Adventures By Disney River Cruise Insights with DCL Duo

Adding a Disney twist, we’re exploring a whole new world of river cruising with Disney Cruise Line experts Brian & Sam, the DCL Duo. Taking you inside Adventures by Disney (ABD) River Cruises, we’re discussing what makes this river cruise experience extra magical. 

You'll discover luxurious white-glove services that set Disney apart, plus unique excursions like salt mines and equestrian shows, and learn how Disney sprinkles extra pixie dust on experiences. We'll answer questions like how:

• How “Disney-fied” are the ships?
• What kid-friendly cuisine is on the menus?
• What is an ideal age for an ABD river cruise? 
• What itineraries are available?
• How family-friendly is the atmosphere? 

Plus, learn about unforgettable Christmas markets that made Brian & Sam’s experience sparkle! 

Whether you're a Disney fan who is curious about ABD river cruise offerings or a family traveler looking for your next premium adventure, you'll understand why Brian and Sam are already planning their next ABD river cruise before this episode ends.

• Find DCL Duo online
• Follow Brian & Sam on Instagram @dcl_duo
• Their audio podcast is available anywhere you listen. Be sure to subscribe to their YouTube channel.

For further info associated with this episode: 

• Here is your guide to Adventures by Disney river cruises, with photos.
• Want to know more about Christmas Markets cruises? Read here (with photos!) or listen to Part 1 and Part 2 of our podcast episodes on the Xmas markets.

Transcript

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Dan (00:35)

Welcome back to another edition of Small Ship Cruise Talk. Today we're talking about Disney's Adventures by Disney River Cruises. And we thought what better guests than to have the Disney experts, Brian and Sam of DCL Duo on. Welcome Brian and Samantha. Appreciate you stopping in and your adventures on Adventures by Disney.

Brian (00:56)

Our adventures with Disney! ⁓

Sam (00:58)

Thank you for having us. We're so excited to be here. We love you guys and we're so happy that you invited us to be on your show.

Dan (01:08)

You guys are big-time podcasters over 560 episodes and pretty much just everything about Disney, right?

Brian (01:18)

Disney Cruise Line. When you said Disney experts, I want to put an asterisk on that. Like, we cannot keep up with the parks. And so we focus on cruise line. We started doing cruise line because we're like, it's like four ships. You know, it's easy to keep up with. And now we're on a trajectory for 13 ships and I can't keep straight which restaurants on which one. So there you go.

Dan (01:22)

Hahaha. Right.

Mikkel (01:35)

Hahaha

Sam (01:35)

Yeah. But we also like to cover the things that are like adjacent to Disney Cruise Line. One of, one of which is of course, Adventures by Disney, which does river cruises and also land-based trips. And it's essentially a luxury travel brand with Disney that sort of does all the white glove service. So they, you know, pick you up from the airport to taking you back to the airport at the end of your trip.

Dan (01:40)

Mm-hmm.

Sam (02:00)

They arrange all of that kind of stuff for you. So logistically, it's very much, you don't have to plan anything. They plan everything for you. So, I like to say that Disney Cruise Line is sometimes the gateway drug to Adventures by Disney, but I think the reverse is true as well. So there are folks who sort of crossover between those two experiences. We also sometimes on our show like to cover other sort of comparable experiences. So occasionally we will dip our toes into other river cruise lines or expedition cruising.

But more likely, we talk sort of other large ship cruise lines and kind of compare and contrast to Disney. For example, recently we went on our Virgin Voyages sailing and did an episode talking about that cruise and of course how it's different from a cruise on

Mikkel (02:46)

I think you're being modest about only really being experts in Disney Cruise Line. You are more Disney experts overall than the average person, but I understand what Brian's saying, too.

Sam (02:50)

Yeah, we do

Dan (02:50)

Hahaha

Brian (02:56)

Hahaha

Dan (02:56)

You

Sam (02:58)

You know, people ask us a lot of the time questions about Disneyland because we are pretty frequent travelers to Disneyland. And so we know that park or that resort, I should say, really, really well. 

And then, of course, we know Aulani really well because we own DVC there as well. But I'd say like Walt Disney World - while we know more than the average guest, I would not say that we're experts at Walt Disney World. That's a very, there's a very extensive, yeah, there's a very extent, yeah, where There's a very extensive amount of knowledge and you know, there's so many hotels there. And so we haven't stayed at all of them and all that. So that's why I would shy away from calling ourselves sort of general Disney experts.

Brian (03:22)

We phone a friend. We phone a friend, yeah.

Dan (03:24)

Alright.

Mikkel (03:38)

And you are married like us. So it's our first double date on the podcast, which is really exciting, but you have a son and we are childless.

Sam (03:43)

Love it. Yes. So we, we travel, ⁓ except of course, when we're traveling on Virgin Voyages, but we travel with our 11-year old who is about to start middle school this fall. So unlike you guys, we can't go on like Viking and Riverside and all these other cruise lines that really cater to adults and this sort of higher luxury end.

We have to kind of stick to family friendly sailings and family-friendly travel. And so that's where Disney Cruise Line fits in really nicely and Adventures by Disney also fits in very nicely. Although they do have some adult-exclusive experiences that you can book as well.

Brian (04:24)

But I want to be clear, we started sailing Disney just the two of us even after we had our son. So like our first Disney cruise was after we had our son. It was just the two of us and we sailed twice just the two of us before we took him on and then immediately did another cruise just the two of us after that. So yeah, yeah.

Sam (04:28)

Yes! Fair.

Dan (04:30)

Ha

Sam (04:32)

Yes.

Mikkel (04:45)

You were being responsible in testing the product before you exposed your son to a Disney cruise. Exactly. You can never be too sure with Disney and child friendliness. I love it. So that's a great overview of the two of you and also a little bit of info about Adventures by Disney. But just so you guys listening know what to expect:

Brian (04:47)

Yeah, got to know, Take one for the team, right? So yeah.

