Disney Cruise - Dream Come True

#32 - Disney cruise Reflections (EDITED)

Tue, Jan 23, 2024 11: 50AM • 48:45

Tue, Jan 23, 2024 11: SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Tue, Jan 23, 2024 11: disney, cruise, love, disney cruise, people, experience, booked, finn, ship, night, characters, mickey mouse, years, boat, amazing, day, felt, place, nursery, themed

00: 01

00: Do you want to live a life of freedom and adventure? Are you wanting more than the daily grind? Me too. Welcome to the Emma Lovell show, a place where we talk about living a life you love now, I'm your host, Emma Lovell, and my number one value is freedom. I've spent the last 14 years running a business and traveling the world. And now I take my husband and toddler along for the adventure to it's possible and I know you can create a life doing what you truly love as well. This podcast will inspire, motivate and encourage you to go after your dreams to create a life you love until you get now don't wait for a time and or someday in the future. I'll be sharing episodes weekly about how I harmonize business travel and self care. I'll also bring on incredible guests to share their journeys, wins the challenges and how they're creating a life they love. Let's jump in and get dreaming. This is a space for you to manifest a life you love.

01: 03

01: I would like to acknowledge and recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of this place now known as Australia. I am grateful for the continuing care of the land waterways and skies where I work live, listen, learn and play. From here on you can bear country and from wherever you are listening, I pay my respects to the elders past and present.

01: 27

01: Welcome to the podcast today, I am so excited to share all about the Disney Magic. I recently went on the Disney Cruise, which was a 12 year dream come true to celebrate my son's third birthday. So figure that one out if you can. So it was my dream. But as soon as I saw that Disney Cruise Line was coming to Australia and New Zealand for the first time ever.

01: 56

01: I was new we had to go. And when they had a date that was 12 to the 14th of eighth of January and my son birthdays the 12th of January. It was hey, so I wanted I've had lots of people asking me how was it and all about it. And so I thought it would be a great episode to share.

02: 16

02: Disney is such a wonderful.

02: 20

02: I don't know, I don't part of my life. And I think they're you know, I used to work focus on personal brand. And when I would explain the difference between personal brand and business brand, one of the four businesses that I would always use, or brands I would use as an example was Disney because those Mickey Mouse ears are so iconic. And that is a logo actually it's not the logo, the Disney

02: 47

02: the Disney word, it's the logo, but the the mickey mouse icon is so synonymous that we you can see that and it could be any mouse, but it's not any mouse. It's Mickey Mouse, and it's Disney. And we just say that and you straightaway think of fun. Magic. Inspiration takes you back to being a child. So

03: 10

03: I really love that. And so I want to share what was great, what maybe wasn't so great. What I would like to do differently. And yeah, just a little bit more about it. So for anyone thinking about going, there are still some cruises available in the next few months. This is January. We're in January 2024. But it looks like Yeah, I thought they would actually all sell out. I think what's happened is people have canceled and so then spots have become available. Even Yeah, my friends could only get an inside room and then they got to upgrade to balcony before they went so. Yeah, but I'll also talk a little bit about cruises in general, I think people are quite anti cruise.

03: 53

03: Obviously I'm not a cruise person. Well how do you know if your cruise personally haven't been? And do I look like a cruise person? I think I think people are quite surprised that I like cruises. Because you know, a lot of the travel I've done so adventurous. But I really do love cruises. I love that all of your accommodation, all of your food, all of your entertainment is in one place

04: 12

04: that the transport is part of the experience. And that you really get to like set up for a week and then or however long two nights, three nights, five nights, 20 Nights 60 Nights some of these cruises are a year some of them are

04: 29

04: and then you just that you set up and that's that you also get to go to destinations that are amazing and get there pretty easily. It's just I don't know, I don't really see a downside. I mean,

04: 43

04: the I mean lots of people. That's can be downside, but there's lots of people in lots of places.

04: 49

04: So they're expensive. They're not expensive. Here's a great value for money. Anyway, and I love I love that when you go out to see like even as we were on the boat, we went out of Sydney

05: 00

05: harbor. Even as you go on the boat, just as we just got outside of Sydney, the reception was already cutting out. I love that you are offline. And I know that people don't think that about me

05: 11

05: that I love being forced to switch off. That's why I love aeroplanes. I love that mostly you don't have Wi Fi. I don't like the introduction of Wi Fi, I often tend to not use it only if there's an absolute urgency. I really liked that chance to switch off. So anyway, that's my light cruisers.

05: 30

05: So my history with Disney started a long time ago, I Yeah, I'm a childhood of the ARMA child and the classic Disney era, which I've recently learned and then top 10 recommendation is to read. Bob Iger has memoir book business book, the ride of a lifetime, which talks about his role as CEO of Disney and his era, which has really been a big part of like Pixar era, and he's been CEO for the last 16 years. So some big developments and talks a lot about Michael Eisner, who was the CEO before that, and really actually brought in the classic, like Disney classics was created by them. You know, we think of them as classics because they told us they were classics, it's marketing. It's brilliant. But they really are classics to me, you know, the sleeping bleep Sleeping Beauty Cinderella, Snow White, Little Mermaid, The Lion King Aladdin. I had the box set. And then we had the videos, we used to buy the books.

