Uh, it was a mistake. I will not do that.

Alicea 3:41

I get migraines from them, and then I can't do anything for the next couple of days. So yeah.

Travel Uncertainty And Getting To San Juan

Nathan 3:48

So to get from Seattle to Puerto Rico, um uh it it's it's a long way to go. It's about 10 plus hours in the air, if my math is mathing-ish. Uh so we decided to do an overnight in Atlanta, which meant uh, you know, we should be fine and until the government shuts down and then the they they start making uh airlines cancel flights. And so we're like, oh, oh boy, do yeah, are we hosed? Uh no, we were not. So thankfully we were good to go. So we did uh uh have an overnight in Atlanta, which was nice. We took a a mid-late morning flight out of Seattle. We didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn, it was fantastic. We took the little plane train thingy d in Atlanta uh over well, like one stop away to a hotel.

Alicea 4:37

And yeah. And it was uh 32 degrees there.

Nathan 4:40

Yeah. What's up with that? It was freezing in Atlanta. Literally. And then we uh uh took a another mid-morning flight uh from Atlanta down to San Juan, Puerto Rico. And um, yes, I I did look at the schedule and chose this flight for a reason because it was on a 767 wide body and we had lie flat seats, even though this was a shorter flight, only about four hours or so. It was nice to have some some room up front, as it were. Uh more room than normal.

Alicea 5:13

Yeah, did you lie flat? I did not.

Carib Hilton Stay And First Impressions

Nathan 5:15

I tried it and then I said no. Um because I didn't I didn't want to do that. I was reading at the time, so yeah. Um yeah, uh San Juan was hot, uh but quite really nice. Uh we stayed at the Carib Hilton, which is kind of on the uh directionally, that would be the eastern end of the island that old town San Juan is on.

Alicea 5:43

Yeah.

Nathan 5:44

And it was just passing, yeah.

Alicea 5:47

A hotel. And it is also the hotel, I don't know if it's the only one, but is the hotel that Disney uses um when people purchase travel packages for their cruises from correct.

Nathan 6:00

And we'd heard some good things about it. It wasn't a bad hotel. No. Um would we stay there again?

Alicea 6:09

No, probably not. No, it's not near anything at all.

Nathan 6:12

Yeah. No. And I I think there are I think there are better if you're not gonna leave the hotel and you don't really care um about being near things, it's fine. But I also think you could find better hotels to stay at.

Alicea 6:27

Yeah, and we were in San Juan for a day or two. Two and a half days, two and a half days, and um we were doing things.

Nathan 6:35

So it was fine. It was it was like a a a seven or ten minute Uber ride to get to Old Town, uh, which we did a couple times.

Alicea 6:45

Yeah, and supposedly this hotel is the birthplace of the Pini Calada.

Nathan 6:50

Yeah, them and probably 45 other places.

Alicea 6:53

There's only like I think there's only like three or two, or there's two or three that list themselves as the birthplace of the um pina colada. And there's there's different types, so they're all technically correct because there's a non-frozen one and there's a frozen one, and then I think there's one other kind.

Nathan 7:12

So this was the frozen one. This was the frozen one. The slushy.

Alicea 7:15

Yeah.

Nathan 7:17

How did you find your rum slushy?

Alicea 7:20

Rum malicious. Nice, excellent. I love rum.

Nathan 7:24

There you go.

Alicea 7:25

And it was very good. Anything else on the hotel? I did a rum flight, and it was good.

Nathan 7:30

You did?

Alicea 7:31

Yeah, you shared. Yes, I did. Shared.

Nathan 7:33

Yeah.

Alicea 7:34

You were ready to go to bed, and I'm like, I want a rum flight.

Nathan 7:36

So I was like, oh, okay, this is this is what we're doing tonight. Yeah.

Alicea 7:41

Nothing else really in the hotel.

Flavors Of San Juan Food Tour Highlights

Nathan 7:44

Um We never got in the pool. There they had a lot of pools. It looked like a really nice facility. They had a really nice beach uh to swim in. It looked great. We just this whole trip was just relaxing and chillaxing, and a lot of reading and a lot of just sitting on our butts and reading and enjoying being away from the our regular life. Yep. And we started that off here for sure.

Alicea 8:14

Yes. Yeah, yeah. We did, I did book us a food tour, though. Yes. I booked us two things for while we were in San Juan. The first of which was the Flavors of San Juan food tour, which I highly recommend. This was really nice. I very much enjoyed it.

Nathan 8:29

Yeah. Now, I wanted to go visit the fort because that is definitely something that pretty much everybody in San Juan goes to see when you're visiting. Um, yeah, remember that whole government shutdown thing we were talking about? Yeah, guess what? Uh uh, guess what's a national park? Uh it it's it's the fort. So it was closed. So no. No. Um we drove by it. It looked really cool, quite impressive, actually. It's like quite imposing. Um, but uh also closed. So anyway, back to the food tour. This had five stops, started over in old San Juan. It was, I don't know, what, uh uh two and a half-ish hours, maybe three, somewhere in that neighborhood.

Alicea 9:15

Yeah, two and a half to three. Yeah.

Nathan 9:16

Yeah.

Alicea 9:17

And she said it was around two miles.

Nathan 9:19

No way.

Alicea 9:20

I did not think it was no shot.

Nathan 9:23

No. I I could now it you did need to walk around. Yeah. It was probably a total distance of I don't know, maybe eight or ten blocks total.

Alicea 9:37

Like it was not a huge amount of walking.

Nathan 9:40

No. I I could see it maybe being a mile total.

Alicea 9:44

Yeah.

Nathan 9:45

Maybe. Maybe. Over the course of three hours with five stops.

Alicea 9:49

Yeah, that's fine. Yeah.

Nathan 9:50

Yeah. The first stop was a little coffee shop called Quattro Sombras. This is uh uh translates as four shades because this is a very special Puerto Rican coffee where they actually planted trees around their uh the the coffee trees. They planted other trees to give shade to the coffee plants. So four shades, quattro sombras, ta-da.

Alicea 10:17

And neither of us drank coffee.

Nathan 10:19

No. So we had tea, which wasn't too bad.

Alicea 10:22

It was like um it was a hibiscus tea, and it was very good.

Nathan 10:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh we also had a uh a fresh uh house-made uh croissant with uh ham and cheese and guava butter, and it was good. That was fantastic. That was delightful. Yes, that was excellent. Next up, we had kind of a history stop um on kind of part of the old wall uh around the city, and our guide went and got everybody a passion fruit popsicle from Senor Paletta, and that was an interesting taste. I like passion fruit. I don't know that I've historically had an opinion.

Bacardí Founders Tour: Rum And History

Alicea 11:09

And it does have a very distinct flavor for sure. Yeah, yeah. It was kind of neat to just stand there and look out over everything too, because you're on the wall. Um, you're up a little higher and you can see out over um the other parts of the island. And yeah, it's neat.

Nathan 11:25

Yeah. Now, when we say wall, like you're up on this wall, uh it really kind of seems more like uh a 30-foot tall cliff. Yeah. Um and and you you really like the wall is I she said, but it was like 60 feet deep or something, or wide, like around the point where we were, and they've filled in behind the wall. So it's really, it really is just a cliff. Yeah. Um uh but uh yeah, it was it was cool. And she gave a bunch of history about the area and and all sorts of fun stuff.

Alicea 12:00

Our third stop was Cafe El Punto. I don't know if I said that right. Sure, close enough. Okay. And oh gosh, I'm gonna mess both of these up. We had a ceviche spoon. Actually, I know how to say ceviche, even though it's not spelled correctly in our notes. That's okay.

Nathan 12:20

Hey, you got it. Yes.

Alicea 12:23

Uh ceviche spoon and uh beef alcapuria.

Nathan 12:28

Sure.

Alicea 12:29

Uh-huh.

Nathan 12:30

I would have called that an empanada, but from what we got from the guy. Yeah, it's a that was really good. It was really good.

Alicea 12:39

Both I thought both of them were very good. I think the ceviche spoon was grouper, maybe.

Nathan 12:43

Yeah, uh something like that.

Alicea 12:45

I know you're not a fan of ceviche.

Nathan 12:47

Um I've tried it a f a couple times. It is one of those things that I am up to try. It is not something I would ever particularly go out of my way to order.

Alicea 13:00

It's a very fresh taste.