Dan (04:48)

Yes. Yes. Right.

Sam (04:51)

Absolutely, absolutely.

Dan (04:57)

Ha

Mikkel (05:10)

We are gonna go through the River Cruise experience with Adventures by Disney and Sam and Brian's experience with their son Nathan, what itinerary they did and what itineraries are available overall. Love to hear about your most memorable excursions from the cruise, what you guys think of Adventures by Disney or ABD for adults and children, and briefly touch on the cost, which we just like to mention so people know kind of what to expect.

Also, would love to know at the end of this if you would do it again and then we'll wrap up with how to find you guys. But spoiler alert, they're pretty much DCL Duo or @dcl_duo on everything. And we're going to link all that in the show notes so you guys can find them. I also can't let the episode pass by without saying that our podcast title, Small Ship Cruise Talk, was run by Sam and Brian and Brian's the one who said, "Because Size Matters."

So if you look at our podcast art, thank you to Brian for that. And yeah, we look to them for all things podcasting as the pros. And we've been on their podcast several times. We're so grateful for that. And also, if you ever look at our Buzzsprout page, which could be how you're listening if you are listening to the audio version of this, but out of very minimal recommendations that we have for other cruise podcasts to listen to, they are one of two.

Dan (06:04)

Ha ha.

Brian (06:30)

That's a big honor. That's a big honor.

Mikkel (06:30)

So yeah, you can find them there too. Yeah, well, we're so grateful for you guys.

Dan (06:30)

Yeah.

Mikkel (06:36)

Okay, so you touched on what is Adventures by Disney. And you've had episodes about people that have gone. I remember the one about the whirlwind world... 

Brian (06:46)

Around the World Jet Tour. Yeah, yeah.

Mikkel (06:47)

Oh my god, yeah. And that's Adventures by Disney too. So they're not just river cruises. So do any other ones pop up? And have you done any others?

Sam (06:52)

Mm-hmm.

We have just done the one which was a Danube Christmas Markets Cruise in December. We were on during Christmas. But no, we haven't done others. We have done episodes on the South Africa Adventures by Disney and have done a couple of other river cruises like the Holland and Belgium one.

I'm trying to think which other ones, Brian, what are some of the other ones that we've covered?

Brian (07:22)

The California trip that they do, which is actually more of like a behind the scenes for Disney and Disney Imagineering. We covered one about Japan, ABD. Yeah, Egypt. Although that show is a little.

Dan (07:23)

Mm-hmm.

Sam (07:32)

Egypt. We did Egypt.

Brian (07:36)

Their child got pretty sick halfway through, so their experience was a little compromised. But it was great to hear because Disney really leaped in to help them out. I mean, the overarching theme for Adventures by Disney is this sort of like white glove handholding service. So, you know, for the river cruising, for example, just as we head down that path, they don't have their own river cruise ships. They have basically bought out sailings on AmaWaterways. And then what they're doing is supplying these Adventure Guides.

Brian (08:02)

Right. So Ama staff is staffing the crew still their Cruise Director is still there. You have access to all the amenities on the ship, you know, the food, the service - that's all going to be Ama. But then Disney sends on, you know - three to four, usually four, I think, for a river cruise - guides. Five. And so they have they have like two guides who are like sort of general corporate guides. And they've done the they've done the the itinerary usually frequently. And then they also bring on guides who are from the countries you're going to visit. And so when they're in those countries, those guides are like

Sam (08:16)

It's five. It's five for River Cruise. Yeah.

Mikkel (08:19)

Wow.

Brian (08:31)

the experts for, you know, "Hey, I want to grab lunch today while we're in town. Where should we go?" So they kind of become your concierge for that city. And then they lead all of the excursions. And then what happens is the - you know, I know most river cruise lines have included excursions or a lot of them do...

It's kind of the same thing, except that Disney does a lot of like, I would say, you know, they're really known for ferreting out some unique opportunities, the best service providers for those and then getting you special access. Front of the line access. They all carry these little paddles that have numbers on them like you'd see on a cruise to guide. 

But we call them the "Paddle of Power" because they just wave that paddle around and suddenly you're like skipping lines and you're in the room with the codex that DaVinci wrote and you're like, "What happened here?" Not that bad. But it's that kind of service. And then when things go wrong, there's a Disney presence there to leap into action. They carry these bags that are like Mary Poppins bags. So like, "Oh, you hurt your finger? Let me find the Band-Aid." "Oh, you need some ibuprofen? Here you go." "Oh, you need a battery charger? I have three." Right? It's that kind of service that you're paying for. That's kind of what Disney bills the difference as being, I think.

Sam (09:37)

And they also do all of the arrangements with the local, you know, tour guides and whatnot. So like, when you're going to the Schönbrunn Palace, it's not your Adventure Guide that's doing the tour. It is a Schönbrunn Palace certified guide who is telling you all of the stories. But you're also getting, like Brian said, special access. 

So we got a private marionette show there. Right? So there's things there that we got to do that not just anybody from another tour group would get to do. And so that's a lot of where that value comes from. And like Brian said, a couple of the guides are usually local to the region or to the city that you're going to visit. And so then they also speak the local language. So if one of the passengers happens to have, let's say a food allergy, well they're the person that's sort of coordinating that. 

The other part is that - you know, Brian mentioned excursions being included - pretty much (except maybe a lunch or two) all of your meals are included. And that's kind of typical, I think, for river cruising in general. But even your off-ship meals are generally included, save for maybe one or two.

Brian (10:38)

Yeah, so she'll just hand you

And actually, on the cruise that we did, because it was over Christmas time, we did a gift exchange and they gave everybody 20 euros. And they're like, "Here's the money to go buy the gift for the gift exchange. Don't go over 20 euro." And I was like, "Do we bring back the change?" "Just take the money and go do whatever you want. Like, if you want to buy a 10 cent thing and then, you know, spend the rest on gluhwein we don't care." So, yeah, yeah.