06: 29

06: And I actually went I went, went to the Salvation Army one day at the op shop here, charity shop and saw a bunch of the Disney books and I'm like, I have to get on the classics. And I got a huge pile for my son of Disney books for like 20 bucks. But I felt like I had to have them and they stories that I've grown up with and that I love. And I know that there are problematic themes and all those sorts of things, but I like whimsy. I like Wonder I like magic. I like dreaming. I hear the Theme song The doo doo doo doo doo. Which is When you wish upon a star from Pinocchio. Fun fact, I get emotional. And yeah, actually, my first impersonal experience with Disney was when I was nine years old, which is like the perfect age. I've sort of realized this every time I tell a story. It's like nine like I'm nine. I just think everything happened when I was nine. It was clearly I love to investigate, actually. And funnily enough, my favorite number is nine. Maybe that's why

07: 29

07: when I talked about my childhood, everything happened when I was nine, so might have been 711 12. But I definitely was at Disney when I was nine years old. And we went to

07: 40

07: Disneyland in California. So we went on a big family holiday for six weeks, we went to the US for like five days. Then we went to the UK for a month and then back to the US for five days. And my cousin, he was staying in Palm Springs, and

07: 58

07: we but we met up with him in Los Angeles and stayed in Anaheim. And we went to Disneyland, which is you know, as a child is dream come true. We also went to Universal Studios. And that was before California Adventure. And so despite having been back to LA, I would say at least seven times maybe 10. Since I went as a nine year old, I haven't been back to Disney Land. And so that is definitely a big goal for me. But

08: 26

08: we had a really magical experience at Disneyland because it was raining, which should be a downer. But it actually meant there were only two rides that were closed. There was hardly anyone in the park and we got on every single ride except to, which is me, my brother and my dad just hit up the whole park, which was pretty incredible. The only other downside was that the fireworks didn't happen, which is a huge highlight for many people. And so yeah, sad about that. And we didn't see many characters. And that was clearly something that I would, you know, I'd say to Disney if I had feedback, and maybe they've changed things since but we only got to see Mickey and Minnie in minis house. I just feel like they could have had more characters around. Maybe it was just a timing thing that they could have had more character that around in restaurants and shops and things even though it was raining. So yeah, we missed some of the character thing. But in saying that that meant that on the cruise, I wasn't that fussed about characters either. And

09: 19

09: offense. So that was a big time saver.

09: 23

09: It can take up a lot of your time trying to meet the characters. And so yeah, and then when I was 21, I was living in Mexico, and then I went traveled around the US afterwards. And I'm going out with my brother in Orlando and we went to Disney World and we went, we lived at our childhood dream. We went to the Disney World. There's four parks in Disney World and we hit up all four parks in one day. We did not get on every ride but we got on a ride in every single park. And we watched the fireworks and I can imagine we held hands and cried and have a cute cute photo.

10: 00

10: Last with the Walt Disney step to holding hands and posing like Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse. That was really fun to be a little kid with my brother again. And I have a dream that one day we will

10: 15

10: go to Disneyland with our children

10: 20

10: all together. Yeah, we went with my whole family and I just really love to one day go back all together and share it one of the Disneyland's because he's actually now Disney World in Florida. There's Tokyo Disney, and it's under the sea, Disney and Tokyo Olympics in Tokyo, and I didn't go so dang, there's Hong Kong Disneyland, which I did go to with my dad a few years after that. So I'll come back to the mine. And then his Paris Disney, which I've also been to Paris, and I also haven't been to that one. So

10: 52

10: a few more to take off in the future.

10: 55

10: It's nice to spread them out. So we'll definitely be doing that in time. But yeah, I won't. I've just said next time I go to Los Angeles 100%. I'm gonna go to Disneyland again. And I really hope that we get there this year with my son. But I'm also really wanting to go as an adult because I have talked about and chatting to someone. And I can't stop the idea. Now. That wonderful Ed Oyama, we have talked about hosting a retreat based around Disney. And after reading Bob Iger, his book and the ride of a lifetime, I think, yes. And I just think there's so many lessons to learn from Disney in terms of customer service, and magic and wonder and

11: 37

11: business acquisition and diversification and to see so many lessons. So anyway, we were gonna look at marketing lessons from Disney. So yeah, stay tuned on that. Very excited to run retreat in the US and to do more business in the US. So if you're a listener in the US, let me know where you are. And hopefully I can bring some stuff over to you. But yeah, Disney Disney retreat is definitely on the cards. So yeah. And then I was 23. I went to Hong Kong, Disney with my dad. And that was awesome.

12: 13

12: Small, it was great, because I got to go the teacup ride. And so I didn't get to go on that. Actually at Disneyland or Disney World, I finally got to achieve that one. And it was just a cute day out. It's not very big, but it was fun.

