Wanderlust & Wishes

Episode 74: Post Trip Report - Disney Cruise (Halloween on the High Seas) - Part 2

• Julie & Krystle

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Krystle and Julie are back with part 2 of their discussion of Julie's 5 Night Halloween on the High Seas cruise on the Disney Magic.  We talk through Julie's experience at Disney’s brand-new Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point, favorite onboard eats, and what it really costs to stay connected and to get that relaxing massage on board. 

Whether you're an experienced cruiser or cruise newbie, join us for the discussion!

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Wonderlust and Witches, the podcast where we explore the world one destination at a time. I'm Julie.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm Crystal. As travel agents with fantastical vacations, we are here to share our passion for travel and help you turn your wonderlust into reality.

SPEAKER_00:

From hidden gems to bucket list adventures, join us as we dive into the sights, sounds, and stories of our favorite destinations.

SPEAKER_01:

So grab your passport, pack your bags, and let's embark on this journey together. Welcome to episode 74 of Wonderlust and Wishes. We're gonna jump back in to part two of the post-trip episode for my Disney cruise, my first Disney cruise. The next day was Lighthouse Point at Lookout K. It was raining when we first got up. I think it rained probably until like maybe like 10 o'clock. There were a lot of people that went anyway, and I think they were handing out ponchos. If you left the ship, they were I mean, because it wasn't just like sprinkling raining, like it was raining. I did see on someone else's stories they were handing out ponchos. Yeah. We went over there at like 10 o'clock or something, like once it stopped raining. It was, you know, as many people have already said, like the the walk even to the tram is very long. I mean, it's maybe like 10 minutes, so it's not horrible, but it is way far away compared to Castaway Key. And then you get on a tram that then takes you even farther. So this basically the side of the island that is where you dock is on the opposite side of like where everything is. When we got there, it was it was a hot mess, actually. Apparently, we we talked to some cast members, my parents talked to some cast members because of the weather, because it there it was like windy and rainy, there really wasn't a lot of beach. The water was like way farther up because of the weather. They weren't able to put out the chairs. And so once it stopped raining, they did go out and try to get some chairs out. I wasn't there when this happened, so this is based on my parents' feedback, but they said that the basically people like almost like rushed the cast members. Like the cast members were asking because there was a black flag out, like they you couldn't get in the water. You're lucky you even docked because the weather was crazy. Exactly. Like they had uh there was a black flag, you couldn't go into the water because it was so rough. The cast members were trying to get chairs out and they couldn't get the chairs out fast enough. They were asking people to wait until they could get some chairs out, and no one was listening, and they were grabbing the chairs as they were putting the chairs out. Based on what I could see, I don't think that they were able to get all the chairs out, and not necessarily just because of the people like jumping on the chairs or like getting the chairs before they could like get everything ready. I don't think there was enough space because the water was so far up. I don't think they had the normal amount of space that they could get all of the chairs. There was nowhere to sit. There was very little space between where the closest chairs were to the ocean, to the ocean. There was barely any space. It was really chaotic. The girls and I did try to walk out and see if we could find a spot. We walked, I felt like we walked like almost the entire like way down, and there was nothing. There were no chairs. There weren't even any chairs that like didn't have covers uh or didn't have an umbrella. Like there was nothing. There was nowhere to sit. There were some spaces that were like behind the dunes, and so we did find that spot, but I mean we weren't we were basically like blocked from the beach. We were blocked from the water. You couldn't see the water, it was behind where you couldn't see anything. There really wasn't a ton of breeze. It did have it, it did have an umbrella, so we were under the umbrella. So we found a spot, and then we did walk over to get something to eat. It was very similar as far as I felt like as far as the food. It was barbecue and hamburgers and cheeseburgers and fries and mac and cheese and that kind of stuff was was there. Um, so it was and it was very good. The food was very good. We were able to find a table um to sit down and eat. So that wasn't really an issue. We really did not stay for that much longer. I wish that I had stayed and done the nature walks because I think they have they have those available that you can just do. You don't have to have an excursion. But like our excursion that we had planned, it got canceled. You know, we had the snorkeling excursion camp scheduled for that day and it got canceled. So we did not have a very good experience there. I think that I want to be able to give it a another chance. I think that we just it was just not a good day. I don't think that it was the island itself. I do think even if we were to go back and have a really good experience, I still feel like that I'm gonna like castaway key better because it seems like its layout's better, at least in my opinion. I feel like the layout is much better. It seems like there's much more space, like things are just not cramped together. I felt like that Lookout K was, I felt like things were cramped together. And I didn't feel like it was as intuitive on where to find things. And like I said, it may have just been because it was so chaotic that that was more like my almost like emotional response to it, you know, instead of an actual like in reality, it's that's not the way it is. Even with our second excursion getting canceled on Castaway Key, we definitely had a much better experience there. And I would love to go back there a million times over.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and one thing with Lighthouse is it's just a portion of an island, it's not the entire island. So if they're trying to like put everything they have a castaway into this portion, trying to like cram it all in there, yeah. I could see how that could easily become like a situation.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know. I just felt like it was overwhelming and chaotic and was not a relaxing experience for me. So we basically we went back to the ship probably by like one o'clock, I'm like after lunch, and we went to deck nine and laid out on the pool deck and watched movies and had a jolly good time. It was the best.