Nathan 13:03

Yeah.

Alicea 13:04

Crunchy, fresh, not super fishy.

Nathan 13:06

Yours was crunchy?

Alicea 13:08

Yeah, because of the onions.

Nathan 13:10

Oh, yeah. The fish wasn't crunchy. I was like, I I hope your fish wasn't crunchy. I don't know how you burn with ceviche, but I mean, I guess technically you could, but whatever. Anyhow, it was it was good. And I'll say, like, this place and the next couple places that we stopped at are all like these interesting settings. It's like, yes, it's a restaurant, but it's like in the middle of a building that you have to like walk through some like front shops to down this like weird hallway, and then there's a restaurant in the middle of the building courtyard or something like that. Like it would be very difficult for you to find these places on your own without somebody who actually knew where they were. Yeah.

Alicea 13:53

Yeah. Our fourth stop was Bari, and we got to make kind of our own food here.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

Yeah, it was cool.

Alicea 14:01

We got to make uh mufongo, which is plantains with butter, garlic, olive oil, and a chicken stock, basically, or chicken broth.

Nathan 14:11

Yeah.

Alicea 14:11

And you mash it all together.

Nathan 14:13

Yeah. You you mash up the plantain, the butter, and the garlic and the olive oil, and kind of make it into a mashed potato-y paste kind of thing. And then they bring around the the chicken and broth and dump it in and keep mashing. Yeah. Keep yeah, do your thing and eat it.

Alicea 14:28

I really liked this.

Nathan 14:30

Yeah. The pina the pina colada wasn't half bad either.

Alicea 14:33

Yes. So we had mufongo, we had creole chicken with broth, um, rice and beans, red beans. Was it red beans? Black beans. I don't remember. It was beans. Any pina colada. And all of this was absolutely delicious. Like I would go here to eat, definitely.

Nathan 14:51

If if you could find it, yes.

Alicea 14:52

If I could find it, yeah.

Nathan 14:55

And our last stop was this kind of local, I don't know what you steakhouse. Steakhouse, yeah, called uh vodka brava. And we just had a dessert there, which was a cheese flan.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

And that was really good.

Alicea 15:11

That was really good. Like there's multiple people who are like, um, I will just order one myself right now. Thank you.

Nathan 15:17

Right. Because we only got like a a bite-sized uh serving, and uh well, maybe a two-bite-sized serving. It it was not big enough. And yeah, so that was the end of our tour, and everybody kind of like dispersed from there. And um several people for sure said, Nope, we're um we're going to order a plate of this.

Alicea 15:38

It was good. I I enjoyed that tour, and I'm debating whether or not we do that again with the kids.

Nathan 15:46

I don't know that we're gonna have enough time. So we are doing a cruise on the brand new Disney Destiny that as we record this just launched a week ago is the main voyage. Um week and a half. And we do have a port of call on that sailing that is in San Juan, but I don't think we're gonna be there long enough to really do a food tour, especially because of the other stop that you really want to go to, which is Alicia, where we went the next afternoon.

Alicea 16:22

Yes.

Nathan 16:23

You wanna tell about your your next discovery of what to do in San Juan?

A Standout Dinner At La Central

Alicea 16:28

Oh sure. So I didn't know this because I just didn't. Um Bacardi, their headquarters is in San Juan.

Nathan 16:38

Yes.

Alicea 16:38

And um Bacardi is rum. And I like rum. All these things are true. Yes. So we did a tour and we did the founder's experience tour because why not?

Nathan 16:52

Right. One in Rome, let's go.

Alicea 16:55

Exactly. So, as a part of this package, there is a ferry across the bay from old San Juan across the bay, and then you catch a bus and it brings you over to their facility. And it's specifically a Bacardi bus. So they don't check. I mean, technically you could just get off of the ferry and get onto the bus and whatever.

Nathan 17:15

Yeah, that was interesting. Yeah. Uh I don't think the driver spoke any English.

Alicea 17:20

No, that's okay.

Nathan 17:21

Yeah, that's fine. Um, this was a fantastic experience.

Alicea 17:26

I loved this. I really did.

Nathan 17:28

Yeah.

Alicea 17:29

Um, I'm kind of bummed that that Sterling is not gonna be of age for us to do this when we're there. Uh we definitely can't do the founders experience tour because that is 21 and over. Yes. Um and 21 or 18? Oh, it's 18. Sorry, it's 18 and over. He's not quite there yet.

Nathan 17:48

He's not there yet.

Alicea 17:49

No. And um I guess we can talk about the tour, huh?

Boarding In San Juan And Port Notes

Nathan 17:55

Yeah, let's do that. Well, first off, you you get to their facility, and I will say, yes, you can take the ferry across the bay. I don't know, even if we were staying in town and did this again, I might just take an Uber there. Yeah. Like the ferry did not save you any time. It's a really easy drive around, and an Uber can get you right to the front door of where all of the tours and everything happened. So I yeah.

Alicea 18:31

Now I know. I mean, it it was included in the price of the tour.

Nathan 18:37

That's true. That's true.

Alicea 18:39

I think.

Nathan 18:40

You're uh Yes.

Alicea 18:42

Okay.

Nathan 18:43

Yeah, it was. It was.

Alicea 18:44

And there's different tours available as well. We did the the top-notch one.

Nathan 18:49

Because bougie.

Alicea 18:50

Because uh because of what it had in there, and we'll talk about that as we go down.

Nathan 18:54

So yes. Well, the first thing it had in there was a complimentary drink when you check in. Yes. And I had a rum-based old-fashioned, and it was fantastic.

Alicea 19:05

I had some sort of mojito, I think, but it was like a fancy mojito.

Nathan 19:10

Yeah. All these things are good. And you got a a uh uh a safety vest for the day.

Alicea 19:16

Yes. As part of the founder's experience, they give you I don't know, it was it wasn't a vest. It was like straps. Yeah. Was some sort of weird bright orange and yellow contraption. I was like, what is even is this thing?

Nathan 19:30

It is high viz safety gear. Mm-hmm. You were it was your personal protective equipment. Didn't you feel safer having that on?

Alicea 19:40

Yes. Yeah, I did. Okay, so I had I had something called a sunset spice. And what it has Bacardi Superior, guava, cucumber, honey, lime, and ginger beer. It's a fancy mule. It was delicious.

Nathan 19:57

And I just had the the Ocho old-fashioned. Which is uh uh Bacardi Reserva Ocho with honey and angostura bitters. And yep, I wish I had two of those.

Alicea 20:11

And this and it's nice, there's like this little gazebo, not little, it's like a giant gazebo. Um I don't even know that I'd call it a gazebo.

Nathan 20:20

A concrete poured structure, large, large structure for check-in, sitting down.

Alicea 20:26

There's probably like 20 tables underneath there to sit around at and some nice sofas and whatnot.

Nathan 20:33

Which was nice because it was raining.

Alicea 20:34

Yes, it was raining really hard. Yeah.

Concierge Perks, Spa Bliss, And Stateroom

Nathan 20:36

Um and and we got to, yeah, and there's a tour you get in this uh fancy uh ginormous golf cart kind of thing. And you they take you all around the uh facility. Uh 85% of Bacardi's uh uh worldwide production comes from uh this spot in Puerto Rico. Now, Bacardi did not start in Puerto Rico, they started in Cuba. Um, there were some things that happened in Cuba, uh, and they moved. Yeah. So um they get most of their molasses from Central America if memory serves. I wasn't taking strong notes, y'all. So forgive me. I'll have to go on the tour again. Oh no. Um, but uh we did uh uh really get to see how they process all of that molasses and then barrel it. They uh it was a later tour in the day, and they had kind of finished their production run for the day. So there wasn't it was actually kind of nice because I think that tour wasn't getting in everybody's way. Um they run about, I forget the exact number, it was somewhere around 185 barrels, plus or minus a few, uh, that she said that they they do a day. And these are 53 gallon American white oak barrels. Most of them have been like bourbon barrels from you know big labels in the US that they they reuse and then they age their uh um their their product there on site, um, which we got to go into one of their rack houses.

Alicea 22:13

We have to take we had to take off all of our electronics. Yes. You don't want you don't want any sparks happening or anything like that. Not in that location.

Nathan 22:20

It was um it smelled it smelled alcoholic.

Alicea 22:25

Very it smelled honestly, it smelled really good because it smelled alcoholic and molassesy and uh uh and we got to sample like a week old that really hadn't been aged much.