12: 26

12: But yeah, that's my first interaction with the Disney Cruise was actually in 2011

12: 32

12: When I went to

12: 35

12: actually I think yeah, 2000 there. Then I went to Hong Kong Disney actually 2009 I went to Disney World. And in 2011 I was on a cruise with my dad in the Bahamas Royal Caribbean cruise. We're in St. Thomas. And we saw the Disney ship and it looked awesome. And it probably was the wonder which is what I went on. And I

13: 01

13: they blew the horn and it went doo doo doo doo doo doo.

13: 08

13: I was like, that's amazing. And I later found out that they actually get fined for doing that and they don't care and they paid a fine. I don't know if that's still true. But there's, you know, a maritime horn. They're supposed to sound like it's supposed to sound like something. And so when they do the Disney horn, it's not the right sound, but they do it anyway.

13: 27

13: And I love that. And so I saw it then and I was like one day I'm going in that cruise. But I thought that I would have to go to the US to go on it. And I guess it just kind of popped the idea. And it's still I would say it pop up or I would think I won't. I'll do that one day. I'll do that. And so as soon as it came up and now I'm a mum and I have a little boy. I was like oh my gosh, we are 100% doing that cruise. So we booked it for the 12th to the 14th of Jan, it was my son fins but there's been went on we booked a balcony room. I had been going in balcony rooms since my second cruise which is the cruise I did with my dad I did a cruise. When I was 18 the school lease cruise

14: 08

14: which is hilarious 2518 year old sort of boat can recommend was amazing that they don't run them anymore for obvious reasons is probably a silly idea. But it was super fun as a to experience. And you know, to get that time in your life once that was amazing. But then after that I've done balconies and so my husband and I went on a cruise 2019 Royal Caribbean to Noumea and lifou and

14: 42

14: one of them

14: 44

14: then a lot too and we went to scuba diving so that was wonderful but like always I just think the boat itself is the part of going on for me the destinations aren't it it's about the crew, the ship and the cruise itself and

15: 00

15: Disney 100% was about that it wasn't about going on a cruise. If I want to go on a cruise.

15: 06

15: I wouldn't if I just want to go on a cruise, I wouldn't go on Disney.

15: 10

15: You're going on the Disney Cruise because of Disney. So just make that distinction. And maybe if you've never been on a cruise, yeah, I'd say probably try and go on another cruise different cruise liner first, before you go on Disney. Otherwise, you're sort of putting a lot of experience and expectation into one trip. And cruising is a certain style. So when you have cruising works and cruises work, we just got the Disney version of that. And each cruise line has their own experience of it. I definitely say Royal Caribbean are probably the leaders to me. But then there's all different levels.

15: 48

15: Yeah, there's so many companies out there. But they're definitely the one that I really loved going with.

15: 53

15: The Disney is just you there for the ship is built. Like for Disney. The newer ships, there's actually a documentary on the Disney Channel, which I highly recommend are the Disney streaming app called wish and it's about the one of their newest ships, the wish but they've actually since built another one called Treasure. So I'm very excited. I would love to go on wish and go to the US and gone wish. So I mean it full disclosure I have already,

16: 21

16: you know decided I will definitely go again. But probably in two or three years.

16: 26

16: My husband thinks that Finn was probably a little too young. I don't I think he was the perfect age and to start, and I think that he will experience Disney and many times in his life. So I think sometimes I get it that for some people, it's a once in a lifetime experience and you want to pick the right age.

16: 44

16: I think nine was a wonderful age for me. But I wouldn't discount going because you think your child's too young. Finn was at a great age as well, because the nursery is zero to three. And then the kids club is three to 12. So he actually had a choice of the nursery and the kids club. So the nursery we paid $5 per half hour. And the kids club is free and included. So we had the options, we actually can leave him alone in kids club, we went in with him, which was actually a highlight. So I'm just jumping around a little bit. But yeah, so top tip, looking at the ages of your child three is great, because they can do both. But in saying that, I think the difficulty we had with him being three was that I felt a little bit bad putting him in the nursery because it felt too young. But then again, we put him in at night, which was perfect. He went in after dinner because we wanted to experience the dinner with him, which was a great choice that unlike other cruise ships, dinner is a great thing on other cruise ships. It's a lovely time to get together. But it's just kind of dinner. Sometimes they might do some singing, but mostly it's just dinner. Whereas the restaurants are themed and the dinner is the dinner is a thing on Disney. So I'm glad that we had the early sitting, we had Finn, we had the full experience of the dinner. And then we put him into kids club at seven. Sorry, we put him into the nursery at seven. So the first night worked really well. Because he fell asleep in there. And that's what we wanted that it would be like kindy where he could go to sleep. Whereas I felt like if you went to kids club, he wouldn't go to sleep. Which would have been okay, if we've just wanted two hours by ourselves and picked him up at night and he just had a bit late at night. I think accepting that when you're on the Disney Cruise bedtimes are out the window. And

18: 29

18: yeah, don't try to have a routine. It's a bit of a different thing.

