Best Friends and New Friends - a MAGICal Tale [Archive] - The DIS Discussion Forums

Jennifer48

11-09-2007, 01:59 PM

423 days seem like an eternity away. That is how long I waited to take my 2nd Disney Cruise.

Some informal introductions of yours truly, author of this trippie, and my traveling companion, before we begin this journey.

Me: Jennifer48; Jennifer; Jen; lover of all things Disney. I made my first trip to WDW when I was 20 yrs old and have been obsessed ever since.
DBF: squall55; Daniel; Dan; we have been dating for 2.5 yrs. He’s my best friend and perfect traveling buddy which means he doesn’t complain about anything I want to do!

This cruise was originally booked back in June 2006. Dan and I were just jonesin’ to go on another DCL cruise and this one seemed too cheap to pass up.

We were booked on the September 1st Eastern sailing. It was such a good deal that I decided to invite our friends Kim (Kimberly815) and Joe (The Grim) along. We knew that even though they were almost broke from planning their upcoming wedding in January 2007 in Florida, that even they could afford this cruise. No convincing here and before you knew it; they were in contact with my TA Joy and had reserved a room next to us with linked dining. How great this cruise would be!

Unfortunately, life has a funny way of throwing curveballs at you. A good friend of Joe’s was engaged and getting ready to start planning his wedding. Wouldn’t you know it, they decided on a date, September 1, 2007 and Joe was to be a groomsman. Darn it!

So we decided to push back the cruise to the next eastern sailing on September 15th. Reservations were again linked and all was ok in the world again…..until another curveball came directly at us; Joe wouldn’t be able to go. He recently got a new job after the wedding and hadn’t yet accrued enough vacation time in order to take the week off and once he did, there was no guarantee that he would be able to take the time off as he was the low man on the totem pole and others with seniority would get their requests first. It was a tough decision to make but they decided to straight up cancel and Dan and I were going to press on.

Up Next: Will there be any good news??

squall55

11-09-2007, 02:08 PM

I can't wait to re-live our cruise! :banana:

Kimberly815

11-09-2007, 02:15 PM

Great start!

Unfortunately, life has a funny way of throwing curveballs at you.
Life does have a funny way of throwing curveballs at you. And you really just have to take it in stride. Although, I wasn't a big fan of these particular curveballs. . .since they were mainly aimed at me and Joe.
Up Next: Will there be any good news??

I sure hope so! (and I would bet that there is!)

Jennifer48

11-09-2007, 04:15 PM

It’s now the 90 day mark for us to make our Palo reservations and shore excursions since we are Castaway Club members. Our first CC cruise to be exact. I didn’t book any on our first cruise so I was excited about doing so on this one. It was 11:00pm the evening before and I tried to see if maybe there was a chance we could book early. Nope. 12 midnight. Nope. 1am. Nope. So I decided to set my alarm for 3am and book. As my alarm sounds, PassPorter in hand with all my dates, reservation number, back up dates, I log onto DCL’s webpage. :surfweb: I am still unable to log in. What?! I head over to our DISmeet thread and there are people on the east coast that have already made theirs. Can this be? I start to panic :eek: and wake Dan up.

“It says we can’t book yet online.”
“I’ll try.”
~~silence~~

“Nope I can’t get in either. I think it thinks we aren’t part of the Castaway Club and we are supposed to wait until the 75 day mark.”
This can’t be. So I give up and try again in the morning. :headache:

9:00am rolls around and I attempt again. Still a no go. I find a phone number on my Castaway Club card and call them. They aren’t open on the weekends. Oh the humanity! Did my TA really mess up and not book us as a CC member? :scared1: I call Dan.

