Mike's Disney Treasure Cruise Recap - Port Side - Best Side! - BOGP 2964

Be Our Guest WDW Podcast

Mike Rallman returns from his 7-night Disney Treasure Western Caribbean cruise, sharing highlights from stops in Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Jama

Key takeaways

• Booking a VGT stateroom offered great value despite uncertainty about location; Mike ended up in a spacious midship aft cabin with convenient elevator access.
• Portside was the best side for views and experience, especially during sea days and port stops.

Main topics

• Disney Treasure Western Caribbean Cruise Experience
• VGT Stateroom Booking and Location Benefits

Notable quotes

"I was sitting at Serenity Bay at the beach. Man, it was beautiful."

"It was the best six bucks we spent. Some cards that we bought in Jamaica."

Conclusion

Mike reflects on his Disney Treasure cruise as a joyful, rejuvenating ex

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Happy Friday, everybody. Thank you so much for downloading or streaming the Be Our Guest podcast. Pam and Ricky join me today as I recap my Disney treasure cruise to the Western Caribbean that I was on just this time last week. So I talk about stops at Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Jamaica, and of course, Disney's Castaway Cay. I talk about booking a VGT stateroom and how that worked out great for me this time, and also why Portside was the best side. Great crew interaction, some fun times in Periscope Pub. We didn't see any shows in the theaters and it was awesome. And just so much fun with my wife and I and the best six bucks we spent. Some cards that we bought in Jamaica. So lots of fun stories and a bad decision on the Castaway Key Day. when it came to breakfast. So stay tuned for that. Lots of fun stories on today's show. Don't forget today's podcast and all of our shows always brought to you by the magic for less travel. We're standing by to help you get to your favorite Disney destination for no additional cost to you. Check out all the details today over at the magic for less.com. Please also use that Amazon affiliate link. When you shop online, that one extra click supports everything we do throughout the year. It's be our guest podcast.com slash Amazon. And thank you so very much to our Patreon supporters. You're the all-stars that make this show happen. We can't do this without your support. You can support us as well, just $5 a month. We'd really appreciate it if you'd think about that this weekend. And when you do that, you get a bonus show called Mike in the Midwest. So come on over. We'd love to have you at patreon.com slash beourguestpodcast. Speaker 2 (1:34) Ready to take a trip to the world? You found the Be Our Guest Walt Disney World Trip Planning Podcast. This is where your memories come front and center on our podcast stage. Speaker 1 (1:55) Welcome to episode 2,964 of the Be Our Guest Walt Disney World Trip Planning Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Rallman, for BeOurGuestPodcast.com, and one of the senior agents over at the Magic for Less Travel. Happy Friday to you. Hope you had a great week. Getting ready for an awesome weekend. And we're going to have a good time today. Talking about my Disney treasure cruise to the Western Caribbean this time last week. So this time last week, yes. I was wrapping up the cruise. It's always one of those things when you get home, I think you're always doing that. What was I doing this time last week? Whether you're at Disneyland, Walt Disney World, it's kind of sad. I'm back home working. I mean, I love my job, but this time last week I was sitting at Serenity Bay at the beach. Man, it was beautiful. I got to say, man, I took the best pictures. Pam and I went out to the adults only beach. I can still picture that spicy chicken sandwich I had from cookies. Oh, so good. The ribs. I, I remember I got, cause I had my like white, uh, what are that's grass guard shirt on and the barbecue sauce dripped down. I didn't care who cared. And then for dessert, I had the big cookie. I'd have the big, you know, chocolate chip cookie. And I put, there was a little brownies next to him, like all the devil's food brownies. Got one of those. Ice cream right on top of both of them. Who cared? I was probably 2,500 calorie dessert after having a 7,000 calorie lunch. Who cares? It was castaway key. It was awesome. What a great stop. That's the, when it's the last stop of your Caribbean run. Oh, so good. But we're gonna talk about the whole thing today. And ladies have been on. all these cruises. We're going to kind of talk about things, bounce some ideas off them. Ricky's here from a Disney world after all.com and the mouse for less Ricky. Happy Friday. What's going on? Speaker 4 (3:47) Happy Friday. And I have my cruise in a month. So sailing on the Disney fantasy. So I'm really excited about that. It's going to be a good time. Speaker 1 (3:57) Where are you sailing to? Speaker 4 (3:59) Still in Bahamas, a lighthouse and Castwicky. Speaker 1 (4:03) Nice. Castwicky is looking good. tell you that food was so good serenity bay i mean i won't get to go there because you're taking lucy right yeah you're taking Speaker 4 (4:11) lucy yeah yeah first first official family vacation which is gonna be really awesome too like this is the first big one we're taking to as a whole family so i'm excited and nervous all at once i Speaker 1 (4:26) had a mishap with the 5k misjudgment but we'll talk about that cast wiki 5k i still finished but Speaker 1 (4:33) minor misjudgment, but we'll talk about that in a second. So I'll just like paying for us here. Kona, the magic for less travel, uh, many, many time cruiser with Disney cruise line, all the ships, Pam, happy Friday. What's going on? Happy Speaker 3 (4:45) Friday. And I have a cruise coming up in less than a