Sam (10:59)

Hahaha.

Mikkel (11:00)

That's so great. I love that. 

So why did you decide to go on a river cruise? Obviously, you love cruising, Disney Cruise Line is your favorite in particular. But why did you decide when you did Adventures by Disney that a river cruise and a Christmas Markets river cruise on the Danube was the way to go?

Brian (11:18)

We had had folks on our show who had talked about these cruises and I had sort of been, you know, atmospherically aware of river cruising. Sam and I traveled to Europe ourselves. Have traveled like many times. But I remember distinctly we did a trip after we - we're both lawyers - so after we passed our bar exam, or after we took the bar exam. We didn't know if we'd passed. We took a trip to Italy and we were schlepping from city to city on the train and dragging luggage and all of this sort of stuff.

Dan (11:41)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brian (11:44)

You know, so that quickly, you know, after we came back from that trip, I was like, I just don't want to do that again. Like I'm going to go to a city and see a city. River cruising appealed to me because it's you get on the ship and, your hotel room moves with you. But in this case, unlike the big lines where the ship itself is almost a destination these days or is the destination these days, the river cruises are... they're kind of no frills. I mean, nice cabins.

Really good food. I don't want to say that the amenities and the staterooms in the spaces aren't nice, but they don't have water slides and go-kart. Like, they're not going to do that, right? So really, the destinations are now the cities. And this enabled us to sort of, you know, we flew to Munich, we got on the ship, and then we went from place to place to place. And we didn't have to like pack up and repack and get on buses and, all that sort of stuff. So that appealed to me. 

I think the biggest thing was I really wanted to take Nathan overseas. I really wanted him to see Europe in some way. And doing a traditional river cruise without Adventures by Disney, so most of the rooms only hold like two people. 

With Adventures by Disney, when they contract with Ama, they actually allow three people in the cabin and they have this like little chair that folds out into like this world's smallest twin bed, but perfect for, you know, an eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 year old. It's fine, right? So it enabled us to buy one room on the ship and take all of us as opposed to having to get two rooms for a family of three. And then we knew that the guides would do little activities, right with the kids. So like one day we went to Schönbrunn Palace. And we all did as a group, a marionette show because the kids liked it. The adults liked it was really interesting.

But the adults were going to tour through the rooms of Schönbrunn Palace. And the guys are like, "Okay, kids. We're going to go off over here and get dressed up in costumes and take pictures." And then, so we're touring the palace and the guides are taking care of the kids. And that's great because I know Nathan would have been bored out of his mind walking through rooms of a palace. yeah, so that was part of it, too.

Dan (13:36)

Yeah. Yeah.

Sam (13:39)

Yeah.

And onboard, they also do some activities for the kids. Not every single night, but there were a few nights where the kids could eat dinner in the lounge with sort of buffet style with the adventure guides. And we could be in the dining room.

One of the nights that they did that, we actually took advantage of eating at the Chef's Table. And so it was a faster meal than a normal Chef's Table. If you were to go to a Chef's Table on land, but it was really lovely. And, Nathan wouldn't have enjoyed that food. He was permitted to come to the Chef's Table, but he wouldn't have eaten anything that they served. And so it was better that he was in the lounge and eating hamburgers and French fries with the guides and watching, a Disney movie or something like that. 

So yeah, it's really nice that they do a good job of sort of creating space for the adults to enjoy and for the kids to enjoy. It does skew older children. I want to be very clear. You cannot bring an infant on Adventures by Disney. They actually have a minimum age, which I think is five, but they have a recommended minimum age, which is typically eight. Nathan was nine when we went.

⁓ and I think he was on the younger side. Like I think that it will be a better, even better experience for him being a little bit older than it was at that age. So it certainly isn't for toddlers or babies.

It is for, I'd say older elementary and up. And there were definitely a handful of teens as well. We're talking like 150 something passengers on the ship and maybe 20 of them were kids, you know, were under the age of 18. So we're not talking a huge amount of youngsters, but it was definitely family friendly in all respects.

Mikkel (15:22)

Do you think most of the other people were parents or were they're even older, like college age kids?

Brian (15:28)

No, well, I think there were multi-generational families traveling. I think that was a big part of it. So, you know, grandma and grandpa, the kids, maybe their kids. You know, that kind of an experience. Lots of families. Like anything Disney, there are some

Sam (15:29)

There were. Yeah.

Brian (15:41)

diehards. So there are people who this is how they vacation. They go on Adventures by Disney all the time. And so, you some of them there were on like their 10, 12, 15th trip with Adventures by Disney and just two adults. Hanging out with Adventures by Disney because they appreciate the level of service and the quality of the ship, the food, the excursions, all that sort of stuff.

I will say ABD adds a pretty hefty... There's the price of going on an AmaWaterways cruise, and then there's the price for going on an ABD chartered AmaWaterways cruise. And the difference between that is not insignificant or nontrivial. So it adds a lot to it. We actually looked at

Brian (16:18)

this summer we were toying with, "Well, maybe while Nathan's at camp, we'll go over and just do an AmaWaterways cruise, just the two of us, and really see what's the difference between the ABD versus non-ABD on a similar ship or the same cruise line." Uh, it was leaps and bounds more affordable for the two of us to go do that than it was for us to do the ABD version. It's an expensive proposition, yeah.

Dan (16:36)

Hahaha.

Mikkel (16:41)

Yeah. And in terms of the teenagers and the room situation, you said... If two parents, let's say, are traveling with teenagers, do you think they should book two rooms? 

Brian (16:51)

They have to. Yeah, and they have to.

Sam (16:51)

Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Dan (16:53)

Okay.

Sam (16:53)

I think there's actually maybe a couple of rooms on board that are "suites" - I'm putting "suites" in air quotes - that do supposedly hold for people. But I think you're talking about like a pullout couch situation. And the pullout chair situation that Nathan slept in was fine for him being small. I'm not sure that like a full size 16 or 17 year old male would fit in one of those very well. So, you know, with teenagers, especially older teens, you do need two rooms. One adult has to actually technically be booked into the, each of the rooms.