“I still can’t get in.”
“Me neither. I found a number, let me call.”
:hourglass 10 minutes go by and he hasn’t called me back. This is a good sign, I think to myself.
~~phone rings~~
“They show that we are a repeat cruiser but for some reason in the system it showed that we weren’t to make reservations until 75 days out. They fixed that and we are to try again in a bit.”
Ok so I keep trying and trying. 30 minutes later, nothing. Dan calls DCL back.
“They say the servers are overloaded on the weekends and it will be a bit.”
Fine, I go shower and try again later. You can see where this is going though.

Finally at 11:00am, we are able to get in. All Palo brunch and High Tea reservations were gone. GONE! Sheesh. I hope for the best for dinner and our top 2 evenings that we planned on were gone as well. We decide on formal night and hope that when we get onboard the Magic, they will have more brunch ressies open up. Some good news to this sad tale, we were able to book both of the excursions we wanted, St. John Island tour and the Under 2 Flags tour. :boat:

Up Next: What’s this envelope?

scottishwee35

11-09-2007, 06:29 PM

hello

Jennifer and Dan

Oh no about Palo and hope you had got it when you were on the Cruise??

Oh love your story :rotfl:

Looking forward to more one:thumbsup2

Scottishwee35:thumbsup2

oybolshoi

11-09-2007, 08:39 PM

I made it! I'm reading! I'm asking nicely for more. :lmao:

Hixski

11-09-2007, 10:29 PM

Your trip report is good so far......keep it coming.:thumbsup2

Jennifer48

11-10-2007, 09:12 AM

Your trip report is good so far......keep it coming.:thumbsup2 Thanks for reading Donna! You'll be seeing your name in lights soon! :rotfl2:

I made it! I'm reading! I'm asking nicely for more. :lmao: :worship: No pressure from my all time favorite trippie author! :angel:

hello

Jennifer and Dan

Oh no about Palo and hope you had got it when you were on the Cruise??

Oh love your story :rotfl:

Looking forward to more one:thumbsup2

Scottishwee35:thumbsup2 Thanks for reading Deborah! More to come!

I can't wait to re-live our cruise! :banana: Me neither! Can we go again soon?!:goodvibes

Jennifer48

11-10-2007, 09:30 AM

Friday September 14th:

You can barely get me out of bed at 6:45am when I have to be at work for 8am. Setting my alarm for 4:30am is death by numbers to me but, it has to be done in order to get to the airport. Dan and I planned on calling each other at certain times just in case we slept through our alarms. Neither of us are morning people. So I make sure Dan is up at 4:35, which he was but we ended up talking for 10 minutes because, neither one of us wanted to get out of our warm beds. Our transportation plan involved us driving to one of the Logan Express stops and taking the bus to Logan International Airport to catch our 8:45am flight. We made it there successfully and were at the gate by 6:45am.
We flew JetBlue because we wanted to watch the TVs. I hate flying so anything to keep my attention will help. Sure it costs a little more than the cheap Southwest flights that I’m used to paying for but for me, it’s worth it. ESPN to occupy my time and no running to the gate to jump in line for an exit row seat.

Waiting at the gate for our flight
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1616.jpg

Anywho the flight was uneventful and we even landed early at MCO. We had Magical Express booked to spend one night at the Caribbean Beach Resort before heading over to Port Canaveral on Saturday. Off to Gate A we went in search of the ME desk. At the bottom of the escalator there is the friendly face of the Cast Member with the white Mickey glove.
“Hi there! Where do we catch the Magical Express bus?”
“You have to go to gate B and the Magical Express desk will be there on your right.”
WHAT?! We just came from gate B. I look at Dan and then the ME booklet, sure enough, we should have gone downstairs at gate B and not to gate A. So up the escalator, across the lobby, down the escalator and finally, the ME desk. At this point, I was hoping that it wasn’t a bad sign of things to come.

We are huge Red Sox fans. This weekend the Yankees were in town so we had to represent our team. As we are in line for the ME bus, one of the Cast Members says to us, “are you guys Patriots fans too?”
“Yes”
“Sorry, no pictures.” And so it begins. For those of you that don’t understand that, the New England Patriots got caught videotaping another team from the sidelines. It’s against the rules. But, let me just say that the Patriots have gone 9-0 since then. Booya!
Sorry, I got carried away. We walk outside to the steam bath and there are the nice new Disney Cruise Line buses.