SPEAKER_00:

That is nice though. You have you always have the ship as a backup.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. So pirate night was that night. We had Rapunzel again, but it was a different menu. It was a it was a pirate-themed menu. And we all so this is funny because we all had our pirate shirts on, and Rob insisted that I didn't give him his pirate shirt, and I was like, oh no, that is an incorrect statement because I he had all his stuff laid out on the bed the night before we were leaving, and I put his pirate shirt in the stack with his other shirts, and I was 150% sure that that happened, but he said he went through his bag and he couldn't find it. And I was like, Well, I don't know what to tell you because I put it there. So he didn't wear his pirate shirt like the rest of us because he couldn't find it. He did have on a sensey shirt that was red, so he kind of blended in with all of us because of the colors, because we had on like red and it was basically like red and black and kind of colors, and then we also had bandanas. They gave us bandanas, they left them in our room to use. So we we all had on our bandanas for that night. And then my parents they dressed up and they were super cute. My dad's shirt was like one of those that looks like the shirt is actually open and he had super buff, you know, chest underneath. They just made laugh. Yeah, it was funny. The Rapunzel's was definitely a lot less chaotic that night because of there was no show. It was not quite as loud. It was still beautiful, and I do want to make sure like the actual restaurant was gorgeous. They had the lanterns everywhere, so gorgeous. And the theming, because I love Tangled, the theming was spot on. It just I don't know, there was just something about it. It just wasn't my jam compared to Animator's palette. I really wish that we'd had Animator's palette a second time instead of Lumiere's. But I mean, and Lumiere's was was great too. I just liked Animator's palette the best. That was my favorite restaurant. Because it was Pirates Night, they did have the Pirates like party, and they had fireworks at sea that night. They had Pirates of the Caribbean at 11:30 at night, which I was like, what? That was that was way too late. Yeah, that was so that was that night. And then the next day was their day at sea, and of course our last day. So I'm trying to think. The next day we did, did we do no, I forgot to say. My parents did their massage the day that we were in Nassau. They did not get off the boat when we were in Nassau. So they did do their massage and they loved it. When I asked them what their favorite thing was about the trip, that was at the top of their list. So they loved the they loved the massage. They did, I think they did, I'm pretty sure it was like a like a couple's massage. Like I think they were in the same room. The census spa was gorgeous, like the whole area was beautiful, but it was very like everything was so expensive, which I know that you don't would you would expect it to be, you know. But I think if you are going to be, if that's something that you're thinking of, just know that probably a massage that you can get, like at your typical masseuse that's in your town that you're in or whatever, it's gonna be at least double that price. Whatever, whatever you pay, it's gonna be double. And if you have uh somewhere that you go that has a really good price, like typical, then I would probably like then triple it because it it was a lot more. I knew it was gonna be expensive, and I was still shocked at the pricing. They did give us a they gave us a port day discount, basically, and I believe it was like 20 or 25% off. And even with that, it was like it was still double. But I think that the obviously the experience that they give is exceptional, you know, it's above and beyond anything that you've ever probably that you typically get, you know, at an a massage MV, not trying to knock on massage MV. I love massage envy, but you know, the the experience in the environment and everything was really nice. My parents and actually Rob also, I didn't spend any time in the cove area, but that is the adult-only section. They have their own pool. I don't think that they used the pool at all, but I think they used they sat in that area where the chairs, um the lounge chairs and everything were, and then the cove is a restaurant that's specific, or it's basically like a pool restaurant for the most part, in that section, and they utilize that section there. I will say that it is an adults-only section, but the elevator that comes up in that section does not restrict a child from coming up that elevator. So there were still children walking through there. It says, like if you're coming from, because it's at the front of the ship, if you're coming from like the main pool deck and you're walking in that direction, it does say basically 18 years and older past this point. But, and so if you're coming from that direction, like you wouldn't necessarily, kids wouldn't necessarily come in that way. But if you are coming off the elevator, then they are coming, they're coming from the elevator that's at the very front of the ship, and they're coming out and walking through there. So just an FYI. They don't stay, but they do walk through.

