RV's March 17th, 2007 Eastern "Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic'ed" Cruise

[RoyalVizier]

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

The Background

I’ve covered most of this in my Pre-Trip Report (http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1381852), but wanted to give a quick run down here for new readers. This cruise was about a year in the making. Our very first cruise was a little over three years ago when we took the 4-night Bahamian cruise with DCL. Then we did the 7-night Western with DCL last May. Almost immediately after disembarking last May, my wife got it in her mind that she wanted to share this with her parents. I really didn’t have any problem with it, so the planning and speculating started right about there on the drive home from the port. My wife’s parents have NEVER been on a vacation in their entire lives. Nowhere. Ever. So this was a huge thing for them. Eventually they were convinced and the planning began.

The other thing is… MIL/FIL are not Disney people. At all. I do believe that they have probably only heard the word Disney, but do not understand the scope of what that means. They do not watch Disney movies, they do not know Disney characters, and it is just another one of the world’s companies to them. So we weren’t necessarily going for the “Disney Experience” with them because frankly I know they wouldn’t get it. You Disney fans (which is probably every single one of you) get it. We always knew while planning that there was no way FIL was going to put up with being around the characters or clogged atrium walkways full of lines to get pictures taken with princesses. We knew that already… the focus would be the cruise experience. The pool, the ocean, the ports, the dining… we knew the limits and the boundaries.

And so it begins…

Day 1 Part 1: Getting Ready

The day dawned cool in Central Florida. Very cool. The forecast called for a high of 67 and breezy that embarkation Saturday. All I could think about was standing up on Deck 9 Forward when we started to head out into open water and my face becoming red and chapped with windburn. I couldn’t wait!!! :hyper:

We awoke at 5:30am which was much later than we imagined we would sleep. I always imagined lying in bed all night long, eyes wide open, consumed with anticipation of the week to come, but I slept through the night no problem. FIL and MIL were down in the living room on a blow up air mattress, and they keep the most ungodly schedule of anyone I know. An important point to keep in mind as you read through this report is the kind of schedule they are used to living by. Up by 4am, dinner between 3-4pm, and in bed by 7:30 – 8:30pm. Makes for interesting timing!

So anyway, the morning was a bustle of activity. DW was still doing laundry and packing and mopping floors. Yes folks, she mopped the floors. She was a bit frazzled. She felt there were all these things that needed to be done, AND this was the once-in-a-lifetime vacation for her parents and she wanted every step of the way to be perfect and memorable (in a good way of course). While she put the finishing touches on the floors, I ran a few quick errands there at 6am in the morning. I returned some movies to Blockbuster (that we didn’t even watch) and ran by Dunkin’ Donuts. I’m not an expert on Dunkin’ Donuts… we tend to have donuts on special occasions, so I was amazed at the bins and bins of delectable fatty treats on the wall behind the counter. I’d obviously never walked into a Dunkin’ Donuts in my life. I think I stood there for a good 10 minutes, saliva pooling, eyes wide, trying to figure out what to get. Boston Crème donuts won out and I ended up with three of those and a couple other miscellaneous ones.

When I got home, DW, DD, and I devoured our donuts, but the in-laws didn’t want any. Uh… so I ate theirs. By 7am we were ready to go. It always happens this way. We get so excited and feel that there are all of these numerous tasks to do so we get up extraordinarily early thinking there’s no way it can get done and then you get done hours early leaving you with nothing to do but sit and stew waiting for the Limo to come. Oh, I haven’t mentioned the Limo? Well the Limo was DW’s idea many months ago. My dad usually has the job of coming and taking us to the port. It works for us because he is more than willing and then we won’t have to pay to park our car there. This time, since this was going to be the vacation of a lifetime with the in-laws, DW wanted to see about a limo service. Excellent idea! It’d start the vacation out perfectly, we’d ride over to the port in style and elegance, feeling like royalty before we even boarded the most magical ship on the seas. So it was booked and arranged roughly three months prior. Well… there in lies our first hurdle.

Next Up: Phone Tag and a Snag

PS. I posted all of our food pictures over on the Pics of DCL Food thread. That post is on the very top of page 28 here (http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=886187&page=28)

[laura1234]

Great report so far.... Please give us more.

[jrose529]

Great start, I can't wait for more. We leave in two weeks, so this will keep me occupied until then!:banana:

[pppiglet]

By 7am we were ready to go. It always happens this way. We get so excited and feel that there are all of these numerous tasks to do so we get up extraordinarily early thinking there’s no way it can get done and then you get done hours early leaving you with nothing to do but sit and stew waiting for the Limo to come.

Oh I so know this is going to be me in 4 more weeks! I don't think I'll be mopping the floors though!

[LovableGluttons]

OOohhh you started!!!:cool1:


It's so good!!!:cheer2:


I've got my toast and my coffeee.

Keep going!!:banana:

[lunsusie]

Great start.....looking forward to more.

[lg3]

Oh I so know this is going to be me in 4 more weeks! I don't think I'll be mopping the floors though!

hee hee! I don't think I will be either....... wait a minute - I don't think I EVER have. That is why we don't eat off our kitchen floor. We only have a one second rule around here. :rotfl:

Can't wait for more of the TR! :)

[disneypoor]

Great start so far! I have to admit that I also mopped the floors, cleaned the toilets, and made sure every single speck of laundry was done before we left.;) Afterall, IF something were to happen to us while we were on our trip, I didn't want anyone else to know how we really live.:lmao:

[plutospup]

...We're all waiting for the limo! Hmmm...RV, are you still waiting for the limo, too?

[RoyalVizier]

Hmmm...RV, are you still waiting for the limo, too?

Not too far off the mark there, Plutospup. Let's move on and find out, shall we?

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 1 Part 2: Phone Tag and a Snag

So there we were sitting at the kitchen table. :bored: All five of us. :bored: Just sitting there as we had been for the last 45 minutes. :bored: Staring at each other. :bored: Twiddling our thumbs. :bored: Ripping paper into small pieces. :bored: Shuffling anxiously in our seats. :bored:

I looked at the clock for the 100th time. It was now 9:10am. The limo was due to pick us up at 9am. Now, I have been told by anyone who has ever spent any time with me that I am the most patient man on the planet. My wife… not so much. Same with the MIL, FIL, and DD. Their patience levels run shockingly low. In this instance, I admit I was a bit leary and what was going to happen now that the limo was late. Granted it’s only ten minutes late, but still. Every time we’ve cruised we’ve arrived at the port around 10am. We don’t necessarily show up early at the port to grab one of the first boarding passes, we just like the time in the terminal. It’s beautiful, you can sit and look over all of the embarkation stuff, go out to the patio area and look at the beautiful ship and all of the tasty treats being loaded into it. Plus we had the in-laws with us this time and wanted them to experience some time in the terminal. But again, at this point the limo was only a little late.

We let five more minutes pass when DW decided to give the limo company a call. The nice lady was surprised to hear that it hadn’t arrived yet. She said she would contact the driver and give us a call back. So we waited some more. This is when the speculation began. All of those nasty “what if?” questions began to surface on the parts of DW and MIL. What if they lost our reservation? What if they never come? What if we miss the boat? Should I call my dad and put him on standby just in case he needs to drive us? All of it was asked over and over again around the kitchen table. I personally wasn’t too worried. I knew we weren’t going to miss the boat… heck, it didn’t leave until 5pm. We just liked to get to the port early. I dismissed myself for just a bit at this point and went up to the bedroom. I just needed a moment to listen to the silence and take a few deep breaths. A minute or two of quiet time can work wonders in situations like that. :guilty:

The lady called us back just five minutes later. I took the call this time. She told me that our limo had been in an accident on its way to pick us up! :scared: The driver was fine, but she had to figure out a way to get another limo to us and how to rearrange the schedule. She said she’d call back when she knew something. This whole time, the family was listening to my side of the conversation so I really didn’t need to break any news to them. They were aware and we all showed concern for the driver and the situation. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Just one of those things. So we waited some more…

9:45am came around and we just didn’t know what to think, so DW gave a call back to the lady at the limo service to see if she knew anything yet. The lady said that due to the travel conditions and storms up north there were no other limos available. They had all been previously booked and were already being used as backup for other situations. She was going to check with other limo companies to see if they could step in to help, and she would call us back. She said she didn’t have a timeframe on when she would call back. :headache:

At 10am, she called back and said that they couldn’t provide a limo, but a van is available if that was suitable. We said that it was. I wonder if the lady heard my wife’s miserable frown on the other end of the phone. :sad1: She said it would arrive at 10:30am. So really only an hour and half had passed since the limo was supposed to pick us up, but it sure seemed longer. That hour and a half was filled with worry and a bit of tension. Again, I go back to my DW’s state of mind. All she has wanted for months is to make this the most amazing experience for her parents, and here before we’ve even left the house, we run into a pretty significant snag. The limo was one of the things that my MIL talked about all the time, and was excited about experiencing. At this point we were very worried about the state of the port as well. We have never arrived so late before, and by the time we would get there if picked up at 10:30am would be roughly 11:30am. We imagined the port in a busy and hectic chaotic state with masses of people checking in and excited about boarding.

Well, 10:30 came and went, this time with all of us huddled around our living room window staring out at the street like five whipped puppies boarded up for too long. Luckily, that stark white van came around the corner just five minutes later and a collective sigh of relief was had by all. The driver was very nice, he helped to get our bags into the back of the van and we were off… :car:

Next Up: The Room and Dining Changes

PS. I do have some photos that I will post as we move along, but surprisingly enough we didn't take any pictures even at this point. There were plans to take pictures of the limo and us getting in the limo and us with the driver and us sprawled all over the inside of the limo, but... yeah, well... :sad2:

[pppiglet]

Nice beginning!

[Mama Twinkles]

I hate even to suggest it, but it sounds as if the limo company may have been lying to you to cover a booking error. Surely the driver would have contacted them or you immediately after an accident and not waited to be contacted by them. My suspicion is that there was no accident.

Am enjoying your report, feeling your stress.

[Floridagram]

oh my gosh, I hope this is the only bad thing that happens on your cruise. I'm almost afraid to wish for that though the way things are sounding....
I just can feel your wife's pain because I have parents like that. pixiedust:

[nenner1]

aaahhh...RV's report

so glad it's here! :banana:

[Babs417]

You are so good at this. Maybe you should write a book.:goodvibes :thumbsup2 ;) :) :cutie:

[firstmickey]

YAY.....you started! :banana:

[LITTLEKID58]

Subscribing.. and txs so much for sharing.

[RoyalVizier]

I hate even to suggest it, but it sounds as if the limo company may have been lying to you to cover a booking error. Surely the driver would have contacted them or you immediately after an accident and not waited to be contacted by them. My suspicion is that there was no accident.

The thought hadn't even occurred to me. Eh, I don't know. I'd like to think that wasn't the case, but who knows. Ah well, doesn't matter now. We got there, and that was the important thing I suppose.

You are so good at this. Maybe you should write a book.:goodvibes :thumbsup2 ;) :) :cutie:

:blush: Maybe someday... travel writing is intriguing.

YAY.....you started! :banana:

About time, huh? ;)

The end of Day 1 should pop up today if all goes well! Jeesh, I am being longwinded, aren't I? :rolleyes:

[NHdisneylover]

popcorn:: Subscribing to this excellent report.

[Babs417]

Did you book another cruise?:cutie:

[kandyk]

I am so anxious to see how the rest of the cruise went. I hope for your sake and the sanity of your wife it went much better than the whole limo situation.

Keep it coming!!!

[pppiglet]

The end of Day 1 should pop up today if all goes well! Jeesh, I am being longwinded, aren't I? :rolleyes:

popcorn::

[luciloo]

Yes, the trip report is finally here. Good reading ahead.

[PaDisneyCouple]

We go on an Eastern this October, and were sooo looking forward to fresh, prime Eastern reports. Now we have DisneyPoor and RV. Yes!
Sean & Christine

[RoyalVizier]

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 1 Part 3: The Room and Dining Changes

I sat there with my hand clenched around the handle in the door, knuckles white. As the driver drove 85 miles an hour towards the magic, I looked around the van. There were no neon lights. There was no bar. There was no leather nor sunroof nor divider between the driver and me. This certainly wasn’t a limo. :guilty: But we were in a vehicle on the way to the port, and that was what mattered. :)

The experience of coming up over the bridge and finally seeing the beautiful Magic is a topic discussed endlessly in trip reports so I won’t rehash all of the squealing and pointing and giggling and elation that was felt. All I will say is that all of those emotions came from DW, DD, and I. MIL and FIL… I wonder if they saw the ship. Uh, maybe the sun was in their eyes. Maybe they were distracted by the ripped upholstery. Not much reaction there. :sad2:

We arrived at 11:30. Our bags were taken; we made our way through security, got boarding pass number nine, and headed up to the Castaway Club line. Remember we were very worried about getting to the port this late, but you know what? We were pleasantly surprised! There was no line to check in, and they had started boarding almost immediately after we arrived so it worked out very well. The original thought was that we wanted the in-laws to have some time in the terminal exploring and sitting and soaking it all in. But upon second thought, I think they would have just become impatient and bored. So it worked out great! The morning’s crisis, although stressful and worrisome at the time, ended up working out to our advantage.

Upon check-in we got the PLAPLAP dining rotation, which was exactly the one we wanted, and we got the late seating, 8:15 to be exact (same as Disneypoor who has a fabulous trip report going as we speak as well. Hi Disneypoor! :wave2: ) DW and I were minorly worried about this late dining time. If you remember from my pre-trip report, the in-laws live by an ungodly schedule where they eat dinner at like 3:30pm in the afternoon. DW and I agonized over whether or not we should see about getting it changed after boarding, but we liked the late seating ourselves. To us it makes it seem like there is more time in the day. So we didn’t really know what to do. It was finally decided that we would go to Rockin’ Bar D just to see what they say and go from there.

Boarding pass #9 was called at about 12:30pm so we got in line, had the boarding picture taken (in-laws first exposure to the ubiquitous photographers) and were announced as we entered the atrium. This was an area that my wife had really hyped up over the last several months to her parents. The magic of the grand entrance… we love the announcement of the guests and think it is an extraordinary touch that adds such magic to the moment. Again, not a lot of reaction from the in-laws. :sad2:

We went up to Topsiders and had some lunch (corndogs and cheesecake!) and just wandered around Deck 9 for a bit showing them the sites, discussing forward, aft, starboard, port so that they could start to learn their way around. 1:30pm came around fast so it was time to head down to the room. We booked a Cat. 7 Navigator’s Verandah room and we were located on Deck 5 all the way aft, room 5634. Our room was only a few doors down from where we were last year when we stayed in a Cat. 6 stateroom. The in-laws had a separate room next to us, and there we no connecting rooms available. Thank goodness! There was some slight worry on our part about how we would like the Navigator’s Verandah, but it was GREAT! For those of you that aren’t aware, a Navigator’s Verandah is a verandah that is mostly enclosed by solid walls. The sides and front are completely enclosed leaving you with a large open porthole to the outside. There is a built in bench on one side and a small table. It is decorated with nautical instruments like maps and compasses. It’s like a small extension of the room. We were very impressed by it and would stay in that category again. :thumbsup2

We took this time to get situated. I made a beeline for our dining tickets to see what table number we were assigned. Table 50. This was important to us because I had requested upon making the reservation that we have a table to ourselves due to having the in-laws along. They didn’t particularly like the idea of dining with others, and we agreed that in this situation, just the five of us at a table would be best. So I took our dining tickets and made my way to Rockin’ Bar D to see about Palo and to see what size table #50 was. There was no line when I arrived (which was great!). I asked if there was any availability for the early seating, and there wasn’t, so that took care of that. Turns out table #50 was a table for ten, but they were able to change it and get us by ourselves. And we booked Palo dinner for Thursday night at 8pm. We had already booked Palo brunch online prior to cruising for the next morning at 11am. So I was all taken care of! :thumbsup2

Next Up: The First Dinner

Sorry, this is so much longer than I ever imagined it would be. Four parts to Day 1?! I must be crazy… sorry. :blush:

[RoyalVizier]

Did you book another cruise?:cutie:

Nope, we're not quite sure what we're going to aim at for next year. Our options are wide open. There are some stupid life things that we need to get squared away so we're just going to save as much as we can and see where we land.