18: 34

18: And yeah, the head shows on at 1030. So we didn't do the show. The first night we did the show the second night with Finn. But yeah, I'll stick transit to the point. So nurseries fantastic. I think $5 Half an hour is amazing. You booked in the times before and we booked him in for two hours on the day. And we booked him in for the two nights. The downside being that because he was three we could choose between and we just felt a bit bad putting him in the nursery and maybe it being a bit too young for him and him feeling a bit too babied or more like drop off like kindy than if it was like playing with other kids that kids clubs. So

19: 12

19: yeah, that was errantly downfall. Um, all right, I'll go back to the start. So 12 the Gen. Alright, didn't start off great was so excited. Wonderful. But we arrived to circular key to get our crews and I looked over and it's like, that's not our boat. There's a giant cruise ship in the Circular Quay. It wasn't our ship. It was the Royal Caribbean ship one because of the look. I knew didn't look very Disney but two it had a giant giant Royal Caribbean mountainside. I was like oh no. And then it dawned on me and I remembered that the cruises in Sydney sometimes go from White Bay terminal which is in Balmain. So that a 20 minute drive from Circular Quay and we've got my dad to drop us off so I was really agitated. And I was really annoyed because then I went searching through my email and we booked through traveling

20: 00

20: When

20: 01

20: I went searching through my email, I went searching online. I went on the app, and I couldn't find anywhere I said, whitebait. Like, did I just miss something? But no, they're just not very good at sharing that information. And it was really frustrating. And

20: 14

20: the Thank goodness for these crazy Facebook groups. So if you go on a Disney cruise, there's actually a Facebook group about Disney Cruise Line. There's a Facebook group about Disney Cruise Australia, New Zealand, and there was a Facebook group for every different cruise date. So thankfully, someone had posted in there asking about it, and so I could confirm it. And then we got over there. Also, thankfully, I had planned to get there an hour earlier, which is very unlikely. But our boarding time was 1pm. But I had heard that often they were ahead of time. And so you could get there early, and you would just get on early. So we got there 1225 We were boarded on the ship at a quarter to one. So it was actually really great.

20: 59

20: And once we got there and we got excited and seeing the ship.

21: 03

21: All the staff are very, very friendly. There's lots of signage around, that's really easy. Everything is already very Disney, Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Donald, everything is around.

21: 15

21: No characters, but lots of pictures. And little cafe. It's air conditioned, it was all very, very organized.

21: 22

21: Top tip as well. So we booked through a travel agent, hello world Felicity desk, Kim and her team were amazing.

21: 29

And when you pay your fine of balance, then you should be able to get access to the check in. And you want to do that as soon as you can. So as opened up, and I didn't as opened up in like 13 December, I didn't go until the 24th. And I was really worried because the biggest thing I wanted to book in was the nursery. And I didn't want all the babysitting. And I didn't want that to be booked out, but also the boarding time. And so the boat was set to the shipper set to depart at five. And so you can be boarding as late as 4pm. And anyway, so it was really like oh, I need to get on. So thankfully, I was able to select our time, the earliest time was I think 12 And we got on it one we got on a quarter to one. So it was pretty awesome. Because yeah, we were only on there for two nights. So we're actually only on there for the twelves from whatever time we got on to nighttime and then all day on the 13th and then we actually disembarked at 7: 30am on the 14th so we really only had one full day. But getting on there at 1pm meant that we were on there till we'd had a 10 hour day so we'd actually had a pretty full day the first day so it was good value. I cried like check in bed and got a little wristband because like kids club I got emotional about that

22: 52

22: you helped playing Disney music in the terminal. All the security or the check in was really Swift. You get like luggage tags sent to you before so everything was very streamlined and very smooth. I was really impressed with that. And then as we boarded the ship I cried again as we bought the ship says like Disney Cruise Line on the mat and like ever since I've been waiting 12 years for these I know that people who didn't events have been waiting for this. And it was really important to me to be on there the first year one because if the year didn't go well which was like I mean it was inevitable that it would people would love it, but they might not come back to Australia and you now know that their fleet is growing there probably will come out more seasons. But our season is quite short. And I always just thought I'd have to get us to go on it and then for it to come here and for it to be the first year and it was really cool. Some of the merch actually had you know rural Australia and New Zealand trips so that was really wonderful. What someone held you until you do the things that you need to do and absolutely stand there and support you 100% It is no doubt in my mind that it is Miss Emma Lovell anyone that has in in the corner does better. She'll be your biggest cheerleader whatever she touches in creates is just magical. She thinks about em she is extremely generous with her knowledge and expertise and the second thing is that she will hold you accountable long after your in person experience which is correct if you're not working with them what the hell are you doing

24: 25

24: Yeah, but I you know to see that Matt to see the boat who walking up to it to being getting on it. Again the staff are lovely Welcome to so on. And then as we walked in the door

24: 38

24: Mickey was standing on the staircase. And I don't know why I just didn't expect to see a character so soon. And I mean to see Mickey Mouse and he was in his captain's outfit and I just like and I was carrying my son or my hips over my head on my seat Makalali hips. It was cut up right up to my face and I was like, Oh my gosh, pain. It's Mickey

25: 00

25: And, oh, tell another story about Mickey. But then

25: 06

25: they asked us for our name, our surname, and we're kind of hearing what's going but you met my husband didn't know why they were asking, you know, he said level because the bookings undermining that my husband and my son's name is a quack.

