October 22, 2025 • 44 mins
Julie is fresh off the Disney Magic Halloween on the High Seas sailing — and we’re spilling all the details! In Part 1 of our post-cruise recap, we dive into embarkation day, first impressions of the ship, and the magic of Castaway Cay, including the unforgettable Stingray Experience. Julie also shares her thoughts on dining, favorite meals, and a quick stop in Nassau.
Whether you're a seasoned cruiser or first-timer, join us for all the deets!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to Wonderlust and Witches, the
podcast where we explore theworld one destination at a time.
I'm Julie.
And I'm Crystal.
As travel agents withfantastical vacations, we are
here to share our passion fortravel and help you turn your
wonderlust into reality.
From hidden gems to bucket listadventures, join us as we dive
into the sights, sounds, andstories of our favorite
(00:20):
destinations.
So grab your passport, pack yourbags, and let's embark on this
journey together.
SPEAKER_01 (00:32):
Hi everybody.
Welcome to episode 74 ofWonderlust and Wishes.
Today we're going to talk aboutpost-trip report for the
Halloween on the high seascruise that my family and I
took.
It's been two or three weekssince we've recorded because we
pre-recorded a lot of things tobe prepared for me being in an
(00:53):
area with not a lot of greatinternet.
So I feel like I haven't talkedto Crystal in forever.
Even though we have, it's we arenot recording.
SPEAKER_00 (01:02):
No, my my evenings, my recording nights have missed
Julie.
And I've tried not to ask her abunch about the cruise because I
wanted to get this meantime.
So it's good to be back.
But also because of that, we'vehad a lot of news buildup.
SPEAKER_01 (01:17):
Yes, we have.
Some of the stuff that hashappened, Walt Disney World
finally, finally, finallyreleased November and December
of 2026.
They also released some newpromotions.
So there are still Walt DisneyWorld and Disney Cruise Line
promotions out there.
There's multiple out there.
So if you have any questions oryou're interested, just let us
(01:39):
know.
SPEAKER_00 (01:40):
I thought this announcement would ping pong the
Universal 2026 more options, butit it did not.
We're still waiting.
So instead, we got a UniversalHoliday.
They changed their holiday tourto 1 to 5 p.m.
instead of like half after hoursevents type tour that would end
at 11.
(02:01):
Pros and cons is a family.
You still get priority meetswith the Grinch and Santa, but
it's a full park.
So you're wasting your park day.
And you end with priorityseating at the parade.
There's not any Christmas lightsor show on Hogwarts included.
I'm not sure why they did that.
I feel like a lot of people arenot happy with that.
No, and like I get like doing itearlier in the day for little
(02:21):
kids, but how do you keep mykids up for this?
It's like just doing like anafter hours Disney party or
something.
SPEAKER_01 (02:26):
I agree with the same thing.
I uh having the after hours partof it is was one of the huge
benefits because you don't haveso many people and you have
lower wait times and things likethat, which is such a huge
benefit to those types ofthings.
Just a quick cruise update.
Celebrity Cruise Line releasedtheir 2027, 2028 Hawaii,
(02:47):
Australia, and New Zealanditineraries.
So if you're looking to plan acruise that's pretty far out,
and we talk about that if youwant to get the best price, you
need to book early.
So those are all available rightnow.
SPEAKER_00 (03:01):
Cake Bake Shop, since we already talked about
our Christmas episode, this hadnot been released yet, but Cake
Bake Shop on Disney's Boardwalkis doing a special dinner with
Santa Claus event.
This event will feature athree-course meal, take-home
gift, holiday cocktails, and hotchocolate, and a professional
photograph with Santa Claus.
This event will take place onNovember 18th, November 25th,
(03:23):
December 2nd, and December 9th.
If you are interested in moreinformation about this event,
you can contact their conciergeevents team and find more info
on their website.
SPEAKER_01 (03:33):
That looks really nice.
I'm sure it's probably gonna bereally hard to get into with
only four dates.
I can't imagine that they'regonna have a whole lot of
availability.
But what an experience.
I know it sounds so fun.
We talked about this a littlebit ago that uh Tapu Tapu would
(03:55):
be discontinued at some point,that it was coming.
So they have officiallydiscontinued Tapu Tapu at
Volcano Bay.
At this point, guests will haveto stand in a queue, just like
you do for any other area.
There's no virtual line.
It does look like they areissuing a one white wristband,
(04:17):
basically, for each family oreach group that's with your, you
know, with your party to allowfor locker access.
Because that was one of the hugethings that we talked about is
the whole thing with having TapuTapu is you didn't have to worry
about having anything like withyou, and that you could put up
your money and you didn't haveto carry around a ticket and all
(04:38):
of those things.
So for now, that is theirsolution is to use the white
wristband to get into a locker.
SPEAKER_00 (04:45):
And last but not least, this is something that
we've heard about for a while,but we have not been able to
release it because we've not hadany official information.
But Universal is opening a kids'resort, it's an all-new theme
park that inspires the unbridledcreativity of kids through play,
discovery, and imagination in away that engages the whole
family.
So this is opening sometime in2026, we don't know when, in
(05:10):
Frisco, Texas.
And they're going to be sevenvibrant lands, Isle of
Curiosity, which had Gabby'sDollhouse pictured, Trolls Fest,
Shrek Swamp, Puss and Boots,Minions versus Minions,
SpongeBob SquarePants, andJurassic World Adventure Camp.
So to me, this reminds me a lotof the uh Dreamworks Land
(05:35):
Universal.
Yeah, it has a lot of value.
So it'll be interesting to seeuh how big and we've I've seen
construction updates, so moreinfo, I guess, coming soon.
Is that an actual resort thereon the right?
And then okay, and with a pooland everything.
Kind of similar to like Helioswith Epic, where there'll be the
(05:57):
resort and out the back is thepark.
So that will be exciting to seeand hear more.
So when we know more, we canshare now to the main event, the
cruise.
Remind everybody what yourcruise was, who you went with,
all the nitty-gritty details.
SPEAKER_01 (06:15):
So our cruise was from October 3rd to October 5th.
So it was a five-day orfive-night Halloween on the high
seas cruise on the Disney Magic.
We visited both of the Disneyprivate islands and we also
visited Nassau.
We went with it, it was myfamily.
So my husband, my husband, andmy two daughters, and then my
(06:38):
parents went on the trip.
And I have lots of thoughts.
I may not be able to squeeze allof them in, but I'm gonna do my
best to not get too wordy, butat the same time, get some good
information out to everybody.
So kind of starting off, wetraveled down.
So the day that we left was aFriday.
(06:58):
So we traveled down on Thursday.
We are near the Charlotte, NorthCarolina area, so we're close
enough to Florida that we can wecan make it without flying, and
it's not a crazy too long drive.
So we left right after schooland work on Thursday, drove to
Jacksonville.
(07:18):
We already had reservations at ahotel in the Jacksonville area.
So we stayed overnight.
We only had about two, two and ahalf hour drive to Port
Canaveral on Friday morning.
So that was that made thingsvery easy.
We were able to get up, getbreakfast at the hotel, not feel
like super rushed, and ourcheck-in time was 12:30.
(07:39):
So we really needed to be therearound 11:30, 11:45 to give us
enough time to get our park andgive our luggage over and then
start the check-in process.
One of the things that welearned as we were getting in
line to drop off our luggage, wegot in the wrong line.
(08:01):
So yeah.
So we there's basically twolines.
There's a or there's it's oneline, but it's two lanes.
So on the left lane, you godirectly into the garage, the
parking garage.
And it doesn't mean that youcan't like it's fine if you do
it that way.
It just means that you don'tdrop off your luggage first.
(08:23):
And it and that just means thatyou have to park and then you
have to carry your luggageacross the street because the
parking garage is across thestreet from the terminal.
So we got in the left lane,didn't not realizing that you
needed to be in the right laneonly to be able to drop off your
luggage.
Like I said, it would have beenprobably easier to be able to
drop your luggage off first andthen park and walk and just walk
(08:46):
over without having to carryanything, but it wasn't the end
of the world.
It was it was fine.
So we parked and you pay for thewhole week up front, got all
that taken care of, and thenwe're able to drop all of our
luggage off.
That part was really easy.
Obviously, we had already putour luggage tags on.
We had done that that morningbefore we left from the hotel.
(09:08):
So everybody that was givingover a bag had to have a luggage
tag.
We had, I think, eight, maybeeight luggage tags, six or
eight.
I don't know.
It was definitely more than Iwas expecting.
Like I was thinking we were eachgonna get one, and we definitely
got more than that.
So that was nice because I mayhave packed two extra bags.
(09:29):
So I needed an extra one out ofmy book.
I'm overpacking.
And another thing that wasreally fun, just as we were
driving in, we happened to getbehind the DCL bus that, you
know, is coming from the airportand from the Disney, the Disney
World resorts.
My parents were drivingseparately and they weren't
(09:49):
right behind us, they wereclose.
My mom decided she had to stopat Bucky's, and I don't even
know how long they spent there.
So they were like 15 minutesbehind us, I think.
I texted her a picture that Ithink we're going the right way
because we were behind the theDC Out bus.
And so we obviously followed itin.
So as far as timing, I wentthrough all my pictures, just
kind of looking at this is justkind of first day timing.
(10:13):
We got in line at the terminalin our car to go to the parking
deck at 1148.
I have another picture where wewere boarding the ship at 1247.
So basically, between it took usabout an hour to drop off our
luggage and then get in theline.
And it's literally just like anairport.
Like you get in this securityline where everybody's just
lined up and they have probably10 or 15 people that are taking
(10:39):
your IDs and verifying yourinformation.
And you do have to have eitherthe paper printed out that they
sent to you for your cruise thathas the QR codes on it, or you
have to have a screenshot of it.
You have to have something to beable to give to the person so
that they can go through andscan that and verify your
information.
SPEAKER_00 (10:55):
Because you had the QR code, did you need to present
your birth certificate or apassport?
SPEAKER_01 (11:00):
Yes, you have to have your passport available
ready to give them.