Brian (17:29)

Yeah, but the other reason that you need two rooms is... So, when I say they'll three into a cabin, let me be very clear: I think the price per person varies between like five and seven thousand dollars per person for some of these trips.

And Nathan, as a child, gets a very small discount. About $500. So it's like all they're really doing is saving you the cost of having to buy the double occupancy cabin next door for a single person. So you're saving the $6,000 or whatever it be to have that two person cabin for only one person. 

But once you're four people you might as well just get the other cabin because you're still paying the same price for that one person to be in your cabin. You're just not having to pay the double occupancy. So yeah, yeah.

Dan (18:05)

Yeah.

Sam (18:05)

Yeah, there's not really a savings, yeah.

Dan (18:12)

Right. Yeah.

Mikkel (18:12)

Right, and some of the rooms on the Ama ships, which I think is another reason... Which came first: the chicken or the egg? So which came first: the partnership with Adventures by Disney or that the AmaWaterways ships are some of the only ships that have a joining room. So like a hotel that the door would open, but most river cruise lines don't have that because they don't need it.

Brian (18:32)

I think I did hear at one point Adventures by Disney had kind of partnered with Ama over the construction of a couple of ships to sort of give them some... I don't know if it was like, "You must do this because we have a partnership..." or it was more like design input on the ship.

Mikkel (18:39)

Hmm.

Dan (18:44)

Mm-hmm.

Brian (18:45)

I did hear that ABD tends to use the same handful of ships every year. And I have a feeling they sort of worked with Ama to say like, "We're going to need some adjoining staterooms on these ships. We need to figure out how we do that." Yeah.

Dan (18:56)

Yeah.

Sam (18:56)

Yeah, I will say that, you know, one thing that was surprising to us was, I mean, you sort of read the fine print of what the size of the stateroom and then you see the stateroom and it's a bit shocking for, for those of us who sail on large ship cruises and then you go on a river cruise and the rooms are a lot, a lot smaller. They are beautifully and like designed and very efficiently designed, but they are really small in comparison. At least that's how. Yes.

Mikkel (19:26)

Wait, the river cruise is smaller than you expected. ⁓ I was like, where is she going with this? Oh, interesting.

Sam (19:30)

Yes. Yes. No, smaller than what we expected. ⁓ and so for three people, ⁓

Brian (19:36)

But it was comfortable. We were comfortable. Yeah, we were. And we weren't in the room.

Sam (19:37)

It was fine. Yeah. Here's the thing. You weren't in the room. That's the, that's the, that I will say on a large ship cruise, not to say we spent a lot of time in our room, but we spend some more time in our room.

Dan (19:38)

Yeah. Right. Right.

Sam (19:48)

and on the river cruise, when you're sort of just hanging out on the ship, you're hanging out in the lounge and that's probably the same across all the different river cruises. You're really not like hanging out in your room.

Brian (19:58)

We'd come back from the excursion, I'd get my coat off, I'd change out of my Gore-Tex hiking sneakers and put on my well-worn penny loafers for dinner and go relax in the lounge and have a drink. Like, yeah, we were never just sitting in the stateroom. We were like, passed out sleeping, waking up early, getting ready for the day, and then out the door.

Dan (20:15)

Yeah, they keep you busy. Yeah, yeah.

Mikkel (20:17)

Right.

Sam (20:17)

Yes. Oh, yeah. Yes, it was not a relaxing cruise. That's another difference I would say probably more akin to sailing in Norway or Alaska on a large ship, right? It's go, go, go. You're doing a lot of activities during the day. You're off the ship a lot of the day doing tours and whatnot. 

On a Caribbean cruise, which is the typical sort of large ship cruise or Bahamas cruise. ⁓ it's about, know, maybe going to the beach, maybe sitting on the pool deck, maybe going to see a movie in the movie theater. ⁓ and so, yeah, it's definitely a different vibe of sort of relaxation versus touring, right? River cruising, I think leans into that because, as Brian mentioned, you are right in the heart of a city versus on a large ship, you are at a port that might be hours away from a city.

Mikkel (21:03)

Right. And you went during Christmas time, but there are pools on the AmaWaterways ships. So if you did go during the kids summer break or, you know, what have you, you would be able to take advantage of that.

In terms of "Disney-fying" the ship, if I can use that word, If at all, and how do they do that on the ship?

Sam (21:18)

Yeah.

No, there's no Disney-fying the ship. There's no, yeah. 

Sam (21:22)

There, well, there, Well, a stuffed Minnie Mouse actually came around everywhere. The Adventure Guides had a Munich- dressed Minnie Mouse. I actually have one: Munchen Minnie. Yeah. And so she was brought out every morning by the Adventure Guides and she was given to a family to take

Brian (21:24)

No Mickey. There will be no Mickey.

Mikkel (21:25)

No, okay, there's no characters.

That was another question I had in my head. Does Mickey Mouse come?

Brian (21:38)

Munchen, Munchen Minnie.

Dan (21:39)

Hmm, Munchen Minnie.

Mikkel (21:40)

Munchen Minnie!

Sam (21:50)

around for the day and the family was tasked with taking photos. Yes, like a Flat Stanley. And was tasked with taking photos of many on their adventures for the day. And so we were lucky enough to get chosen one day to be that family. It was actually the day we were in Vienna Schönbrunn Palace.

Brian (21:51)

and take photos, yeah.

Mikkel (21:53)

Like, flat Stanley, yeah.

Sam (22:06)

Yeah.

Brian (22:06)

Sam killed it. Sam killed it. Like all of her photos. Yeah, like they do. They, yeah, they often do a slideshow at the end of the cruise. And part of their slideshow was the photos of Minnie and easily half of them were photos that Sam had taken of Minnie doing everything: eating lunch having Schnitzel with us. And yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Mikkel (22:08)

Yes!