SPEAKER_00:

What else did you do on that C day?

SPEAKER_01:

Or I have questions if you don't have we did, I think we we stayed, we pretty much stayed at the pool for most of the day on the C Day. I did with my parents, which my kids did not do it, but my parents and I did the slides, both of the slides. Oh, very nice. And at first I wasn't gonna do them, and my mom was like, excuse me, you have your listeners that's gonna want to know about the slides, and so you need to experience it. And so, we did, yeah, we did both slides. So there's a slide that's in the the kids area that's more like it's more just like a spinny slide, and it's like open, open air, so it's not enclosed. But the aqueduct is a drop slide, and I definitely screamed my head off whenever I dropped. I wanted to be able to take my phone and get video it, but they won't they don't let you bring your phones, they won't let they basically don't let you bring anything with you. And like even like I think my mom had bracelets on, they let her wear them, but they made her put like this sleeve over them. I think because they drop you, they don't want anything to get caught and anybody to get hurt. So, but it lasts like maybe five seconds. Like it is you drop, and there's like water like going up your nose and on all your compartments where you don't want it to be, and then you slide out into the end of it.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you are on a cruise ship, so it can't be that massive.

SPEAKER_01:

That's true, that's true, but it was fun, and I would definitely do it again. But the guy, the cast member that was in charge of that slide, he was definitely a stinker because there's this little announcement that's like three, two, one, and you're expecting it to drop. No, no, he doesn't hit the button the first time it does it. He waits basically until at least like second or third time. Like it'll you don't know when you're gonna drop because he the ignores the countdown. And so when you drop, you're like, holy crap, because you're you're like sitting there waiting on it and yeah, I think something that they probably I'm sure incorporated into their ships their next ships was uh a much bigger pool. The pool on the main, like the main pool. There was a like a kid pool area that was they and they had like slash zones and stuff like that. I thought that was probably it was like what you would expect, but and it was kind of just more open because of this, they had the splash zones and stuff, but the main pool, like where we would sit on the pool deck, it was literally the size of a postage stamp. I'm not kidding. It was there were a couple times that Ella wanted to get into the pool and she just she was just like, there's nowhere to go. I think I have neighbors that have a larger pool than that in their backyard. It was so small. I mean, and I know that it's the first ship and it probably is not like not as big, but just in general, like all the different things. But that was probably one of my biggest shocks was seeing that pool and seeing the people in it because everybody was like piled on top of each other. It was just like there was no swimming in that pool. Everybody just kind of sat in the pool. Yeah, it was very interesting.

SPEAKER_00:

And where did you have dinner that night?