So basically, I had the printedpiece of paper because I just
felt like that would be easier.
I handed over the piece of paperand she scanned each of us.
And as she scanned, you know,she scanned, you know, the first
barcode or the first QR code,then she asked for the ID that
she had to verify, you know, andshe went through each of us.
We maybe waited in line 20-ishminutes.
(11:23):
It might have been longer thanthat.
It didn't feel that long.
It felt like it went reallyfast.
And then after we did that, wewent through security.
So you have to like put yourbags and everything through um
in your phone and all of thatstuff.
You have to go through securityjust like you do at the airport.
It was very similar.
From there, you just walk intothe terminal because it was at
(11:45):
12 30, it just wasn't verycrowded.
There was just barely anybody inthe terminal, no one was
waiting.
We were boarding the ship by1247.
Like I have a video of Ella.
Ella was in front of me, and wewere walking onto the ship at
that time.
I feel like it went verysmoothly.
I didn't feel like it was anhour at all.
I felt like it was like onething to the next.
(12:05):
Like we didn't have to wait along time for anything.
SPEAKER_00 (12:08):
Well, I think that backed everybody up is Disney
announces every family.
So that's like the holdup foreverything.
SPEAKER_01 (12:13):
Right.
No one was really in front ofus, so we went basically
straight onto the ship.
And I think if we had had anearlier boarding time and maybe
had to wait in the terminal, youknow, or like wait around, you
know, we may have had adifferent experience where we
felt like we were waiting a longtime, but I didn't feel that way
at all.
After boarding the ship at 1247,we went basically went up to
(12:34):
Cabana.
So that was probably around oneo'clock.
Around, I was pretty much 1.30.
I think that we were thinkingwe're gonna go check on our room
to see if our room's available.
The app said two o'clock, butthe lady that checked our ID
said you should be fine by 1.30.
So we walked up to find ourroom.
We were on the seventh deck.
We found our where our room was,our luggage, except for Rob's
(12:55):
bag, which it eventually showedup, so it was fine, was already
outside of our room.
That was at 147.
Um, I have a video of me beingout on the balcony taking a
video of basically the terminalbecause that we had a view of
the terminal.
Our muster drill, that was, Ithink that was at like 3:30.
Everybody has to do it at thesame time.
(13:18):
They give you an area whereyou're supposed to be, and we
were on deck 10 for the sale ofwave party by 356.
So as soon as they let us gofrom the muster drill, we
basically like hauled butt tothe deck so that we could at
least get a spot where we couldsee.
We didn't get the greatest spot,we got an okay spot.
I was able to get some video andwe were able to see the screen,
(13:40):
and the pool deck is actuallydeck nine, but we went up one
more deck so we could see down.
The horn was blowing by 409.
Actually, after the horn blewand we knew everything kind of
settled down, we went to theback of the ship to watch them
take like the rope or whateverit is that's you know keeps the
ship from sailing away from likefloating off.
(14:04):
Yeah, so they disconnectedeverything, and we were back
there when the ship startedmoving, and that was at four
around 4:34.
I have a video of taking a videoof the ship moving away.
We had early dining, um, whichis at 5 45.
We were sitting at our table atLumiere's, which was our first
restaurant, at 5 40.
(14:26):
The pumpkin tree lighting wasthat evening.
We walked out of dinner andbasically everybody was already
crowded around waiting for thepumpkin tree lighting.
That was at 7:30.
And we were back in ourstateroom to basically crash by
7:44.
That was in a nutshell.
(14:46):
There's other things in themiddle there.
We we did do some exploring ofthe ship a little bit.
SPEAKER_00 (14:51):
You did get a lot done in that first half day.
SPEAKER_01 (14:55):
It was a lot.
I don't know.
It kind of doesn't seem like itwas a whole lot, but it was a
lot of moving around, and wewere definitely ready to crash
when we got back to our room.
Like I had no complaints fromanyone that they wanted to go do
something.
We all basically went right backto our room and we were ready to
crash.
The seas were very rough thefirst two days.
(15:15):
So I'm really glad that I had mydramamine and seasickness stuff.
I did not get sick.
I didn't feel sick at all theentire time.
When we got up from dinner aftersitting down, we all kind of
stumbled.
Like that's how much the shipwas rocking around.
SPEAKER_00 (15:32):
Well, and it was raining when you you sent me a
video of it raining when you Itwas, it was, and it did stop.
SPEAKER_01 (15:38):
It stopped before the Sailor Wave party,
thankfully.
So it was clear before we left.
There was a major differencebetween the little like area of
water where the port is.
You could see the differencewhen we came out into the ocean.
The waves were so rough.
It was a major difference.
We did go to Cabanas for ourmeal.
(16:01):
We didn't do the you could do goto Rapunzel's.
That was an option if you wantedto go to the dining room, but we
just went to cabanas.
It was very chaotic.
I will say that breakfast atcabanas was fantastic.
And I'm not saying that the foodwasn't good.
I mean, it was a buffet, and itthey had pretty much anything
and everything that you couldpossibly want.
(16:22):
But I preferred the otheroptions of the ship for lunch
than cabanas.
I love the breakfast, but thelunch not so much.
SPEAKER_00 (16:33):
How did cabanas handle your allergy?
SPEAKER_01 (16:36):
Good question.
They have someone that's incharge, and you go up to them
and you give them your order,and then they give you a a
number on like the little tablestand, I guess, and they put the
number on the end of it.
They give you that, and thenthey basically come find you.
If you know where you'resitting, then obviously you can
tell them like we're sittingright over there, so it make it
(16:56):
easier on them.
But they just come and find youand they leave it for you when
whenever they find your number.
One of the things we talk aboutis the rotational dining and
that your servers go with you.
Our head server took my order asof that first night.
He took my order for the nextday at wherever we were going to
be that night.
So on Friday night, our firstnight there, once he realized
(17:20):
that I had to do gluten-free, hetook my order for the next
morning for breakfast atCabanas.
He took my order for CastawayKey, and then he took my order
for Animator's Palette, whichwas our next day's restaurant.
And he did that, he did thatevery night moving forward.
He took my order so that atCabanas in the morning, I just
(17:42):
showed up and said, Hey, Ialready have an order.
This is my room number.
And then they would get it andgive me the number and find me.
SPEAKER_00 (17:49):
That's nice though, because then it's like hot and
you're not like holding up theentire party because they're
scrambling to start somethingfrom scratch.
SPEAKER_01 (17:57):
Yeah, they uh it was that part of the experience was
fantastic.
They definitely were great, andthat is probably I I would say
of all the things, that wasprobably Rob's favorite thing
was eating breakfast at Cabana'sbecause he loved pretty much
everything they had, and I thinkhe would go back like at least
(18:17):
twice to get more.
He felt more comfortable withthe breakfast options, and so he
was very he's very happy withthat.
SPEAKER_00 (18:26):
What did you think of your room?
SPEAKER_01 (18:28):
First impressions.
The room was fantastic.
I love the room.
I love that we had the veranda.
I don't think that I would haveliked it as much if I did not
have that extra space.
I would have been okay, but Ithink because of the rough seas,
it just helped to have the extraspace.
(18:48):
If you would go out on theveranda, even whenever it was
rough, there was something aboutbeing out there where it didn't
feel as like it was rocking androlling, like whenever you were
inside.
SPEAKER_00 (18:59):
You can't see the rail against the sea going
crazy.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:04):
The first night laying in the bed, like we were
literally swaying back andforth.
Like Ella was terrified that shewas gonna get thrown off of her
bed because she was on thehigher bunk.
And I mean, that's that's howlike it was rocky.
I, you know, had joined theFacebook group for the cruise.
We had a shared WhatsApp groupthat you know, where everybody
kind of communicated thingsthroughout the cruise, and there
(19:26):
were a lot of people that weredown for the count.
They were sick because it was sorough.
So I feel really lucky that Ididn't get sick.
And I don't know if it wasbecause of the dramamine and I
had already started it.
I also had the patches forbehind the ears, like I had all
the stuff, or if I just it justdidn't impact me the way that I
thought that it was going to.
(19:46):
I've heard that.
SPEAKER_00 (19:47):
They're shipping ride rides, but they're just
perfectly fine on a cruise.
SPEAKER_01 (19:51):
Yeah.
The ship moving did not botherme at all.
SPEAKER_00 (19:54):
That's good.
Did you ever go to your parents'room?
Because they didn't have abalcony, right?
SPEAKER_01 (19:59):
I didn't.
I don't know why I didn't.
We just never, they never, Idon't think they ever came up to
our room either.
I think we just kind of met eachother wherever it was that we
were going.
And so they had a ocean viewroom.
So they had the one like bigkind of porthole for on they
were on deck two, I believe.
And yeah, so they had the onebig window.
(20:20):
They just didn't have theveranda.
And as far as I know, they theyliked their room.
Their room was great.
It had so much storage with theamount of stuff that we had that
I probably overpacked and ourgirls probably overpacked.
There was plenty of space for usto put things.
I did a video of of the roomjust to show all that storage.
(20:41):
They had storage under the bed,they had storage as soon as you
walked in.
There's like a closet to theleft where the TV is sitting,
all that had drawers.
There was a ton of storage.
That was very nice.
And of course, it had the twobathrooms.
You had the bathroom with thesink and the toilet, and then
you had another side of thebathroom that had another sink
(21:03):
and then the shower.
It felt much more spacious thanI thought it was going to.
I was worried about it.
It was funny though.
We went to the Riviera for acouple of nights after our
cruise, and when we walked intoour room, we were like, whoa,
this is huge.
SPEAKER_00 (21:19):
I was gonna ask about a comparison because it's
like twice the size.
SPEAKER_01 (21:23):
It was funny.
We were all like, This thingy,this has so much room.
But I think it was great for acruise ship state room.
SPEAKER_00 (21:30):
Well, and the magic is one of the first ship.
Yeah, it's smaller.
So it is a lot smaller and it'sthey learned a lot from that
ship, things they did right andthings they did wrong.