[RoyalVizier]

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 1 Part 4: The First Dinner

After I got all of our dining arrangements taken care of, I went back to the room to see what we wanted to do next. Well DD was itching to remove herself from our presence and go meet her kind at the Stack. So she took off (as she did SO many times that week) leaving DW and I alone. Well you know where the minds of two young adults go after their daughter leaves them alone and they’ve just boarded the magical ship in the universe…. FOOD! ;) :) Food, people… food. So we left the in-laws in their room (evil probably but I wasn’t caring) and headed up to Pluto’s for pizza. We LOVE the ships pizza. And then to top it off we had to have our first ice cream of the cruise. We DOUBLE LOVE the ships soft serve creamy ice cream! DW discovered on our first cruise that it is much more magical to grab a large cup from the drink station and use it for ice cream instead of the smaller cups provided next to the machines. I married a brilliant woman! :woohoo:

We went back to the room and ran into Mario, our room host along the way. He was a super friendly guy. He was delivering my tux to the room that I had ordered prior to cruising. Shortly thereafter the luggage started arriving so we piddled around with unpacking for a bit, I tried on my tux, and we just sorta got things organized in the room. The boat drill was at 4pm. Our meeting place was just downstairs from our room in Animator’s Palate. It was quick and painless just like usual. Then we headed up top for the sail away party. MIL/FIL are not “party” people at all, so we found a table on Deck 10 aft where they could sit and be away from the party going on midship. I wandered down there a few times to see the action, but wasn’t immersed in it like previous years. The horn sounded at 5pm (love that horn :goodvibes ), but we didn’t go anywhere. There were two other ships in port that day, the Carnival Elation and the Carnival Glory. They weren’t going anywhere either. Finally around 5:30pm they started to head out, and then we followed. Long after the cruise, I discovered that over 100 people missed our ship due to weather up North. That would totally SUCK! :guilty:

We went back to the room at 6pm to rest and get ready for the evening. We had PLAPLAP rotation so dinner was in Parrot Cay at 8:15pm. We gathered the in-laws and headed to the dining room. Our servers were David from Australia (Server) and Juan Pablo (Asst. Server) from Chile. David told us that he was a bit jet-lagged due to just having arrived on the ship from Australia. This is his first cruise back from a six week break. They were spectacular and treated us great over the week.

I always like to say that I’m going to try new things when we cruise, but it’s hit or miss most of the time. I had the crab Martinique appetizer which was a HUGE departure from me, and I liked it! The highlight came in the dessert of course (doesn’t it always?). I had the French Toast Banana Bread Pudding which was HEAVEN on a plate! :hyper:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241866584.jpg

The in-laws had Walnut Chocolate Cake and loved it so much that they took one back to the room. We were thrilled with how the dinner went. It was an area of big worry for us regarding them. They are set in their ways and sorta picky eaters so we really didn’t know how dinners would go, but FIL verbally confirmed that the dinner was marvelous! Thank God!

After dinner we poked into Shutters to look at the embarkation photo. It was pretty good. We let it sit for now, but came back for it at a later time. Sadie came home at the appropriate hour and we turned in for the night. Nothing has changed since last year… we’re still not late night people, and after dining that late and eating as much as we did, we pretty much turned in after dinner each evening. Sorry… no wild and crazy party or lounge stories here, folks.

Oh... this is how the first day ended:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241868377.jpg

Next Up: Palo Brunch and a Curling Iron Catastrophy

[firstmickey]

NOTHING worse than a curling iron catastrophe...can't wait to see what happens! ;) :banana:


and that are you crazy thing...that was rhetorical, right? ;) :rotfl: :rotfl:



YAY for the Navigator room...Im glad it turned out well since you were worried about it before you left! And Im glad to see that you still went about having your own good time even though inlaws didnt always join in!

Great pics! :thumbsup2 :banana:


keep writing!

[Tink rules]

Sounds good so far...popcorn::

A curling iron catastrophe??? :sad2:

[RLccweems]

I can't wait to hear about the rest of your trip....I'm enjoying it very much! In in-laws remind me of my father. i can't wait to hear more about how they like the trip.


lettie

[Disneygrl36]

I'm here...... & count me very very impressed at all that you already have up.
Sorry about the rough start with the limo/van. Hope that is the only bad thing that happens. Glad dinner went well..........no offense to your in-laws but how could anyone not get excited & have a reaction when seeing the Magic or Wonder for the first time?? :confused3 Even my Dad (who is a judge & generally very hard to impress) was impressed although he didn't show it as much as I would have liked, but I found out after we got back that he was telling everyone what a great time he had.
Ready for more
popcorn::

[Tink rules]

Luckily my mom is also a Disney fan... of course her cheerleading lessons start long before the trip... (I want Dopey! I want Dopey!)

The rest of my family would be like the inlaws... and they would NEVER take the time to find hidden Mickeys or anything...

[lisa6373]

I may be a newbie, but I know a good trip report when I see one!

[Jennifer48]

Sorry for the rocky start to your vacation but it sounds like its shaping up nicely. :thumbsup2 Keep up the great work! :goodvibes Can't wait to find out about the curling iron catastrophe! :eek:

[Elastagirl]

Signing on to your trip report, we are taking my parents in Sept. They too are not easily impressed, nor party people, so we are wondering how to entertain them and keep them happy on the trip!

[michelle9343]

I am really enjoying yuour trip report.. can't wait for the rest!!

[Jennifer48]

Stop posting your pictures on Disneypoor's trippie and get over here!! popcorn:: I need to know about the curling iron catastrophe!! :rotfl:

[LovableGluttons]

RV?? No lounge stories? You aand your DW weren't in Match You Mate talking about dumper trucks?

Well!




(nice report....loving it!)

[disneypoor]

Stop posting your pictures on Disneypoor's trippie and get over here!! popcorn:: I need to know about the curling iron catastrophe!! :rotfl:

:lmao: :rotfl: :rotfl2: Hey! I did finally figure out how to post pictures! It took me long enough, huh?:confused3

[Dixielady908]

OK RV dont leave us hanging too long...looking forward to the rest of your report.....

Denise:banana:

[GreenTad]

Look...we are all enjoying DisneyPoor's TR, but you've totally left us hanging!!! :bored: Don't make me break out the cheerleader:

:cheer2: GO RV! GO RV! GO RV!

Ha ha! But seriously, get back to work! ;)

Sima

[RoyalVizier]

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 2 Part 1: Palo Bruch and a Curling Iron Catastrophy

We woke up at 6:30am. I gotta say I was shocked. It was customary during my cruise last year to get up at 5am every morning and go up top to watch the sun come up. That wasn’t happening again, and I was pretty darn glad. We got dressed and went up to Topsiders for some breakfast at about 7:30am. The in-laws stayed in the room so we went back to check on them when we were done eating. They were finally ready to emerge so we all went back up top to enjoy our first day at sea! :cloud9:

We got a prime table on Deck 9 next to the ping pong tables and just hung out for awhile. They were playing Little Einsteins on the big ariel view screen so I got educated while I sat there:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241866578.jpg

DW and DD played some ping pong. DD and I tried to be artsy with our camera while DW and MIL batted the ball back and forth for awhile. Here’s the only thing worth showing that came out of that:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241866575.jpg

After awhile we all headed down to Treasure Ketch. DW knew that it was jewelry by the inch day (of course) so she went googly eyed over the spools of gold and silver. We got out of there with no less than three bracelets (among other things). Luckily her wrist isn’t fifteen inches around! After this we went back to the room to start getting ready for our 11am Palo Brunch. :banana:

We’ve been to Palo on previous cruises, but just for dinner, never brunch so DW and I were really excited. MIL and FIL of course had no clue what to expect. We’d clued them in a bit so that they wouldn’t be totally caught off guard that Palo is a bit of a more upscale dining location. They really aren’t used to places like that. And neither are we really, but at least we can adapt. They were just so uptight the entire time. It’s like they didn’t know what to say or do aside from sit there as rigid as possible. I admit, it was fancy, but that is one of the many things that we liked about it.

Upon being seated, our server came to introduce herself. Neomi from Hungary took marvelous care of us! She took us up to the buffet area (as they do for everyone) and explained everything to us. That main middle table right in the center of the restaurant was not the main attraction for me. That was the fanciest table of them all filled with things that I can’t even pronounce and seafood galore. It was all about the bread table and the dessert table… of course! She explained everything in great detail, spending careful attention to the entrees and pizzas available. Everything looked so wonderful and I was starving.

We dug in. I steered clear of seafood and filled my plate with mostly breads and pastries. I’ve heard so much about the stollen bread on this board that I had to try it to say I did. I dumped a big ol’ heaping mound of whipped cream on it and topped it with the healthiest of mixed fresh berries. It was quite enjoyable! Neomi came by to see if we wanted to order anything special and we ordered a cheese/tomato pizza and a frittata (which to my non-cuisine self is an omlety sort of egg concoction). Neomi said, “Is that all?” and her eyes sort of went wide and a grin spread across her face. I told her that we wouldn’t even know where to begin on the other entrees because we would want to share and wouldn’t be able to decide. So being Palo… she of course proceeded to tell us that she would bring us everything! So, soon our table was filled right down the center with a chicken dish, pasta (my favorite), fish, and veal. Sorry I can’t remember what anything was called or the details of what it was like. The chicken and pasta were a hit, the veal went untouched unfortunately. If I’d have thought of it I’d have let her know not to even bring it. The meal was topped off with one or two (okay, maybe three) trips to the dessert table. Just look at those beauties:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241866614.jpg

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241866621.jpg

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241866631.jpg

We were done. Done done done…. Not able to move, think, or look at anything edible ever again. On the way told Neomi that we would be here again on Thursday evening for dinner and asked if we could have her as a server again. She said that I could stop on the way out and talk to the manager to see if that could be arranged. I didn’t stop, but figured I’d just ask when we checked in on Thursday night.

From here we did a lot of odds and ends. We went to the room, back to the store, to Shutters, to the room, to the pool, to the hot tub, to the pool, to the hot tub, to a lounger, to the room, back to Shutters, the to the room for nap time. There we were, slumbering soundly. The sandman had come and sprinkled a special Disney blend of dream dust mixed with pixie dust on us and we were out like a light. The ship had just the right amount of sway, the bed had just the right amount of give, the room had just the right amount of light… all was right. Relaxation at the height of relaxation. :cloud9: Then the phone rang. :eek: A great ominous jangling ring like that of a death knell… the sound seemed to stretch into the shadows of the room with each subsequent ring. :scared: DW picked it up and it was her mother. From DW’s side of the conversation I deduced the MIL had forgotten to pack her curling iron. Holy ringlets batman!! DW was very soothing. She used her quiet, whispery voice as if she were talking to a four year old. “Your hair will be fine.” “No, no one is going to notice your hair.” “Mother, it looks fine the way it is”. When she got done on the phone she flopped back and stared up unblinking at the ceiling like Dracula had just gotten finished with her. She said her mom was completely freaking out and was close to tears over the forgotten curling iron. So what does DW do? Such a good daughter… she ran up to the store to see if by chance they have one for sale. While she was gone I called Guest Services to see if by chance that was an item they could provide. They can’t. DW returned and they don’t sell them either. So note to future cruisers: If you forget your curling iron, your just plain outta luck my friends. :sad2:

Next Up: Paparazzi and Nausea

[RoyalVizier]

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 2 Part 2: Paparazzi and Nausea

The boat, it was a’rockin’. :sick: We had heard that the Eastern cruise is somewhat more turbulent than the Western, and it really started to show even on day two. Our bathroom doors would sway back and forth. If you listened closely you could hear the hangers in the closet tinkling together. I’m not one to get physically sick, but I was a bit bothered by it this time. This afternoon and evening particularly got to me a bit.

The Golden Mickeys was the show set for this evening and I wanted to go, but no one else was all that jazzed about it. The shows were a whole other aspect when it came to wondering about the in-laws. Not being Disney people, we wondered if we should even attempt to get them to come to a show. The shows (as we all know) are so extremely based on at least a bit of knowledge of Disney with characters everywhere. So we just let it be. We told them there were shows and when they were and left it at that. This particular evening no one wanted to come with me, not even DW, so I went on my own.

It was Formal night so I crowbarred myself into my tux and headed out to the theater. The whole curling iron thing sucked all of the air out of our stateroom causing me to blackout and lose all track of time, so it was about 6:10pm when I was finally ready and left the room, and the show was due to begin at 6:15pm. Needless to say, I was cutting it pretty close. This is one of my favorite shows on the Magic. It’s themed after an awards show so when I came around that corner to walk down the hallway where the shops are towards the theater, there is a grand red carpet laid out with crew members dressed in their finest standing along the walls and holding cameras. Well since I was cutting it so close, I was the only soul in that hallway and I immediately became self conscious. As I walked along they started snapping photos and asking for autographs. I brushed them off like the peons they were and told them I was late to accept my award. :rolleyes: ;) :) It’s great fun!

After the show, I met DW, the in-laws and even DD (she decided to emerge from the woodwork for formal night) in the atrium for some pictures. (I thought about asking MIL what happened to her hair but wasn’t sure if our insurance covered repatriation of remains so I kept quiet). DD and I stood in line to get our pictures with Capt. Thord. You know… I bet those captains absolutely hate this night! They never look happy. Last year Capt. Henry looked miserable, and this year Capt. Thord looked miserable. That was not a picture we purchased.

Our formal night dinner fell in Lumieres which is very fitting. David and Juan Pablo were ready for us tonight, and Juan Pablo had remembered what we had to drink the night before and was ready with it. So awesome! David was pleasantly surprised to see DD. I told him that this was a special treat and that they probably wouldn’t be seeing her again after this evening. We thought the menu was very fancy. I had trouble finding something that I thought I’d be happy with. They had things like duckling and lamb and escargot. I ended up choosing from that little standby area of the menu. Chicken and a baked potato… fine by me. Dessert tonight was the Grand Mariner’s Soufflé, a light slightly lemony soufflé in which they pour chocolate sauce making it a decadent chocolate soup. Good stuff!!

About midway through dinner, MIL began to look a bit green. She had been quieter than usual throughout the meal, and suddenly immediately after dessert was served she needed to excuse herself. My wife walked her out and came back and told FIL to go look after her back in the room. So we got their dessert to go, finished ours, and headed back to the room as well. It was a bad night. I had to sleep on either my back or on my stomach (when I usually sleep on my right side) to keep from swaying with the ship. Laying down made things a bit better… but I was in a hurry for sleep to come. :faint:

Up Next: Much Worry Over St. Maarten

[Disneygrl36]

I'm first.......I'm first. :woohoo:

Wow 2 installments. You rock RV :banana:

Love Palo brunch. All those desserts that is just heaven :cloud9:

I can imagine if my Mom had forgotten her curling iron it would have been an even bigger disaster.