25: 18

25: My son took my husband's name and I kept bindings.

25: 22

25: Welcome aboard the level family

25: 26

25: around and laughed. But yeah, and Finn was just like in awe, like looking up at Mickey. And yeah, I mean, look, for that moment alone, I would pay the money, it was so special and wonderful.

25: 42

25: Because we'd had friends go on it as well, we made a game plan. So we knew exactly what we're going to do when we got on. I said, Let's go have lunch. Because they do close lunch, I think around 233 o'clock, I think some of the upstairs like the they have like kind of

25: 56

25: I say cafes, all these cafes around like a hot dog place and a burger place and like light snacks, plays and ice cream on tap all the time, soft drinks on tap all the time. But

26: 08

26: if you don't have the proper lunch, then that was only open till like 230 or three o'clock. So some people had seen in the groups complaining because they'd got on later. And they hadn't got to have that lunch experience.

26: 21

26: Or people are so busy going around looking at the ship that they don't go and have lunch then and they miss out. So we went straight for lunch. And then I was told go straight to the pools because there's less people. When you first get on, people aren't doing that they're going to their rooms, or they're coming in looking at the boat. So the pools are less busy, which was wasn't true. But it was good to know that and we had all our swimmers and stuff packed in our bag. But the reason I laugh about Mickey Mouse is because that for a month before we went on, my son is three and we've been doing quite well with learning a little bit about toilet training. But when I found out that to go in the kids club, they have to be toilet trained to go in the swimming pool, they have to be toilet trained. So I was like, that's it. We're accelerating the the training. Mickey Mouse is the bribe. And we are going to encourage him when he gets to meet Mickey Mouse when he goes on the toilet. And even at kindy the day before we left to go to Sydney to tell them that we told them we were going on the Disney Cruise. And he's like, Yeah, and I see Mickey Mouse and his teacher went oh, that's why we've been hearing so much about Mickey Mouse when we go to the toilet. He just whenever he goes to the toilet now he associates it with Mickey Mouse. And I've told him I'm proud Mickey Mouse has been with him and how excited you'll be and in order to meet him you need to better go on the toilet and it worked. So he's still sort of in training phase but it definitely accelerated and helped it and can give told us how well he's doing. So anyway, top tip.

27: 52

27: Use Mickey Mouse as a bribe to to make your children do things.

27: 56

27: So then we had lunch and it's gonna end up being a long episode, but I'm having fun. I hope you're having fun listening. So we then had lunch in Tiana's place. And so Tiana's place is from the movie The Princess and the Frog. And to say when I first read about it on the on about the boat, and I read about it wasn't that interested? I made sure before the few weeks before we started to get into the spirit, and we have the Disney Channel, we love it. But I just started to watch a lot of different Disney movies with Finn. Funnily enough, you really like loved Brave Enough with the bear. And the Scottish that one he really loved tangled with Rapunzel, which I also love. I think it's great. Well done movie was like love. I'd be careful of the care. And then he loved.

28: 46

28: Oh, and we watched The Princess and the Frog. So just because I knew we were going to and so then it makes sense. There's Tiana's place because in the movie Princess in the frog, her whole dream is having a restaurant. And so you go in and then they go to a bar and cafe outside town, this place called the French Quarter because princess in the frog is set in New Orleans, New Orleans in the US. And the French Quarter is where all the jazz music happens. So which is really cool. So then they have jazz bands there. They had a trolley car tram setup.

29: 18

29: Just all done in that French Quarter and kind of all style. And then when you go into the Tiana's place restaurant, they actually like cue you when you come in, which is amazing. All the staff line up and cheer you in. And then of course, the service was wonderful. And the people Yeah, we had this amazing.

29: 35

29: The servers on our table were from India and Mexico were two of my favorite countries. So I got to speak a little Hindi speak a little Spanish, something I love about cruises as well that all the staff are so international, so you get to have conversations with people from all around the world. So I'm very much in my happy place. And that was laughing at me because yeah, just straightaway flipped into travel mode.

29: 57

29: But lunch was really good and service was amazing.

30: 00

30: Using they brought over Finn the welcome Sunday ice cream and they sang happy birthday to him. I told him as his birthday but actually knew they had have it written down in his system, which is amazing. They knew it was his birthday that day. That was really sweet. And just a really lovely meal. So that was a great experience to start the boat. We went up to the pool, they had three pools, they had the adult pool, the middle pool actually should have asked everyone for questions. What are you want to know, but I'll just tell you things, and hopefully I cover things. But I would really welcome questions if you think you're going. There's lots of information online, but I think first hand experience is always good. So anyway, there's an adult pool with an adult bar

30: 40

30: only, which is good to have a middle bar and pool which is kind of bigger kid bigger pool, probably a family pool. And there's food and bar there.