But to start out, they've onlyimproved.
So to go back to such an it'snot that it's a bad ship, it's
(21:51):
just the first ship, the OG.
And still feel like, oh, like wehave a lot of room where not
bagging on another cruise line,but if you go on some of their
first, second, third ships, youfeel like you're in a coat
closet compared to their brandnew ones.
SPEAKER_01 (22:06):
Yeah.
And to be honest, some of theother cruise lines we've heard
from Dan and Leslie are agencyowners that go on cruises a lot,
and they say like the regularstate room with their family of
four, that there would be bloodspilled if they all had to spend
a full week in one of thoserooms, you know, without a
(22:26):
bigger space.
So it I felt like it was it wasvery comfortable for our family
of four.
I could see how if you had afamily of five, you would need
the larger option.
SPEAKER_00 (22:38):
The oversized family veranda.
Yeah.
WWE.
SPEAKER_01 (22:48):
And then we had our room attendant that was there
every day.
He was fantastic.
He came in, obviously cleanedthe room up, he made our bed, he
put up a sofa, he put it backinto a sofa, and then he put the
upper berth back up into theceiling.
He had that done every day.
And there were a couple of timeswhenever Rob was in the room for
like most of the day, or he wasaround in that area most of the
(23:11):
day, and he just went out on thebalcony and he took care of it
and it was fine.
He was really nice, he was supersweet.
We definitely gave him a littlebit extra for gratuities because
he did a great job.
SPEAKER_00 (23:22):
All right.
SPEAKER_01 (23:22):
So day two, where are we?
What are we doing?
Okay, so day two is a castawaykey.
We had two excursions planned.
We had the stingray encounter,and then we also had the double
kayaking encounter.
The kayaking encounter gotcanceled because of the weather,
because of the seas were toomuch.
(23:43):
They did have kayak rentals thatthey were still doing, but they
were in kind of contained area.
The excursion that we had wasmore like farther out, and so
anything that went outside oftheir kind of contained little
spaces that they had defined,they they canceled a lot of the
excursions because the stingrayencounter was um it was an open
ocean, and I'm so glad we wereable to do that.
(24:05):
So we probably got up, we wentto breakfast.
I think we were getting offaround 9:30 or so.
Um, I think that they opened upthe ship at nine, maybe to get
on the island.
You do have the option to take atram.
We did not take the tram becauseit was not that far of a walk.
And even though the girlscomplained, like it's not that
(24:28):
far, guys.
It was seriously like afive-minute walk to where all
that where the area is.
And there were so many chairsavailable.
It wasn't even remotely close tobeing full.
I mean, it was or at capacity.
SPEAKER_00 (24:43):
Like you were rope dropping, like, did you feel
like there were a lot of people,or do you feel like you were
still one of the first off theship?
SPEAKER_01 (24:49):
I don't think even when we left, probably at like I
think we left around 3-ish, 330, and we went back to the
ship, it still wasn't crowded.
Castaway never felt crowded atall.
And the space where we were inwas just one of the spaces for
where you could sit and use achair.
(25:10):
I think every single chair hador set of chairs had an
umbrella.
So there was no issues with nothaving an umbrella.
I don't think the water wasovercrowded.
Ella and I did go get in thewater for a little bit after we
got there and before ourstingray encounter.
We walked, we did walk around toget a feel for where everything
was.
It was very easy to, I just feltlike it was very intuitive.
(25:34):
Like we talked about, they don'thave any food really or
breakfast items or anything likethat.
There's nothing truly availablefood-wise, except for fruit.
They did have a fruit stand andthey did have the Coke station,
you know, with the drink withall the drinks and everything
that you could have as much asyou wanted.
But food-wise, that was at 11:30whenever it was time for lunch,
(25:55):
and that when that opened up.
But they also had little beachbars, a couple of those, but it
was, yeah, it was very easy toget around.
I didn't feel like it waschaotic or overly crowded or any
of those things.
Then Ella and myself and myparents did the stingray
encounter.
It was so fun, and I'm so gladwe did it.
(26:16):
Ella was absolutely in herelement.
I think she was a little nervousat first just because she'd
never done anything like thatbefore.
But we had the reservation, Ithink it was at 11.
Their signage was very therewere signs everywhere.
So it was there was no way thatyou're gonna like miss this.
So we found the where we checkedin, they gave us a light jacket
and snorkel gear, and they toldus to go over to this little
(26:40):
area where we would haveorientation.
So we went in there, we got allof our stuff kind of on, and
they did this orientation thatwas super fast, maybe like five
minutes.
Um, they talked about thestingrays.
Um, they talked about how tosafely touch the stingrays.
They also talked about that theydid not oh yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (27:00):
Finger down the middle of the back.
SPEAKER_01 (27:01):
Yeah, and they basically said, for the most
part, like you can touch prettymuch all of the areas except for
their eyes.
And he's like, just like youdon't want to get poked in the
eyeball, they don't want to getpoked on the eyeball.
They're not gonna be happy withthat.
SPEAKER_00 (27:13):
Our our stingray uh excursion at our zoo, uh, as you
walk in the door, the guy'slike, two fingers down the
middle of the back.
And so we walk in and call her,and Harper always hold up their
two fingers and start likewaving like yes we now, sir.
SPEAKER_01 (27:25):
That's so funny.
And then once we got through theorientation, we started, you
know, to go out onto the beacharea and they assigned us a
number.
So there were probably thinkinglike maybe five stations, and
they were kind of semicircle orlike horseshoe-shaped stations,
and you stood around them.
The guide for that station wasin the center, and they had
(27:50):
these little ramps where thestingrays would come up the ramp
and they would go around thelittle horseshoe shape, and we
all had either a piece of shrimpor some type of fish
disgustingness.
I don't know what it was.
It was basically like a cube oflike fish guts or something.
It was, it was, it smelled, itdid not smell good, but they
(28:10):
loved it, of course.
And they told you like how tohow to feed them.
Um, you basically just like holdit out to where they they pretty
much like suck it up underneath.
Then obviously you can liketouch them or pet them.
I think there were maybe eightor nine of them.
Um, so each one of them came up.
The guide knew, of course, allof them by name, knew exactly
which one was which.
It was funny because there werea couple of them that had
(28:31):
specific personalities.
Like some of them were, youcould tell, were a little bit
more stubborn.
Some of them they would kind oftry to like back up so that they
could go through again.
And you had to like get them togo through because they were
trying to like game the system.
It was funny.
And that was, I don't know, thatwas maybe like 10 minutes.
And then for the rest of thetime, we were able to use our
(28:52):
snorkel gear and go swim out inthis little cove area and see
them in their natural habitat.
And of course, I had my phoneand my little trusty like water
case, and so I got lots of videoof them and of Ella.
She had the best time.
I mean, we basically stayeduntil like we couldn't we were
(29:14):
done.
Like, you know, like a lot ofsome people I think started to
kind of get out of the waterafter a little bit.
Like we stayed as long as wecould possibly stay.
Yeah, she had the best time.
It's a fantastic memory for mefor sure.
Fine.
So what did you do after that?
I think we went back and we hadfood.
Both islands basically havebarbecue, and they do have
barbecue, they have likehamburgers and cheeseburgers and
(29:36):
like mac and cheese and potatosalad and stuff like that.
I think everybody, for the mostpart, like everybody liked what
they had.
I had to go over to a specificsection and let them know I
already had an order for thatfor that day for lunch, and they
um I waited on them.
They also had the soft surfstations that the girls took
(29:56):
advantage of on the boat and atthe islands.
They loved the soft surfstations.
Stations and I loved the drinkstations where they could just
get as much as they wanted.
Ella probably was the one thatate the most ice cream out of
like she she probably had atleast two or three a day.
She potentially had more thanthat.
That was definitely a favoritething for sure.
After lunch, we just kind ofhung out on the beach.
(30:19):
Ella and I actually found somehammocks and we hung out there
for a little bit.
And then I think maybe I thinkit was around like 3 or 3:30.
We went back to the to the shipand took showers.
I think the girls probably everyday we had a photo session where
the girls got ready.
I love that.
I need to do all these.
(30:41):
And they wanted to get pictureson the ship.
We had dinner.
Dinner was at, like I said, wehad the early dining at 5 45.
We went to Animator's Palettethat night.
So the whole room is basicallyin black and white.
They have these columns that arein the shape of paintbrushes.
And on the walls, they have TVsor screens all around the room.
(31:04):
They have kind of a in a loop.
They start drawing a particularcharacter and they show like
drawing through the entireprocess.
And then they'll get the wholewhatever the scene is or
whatever the character is, andthen they'll blink out and
they'll start a new one.
They did that the whole time.
Towards the end of dinner, theystarted to actually color in the
character.
My phone died, and I was so sad.
(31:28):
Yes, I was very sad at thispoint.
But they had this show, and itwas like a typical Disney
emotional, just emotionaloverload with the characters and
music.
And yeah, it was Animator'sPalette was my favorite
restaurant of all of therestaurants.
And I was actually reallysurprised that that's the case.
(31:49):
That was not what I was thinkingwas going to happen.
SPEAKER_00 (31:51):
Didn't you have a special guest come visit?
Did Sorcerer Mickey not comethrough?
Oh yeah, he did.
unknown (31:57):
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (31:58):
Yes, sorcerer Mickey did come through.
He came through and did like andwalked around and kind of like
danced and did his, you know,did his arms, did his like
sorcerer Mickey arms as part ofthe show itself.
SPEAKER_00 (32:10):
Did your mom do her 5K?
SPEAKER_01 (32:12):
Yes, she did.
I think she got started laterthan she wanted.
And I also think she ended up, Idon't know if it's because of
like what she ate for breakfastor or what she ate for lunch or
whatever, but she ended up likenot feeling great the rest of
the day.
I don't know if it was the heat,I'm not sure, but she did it and
she got her medal and she wasvery excited about it.
So because she got a later startwhen we did Lighthouse Point,
(32:36):
she made sure she was up and outand ready to go earlier.