Great job :thumbsup2: but we need more pictures.

[Tink rules]

I'm next!!!

Where's the pictures?????? I'm going to have to go back to DisneyPoors to get some pictures!!!

Great report so far!!!

[disneypoor]

Keep it coming! I'm lovin' it so far! I don't do anything that has to do with seafood, so the bread and dessert tables were where I hung out at Palo too.popcorn::

[Dixielady908]

Looking forward to the rest....sorry you got a little queasy....we did the eastern in november and the ship was a rockin on that cruise to but I have to say...I enjoyed it and loved the rockin at night....

Denise:banana: :banana:

[firstmickey]

Geez, I'm late! ;)



Love the Palo pics! Those little tall glass dessert things with the cappucino stuff...LOVE those! :thumbsup2


(I thought about asking MIL what happened to her hair but wasn’t sure if our insurance covered repatriation of remains so I kept quiet).

OMG.....:rotfl2: :rotfl2: :rotfl2: you are so bad! :teeth: :rotfl2:


I'm sorry you all got the queasies!


if you had to do it again...would you do the Western or the Eastern? :confused3

[churchlady]

Whoo! RoyalV, I can't believe you took off without me. Here I am! :yay: I'm all (Mickey) ears!! popcorn:: Loving it, of course...keep it coming!:surfweb:

P.S. Perhaps you could post to the May 20th TR to pick up the rest of our returning cast?:grouphug:

[RoyalVizier]

I'm next!!!

Where's the pictures?????? I'm going to have to go back to DisneyPoors to get some pictures!!!

Great report so far!!!

What do you mean "where's the pictures"? Aren't there pictures up there? :confused3 ;)

if you had to do it again...would you do the Western or the Eastern? :confused3

We're pretty stuck on the Eastern. We love the extra day at sea and we much prefer the Eastern ports of St. Maarten and St. Thomas/St. John. The Western ports, although fun in their own right, can't be called "beautiful". The Eastern ports are beautiful. We fell in love with St. John, and have already said that we could easily spend a few nights there, not connected with a cruise.

I can deal with the extra movement... not a big deal.

[LisaSp]

If this is the same Noemi, she was our server on the March 2006 Eastern Magic and we absoutely adored her. We were hoping to be able to request her when we sail again next Feb...but if she has moved on to Palo, good for her--maybe we will see her there!

http://images1.snapfish.com/3498%3A9988%7Ffp344%3Enu%3D324%3A%3E652%3E%3B85%3E WSNRCG%3D32335839%3C932%3Bnu0mrj

[RoyalVizier]

If this is the same Noemi, she was our server on the March 2006 Eastern Magic and we absoutely adored her. We were hoping to be able to request her when we sail again next Feb...but if she has moved on to Palo, good for her--maybe we will see her there!

http://images1.snapfish.com/3498%3A9988%7Ffp344%3Enu%3D324%3A%3E652%3E%3B85%3E WSNRCG%3D32335839%3C932%3Bnu0mrj


Yep! That's her! She is an amazing server, and I'll go ahead and tell you that we did end up with her again as our server when we dined at Palo for dinner that Thursday night. She is terrific!

She also took care of all of our soft serve cookie dough ice cream needs on Castaway Cay! :yay: :yay: :yay:

[LisaSp]

...I guess working in Palo is a step up for the servers...I am glad to hear that she has moved up! She was so fabulous.

By the way I am enjoying your report!!

[Tink rules]

I meant pictures of you guys!!!

You're wonderful traveling family!!! Inlaws included... :grouphug:

[Tinkerbell's Mom]

I am absolutely loving your trip report, we are thinking about booking an Eastern Disney Cruise for April 2008 so reading these reports is great!!! :woohoo:

[O2BONDCL]

[QUOTE=LisaSp;17963354]If this is the same Noemi, she was our server on the March 2006 Eastern Magic and we absoutely adored her. We were hoping to be able to request her when we sail again next Feb...but if she has moved on to Palo, good for her--maybe we will see her there!



We had Noemi on our March 2006 cruise and we absolutly loved her! :love: We just went on a cruise March 2007 and got to have her in Palo. She is very good at what she does, she is by far my favorite server!

[Babs417]

What is 07/27/07?:confused3 :surfweb: :cutie:

[LisaSp]

We had Noemi on our March 2006 cruise and we absolutly loved her! :love: We just went on a cruise March 2007 and got to have her in Palo. She is very good at what she does, she is by far my favorite server!

Which March 06 were you on? We were March 4-11 Eastern (at least those are the approx dates). It would be funny if we were on the same cruise with the same server!

[CDolacki2003]

What is 07/27/07?:confused3 :surfweb: :cutie:

Why 7-21-07 is the release of Year 7 of Harry Potter:cool1:

[Dixielady908]

ummmmm RV were waiting!!!!!!!

:banana: :banana:

[Dixielady908]

ummmmm RV were waiting!!!!!!!

:banana: :banana:

[O2BONDCL]

Which March 06 were you on? We were March 4-11 Eastern (at least those are the approx dates). It would be funny if we were on the same cruise with the same server!


no, that would have been funny though! We were on the 18-25..

[catecrew]

:coffee: Loving it again---RV your TR from last year is one of the reasons I booked a DC.
We are going 9-27-08--You had posted on our thread that you were thinking of going--are you still thinking about it?

[Mary Anne]

Marking my place and letting you know I am enjoying your report

[ChrisLei]

Also marking my spot. WOnderful trip report! Waiting for your next installment!:thumbsup2

[MagicMe]

No more?????:confused3

Got to the end of page 5 and not-so-patiently:rolleyes1 waitingpopcorn:: for more!!!!

Great Report!:banana:

[disneypoor]

Okay, RV, you had better get with it!;) I'm getting more and more readers for my trippie thanks to yours every day! These people want their boxed set! Where are you?:lmao:

[Babs417]

Maybe he went on another vacation:goodvibes :lmao: ;) :) :cutie: :laughing:

[pppiglet]

Maybe he went on another vacation:goodvibes :lmao: ;) :) :cutie: :laughing:

No ....he likes to keep us in suspense!

[RoyalVizier]

Why 7-21-07 is the release of Year 7 of Harry Potter:cool1:

That's right! It can't come soon enough! :wizard:

ummmmm RV were waiting!!!!!!!

Working on it... :thumbsup2

:coffee: Loving it again---RV your TR from last year is one of the reasons I booked a DC.
We are going 9-27-08--You had posted on our thread that you were thinking of going--are you still thinking about it?

Glad that I had a hand in someones cruise planning! Ummm... I don't think we'll be going in September '08. We might actually branch out a bit from cruising, but it is far too early to tell. We'll have to see...

No more?????:confused3

Got to the end of page 5 and not-so-patiently:rolleyes1 waitingpopcorn:: for more!!!!

Great Report!:banana:

Working on it... :thumbsup2

Okay, RV, you had better get with it!;) I'm getting more and more readers for my trippie thanks to yours every day! These people want their boxed set! Where are you?:lmao:

Well if you want the truth, I was in the shower. I needed some writing inspiration so I smashed myself up against our shower wall with my eyes closed, pretended my shower was the size of a port-a-johnny, and was sniffing my H20 shower gel that wifey took from our stateroom. It did the trick! I was there! :rotfl2:

Maybe he went on another vacation:goodvibes :lmao: ;) :) :cutie: :laughing:

I wish! Working on it... :thumbsup2

No ....he likes to keep us in suspense!

That isn't my intention... but okay! :thumbsup2

[RoyalVizier]

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 3 Part 1: Much Worry Over St. Maarten

On this second day at sea, we slept until 7:10am (wow!) and went immediately up top with MIL to the hot tub. It was a big dreary and rainy out, but it cleared up beautifully by 8am. DW and I ate some breakfast at Topsiders, and I was thrilled to see that they still served those ham and cheese croissants. I LOVE those things! :love: We went to the store as soon as it opened because today was loose gem day, and DW just had to pour over the table of tanzanite, emeralds, citrine, and other semi-precious stones. From there we swung by Shutters to check out our pictures thus far. The stack was growing. The in-laws met up with us there, and we headed up to Topsiders to have our second breakfast! When cruising, two breakfasts are allowed. :woohoo:

After breakfast DW and MIL wanted to do a bit of laundry, so we gathered the surprisingly large pile of dirty clothes and headed to the nearest laundry room. We’ve never had a problem doing a bit of laundry on the ship. Washers were available, and aside from the room being hotter than a furnace, the laundry experience was completely uneventful. I do have a hot tip though… if you have items that need to air dry and you are staying in a Cat. 7 room with a Navigator’s Verandah, part of the décor is these nifty nautical canvasy ropey things up near the ceiling with rope woven in and out. Perfect for hanging a hanger on! Just don’t let your clothes get sucked out of the porthole! :thumbsup2

After this DW and I went back up to the hot tub by ourselves. We finally voiced what we’d been thinking since we boarded… that we were very worried about how our first port day (St. Maarten) was going to go. We’d had St. Maarten day planned for a long time. We knew exactly what we wanted to do: We were going to rent a car and explore. We were gonna drive around and get lost and be adventurous and stop where we wanted to stop and shop and eat lunch and just experience the island on our own. Then, in the afternoon we wanted to end up at Orient beach so that DW and MIL could parasail, something DW has wanted to do forever! That had been the plan for at least the last six months. Now, sitting in the hot tub and after observing the in-laws so far on this vacation… everything came into question. :headache: MIL was constantly worried about how far things were from each other, on the ship and off. We took elevators everywhere, even up or down a single floor (which was fine, I’m not complaining), and she just questioned everything and was constantly bringing up the fact that FIL couldn’t go very far. Plus she didn’t want to leave him on the ship alone if she went with us by herself. So DW and I just couldn’t see how we would be able to stick to the original game plan tomorrow and still include them. We’d be stopping to shop (which FIL wouldn’t have put up with anyway) and we’d be traipsing all over St. Maarten.

So DW and I decided that the plan needed to be scrapped, much to our disappointment, but again… we wanted this vacation to be enjoyable for them. :sad1: They were the focus. So we went down the shore excursion desk to see what kinds of things they had available for St. Maarten. After much discussion, we decided on the Under Two Flags Island Tour. So it was booked, and we needed ice cream! It’s the only thing that makes us feel better!

DW and I attended the matinee performance of Twice Charmed. Then we headed back down to the shore excursion desk to see if any availability had opened up for the bottom fishing excursion on Castaway Cay. This is the only thing relating to the cruise that FIL had shown any interest in. DW and I had made the mistake of really hyping it up and getting him all excited about it before we left, but then when he finally agreed to do it, there wasn’t any availability. :sad2: I don’t know what we were thinking, so we had to tell him that we couldn’t do it. So here we were at the desk again checking and there was availability… one slot! One… single… slot! DW wanted to do it with him. We certainly weren’t going to send him off on that by himself and he never would have gone for that anyway so… we’d keep checking back.

While the guy was checking availability for us, we were chatting a bit. I don’t remember how the subject came up, but he ended up telling us that it is very likely that one of the new ships would cruise out of the Mediterranean. So… something to look forward to hearing more about! :banana:

Up Next: Some Bed Action (and yes, the Earth moved!)

[Babs417]

Good going:thumbsup2

[GreenTad]

RV...don't be too upset about your day of adventuring in St M being scrapped. That's what we did and it was not the best use of our time. It was our first visit there with our kids (3 and 8) so we rented a car to just "see the island." We drove around the whole thing in a couple of hours. The island is poor and at times scary to drive on. :eek: I kept looking for a beach sign or restaurant sign (or a STOP SIGN for that matter) and was disappointed. We ended up at the Butterfly Farm, which was nice and the owner made it very interesting---to us adults---and then to the small beach right down the road. I was a nervous wreck anytime we were in the car because they would pass you on a curve and I just knew we were going to be smashed at any second. :scared1: My kids were in the back seat yelling, "Faster, Daddy, faster!" and I was praying that we'd make it back to the ship. Next time I would definitely do something more organized. What we saw was not very beautiful, at least not in comparison to St Thomas/St John which are GORGEOUS...I'd much rather have taken a snorkeling excursion (but 3 yr old wasn't old enough). But I hate the inlaws cramped your style. We're taking my folks on our next cruise (Double Dip 11/22/08) and I hope the same thing doesn't happen to us!!!) Great TR...you're awesome! :thumbsup2

Sima

[RoyalVizier]

I kept looking for a beach sign or restaurant sign (or a STOP SIGN for that matter)...

Funny you should say that about stop signs... I'll be talking about that! :rotfl:

Working on the next part now... should be coming up shortly.

[RoyalVizier]

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 3 Part 2: Some Bed Action (and yes, the Earth moved)

So after spending the entire day thus far worrying about shore excursions and how to make this a do-able experience for the in-laws, we needed some relaxation time away from the attempt at relaxation. Did that make sense? :confused3 So we went up top for awhile and ate, one of the most relaxing activities we know. We got pizza and ice cream. How many ice creams is that for today? Not enough, I’m sure… we walked around deck 10 for a bit, but it was crazy windy, so we went back to the room to rest.

Now… I’m a flopper. When I’m tired or no longer want to be standing, I flop unceremoniously into the nearest chair/sofa/bed. Sitting demurely or languidly crawling into bed is for the birds. Flop, I say! So all of my worry over the course of the morning about shore excursion this and shore excursion that had drained me emotionally leaving me a withered shell of myself and I was pretty beat. :rolleyes: So upon entry into our stateroom, I did this fancy smancy sort of complicated pirouette movement that found my shoes being kicked off in midair, a quarter turn, arms up, and ended with me landing (with a great sort of sigh/groan concoction) on my back in bed. Upon impact, the bed gave a bit of a sign/groan itself and the bottom right corner of the bed collapsed right to the floor leaving me a bit askew. A bit disoriented ( :faint: ), I wondered if perhaps we had hit an iceberg, but the sight of DW’s face (contorted with such hysterics as I have ever seen :lmao: ) brought me back to reality. Uh, I think I damaged DCL property! As I was already on the floor, I rolled off the mattress to the carpet and peeked underneath the mattress. Seems that the leg had broken off, screws ripped right out of the frame. Who knew I could be so destructive! :blush:

So I gave Guest Services a ring and told the nice young lady that I uh, sorta, uh, kinda broke the bed. She asked me if I was jumping on the bed. I said that I was not technically jumping on the bed… I just kinda leapt upon the bed. She said she would send maintenance right up. So maintenance arrived and removed half of our bed. Those things just split right in two! And you know what? I didn’t even think to take a picture! The room was practically empty! We now had a room with a dance floor!

Up Next: A Drunken Hot Tub Bash (Disneypoor, was it you?)

[anty30]

RV,

I was onboard with you last year. Really enjoying your trip report.
Keep it up, please.:thumbsup2

Anty

[NHdisneylover]

Reaction to the last installment :lmao: :rotfl2: :rotfl: :rotfl2: Too funny. Can't wait to read about the drunken hot tub bash.