SPEAKER_01:

Lumiere's. My favorite part about Lumiere's is our table was next to a window, and that was so awesome. And the first night we were on, I have videos I can send you of how bad the waves were because we could see they were like crashing everywhere. And then, of course, you have this ship in in addition that's like making waves. And the first night, I was the only one that saw it. And now I kind of feel like I might be like Looney Tunes and I didn't see it, but I saw a dolphin, I saw a dolphin jump out of the waves. I was like, Ella, because Ella was sitting next to the window on the other side of me. She was sitting across from me, and she looked out the window because it jumped out twice. So I saw it the first time. I got Ella to look out the window, but she didn't I saw it the second time because I I kind of knew where it was, and she didn't see it.

SPEAKER_00:

But it was really the boat, so why couldn't it have been?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I we and of course, like we were like looking for stuff like that the entire time, but that was the only time I saw a dolphin. It was so nice to be next to the window. The other two restaurants were like interior, so they didn't have windows, so that we didn't have the option to have one, but it was it was nice. We were table 42 next to the window. It's very nice. So, what was your best meal or snack that you had? I know this sounds ridiculous, but like the pizza, that was probably my favorite. I don't know if I call it a snack, but I mean, because I I had it for kind of like one day I had a couple times I had it for like lunch, like that's what I had. But another time I think I had one at like three o'clock in the afternoon, just because I wanted one. And then, of course, I'm not a huge like ice cream person, but I do love some soft serve. And they had the chocolate vanilla swirl. They also had, I think, on the last day, and Ella was very upset that they only had it on this last day. They had mint ice cream, soft serve, and they had a mint chocolate swirl. And yeah, she wanted, I mean, she was like, why didn't they have that other days? But they had vanilla and chocolate, and then they also had like another flavor, I think, pretty much every day. Some, I think they had like strawberry and banana or something, or I don't know. They had other stuff there. I didn't I didn't get any of that. I only got the chocolate vanilla swirl. And they did have on the last day at Cabana's, the breakfast at Cabana's was really good. Um, and it was a brook, I mean it was a breakfast buffet, but it was it was awesome. They had literally anything and everything you could possibly want for breakfast. And on the last day, they had churro waffles and they did have gluten-free churro waffles. They were so good. I'm like, why can't you have these every day? They were so good. Yeah, I think Rob had like, I think he went back for like maybe seconds or thirds of those because they were they were really good. And they also like every day they made me French toast. Like I ordered it. So I had French toast and I think I had fresh toast and like Mickey waffles pretty much and bacon pretty much every day. Like that was for the most part. Like that was my that was kind of my menu for breakfast. But everybody else got you know all kinds of different things that were out there. I know that I'm probably this is probably like a hot take or not a popular opinion, but I feel like for the dinners, it was too much food. It was too much. Like I I felt like by the time I got to my actual meal, I couldn't eat anything because they had an appetizer, a soup and salad option, the main course, and dessert. And I understand, like you're paying for it, and I get it. People, you know, they want a nice experience. And I thought the food at all of them was great. Experience-wise, my like I was saying, my favorite favorite was Animator's palette, but I feel like across the board, the food was really good. I just felt like it was too much. I don't feel like I could enjoy my main course. Like I would eat like three bites of like steak because I was so full from having an appetizer and a super salad before that. And I'm not complaining about this for sure. They did have gluten-free rolls for me every day. So I would eat the rolls, and so I would be full. And everybody else had bread too. They had a bread service every day. It was very, very nice. It was just a lot of food.

SPEAKER_00:

Did anybody order a second entree to try something different?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I think we were all too full. I think even if we had like wanted to try something different, like we couldn't. It was so much food. And I think that's very like you know, that's very typical Disney, you know. I mean, they do the same thing with their restaurants, their sit-down table service restaurants at Disney World and at Disneyland. So I don't feel like as far as dinner, that I that there was any like specific standout meal that I felt like was better than the other. I pretty much had like steak and potatoes every night for my main meal. I probably would have been more adventurous, but I was just obviously trying to stick to the gluten-free options and not get too crazy.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Did the girls ever go to the kids' clubs?