SPEAKER_00 (32:41):
My other question is, did you see any characters
on the island?
SPEAKER_01 (32:44):
No, I didn't.
SPEAKER_00 (32:46):
I think they like to hang out up there by the what do
they call that?
The Mount Rushmore of the buoys.
SPEAKER_01 (32:51):
Yeah, I didn't, you're right.
I didn't see, I didn't see any.
That doesn't mean there weren'tany there, but I did not see
any.
We may have also just not been,like you said, in the area
wherever they tend to show up.
SPEAKER_00 (33:02):
All right.
What did you do after dinner?
SPEAKER_01 (33:04):
What did we do after dinner?
Did you do any shows?
So let me actually rewind backto I didn't realize that the
Rapunzel show or the Tangled wasonly on day one.
SPEAKER_02 (33:19):
Like and so Oh no, it was only your favorite.
SPEAKER_01 (33:23):
I didn't yeah, so I didn't see it.
Yeah, I didn't that was the oneshow that I really like wanted
to see, and I didn't realize itwas on the first day.
I will say I struggled a littlebit with not knowing the
schedule beforehand.
That was really hard for me.
I think as a Walt Disney Worldgoer, I have a good idea of what
(33:43):
the schedule looks like ahead oftime, and we may or may not be
able to do everything on thatschedule, but I'm aware of that
schedule.
I know what's happening, I knowwhen the parades are, I know
when the you know the fireworksare, I know when, you know, the
different just all the differentthings, like and I know when our
dining is and all of that stuff.
I felt very discombobulated thatI didn't know the schedule
(34:05):
beforehand.
And so when you get on the shipand there's so much to do, it's
overwhelming.
I think for next time, I willprobably need to just take that
first like hour on the ship orsomething, or like make myself
go sit down and look at theschedule because I feel like I
missed things just because Ididn't even know what was
(34:26):
happening, because there wassomething happening every
freaking minute, and there weremultiple things happening every
freaking minute across the ship.
You're definitely not, you'redefinitely not.
You have to prioritize what youwant to do, but I think because
I didn't know what I didn'tknow, I missed on some things
that I probably would have done.
(34:46):
I think we went to see FreakyYear Friday that night because
that was not Halloween night,and that was not Pirate Night.
So Freaky Year Friday wasplaying.
What else did they have onrotation in the theater?
They had lots of differentthings, but they had they had
Elio, Fantastic Four, Toy Story,they had the newer Lilo and
(35:08):
Stitch, they had obviouslyFreaky Year Friday, they had
Hocus Pocus.
So yeah, so that was just in thetheater.
So they had two differenttheaters.
They had the Buena VistaTheater, and I cannot remember
the other one's name, but it wasactually like it's like a
theater, like when you go to amovie theater.
But then they also had the bigscreen, it was called Funnel
(35:30):
Vision on the deck, the pooldeck.
That was one of our favoritethings.
We freaking loved that.
We sat on the deck and watchedmovies multiple times.
They had we watched TheDescendants, we watched Frozen
2, we watched Princess and theFrog, we watched Oh, we watched
(35:51):
Coco.
What's the other one we watched?
I don't remember, but we wewatched several, and those
basically were all like verylike classic Disney animation
type movies for the most part.
On Pirate Night, I wish they hadplayed it an another time.
Like I wish they'd had anotheroption.
They played Pirates of theCaribbean, but it was at 11:30
(36:12):
p.m.
SPEAKER_00 (36:13):
All the pirate stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (36:14):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:15):
Did you go to bed after Freaker Friday?
Yeah, I think so.
And then you woke up on daythree.
Where were you at on day three?
SPEAKER_01 (36:23):
Day three was Nassau.
We did get off the ship for alittle bit.
I would definitely plan if Iwere going to go back to Nassau
to do something, maybe plan anexcursion that is more
educational, like look at someof the more historical things
there.
Because when you get off theship, you're basically in this
(36:45):
really not so great part.
Well, like if you go beyond likewhere the shopping is, you're in
this this part of the the citythat it's not the greatest part
of the city.
It's very run down if you go inin a certain direction.
But then there's another mainsection that they want you to go
to is where all the shopping is,and they want to pull you in,
(37:08):
and everything is veryoverpriced, as you can imagine.
They also, as soon as you stepout like of the actual kind of
port section, there's peopletrying to coming after you,
asking you if you want to go ona tour, you want a taxi.
If I were to go back, I woulddefinitely want to have
something already pre-booked.
(37:28):
We did not do any of thosethings.
But we did, however, spend$70 ongetting Ella's hair braided
because we did not know it wasgoing to be$70.
We fell victim.
Rookie mistake.
She I don't think you're theonly one I've heard that before.
Well, it's really funny becausethe lady, because all she did,
she basically did a braid andthen she wrapped it in thread.
That's what Ella wanted, waslike the thread thing.
(37:50):
And they only take cash, whichwe had not$70 of.
We did have cash, but we did nothave that much.
So we had to go to an ATM andget cash.
Also, I yes, the the lady saiduh she told me the price, she
said$70.
And I said$17.
And she said no,$70.
And I was like,$70?
(38:12):
Um, so so yeah, so uh we we didall of that, and of course, you
know, that's that's what shedoes.
That's her that's her trade.
So and of course, Lena had toget a sweatshirt that said
Nassau Bahamas that I can getoff of Amazon for probably like
30% of what it was there, butwhatever.
We did not stay on the on theisland for very long.
(38:33):
We got we came back.
Cabanas was open for lunchbecause it was not a Disney
Island day.
So and actually cabanas was openevery day, but when we were on
the Disney Islands, theavailable options were very
limited for lunch because theywere expecting people to be off
the ship and not utilizing thecabanas buffet.
SPEAKER_00 (38:54):
And most of the workers on the ship have to run
the island, so they're also justlike little stock.
SPEAKER_01 (39:00):
Yeah, they don't have they don't have a ton of
options on the the port days.
It is open, but it's justdoesn't have the extended, it
doesn't have the expansivebuffet options that it does
otherwise.
But I will say my favorite food,other I mean we obviously had
great food at the restaurants,but my favorite food was the
(39:21):
Pinocchio's pizza.
They had gluten-free and I gotgluten-free pepperoni pizza.
I got that like four times.
To me, that was much better thancabanas.
They also had McDonald'sduck-in, they had fries and
cheeseburgers and options therethat we never ate at the Daisy's
(39:43):
Delights.
We just didn't go, we just neverwent over there.
But we liked the other optionsother than cabanas for lunch
better.
And you could go up and get asmuch as you wanted.
So it's not like there was anydifference in pricing or
anything, you know?
So yeah, that was our that wasour favorite spot to go.
(40:04):
And of course the ice cream.
All of that was on deck nine, soit was very easy when we were
out there sitting on the deckwatching a movie to just go get
whatever we wanted.
So what did you do?
Where were you at that night?
Was that Pirate Night?
No, we were at Rap Rapunzel'sthat night, and I think that
might have been Halloween nightwas that night.
(40:27):
Rapunzel's was really loud, likealmost overwhelmingly loud.
You almost couldn't speak toeach other.
It was so loud because they hadperformers up on stage.
It was beautiful.
The restaurant was beautiful,they had the lanterns, they had
Rapunzel and Flynn, they alsohad the guy with the hook from
(40:51):
the and then they also had oneof the other guys.
He has like a he had a some kindof like mask on, and they were
all working walking around andinteracting with everyone.
So that was that really wasfantastic.
And their performers werefantastic, their their voices
were beautiful, but I feel likethey could have probably like
taken the volume down a notchjust so that you could actually
(41:13):
have a conversation.
It was so loud.
And then they had like the showwhere Rapunzel and Flynn got up
and sang, and that was that wasfun.
I like that.
After dinner, we went up to deck10 to be able to see the
Halloween, like the masqueradeparty.
Something that I will note andthink something that I will
(41:36):
definitely strongly consider andthink through the next time
around.
Because I we had early dining at5:45, it typically was around an
hour 45 minutes to two hours.
So we were getting out of dinneraround 7.15 to 7 between 7.15
(41:56):
and 7:30.
The parties, like well, the thepumpkin tree lighting, the mouse
carade, they all started at7:30.
And so by the time we were ableto get to deck 9 and 10, there
was nowhere to go.
It was very difficult to see andget any like decent pictures or
(42:17):
videos of the characters, orreally even see the characters
or the party, because everyoneelse was already there or had
already kind of camped out andgot a spot in front of the
stage, or directly across fromthe stage on deck 10 where they
could look down.
And the same thing with thetrick-or-treating, all of the
(42:38):
trick-or-treating was at like Ithink six and like six thirty or
something.
And that was like right in themiddle of our dinner.
I understand with like the thelike masquerade party and all of
that.
Like, I get that part.
Like they need to have like onetime.
But for like thetrick-or-treating, I was really
shocked that they only had it atlike six and six thirty and that
they didn't have like a secondround for those that were at the
(42:58):
early dinner to gotrick-or-treating.
So I don't know if the peoplethat had kids that were at that
had early dining just didn't goto dinner that night.
I don't know.
Like I'm not really sure whatthey did or if they just didn't
do trick-or-treating.
Even if we had had the, youknow, the ability or we'd had
the timing right, we probablywould not have done the trigger
(43:19):
treating just because when wewalked by, the lines were like
wrapped around all the wayaround the floor.
Yeah, it was bananas.
I probably would have like letthe the littles, like we
wouldn't have taken, we wouldn'thave done that, you know,
because we of all the littlesthat wanted to experience it.
I feel like we went to seeanother movie that night.
Or maybe we went, maybe that wasthe night we went out, we went
(43:39):
on the deck and we watchedAscendants.
That's probably what that was.
That's probably the night thatwe did that.
So we're going to split thisepisode into two because there's
a lot of information to cover.
We will be back in a couple ofdays with part two of this
episode.
Thank you so much for listening.
Bye.
(44:07):
Thanks for tuning in to anotherepisode of Wonderlust and
Wishes.