[disneypoor]

RV--The whole explanation of you cramming yourself against the wall in your shower with your disney soaps to get yourself back on the ship so you could write your TR is hilarious! I also "stole" all of the soaps/lotion from my stateroom;) , so I think I might try your trick to help me finish my own TR.:lmao:

I'm thoroughly enjoying your TR, and I can't wait to read about this drunken hot tub bash. Maybe I was there.:confused3 Maybe my DH was there. He did seem to disappear at times, and he did like that refillable beer mug.:rolleyes1

[RoyalVizier]

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 3 Part 3: A Drunken Hot Tub Bash

There’s something about crashing to the floor and having half of your bed removed to give you a second wind. DW and I went back up to the pool (you can see how this day went… pool, room, pool, room… but hey, isn’t that what a sea day is for?) and hung out there for awhile. The Quiet Cove pool is surprisingly quiet. It’s amazing how the noise of the Mickey and Goofy pools stays over in those areas. We spent some time in the pool, and couldn’t help but notice that one of the two hot tubs was filled to the brim with a rather rambunctious group of men ages ranging between lets say early twenties to mid forties. This group was having quite a fun time by the looks of things. They had at least three buckets of beer bottles (that I could see) and the crew servers kept bringing specialty drinks.

I’ve always wondered about this situation. In the spa/hot tub rules posted by the pool, it states that there should be no drinks in the spa (or something like that). I don’t know if that means the entire hot tub area, like along the ledges, or if it means you can’t have a drink while you are lounging in the spa, or if it means that you can’t physically pour liquid INTO the hot tub. I don’t know how to take it really, but the cast members sure don’t mind if you have drinks in there or not. These people were so loud and they were screaming what sounded like these frat chants or cheers or something. Every time they took a drink they all (and there were like 6 – 8 of them) banged their glasses/bottles together and gave each other high fives. There were a couple of times where they were pouring and spilling alcohol into the hot tub. There were never crew members far, but they did nothing and they had to have noticed. These people were causing quite a ruckus. They sure were having a heckofa good time!

We’d had enough noise so we went back to the room and whatdoyaknow!!! Our bed was back! Like nothing had ever happened. Fast work, yay for maintenance! So we lay down (no flopping this time) and watched the shore excursion channel for awhile which made us feel much better about the Under Two Flags tour we’d booked for the next day. By this time it was about 7pm and time to start getting ready for dinner.

Dinner was in Animator’s Palette this evening. I had sautéed mushrooms in a pastry bowl:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241868489.jpg
Not a very good picture, sorry.

And a Caesar salad, stuffed cannelloni, and for dessert, the peanut butter chocolate cake:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241868428.jpg
:hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper: :hyper:

SO GOOD!! FIL took a bite and said, “That’s some paralyzing &%$# there!”

Well, at least it was a reaction, I suppose! :rolleyes:

After dinner the in-laws went to bed and we went to Sessions to listen to the piano for a bit. Very enjoyable. We really like the atmosphere of Sessions. We sat next to the window and just relaxed and listened for awhile. Then on the way out we poked our head into Rockin’ Bar D and noticed they were about to start Match Your Mate so we went in and took a seat. We’d never seen this game show before and found it very entertaining! Although, I didn’t really need to know that one of the couples “discovered the magic” in one of the cruise ship’s elevators! :eek:

This is how the day ended:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241869781.jpg

You know what? On second thought maybe that picture is how a day began... who the heck knows? It's just a very pretty picture! Deal. ;)

Up Next: A Blast from the Past and Under Two Flags

[dutch_girl_scout]

RV--Your Palo brunch pics are great, I got that ecstasy/full/sick feeling in my stomach all over again. I'm glad you're focus was on the food and not on the two people in the background sitting by the window. You were just far enough away that the entire DIS board can't see my chipmunk cheeks and aching stomach. I think even my eyeballs were ready to pop out from being so full! :eek: Palo brunch is definately something everyone should experience at least once.

[RoyalVizier]

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241866631.jpg

Oh my gosh! :eek:

This picture? The two on the right? That's you?!

[Paigee10]

love this trip report!

[curlybop]

:lmao: DISboard cruise tip #553: Don't flop on the bed, or you might break it. :rotfl2:

Absolutely love it. Keep on going - we're on the final countdown for our cruise, and reading everyone's reports keeps me sane while waiting on the days to pass. ;)

[disneypoor]

I noticed that Stacie and Kevin were in your Palo picture too. Were you stalking ALL of us?:lmao: :rotfl2: :rotfl:

[MagicMe]

WOW - three in one day!!:cloud9:

Continue to love your report and appreciate your efforts in getting so much written today. That said - more please:flower3:

[dutch_girl_scout]

Oh my gosh! :eek:

This picture? The two on the right? That's you?!



::yes:: That's us stuffing ourselves silly.

You might just have to change your name to DIS Stalker. :rotfl2:

[nenner1]

Dinner was in Animator’s Palette this evening. I had sautéed mushrooms in a pastry bowl:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241868489.jpg
Not a very good picture, sorry.



OMG, I had that and it is awesome!!!! The sauce tastes very similar to the mushroom appetizer at Palo.

Your pics are making me drool!:lmao:

[Tink rules]

Ok....

Next time you try your double back flip triple salchow onto the bed...you need to have a few people there with cards so they can flash the 9.9's for your landing and definately 10's for artistic interpretation!!! :bounce: party:

[Disneygrl36]

Ok RV your bed FLOPPING incident is right up there with Sleepydog's SHUB incident..............:lmao:

Interesting drunken hot tub frat party........hmmmmmmm. That would have been a sight to behold.

Yummo.........mushrooms.

popcorn::

[firstmickey]

:rotfl: :rotfl: at your flop story!

and the reason they put the no alcohol sign at the hot tub is....for medical reasons......lol...technically you really shouldn't drink while sitting in a really hot tub of water raising your temp...;) :teeth:


Yummy food pics! :thumbsup2 :banana:


LOL..at the elevator story....when we went to the Match Mate show on our cruise...we learned this couple discovered the Magic on the blue monorail. We called them monorail couple for the rest of the cruise. :teeth: :rotfl: :rotfl:


Good Report...keep it coming! :banana:

[RoyalVizier]

love this trip report!

Thanks! :)

Keep on going - we're on the final countdown for our cruise, and reading everyone's reports keeps me sane while waiting on the days to pass. ;)

You leave in 11 days! That's gonna be a tall order but I'll see what I can do. :thumbsup2

Were you stalking ALL of us?:lmao: :rotfl2: :rotfl:
You might just have to change your name to DIS Stalker. :rotfl2:

Look FirstMickey! Now who's a stalker? :rolleyes: ;) :rotfl2:

Ok....

Next time you try your double back flip triple salchow onto the bed...you need to have a few people there with cards so they can flash the 9.9's for your landing and definately 10's for artistic interpretation!!! :bounce: party:

Good idea! :rotfl2:

Ok RV your bed FLOPPING incident is right up there with Sleepydog's SHUB incident..............:lmao:

I actually have something coming up concerning the SHUB. It's not quite up there with what Sleepydog has reported, but it still proves that the SHUB is not of this Earth.

and the reason they put the no alcohol sign at the hot tub is....for medical reasons......lol...technically you really shouldn't drink while sitting in a really hot tub of water raising your temp...;) :teeth:

Well then that group must have been about ready to pop! :sad2:

[Gixer]

Please Hurry up with the next installment!!!! I keep checking this thread 20 times a day to see if you have written anymore :surfweb: :rotfl:


Waiting for you next post is worse than when I was waiting for the second series of LOST to start!!!! :lmao:

Loving reading all about your trip - especially as we go on the eastern in Jan 08! :yay:

[firstmickey]

Look FirstMickey! Now who's a stalker? :rolleyes: ;) :rotfl2:
:



Hey...you learned from the best! ;) :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

[BlueFalconer]

So I gave Guest Services a ring and told the nice young lady that I uh, sorta, uh, kinda broke the bed. She asked me if I was jumping on the bed.

Was Guest Services joking or serious when they asked this?

Great report. Keep it up. I'm with curlybop, you need to finish before we leave. ;)

[CapnJackGroupie]

popcorn:: popcorn:: So good!! Can't wait to read the rest - you rock!!:thumbsup2

[RoyalVizier]

Was Guest Services joking or serious when they asked this?

She was totally joking. She said it in a sing-song voice and there was a giggle hidden behind every word. :)

popcorn:: popcorn:: So good!! Can't wait to read the rest - you rock!!:thumbsup2

Thanks for the support! :thumbsup2

[Tink rules]

Would have loved to have heard her reaction if you had said...

"Ah... yeah... I was..." Bed jumping I mean... Tell her you had to do you aerobics... in the room - you're deathly afraid of gyms...

[Frye7127]

SO GOOD!! FIL took a bite and said, “That’s some paralyzing &%$# there!”


Sounds like your FIL is starting to loosen up. :lmao: I was laughing my head off when I read this after having a mental picture of what they are being like. Certainly did not expect that to come out of his mouth. :rotfl2:

[Disneygrl36]

popcorn::
:rolleyes1

[Floridagram]

So many details are missing, we are anxiously waiting... Did the inlaws have a good time? Did FIL get to fish? Did RV have a good cruise? Can you work just a little faster?:flower3: :laughing:

[Babs417]

Your doing it again

[wilma-bride]

Really enjoying this trippy. My DH is gonna rue the day I discovered the DCL board - I soooo wanna go cruisin' :)

[curlybop]

I leave in one week. Can we get atleast one more installment before then? :rolleyes1 Pleeease? ;)

[MagicMe]

Waiting....popcorn::

[ILUVEVERYTHINGDISNEY]

Great Report! I love reading everyones reports. popcorn:: I am new to this and we'll be going in Aug. 07. I can't wait. Very first cruise ever!

[Iluvcruising]

Great report. Loving every minute of It

[Audiologynet]

Thanks for such a great review. I am only on the first day and I am hooked..This is just what I needed!! Take Care

[Disneygrl36]

Hello?????????
Where is Royal Vizier????
popcorn::

[nenner1]

Hope you're ok out there RV!

You didn't break the bed again did you???:lmao:

[MagicMe]

Get us hooked, and then leave us high and dry???:sad2:

Hope everything is okay.

[Babs417]

I guess he got his Dis fix:surfweb: :confused3

[RoyalVizier]

Hey all,

I am SO sorry that it's been so long. I only have the usual excuse. Just been busy, sorry... here ya go.... and more to come today:

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 4 Part 1: A Blast from the Past and Under Two Flags

This morning we arranged a wake up call for 6am with Mickey Mouse himself. So he gave us a ring and told us it was time to start our day. I went up top to Deck 10 to see where we were and I could see us approaching St. Maarten in the distance. It was so gorgeous already! We were all (all meaning DW, DD, and I) so excited about the Eastern ports. We can’t really call the ports along the Western itinerary “beautiful”. We like then, but they aren’t necessarily visually beautiful like those of the Eastern. :love:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241869794.jpg

I ran back down to the room to gather the group, and we headed back up top once more so that they could see that there was indeed still land out there after two days at sea. I took the in-laws all the way forward on Deck 9 where it was the windiest. MIL didn’t like that much. She hung on to the railing of a stairwell for dear life thinking she would be blown overboard at any moment. :sad2: So we didn’t stay put long and headed inside for breakfast. So there we were, at our usual table inside by the window enjoying our breakfast when I look at my wife sitting across from me and her eyes are wide. She has a mouthful of eggs and a silly look on her face as she gazed over near the end of the buffet line? I wondered… was she choking? Were her eggs to runny? Did she realize she forgot her curling iron? :scared1:

Well I turned to follower her gaze and lo and behold who was manning the juice station but Octavian, our server from last year. My wife sorta kinda fell in the love with the guy and wasted no time in becoming all gooey all over again. We went over to say Hi. She said, “I really don’t expect you to remember me, but you were our server last May.” He looked at her… really looked at her. You could see the wheels turning in there, and I could tell he didn’t remember. I mean, who can blame him and any of the other servers. Look how many people they see over the course of their contracts. Octavian looked to me, and his face changed. It appeared that the light bulb had gone off. He said that he did remember. I don’t know that I believe him, but it made DW happy. So I took a pic of DW and him and we went back to our breakfast.

We had the Under Two Flags excursion booked so we went back to the room, got ready, collected the in-laws and headed to the Rockin’ Bar D which was our meeting spot for disembarking. Pikey was our host. He told us that we were only in the right place if we were here for the Extreme Paintball Excursion. Funny guy. We did the necessarily forms, were sorted into groups, and were on our way down to Deck 1. We were the Red Pluto group so we followed the Red Pluto Paddle. It was surprisingly similar to the Purple Pumbaa Paddle of Power we followed last year.

Once we got off of the ship, we lined up waiting to be directed to our bus. While we were waiting we did have some entertainment from some of the ship's crew.

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241869824.jpg

It was terrifying just looking at them! I think they were laughing at all of us gawking at them as they beautified the ship for our return later that afternoon.

We really enjoyed this excursion. If you remember (I know it’s been a long time, sorry), this was not the original plan for St. Maarten, but it really did work out. I’m going to have to give a really high level overview of our travels, because I am not one who remembers all kinds of facts, dates, and figures. We learned A LOT about the island. Our bus driver Jimmy shared A LOT with us, and he was an awesome guide. It was a beautiful day to be tooling around St. Maarten. We stopped at an overlook where we could get off the bus and wander around just a bit and take pictures. It rained just a bit here, but nothing major. Overall the weather was fantastically beautiful. One thing I couldn’t help but notice as I stared with my face pressed against the window was that I didn’t see a single stop sign anywhere. I could have missed them of course, but it appeared to me that everyone driving would just sort of share the duty of stopping at intersections and deciding who got to go next. Everyone was so friendly and nice and there was no shouting or honking or crazed drivers. A foreign concept to me. Our tour ended up in the downtown area where we had 45 minutes of free time before having to return to the ship. Jimmy told us that there was a flea market “over that way a bit” and gestured with his hands. Well, that’s where we wanted to be so he headed off in the direction that we thought he had indicated. This was a very interesting time for us. On last year’s Western cruise when we visited Key West, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel, we never ventured anywhere on our own. We were always in smack in the middle of tourist areas of shopping. So here we are in the middle of a downtown area and we’re walking in the wrong direction. Obviously. The streets are crazy narrow. There are islanders everywhere. There are sidewalks (if you could call them that) on the side of the road, but you must walk single file. Side by side just doesn’t work on these… curbs. Let’s call them curbs. Plus we have the in-laws in tow. Now if it had just been DW, DD, and me, I wouldn’t have cared in the least. Get lost, explore, have fun… experience the island, but with them… I was starting to get a little worried, because I knew that they wouldn’t put up with this wandering aimlessly thing. :sad2: So I asked someone walking by. They didn’t speak English. We turned and went another direction… then another, then headed back the way we came towards the bus. On the way I asked a lovely young lady bussing a table in a small outdoor diner. She didn’t speak English either. It was a very strange feeling. DW and I are big fans of the Amazing Race on CBS, and we kept comparing this experience to what those teams must feel as they attempt to communicate and find their way around the globe. I’d be eliminated in nothing flat, let me tell ya. I don’t know how they do it. :confused3

Anyway, we got back to familiar territory where the busses drop and pick up, and well looky there… not a couple yards away pretty much in plain site is the flea market; a sea of blue tents.

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241869873.jpg

Ah well, a little exploration never hurt anyone. I thought it was enlightening. The others were pretty much annoyed. So we looked around the flea market for awhile. There were unique items to explore, a lot of art and carvings, t-shirts, bags… DW and DD picked up a few things. Here's another one of my attempts to be artsy with the camera :rolleyes: :

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241869850.jpg

Soon it was time to get back on the bus. Jimmy drove us back to the ship. There were a few times we had to stop in the road to let goats pass (which was cool)!