Nathan 22:40

That was that was harsh. Yeah, it was rough. Uh-huh. That was rough. Literally, you could if you didn't want to finish it, because she's like, you you probably don't want to finish all this. Like it literally it not literally, obviously, but it punches you in the mouth. Yeah. And and if you still have some left in your glass, literally, if you just throw it out, like flick your glass to to you know, fling the rest of that liquid out, it pretty much all evaporates before it hits the floor.

Alicea 23:08

Yeah, it was it was it was a thing.

Nathan 23:11

Yeah, quite quite impressive. And then we got to sample there in the in this the rack house, an eight-year-old, eight, eight or nine-year-old barrel.

Alicea 23:21

And and these are like right out of the barrel, like the barrels have taps on them, and that was that was kind of cool. Or not all of them do, they had a setup, so it was right.

Nathan 23:29

They had a setup with us with several barrels for this reason, and they just put taps in the barrel and put it on its side, and it's good. Oh my gosh. It was good.

Alicea 23:39

And then we got to do the tasting.

Nathan 23:43

Yeah, yeah. And Alicia and I were sitting at the end of the table with all of these like really, really old Bacardi bottles behind us on these shelves. Like there's bottles. Now, I can't we joked around with our tour guide, like, cannot guarantee that the contents of the bottles are either A, any good anymore or B original. Yes. But some of these bottles were like 120, 130 years old. Uh it's like some of them when were from the original bottling plant in uh Santiago de Cuba. Uh is really cool. There's a so much history. She said they have to inventory that shelf every time. Like I think they do it twice a day, just to make sure nobody's walked off of the bottle. Yeah. But we got to sample three or four different rums there. And then I think she made a couple different drinks for us. Yep. Uh, we were all having good times, and then because they're excellent marketing people, guess what happens after you drink all of the rum? You go to the gift shop. Yep. Uh, so we we may have we we may have purchased a bottle of rum.

Alicea 25:00

So I will note that I did look online to see what we could get in the States, what we could get where we are.

Nathan 25:08

I'm like, Because there were a few things that were like, oh, we should get this. And then Alicia's like, we can get that at total wine.

Lounges, Elevators, And Service Quirks

Alicea 25:14

So no. Yeah, I looked it up and and like the price is exactly the same, and we wouldn't have to worry about getting it onto the ship.

Nathan 25:23

Yeah.

Alicea 25:24

Onto an airplane.

Nathan 25:24

Yeah. Back home.

Alicea 25:26

So yeah.

Nathan 25:26

But we did do a bottle where we actually made our own bottle. We got it engraved with our name, and we got to write out the label. We got to f wash it and fill it and dip the the neck or cork it, dip the neck in wax, imprint it, uh, put all the labels on and everything. It was really kind of cool.

Alicea 25:51

And this is their special reserve that you can only get there at that distillery.

Nathan 25:57

Yep. Yep. So uh we will we will have to be opening that bottle for something special.

Alicea 26:03

Yes.

Nathan 26:03

TBD on what that is.

Alicea 26:06

But and they did tell us that there's a birthday or an anniversary or something happening next year. Yes. And so they're changing the labels and everything.

Nathan 26:18

It'll look different. So we'll have to go back. That's maybe.

Alicea 26:22

Yeah.

Nathan 26:22

What do you mean maybe? No, yeah. You are very clear that we're going back. So that is that is one thing that is absolutely on our list of things to do when we're in San Juan. I think we're getting a we're hiring a driver or something like that. We'll we're figuring that out. But we want to hit the old town, uh, you know, drive around a little bit, see the forts uh that we missed this time, and and the Picardy distillery because priorities.

Alicea 26:47

Yes. Yeah. That evening we went to a restaurant called La Central. Oh. And this was a very good restaurant. So good. It's uh La Central by Mario Pagan or Pagan. I don't know.

Nathan 27:05

Pagan?

Alicea 27:06

Pagan.

Palo First Night And Animator’s Palette

Nathan 27:08

It was it it's it is a fantastic, fantastic Puerto Rican steakhouse with all of the flair of Puerto Rico. Like the food was incredible, the service was stunning, the drinks were amazing, like everything was just so well done.

Alicea 27:28

And you got a was it the tobacco infused old fashioned, basically? Is that what you yeah. You were just gonna get a regular one and the bartender's like, hmm.

Nathan 27:38

You sure about that? No. Yeah. It was um ruined tobacco, and it was an añejo rum with a tobacco infused syrup and bitters, and then it was smoked. And it it my dad smoked a pipe when I was growing up. He doesn't anymore. And oh, it just the flavors of it, the smell of the tobacco, the fresh tobacco smoke, just yep, took me back. It was that was amazing. I could totally go for one of those right now. All right, moving on. Uh the food was fantastic.

Alicea 28:14

This meal is delicious. We'll probably visit here again, too, because both of our kiddos are carnivores and we greatly appreciate this restaurant.

Nathan 28:21

Yeah, but we we have to figure out how much time we have in port. We may not have enough time to do all of these things. That's true. Uh, your eyes are bigger than your stomach in terms of timing. Lunch. We'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

Yeah.

Nathan 28:32

We'll figure it out. So, Alicia, I think I know the answer to this question because of what what you keep talking about and things that you keep putting on our list, but would you spend time in San Juan again?

Alicea 28:44

Yes, I would. Like, I think there's other parts that I'd like to see.

Nathan 28:49

Yeah.

Alicea 28:49

San Juan is a very small portion of this island, and just talking with uh the lady who is giving us the tour for the the flavors of San Juan, um, seems like there's a couple other spots in Puerto Rico that I would like to see.

Nathan 29:02

Yeah, I I think it would be a a fantastic spot. Um, you know, Disney does Southern Caribbean sailings out of here, other cruise lines originate out of San Juan as well. Lots of options. I could totally see us uh doing more than just another port of call in and Puerto Rico. So yeah. I'm with you. I'm with you. We'll do we'll we'll we'll do that.

Alicea 29:25

Yeah.

Nathan 29:26

I guess we should actually talk about the Disney part of the trip, huh?

Rapunzel’s Royal Table Shows And Food

Alicea 29:29

Yep.

Nathan 29:31

I'm there's a lot to talk about. It had been 15 years.

Alicea 29:34

Yep. Okay.

Nathan 29:35

All right. Again, this was a six-night cruise from San Juan to Galveston. It hit Lookout, Castaway, and it had three sea days. It was absolutely glorious. It was the perfect itinerary for us. Uh, embarkation was in San Juan, and just a note that Disney sails out of the San Juan Cruise Port Terminal, which is not the uh not there in Old Town San Juan. Uh it's in kind of the commercial port area. I think Royal and Carnival sail.

Alicea 30:08

I saw yeah, those were the two ships that were there while we were there.

Nathan 30:11

Yeah. Um they actually originate cruises out of San Juan from that other port. And when Disney hits San Juan as a port of call, the ship pulls into that terminal area over by Old Town. Uh, but when they're doing embarkation and disembarkation, that's from the commercial port. So uh they're not super far. San Juan's not that big of a town. Like you can Uber everywhere fairly inexpensively. So uh just keep that in mind. Uh I would say I wrote down here, uh, I would say it's definitely not as polished as Port Canaveral or Fort Lauderdale, but it wasn't a dedicated. Right, exactly. It wasn't horrible though. Uh it definitely helped be in concierge, which we were. One thing that we did know, so we got there about 11:15. Uh, there were people when we got there who were already there, which is fine. I expected some you know early bird rope droppers to to show up, but there were people in the 1245 p.m. port arrival time queue. Yep. Folks, folks, folks, come on.

Alicea 31:18

Like Disney does say do not show up early. Yeah. Yeah.

Nathan 31:23

I don't, I I don't I don't get it. I don't get it.

Alicea 31:26

I understand trying wanting to beat the rush, but that seemed a little excessive, and some of the small children did not seem to appreciate it.