SPEAKER_01:

No, they did not. I'm gonna take like just three minutes to get real here, be real, real talk about traveling with a teenager. It's hard. There were definitely a lot of fun times, but there were a lot of very difficult times as well, because you know, everything is the worst when you're 14. And no matter if you're on a Disney cruise that is, you know, expensive and your mom's trying to do something with the family and have everybody have a good time, you don't really care. You're 14, you know, it was very tough. So if anyone out there is listening and you're having similar experiences, I see you, I know how you feel. We did get, because you know, why why not? Because we always do, we did get popcorn buckets. You buy the popcorn bucket, and then it's two dollars to refill it. So the girls were able to go to you know, movies and do that and get popcorn and charge it just charge it to the room. Guys, the internet, I mean, even going into this and kind of knowing that it's a lot basic internet to just get kind of social media type stuff, not streaming, just basic uh functionality of your phone, being able to do stuff. It was$25 per device per day. And I think it was$45 for streaming per device per day. So that is so expensive. I wish that they had uh more of a like prepaid internet package or something that you could buy versus getting on the ship and it having to do that. I do think if you bought it for one day, I do think they offered you a discounted amount for the rest of the trip, but it was still expensive because you're paying per person. It's not like you're paying for all the devices associated with your stateroom or all the people associated with your reservation or anything like that. It's per device. I had to post our podcast while I was there. I should have done it before I left, and I don't know. I didn't even, it just I had too many things going on in my head and I didn't even think about it. So I did buy it for that day. I think I had to upload it twice. I started, I I got it to like 95%, and then it was like and I had to start over. So it's still not great internet. I mean, and you know, you're out in the ocean, so in the middle of the ocean. So so yeah, I would just make sure that if it's something that's important to you that you have it, just that's a diff definitely another like budgeting item that I would include that I wasn't really thinking, even though I knew about it. I mean, I knew like in my head, it just didn't dawn on me that it would be if all of us had it every single day, that it would be five hundred dollars for the crappy internet. So you just use WhatsApp to check in with the kids and buying without. And you and you did if if they also if they download the app, you can message through the app as well. But when I was on the islands, I had nothing. We did get something from ATT that was like, hey, do you want to turn this on? But it's at the same time, like it was also like it would have been an extra, I think, close to a hundred dollars per day for our family to be able to text or have any kind of connectivity on the islands.

SPEAKER_00:

Out of country charges.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep. Yep. The WhatsApp group, they were really good about like, hey, just don't forget, like, do not forget to turn on airplane mode. Do not forget to turn on air. I think they reminded people like multiple times before and like as we were leaving the port, like, please don't forget to turn on airport airplane mode because once we leave the port, you're no longer, you know, in the United States, and you're gonna, you know, you may get excessive like international charges kind of thing. But the you know, the Wi-Fi on the ship obviously got connected you to the app and you did have access to act to get to WhatsApp and Messenger.

SPEAKER_00:

Talk about disembarkation. Did you take your own, did you do express walk-off when take your own luggage? Did you set it outside your door the night before?

SPEAKER_01:

So again, traveling with a teenager, she was very upset that we had to have all our stuff like outside the door at 10 o'clock and didn't want to have to do that. And so instead of it being a big argument, we're like, it's fine. We can just take our luggage with us tomorrow morning and have it with us basically at breakfast, and then we'll just after breakfast, we'll just walk off, which is fine. If they are going to take your luggage off the ship for you, I have it out there by 10 o'clock the night before. And we didn't do that, we chose to just carry it with us. So we carried everything down the next morning. I think that breakfast, if I'm remembering correctly, breakfast. We had breakfast at Lumiere's. It was at 6 45 a.m. You also could do, if you wanted to, you could do breakfast at cabanas. It was open from 6 30 to 8 30. But we went to Lumiere's. We were there at like 6 45 when it opened. We all had our luggage. My parents did the same thing because they wanted to get going because they were going to be driving home. We were just going to be driving up to Disney World. As soon as we were done with breakfast, we picked up our luggage and we were able to leave the ship. That was pretty easy. I felt like getting on and off the ship was super easy. There were several things that if you had, as long as you had one person that had their key to the world card, you would scan it. It would be for the entire room. But on port days, I completely understand why they do it. Everybody has to have their key to the world card and they scan each individual one. They scan the adult first in the room. They're obviously you know counting and making sure that they are they have everybody accounted for when they leave the port. We did have, I think we may have had two medical emergencies while we were on the ship. One of them actually kept us from leaving the island. The individual was seen at the medical um facility on the ship, and then and they realized that they needed more care. So they had to get the Coast Guard to come get the person and take them to the nearest available hospital, if I understood correctly from like the WhatsApp and everything, that the person had a stroke.