The tour really was fantastic. I would highly recommend it to anyone who would like a leisurely, educational excursion on St. Maarten.

Up Next: I See Stars and Self Mutilation

[NHdisneylover]

:cool1: :cool1: :cool1: :cool1:
Hurray--you posted! Hoping I get to see at least one more installment before I leave for the repo (leaving May 11--sailing May 12). PLEASE?

[curlybop]

:yay: Great installment! The part about waiting for goats had me cracking up though. :laughing:

[RoyalVizier]

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 4 Part 2: I See Stars and Self Mutilation

So it was about 1pm when we got back on the ship. The plan was to have some lunch (because we were starving) and then get back off and go do some hefty shopping. DW and I wouldn’t have minded spending the entire day on the island without a ship-break in between, but the in-laws had had their fill of island life and were ready to go back to the room. So we boarded, had some lunch (chicken fingers!), DD headed off to the Stack, and DW and I got back off the boat.

DW and I were really excited about this leg of the journey, just the two of us. We wanted to end up on Front Street, but we weren’t quite sure how to get there. We decided to forgo and taxi and hoof it instead. We were up for the walk. Along the way we found a Mr. Tablecloth store (which we’d heard about from Martin during the shopping presentation the day prior). It’s an interesting little store. If you’re in need of some linens/tablecloths, it’s a must see attraction for sure. While we were in there it started to pour down rain, and we got a bit worried about walking, but it quickly let us to a near non-existent drizzle. We weren’t too worried about getting wet.

It was quite a walk to Front Street. A bit further than we imagined, but no big deal. It didn’t help that there was construction going on and we had to take a longer walk around than usual. We finally got to the Front Street area and as we were approaching (we hadn’t even walked onto the street yet) we were approached by this guy. He handed us two scratch off lottery type tickets and said we could win a fabulous prize. I pretty much immediately became a little uncomfortable because I never know exactly what to say or do in these types of situations. We figured what the heck, we’ll scratch the tickets and let him do his thing and be on our way. DW did her ticket and… nothing. Then I did mine... scratch…. A STAR :banana: …. scratch scratch… ANOTHER STAR :banana: … scratchity scratch scratch… THREE STARS! :banana: The guy completely flipped out. He told me that I should be jumping up and down raising a ruckus as I stood there with a deadpan look on my face. :confused: The guy said that he only had like three winning cards on him today and three stars meant the GRAND PRIZE!! I could choose from three fabulous prizes. I’m sorry, but I don’t even remember what they were. A cruise and a trip around the world and a trip to Mars or something like that. The guy then explained that all I had to do was go with him to their “company headquarters” which was right down the street, listen to a timeshare presentation, and then I could claim my prize. My uncomfortableness settled in just a bit more. Again, I just don’t know what to do in these situations. Do you believe them? Do you not? Is it really that easy? So he was practically begging us to go with him, because if we didn’t go, then he didn’t get HIS prize for handing out a winning card. We actually started to walk with him, but then I just piped up and said that we just didn’t have time for this, sorry, and I grabbed my wife’s hand and we just walked away leaving him standing there. Maybe one of you fine readers can tell me if I’m a stupid person… did I pass up a trip to Mars? Who knows? Ah well… I didn’t have a trip to Mars prior to the cruise; I’m no worse off now.

So we wandered around for quite a while. We enjoyed this shopping experience very much. I made the mistake of taking my wife into Columbian Emeralds International. We were there for a long while. A lovely woman named Sandy helped us and yes, eventually sold DW a ring. It needed to be sized so we wandered around a bit more waiting for that to be done. We ran across a catholic church which had character. Again, I went crazy with the camera:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241869817.jpg

As we wandered we saw David, our server, and Mario, our room host. They deserve their days off, that’s for sure! Actually, they don’t even get days off do they? More like time off. After we picked up DW’s ring and thanked Sandy, we were pretty beat so we started our trek back. We took a bit of a different route on the way back. We walked along a beautiful street along the water. We could see the Magic over there in the dock, the water was gorgeous, and there were atmospheric bars and restaurants. I don’t know the name of the street but it’s the street in front of Front Street. It was great. :thumbsup2

By the time we got back to the ship, we were pretty beat! But… we needed ice cream! It was SO necessary! We enjoyed some ice cream while lounging near the Cove Café. We popped into Shutters and were disappointed in our portraits from the previous night, and went down to the room to rest. No flopping involved this time.

Tonight was Pirate Night! I decided to get gussied up pirate style:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241869919.jpg

Hey, that’s as gussied up as I get, folks… at least for pirate night.

Yes, that is a Pirate Mickey tattoo on my cheek… pay close attention to it as it will be the focus of a segment forthcoming. I warn you now: It is not for the faint of heart. Small children should be escorted from the room. :scared:

Pirate Night really is a blast. We headed down to the lobby. The entertainment staff was down there wandering around in pirate garb. We surprised Pikey with a photo:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15865233/241874338.jpg

Dinner was in Parrot Cay this evening, perfect for Pirate Night. I had a delicious pork dish with some banana concoction for dessert.

After dinner, we trucked our stuffed selves back to the room… sorry, no Pirate Party this time, no deck dessert buffet. We’re just such boring, tired people all the time.

When we got back to the room we got into our jammies and I wanted to get the tattoo off of my cheek. I have never worn a temporary tattoo before and wondered… how does one remove this thing? Aha! The directions. Yes, I am a male that reads directions, call me crazy. ;) It said to wipe gently with baby oil or use scotch tape to remove it. Uh… well… by golly I just didn’t pack either of those things. So for those of you keeping track of and updating packing lists… evidently tape and baby oil are must have items. I figured that surely this could not be a difficult thing; it’s a temporary tattoo on my cheek! It’ll wipe right off. So I go into the bathroom and soak a washcloth in some surprisingly scalding water and start to rub. I rub and rub and Pirate Mickey is still there… perfectly intact, staring with that swashbuckling look of his. So I rub a bit harder, not to the point of pain, but I’m applying some pressure. Hmmm… he’s still there. I apply some soap to the wash cloth and lather it up and start to rub some more, but all that appeared to do is make Pirate Mickey mad. And bubbly. So I swear to you that Mickey fought back, and I rubbed and scrubbed and then the pain began to set in, but did I stop? Nope, not at all. He wasn’t going to win this one. He had to go! So as the very cells of my face began to peel away… as the softness of the wash cloth began to feel more like sandpaper, I just rubbed and rubbed. Finally I began to win the fight as Mickey started to dissolve away, from the ears down until he was gone. I was triumphant!! And my cheek was a red, raw, flaming red mess. :faint: So…

Am I the stupidest person on the planet? Quite possibly. I needed you all to hear this so that you won’t make the same mistake. The moral of the entire day: Pack transparent tape and baby oil.

Up Next: A Battle for Breakfast and More Stars

[anty30]

Great reading. Keep it up. :thumbsup2

[firstmickey]

Im sorry but....

:rotfl2: :rotfl2: :rotfl2: :rotfl2: :rotfl2:



Im sure I'll have more to say when I'm done laughing at you, you lunatic. :teeth:



and hey..Mars, Pa is a couple of towns over from me...you should have taken the trip! :thumbsup2 ;) :banana:

[curlybop]

:rotfl2: :rotfl: :rotfl2:
Note to self: Do not apply temporary tattoos unless baby oil is present. That is so funny. Thanks for 2 great installments today! I'll check back when we return to see if you've updated :rolleyes1 :)

[RoyalVizier]

I'll check back when we return to see if you've updated :rolleyes1 :)

Ohhhh ouch... that hurt! :sad1: ;) :)

[pppiglet]

Thanks for the tip on baby oil. I packed some tattoos for our trip, but no baby oil! (of course I wasn't going to put them on my face!!!)

[NHdisneylover]

:lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao:
For those who forget the baby oil (or are out of suitcase space) lotion aplied liberally and allowed to sit on the tatoo for a couple of minutes and then rubbed into it before washing off does the trick also. No way would DS let me scrub his face raw:rotfl2:

[Babs417]

I think maybe you wake up to early> No beach day. Were was the flea market was it worth going to? Love your report your the best:thumbsup2 :goodvibes ;) :) :cutie:

[disneypoor]

Okay, the tattoo thing is almost even funnier than you breaking the bed!:lmao: Loving the report!

[cntkg1]

:lmao: :lmao: :lmao: Read every page of this TR during lunch today. Fantastic TR!! Must go now and wipe the "laughter spewage" from the screen.

Thanks for the laughs. Will definitely return tomorrow.:lmao: :lmao: :lmao:

[Briarmom]

:lmao: :lmao: :lmao: I'm not laughing at you...wait, yes I am.:lmao: :lmao:

[chepic]

Who needs Samantha Brown when you have Royal Vizier to show you around the ship!!! I do have 1 question...if the IL's are only 59, why are they so uptight? Are they transplanted New Englanders? If they are, I can understand that (being from RI), but otherwise, 59 is just so young!!

Keep it coming.....9 months to go for us, so we need to live vicariously through all of you who have gone before!!:happytv:

cheryl

[lawhit88]

Wow!! Great TR!

I am going with the ILs in October (both will be 62 at the time). You are really scaring me:scared1:

Thanks for all of the great info!!

[RoyalVizier]

:lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao:
For those who forget the baby oil (or are out of suitcase space) lotion aplied liberally and allowed to sit on the tatoo for a couple of minutes and then rubbed into it before washing off does the trick also. No way would DS let me scrub his face raw:rotfl2:

Now ya tell me... :sad2: ;)

Were was the flea market was it worth going to?

The flea market was in the french capital of Marigot (I think), and yes, I'd say it was worth going to. I'm not really up on my flea markets, but it was a fascinating look at the culture. They had some really beautiful things for sale. I enjoyed myself. Since we were part of an organized excursion we only had 45 minutes there, and remember we got lost and wandered aimlessly for about 10 of those minutes, but we had enough time to take a good look around.

Okay, the tattoo thing is almost even funnier than you breaking the bed!:lmao: Loving the report!

Thanks! I love that my antics can entertain... :sad2: ;)

:lmao: :lmao: :lmao: Read every page of this TR during lunch today. Fantastic TR!! Must go now and wipe the "laughter spewage" from the screen.

Ewww! ;)

Again, glad I can entertain you while you have your lunch. :)

I do have 1 question...if the IL's are only 59, why are they so uptight? Are they transplanted New Englanders?

This was just an entirely different experience for them. They'd never been anywhere in their entire lives, so to stick them on a ship with fancy dinners (to them anyway) and stage productions and just the sensory overload... they had a big adjustment to make.

Wow!! Great TR!

I am going with the ILs in October (both will be 62 at the time). You are really scaring me:scared1:

I wouldn't take my in-law experience as the norm... my situation was probably on the more extreme end of the scale.

Thanks for all the kind words everyone. Again, I'm sorry there was such a huge gap of time in there with out an update. I'll try not to go that long again, but it may be a day or two before another pops up, just so you know.

[MagicMe]

Yeah - you remembered your loyal followers!:woohoo:
Once again, excellent updates! Really enjoying your report and the many unusual (?) happenings :happytv:

[dreamcometrue]

great TR! I have only heard stories about RV's TR's, now I am actually reading one! I may have to look for the other one because I am curious now!

[Disneygrl36]

I can't believe you didn't go to the pirate party......... pirate:

Love the tattoo story....:lmao:

Thanks for the updates........Did you have enough time to eat in Marigot instead of shop. Trying to decide on St Marteen excursion & thought the Under 2 Flags tour sounded interesting....DH wants to do the Rhino Riders.

Keep it coming
popcorn::

[lowtiger]

I am loving the Royal V's report.

I thought about how my DW's parents would have fared if we had taken them on our March 07 Eastern. MIL would probably have had fun but FIL would have been stir crazy. He does two things - plays golf and work around his house. My DW and I joked that since he couldn't play golf, we would get him one of the yellow jumpsuits and let him scrape and paint the ship. He probably would have loved it and if they had called on him to fix the bed after the little incident he would have been in heaven.
I had to laugh at the Shower H2O scene. We kept the shampoo and conditioner and when I need a reminder of the cruise I pull them out. There is something about the smell of that shampoo that takes me back.

SHOPPING NOTE FROM THE MAINLAND. My DW found a bunch of the H20 products on clearance at TJ Maxx 2 weeks ago. I was running out of what was left from the cruise so DW filled my Easter Basket with H20. It was a steal - a bottle of the shower gel was $3.00, they also had the body lotion, ....

I'm ready for the next installment. RV, you could be a professional travel writer. Your TR is not just informative, it brings in so much of the personal experience. Most travel writers are so dry and distant you wonder if they really went on the trip or just phoned the story in. Keep up the great reporting.

Lowtiger

[Babs417]

I want you to go on our cruise so you can write the trip report. Its going to be a full moon trip:goodvibes :thumbsup2 ;) :) :cutie:

[firstmickey]

Ok slacker....you had all weekend....let's get writing! ;) :banana: :banana:

[RoyalVizier]

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 5 Part 1: A Battle for Breakfast and More Stars

I awoke at 5:30am with my face buried in my pillow. As I turned my head, the pillowcase rubbing against my cheek was an unwelcome reminder of the previous evening’s stupidity. I went into the bathroom with a grimace, fully expecting to see a red mass of mangled tissue or a bone protruding from my face, but it wasn’t that bad. A bit red, but my face was still intact. :thumbsup2 I’d thought maybe I’d loosened something in there and my face would just slide right off in the night. :scared1:

I went up to Deck 10 to see the sights. What a gloriously gorgeous day! And we were heading towards the most gloriously gorgeous site! St. Thomas was breathtaking. This was the port we were looking forward to most. It was still dark outside, so everything was all lit up, speckles of light dotted along the mountain sides. :cloud9: I saw Capt. Thord on his perch just off the side of the ship doing his thing. In the distance I could see two other ships approaching, and we later learned that there were seven ships in port that day!

The plan for the day was to go on the St. John Trunk Bay Beach and Snorkel Excursion which we’d had booked for months. This was one we were sure about. We’d researched St. Thomas and St. John and knew that we had to go over to St. John. Especially to Trunk Bay. The pictures of this beach are breathtaking and we couldn’t wait to experience it ourselves. FIL had decided the night before that he was not going to be joining us on the excursion. Between not knowing what to expect and not knowing exactly where things were, and not knowing how much walking would be involved, he decided it best to stay on board. MIL said she would come with us though. But before we could experience this lovely place, we needed to take care of some business. This morning is customs/immigration morning and you know what? I don’t really have all that much to say about the customs process. Once we got to the Walt Disney Theater it was fast and painless. It was the events leading up to that that weren’t for the faint of heart.

We received a paper in our stateroom the night before telling us what time to report to the theater. 7am was our time to go to the theater and then we had to be at Animators Palette at 7:15am for our excursion. Well we wanted to get something to eat before disembarking to we headed up to Topsiders. This was at about 6:15am or so. When the elevator doors opened to Deck 9 aft, we were greeted by a swarm of people. The landing area was completely full, people elbow to elbow jostling around trying to make their way here and there. There were lines going every which way into Topsiders and we couldn’t even get off of the elevator. We totally didn’t even think about this and certainly didn’t expect this. I guess immigration morning is naturally hectic for everyone. So we stayed on the elevator and went back down. We didn’t know what else to do. On the way down I mentioned Goofy’s. We could just get some pastries and fruit and stuff, but DW didn’t think that it opened until 7am. I thought differently, but didn’t really want to add to the air of frustration that was growing within the elevator. I ended up saying that I really thought Goofy’s opened at 6am so when we got back down to our floor, we went right back up to nine, fought through the crowd and saw that yes, Goofy’s was open and business was booming there as well. I heard snippits of conversation and it seemed that everyone felt the same way. The frustration was apparent and I imagined a brawl breaking out over the last muffin or a cheese danish. After getting a plate of odds and ends we took it back to the room, got dressed, and then headed to immigration in the Walt Disney Theater. We walked in, they looked at us, they looked at our ID’s and then we left. That was it. This is nothing to worry about whatsoever. Aside from the early hour for some, this is harmless and is nothing to get worked up over at all. Just plan for breakfast that morning!!