Sea Day Routines And Breakfast Wins

Nathan 31:33

No, no. Uh also one note about the hit that port terminal there. Uh, at least for right now, you are embarking and disembarking uh onto a Disney ship on the uh deck one forward gangway, just as if this was a port of call. Uh, I saw a bunch of people online confused and wondering why. And then we saw the port building and more specifically the uh the big movable gangway that would be what you use to uh get on the ship on deck three or four or whatever it is. Uh that thing is rusted out and is like a complete danger to anybody who even looks at it. So uh it's not usable. Now, there were signs all over the facility that they're doing some major refurbishment. Uh, it's supposed to be completed in 2026. Uh, I am checking my watch. Um, they have a lot of work to do because I don't think they've even started on that gangway, and that was a huge, huge piece of uh uh infrastructure that they need to replace.

Alicea 32:31

So 2026 is 365 days long.

Nathan 32:35

Yeah, I I don't I don't think they could replace that whole thing in a year. I'm just saying I would be surprised if this is finished in 2026. It was really weird having your family name announced uh into the elevator lobby there on the first floor. It's just like, yeah, yay, yay. Yeah, yeah. Okay, this is awkward, but you know, what have's.

Alicea 32:58

They also did have a little concierge area roped off in the um in the port area. Yes, yes. So there's there's just chairs and they had some munchies and some drinks there. Yeah.

Nathan 33:10

Uh we went to the concierge lunch and Lumiere's with visits from Shanti from the spa. Hi, Shanti, if you're listening to this, uh, and Alice from the uh concierge lounge. She's the concierge manager. Hi, Alice, if you're listening to this. Uh Shanti did not have to work too hard. Uh, we were ready to give her our money and signed up for reservations. I enjoyed two of the best massages I've ever had uh on this cruise from Miss Shanti. Uh she was if you ever come across Shanti, I think she's from South Africa, just say yes, just go with the flow. I did 100-minute massages like the first day or so, and then like the last day. And uh it, you know, I didn't know what I wanted, whether a hot stone massage or a Swedish massage or this or that. She's like, Well, I can just do a blend of all of them. I'm like, Yes, please. Yeah, and it was so nice.

Alicea 34:13

And I got a facial and it was glorious. Yes, yes. Because I can't do massages.

Nathan 34:20

I am too toxic. You are too toxic. Yes, all of the badness comes out of your muscles, and and you get another, you get a migraine. You're toxic. 100%. I I can't. I have to now this is gonna get copyright flagged.

Palo Dinner Favorites And Quick Bites

Alicea 34:38

No, it won't. That was a parody.

Nathan 34:41

Oh, got it. Um let's talk about our room. Alicia, we were in 8528, which is what?

Alicea 34:50

It's the concierge family veranda room. It's basically a standard room with upgraded finishes, plus, of course, access to the concierge lounge and services and perks. We were on the starboard side uh forward, kind of between the forward and the mid-elevators, next to the Roy O. Disney suite. Yes.

Nathan 35:11

And uh we wanted to make friends there and it didn't really work out.

Alicea 35:15

That's okay.

Nathan 35:16

I got to look at their deck. It's very nice.

Alicea 35:18

I got a card.

Nathan 35:20

Oh, that's true.

Alicea 35:21

Yeah, yeah. Ganesh was our stateroom host. He's been with DCL for 14 years. All of those on the magic. He is very happy to be on the magic. He wants to stay on the magic. He's he very much likes what he's doing.

Nathan 35:37

And he was incredible. Yes, yes, probably one of, if not the best stateroom hosts we've ever had on Disney. And this is our 17th-ish cruise, plus or minus. I mean, you have plus two, but I don't remember if it was my 16th or 17th, or I don't know. I just work here. He was so good.

Alicea 36:00

Uh he was very personable, yeah. Um, great with with conversation, just talking with us about stuff. Um, sometimes we get some very, very shy hosts.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Yeah.

Alicea 36:10

Um, and yeah, he was up to chat chatting with us. It was great and joking around with us too.

Soul Cat Lounge And Live Music Finds

Nathan 36:15

Yeah. Yes. He's a Manchester City fan, so you know, it is what it is. Uh a lot of people wonder how much time you'll spend on a veranda and is a veranda room worth it. And it is a personal thing. I think it really depends on why you're cruising, who you're cruising with. Are you the type of people who are gonna go, go, go and try to experience everything across a ship? Or are you there to relax? We knew we were there to relax. And I spent I spent so much time on the veranda. I spent a lot of time.

Alicea 36:56

I spent um a bunch of time outside of our room. I was in the concierge lounge a lot because the chairs are more comfortable. Um, I was also out on deck four quite a bit on the promenade lounge in a in the lounge chair out there.

Nathan 37:13

Promenade deck. The promenade lounge is doesn't exist anymore.

Alicea 37:16

Yes, promenade deck. Um, I mean, that's a huge veranda, right? Yes.

Nathan 37:22

With a running track.

Alicea 37:24

With a running track, yes.

Nathan 37:25

That you can actually get all around the ship. I didn't do that.

Alicea 37:28

I meant to do that, but I didn't. We'll have to do that in February.

Nathan 37:30

We'll have to do that in February.

Alicea 37:31

Yeah, I was like, it's always it's a good place to just sit and read. Yeah. And occasionally you'll have characters walking by too. It's kind of fun.

Entertainment Roundup Onboard

Nathan 37:39

Yeah. Now, this is our first time, obviously, it uh this is our first time on the magic in 15 years, but uh so this is our first time in Concierge on the Magic. Uh these ships, the Magic and the Wonder, did not have a concierge room originally. They had a few one-bedroom suites and then the the Walt and Roy Disney two-bedroom suites uh originally. They've since added some uh uh the family veranda rooms, like we had two concierge, and they've closed in and kind of taken over the second story of the Cove Cafe. That all used to be public space and actually some open deck space as well. That's all enclosed now and is dedicated to concierge. That is where the concierge lounge is on the magic and the wonder. I I thought they did a really fantastic job. Um, the only complaint I have is is these ships could absolutely benefit from having the kind of elevator where you choose which floor you're going to, and the the system tells you which elevator car to get into because not every elevator goes all the way up to deck 11 or deck 10. The concierge is on 10 on the midship elevator, and half of those elevators only go up to nine. Yeah. And it was so many times I had to switch elevators on deck nine. Um, I just went up the stairs. Well, with my, yeah, yeah. That wasn't that wasn't happening.

Alicea 39:16

Even the new ships don't have that.

Nathan 39:18

No, I I it's okay. It's okay. I'm okay. I'm okay.

Alicea 39:23

Uh-huh.

First Time At Lookout Key

Nathan 39:24

I'll be okay. Okay. I'll be okay. I thought they did uh a fantastic job with the concierge lounge here. Super comfortable. The only kind of nitpick I have with the design is the bar space, and that it's it's very cramped for them, especially right before uh the the dinner seatings. Uh, you end up having a bunch of bartenders all on top of each other trying to work from a very constrained space, and it it it got a little difficult for them um and caused some inefficiencies there. But you know, they persevered. Uh and The the whole crew, the bar service team, the concierge crew was absolutely fantastic. Uh which they're always fantastic on Disney. Yeah. Uh it's just I wish we could sail concierge more often. Um unfortunately we have kids. Unfortunately, um uh I did like that they have uh snacks all day. The concierge lounge is open 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. They actually have hot breakfast there uh uh items available uh first thing in the morning. They have some cold breakfast stuff there too, but they had a couple. But they had a couple warmer items of uh memory serves. Uh we never uh partook of the breakfast stuff. Uh they have sodas and waters always available, and then that bar is open from five to ten.

Alicea 40:51

Yeah. Sodas, waters, coffee, and tea are always available.

Nathan 40:55

And the hot chocolate out of that machine was really good.

Alicea 40:57

Yeah, it is.

Nathan 40:58

Because again, we don't we don't drink.

Alicea 41:00

Yeah, we don't drink coffee.

Nathan 41:01

Well, we drink, we just don't drink coffee.

Alicea 41:03

I said coffee.

Nathan 41:04

I didn't I didn't hear you. Anyhow, moving on. Speaking of consuming things, let's talk about food.

Alicea 41:12

Food. We did prima note at Palo, which means first night.

Nathan 41:16

Which we will keep doing because I love that.

Alicea 41:19

It's very good. Yeah, so great.

Nathan 41:21

Uh yeah, it means that you don't see the show on the first night. Oh no. That's okay. Wamp whamp.

Alicea 41:28

Yeah. And and we try to do the earlier one, which is I think 6 15. That way we can still get to dinner if we need to. Um and this was in the private room for Polo.