Sam (22:10)

Minnie went to the Chef's Table. I mean...

Dan (22:12)

Yeah.

Ha ⁓

Sam (22:20)

I took a lot of photos of, yeah. Yes, she had schnitzel with us in Vienna. She was at a Viennese coffee place. She ate at the Chef's Table with us that night. She was watching a movie. She was resting on the bed in our stateroom. whenever, but that's yeah. Yes, that's right. But that was the only, Disneyfication in that way. I will say there were special things that happen. 

Brian (22:35)

Having a drink at the bar.

Mikkel (22:36)

okay.

Sam (22:45)

You get a pin every single day for every place you go to, and it's a Disney themed pin. And so it will sort of say the location and it will have a Disney character in that location. And then you also got other gifts. I don't know if this is always or if this was because it was Christmas, but Father Christmas brought us gifts in a stocking outside our room. So, you know, things like that.

Dan (23:06)

Yeah, nice.

Brian (23:08)

Yeah, I think because it was Christmas, the guides who were on with us were like, "We're gonna like celebrate our Christmas traditions." And like every night at dinner or two, they had like one menu item that was like one of the guide's traditional Christmas dishes that they enjoyed  kind of thing. Then Ama would make it and you could order it. The other thing that they do - I mean, it's not Disney-fying, they don't put up decorations and stuff like that. I mean, we had like Christmas decor, but like I think part of that was Ama puts up Christmas decor. ⁓

Sam (23:28)

Well, they were Christmas decorations.

Mikkel (23:32)

Mm-hmm.

Brian (23:33)

But the guides, there's entertainment in the lounge every night. Which I'm sure that other river cruises do, but it's family friendly entertainment with the guides kind of like getting crowd participation and, you know, pulling people up to dance, and stuff like that. And so in that way, it's a high-energy kind of group that like they're always trying to keep the energy level up. Or on the bus, they'll be like Disney movies playing, right? If you're on a bus ride for two hours from the port to the city, the guide always have like a Disney VHS and they'll throw it in for everybody to watch kind of thing. yeah.

Mikkel (23:39)

Yeah, that's a great point.

Mikkel (24:01)

This is phenomenal. Okay, so it's just enough, but not ramming it down your throat if you're a grandparent and you're like, "Enough with the Disney..."

Sam (24:08)

Correct. It's

Brian (24:08)

Yeah. No one walking around with… If you saw the group walking around the city, you would have no idea that it was like a "Disney group" unless people were wearing like Disney stuff, which most people weren't. So…

Sam (24:10)

Very light.

Mikkel (24:19)

Yeah.

Dan (24:20)

Was there Mickey waffles at least in the morning?

Mikkel (24:23)

Good question. Whoa.

Sam (24:23)

No, no Mickey waffles. They're just the regular. Other than what Brian mentioned, which was there was a special dish at dinner that you could order, all of the menu was the Ama menu. Although I will say there was a kid's menu and I don't know if there is a kid's menu on other Ama.

And so there was always a hamburger and macaroni and cheese. Like a hamburger was always on the dinner menu. Macaroni and cheese was always on the lunch menu, right? So there were a few items. And I mean, I know that because that's what Nathan ordered at every meal pretty much. ⁓ and so No... Yeah, he's not, I mean, he's a decent eater. 

But on Disney Cruise Line, all he eats is hamburgers and Mickey's Mac 'n Cheese. So I think he just felt at home. He must, you know, in order to feel like he belonged he needed to order a hamburger and mac 'n cheese every day.

Mikkel (24:53)

Yeah.

Dan (24:53)

No, no foie gras, or anything?

Mikkel (25:13)

I would like mac and cheese on the menu when we go on a cruise for every river cruise. That is not on the menu regularly.

Dan (25:14)

I mean, come on.

Sam (25:18)

Yeah. And it was like fancy mac and cheese. It was really nice. Yeah. Yeah. It was, yeah. The burger, not so much. I tried the burger and I ...it did not taste like an American burger. I don't know what the spices in the meat or whatever. Just, yeah. That was probably the only food I would say across this like cruise. Yeah. It just, it just didn't taste right.

Mikkel (25:22)

Gourmet.

Brian (25:22)

It was European. It was European mac and cheese.

Dan (25:24)

Hahaha.

Mikkel (25:26)

Okay. Yeah.

Brian (25:36)

It was because the patty wasn't made in a factory frozen shipped across the country.

Sam (25:43)

But it wasn't like terrible. It just didn't taste like it was supposed to taste, let me put it that way. But that might've been the only food on the entire river cruise that I didn't enjoy. Everything else that I was super... Yeah, I would say in general, we were super impressed with the food.

Brian (25:53)

The food was phenomenal.

Sam (25:57)

Certainly not just comparable to Disney Cruise Line, which we think is very good. I would say it was a step above Main Dining on Disney Cruise Line.

Brian (26:05)

Yeah, the The only letdown we had with food, I feel like was maybe the buffet lunch we had outside of Salzburg. It's just not great. But I mean, they don't control that. Right? 

And then what I liked was actually that when we were in Vienna, we did this excursion in the morning and then they're like, "Okay, everybody can head back to the ship for lunch and then go exploring your own." I was like, "Can we just stay out and go get lunch someplace?" They're like, "Oh yeah, sure. Here's some restaurant recommendations." We're like, "Fantastic." They're like, "Ship leaves at whatever time..." We're like,

Sam (26:10)

Mm-hmm.

Brian (26:29)

"We'll be there," right? So yeah, it was great.

Mikkel (26:31)

Yeah. So speaking of the Chef's Table that you mentioned before and the food in general, you had mentioned that kids are allowed. So the Chef's Table, for anyone who doesn't know, is an AmaWaterways specialty, that there is a second restaurant that's included in the costs. And it's a little bit of an elevated set menu, like multi-course menu. So did you feel like if Nathan wanted to come - or a teenager wanted to would like it if they were a little bit adventurous?