month. Now, um, it is a Halloween on the high seas. We're on the wish for that one. Um, doing cast away and look out. So we all must have. cruising on the brain because that's something that happened. But yes, I'm really, I'm looking forward to that one. It's actually been a minute since I've been on a Disney cruise and I think I'm doing one in November too. So I really have cruising on the brain, but it's just been like that kind of season. And I'm just, you know, I'm like, okay. As empty nesters, we get to do this. Speaker 1 (5:26) I know. I know it is. Because I know we're sailing again in December, beginning of December on the Wonder out of San Diego on a Christmas cruise just to get four-nighter. Just boom. Speaker 3 (5:35) Right. I know. It's one of the benefits. And actually, I heard someone say this, that they said they weren't empty nesters. They were bird launchers. And I like that terminology, actually. Speaker 1 (5:46) Bird launchers. That's hysterical. Speaker 3 (5:48) I love that. i know right because i'm like you do have to remember that you did your job to get you to this point so i know it's challenging at times but it is it also has some benefits Speaker 1 (5:59) that's hilarious i can't wait to tell pam that one tonight or whatever Speaker 3 (6:06) like a boomerang exactly it's not a boomerang like a um what's it called a slingshot Speaker 1 (6:11) yeah like angry birds because sometimes my birds were very angry that's a good one yeah Speaker 3 (6:19) so Speaker 1 (6:19) you learned you've already learned something today on the podcast you're driving into work on a friday that's right yes everybody in your office I'm not going to be an empty nester in five years. I'm just going to be a bird launcher. And they're like, you need to go home. You're something's wrong with your brain. What are you listening to? Exactly. All right. So I'm just going to talk about the cruise. We went on the treasure, uh, September 5th to the 12th. This was just a, um, we booked this one. We were having a heart. And again, we, I wanted to go on this cruise, right? I've been like looking, we hadn't been on a vacation for a while. We knew we were dropping Mallory off at Mizzou. This was going to be like our empty nest phase. We knew we were going to be struggling with the house being quiet because we've gone from running and chasing Mallory everywhere with cheerleading and everything. And it was like the house got super quiet. And I kind of did this as a preemptive strike to kind of get out of the house after we dropped her off. And so, but we didn't want to do it immediately because she was going through sorority rush. And like, we knew we had to kind of be here for like that. emotional support through like her first week or two at Mizzou. So we did it three weeks after dropping her off. That was just about perfect. Because again, I talked about how she got bit by a brown recluse, had to go to the ER. Like it's a good thing. Like if we'd have been at sea with all that happening and all this sorority drama, like going through rut, we needed to be closer than the Caribbean sea. But that all kind of settled down. School started and three weeks was a good like amount of time to settle in. So we did the treasure. Again, I talked about, I booked a VGT, which worked out well. I will say with a VGT, you don't know where your stateroom is going to be kind of carrying on from Wednesday's conversation. We ended up in stateroom 9126. So it was stateroom on deck nine, midship to aft. Again, the treasure, the wish class, the Triton class ships, they only have two elevator banks instead of three. So we were. pretty close to the aft elevator shaft. I think we were about 10 staterooms back from the aft elevator shaft, but we were on the hump because there's two sets of humps on that class of ships. We were on the back hump. So we had the biggest stateroom on the ship outside of Concierge because the 4A is the biggest one there is. It's a family ocean view veranda, and it was amazing. I mean, it's probably the best stateroom I've ever had on any sailing, obviously. And I've never sailed port side. I always books. Here's the deal. As a travel agent, this is just how I book for my guests. And because I think we all get in like, I don't know how the other agents of the Magic for Less do this. We probably all have our own philosophies, just like teachers have their own philosophies in their classrooms, how they teach math or how they teach, you know, whatever subjects. When I see that a guest doesn't ask for, you know, a specific. you know, I need this stateroom to be like this. If they just don't really have a default or they don't have a, you know, request. And I see it's going to the Bahamas and they're going to Castaway. I always try to book a guest on starboard side so that they get wowed with that import in Castaway. They overlook the island in Castaway. So they kind of default to starboard for most of my guests. If it's a sailing that's going to go through Castaway, because that's a pretty cool look. So I've always done that myself. I just kind of default to the starboard side. Well, when you book a VGT or restricted fare, you know, you get assigned a stateroom. So this time we got assigned late in the game. We got assigned about two weeks prior to our cruise. Boom, port side. So I was like, ooh, I've never been. I don't think I've been port side in forever because I always book early and pick my stateroom. So we got this and I'm like, ooh, this is going to be different. I like this though, because I wanted to try something different on this cruise. And when I saw it was a 4A, I was like, let's go. Because in my mind, I told myself we're going to be in a Navigator's Veranda 7A. So it's a big upgrade. We got in there. I was like, Pam, this room is gigantic. And there's only two of us, too. So we got