30: 50

30: And then there's kids section and it's got a really small short, shallow pool, which is absolutely packed with children. There's a giant slide which the line was like way long and fins too small. So we were nowhere near going on that. But then they had a splash area which was really fun. And then they had a really little kids toddler splash area, which was so genius and that was Finding Nemo themed. And that was good because even the splash here was a bit too much for Finn mat loved it my husband, but Finn didn't love it.

31: 17

31: Finding Nemo splash area, which is a bit like at SeaWorld on the Gold Coast. We have like a reef splash area that he loves going in. So that was very comforting.

31: 28

31: It was boiling hot. The weather was amazing. But it's so hot because you're on the rooftop. And so yeah, we stayed up there for a while. We got some pizza from the pizza and Finn ate pizza properly for the first time. So that was cool. And that and I had a cocktail and there was giant movie screen in the middle as well, this giant movie screen over the pool, and they play movie throughout the day. So that was really fun as well. And then we got into our room. Actually, we had got into our room before that. So after lunch, we just went and checked because sometimes the rooms aren't really till a bit later, but our room was ready at a quarter to two. And so we got straight into our room. Beautiful balcony, beautifully laid out and they had actually built out of towels on the bed a cake and laid all their like New Orleans carnival beads all over the cake. And they had a birthday card and a birthday certificate and a badge in like our door card ready for us. And I just cried again. I just was so happy.

32: 31

32: You know, I really wish we'd had three nights I think three nights, two days would have been perfect, which would have ended up being three days because we got on so early. Four nights would probably be my max to be honest. So that's my top tip. I think seven days would be crazy. I think you'd be exhausted. There's so much on I don't know I could be wrong.

32: 51

32: I think in the future. I'd look at fortnight's.

32: 55

32: As I said I don't I don't really think Disney cruises about the destination. So they do have boats that go to New Zealand, they do have ship cruises that go to

33: 04

33: Auckland, but like it is one of the more expensive ones. And I really think you're going on the Disney Cruise to experience the ship. So going out to sea and the Sydney cruise just went out to sea and I think that's perfect. I don't think we needed to stop anywhere.

33: 19

33: I certainly don't need to stop anywhere in Australia. And I think you know personally and I have traveled a lot.

33: 26

33: I have been to new mayor a couple of times I've been to some of the islands I would totally go back because it's it's an easy holiday. But like if I want to go to Vanuatu I'm gonna go to mountain want to if I want to go to Fiji and when I go there, I want to go to New Zealand, I'm certainly just going to go there and have been.

33: 40

33: I think, for me the cruise is about the ship and about being on the boat. The only other cruise that I'm looking at in terms of for the travel and for the destination I've actually started it off

33: 53

33: for one day in future 30 Day cruises or 20 Day cruises that actually go across the world and instead of doing a flight you're using the ship and stopping all along the way at different destinations as your as your travel and I'd be probably looking at those for like the North of Africa type ones. So anyway, even if it wasn't from Australia, because it's quite

34: 14

34: even if we went to Singapore and then went from there anyway, there's lots of options but I just think four nights were perfect so anywho

34: 25

34: I'm so glad though that we booked the birthday one that was really amazing, but a sort of a downside of the cruise for me. Was that on the way to our room on the first day just after lunch, my phone battery died. And I was like okay, well I'll charge it and lift it in the room and on and on as a shame we're going up on top I'll just use Matt's phone while we're on top and take some photos or I'll take photos later because when my phones back, didn't charge an hour later.

34: 52

34: Trade tried every port tried every charger we had one charge. borrowed an iPhone charger in case mine wasn't working

35: 00

35: Hang on charge, left overnight, didn't charge. I was like, I was not getting really upset, which sucks. And it seems frivolous and silly. But, you know, I've had a lot of money, I waited a long time to go on this cruise and I was there with my baby boy.

35: 18

35: Photos are something that I love photos and videos is something I treasure and I joked about it being the worst thing that could happen to a content creator. But you know, I didn't want to create content about it. I didn't want to take photos, but actually is more it was more than that. I wanted to have the photos and videos for myself. I then started to go into the thinking about you know, I run my business from my phone, I do a lot of work with my phone, that also varies quite an expensive item. And if it were broken, that's a huge life admin in mental load hassle that I really, really don't need right now. And so I had like an hour on the second day where I had a bit of a cry and tried to ask for help from reception, they ended up one of the ladies personally lent me her

36: 02

36: charger, which was a lightning charger. And when it wasn't charging up to 10, it wasn't turning on, there was something wrong and turned out there was something wrong, the battery was dead and the back of the screen, the back of the phone had been broken and damaged it. I've had to go get a new phone anyway. So which was a bit of it. And unfortunately, we haven't the day after as I was trying to fix my phone. It just anything like that goes wrong. The cruise itself was worked great. And it's great to do this now a week or so later. Because I've had the time to process and reflect. But unfortunately, a few days after I felt a bit down. I felt sad that it was over. I guess I felt down I felt tired.