New DCL and old DCL bus
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1620.jpg

Guess what we took? That’s right. The only ugly, yellow Mears bus. BLAH!

Our "Magical Express" transportation
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1626.jpg

We checked into the CBR around 1pm and our room was ready. Martinique Building 25.

Signage
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1639.jpg

We’ve never stayed here before so we planned on roaming the grounds. Plus, I purchased the PassPorter Treasure Hunts book before we left which had a hunt for CBR.

Right outside our building
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0002.jpg

I was starving at this point so we brought all the bags to our room and headed over to Old Port Royal to get some lunch.

Our room. Thats my reflection in the background :rotfl:
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1645.jpg

Old Port Royale
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0007.jpg

Dan suddenly didn’t feel well so I got a Greek salad and some water and we found a table. Dan was getting worse sitting there so we decided to take the food back to the room. We had to stop outside for Dan to sit because he thought he was going to be sick. I was getting very worried due to how quickly he was dropping off. I put the cold water on the back of his neck with hopes that it would do something. We were only there about 5 minutes or so when he decided he was ok enough to walk back. Once in our room, we just chilled out and cranked up the A/C.

After I finished my lunch, I unpacked/repacked a bit and I found an envelope sticking out from inside one of the suitcases. It had my name addressed on it and it was in Dan’s handwriting. Now I don’t know how Dan did it but he found the perfect card thanking me for this trip. I paid for the majority of it as a combined New Years/Valentines/birthday/anniversary/Thanksgiving/Christmas gift. It was so cute and so thoughtful that I cried a bit. The best part, at the end of the card and of his kind words he wrote “ok enough of this sappy stuff, let the fun begin!” It was so awesome and he’s the bestest boyfriend ever!

Up next: Will Dan be well enough to head to the Boardwalk for the night?

BlueBayou

11-10-2007, 09:17 PM

Great trip report so far. I hope he gets to feeling better. I can't wait to hear more.

oybolshoi

11-10-2007, 09:52 PM

I do hope Dan feels better as your trip unfolds - having just made it back from a trip where the man doesn't feel well I can tell you it stinks when it happens.

I love the card - such a thoughtful gesture. :goodvibes

Jennifer48

11-11-2007, 10:24 AM

Great trip report so far. I hope he gets to feeling better. I can't wait to hear more.

Thanks for reading BlueBayou; more to come!:goodvibes

Jennifer48

11-11-2007, 10:40 AM

After the nice down time we had in the room, Dan was feeling much better so we decided to go walk back over to Old Port Royale to see if we could find a little gift for tinkerbelle77 (Tina) and Bareacuda (Ann). Tina volunteered to pick us up a case of water on the way to the port so I didn’t have to ship my own. THANK YOU AGAIN TINA! Ann ordered everyone in our cruise meet thread lime green bracelets so we were recognizable to all the DISers onboard. THANK YOU ANN!

Chillin' on a hammock at CBR
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0019.jpg