SPEAKER_00 (44:11):
If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to
subscribe and leave us a reviewon your favorite podcast
platform.
SPEAKER_01 (44:17):
And remember, the world is full of wonders waiting
to be explored.
Until next time, happy travels.
Bye for now.
Welcome to Wonderlust and Witches, the
podcast where we explore theworld one destination at a time.
I'm Julie.
And I'm Crystal.
As travel agents withfantastical vacations, we are
here to share our passion fortravel and help you turn your
wonderlust into reality.
From hidden gems to bucket listadventures, join us as we dive
into the sights, sounds, andstories of our favorite
(00:20):
destinations.
So grab your passport, pack yourbags, and let's embark on this
journey together.
SPEAKER_01 (00:32):
Hi everybody.
Welcome to episode 74 ofWonderlust and Wishes.
Today we're going to talk aboutpost-trip report for the
Halloween on the high seascruise that my family and I
took.
It's been two or three weekssince we've recorded because we
pre-recorded a lot of things tobe prepared for me being in an
(00:53):
area with not a lot of greatinternet.
So I feel like I haven't talkedto Crystal in forever.
Even though we have, it's we arenot recording.
SPEAKER_00 (01:02):
No, my my evenings, my recording nights have missed
Julie.
And I've tried not to ask her abunch about the cruise because I
wanted to get this meantime.
So it's good to be back.
But also because of that, we'vehad a lot of news buildup.
SPEAKER_01 (01:17):
Yes, we have.
Some of the stuff that hashappened, Walt Disney World
finally, finally, finallyreleased November and December
of 2026.
They also released some newpromotions.
So there are still Walt DisneyWorld and Disney Cruise Line
promotions out there.
There's multiple out there.
So if you have any questions oryou're interested, just let us
(01:39):
know.
SPEAKER_00 (01:40):
I thought this announcement would ping pong the
Universal 2026 more options, butit it did not.
We're still waiting.
So instead, we got a UniversalHoliday.
They changed their holiday tourto 1 to 5 p.m.
instead of like half after hoursevents type tour that would end
at 11.
(02:01):
Pros and cons is a family.
You still get priority meetswith the Grinch and Santa, but
it's a full park.
So you're wasting your park day.
And you end with priorityseating at the parade.
There's not any Christmas lightsor show on Hogwarts included.
I'm not sure why they did that.
I feel like a lot of people arenot happy with that.
No, and like I get like doing itearlier in the day for little
(02:21):
kids, but how do you keep mykids up for this?
It's like just doing like anafter hours Disney party or
something.
SPEAKER_01 (02:26):
I agree with the same thing.
I uh having the after hours partof it is was one of the huge
benefits because you don't haveso many people and you have
lower wait times and things likethat, which is such a huge
benefit to those types ofthings.
Just a quick cruise update.
Celebrity Cruise Line releasedtheir 2027, 2028 Hawaii,
(02:47):
Australia, and New Zealanditineraries.
So if you're looking to plan acruise that's pretty far out,
and we talk about that if youwant to get the best price, you
need to book early.
So those are all available rightnow.
SPEAKER_00 (03:01):
Cake Bake Shop, since we already talked about
our Christmas episode, this hadnot been released yet, but Cake
Bake Shop on Disney's Boardwalkis doing a special dinner with
Santa Claus event.
This event will feature athree-course meal, take-home
gift, holiday cocktails, and hotchocolate, and a professional
photograph with Santa Claus.
This event will take place onNovember 18th, November 25th,
(03:23):
December 2nd, and December 9th.
If you are interested in moreinformation about this event,
you can contact their conciergeevents team and find more info
on their website.
SPEAKER_01 (03:33):
That looks really nice.
I'm sure it's probably gonna bereally hard to get into with
only four dates.
I can't imagine that they'regonna have a whole lot of
availability.
But what an experience.
I know it sounds so fun.
We talked about this a littlebit ago that uh Tapu Tapu would
(03:55):
be discontinued at some point,that it was coming.
So they have officiallydiscontinued Tapu Tapu at
Volcano Bay.
At this point, guests will haveto stand in a queue, just like
you do for any other area.
There's no virtual line.
It does look like they areissuing a one white wristband,
(04:17):
basically, for each family oreach group that's with your, you
know, with your party to allowfor locker access.
Because that was one of the hugethings that we talked about is
the whole thing with having TapuTapu is you didn't have to worry
about having anything like withyou, and that you could put up
your money and you didn't haveto carry around a ticket and all
(04:38):
of those things.
So for now, that is theirsolution is to use the white
wristband to get into a locker.
SPEAKER_00 (04:45):
And last but not least, this is something that
we've heard about for a while,but we have not been able to
release it because we've not hadany official information.
But Universal is opening a kids'resort, it's an all-new theme
park that inspires the unbridledcreativity of kids through play,
discovery, and imagination in away that engages the whole
family.
So this is opening sometime in2026, we don't know when, in
(05:10):
Frisco, Texas.
And they're going to be sevenvibrant lands, Isle of
Curiosity, which had Gabby'sDollhouse pictured, Trolls Fest,
Shrek Swamp, Puss and Boots,Minions versus Minions,
SpongeBob SquarePants, andJurassic World Adventure Camp.
So to me, this reminds me a lotof the uh Dreamworks Land
(05:35):
Universal.
Yeah, it has a lot of value.
So it'll be interesting to seeuh how big and we've I've seen
construction updates, so moreinfo, I guess, coming soon.
Is that an actual resort thereon the right?
And then okay, and with a pooland everything.
Kind of similar to like Helioswith Epic, where there'll be the
(05:57):
resort and out the back is thepark.
So that will be exciting to seeand hear more.
So when we know more, we canshare now to the main event, the
cruise.
Remind everybody what yourcruise was, who you went with,
all the nitty-gritty details.
SPEAKER_01 (06:15):
So our cruise was from October 3rd to October 5th.
So it was a five-day orfive-night Halloween on the high
seas cruise on the Disney Magic.
We visited both of the Disneyprivate islands and we also
visited Nassau.
We went with it, it was myfamily.
So my husband, my husband, andmy two daughters, and then my
(06:38):
parents went on the trip.
And I have lots of thoughts.
I may not be able to squeeze allof them in, but I'm gonna do my
best to not get too wordy, butat the same time, get some good
information out to everybody.
So kind of starting off, wetraveled down.
So the day that we left was aFriday.
(06:58):
So we traveled down on Thursday.
We are near the Charlotte, NorthCarolina area, so we're close
enough to Florida that we can wecan make it without flying, and
it's not a crazy too long drive.
So we left right after schooland work on Thursday, drove to
Jacksonville.
(07:18):
We already had reservations at ahotel in the Jacksonville area.
So we stayed overnight.
We only had about two, two and ahalf hour drive to Port
Canaveral on Friday morning.
So that was that made thingsvery easy.
We were able to get up, getbreakfast at the hotel, not feel
like super rushed, and ourcheck-in time was 12:30.
(07:39):
So we really needed to be therearound 11:30, 11:45 to give us
enough time to get our park andgive our luggage over and then
start the check-in process.
One of the things that welearned as we were getting in
line to drop off our luggage, wegot in the wrong line.
(08:01):
So yeah.
So we there's basically twolines.
There's a or there's it's oneline, but it's two lanes.
So on the left lane, you godirectly into the garage, the
parking garage.
And it doesn't mean that youcan't like it's fine if you do
it that way.
It just means that you don'tdrop off your luggage first.
(08:23):
And it and that just means thatyou have to park and then you
have to carry your luggageacross the street because the
parking garage is across thestreet from the terminal.
So we got in the left lane,didn't not realizing that you
needed to be in the right laneonly to be able to drop off your
luggage.
Like I said, it would have beenprobably easier to be able to
drop your luggage off first andthen park and walk and just walk
(08:46):
over without having to carryanything, but it wasn't the end
of the world.
It was it was fine.
So we parked and you pay for thewhole week up front, got all
that taken care of, and thenwe're able to drop all of our
luggage off.
That part was really easy.
Obviously, we had already putour luggage tags on.
We had done that that morningbefore we left from the hotel.
(09:08):
So everybody that was givingover a bag had to have a luggage
tag.
We had, I think, eight, maybeeight luggage tags, six or
eight.
I don't know.
It was definitely more than Iwas expecting.
Like I was thinking we were eachgonna get one, and we definitely
got more than that.
So that was nice because I mayhave packed two extra bags.
(09:29):
So I needed an extra one out ofmy book.
I'm overpacking.
And another thing that wasreally fun, just as we were
driving in, we happened to getbehind the DCL bus that, you
know, is coming from the airportand from the Disney, the Disney
World resorts.
My parents were drivingseparately and they weren't
(09:49):
right behind us, they wereclose.
My mom decided she had to stopat Bucky's, and I don't even
know how long they spent there.
So they were like 15 minutesbehind us, I think.
I texted her a picture that Ithink we're going the right way
because we were behind the theDC Out bus.
And so we obviously followed itin.
So as far as timing, I wentthrough all my pictures, just
kind of looking at this is justkind of first day timing.
(10:13):
We got in line at the terminalin our car to go to the parking
deck at 1148.
I have another picture where wewere boarding the ship at 1247.
So basically, between it took usabout an hour to drop off our
luggage and then get in theline.
And it's literally just like anairport.
Like you get in this securityline where everybody's just
lined up and they have probably10 or 15 people that are taking
(10:39):
your IDs and verifying yourinformation.
And you do have to have eitherthe paper printed out that they
sent to you for your cruise thathas the QR codes on it, or you
have to have a screenshot of it.
You have to have something to beable to give to the person so
that they can go through andscan that and verify your
information.
SPEAKER_00 (10:55):
Because you had the QR code, did you need to present
your birth certificate or apassport?
SPEAKER_01 (11:00):
Yes, you have to have your passport available
ready to give them.
So basically, I had the printedpiece of paper because I just
felt like that would be easier.
I handed over the piece of paperand she scanned each of us.
And as she scanned, you know,she scanned, you know, the first
barcode or the first QR code,then she asked for the ID that
she had to verify, you know, andshe went through each of us.