Sam (26:57)

There was.

Mikkel (26:59)

We can't know without looking at the menu how it differs from the regular AmaWaterways without kids, but I'm curious what you thought of the menu if he had wanted to come.

Sam (27:04)

Yeah. So there was actually a teenager at our table. Brian and I sat with another family at the Chef's Table. Cause there's like, I want to say three or four different tables. And so you just kind of get randomly seated. And the family that we sat with had a teenage daughter. I don't know how old she was. I think if you were an adventurous eater, like the teen who's willing to try the foie gras and the escargot or things like that, then yes, they could enjoy it. 

But it's a set menu, as you mentioned, and so you can't make changes, substitutions, that sort of a thing. And so I'd say probably most kids, it's not really kid-friendly. Although, like I said, they'll allow your kid to attend. Nathan could have attended even at nine. But yeah, certainly much happier... he wouldn't have eaten anything I'll be totally honest. He wouldn't have touched any of it.

Dan (27:55)

All right.

Brian (27:56)

I'll say that the Chef's Table on our cruise, I think was the weakest onboard food offering that we experienced just because I'm used to going to a Chef's Table and it's kind of a multi-course experience. And it's a slower pace. It's enjoy the wine. This felt very much like, okay, we're pouring all the wine. We're just going to like get all the food out. 

Dan (28:03)

Hmm. Interesting.

Brian (28:23)

Like thanks for dining with us get out like it felt like they had and I understand why because the kids were... But it felt very abbreviated, both in terms of the menu, the experience, the service, everything just felt kind of like, you know, like I've never been to a Chef's Table that was 90 minutes. And that's what this felt like. It's like, we've got 90 minutes to get you in and out of this space. For me, I don't know that I would seek out that experience again. Right? So, yeah.

Sam (28:38)

Yeah, I agree with Brian there. It was nice that we were able to experience it, but I would say it was probably one of the weaker… I liked the main dining better than that experience, but I thought the main dining food was fantastic. And like I said, save for that hamburger, everything was fantastic. Yeah.

Brian (28:55)

And I will say it was not about the for me was that the food was was good at the Chef's... And just for level setting for folks, it's not like we're super picky eaters. Like we've eaten at Michelin-starred restaurants in the U.S. and abroad. We enjoy those experiences. 

This just didn't feel like... like what I like about that experience. You know, Michelin rates restaurants based on food quality, atmosphere and service. And on this, I would say the food quality was high. The service and the atmosphere were just not great. And I think it was just because they had to rush through the meal. So...

Dan (29:21)

Yeah.

Mikkel (29:21)

Right. Take us through your top two experiences excursion-wise on this. You had mentioned Vienna and Schönbrunn and the marionette show, but I know you did some other really great excursions.

Sam (29:34)

Yeah. I was going to say, I'll let you go with the number one and then I'll do the number two one. And neither of those are going to be the Schönbrunn Palace, although that was phenomenal, but I know which one is number one. I'll let Brian talk about it. And then I'll talk about the number two, which was like a sleeper hit. We didn't even initially choose

Mikkel (29:49)

Ooh.

Brian (29:50)

Number one was the salt mines. So we had talked to a couple of folks who had done the Christmas Market River cruise with ABD. And I think both of them said, or at least one of them was like, if you do this cruise, no question to the salt mines. So we weren't in Salzburg, because that's not on the river. But we're in a small town. You had to bus into Salzburg for two, two and a half hours. 

There are two excursion offerings. One was this salt mines tour, which was you went to a salt mine, you had lunch, and then you went into Salzburg and you did a little tour and then you got to see the Christmas market. The other one was a Sound of Music kind of tour, right. So we chose the salt mine and I was like, I don't know what's going to happen here. And we had heard some things from people, but I didn't know quite what to expect. They take you up to this... It's not an active salt mine anymore. It's basically been turned into a museum, but it was an active salt mine. 

And from Jump Street, it was just amazing. So like you you have to suit up into these like Tyvek kind of suits to go into the mine. And then they put you on like a mine car to get in. And it's like one of these things where like straddling a log and holding a handle. And they're like, you know, you're kind of hunched over and they're like taking you deep into the mine to start the tour. And somebody's like, "Oh my God, this is like a real live Thunder Mountain experience!" And it's like.

Dan (30:59)

Yeah, yeah.

Brian (31:01)

We're going through, it's great. We get off. It was a great experience from a balance of education that Nathan actually loved and remembered. Great visuals, great installations to help you understand what was going on. And then these just like really fun and surprising moments. So like at one point you learn that there's a treaty between Austria and Germany that allows the Austrians to dig underneath into Germany to mine salt. And the Germans then were allowed to come into forest, to do logging activity, basically. 

So they kind of traded resources. And so at one point you are walking down this tunnel and there's these big arches and it's like the border crossing. You're crossing from Austria into Germany. There's no like officer there or anything, but it's this cool moment where you're like, you're going into another country underground, right? And then there's one on the way back.

Dan (31:31)

Hmm.

Brian (31:47)

They had these slides, they were called Miner Slides, and they would show you the original versions, which looked like complete death traps. And they had built these ones, but to take you down deeper and deeper into the mine, you would get on these slides, and they had like, radar guns, like seeing how fast you were coming down the slides. And so they make a little competition, who can go the fastest down the slide. And there's a lake, there was a lake down in the mountain. And you get on the lake, and they have all of these like visual overlays being displayed, they're telling a story. 

And here's a touch of Disney, they added: Our Adventure Guide was in the back of this boat as the boat starts to pull away from the dock. It's really kind of eerie and quiet and you just hear the water lapping, he goes, "Dead men tell no tale..." Right? So everyone's laughing and having a great time. So it was really fun. You get down into the oldest part of the mine. Nathan picked up a little rock on the floor and he was like, "Oh my god, this rock is from whatever crazy year that this mine was originally started by people who were just handpicking down into mines."