Back at the room I noticed that there was a DCL leaflet on the table in the room. Neither of us knew where it came from. It congratulated us on going on the cruise and said that we were to have our luggage tagged and sitting inside our room by 8am for a porter to pick them up. Since we didn’t want to take any luggage on the ship ourselves, we planned on getting up early and packing everything we didn’t need.
We planned on heading to the Boardwalk to watch the Red Sox / Yankees game at the ESPN Club. Now this might make some DISers upset but we got lost taking the Disney transportation from CBR to the Boardwalk. I am ashamed to admit this to the professionals so please don’t shun me out!
Since we were staying in an EPCOT resort, we thought we could get to the Boardwalk from there. So we end up at EPCOT and asked a cast member working in the bus transportation booth how we can get to the Boardwalk. He said we can walk through the International Gateway inside the park. This I knew but we didn’t purchase any park tickets. He said the only other way via Disney transportation was to take one of the Friendship boats from outside of MGM, excuse me, Disney Studios. So back on the bus we went to MGM/Disney Studios. Mind you, this is already 6:30 and we left our room at CBR at 5:15! There was already a boat at the dock so we ran to catch it. Since we weren’t sure where exactly this boat stopped, we ended up getting off at the Swolphin and walking down the Boardwalk. We made it before the game started which we were happy about in a few ways. One, we were hungry and Dan was starving since he hadn’t eaten lunch earlier in the day. Two, we figured it would be packed and it was already. We found the last table in the bar area in the back of the room. We ordered the ESPN Dingers as an appetizer and a pitcher of beer. They were yuuuuuuuuuumy! Such a great app with beer. Mmmm I’m getting hungry just thinking about them. Take a look!

ESPN Dingers
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1657.jpg

I was actually full from these so I didn’t order an entrée but Dan did. Take a look at this Home Run Hot Dog!

Yes he actually ate that whole thing!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1658.jpg

In the 2nd inning, these men in business suits decided to conduct a meeting in front of our table. More importantly, in front of our view of the game. The couple next to us kept yelling “down in front!” but they didn’t pay attention. Queue me. I start to say excuse me very loudly. One man turned back and gave me a dirty look. “Excuse me I’m talking to you.” He turned back again and continued his conversation. “Yes I’m talking to you, can you please move?!” That’s when he finally got the point and told his buddies that some crazy woman wants them to move. Yup, that’s me. Crazy for her Sox! :banana:

Dan and I were talking about something when it dawned on him that he didn’t pack his Pirates of the Caribbean shirt that I bought him to wear on Pirate Night on the cruise. It was the 4th inning and the Sox were winning 4-1 so we decided to leave and see if we could hit the shops outside and the CBR Straw Market. People started walking into ESPN soaking wet. We could hear the thunder outside. Dan checked the radar on his phone and there was a nice t-storm sitting over us and it wasn’t really moving. We decided to leave anyways since we had to make the stops and we weren’t sure how long it was going to take us to get back. Dan and I love the heat so when we walked outside it was still nice and warm so we didn’t really care if we got wet. The only problem was walking into those shops with the air blasting. Holy monkey was that frigid! :cold: We walked through the Screen Door General Store and Disney’s Character Carnival and all they had were children’s PoTC t-shirts. So we stand outside and we see a Friendship boat on its way to the dock. We run over to make the boat and the storm is now sitting right over us. Major thunder and lightning. It was awesome! We get on the boat and start to leave the dock. We are only ~200 yds from the dock when the boat stops. They make an announcement that they have stopped all boats until the storm moves. Mind you, we are sitting in the middle of Crescent Lake in the middle of the lightning storm. They actually did still run Illuminations so we got to see the fireworks from the boat. For 25 minutes we were in the boat before it started moving again. It was kind of fun. No kids yelling on the boat, thunder and lightning overhead, fireworks from Illuminations, rain beating down on the top of the boat. If you like that kind of stuff :3dglasses .
Of course, now is when the beer started to hit me so we got off at MGM/Disney Studios and headed for the bus stop. Yet another wait ahead of us. This time it was 30 minutes for the CBR bus. Buses for the value resorts kept coming and going but none for us. One guy at the front of the line decided he’d had enough and went and walked over to another stop to track someone down to see if we could get a bus. Shortly thereafter, a bus showed and we all piled on. Even though Disney transportation is free, the next time I am down there and stay on site, I will most likely get a rental. It’s just so much more convenient to have your own car to come and go as you please and not listen to crying children who are overtired from many hours in the parks.
We finally arrived back at CBR, 2 hrs + after we left ESPN. We were tired, wet and cold so we showered, packed and watched the end of the Sox game. They blew it in the top of the 8th and ended up losing 8-7. But we weren’t too disappointed; we were heading on our 2nd Disney Cruise in the morning!!