We maybe waited in line 20-ishminutes.
(11:23):
It might have been longer thanthat.
It didn't feel that long.
It felt like it went reallyfast.
And then after we did that, wewent through security.
So you have to like put yourbags and everything through um
in your phone and all of thatstuff.
You have to go through securityjust like you do at the airport.
It was very similar.
From there, you just walk intothe terminal because it was at
(11:45):
12 30, it just wasn't verycrowded.
There was just barely anybody inthe terminal, no one was
waiting.
We were boarding the ship by1247.
Like I have a video of Ella.
Ella was in front of me, and wewere walking onto the ship at
that time.
I feel like it went verysmoothly.
I didn't feel like it was anhour at all.
I felt like it was like onething to the next.
(12:05):
Like we didn't have to wait along time for anything.
SPEAKER_00 (12:08):
Well, I think that backed everybody up is Disney
announces every family.
So that's like the holdup foreverything.
SPEAKER_01 (12:13):
Right.
No one was really in front ofus, so we went basically
straight onto the ship.
And I think if we had had anearlier boarding time and maybe
had to wait in the terminal, youknow, or like wait around, you
know, we may have had adifferent experience where we
felt like we were waiting a longtime, but I didn't feel that way
at all.
After boarding the ship at 1247,we went basically went up to
(12:34):
Cabana.
So that was probably around oneo'clock.
Around, I was pretty much 1.30.
I think that we were thinkingwe're gonna go check on our room
to see if our room's available.
The app said two o'clock, butthe lady that checked our ID
said you should be fine by 1.30.
So we walked up to find ourroom.
We were on the seventh deck.
We found our where our room was,our luggage, except for Rob's
(12:55):
bag, which it eventually showedup, so it was fine, was already
outside of our room.
That was at 147.
Um, I have a video of me beingout on the balcony taking a
video of basically the terminalbecause that we had a view of
the terminal.
Our muster drill, that was, Ithink that was at like 3:30.
Everybody has to do it at thesame time.
(13:18):
They give you an area whereyou're supposed to be, and we
were on deck 10 for the sale ofwave party by 356.
So as soon as they let us gofrom the muster drill, we
basically like hauled butt tothe deck so that we could at
least get a spot where we couldsee.
We didn't get the greatest spot,we got an okay spot.
I was able to get some video andwe were able to see the screen,
(13:40):
and the pool deck is actuallydeck nine, but we went up one
more deck so we could see down.
The horn was blowing by 409.
Actually, after the horn blewand we knew everything kind of
settled down, we went to theback of the ship to watch them
take like the rope or whateverit is that's you know keeps the
ship from sailing away from likefloating off.
(14:04):
Yeah, so they disconnectedeverything, and we were back
there when the ship startedmoving, and that was at four
around 4:34.
I have a video of taking a videoof the ship moving away.
We had early dining, um, whichis at 5 45.
We were sitting at our table atLumiere's, which was our first
restaurant, at 5 40.
(14:26):
The pumpkin tree lighting wasthat evening.
We walked out of dinner andbasically everybody was already
crowded around waiting for thepumpkin tree lighting.
That was at 7:30.
And we were back in ourstateroom to basically crash by
7:44.
That was in a nutshell.
(14:46):
There's other things in themiddle there.
We we did do some exploring ofthe ship a little bit.
SPEAKER_00 (14:51):
You did get a lot done in that first half day.
SPEAKER_01 (14:55):
It was a lot.
I don't know.
It kind of doesn't seem like itwas a whole lot, but it was a
lot of moving around, and wewere definitely ready to crash
when we got back to our room.
Like I had no complaints fromanyone that they wanted to go do
something.
We all basically went right backto our room and we were ready to
crash.
The seas were very rough thefirst two days.
(15:15):
So I'm really glad that I had mydramamine and seasickness stuff.
I did not get sick.
I didn't feel sick at all theentire time.
When we got up from dinner aftersitting down, we all kind of
stumbled.
Like that's how much the shipwas rocking around.
SPEAKER_00 (15:32):
Well, and it was raining when you you sent me a
video of it raining when you Itwas, it was, and it did stop.
SPEAKER_01 (15:38):
It stopped before the Sailor Wave party,
thankfully.
So it was clear before we left.
There was a major differencebetween the little like area of
water where the port is.
You could see the differencewhen we came out into the ocean.
The waves were so rough.
It was a major difference.
We did go to Cabanas for ourmeal.
(16:01):
We didn't do the you could do goto Rapunzel's.
That was an option if you wantedto go to the dining room, but we
just went to cabanas.
It was very chaotic.
I will say that breakfast atcabanas was fantastic.
And I'm not saying that the foodwasn't good.
I mean, it was a buffet, and itthey had pretty much anything
and everything that you couldpossibly want.
(16:22):
But I preferred the otheroptions of the ship for lunch
than cabanas.
I love the breakfast, but thelunch not so much.
SPEAKER_00 (16:33):
How did cabanas handle your allergy?
SPEAKER_01 (16:36):
Good question.
They have someone that's incharge, and you go up to them
and you give them your order,and then they give you a a
number on like the little tablestand, I guess, and they put the
number on the end of it.
They give you that, and thenthey basically come find you.
If you know where you'resitting, then obviously you can
tell them like we're sittingright over there, so it make it
(16:56):
easier on them.
But they just come and find youand they leave it for you when
whenever they find your number.
One of the things we talk aboutis the rotational dining and
that your servers go with you.
Our head server took my order asof that first night.
He took my order for the nextday at wherever we were going to
be that night.
So on Friday night, our firstnight there, once he realized
(17:20):
that I had to do gluten-free, hetook my order for the next
morning for breakfast atCabanas.
He took my order for CastawayKey, and then he took my order
for Animator's Palette, whichwas our next day's restaurant.
And he did that, he did thatevery night moving forward.
He took my order so that atCabanas in the morning, I just
(17:42):
showed up and said, Hey, Ialready have an order.
This is my room number.
And then they would get it andgive me the number and find me.
SPEAKER_00 (17:49):
That's nice though, because then it's like hot and
you're not like holding up theentire party because they're
scrambling to start somethingfrom scratch.
SPEAKER_01 (17:57):
Yeah, they uh it was that part of the experience was
fantastic.
They definitely were great, andthat is probably I I would say
of all the things, that wasprobably Rob's favorite thing
was eating breakfast at Cabana'sbecause he loved pretty much
everything they had, and I thinkhe would go back like at least
(18:17):
twice to get more.
He felt more comfortable withthe breakfast options, and so he
was very he's very happy withthat.
SPEAKER_00 (18:26):
What did you think of your room?
SPEAKER_01 (18:28):
First impressions.
The room was fantastic.
I love the room.
I love that we had the veranda.
I don't think that I would haveliked it as much if I did not
have that extra space.
I would have been okay, but Ithink because of the rough seas,
it just helped to have the extraspace.
(18:48):
If you would go out on theveranda, even whenever it was
rough, there was something aboutbeing out there where it didn't
feel as like it was rocking androlling, like whenever you were
inside.
SPEAKER_00 (18:59):
You can't see the rail against the sea going
crazy.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:04):
The first night laying in the bed, like we were
literally swaying back andforth.
Like Ella was terrified that shewas gonna get thrown off of her
bed because she was on thehigher bunk.
And I mean, that's that's howlike it was rocky.
I, you know, had joined theFacebook group for the cruise.
We had a shared WhatsApp groupthat you know, where everybody
kind of communicated thingsthroughout the cruise, and there
(19:26):
were a lot of people that weredown for the count.
They were sick because it was sorough.
So I feel really lucky that Ididn't get sick.
And I don't know if it wasbecause of the dramamine and I
had already started it.
I also had the patches forbehind the ears, like I had all
the stuff, or if I just it justdidn't impact me the way that I
thought that it was going to.
(19:46):
I've heard that.
SPEAKER_00 (19:47):
They're shipping ride rides, but they're just
perfectly fine on a cruise.
SPEAKER_01 (19:51):
Yeah.
The ship moving did not botherme at all.
SPEAKER_00 (19:54):
That's good.
Did you ever go to your parents'room?
Because they didn't have abalcony, right?
SPEAKER_01 (19:59):
I didn't.
I don't know why I didn't.
We just never, they never, Idon't think they ever came up to
our room either.
I think we just kind of met eachother wherever it was that we
were going.
And so they had a ocean viewroom.
So they had the one like bigkind of porthole for on they
were on deck two, I believe.
And yeah, so they had the onebig window.
(20:20):
They just didn't have theveranda.
And as far as I know, they theyliked their room.
Their room was great.
It had so much storage with theamount of stuff that we had that
I probably overpacked and ourgirls probably overpacked.
There was plenty of space for usto put things.
I did a video of of the roomjust to show all that storage.
(20:41):
They had storage under the bed,they had storage as soon as you
walked in.
There's like a closet to theleft where the TV is sitting,
all that had drawers.
There was a ton of storage.
That was very nice.
And of course, it had the twobathrooms.
You had the bathroom with thesink and the toilet, and then
you had another side of thebathroom that had another sink
(21:03):
and then the shower.
It felt much more spacious thanI thought it was going to.
I was worried about it.
It was funny though.
We went to the Riviera for acouple of nights after our
cruise, and when we walked intoour room, we were like, whoa,
this is huge.
SPEAKER_00 (21:19):
I was gonna ask about a comparison because it's
like twice the size.
SPEAKER_01 (21:23):
It was funny.
We were all like, This thingy,this has so much room.
But I think it was great for acruise ship state room.
SPEAKER_00 (21:30):
Well, and the magic is one of the first ship.
Yeah, it's smaller.
So it is a lot smaller and it'sthey learned a lot from that
ship, things they did right andthings they did wrong.
But to start out, they've onlyimproved.
So to go back to such an it'snot that it's a bad ship, it's
(21:51):
just the first ship, the OG.