Nathan 41:40

Yes. It was very fantastic. And I think pretty much at least three quarters of that uh of that room were from the concierge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was a good introduction to all of the people that we're gonna be hanging out with for the for the next six days. Uh dinner that night was at Animator's Palette. It was the original kind of classic show. Uh, it's been a little bit revamped over the years as technology has been changed, but it's, you know, the the walls turn different colors. And then the the favorite moment, the highlight of my cruise, of course, is Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey shows up at the end and they play the Fantasia theme, and I just do my little happy dance in in my seat, and it's just the best.

Alicea 42:30

Yeah, it's always good to see Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey.

Nathan 42:33

Yes.

Alicea 42:34

I stumbled over that, but you all know what I meant.

Nathan 42:36

Exactly. And he was right next to us. Yes. That was at the end. So we had really great seats. We did. We did. Yeah.

Alicea 42:45

Day two, we had Apollo brunch because you must. Yes. Required. So good. Mm-hmm.

Nathan 42:52

So good. You do not need to uh have everything that's on the menu. Highly recommend skipping kind of the the breakfast, uh uh what do you call it? The the sweets, breakfasts, the sweets. So like pancakes, yeah, yeah, exactly. The pancakes, the waffles, like save the room in your system uh for everything else that's fantastic from that experience. But uh oh yeah, just Palo was was really good on this cruise, was really good to us.

Alicea 43:23

Dinner that night was Rapunzel's Royal Table. This is our very first time ever here. Right. Um You mean Parrot Key? Yes, Parrot Key and then karaoke's or maybe the other way around. I don't know.

Nathan 43:34

No, that was parrot key first, then karaokes, and then Rapunzel's Rapunzel's Royal Table, yeah.

Alicea 43:40

And um, this was so fun. So the first show was uh with the ruffians, the thugs, yeah, whatever you want to call it, and they were hilarious.

Nathan 43:52

Oh, they were so good. Yes, they were so, so good. Uh very interactive.

Alicea 43:58

Hook hand and I I can't remember the other guy's name.

Serenity Bay, Bees, And Junkanoo

Nathan 44:01

I can't either. Shame on me. I he wears the bucket helmet. I forgive you. Okay. You're welcome. Uh we were right on the center aisle, and so we really had got to see what was going on, and uh, they were so just so fun. We we had just uh the greatest time and the food I thought was really good. Yeah, yeah. Uh we got to see Rapunzel and no notes. I thought it was fantastic.

Alicea 44:29

Yeah. Good food.

Nathan 44:34

Yeah. This was supposed to be our Apollo night, and we moved it. Yes. Because we thought this was gonna be a pirate night, and then it turns out there is no pirate night menu on this sailing. Nope.

Alicea 44:44

Um, so and you needed your escargot.

Nathan 44:47

I needed my escargot. So mission accomplished. Uh no notes. It was it was fine. Good. Everything I wanted.

Alicea 44:55

We enjoy the food.

Nathan 44:56

Yep.

Alicea 44:57

Uh next night was animators again. It had the animation magic show, which is always fun. You get to draw a character on a placemat and they do some magic with it.

Nathan 45:08

Yeah. I cannot draw. I am a world-class disappointment to my professional artist father. Visual arts are just not my thing. I I just I did not inherit that gene. Performing arts, yes. Uh visual arts, no.

Alicea 45:26

I made a Mickey head.

Nathan 45:28

Mine looks like a four-year-old did it. It's fine. I'm happy with it.

Alicea 45:33

And we actually did something we haven't done before.

Nathan 45:36

Yes, we had room service.

Alicea 45:38

Yes. I don't know if we'll do that again.

Nathan 45:42

No, I was really disappointed with the the selection for breakfast. There weren't really a lot of hot options. Like I could have gone with some scrambled eggs and some bacon and stuff, and that that wasn't a choice that you could make. Yep. Um, but they did bring us fresh ice for our champagne uh uh uh bottle bucket, and um, you know, mission accomplished. Yes, it was breakfast, it was fine. Yeah. Uh then that night, uh, that was our second C Day. So this is after uh Lookout and then Castaway and then a C Day. That was when we had our room service. And then we had Rapunzel's again that night, and it was the Lantern Festival, which I thought was really, really well done.

Alicea 46:27

That was cool. And Flynn was there too.

Nathan 46:29

Yes.

Alicea 46:30

And um PSA parents. Keep a rein on your kiddos. Oh my gosh. They do not get to go up on the stage. No, they do not get to play with the props on stage. It is not okay to let them do that.

Short Day At Castaway Cay

Nathan 46:46

No, they don't get to like hide behind the curtains and start pulling on them. Yeah. Like it is the closest I've ever seen somebody who is friends with a character break. Yeah. Because Flynn almost had to go intervene. Like, it was it was bad. It was so bad.

Alicea 47:07

And yeah, and the parents were um over it? No, they were like encouraging the behavior almost, which is you're kids. You just can't learn.

Nathan 47:19

No. There was one evening where the mom was definitely over it. And I'm like, oh, okay, but you're still encouraged. And then that yeah, they were totally encouraging their okay, we need to move on. Just anyway. Uh then our last full day at sea was another sea day as we were uh cruising. What?

Alicea 47:41

Our last full day at sea was another sea day?

Nathan 47:44

You're welcome. This is the kind of insights you come to me uh for. Uh this was, of course, churro Mickey Waffle morning in cabanas. So um it was interesting. We woke up early every day on this cruise.

Alicea 48:02

Never do this. We never do this.

Nathan 48:04

Did not set an alarm. No, it just we woke up. Yeah, and it was usually with I it was actually kind of gorgeous because the sun was just coming over the horizon and it was all like these beautiful hues and glows. Just like our window, even though the curtains were drawn, was just like glowing just gorgeously.

Alicea 48:27

Yeah, and it wasn't like a uh really bright one or anything, it was a nice glow. Yeah.

Nathan 48:33

Uh it it was it was nice. So we ended up rope dropping cabanas, yeah. And uh had uh nearly first dibs on uh Mickey Waffles and uh churro Mickey Waffles. Churro Mickey Waffles, excuse me, yes. Uh no well, I would say no complaints. I have notes. I don't know why I keep doing this to myself. Yeah, but I keep getting scrambled eggs on Disney Cruise lines. This is your own fault. I don't know. It's like, oh, of course I want some scrambled eggs, and something in the back of my mind is going, you idiot.

Closing Days, Galveston Stay, And Travel Home

Alicea 49:08

Like it's okay if you know they're gonna be bad. It's okay if we do it at one of the restaurants, like one of the sit-down ones.

Nathan 49:16

Yes, because they actually do them fresh.

Alicea 49:18

Yes. But on the buffet, no, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it.

Nathan 49:22

I um yeah, I I did it.

Alicea 49:25

And you complained about it.

Nathan 49:27

I did.

Alicea 49:28

I did. I just I'm like, I know exactly what I put on my plate and I will eat it.

Nathan 49:34

So bad. Just they're so bad. So anyhow, the churro mickey waffles were great.

Alicea 49:40

Yes, mission accomplished. I am hearing rumors that some of the ships aren't having this anymore.

Nathan 49:47

Yeah. Uh the destiny has not had uh churomickey waffles on board at well, at least for the plebeians. Evidently, it shows up in the concierge lounge for breakfast on one morning, but it hasn't been in Marceline Market.

Alicea 50:03

Yeah. Very interesting. I'm interested to see if if this continues on other ships or if this is just maybe uh introductory destiny thing that they're doing.

Nathan 50:14

Yeah, maybe they weren't ready.

Alicea 50:16

Yeah.

Nathan 50:17

So we'll we'll have to these these are the important things.

Alicea 50:21

We will keep our fingers crossed. Yeah, because we are not concierge on the destiny. No.

Nathan 50:25

No. Okay, no. I was thinking for a brief moment, I thought, like, we should check this.

Alicea 50:32

No, moving on. No, no, no, no. I have looked at prices. We are not doing concierge on the destiny.

Nathan 50:38

Okay, fair enough.

Alicea 50:41

That evening, we did Palo dinner for our last night instead of Lumiere's. Yes, it's so good.

Nathan 50:49

It was it was fantastic as well.

Alicea 50:51

Both of us, yeah, both of us ordered um off the a la carte menu instead of doing the prefix menu. Uh just because there's a couple things on there. I was like, I want that, I want that, I want that. I had the most delicious asparagus. Oh, they know how to cook asparagus. Yes. And meat. I had the gnocchi. Yeah, the gnocchi.