in there. Beautiful, great spot. You know, being towards the aft was awesome for us. And on deck nine, because we only had to go up two decks. To get to Marceline Market on that class of ship. Two decks to get up to the Deck 11 soda machines, which we drank a ton of soda. Ice cream machines, Festival of Foods, all that stuff. So it was, man, I could not. That's 9126 on the treasure. Perfect stateroom for us. We loved it. So if you're looking for a great stateroom, anything in that ballpark, we loved. um so i will say we took the disney so real quick though just so i don't skip over this we stayed at coronado the night before always go down the night before stay within striking distance stay yeah stay at a walt disney world hotel this started that way and get transferred that's an easy way to go um we we went down friday night got there at about dinner time had dinner at maya grill because fajita friday had margaritas and fajitas, just like we would have back home. Got to see Maria and Jeff and some other listeners came over to the table that listened to the podcast and got some pictures and had a good time there. We got upgraded to a, uh, like a one bedroom or junior suite or something, a gigantic room for the one night, you know, had like a eight seat dining table, had a living room, two bathrooms. Like Pam and I took showers in separate rooms. It was like, we were like balling out, man. It was like, so cool. I'm like, people can get this and we're here for six days but we got it for one night i was like pam where are you like she was you know because it was awesome um and so we did that but then you know we took transfers over piece of cake right they just pick up your luggage inside your room boom take it out for you get on the bus ride over and you know it's again i'm gonna stop here and just ask you guys is embarkation day like the best day on a of like embarkation day for cruise days like it's like christmas i mean for a disney fan it's like it's like christmas morning i mean it's this just doesn't get better than that i got up and ran and so like i had to like get my sweaty clothes and put them on my backpack and you know because my they picked up our luggage at 7 a.m and it was sharp 7 a.m it was gone because i didn't get back from our run until about 8 and we had to be down there at 9 30 in barcelona lounge Um, but I mean, what do you guys feel about embarkation day? Cause to me, it's like, you know, that in frozen, like, Oh my gosh, open up the, it's where they say a coordination day. It's like, it's like that. Like it's so exciting. I love it. Speaker 4 (12:32) It's fun. Yeah, it is the best. I mean, you know, because it's kind of like, obviously it's like leaving for a Walt Disney World vacation too. Like you have all the possibilities are ahead of you at this point. And like, yeah, there's this energy about embarkation day. You know, you're getting to know, you know, your servers and you're getting to know your stateroom hosts. You're getting to see people that you're going to see on the ship for the next however many days and make connections that way. It's this shared experience that you're going to have with all these people for the next however many days. There's something really, really cool about that. I Speaker 1 (13:13) agree. Speaker 4 (13:14) I love it. Speaker 1 (13:15) I will say that, and Scott talks about this. Disney Cruise Lines, one of the few cruise lines that still does the muster drill where you have to go and like sit through the whole thing. It's not a virtual muster. Somebody did not show up for the muster drill and they just kept calling. Like, and you could tell that, I don't know if it was the captain or the cruise director, whoever was like on the horn, like was getting mad. Like you could, you know, cause they're saying it politely over the, over the intercom. Right. Speaker 3 (13:46) But you could, Speaker 1 (13:46) you know, I'm a former teacher, right? I mean, you could hear a little. Speaker 3 (13:50) You're in trouble. Yeah, trouble in the Speaker 1 (13:52) voice because they obviously they couldn't find the people. Could Speaker 4 (13:55) they be in their state room? No, Speaker 1 (13:58) they couldn't find them, right? Because, I mean, obviously they know to look for them like in public areas or state rooms. They could not find these people on the ship because, I mean, we stayed there. I don't know where they were and they didn't know where they were. But, you know, they can't. They can't like let every, they couldn't release anybody until they found these people. And they just kept saying, you have to be there. So you could tell they couldn't find them. Finally they did, I guess. But we stayed there for like an extra 15 minutes. So like everybody, and here's the other thing. I kept saying that there was going to be no kids on this cruise, right? Because I'm like, oh, it's Labor Day. Like it's September 5th of the 12th. I thought, I kept telling all of a sudden you guys, I was telling Scott, I was like, there might be zero kids on this cruise. This might be adults only. This might be like a virgin cruise line ship. You know, who knows? I was wrong. This was like a preschool. There were so many little kids on this cruise. Like now there weren't, there weren't like school age kids on this cruise. There weren't very many of those, but there were so many little kids like in high chairs. Holy smokes. So we got the numbers cause we did the, um, we did the art of the Disney cruise line tour thing on like a sea day, which was awesome. You should do that. Take y'all around, show the art, but like, you know, you can ask the questions of the cast of the crew member that leads the. tour somebody asked like how full is this ship for the sailing and he said it was 3100 um guests and 1100 kids 1100 guests under 18 or under out of the 3100 i