36: 40

36: But I was really disappointed that you know,

36: 44

36: we had my husband's phone too. We you know, we got photos, we got videos, but it's not my phone, my phone camera is definitely better.

36: 52

36: And having to ask and having to share, I wasn't worried about the internet or uploading or anything like that. I just wanted to be able to capture things. And I wasn't able to capture things as quickly it was frustrating to use. I know first of all problems, all that sort of stuff. But it was my problem. It was my disappointment. It was my sadness. So that was a bit of that was just my personal challenge. The lesson out of that was always take a power bank, I ended up trying to ask somebody for one because I just felt like if I could just get some solid juice into it, but by that time it was dead anyway, so and also don't let your phone go to zero. That was also a left only phone go to zero, it's not the greatest for it to happen. But also don't just take a power bank makes life a lot easier than having to try and charge and generally cruise ships the power is not the voltage is not as higher so it does take longer to the things to charge. Top tip.

37: 46

37: Everyone was amazing. We loved it beautiful love the Disney theming love the Disney Channel, it was on Vimeo we ended up watching Disney movies in our room.

37: 57

37: We went around we saw the kids club and actually had this wonderful thing called Open House. And so if you have a child who is kids club age, you could go in at these times and experienced the kids club with them, which was so nice, because I love seeing his world and I love seeing what he gets to do. And he was just having so much fun interacting with it. We saw the characters on the first day. I wasn't as I said so fast. I was happy to see them without having to meet them. So we left our character meetings to the second day. And we just were happy to see them and point them out.

38: 31

38: I'll just talk about some highlights. Now I want to go through chronologically, I think highlight for me was the frozen the musical on the boat with Matt and I actually saw the frozen the musical but to see it on the ship with Finn. Because we didn't take he was too little the first time and singing Let it go, which I did in along with actually once was a tour manager on a trip in Cambodia. And I

38: 58

38: made everyone do Disney trivia and Disney sing along. I was like, I'll sing this movie, this song, you tell me what movie it's wrong. Or tell me the movie and I'll sing so I love it so much. And while you're on the ship, it's amazing. There's drawings around the boat and artwork from the movies over the years. And in all the cartoons. There's also they play the music all the time. So there's us walking along and you start seeing Bibbidi Bobbidi boo or you start singing Whole New World was in my head a lot that you'll just start seeing the song. And that was really fun for me. If you didn't eat out your room is a great place to go. And it's why I recommend having a balcony if you can or an ocean view because you can just have that place to chill out. Because we had that there were people who were like, I just need a minute to myself. It's overwhelming. I didn't think that I thought the big boat would actually feel busier. I think because we weren't so worried about the character meetings and because Finn was younger we weren't so he wasn't asking us to do certain things so we could really choose our own itinerary.

40: 00

40: It's a little overwhelming the amount of activities that are on and you know, like the frozen the musical was on three times in the day and so you have to really choose. I thought the first viewings pulling me really busy. The late ones when we have dinner, so we really only had the two o'clock and that might have fallen when Finn had a nap. So he watched most of it, which is great. And it was lovely to share with him, but you really sort of try and time around those things. You don't want to miss your dinner sitting because the dinner is an experience. And we were very fortunate with our because there's only a two night cruise and with three restaurants. We were on a rotation. And we got the best rotations and we got animators palette, which is the most incredible, surprising experience. And then we had Tiana's place the next night which was lovely to see it at night different to the day. And then we didn't have tridents. We had Tritons for our final birthday. Departure breakfast and trappings is really just a restaurant so there wasn't actually it's like kind of maritime, a little mermaid themed but it's not. It's not overly themed and they didn't really do anything in there. So people who got Tritons one night were a bit disappointed.

41: 10

41: But the animators palette was amazing. They did.

41: 14

41: You literally do a drawing. I mean, I'm giving away a secret. Well, then they take the drawings, and they make they include it in a cartoon. And so your drawing is in a cartoon. And it's like Fantasia style and it's all the clips from movies over the years and your drawings up there and it was just beyond incredible. They change the lighting the head animation during all around the everything was themed the artists sort of palette. It was really fun. And it was Finn's birthday night so they sang happy birthday again and gave him an extra birthday dessert. So that was really wonderful. The food was great.

41: 51

41: We made sure to visit most restaurants except we didn't go to something Cove restaurant calm Cove, which is a cafe does for adults where they can get coffee. I didn't go there. I think Matt did wasn't bothered. I tried daisies delights where I got snacks, his 24/7 food, we didn't get to do room service, which I heard was good. I really wanted to but we didn't have time to eat that much. I took an hour to have time by the pool the adult pool by myself while Matt and Finn has had a nap. So that was really nice to get to experience that and read my book and not have my phone. So that was a good side of not having my phone.