Nathan 51:12

So good.

Alicea 51:12

So good. Um I had a souffle, but I did not have the chocolate souffle.

Nathan 51:22

No.

Alicea 51:22

I had the amaretto souffle.

Nathan 51:26

With chocolate sauce.

Alicea 51:27

I asked them to do chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream because it comes with a coffee ice cream. I don't like coffee.

SPEAKER_02 51:35

Yeah.

Alicea 51:35

So I was I asked if I could be very particular with my dessert, and they readily agreed. And it was glorious. It was so good.

Nathan 51:45

Let's see. Other food thoughts, duck food. Um the chicken tendies. The chicken tangies are insane. I I don't they have to be laced with crack.

Reflections, Recoveries, And Next Steps

Alicea 51:55

I it's just they are laced with something addictive. There's some addictive quality that they throw in there. Oh, so good. So good. Yeah.

Nathan 52:03

Yep. Yeah, everything was fantastic. Yeah.

Alicea 52:07

And I had, let's see what else did I have. I had pizza. And then at the duck and diner for one of the chef's specials, they had a grilled steak and egg sandwich. So I got that.

Nathan 52:20

That sounds good, was it?

Alicea 52:22

It was. It was very good. Um, I brought it up to the lounge. I got that, and I got a chicken tender and that was good. I'm trying to remember if I had pizza. I think I had pizza a couple times too.

Nathan 52:34

Yeah, I know I had some pizza. It was good. It was it was good.

Alicea 52:40

I'm like, did I have any soft serve? I did.

Nathan 52:43

Oh. I didn't know. But I think it was just at one of the I have a reputation to uphold. I did not have any soft serve. I love soft serve ice cream. I just end up never having it on a Disney cruise because I'm insane.

Alicea 52:54

We weren't doing anything. We were just chilling. Exactly. We were happy with our stuff. Yeah.

Nathan 52:59

Well, we were largely hanging out at some of the lounges and more specifically the Soul Cat. Yeah. Because Soul Cat Lounge, this is uh based on the movie Soul, decorated off of the movie Soul, which is uh uh about jazz musician, and and um that is right up our alley. Yeah and it's comfy. Loved this venue, yeah. It was super comfortable. The theming, the decor, um, just just all the touches from the movie, just so well done from Imagineering. Um, and speaking of Soul, we actually caught uh several sets from Soul Duo were on our cruise. They um uh got on board along with us uh uh that same day, and uh they will be there through when we're there in February. So very much looking forward to see them. I didn't realize they were gonna be there. I actually follow them on Facebook, and I hadn't seen that they were gonna be on board. And I remember the first night we were going up the uh midship elevators past the lobby, and I saw them in the elevator.

Alicea 54:01

I was like, oh my gosh, it's Sold Dubo! It's Sold Duvo!

Nathan 54:04

We gotta like like yeah.

Alicea 54:05

Explain how you know them, please.

Nathan 54:07

Uh we we came across them it was on one of the other cruises we were on. It was yeah, it was another Disney cruise. I could not tell you which one. It was before in the before times, before the pandemic. They were not on The Wonder with us in 2020. But uh I I had been following them since I I ever saw them. It's it's a it's a duo. She's from Brazil, if memory serves, and he's from England, I believe. And they're just fantastic uh singers and guitar players. She plays saxophone. Uh, she also plays piano, obviously not at the same time. Um, and they're just they're so good, they're just wonderful. And I follow them on Facebook, and through the pandemic, they would do, I think it was like monthly, uh, if not a little bit more often, uh, concerts, like live stream concerts uh of an hour or so and take requests uh uh from their audience uh via the live stream and stuff. And uh it was really cool to see them again. Uh if if you are on one of the Disney ships and come across Soul Duo, you will not be disappointed. They're absolutely fantastic.

Alicea 55:24

It was yeah, it was good to listen to them. Yeah.

Nathan 55:26

Other venues, keys. What did you think?

Alicea 55:30

It was okay. I kind of I like the Cadillac Lounge better.

Nathan 55:34

I do too.

Alicea 55:35

One of the things that I did on the ship was a behind-the-scenes tour type thing. I can't remember. The art of the theme is called Art of the Theme Show tour.

SPEAKER_02 55:43

Yeah.

Alicea 55:44

And there was something in Keys that really got on my nerves. And apparently it gets on everybody's nerves who is a musician because the piano has one black key and then two black keys and then three black keys. That is not normal for me.

Nathan 56:03

That's not how that works. No.

Alicea 56:05

I'm like, why did they do this? I know somebody had to know this is wrong.

Nathan 56:09

Yeah.

Alicea 56:10

Now they do know it's wrong. They did that for.

Nathan 56:13

For clarity, this is this is a border up on the up on the ceiling. So it is, it goes throughout the whole space. It's very prominent. Yes. And it's it's triggering.

Alicea 56:22

Yeah. And it's actually um, I thought it was wallpaper. It's not. It's like uh it's like a brass sculpture type thing.

SPEAKER_02 56:29

Yeah. Yeah.

Alicea 56:30

Uh anyway, the reason it is that is because the Sherman brothers, their favorite time signature is 3-4. So it's one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three.

Nathan 56:42

I like that. Yep. That makes it less triggering. I don't know that I'm still okay with it, but it's it's less triggering. It was intentional. Yes.

Alicea 56:54

It'd be nice if there was like a little plaque or something like in homage of the Sherman brothers and my favorite time signature.

Nathan 57:00

But you know, no. Uh otherwise it's just triggering if you don't. Anyhow, yeah, it's it's not the same as Cadillac Lounges on the Wonder. It's the same space, it's laid out the same. It's not as comfortable for us. It's I like the ceiling's a little different.

Alicea 57:17

I don't know.

Nathan 57:18

Yeah, it's it's yeah, it is. Uh anyhow, it's another reason the wonder is still favorite ship. Yeah, yeah.

Alicea 57:25

Oh, gills, we never really had a chance to hang out here. It's the pub.

Nathan 57:29

Yeah. Um I wanted a pretzel. Never really never really materialized to happen, but uh case. You hit Cove Cafe a few times.

Alicea 57:38

I did. I wanted a chai. Uh so I I went up there. The first time I was given a hot chai, even though I said ice chai, I'm like, eh, whatever, I'll still drink it. And then second time I got a cold chai, ice chai.

Nathan 57:51

So there you go. Yeah. I really missed having that uh elevated adult bar backed by Polo. Um obviously there's no Remy or on Shantae, but like so like a Meridian on the the uh Dream of the Fantasy or the Rose Bar uh on the wish class ships. I I uh I I missed having that. There is a bar in Polo. We actually wanted to go like try to eat there at one point. We never we never did.

Alicea 58:23

Maybe, maybe in February. I I know our cruise is shorter. Yeah, we'll we'll see. We'll see. It would have been like a lunchtime thing, I think.

Nathan 58:30

Yeah, yeah.

Alicea 58:31

Fathoms. We went the first night, but never went back.

Nathan 58:37

Yeah. We just I don't we just didn't happen. We ended up going to Soulcat and listening to music or doing something else, and it was fun.

Alicea 58:48

I can't even remember what show we saw, but it was an adult. I don't know, one of the adult um game show things, and it was fun. We just yeah, we didn't go back.

Nathan 58:56

We just it's fine.

Alicea 58:58

And we weren't there with kids, so we didn't do anything at D Lounge.

Nathan 59:00

Yeah. It I wrote down it exists, shrug. Shrug. Yeah. Um I will say, you know, and maybe one of the reasons we we didn't kind of prioritize going back to Fathoms or some of these other places, I it felt like they had a very green bar and service crew.