And still feel like, oh, like wehave a lot of room where not
bagging on another cruise line,but if you go on some of their
first, second, third ships, youfeel like you're in a coat
closet compared to their brandnew ones.
SPEAKER_01 (22:06):
Yeah.
And to be honest, some of theother cruise lines we've heard
from Dan and Leslie are agencyowners that go on cruises a lot,
and they say like the regularstate room with their family of
four, that there would be bloodspilled if they all had to spend
a full week in one of thoserooms, you know, without a
(22:26):
bigger space.
So it I felt like it was it wasvery comfortable for our family
of four.
I could see how if you had afamily of five, you would need
the larger option.
SPEAKER_00 (22:38):
The oversized family veranda.
Yeah.
WWE.
SPEAKER_01 (22:48):
And then we had our room attendant that was there
every day.
He was fantastic.
He came in, obviously cleanedthe room up, he made our bed, he
put up a sofa, he put it backinto a sofa, and then he put the
upper berth back up into theceiling.
He had that done every day.
And there were a couple of timeswhenever Rob was in the room for
like most of the day, or he wasaround in that area most of the
(23:11):
day, and he just went out on thebalcony and he took care of it
and it was fine.
He was really nice, he was supersweet.
We definitely gave him a littlebit extra for gratuities because
he did a great job.
SPEAKER_00 (23:22):
All right.
SPEAKER_01 (23:22):
So day two, where are we?
What are we doing?
Okay, so day two is a castawaykey.
We had two excursions planned.
We had the stingray encounter,and then we also had the double
kayaking encounter.
The kayaking encounter gotcanceled because of the weather,
because of the seas were toomuch.
(23:43):
They did have kayak rentals thatthey were still doing, but they
were in kind of contained area.
The excursion that we had wasmore like farther out, and so
anything that went outside oftheir kind of contained little
spaces that they had defined,they they canceled a lot of the
excursions because the stingrayencounter was um it was an open
ocean, and I'm so glad we wereable to do that.
(24:05):
So we probably got up, we wentto breakfast.
I think we were getting offaround 9:30 or so.
Um, I think that they opened upthe ship at nine, maybe to get
on the island.
You do have the option to take atram.
We did not take the tram becauseit was not that far of a walk.
And even though the girlscomplained, like it's not that
(24:28):
far, guys.
It was seriously like afive-minute walk to where all
that where the area is.
And there were so many chairsavailable.
It wasn't even remotely close tobeing full.
I mean, it was or at capacity.
SPEAKER_00 (24:43):
Like you were rope dropping, like, did you feel
like there were a lot of people,or do you feel like you were
still one of the first off theship?
SPEAKER_01 (24:49):
I don't think even when we left, probably at like I
think we left around 3-ish, 330, and we went back to the
ship, it still wasn't crowded.
Castaway never felt crowded atall.
And the space where we were inwas just one of the spaces for
where you could sit and use achair.
(25:10):
I think every single chair hador set of chairs had an
umbrella.
So there was no issues with nothaving an umbrella.
I don't think the water wasovercrowded.
Ella and I did go get in thewater for a little bit after we
got there and before ourstingray encounter.
We walked, we did walk around toget a feel for where everything
was.
It was very easy to, I just feltlike it was very intuitive.
(25:34):
Like we talked about, they don'thave any food really or
breakfast items or anything likethat.
There's nothing truly availablefood-wise, except for fruit.
They did have a fruit stand andthey did have the Coke station,
you know, with the drink withall the drinks and everything
that you could have as much asyou wanted.
But food-wise, that was at 11:30whenever it was time for lunch,
(25:55):
and that when that opened up.
But they also had little beachbars, a couple of those, but it
was, yeah, it was very easy toget around.
I didn't feel like it waschaotic or overly crowded or any
of those things.
Then Ella and myself and myparents did the stingray
encounter.
It was so fun, and I'm so gladwe did it.
(26:16):
Ella was absolutely in herelement.
I think she was a little nervousat first just because she'd
never done anything like thatbefore.
But we had the reservation, Ithink it was at 11.
Their signage was very therewere signs everywhere.
So it was there was no way thatyou're gonna like miss this.
So we found the where we checkedin, they gave us a light jacket
and snorkel gear, and they toldus to go over to this little
(26:40):
area where we would haveorientation.
So we went in there, we got allof our stuff kind of on, and
they did this orientation thatwas super fast, maybe like five
minutes.
Um, they talked about thestingrays.
Um, they talked about how tosafely touch the stingrays.
They also talked about that theydid not oh yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (27:00):
Finger down the middle of the back.
SPEAKER_01 (27:01):
Yeah, and they basically said, for the most
part, like you can touch prettymuch all of the areas except for
their eyes.
And he's like, just like youdon't want to get poked in the
eyeball, they don't want to getpoked on the eyeball.
They're not gonna be happy withthat.
SPEAKER_00 (27:13):
Our our stingray uh excursion at our zoo, uh, as you
walk in the door, the guy'slike, two fingers down the
middle of the back.
And so we walk in and call her,and Harper always hold up their
two fingers and start likewaving like yes we now, sir.
SPEAKER_01 (27:25):
That's so funny.
And then once we got through theorientation, we started, you
know, to go out onto the beacharea and they assigned us a
number.
So there were probably thinkinglike maybe five stations, and
they were kind of semicircle orlike horseshoe-shaped stations,
and you stood around them.
The guide for that station wasin the center, and they had
(27:50):
these little ramps where thestingrays would come up the ramp
and they would go around thelittle horseshoe shape, and we
all had either a piece of shrimpor some type of fish
disgustingness.
I don't know what it was.
It was basically like a cube oflike fish guts or something.
It was, it was, it smelled, itdid not smell good, but they
(28:10):
loved it, of course.
And they told you like how tohow to feed them.
Um, you basically just like holdit out to where they they pretty
much like suck it up underneath.
Then obviously you can liketouch them or pet them.
I think there were maybe eightor nine of them.
Um, so each one of them came up.
The guide knew, of course, allof them by name, knew exactly
which one was which.
It was funny because there werea couple of them that had
(28:31):
specific personalities.
Like some of them were, youcould tell, were a little bit
more stubborn.
Some of them they would kind oftry to like back up so that they
could go through again.
And you had to like get them togo through because they were
trying to like game the system.
It was funny.
And that was, I don't know, thatwas maybe like 10 minutes.
And then for the rest of thetime, we were able to use our
(28:52):
snorkel gear and go swim out inthis little cove area and see
them in their natural habitat.
And of course, I had my phoneand my little trusty like water
case, and so I got lots of videoof them and of Ella.
She had the best time.
I mean, we basically stayeduntil like we couldn't we were
(29:14):
done.
Like, you know, like a lot ofsome people I think started to
kind of get out of the waterafter a little bit.
Like we stayed as long as wecould possibly stay.
Yeah, she had the best time.
It's a fantastic memory for mefor sure.
Fine.
So what did you do after that?
I think we went back and we hadfood.
Both islands basically havebarbecue, and they do have
barbecue, they have likehamburgers and cheeseburgers and
(29:36):
like mac and cheese and potatosalad and stuff like that.
I think everybody, for the mostpart, like everybody liked what
they had.
I had to go over to a specificsection and let them know I
already had an order for thatfor that day for lunch, and they
um I waited on them.
They also had the soft surfstations that the girls took
(29:56):
advantage of on the boat and atthe islands.
They loved the soft surfstations.
Stations and I loved the drinkstations where they could just
get as much as they wanted.
Ella probably was the one thatate the most ice cream out of
like she she probably had atleast two or three a day.
She potentially had more thanthat.
That was definitely a favoritething for sure.
After lunch, we just kind ofhung out on the beach.
(30:19):
Ella and I actually found somehammocks and we hung out there
for a little bit.
And then I think maybe I thinkit was around like 3 or 3:30.
We went back to the to the shipand took showers.
I think the girls probably everyday we had a photo session where
the girls got ready.
I love that.
I need to do all these.
(30:41):
And they wanted to get pictureson the ship.
We had dinner.
Dinner was at, like I said, wehad the early dining at 5 45.
We went to Animator's Palettethat night.
So the whole room is basicallyin black and white.
They have these columns that arein the shape of paintbrushes.
And on the walls, they have TVsor screens all around the room.
(31:04):
They have kind of a in a loop.
They start drawing a particularcharacter and they show like
drawing through the entireprocess.
And then they'll get the wholewhatever the scene is or
whatever the character is, andthen they'll blink out and
they'll start a new one.
They did that the whole time.
Towards the end of dinner, theystarted to actually color in the
character.
My phone died, and I was so sad.
(31:28):
Yes, I was very sad at thispoint.
But they had this show, and itwas like a typical Disney
emotional, just emotionaloverload with the characters and
music.
And yeah, it was Animator'sPalette was my favorite
restaurant of all of therestaurants.
And I was actually reallysurprised that that's the case.
(31:49):
That was not what I was thinkingwas going to happen.
SPEAKER_00 (31:51):
Didn't you have a special guest come visit?
Did Sorcerer Mickey not comethrough?
Oh yeah, he did.
unknown (31:57):
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (31:58):
Yes, sorcerer Mickey did come through.
He came through and did like andwalked around and kind of like
danced and did his, you know,did his arms, did his like
sorcerer Mickey arms as part ofthe show itself.
SPEAKER_00 (32:10):
Did your mom do her 5K?
SPEAKER_01 (32:12):
Yes, she did.
I think she got started laterthan she wanted.
And I also think she ended up, Idon't know if it's because of
like what she ate for breakfastor or what she ate for lunch or
whatever, but she ended up likenot feeling great the rest of
the day.
I don't know if it was the heat,I'm not sure, but she did it and
she got her medal and she wasvery excited about it.
So because she got a later startwhen we did Lighthouse Point,
(32:36):
she made sure she was up and outand ready to go earlier.
SPEAKER_00 (32:41):
My other question is, did you see any characters
on the island?
SPEAKER_01 (32:44):
No, I didn't.
SPEAKER_00 (32:46):
I think they like to hang out up there by the what do
they call that?
The Mount Rushmore of the buoys.