SPEAKER_00:

And folks doesn't let you travel with the cruise passport because they probably didn't come back to the ship and probably had to get home some other way.

SPEAKER_01:

We were too far away. I mean, I think they definitely went to one of the other islands in the Bahamas somewhere to get more urgent care. Like we were not close enough to the United States for them to go back to the United States. Oh, the other and the one last one last thing that I do when we were at the Bahamas and I did get a video, I don't I think I I think I uploaded it to our our shared space. I did get a video of the construction of the Royal Caribbean.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah, I did see that.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh-huh. Um it was very colorful already.

SPEAKER_00:

And they had obviously opened in December, so I hope they're close.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. And they had lots of, I mean, there's lots of construction equipment still, but yeah, it was it looked really nice. And it's like it's huge. Like it's the whole strip. And I couldn't see the whole thing at first because Wonder of the Seas was in the way. It was on that side. But once they left, they left before we did, and I was able to get the whole, the whole thing. So are you ready to go on another one? Did you get a placeholder? I didn't because I wish that I had, but half of my family really liked it, and half my family, it wasn't specifically like Disney, and that there was anything wrong with the cruise itself. I just don't think that they're cruisers. They didn't enjoy cruising. That was just not their favorite thing. They would rather do something else. So basically, Ella and I will probably be going on our own cruises from now on. Okay. But I went back and forth multiple times fretting over should I do this or should I not? Because I knew that my husband did not want to do this again. I think honestly, I think Lena would be okay eventually. I think she was just ornery because she's a teenager. But Ella and I are ready to go back like tomorrow. Ella just wants a bigger pool.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll still rob spot next time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Well, basically, Ella is like scheming and like who can we go with? We need to do like a girls' trip. She's talking about one of her really good friends at gymnastics going with her and her mom. She's talked about you and your girls. She's talked about one of her other like besties and her mom. Like, she's she's like planning. Don't be surprised. She'll she'll probably have Harper like over to the side talking in her ear about it whenever we see you guys in November.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm all for it.

SPEAKER_01:

But overall, I loved it. I would definitely sail the magic again, but I want to do another ship first. I think I'd like to try probably the fantasy next. I want to try a little bit larger ship. There were several people that commented in a WhatsApp group about whether the ship was fully booked. And a lot of people were like, no, I don't think it was because it didn't feel very crowded. And like, you know, we were able to always get a, you know, a chair on the pool deck and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But then somebody else commented later that it was at I think like 20 almost 2400, which is basically that's about what they their max is. So I just think that it's you know, it's a smaller ship, and it just I don't know. I think we were very lucky. That I think that's one of the reasons we love the movies on the deck so much is because we could just go plop down in a chair. We weren't Fighting anybody. It wasn't, it was very relaxed. And we could go get like endless French fries at Donald's and Endless Pizza at Pinocchio's and Endless Dyke Coke and Coke at the Coke Machine and ice cream. Like it was like perfect. Oh, I love that. And it's been so fun to hear about this. I am so excited to, I really am excited to book my next cruise. I want to go experience another Disney ship as soon as possible, as many as possible. I look, and and even if it's just like a quick like three or four days being able to go again. And since we've gone before, I feel like now I'm a little bit more prepared with prioritizing and maybe scheduling some of the things that I was maybe a little bit overwhelmed with this time around. Thank you so much, everyone, for listening. We hope you enjoyed our episode today. I know it was a long one. We hope everyone has a fantastic week, and we'll talk to you next week. Bye. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Wonderlust and Wishes. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, the world is full of wonders waiting to be explored. Until next time, happy travels. Bye for now.