We met in Animator’s Palate and again Pikey was our guide, and again we were assigned the red Pluto’s. He escorted us to Deck 1 Forward to board the ferry. This excursion was set up beautifully!! First off, we had to tender, which was not something that we enjoyed but what are you going to do, right? Seems that about every six weeks or so the Disney Magic has to tender instead of dock at St. Thomas due to rotation and of course we hit that tender week. Ah well… BUT…. What was great was that it was set up so that the ferry to St. John acted as the tender, came right up to the side of the ship and whisked us away to St. John! I thought that we would have to tender to St. Thomas, get a bus/taxi to another dock and then hop the ferry to St. John. I’m not quite sure why I thought that, but that’s what I was expecting. So to learn otherwise after a bit of a hectic start was great!

A few words about the ferry… it was a very large ferry with two decks. DD and I sat on the upper deck and DW and MIL sat down on the lower deck. I was very worried about MIL during this ride because it became very apparent over the course of the cruise thus far that she really didn’t like the movement of the ship or even the water for the most part. So now facing a 45 minute ferry ride on a much smaller vessel where the movement would be much more apparent had me a bit worried. I also felt kinda bad because I felt somewhat like DD and I had ditched them to sit up top. I didn’t want DW to feel abandoned, but did I change my mind and go sit with them? No. :blush:

So we were off. Our tour guide Cujo gave us a ton of information about everything! The history, the culture, the weather. It was very entertaining. He also pointed out some of the sights. Madonna’s house. Michael Jordan’s house. Alan Arkin’s house. David Letterman’s house. All beautiful of course. Then we saw the ferry. Not ours, but another ferry… half submerged… off nearer to shore! Uh, did I say half submerged?! :eek: Cujo explained that it had run aground the previous Saturday. There had been 29 people on board and all had gotten to safety, but the boat was still there and they were working on removing it. JUST WHAT I NEEDED MIL TO SEE! I imagined my DW down the on the bottom deck distracting her from seeing that sight or maybe holding her down, wrestling her to the aisle to keep her from raising a ruckus. This mixed with the extremely significant movement of the boat had me in a state or major worry!

Up Next: DW Saves the Day and Heaven on Earth

[NHdisneylover]

Thanks for the installment. Please keep 'em comming. Too funny about the sinking ferry being there when you've got the MIL along, what are the odds:rotfl2:

[chepic]

RV....from how you described it, your MIL must have just died!! As I said earlier, we are New Englander's and I can only imagine my own IL and how they would be....I don't think they would ever get off the ship, scratch that....they would never go in the first place:sad2:


Also, I guess your tip would be to order room service for the St. Thomas day.

Keep the info coming....

Che

[RLccweems]

i'm loving it....keep the report coming!


lettie

[RoyalVizier]

SHOPPING NOTE FROM THE MAINLAND. My DW found a bunch of the H20 products on clearance at TJ Maxx 2 weeks ago. I was running out of what was left from the cruise so DW filled my Easter Basket with H20. It was a steal - a bottle of the shower gel was $3.00, they also had the body lotion

Ohhhhh... I'll have to check it out! Thanks! :thumbsup2

I'm ready for the next installment. RV, you could be a professional travel writer. Your TR is not just informative, it brings in so much of the personal experience. Most travel writers are so dry and distant you wonder if they really went on the trip or just phoned the story in. Keep up the great reporting.

Thank you so much! :blush: I really appreciate everyone reading it and enjoying it.

Ok slacker....you had all weekend....let's get writing! ;) :banana: :banana:

Trying! ;)

Thanks for the installment. Please keep 'em comming. Too funny about the sinking ferry being there when you've got the MIL along, what are the odds:rotfl2:

Riiiiiiight! I couldn't believe it. :sad2:

Also, I guess your tip would be to order room service for the St. Thomas day.

I'm thinking! :thumbsup2

More to come very soon...

[RoyalVizier]

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 5 Part 2: DW Saves the Day and Heaven on Earth

St. John is a place where I could spend an entire vacation. Three or four nights in a beach resort with nothing to do but lounge and shop and eat and lounge would be perfect. St. John is utterly stunning. :cloud9: I was glad when we finally docked for MIL’s sake. I was anxious to see how she was and if she survived the ride over. I saw DW first as we were making our way off of the ferry, and I wondered for a moment if she’d had it with her mother and tossed her to the fish, but then I saw MIL bringing up the rear. She was absolutely fine, which confused me a bit, because she really doesn’t do all that well with the movement of the Disney Magic, but she’s fine on a turbulent ferry? :confused3

At the dock we boarded these cool little open-air buses that were going to take us to Trunk Bay. Our guide Felix showed us the sites as we wound up and down these narrow streets. Kinda scary, but fun! We stopped at three different overlooks along the way. Well, they weren’t necessarily overlooks, we just stopped along the side of the road, but anywho… here’s a pic:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241871270.jpg

After the final overlook, as we were driving along, the breeze blowing against my face, admiring natures awesome creation… the crystal sky, the crystal azure water, I noticed a man a row in front of me start to turn green. :sick: He was trying to whisper to a lady elsewhere in the bus and the look of alarm on her face was well… alarming! Turns out that this guy’s drivers license flew out of the bus. This guy and his wife started arguing a bit, with good reason I suppose, about how he was going to get back on the ship and such. Well they notified the driver and he stopped and started backing up on this narrow, steep road! My pessimistic mind took over and I thought there was no way we would ever find this guys license. I mean, there was a two foot wide shoulder to our left and then a drop off to the ocean below. I just couldn’t imagine the license falling neatly to the dirt shoulder. I of course imagined it flying to high heaven, over the side and into the fathoms below. We’d backed up a good way when my DW (love her!) shouted and pointed where it was on the shoulder. So someone hopped out and got it and the day was saved! I bet that guy was relieved as all get out!

After that ordeal, we arrived at Trunk Bay which is one of the planet’s most stunning locations. First of all, the facility of Trunk Bay is super! There is a nice parking lot, then a trail leading in passed restrooms, lockers, changing rooms, and showers. So there is plenty of storage space and comfortable facilities. We were led as a group down a path to a station set up with snorkel gear. They ran through some rules and gave us some info on the beach, gave us our gear and turned us loose. I just can’t express the atmosphere of the place. The weather was flawless, not a cloud in the sky, the water was practically blinding and the sand sensational. Trunk Bay is a place that everyone should experience in person.

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241871303.jpg

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241871301.jpg

So we just hung out and had a great time. MIL got in the water up to her ankles once, but stuck to the decision that the ocean wasn’t her thing. At 11:30am we had to head out. The trip back was set up so that the bus would take us back to the dock, the ferry would take us into downtown Charlotte Amalie where we would then have to hop a regular tender back to the Magic. All of that went well except for the fact that it started to rain right when we arrived in Charlotte Amalie. We were all grubby and tired… you know how it is after you’ve spent several hours at a beach, but we wanted to take a bit of time to look around some of the shops and they of course had a flea market area as well. Our hearts weren’t totally into it, especially with the rain and how crazy it was. Charlotte Amalie is a hustling bustling downtown district that’s for sure. The crowds (remember, seven ships in port that day) the traffic were nuts. Then the rain really started to come down. So we decided to call it a day and tender back to the ship. Luckily the tender boat was there ready for us, but unluckily, we sat there for a good twenty minutes next to open windows in the rain waiting for others so that we could leave with a full boat. Then, when we did start to move, the rain came horizontally into the open windows and soaked everyone even further. It was a pretty miserable ride back to the ship. :guilty:

Once settled back on the ship we ate (of course) and napped and got showers. The rest of the day was pretty normal. We hung out; we went to the Promenade Lounge and played So You Think You Know Your TV Tunes where we played miserably. Right before dinner I really started to notice the movement of the ship. I was so conscious of it this trip, it kind of drove me nuts. Dinner was at Lumiere’s. During dinner, Belle, the Fairy Godmother, Stitch, the Mad Hatter, and Alice all ran through the dining rooms at different times. I was able to snap a pic of David before the Fairy Godmother ran away.

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241871340.jpg

Here’s some of what we ate:

Bacon Cheese Tartlet
http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241871362.jpg

Fruit Plate
http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241871356.jpg

Weird, I don't have pictures of the main courses... sorry! :rolleyes:

After dinner, between having stuffed my belly and the movement of the ship I felt rather ill. I needed to go to bed. So I quick ran up to Palo to get a menu. I wanted the in-laws to look it over before our dinner reservation tomorrow night in case they didn’t want to go. So I grabbed that and then it was lights out.

Up Next: Princesses Undressed! :eek:

[Tink rules]

Hey RV...

That excursion... did you think it would have left you plenty of time (weather permitting) to also try and get in the tram ride up to the top of the mountain or whatever it was that is there???

Also... what did you do for lunch?

[RoyalVizier]

Hey RV...

That excursion... did you think it would have left you plenty of time (weather permitting) to also try and get in the tram ride up to the top of the mountain or whatever it was that is there???

Also... what did you do for lunch?

Hey Tink! :wave2:

I think there would be time to take in Paradise Point afterwards because I do believe my good friend DisneyPoor did it. You can read her account of her St. Thomas/St. John day on page three of her trip report, but hopefully she'll chime in here and give you some more info.

As for lunch, we didn't do anything... we waited until we got back to the ship and we were starving as you can imagine. I believe it was after 1:30pm or 2pm. Not everyone would want to do that, but I don't know what I would suggest for lunch. Sorry.

[Tink rules]

Thanks RV!!!

It's my first cruise and I was hoping to go to a beautiful beach and then maybe do some shopping or something...

Trunk Bay just looks too good to be true!!! :thumbsup2

[firstmickey]

Oooh...I missed this morning and got a twofer! :banana: Great job!

Was there an excursion where you could stay longer at the beach in St John? It seems like you just got there and had to leave....I'd rather have longer beach time! :beach:

[disneypoor]

Hi, everyone. I was on the same cruise as RV, and we also did the St. John excursion. We wanted to also do an island tour when we returned from St. John but found out there wasn't time for that. We decided to go to Paradise Point Tramway, and some of the people that went on the excursion to St. John with us opted to shop instead.

As for having enough time at St. John, I felt the amount of time was appropriate. However, I've read where some people do this excursion on their own so that they can have more time for the beach. However, a couple of hours of beach time is enough for me.;) Plus, I was too chicken to try it on our own for the first time. The ferry ride over was very entertaining though, and we all enjoyed it.

Hope this answers some of your questions.

[chepic]

RV....we were fortunate enough to have spent 1 week in St. Thomas, and went to Trunk Bay for the day.....ended up with sun-burned eyelids....notice the tree line, fell asleep in the shade, and awoke in the sun!!! :sad2: bad for me.

che

[Disneygrl36]

Cute pic of the Fairy Godmother...how cool is that.

We are thinking of doing the St John Island tour, but man does Trunk Bay sound inviting.

The title to the next installment has me intrigued........

Keep up the good work

popcorn::

[Tink rules]

Hi, everyone. I was on the same cruise as RV, and we also did the St. John excursion. We wanted to also do an island tour when we returned from St. John but found out there wasn't time for that. We decided to go to Paradise Point Tramway, and some of the people that went on the excursion to St. John with us opted to shop instead.

As for having enough time at St. John, I felt the amount of time was appropriate. However, I've read where some people do this excursion on their own so that they can have more time for the beach. However, a couple of hours of beach time is enough for me.;) Plus, I was too chicken to try it on our own for the first time. The ferry ride over was very entertaining though, and we all enjoyed it.

Hope this answers some of your questions.

Sorry RV... gotta ask Disneypoor a ??????

Approx what time did you get back from St. Johns and were you able to do any shopping, etc. after you did the Tramway???? I know it's not a long trip up, but we were going to try doing something like that and then walk around a bit if possible...

[lowtiger]

I wanted to share some second hand information from our March 07 Eastern.
We signed up for the Scuba trip at Castaway Cay. It was the first time that I had done any serious scuba and the first time at all for DS13. There were some other divers on the excursion who had done the St. Johns' scuba and were now doing the Castaway - They said the dive at Castaway was much better. I wish that I could personally attest one way or the other to this, but we didn't dive at St. Johns. There suggestion was dive at Castaway and just enjoy the beach at Trunk. Anyone else with similar experience? I'm just thinking ahead to my next DCL - Eastern (sill working on the DW)
PS: We did the Regatta at St. Martins. RV - your FIL and MIL would NOT have enjoyed, but it you ever get back to St.M, I would highly recommend.
Glad to see the two new posts!
Keep it up the great trip reporting and I love the pictures of the food (making me hungry as I eat my "frozen dinner" lunch), but when are we going to see pictures of MIL and FIL. I keep picturing Grant Wood's American Gothic -
Anyone for a pitchfork with a Hidden Mickey in it?

[ibela]

Subscribing to catch the rest of the report, I'm really enjoying it so far! This will be our first family trip (dd will only be 18 months) so we were thinking to not get off the boat at St. Thomas/St. John - but now I'm considering going to St. John.

[disneypoor]

Sorry RV... gotta ask Disneypoor a ??????

Approx what time did you get back from St. Johns and were you able to do any shopping, etc. after you did the Tramway???? I know it's not a long trip up, but we were going to try doing something like that and then walk around a bit if possible...
I can't remember the exact time we got back from St. John, but we would have had time to shop a little after Paradise Point if we had wanted to. It was pouring down rain when the taxi dropped us off at the tender, so we decided to just call it a day. We hadn't even eaten lunch yet, so we went back to the ship, cleaned up, had some lunch, and relaxed a little before the show. Hope this helps.:goodvibes

[dicar123]

Oh man, it's not finished! :::sniff sniff:::

[Tink rules]

I can't remember the exact time we got back from St. John, but we would have had time to shop a little after Paradise Point if we had wanted to. It was pouring down rain when the taxi dropped us off at the tender, so we decided to just call it a day. We hadn't even eaten lunch yet, so we went back to the ship, cleaned up, had some lunch, and relaxed a little before the show. Hope this helps.:goodvibes

It does....thanks... I just don't want to be one of those people who plan badly and end up running down the pier chasing the leaving ship!!! :scared1:

[bellalyssa]

I have been reading these boards for weeks trying to plan our 11/24/2007 Eastern trip on the Magic, and this is the first time I have felt the need to post. Your report is so thoroughly entertaining and helpful on so many levels! I have made many "notes to self" on what to do/what not to do on our cruise (first one EVER!). I have already instructed my DH that he needs to read all of it when he gets home today. Keep up the great work!!:cool1:

[elderfam]

Love reading your trip report! :3dglasses It's like being there :)

[anewmac]

I am really enjoying your report. Cant wait to hear more!

[pppiglet]

I leave in one week. Maybe you can do another posting before I leave? No pressure......