Alicea 59:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nathan 59:18

And uh there was there was a few folks who knew what they were doing and were efficient. And then I'd say most of the bartenders and those service folks were just really slow, like really painfully slow. And and that was our experience at most places on the ship. It was our experience at most places on on Lookout and at Castaway, like fantastic people. Yeah. Just taking a long, long time to get stuff. And then weird decisions like, oh, I'll I'll go get like and help restock a bar or go get some stuff, and then We were at Serenity Bay on Castaway, uh, and they had one bartender there with a huge line for like 20 or 30 minutes. It was taking people 10 or 15 minutes just to order a beer. Yeah. Like and we we spent the whole, I know I'm skipping ahead a little bit, but we spent that whole day out on that deck at I forget the name of the bar in Serenity uh on Castaway. Um it's like the air castaway air bar or something like that, because it's it's airport themed. It's yeah right off that um the airstrip. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. And I never saw a server on the deck. I never saw a server walk the beach. It never happened. And that always has happened, no matter the ship. Like it's not like when we're there on the wonder, that always happens. And the bigger ships, you know, they have more staff, so I guess it's easier for them to do it. But it was it was a noticeable, it was actually the one thing I think we we had a negative comment on on our survey at the end of the cruise, was it just felt like a general miss of service level from the the bar, um the bar staff and the and the servers. So yeah, I don't want to prolong some. I I have a lot of thoughts on and theories on why, but uh we'll we'll carry those out elsewhere and and I think I've said them on here before.

Alicea 1:01:23

So for entertainment, yes, we saw the tangled show and I loved it. I thought it was great.

Nathan 1:01:30

Yes.

Alicea 1:01:31

I really liked Tangled.

Nathan 1:01:32

I it was it was it is not at the top of my list of Disney shows.

Alicea 1:01:39

I thought it was good though. I I missed having Pascal though. There's no Pascal in that one, and I love Pascal.

Nathan 1:01:45

Yeah. Uh it it does, you know. I I think some of those other shows on the newer ships are uh just a little bit better because they have a little bit more technology, they can do some more stuff with the stage and stuff like that. It it but it was it was great. I uh the performers were fantastic. Uh the show's great. Yeah, loved it.

Alicea 1:02:05

Yeah. And we saw twice charmed there as well. Yes.

Nathan 1:02:09

That was cute. It was. That's a twist on the Cinderella story.

Alicea 1:02:14

Yes.

Nathan 1:02:14

Yeah. And yeah, they were they were good. Enjoyed them.

Alicea 1:02:19

Yeah. The other set that was there, um, they were showing Tron Aries, which we were not interested in. Nope. Um, there was, I think, a comedian and a ventriloquist, and we didn't do either of those. Nope.

Nathan 1:02:30

Again, we were focused on relaxing and chillaxing, and just those weren't calling our name.

Alicea 1:02:38

Nope. Yeah. Let's talk about lookout.

Nathan 1:02:41

Yeah, this was our first time to look out. And uh look, excuse me, lookout key at Lighthouse Point.

Alicea 1:02:46

Yes, this is Disney's newest destination. Yes. Private destination, whatever you want to call it. Yeah.

Nathan 1:02:53

Lookout is really focused on the Bahamian culture and nature. And so, as part of that, they did not dredge out a spot to get the ship uh close to shore with a pier. So there is a long causeway to lock uh walk down. Now, long isn't that long. Um, we are two very slow people. I I have a uh literally, actually, as you are uh hearing this, if you hear it on the day that it drops, uh uh two days ago I had my knee replaced again. Uh anyhow, um, so I wasn't walking very fast. I still made it from the the stepping off the gangway onto the pier uh to the you know the the end of that pier was 12 minutes of of slow people walking. So I can definitely see how this would be uh an issue if it was hotter in the summer. Yeah. Um, they definitely have an opportunity to you know string some some shade umbrellas or something like that from some of those light stanchions or add some things um there. I think they could add some signage that talks about like the nature and what people are seeing on the water, like give some stuff, but um it's not that bad.

Alicea 1:04:09

No, it's well, yeah. For us it wasn't that bad. Um, we also were not toting small screaming children. Very true. They do have wagons that you can use for their for your kids. Um, and if you do require additional assistance to get down there, you can request that ahead of time too.

Nathan 1:04:32

Yep. Uh it was actually, I think you went to a may have been the D lounge.

Alicea 1:04:39

Yeah.

Nathan 1:04:39

It was there, they announced it that morning, like, hey, if you need assistance on a cart, um, you know, early in the morning, I think it was for the first two hours or something like that. It was go to a location, yeah, and they would, you know, batch people up and and get you get you down uh onto the island with a cart. So which kudos to them, which absolutely fantastic.

Alicea 1:05:00

And the day that we were there was the very first day that they had Christmas decorations and music up.

Nathan 1:05:06

Yes, which is kind of cool. Yeah, it I thought it looked fantastic. It sounded great. Alicia made a playlist on Spotify of of all the island songs. It's about an hour and 40 minutes long. So if you need a Christmas in the Caribbean uh kind of vibe going on, uh you know, just just check it out on Spotify. It's there. Uh I will note a lot of people were very concerned about how new and and like the vegetation hadn't grown in when when Lookout first opened, which yeah, it had just opened. The landscaping hadn't grown in yet. Uh it's been a little over a year, I think, since then. Uh but it it looks like it's been there forever at this point.

Alicea 1:05:51

Like it's fleshed out quite nicely, and I'm sure it's gonna grow even more.

Nathan 1:05:54

Yeah, it looks fantastic. Um, I will say they have a uh they they have some opportunities for improved wayfinding on those boardwalk areas. Uh we got a little bit confused on exactly how to get over to Serenity Bay. It could have used a a little bit more um uh obvious signage. Uh, but uh it was it was fantastic. Really, really loved the spot and the the decor and just the whole vibe of everything was was beautiful. That beach. Oh my gosh. It's the softest sand. Softest sand.

Alicea 1:06:30

It's like power, it's like stepping in powdered sugar. It is so soft, it's so pretty. It's like this beautiful pink color. Yeah. And like a light, light, light pink. And the water was phenomenal. It was a little chilly.

Nathan 1:06:48

It was 79 degrees, according to my Apple Watch.

Alicea 1:06:50

A little chilly. Uh, but it was great once you got it. And you could see everything. It's like the clearest water we've ever had.

Nathan 1:06:58

Yeah, there's probably 15 plus feet of visibility in the water. It was kind of crazy. It was great. Yeah. Really, really loved being there. We scored a table under the uh under the roof and an umbrella uh on the side of the bar there at Castaway.

Alicea 1:07:14

Not Castaway, at Serenity Bay.

Nathan 1:07:16

Sorry, Serenity Bay and Lookout Key. Lookout, yes. At Lighthouse Point. All the names.

Alicea 1:07:23

All the names.

Nathan 1:07:24

Yes. Sorry about that.

Alicea 1:07:25

One thing that was quite interesting is there were bees everywhere. Not flies. Not flies.

Nathan 1:07:32

When there was you've probably heard that there was quite a hubbub about flies and food at Lookout when it first opened. I I saw no flies.

Alicea 1:07:43

No, but there was a lot of bees at the bar areas, and the cast members that we talked to said that this was new.

Nathan 1:07:50

Yeah.

Alicea 1:07:50

This this hadn't happened before.

Nathan 1:07:52

So, like uh some sort of season was going on and um they were out. Now, they were incredibly docile. Um, they were just super chill, they weren't going after people. They were I could see I'm sure a lot of people were freaking out, but it was it was just a thing. They were going after anything that was sweet.

Alicea 1:08:16

They were drunk on sugar and alcohol. Yes. There was a couple.

Nathan 1:08:20

I think one fell into your pina colada.

Alicea 1:08:23

And I fished him out, and um, he was kind of I don't know. You could tell he was feeling the drink.

Nathan 1:08:34

Lunch was really good there. It was um loved all the food, and then uh towards the end of the day, we removed ourselves from uh Serenity Bay and headed over, I think, towards the uh Goombay Cultural Center. Yes, that's the that's the word that was trying to come out of my face. And we watched the uh the afternoon, I think it's a 2 p.m. or something like that, junkanoo celebration. Yeah, lots of uh uh dancing and and music and a little band and uh marching band and stuff like that. It was it was fun. I thought it was it was great to to get that part of the uh bohemian culture that you really don't get at castaway because castaway is a completely different theme.

Alicea 1:09:17

Yeah, different theme, different vibe. Yep. Lookout was great. Yeah, it's newer, obviously. There's more there's uh newer stuff to do for the kids. There's a whole splash pad area for the kids. Yeah, there's a lot more cover at Lookout than there is at Castaway.

Nathan 1:09:36

Yeah. The Serenity Bay Beach is kind of just kind of right next to the family beach, but it didn't seem like an issue. No, there wasn't a lot, there weren't kids running down, it wasn't super loud or obnoxious or anything, and so it was it was really, really quite nice. So yeah, I I'm excited about hitting lookout on on additional cruises. Uh it seems like a fantastic spot. Um we also got to go to Castaway. It was a short day at Castaway, though. Uh we had an all aboard at 2 30 p.m.