Brian (32:40)

And the guy's like, "Hey, throw it in your pocket, take it home." He's like, so he did. So he loved that. He loved that. And then afterwards, we had this Austrian-style buffet lunch, which was not great, but fine. It wasn't bad. And then we went into Salzburg and we did like a little abbreviated tour of the city. 

And then were set on our own for about 90 minutes to go visit the Salzburg Christmas markets. Because that was the big feature of the cruise we were on was getting to visit all of these different Christmas markets in the different cities and some very unique Christmas markets, too. There was one Christmas market we went to that was out in a forest, like in the middle of like nowhere. 

But like people were rolling up in cars, you had to hike down this path that was lit by candlelight and lanterns. And you're out in the forest and there was a company out there that did ropes obstacle courses that are basically taking over their facility for a Christmas market. But it was authentic. You're not going to this place when you fly into like...

Dan (33:18)

Ha. Nice.

Brian (33:33)

This is where the locals go, right? And so they're taking you to an authentic Christmas market that people go to. You really get a sense of like kind of try some of the really local food and drink and handicrafts and stuff like that. It was great.

Dan (33:34)

Yeah.

Sam (33:45)

The other excursion that I would say was kind of a sleeper hit, which like Brian said, people had told us to do the salt mine. This one, we actually didn't initially choose. We were in Budapest, Hungary, sort of the end.

Yeah, this was the end of our sailing. And we had signed up to do a food market tour in the food hall. And they had too many people sign up for the food hall tour and they sort of said, "Would anybody maybe volunteer to switch and do this other tour that we have, which goes to like this equestrian facility that does this really cool demonstration with horses and sort of the Hungarian tradition with raising horses and showing horses?" And so we were like, you know what? Like,

we had talked to one of our Adventure Guides, Danny, and he was like, this is a really good one. Like I would highly recommend if you're thinking about switching, this is one to switch to. So we raised our hands and decided, yeah, we'll switch. And it was such a good decision because this equestrian facility was so interesting. They were like farm animals that you could like also look at. They did this really cool demonstration with shooting arrows from horses and standing on horses. 

And they had this big equestrian ring that you were sort of watching a show in. And then we might've had one of our most favorite lunches like that we had. I know, know Brian was going to, with this fantastic lunch with all these delicious meats and potatoes and... Way too much food. Yeah. We felt bad. felt like we. Yeah.

Brian (34:54)

That lunch was so amazing. So amazing. So good and so much food. The amount of food they were hauling away with people going, "I can't eat anymore." I was like, it's Like piles of meat and like all of this sort of stuff. And you're like, I mean, hopefully they fed the horses. I don't know. But yeah.

Sam (35:13)

It was so delicious. Yeah. Well, and Brian discovered maybe his favorite souvenir at this lunch, which was this paprika paste that they refer to as "Strong Steve."

Brian (35:23)

Well, wait, let me set this up. So there was this paste on the table and there was this bread and I was like, I don't know what this is. kind of looks like a syrup. I don't know what this is. I spread a little bit on a piece of bread and I was eating like this. It's delicious. And no one else is eating it.

Sam (35:31)

Looks like a Sriracha or something.

Brian (35:36) 

So I slide the jar over and I'm just slathering bread with this stuff and eating it. It's so hot, but it's so good. And the Adventure Guide, Danny, comes over and he's looking at me. He's like, "What are you doing?" And I'm like, "This is so good." He's like, "Oh, they usually just add a little bit of that stuff to the food to spice it up." 

And I was like, "This is great on its own. What is it?" He's like, "It's paprika paste." And I'm like, "This is this is great. Do they sell this here? How can I get this?" And he was like, "Well, I mean, they sell it on Amazon." And I was like, "Oh," and so he said "It's called - 'Strong Steve' is the translation. But you can get it under this name." I immediately was on Amazon. They had regular and extra hot. And I was like, I have a feeling the locals are probably eating extra hot. So I'll get a jar of extra hot and a couple of jars of regular. 

So we get home. Sam makes chili a couple nights later after we get home and I have this paste and I like like, "Oh, I love the paprika. This is gonna be great!" And so like I take a teaspoon of it and I mix it into my bowl of chili and I start eating it like, "This is too hot. This is so hot!" So now I take like the tiniest little edge of the spoon and drop it in and just like stir it around and it's perfect. But yeah, my favorite souvenir by far from that trip.

Sam (36:26)

The extra hot one.

Dan (36:29)

Hahaha

Brian (36:39)

Budapest was amazing. If you have not been to Budapest and if you're out there listening to this like, ⁓ gosh, get on a river cruise that ends in Budapest. 

Sam (36:46)

Or starts in Budapest. Yeah.

Brian (36:47)

The sailing is amazing. Yeah, it's just amazing.

Mikkel (36:49)

I'm going to actually go through really quickly where Adventures by Disney sails. So they go on the Rhine River, which is Amsterdam to Basel, or the reverse. They sail to Strasbourg, France, which was a personal favorite of mine on the Rhine River. Cologne, they do go to, obviously, Amsterdam, as we said, which is in the Netherlands, and that's a great place. Ruedesheim. They do the Seine River in France. And there is a Paris extension that Adventures by Disney offers.

And they go to Normandy to Rouen to learn about the Vikings and Joan of Arc to Monet's famous locations. Honfleur, where there are beautiful coastal views. Dan and I did Normandy by land, but one day we're going to do it by water, by river. The Danube that you guys did. The Rhone River from Lyon to Marseille. And they actually do South America too, which is not on AmaWaterways, but they do it on a ship that is on the Napo River, and it's a couple of days.

And you had mentioned, Sam, that they do the adults-only cruises too. So I know they do one for Oktoberfest and then they do ones that highlight wines in the region, which is super interesting. 

Brian (37:55)

And the tulip cruise.

Mikkel (37:59)

And the tulip is the other one.