SPEAKER_01 (32:51):
Yeah, I didn't, you're right.
I didn't see, I didn't see any.
That doesn't mean there weren'tany there, but I did not see
any.
We may have also just not been,like you said, in the area
wherever they tend to show up.
SPEAKER_00 (33:02):
All right.
What did you do after dinner?
SPEAKER_01 (33:04):
What did we do after dinner?
Did you do any shows?
So let me actually rewind backto I didn't realize that the
Rapunzel show or the Tangled wasonly on day one.
SPEAKER_02 (33:19):
Like and so Oh no, it was only your favorite.
SPEAKER_01 (33:23):
I didn't yeah, so I didn't see it.
Yeah, I didn't that was the oneshow that I really like wanted
to see, and I didn't realize itwas on the first day.
I will say I struggled a littlebit with not knowing the
schedule beforehand.
That was really hard for me.
I think as a Walt Disney Worldgoer, I have a good idea of what
(33:43):
the schedule looks like ahead oftime, and we may or may not be
able to do everything on thatschedule, but I'm aware of that
schedule.
I know what's happening, I knowwhen the parades are, I know
when the you know the fireworksare, I know when, you know, the
different just all the differentthings, like and I know when our
dining is and all of that stuff.
I felt very discombobulated thatI didn't know the schedule
(34:05):
beforehand.
And so when you get on the shipand there's so much to do, it's
overwhelming.
I think for next time, I willprobably need to just take that
first like hour on the ship orsomething, or like make myself
go sit down and look at theschedule because I feel like I
missed things just because Ididn't even know what was
(34:26):
happening, because there wassomething happening every
freaking minute, and there weremultiple things happening every
freaking minute across the ship.
You're definitely not, you'redefinitely not.
You have to prioritize what youwant to do, but I think because
I didn't know what I didn'tknow, I missed on some things
that I probably would have done.
(34:46):
I think we went to see FreakyYear Friday that night because
that was not Halloween night,and that was not Pirate Night.
So Freaky Year Friday wasplaying.
What else did they have onrotation in the theater?
They had lots of differentthings, but they had they had
Elio, Fantastic Four, Toy Story,they had the newer Lilo and
(35:08):
Stitch, they had obviouslyFreaky Year Friday, they had
Hocus Pocus.
So yeah, so that was just in thetheater.
So they had two differenttheaters.
They had the Buena VistaTheater, and I cannot remember
the other one's name, but it wasactually like it's like a
theater, like when you go to amovie theater.
But then they also had the bigscreen, it was called Funnel
(35:30):
Vision on the deck, the pooldeck.
That was one of our favoritethings.
We freaking loved that.
We sat on the deck and watchedmovies multiple times.
They had we watched TheDescendants, we watched Frozen
2, we watched Princess and theFrog, we watched Oh, we watched
(35:51):
Coco.
What's the other one we watched?
I don't remember, but we wewatched several, and those
basically were all like verylike classic Disney animation
type movies for the most part.
On Pirate Night, I wish they hadplayed it an another time.
Like I wish they'd had anotheroption.
They played Pirates of theCaribbean, but it was at 11:30
(36:12):
p.m.
SPEAKER_00 (36:13):
All the pirate stuff.
SPEAKER_01 (36:14):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:15):
Did you go to bed after Freaker Friday?
Yeah, I think so.
And then you woke up on daythree.
Where were you at on day three?
SPEAKER_01 (36:23):
Day three was Nassau.
We did get off the ship for alittle bit.
I would definitely plan if Iwere going to go back to Nassau
to do something, maybe plan anexcursion that is more
educational, like look at someof the more historical things
there.
Because when you get off theship, you're basically in this
(36:45):
really not so great part.
Well, like if you go beyond likewhere the shopping is, you're in
this this part of the the citythat it's not the greatest part
of the city.
It's very run down if you go inin a certain direction.
But then there's another mainsection that they want you to go
to is where all the shopping is,and they want to pull you in,
(37:08):
and everything is veryoverpriced, as you can imagine.
They also, as soon as you stepout like of the actual kind of
port section, there's peopletrying to coming after you,
asking you if you want to go ona tour, you want a taxi.
If I were to go back, I woulddefinitely want to have
something already pre-booked.
(37:28):
We did not do any of thosethings.
But we did, however, spend$70 ongetting Ella's hair braided
because we did not know it wasgoing to be$70.
We fell victim.
Rookie mistake.
She I don't think you're theonly one I've heard that before.
Well, it's really funny becausethe lady, because all she did,
she basically did a braid andthen she wrapped it in thread.
That's what Ella wanted, waslike the thread thing.
(37:50):
And they only take cash, whichwe had not$70 of.
We did have cash, but we did nothave that much.
So we had to go to an ATM andget cash.
Also, I yes, the the lady saiduh she told me the price, she
said$70.
And I said$17.
And she said no,$70.
And I was like,$70?
(38:12):
Um, so so yeah, so uh we we didall of that, and of course, you
know, that's that's what shedoes.
That's her that's her trade.
So and of course, Lena had toget a sweatshirt that said
Nassau Bahamas that I can getoff of Amazon for probably like
30% of what it was there, butwhatever.
We did not stay on the on theisland for very long.
(38:33):
We got we came back.
Cabanas was open for lunchbecause it was not a Disney
Island day.
So and actually cabanas was openevery day, but when we were on
the Disney Islands, theavailable options were very
limited for lunch because theywere expecting people to be off
the ship and not utilizing thecabanas buffet.
SPEAKER_00 (38:54):
And most of the workers on the ship have to run
the island, so they're also justlike little stock.
SPEAKER_01 (39:00):
Yeah, they don't have they don't have a ton of
options on the the port days.
It is open, but it's justdoesn't have the extended, it
doesn't have the expansivebuffet options that it does
otherwise.
But I will say my favorite food,other I mean we obviously had
great food at the restaurants,but my favorite food was the
(39:21):
Pinocchio's pizza.
They had gluten-free and I gotgluten-free pepperoni pizza.
I got that like four times.
To me, that was much better thancabanas.
They also had McDonald'sduck-in, they had fries and
cheeseburgers and options therethat we never ate at the Daisy's
(39:43):
Delights.
We just didn't go, we just neverwent over there.
But we liked the other optionsother than cabanas for lunch
better.
And you could go up and get asmuch as you wanted.
So it's not like there was anydifference in pricing or
anything, you know?
So yeah, that was our that wasour favorite spot to go.
(40:04):
And of course the ice cream.
All of that was on deck nine, soit was very easy when we were
out there sitting on the deckwatching a movie to just go get
whatever we wanted.
So what did you do?
Where were you at that night?
Was that Pirate Night?
No, we were at Rap Rapunzel'sthat night, and I think that
might have been Halloween nightwas that night.
(40:27):
Rapunzel's was really loud, likealmost overwhelmingly loud.
You almost couldn't speak toeach other.
It was so loud because they hadperformers up on stage.
It was beautiful.
The restaurant was beautiful,they had the lanterns, they had
Rapunzel and Flynn, they alsohad the guy with the hook from
(40:51):
the and then they also had oneof the other guys.
He has like a he had a some kindof like mask on, and they were
all working walking around andinteracting with everyone.
So that was that really wasfantastic.
And their performers werefantastic, their their voices
were beautiful, but I feel likethey could have probably like
taken the volume down a notchjust so that you could actually
(41:13):
have a conversation.
It was so loud.
And then they had like the showwhere Rapunzel and Flynn got up
and sang, and that was that wasfun.
I like that.
After dinner, we went up to deck10 to be able to see the
Halloween, like the masqueradeparty.
Something that I will note andthink something that I will
(41:36):
definitely strongly consider andthink through the next time
around.
Because I we had early dining at5:45, it typically was around an
hour 45 minutes to two hours.
So we were getting out of dinneraround 7.15 to 7 between 7.15
(41:56):
and 7:30.
The parties, like well, the thepumpkin tree lighting, the mouse
carade, they all started at7:30.
And so by the time we were ableto get to deck 9 and 10, there
was nowhere to go.
It was very difficult to see andget any like decent pictures or
(42:17):
videos of the characters, orreally even see the characters
or the party, because everyoneelse was already there or had
already kind of camped out andgot a spot in front of the
stage, or directly across fromthe stage on deck 10 where they
could look down.
And the same thing with thetrick-or-treating, all of the
(42:38):
trick-or-treating was at like Ithink six and like six thirty or
something.
And that was like right in themiddle of our dinner.
I understand with like the thelike masquerade party and all of
that.
Like, I get that part.
Like they need to have like onetime.
But for like thetrick-or-treating, I was really
shocked that they only had it atlike six and six thirty and that
they didn't have like a secondround for those that were at the
(42:58):
early dinner to gotrick-or-treating.
So I don't know if the peoplethat had kids that were at that
had early dining just didn't goto dinner that night.
I don't know.
Like I'm not really sure whatthey did or if they just didn't
do trick-or-treating.
Even if we had had the, youknow, the ability or we'd had
the timing right, we probablywould not have done the trigger
(43:19):
treating just because when wewalked by, the lines were like
wrapped around all the wayaround the floor.
Yeah, it was bananas.
I probably would have like letthe the littles, like we
wouldn't have taken, we wouldn'thave done that, you know,
because we of all the littlesthat wanted to experience it.
I feel like we went to seeanother movie that night.
Or maybe we went, maybe that wasthe night we went out, we went
(43:39):
on the deck and we watchedAscendants.
That's probably what that was.
That's probably the night thatwe did that.
So we're going to split thisepisode into two because there's
a lot of information to cover.
We will be back in a couple ofdays with part two of this
episode.
Thank you so much for listening.
Bye.
(44:07):
Thanks for tuning in to anotherepisode of Wonderlust and
Wishes.
SPEAKER_00 (44:11):
If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to
subscribe and leave us a reviewon your favorite podcast
platform.
SPEAKER_01 (44:17):
And remember, the world is full of wonders waiting
to be explored.
Until next time, happy travels.
Bye for now.
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