Alicea 1:10:08

We took our time getting there too.

Nathan 1:10:10

Yeah, we didn't get off the ship until about a quarter to 10.

Alicea 1:10:12

Yeah.

Nathan 1:10:13

But we still got a chance to hang out with uh all of our uh our uh Disney friends and get a bunch of pictures there on the island and then made our way over to Serenity Bay at Castaway. And I've talked a little bit about that uh before, so I won't rehash all of that. Uh I think we were two, three weeks uh before they opened up the new Serenity Bay eatery there on Castaway and the new cabanas. And all of the new cabanas, yeah. So they looked really great as I was peeking over the fence and taking some pictures from the beach and and things like that, but we didn't get to enjoy those things. So I'm excited to uh to see what that's all about on a future cruise. And I will say it looks like they've replaced the um Serenity Bay barbecue location uh for uh adults with that that hangar 98 barbecue location. I had thought was going to be dedicated only for the cabanas. I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure I saw other folks who did not have a cabana. That's where they were getting lunch there at Serenity Bay. So kind of kind of cool.

Alicea 1:11:26

Yeah. And we also revisited the heads up bar at Pelican Point. Um, Nathan wanted to have good memories there.

Nathan 1:11:33

I needed to like overcome some prior happenstance. Um let's just say decisions were made that I may have later regretted. And not this time. Not this time. I was successful. Speaking of successful, uh, we we got another selfie with the security team as we made our way back towards the ship. Slowly, slowly. Hey, I was being polite. I hung back. I was being everybody's photographer who was offering or wanting to get uh a couple snapshots with the boat, and uh I I wasn't you know prolonging anything for too egregiously, but um, you know, we did get a selfie with the with the security team uh coming behind us on a golf cart. And then we got oh, it was great. They this was the last time for a long time. I think there is another the next scheduled stop of the magic back to lookout is gonna be like late 2026 or castaway. Excuse me, castaway, yeah. Uh, because it's gonna be out of Galveston and then West Coast uh for the most of next year. So it's not gonna hit Castaway very much anymore.

Alicea 1:12:48

I think it's 2027, February, January or February 2027. That's the next time it's gonna be over there.

Nathan 1:12:54

And so there was a bunch of officers who were on shore, and um we may have gotten a picture with I would say probably a dozen senior ship officers with um the the castaway uh Christmas tree there.

Alicea 1:13:12

Um it never hurts to ask. I was like can we can we get a picture with all of you? And they're like, yeah. So we did that. It was awesome.

Nathan 1:13:20

Yeah, it was so cool. It was so cool. And then mission accomplished, Alicia was guest number two remaining on castaway. I was guest number one, I was the last guest on Castaway. I did it.

Alicea 1:13:36

You did it now. Both of us have done it.

Nathan 1:13:37

Yeah, winning.

Alicea 1:13:41

And that was that was our last day. No, we had a C Day after that, didn't we?

Nathan 1:13:45

We had two C Days after that.

Alicea 1:13:46

Yeah, two C days after that.

Nathan 1:13:47

But we had one C Day and then Lookout and then Castaway and then two C Days.

Alicea 1:13:51

That's right. I prefer that.

Nathan 1:13:53

Yes, that was great. That was amazing. Um, we ended off in Galveston, which is a city on the coast in Texas. Yep.

Alicea 1:14:04

Um We were there. How how many days were they we there after? Two?

Nathan 1:14:11

We spent two nights. So like sorry, yeah. Yeah, we basically had the whole day when we first got there. Yeah, which I don't know how, but the the local movie theater was running Wicked. Like it supposedly didn't open until the next day, but we saw Wicked for Good on Thursday night. It was for good.

Alicea 1:14:29

It was for good, yes.

Nathan 1:14:30

It was amazing. Um, and then yeah, we just hung out in uh a hotel. We got a really nice hotel room at the Tremont House, and uh yeah, it was super relaxing, just did a lot of reading and um went down to the I don't know what it's called in like the old town area of Galveston.

Alicea 1:14:50

We had a nice lunch down there and yeah.

Nathan 1:14:54

I was hoping that Galveston would be an interesting a more interesting place than I found it.

Alicea 1:14:58

Yeah, it was also not tourist season, so it was very very barren.

Nathan 1:15:03

And evidently we missed bike week by like uh oh uh I think 10 or 14 days or something like that. And they would have had like 40,000 people and motorcycles and stuff. And uh I'm glad we missed that. Yeah. So then we flew home via Houston and Detroit and Detroit airport. Wow. Skyrocketing to the top of my list of favorite airports. This is a fantastic location to spend a few hours waiting for your connection.

Alicea 1:15:30

So we we are gonna hit Galveston again in our on our February cruise because it's going out of Galveston. Although I honestly was was not very taken with with that port with Galveston at all. No. I don't know that I would actively search for cruises going out of there.

Nathan 1:15:52

Well, Sterling needed to get on the magic. It's the one ship he hasn't been on, and this lined up with our midwinter break. So it is what we're gonna do this time, but I'm with you.

Alicea 1:16:03

It's just not easy to get to not from not from Seattle. Not from Seattle, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the that's the kicker.

Nathan 1:16:10

Yep, yep. It was a fantastic trip.

Alicea 1:16:13

It was a fantastic trip.

Nathan 1:16:14

Yeah. Uh would would honestly would do this itinerary again. Yeah. I wouldn't spend an extra day in Galveston, but I would do this itinerary again for sure. Actually, I have a quick question for you. What's your favorite Lookout or Castaway?

Alicea 1:16:32

Um I wish I could blend the two together.

Nathan 1:16:35

Yeah.

Alicea 1:16:35

I really do.

Nathan 1:16:36

Yeah.

Alicea 1:16:37

Um, if I had to pick one over the other, it would be Lookout because of my fair skin and there is shade at Lookout, and the sand is just gorgeous. Yeah. I like the theming of Castaway much better, and everything's a little closer in Castaway too.

Nathan 1:16:56

Mm-hmm. Cosigned. Yep. They're both absolutely fantastic. I think that's about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:05

Yeah.

Nathan 1:17:05

Big thanks to my mom, uh, who uh who herded cats, and those cats are named Sterling and David, i.e., our son and my dad. So thank you to my mom for taking care of the home front while we had a relaxation celebration, uh, celebrating Alicia's uh recovery from uh all that was with open heart surgery and stuff. Uh she's back to work, and her body is trying to remember how much energy that takes and has been crashing in the evenings. Um, but uh uh we're doing doing really well. Yeah. Um, as I alluded to earlier. I am right now recuperating from my eighth major knee surgery on my left knee, uh, upgrading from a partial replacement to a full. Uh evidently you're supposed to have cartilage in your knee. Who knew?

Alicea 1:17:59

So I knew, I knew that.

Nathan 1:18:03

Yeah, so uh I I've done this recovery before, and um, you know, it was a 90-day uh after surgery, five castaway five key. 5k key. Uh-huh.

Alicea 1:18:15

Castaway key 5k.

Nathan 1:18:17

That one. Uh I I walked it, I did not run it. Unfortunately, the timing doesn't work out for 90 days after. Uh, but uh like 60 some odd days after we'll be back on the magic. So we'll see. I don't think I'm gonna be doing laughs around the ship, but we'll see how it goes. I'll be hobbling around, it'll be fine.

Alicea 1:18:40

And with that note, remember we are not affiliated with Disney or their subsidiaries. These are personal opinions and suggestions based on our own experiences. We recommend working with a travel agent or contacting Disney directly to plan your perfect vacation.

Nathan 1:18:57

If you have questions or suggestions, or would like to be interviewed on our show to share your Disney experiences, please send us an email to podcast at ourmousecapades.com.

Alicea 1:19:08

You can follow us on socials. We are at OurMousCapades. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, threads, and YouTube.

Nathan 1:19:15

Please do give us a rating and a review in your podcast app. That really helps people find us.

Alicea 1:19:21

And of course, don't hesitate to share us with your friends and fellow Disney lovers of all ages.

Nathan 1:19:27

Thanks for listening. We'll be in your ears next week. Thank you for flying Star Tours. Bye bye.