[Babs417]

Ha Ha:rotfl2: :happytv:

[Disneygrl36]

:rolleyes1
popcorn::

[nenner1]

I leave in one week. Maybe you can do another posting before I leave? No pressure......

No Pressure! LOLLLLLLLLLL!:lmao: :rotfl2: :rotfl:

Poor RV. Just remember, it's because you are so good that we abuse you so much!!
:love:

Enjoy your cruise, pppiglet!

[cheriemek]

Add me to the list of people enjoying your TR. And one request - can you add a picture of your DMIL and DFIL enjoying their cruise ?

[RoyalVizier]

RV....we were fortunate enough to have spent 1 week in St. Thomas, and went to Trunk Bay for the day.....ended up with sun-burned eyelids....

:eek:

I have been reading these boards for weeks trying to plan our 11/24/2007 Eastern trip on the Magic, and this is the first time I have felt the need to post. Your report is so thoroughly entertaining and helpful on so many levels! I have made many "notes to self" on what to do/what not to do on our cruise (first one EVER!). I have already instructed my DH that he needs to read all of it when he gets home today. Keep up the great work!!:cool1:

Thank you so much for the kind words and encouragement! :thumbsup2

I leave in one week. Maybe you can do another posting before I leave? No pressure......

Today's your lucky day!! ;)

Can you add a picture of your DMIL and DFIL enjoying their cruise ?

Shockingly... we really don't have that many pics of them. Let me see what I can come up with. :)

Alright folks, you've all been so wonderful and so patient... I'm gonna try to wrap this up today. I can't promise, but there are definately new installments on the way today so keep your eyes peeled. :banana:

[RoyalVizier]

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 6: Princesses Undressed! :eek:

This final day at sea dawned bright and beautiful. I awoke at 7am, woke up the family, and we headed up top to have some breakfast. We decided to tackle the pile of laundry that was threatening to overtake the entire stateroom. Dirty clothes are an area of cruising that we haven’t quite mastered yet. Where is the best place to put those sandy, smelly, offending articles of clothing once you are done for the day? The knee space underneath the desk is a pretty good place… but no matter how hard you try to condense, it just seems to run amuck. So we decided to battle back this morning by gathering it all in a hot pink collapsible hamper and heading up to the laundry for the second time that week. :laundy:

After our trip to the laundry room up on Deck 6, we went back to the room and lay back down. I’ve discovered, this being our second 7 night cruise, that Thursday of the sailing week seems to be the day where all of the sun and fun and excursions and sand culminates in a gooey ooey mess of tiredness. It’s like it waits, crouched on its haunches, all throughout the week and the moment Thursday morning hits, it pounces upon you and ravages! So we needed some more lay down time. Hey, it’s a day at sea… there’s plenty of time to relax. That’s what you’re supposed to do! We slept until about 9:45am when I forced myself to get up because I wanted to go to the behind the scenes tour of the Walt Disney Theater. I’d been looking forward to this for a long time because I had wanted to do it last year on our Western cruise, but it was not offered, so I wanted to be sure not to miss it this time.

This was a wonderful experience. If you are a fan of the stage productions or any theatrical production at all… I highly recommend this. We met outside the theater at Preludes. There were about 25 – 30 of us that showed up. Then they ushered us into the theater and sat us in the first two rows. All of the stage staff was there and they each took turns coming up front and telling us what work they did around the theater and what they did during show times. It was fascinating. Then they showed us a scene from Disney Dreams without any of the actors or lighting or “wows”. It was the transition scene between the Lion King segment and the final magical scene with Anne Marie and Peter Pan. You know what happens, I won’t say for the people who haven’t seen it. ;) They started the scene and the Lion King backdrop came down which is a scrim that you can see through… they turned the soundtrack on just like if they were doing it for an audience, but they kept the back lights on so that you could see through the scrim backdrop. They also left their microphones on so that you could hear them talking and calling out prompts and commands. It is AMAZING how fast they can totally rearrange scenery and props. It was a wonder to observe.

When that was done, they invited us up on the stage to show us how the lifts work. We stood around the stage and they made sections of the stage come up and down, then we had free time to wonder around and mingle with the production crew and ask questions. This is NOT a good picture, but I wanted a picture of the theater from on the stage:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241871317.jpg

They invited us to take all of the pictures we wanted and wander around. I found the sets of Anne Marie’s bedroom off in the wings of the stage. If you’ve seen the show you know that she has tons of Disney knickknacks and memorabilia along her shelves. I LOVED this Pinocchio marionette:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15865233/241872780.jpg

Also, they wheeled out a rack of dresses that the cast wears throughout different scenes of Disney Dreams and Twice Charmed. Some of the dresses weigh up to 50 pounds and have straps and wires and ribbons and ties… I don’t see how these princesses make such a quick change in some of the scenes. It amazes me. It appears to me that it would take five stagehands and a boatload of shoe horns to get someone into those dresses! :lmao:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15865233/241872715.jpg

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15807742/241871304.jpg

Before they dismissed us they told us that they are currently working on an enhancement to Disney Dreams (which I understand is now playing) and they are also working on three brand new stage shows to premier on the Med sailings.

It was a great time, and I learned a lot. Completely fascinating.

That afternoon we did the odds and ends stuff that you do on a sea day. We went to Rockin’ Bar D to see Jeff Civillico perform. We went to see Wild Hogs, which we’d been meaning to see for weeks, and we really enjoyed it. We rested, we had ice cream, we rested some more, we had some more ice cream. Then we checked in with the in-laws to see if they had made any decisions about Palo that evening. After looking at the menu, they decided they were going to sit this one out. So I called and modified our reservation from four to two.

Later we went to Disney Dreams which is my favorite show! It didn’t spoil or ruin anything that I had scene some of the inner workings of the theater. I think it may have even enhanced it for me. That show gets me every time! After the show it was time for our Palo dinner. With MIL/FIL having ducked out, and DD off at the Stack it was just DW and I and we were really looking forward to the evening. After we were seated at Palo, we realized that without even requesting her, we had Neomi as a server again. She knew right away who we were having recognized us from the brunch earlier in the week. She is just one of those amazing people who will do anything for you and is just so pleasant to be around. She took great care of us and served us all of this!

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15865233/241872933.jpg

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15865233/241872924.jpg

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15865233/241872735.jpg
I know... I know... I go to Palo and get lasagne... I'm hopeless... big surprise. But this wasn't just lasagne... this was super uber lasagna that had been baked by angels.

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15865233/241872897.jpg

The only problem with dinner was the movement of the ship. This was definitely our worst day thus far with movement. As I’ve said before… I’m not one to get physically sick, but this Thursday, I was feeling it. As I sat in my chair in Palo, I had to close my eyes every once in awhile, it was that bad. The whole day had been a bit turbulent, but this evening I noticed it more and more. We noticed that it had started to rain outside also so I’m sure the weather wasn’t helping. After dinner, stuffed and tired, I was ready to go lie down. :sick:

Up Next: I'm Stalked and a Squeegy Issue

[firstmickey]

Ohhhhhh....ending with chocolate souffle.......sighhhhhhhhhhhh :cloud9:


Very cool on the behind the scenes tour! I'll have to check that out next time. :thumbsup2

[RoyalVizier]

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 7 Part 1: I’m Stalked and a Squeegee Issue

Castaway Cay day is the day you love to hate, the day you hate to love, because you know that tomorrow you’ll be disembarking, having to return to your mundane, boring, and miserable existence. :guilty: That morning, we all went up top to watch us pull in. It was a tad cloudy, but nothing major. I’ll tell you right now that it ended up being a glorious day weather-wise! :thumbsup2

I think that everyone on that entire ship gets off the ship at Castaway Cay. Or it seems like it. When we were ready to leave the ship, the line to get off was backed up to Deck 3. It was wall to wall bodies. The in-laws had never experienced such a thing. The line wasn’t moving so we just stood and tried to mash ourselves into a corner to avoid getting jostled or thrown down the stairs (not that we would have fallen far… there really wasn’t any empty space to fall into). While standing there, Christian came on the loud speaker to give some reminders about the day including not forgetting your picture ID to get on and off the ship. Well!! We had forgotten those in the room. We had our KTTW’s, but no picture ID’s or anything like that. It was at this time (of course) that the line started moving. So we told the in-laws to just stand right there on the deck 3 landing and don’t move, DW and I would run back to the room and get the ID’s. So we did and came back and everything was fine again. It was just one of those things you know where when you’re excited and in a hurry things will go wrong. :sad2:

DW and I like to walk from the ship to the family beach, but this time we took the tram due to the in-laws. It’s been said a million times in a million different trip reports, but just one more time… Castaway Cay is the most beautiful place. The landscaping and the staging of the island is just amazing to me, I can’t get over it. I have to do a double dip someday!

We set up shop at the family beach. We didn’t find a spot with a hammock, but we did find a prime location right across from Cookies, the restrooms, and underneath an umbrella. It was great!

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15865233/241872833.jpg

DD wasn’t with us again, because she was off on the teen’s only excursion, the Wild Side. We got the in-laws situated in some beach chairs and DW and I headed off towards the water. There weren’t many people in the water yet, we were two of the first! The water was freezing!! Completely freezing! It took us ten minutes just to get up to our waists and that was as far as we were going. I just couldn’t make myself go the rest of the way. We watched down in the water to see if we saw anything swimming by. We’d always had really good luck with seeing fish here in the past, snorkeling or not. If you’ve read my other trip report… then there is quite a story about a yellow and white fish that gave my DD quite a start (to say the least), but I won’t re-iterate that here.

As we were fish gazing, my DW started to point behind me, so I turned and there was a little stingray… he (or she) was about the size of a dinner plate and he was swimming towards me. Now I’ve swam with stingrays before, last year in Grand Cayman we did the Stingray City excursion where they take you miles into the ocean to a sandbar where you can get out and swim among hundreds of stingrays. It was the most marvelous experience. But even having done that doesn’t make me 1000 percent comfy around sea life. So by reflex I started to back up a bit, and he just kept coming right towards me… I stepped off to the side and he turned and kept coming towards me. DW was laughing of course… and I wasn’t alarmed necessarily, but just kinda like… okay boy, you’re cute and all, but now you can go. I kept circling and he just kept circling around following me wherever I went until finally he went off. I didn’t want his mom showing up thinking I was taunting the poor thing!

The morning was great… we just hung out. It rained a little bit, but nothing major. It cleared up and turned out to be a gorgeous day. We went to Cookies at 11:30, and ran into our servers, David and Juan Pablo. Lunch was awesome as usual, and check out that fruit stand:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15865233/241872844.jpg

We always have to top our Castaway Cay lunch off with the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. The ice cream station just happened to have been manned by Neomi, our server from Palo. They work so hard and do everything!

DW and I took a walk… we walked out to the Head’s Up bar, and took the tram to Serenity Bay to walk around some. I think we’re in the minority, but we much prefer the family beach to Serenity Bay. I don’t know… don’t have a good reason, I guess. Just our preference. About mid afternoon the in-laws were ready to get back on the ship, so we pointed them in the right direction and stayed a bit longer, but by that time we were pretty beat as well, so only about an hour later, we decided to head on in as well. We walked back to the boat and took some pictures along the way. The Flying Dutchman is so awesome… I’ve seen pictures of the ship a million times, but never paid much attention to the details. Check out those windows!!

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15865233/241872821.jpg

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DD wasn’t due back for a few hours yet so we decided to get cleaned up and lounge around some. DW took her shower first, so while she was doing that I just lay in bed and watched TV. As I was laying there, eyes half closed, I heard a half laugh half scream from the shower then my DW calling for me from in the shower. I poked my head in the door and she pulled the shower curtain aside. She stood there, naked (as you are in the shower… usually) and in her hand was her loofa ball scrubber thingy (or squeegee as we call it) and part of its fine netting were caught in her earring. She took her hand away for a moment and the squeegee just hung there like a giant sea coral bauble earring. It was too heavy so she had to reach up and hold it there. Well I looked at it and fiddled with it for a bit. My wife cried out a few times as I twisted her lobe this way and that, but I just couldn’t get it. She said to get some scissors, and well… dang… I just didn’t pack any scissors! That and baby oil! Who knew?! So I told her to sit tight and I ran out into the hall to get Mario who just happened to be cleaning down the way. I asked him if he had any scissors, and he did (bigger tip for him at weeks end). So all was saved as I snipped the netting and saved my wife from being another victim of the shub.

Up Next: The Final Dinner

[sherry]

Oh my, another reason to bring things you don't think you'll need. I'm enjoying your report very much.:thumbsup2

[RLccweems]

Your poor wife.....LOL!! I can't help but laugh...

lettie

[jrose529]

:rotfl2: :rotfl2: I shouldn't laugh, but I just had a picture of the giant sea coral bauble earring.

I've really enjoyed "sailing" along with you . We did the Eastern 2 1/2 years ago and St. John was just gorgeous! I took so many pics of that island. I have three blown up on my bedroom wall.:goodvibes

Thanks for sharing your trip with us. I'm sorry your MIL & FIL didn't have a better time.

[pppiglet]

Thanks....I think you might even get this finished before I leave on my trip!!

[RoyalVizier]

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 7 Part 2: The Final Dinner

My DW’s ear still fully intact, we dressed for dinner and went to the Remember the Magic Farewell show at the Walt Disney Theater. This is the one and only show throughout the week that the in-laws went to. Knowing that they weren’t “Disney people” we didn’t push and didn’t even ask knowing full well that they really wouldn’t enjoy the shows, but we figured that we could not get them off of this ship without experiencing one so we asked if they wanted to join us and they did. I really wanted Disney Dreams to be the one they went to, but figured that there was some pretty vast Disney knowledge needed to appreciate that show and they have none. This final farewell show would do…

If you’ve never seen this show it’s a mix of variety show summing up the weeks entertainers, and stage production with a storyline. Gary DeLena performed some more of his Rocknroll comedy, and another guy (sorry, I don’t know his name) climbed inside of a full body balloon and also attached a roll of toilet paper onto a huge leaf blower and blew it all over a young boy from the audience. It was pretty funny, I gotta say. The other side of the show is the sappiness of relieving and always remembering the magic of the Disney Magic even after you go home. I think it’s very touching and a perfect way to cap off the week.

Our final dinner was in Parrot Cay, again perfect as that is our favorite restaurant. That last dinner is always a mix between a festive occasion and a bit of a bummer occasion. You know that it’s your final night with the servers that you have gotten to know so well… there are hugs and pictures and an air of jubilation with an undertone of… well…. sorrow. As an appetizer I had a cesar salad as pictured here:

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15865233/241874314.jpg

Now... that item in the upper right hand corner of the plate is a date wrapped in bacon. Who knew that a date wrapped in bacon could be so much fun? I didn't give it a thought (other than "I'm not going to eat that thing") but FIL thought it looked rather... uh... amusing... and asked what the *%#@ it was? As you can imagine, from there much was implied about that lump sitting on my plate, and I surely won't go into any of the specifics here. Who knew that I could have given FIL a bacon-wrapped date to play with at the beginning of the week and he would have been perfectly content? :confused3

The dinner concluded with DW’s favorite dessert on the planet, Celebration Cake. She is freakish over this cake. She goes nuts over it, and talks about it over the course of the year when we are either remembering our cruise or looking forward to the next one. The specialty dessert of the evening was baked Alaska, and David decided to surprise us with a slice since none of us ordered it. I’m sorry, but I just can’t get excited about baked Alaska. I don’t understand what the big deal is about it. I mean… it’s just Neapolitan ice cream wrapped in what tastes like a burnt sofa cushion. Ick. :scared:

After dinner, we said our goodbyes, even though we knew we would see them for breakfast in the morning, and headed to the atrium to watch Til We Meet Again. I knew that this would be magical overload for the in-laws so they went back to the room to bed. The characters came out and said their goodbyes… the entire atrium was filled with pixie dust and magic. Then we headed over to Rockin’ Bar D to Pub Night. Oh. My. Gosh. This is a must! We were introduced to this last year, and I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in my life. Too funny… it’s basically the entire cruise entertainment staff, which you’ve come to love, putting on a skit. It is hilarious… here’s a picture to give you an idea. Again, it’s not very good, sorry.

http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL928/3781302/15865233/241874318.jpg

That topped off our last evening with a high note and sent us off to bed elated and happy.