Dan (37:58)

Interesting. OK.

Sam (38:00)

For a couple of their itineraries, they'll do like one adult-only exclusive per season kind of a thing. And they don't do a lot. Some of the other land based trips, they don't have adult-only, although they do have for some. It's sort of a mix. But I would say at least three or four river cruises a year are adult exclusive.

Brian (38:17)

They also used to have one in Asia, in Vietnam I think it was, that people liked, but I don't know how subscribed it was. So don't know if they're gonna continue. They've over time expanded, pared back, expanded, pared back. So the offerings change pretty, like release to release or year to year, yeah.

Dan (38:21)

Hmm.

Sam (38:32)

Yeah. Well, and they've also done expedition cruising as well in the past, but now because they have that partnership with Nat Geo - Disney has a partnership - they basically have both Nat Geo and ABD now. And so they've sort of leaned more into the expedition side on Nat Geo and kind of eliminated most of the expedition offerings on Adventures by Disney.

Brian (38:53)

Yeah, because they used to go to Galapagos, they used to go to Antarctica. Also for a while, one season I think, they did a small ship Mediterranean cruise, almost like a yacht experience, but they they seem to have ended that. Yeah.

Mikkel (39:05)

Is it safe to say that the itineraries and when they're offered are largely based on when kids have off from school?

Sam (39:12)

Yes. Christmas holidays and summer are sort of high season. So you'll see many more itineraries offered during the summer months and over like the two weeks of Christmas to New Year's then the rest of the year. Yep.

Brian (39:24)

But they do those adult cruises on shoulders, right, for that stuff. So I think that tends to be when they do the adult-only sailings, like the shoulder season or the low season here in the States, right? People go back to school at like a wide range of times. So when you get into late August/early September, you might have some kids still out of school, but not many. And so they'll do the adult-only offering then.

Dan (39:44)

We need to ask: Would you do it again? 

Sam (39:47)

We are doing it again!

Brian (39:47)

We are doing it again. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sam (39:50)

We're actually booked. So, funny enough, our inaugural DCL Duo Podcast Cruise we did last year. We did a special cruise to Lookout Cay on the Disney Magic. And for our second podcast cruise, we are actually going on Adventures by Disney. We are going to be sailing the Holland Belgium itinerary.

Brian (40:12)

From Amsterdam, yeah.

Dan (40:13)

Nice. Nice.

Sam (40:13)

Yeah, so we're super excited to do that. It goes on all these little tributaries in the area. It's gonna be all about wine and cheese and chocolate and tulips, but not tulips because it's not gonna be tulip season, because we're gonna be there in July. But yeah, some…

Brian (40:28)

Maybe some windmills. Maybe some windmills. Some Delft.

Dan (40:31)

You'll see, you'll see some, yes.

Sam (40:32)

Yeah, yeah, maybe some clogs. Yeah.

Mikkel (40:32)

Love Delft. It was my birthday excursion. It was great.

Yes, with clogs. Yes, yes, yes.

Dan (40:37)

Yes. Yes.

Sam (40:37)

With clogs, right? So yeah, we're super excited. It's a family-friendly trip. At this point, have at least 10 rooms joining us. The sailing is still on sale. So if people are interested in coming with us, they can always reach out to us and then we'll put you in touch with our agency sponsor, who is the one booking the sailing for everyone.

And yeah, we're super excited. So we're going on another river cruise. We'd like to do a land-based Adventures by Disney at some point, but at this point we really like the idea of the river cruise because as Brian mentioned, we don't like schlepping our bags places, especially when we're kind of schlepping Nathan places. And, ⁓ we have this refrain that we say to one another when we're really frustrated or kind of exhausted, which is, "Uhh, train Italia," which is the Italian train system, like kind of like Amtrak.

Because it's like the frustration that we feel. Train Italian. was. Yeah.

Brian (41:30)

It was palpable. To answer maybe the specific question, "Will we do this cruise again?," Dan - I want to do this cruise again. I would in a heartbeat recommend a Christmas markets river cruise to anyone looking to do a river cruise. Is it in the warm weather season? No, but Europe is just stunning at Christmas time and it's just such a special time to go. So would absolutely do this cruise again. In fact, I hope we get a chance to repeat it as a family. Yeah.

Dan (41:47)

special.

Mikkel (41:56)

So how do people find you, especially if they want to book that cruise, but if they find this episode after that, you very well could have another cruise upcoming that's a group trip too. But in general, how can everybody find you?

Sam (42:06)

Sure. Well that, yeah, well that group trip is in July of 2026. So it's about a year away. So you can still contact us if you're listening to this in a timely fashion, but you can find us everywhere on social media at DCL Duo. On Instagram, we are @dcl_duo and we also have our website, DCLduo.com so if you want to find us and you don't know where to find us, you can go to our website and it links to everything. But we're on all the major podcast channels. We're on YouTube as well. And we put out two episodes every week, sometimes three. 

We do a live show on YouTube every Monday night at 8:30 PM Eastern, 5:30 PM Pacific, unless we're traveling. And then we'll just put out a recorded episode instead.

Mikkel (42:49)

It's amazing you have jobs that are not this full time and you're still, and you have a child and you have extracurricular activities and you're able to do this so much. It's so inspiring.

Sam (42:53)

Yeah.

Dan (42:53)

Yeah.

Brian (43:00)

It's a passion. It is a passion, yeah.

Mikkel (43:03)

You're committed.

Well, thank you so much for coming on and letting everybody know the inside info for Adventures by Disney on the River Cruise.

Sam (43:12)

Thank you so much for having us.

Brian (43:13)

Yeah.

Sam (43:14)

We love talking to you guys. You know, as you mentioned, you've been on our show. We're so excited to be invited to be on your show and just love you guys and we wish you all the success in the world.

Brian (43:24)

Yeah. Thanks so much for having us.

Mikkel (43:24)

We love you guys too.

Dan (43:25)

Thank you so much.