42: 29

42: Um, yeah. And then Tiana's place for dinner. They did like kind of old style, there was a jazz band, Tiana's there herself. So that's really fun.

42: 42

42: We did do two character meetings, three character meetings. In the end, we accidentally met Rapunzel and played duck duck goose with her, which was very cute and fun to experience. thing was just in all while we were waiting for Mickey Mouse. So top tip is if you're waiting in line for one of the characters, send your if you have your partner with you, send your partner away to get a coffee or something like that while you wait in line.

43: 09

43: It was special meaning Mickey and I'm glad we got that moment. He was the only one we wanted to really have a photo with and then we were walking past one time and Pluto had a very short line. So we jumped in and had a photo with Pluto. And Finn thought it was hilarious. And he was like the dog sniffed me. The doggies sniffed me. So he that's kind of a core memory now this giant dog sniffing him and his giant whiskers in his face. And he just thought that was so fun. So yeah, disembarking was really organized as well. We packed our bag 10pm the night before, and it was wonderful. Adults Only there were three adults only bars Matt and I the first night was perfect. We went to the Cadillac Lounge, which was really lovely. not busy at all, I think a lot of because they still had the show on at 1030 There was still so many activities on in the evening. And they'd like dinner thing is like seven. So a lot of people were in their dinner. And then people with younger kids were going to bed so going to bed or doing activities. So we actually had a really quiet peaceful time this gorgeous bar and a proper drink. And then they had a pub, and I had like a silent disco activity area.

44: 21

44: Yeah, I think I think you can definitely find quiet and peace on the Disney Cruise. I think as I've tried to say three times, but I haven't got to. It's quite overwhelming. There's so many things to do. And so you're finding the balance between doing some stuff but also resting. But it's not a holiday. It's not a relaxing holiday. You want a relaxing holiday go on a different cruise, find moments like going to the pool or sitting on our balcony or going to the bar where there were not many people earning some quiet spaces. That was lovely, but you really on the Disney Cruise to experience it all.

45: 00

45: So as much as it felt like there's so much to do, and you're almost getting instant FOMO, just surrender, go on it for 234 days, and just make the most of it and just know that it's going to be late nights, it's going to be a lot of food, it's going to be a lot of activity and action and surrender to that. The show that we did see was fantastic. The evening show, it was unfortunate that they were on at 1030 at night. The first night, we just missed the Salloway party, which was all the classic characters.

45: 31

45: We just We were tired and Finn was tired and we just didn't push through. And the second night we were going to leave Finn in the nursery but he'd had a bad drop up front. We we felt bad. And so we went and got him. We wanted to soak up the time with him. And so we actually went to the Marvel show all together. He did really well. That's like superheroes, Ironman,

45: 55

45: low key Loki, Black Panther, Black Widow, all the characters and then everyone was really cool. So well done. So Disney incredible production, but unfortunately it was too good. And when SpiderMan was fighting red masks from Captain America Finn got really really really scared probably the most scared I've ever seen him think he didn't like the shooting and the violence. We A few days later bad parenting mistake tried to show him the movie Black Panther. And again, there was a violent scene of like shooting people fighting. He was like people fighting apparently. The fireworks blind. You know, the flying fox was fine. But when they were fighting each other and the banging that was he was terrified.

46: 38

46: Whoopsie but incredible production. Well done Disney, too real too good. So all in all 100% worth it absolutely worth it. I would do it again. Probably would do it on a different ship. I wouldn't go on the wonder of magic again. That's just me personally, I like to experience different things. I would go in America probably or if they were in Asia, just to experience it in a different way. But I think it'd be more like if we were in the US anyway, see what's available and try and get on a boat. I would not fly all the way to the US for the cruise. I just think that is not financially just a huge investment. I would always tie it into something else. So even flying to Sydney. We visited family and stayed with family and had Finn's birthday on a Sunday with family so

47: 28

47: this has been a long episode, but I had to tell you all about it. i The solo episodes were meant to be my short ones. But anyway, here you go. You're welcome. I hope this helps if you were interested in Disney, as I said, read the book right have a lifetime.

47: 42

47: I don't know share with me your Disney Experience and your Disney fan too. I can't wait to do more Disney episodes in the future.

47: 48

47: I will never stop being the child that you didn't have that inner child who loves the magic and the wonder and the creativity that is Disney. Thank you for listening.

48: 01

48: Thank you for listening lovely one. I hope this has inspired you to dream big and start creating a life you love today. If you love what you're hearing, don't forget to follow and rate on Spotify and rate review and subscribe on iTunes. It helps other awesome people to find this podcast and get motivated and inspired as well. Want to stay connected. Come and join the live a life you love group on Facebook or connect with me on Instagram. Emma lovell.au The same as my website. But all the details are in the show notes lovely. I'll see you next episode for more inspiration, motivation and freedom seeking Now go out there and live a life you love