Up Next: A Bag Blunder

[Babs417]

Your reports are the best! Love the pics. Wasnt the fruit on CC the best:thumbsup2 :cutie:

[chepic]

RV....poor wife!!! Thank you so much for this most entertaining and informative report. I have taken the liberty of cutting and pasting some very important information onto my "cruise-tips" document. It is because of folks like you that will let my vacation be better....and I will remember scissors!!:thumbsup2

Also, excellent pictures of the flying Dutchman....we will have to get close enough to see those windows.

cheryl

[disneypoor]

I am loving every one of your installments!:thumbsup2 You and your wife should consider booking the Thanksgiving Double Dip for 08! There are several of us from our Eastern cruise that are going! We could write our novels for our TR's together on the ship.:rotfl:

[Disneygrl36]

Thanks for some more great entertaining installments your royalness.

The shub incident was :lmao: now, but I bet your DW didn't find it too funny then.

Thanks for the info about the behind the scenes tour of the theatre. That looks like a must do for me as I am entraced by all the shows & getting to see dresses/props etc up close would be really neat.:thumbsup2

What exactly is celebration cake? I don't think I saw that offered on our 4 night cruise.

We still don't have that pic of your in-laws.......

[firstmickey]

Gotta love Celebration Cake....(we call it Mourning Cake) ;) :teeth: :rotfl:

too funny on the great earring rescue! :rotfl: :rotfl:

[lowtiger]

Like my cruise, I am starting to get sad that the RoyalVizier's TR is nearing an end. Oh well, maybe I'll go get some Celebration Cake and start from the beginng again; I just wish it was as easy to start the actual cruise over again.

[Angel- Exp624]

Just wanted to mark my spot pixiedust: and let you know that I loved your report !!!! It was great !!! Hurry and go on you next one !!!!! :goodvibes

[nenner1]

Castaway Cay is the most beautiful place. The landscaping and the staging of the island is just amazing to me, I can’t get over it. I have to do a double dip someday!



Got the perfect one for you. It's a "special" cruise.

9/27/08-7 Night Alternate Western Double Dip....Cozumel & Costa Maya!!

C'mon! We'd :love: to have you join us, RV!
:dance3:

[RoyalVizier]

Your reports are the best! Love the pics. Wasnt the fruit on CC the best:thumbsup2 :cutie:

I took that picture, but I didn't actually have any fruit. What's the point of fruit when there are chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream cones? :confused3 ;) :)

I have taken the liberty of cutting and pasting some very important information onto my "cruise-tips" document. It is because of folks like you that will let my vacation be better....and I will remember scissors!!:thumbsup2

There was some very important information in my report? I'll try not to let that happen next time. ;)

You and your wife should consider booking the Thanksgiving Double Dip for 08! There are several of us from our Eastern cruise that are going! We could write our novels for our TR's together on the ship.:rotfl:

Hmmm... a thought for sure. I'll make a note!

What exactly is celebration cake? I don't think I saw that offered on our 4 night cruise.

I can't remember back to our four night cruise, but on the seven nighters it's served on the last evening. It think it's a cake with a layer of white cake and then a layer of strawberries in this cream cheese concoction... something like that. Whatever it is... IT'S GOOOOOOOD! :cloud9:

Got the perfect one for you. It's a "special" cruise.

9/27/08-7 Night Alternate Western Double Dip....Cozumel & Costa Maya!!

C'mon! We'd :love: to have you join us, RV!
:dance3:

I don't know what we're looking at for the future... I'll certainly keep all of these in mind. A double dip sure is tempting! I may have to hire myself out if y'all keep on fighting over me. :rolleyes: ;) :)

[pppiglet]

I took that picture, but I didn't actually have any fruit. What's the point of fruit when there are chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream cones?


Exactly...I read all these reports that they say the fruit is so good, but why would you want to eat it with all that other good stuff around!

[Angel- Exp624]

I agree with nenner1, that will be a great cruise !!! It will be my FIRST Disney Cruise !!!:earsgirl:

[RoyalVizier]

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 8: A Bag Blunder

This is the final installment in this trip report, and to be completely honest with you I didn’t take any notes on that last debarkation day. There just wasn’t time. So this one is coming right out of the ol’ memory so there probably isn’t going to be much to it. ;)

Debarkation breakfast is a sorrowful affair. :guilty: With everyone bringing their carry on luggage to the restaurant with them there isn’t much empty space to walk through. We added our few bags to an already full corner of the restaurant and sat down. Now, I’ve read on many threads and trip reports that people have experienced a different attitude or demeanor from their servers during the last hour or so on the ship. I have to say, that there was something different. I’m not going to say that the service was bad; because it wasn’t… it just wasn’t the same as all of the evenings. Our servers personally seemed more quiet and subdued than ever before. They weren’t all smiles and fun that they had been, but hey…. They HAD to be tired, right? I just can’t get over how hard those people work to provide magical weeks week in and week out for hundreds of people. That turnaround time is amazing, knowing that in a matter of 3 – 4 hours they would be serving lunch to a brand new group of people in that location. Or maybe they were just devastated to see us leave. ;)

Anyway… we had our breakfast, said our last goodbyes and headed out. Once back inside the terminal we were greeted by a very nice lady that wanted to help with our bags so we followed her to the grey Daisy zone to find our bags. We spotted them straight away and pulled them out of their neat little rows into the aisle. We counted, and they were all there, so she loaded them onto her trolley and away we went. If you remember back to one of my first installments (gosh, was that 1,659 years ago?) we had that horrible event with the limo service and ended up coming to the port in a van. The lady at the limo service told us that she would be sure to have a limo pick us up for our return. So we were just a bit on edge wondering if that was going to pan our or if we were in for a bumpy experience here trying to get home. No worries though, when we got outside there was a guy holding a card with our name and there was a tension release!

We went to the curbside area pickup and he started loading our bags into the trunk when MIL piped up and said that one of her bags was missing. :sad2: Oh dear…. Well, upon taking inventory of the bags we had, we all agreed that the bag had been in our pile in the terminal, the porter lady must not have put it on the cart somehow. Well she had already left us at the curb so DW headed back inside. I planned on staying with the group, but decided I’d better go in with her so I tried to catch up with her, but I didn’t see her. It’s not like you can just walk back into that area of the terminal where all of the bags are kept. So I ended up talking to security, ended up meeting up with DW… there was trauma with customs about retrieving a bag that wasn’t our own (which I should have thought of since it was MIL’s). But instead of walking all the way back outside to get her and bring her in, they did let us take it after providing every sort of ID I could think of.

The ride home was pleasant. The limo was beautiful of course, but I think in all honesty it would have been appreciated more on the trip over to the port. Again, nobodies fault really, just one of those circumstances. It was great nonetheless. We were ready to be home at this point and there was some major dozing going on on those leather seats.

The in-laws had driven down from KY to join us for the cruise, so the plan was for them to stay with us one more night, get rested up and take off towards home the next morning, but they decided they were gonna go ahead and head back shortly after we arrived back home… which was fine.

Up Next: A Quick Summary

[Babs417]

Good job thanks dont forget to think about cruising around the moon on Oct 27:goodvibes :thumbsup2 ;) :) :cutie:

[disneypoor]

I totally agree with you on the debarkation breakfast. We certainly didn't have a bad experience by any means, but our servers weren't quite as chipper as they had been previously. Honestly, I was so somber though, that they probably thought the same thing about me.;) I do think you are right though---I'm sure they were just so sad that we were leaving. We probably left a lasting impression on them. They are probably looking through DCL's list of future cruisers and asking not to have the Disneypoor family. We are trouble!:lmao: :rotfl: :laughing:

[RoyalVizier]

There is a Disney gene inside of all of us. True they come in all different sizes. Some are gargantuan while others are miniscule to downright microscopic. No matter its size, the Disney gene can not be located by any person of the medical profession, nor can it be located using scientific equipment. Microscopes can’t trace it. Computer models can not recreate its structure. A dose of medication can not fight against it. But one who has this gene, especially the larger scale ones, knows that it is there.

Upon delving into anything Disney, whether it is vacation planning, Disney shopping, listening to Disney music, looking through Disney photos, cruising on a Disney ship, or watching a Disney movie, the Disney gene begins to throb. Located near your heart, the Disney gene begins to vibrate and throb, fluttering against your heart creating immense feelings of joy, excitement, and happiness.

The gene feeds on Pixie Dust coursing through your veins. Everyone needs an injection of PD now and then, and I prefer my injection come in the form of a Disney cruise.

Thank you so much for hanging in with me for so long. I know that it took a long time, and for that I’m sorry. I never intend for these reports to take so long. Writing this account of my latest cruise was great fun for me. I love to re-live certain moments again, and remember what it was like as we glided across the ocean on the most Magical ship on the sea.

If you look down in my signature, you’ll see that we don’t have anything planned for the future. I might start a campaign to fill that empty space down there with ideas for my next family vacation. But in the mean time… I know that there are several readers leaving for Magic very soon, and to that I say….

Cruise on, all… cruise on… :boat:

[Ski-and-Sea]

So....how did FIL & MIL like the cruise? What are their final thoughts?

[Bethipooh4]

A true joy to read RV, I even sent your TR to the group we are sailing with(and Disneypoor's too, so don't feel left out!) to get us in the spirit!! Not that I need any...;)

I just wanted to say your last post was incredible, and thought you were talking about me....DH says I carry the Disney Bug and I am contagious....Its nice to know I am not alone out there.

Thank you for a wonderful, magical report.

[ILUVEVERYTHINGDISNEY]

There is a Disney gene inside of all of us. True they come in all different sizes. Some are gargantuan while others are miniscule to downright microscopic. No matter its size, the Disney gene can not be located by any person of the medical profession, nor can it be located using scientific equipment. Microscopes can’t trace it. Computer models can not recreate its structure. A dose of medication can not fight against it. But one who has this gene, especially the larger scale ones, knows that it is there.

Upon delving into anything Disney, whether it is vacation planning, Disney shopping, listening to Disney music, looking through Disney photos, cruising on a Disney ship, or watching a Disney movie, the Disney gene begins to throb. Located near your heart, the Disney gene begins to vibrate and throb, fluttering against your heart creating immense feelings of joy, excitement, and happiness.

The gene feeds on Pixie Dust coursing through your veins. Everyone needs an injection of PD now and then, and I prefer my injection come in the form of a Disney cruise.

Thank you so much for hanging in with me for so long. I know that it took a long time, and for that I’m sorry. I never intend for these reports to take so long. Writing this account of my latest cruise was great fun for me. I love to re-live certain moments again, and remember what it was like as we glided across the ocean on the most Magical ship on the sea.

If you look down in my signature, you’ll see that we don’t have anything planned for the future. I might start a campaign to fill that empty space down there with ideas for my next family vacation. But in the mean time… I know that there are several readers leaving for Magic very soon, and to that I say….

Cruise on, all… cruise on… :boat:
So True. This Disney Magic is what keeps me going. I am the happiest person on earth to be at the happiest place on earth. I think the Magic will never leave me.

[NHdisneylover]

Thank you for the awesome report. I am so glad I got to read all of it before our next trip. We are in final countdown phase. 9 days until we fly to Orlando and 10 days until we board the Magic to take her across the Atlantic. I'll be thinking of you and your hilarious stories as I come across similar palces/situations throughout the trip.

[pppiglet]

Thanks RV for another great report and for finishing before I leave in two days! You're the best!

[chepic]

RV....It is fantastic that someone has put a definition to our physical needs of anything Disney.....the Disney Gene!!:thumbsup2 Now I know what I can tell everyone when they ask us why we feel the need to spend all our vacation time and money at one location...or in this case, the cruise. Simply put, I have the Disney Gene.

Thanks again for your insight!!!

cheryl

[Disneygrl36]

I loved your trip report...........
But I REALLY LOVED the way you defined the Disney Gene......I have it & I have it bad. Thanks for that..brought a little tear to my eye :sad1: in a good way.

You are a great writer.

Thanks for taking us along on your trip.

Please post a few more pics if you get a chance.

[RoyalVizier]

So....how did FIL & MIL like the cruise? What are their final thoughts?

It was what it was, I suppose. I don't really think they had any final thoughts. We found out a couple days after we returned home that they were pretty homesick by the beginning of the third day so...

It was a good experience, one that my wife and I wanted, and have now had. I think overall they enjoyed themselves, but it wasn't that outstanding, magical, wonderous vacation that we all are familiar with. I don't believe they would do it again if we asked.

A true joy to read RV, I even sent your TR to the group we are sailing with(and Disneypoor's too, so don't feel left out!) to get us in the spirit!! Not that I need any...;)

I just wanted to say your last post was incredible, and thought you were talking about me....DH says I carry the Disney Bug and I am contagious....Its nice to know I am not alone out there.

Thank you for a wonderful, magical report.

Thank you so much for all of the kind words. I really appreciate it! :)

9 days until we fly to Orlando and 10 days until we board the Magic to take her across the Atlantic. I'll be thinking of you and your hilarious stories as I come across similar palces/situations throughout the trip.

Yay! :dance3:

Have a great time! Be sure to back baby oil and scissors! :thumbsup2

Thanks RV for another great report and for finishing before I leave in two days! You're the best!

Yay again! :dance3:

Have a super time! Can't wait to hear all about it!

[churchlady]

RV,
Now I'm for sure I have the Disney gene...because I can feel it aching. :sad2:
Oh the emptiness, the agony. It's true that we have sailed vicariously on your 7 day Eastern.....but with our psuedo journey concluded, what must I do now?

People, help me. :grouphug:

I only hope that my DH's Disney gene will start to grow- :love: just like the Grinch's heart :santa: at Christmastime!

[Ski-and-Sea]

It was what it was, I suppose. I don't really think they had any final thoughts. We found out a couple days after we returned home that they were pretty homesick by the beginning of the third day so...

It was a good experience, one that my wife and I wanted, and have now had. I think overall they enjoyed themselves, but it wasn't that outstanding, magical, wonderous vacation that we all are familiar with. I don't believe they would do it again if we asked.



RV,

In the summer of 2005 I took my mom with us on the 4-night Wonder. Four days was about her limit. A 7-day would have been too much. She had a really fantastic time and truly treasured sharing the time with her grandkids (who loved showing her around the ship).

She stayed on the ship in Nassau and had a massage (which she still raves about). She hung out with us on the verandah on the sea day. But by day four she was ready to return home.

So I give your "IL's" tremendous credit for having their first cruise be a 7-day.

Loved your TR.

[LindaBabe]

Lovely report, RV! And now, in hind sight, it's great that the inlaws had this experience, even though maybe for them it wasn't as exciting as for your family.