Up next: Hurry uuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!

oybolshoi

11-11-2007, 10:58 AM

Jennifer48

11-11-2007, 05:22 PM

Glad to hear that Dan ended up feeling better. :thumbsup2

I think your impromptu Illuminations cruise sounds awesome, but I know I would have been worried about the lightning... it's what I do - I worry. ;)

ESPN dingers are now hot wings? Didn't they used to be mini-hamburgers? :confused3

I'm glad he ended up feeling better also or else I would have had to watch the Red Sox game from our room, gasp!

We are meteorologists. Weather = FUN!

I don't know if the dingers used to be mini-hamburgers. This was the first time we had been. They are breaded chicken strips tossed in mild, hot, flame or barbecue sauce, served with celery and blue cheese dressing. We chose the barbecue sauce and they were yummy!

squall55

11-11-2007, 07:33 PM

Thankfully I did feel better. That was not the way I wanted that trip to start..but after a bit of being in the AC and resting everything was fine. :thumbsup2

That picture of the hot dog does not do justice...that thing was enormous. If you ever are there and a fan of hot dogs make sure you try it, but make sure you bring your appetite because theres alot there to eat.

Hixski

11-12-2007, 11:58 AM

Your trip report looks good........and we still haven't got to the ship yet!!!:rotfl2:

I know about not feeling well too!!! My throat fell like I was swallowing glass for the first couple of days on the cruise. Thank goodness for alcohol!!! :drinking1

Jennifer48

11-12-2007, 08:37 PM

Thankfully I did feel better. That was not the way I wanted that trip to start..but after a bit of being in the AC and resting everything was fine. :thumbsup2 I'm glad too. It would have been a long week if you were sick and I had to take care of you!:sick:

Your trip report looks good........and we still haven't got to the ship yet!!!:rotfl2:

I know about not feeling well too!!! My throat fell like I was swallowing glass for the first couple of days on the cruise. Thank goodness for alcohol!!! :drinking1 I know I know. So much to write about! Doesn't look like anyones reading it anyways :cutie:

Alcohol?! You and Glenn are about 3 steps away from a 6 step program :rotfl:

Jennifer48

11-12-2007, 08:54 PM

Saturday, September 15th:

All the times I have stayed at a Disney resort, which actually isn’t that much, I’ve never set a wake up call. I guess I just never think of it and end up setting the alarm clock or a cell phone alarm. Anywho, we got up at 7am so we could pack all of our bags and have them ready for the porter by 8:15am. So we waited, and waited and waited and finally the knock on the door came at 9am! We could have slept another 45 minutes had we known they would be that late!

After our luggage was on its way to the bus, we decided to eat breakfast. We headed over to Old Port Royale to check out the spread. We were quite surprised with the amount of food on option. Everything from pancakes to omelets. Here’s what we ate:

Nice amount of grease to start the day!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1659.jpg

Seating area outside Old Port Royale
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0006.jpg

Purdy pineapple fountain
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0013.jpg

We weren’t to meet for the bus until 12:15 and check-out wasn’t until 11am so we decided just to hang in the room until then. We were watching cartoons when IT came on. The Donald Duck Bee Cartoon. If you didn’t read my other trip report, let me fill you in. The first DCL cruise Dan and I went on, we saw this cartoon about 52 times. On the bus, in the resort, on the ship, everywhere. To see it now on this trip, just made it that much better and we haven’t even gotten on the ship yet! Unfortunately, it was the only time we saw it on this trip but we saw it nonetheless.

I got a picture of the Bee cartoon right at the very end!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0027.jpg

We bid adieu to our room and head out to do the rest of the CBR PassPorter Treasure Hunt. For those of you that don’t have that book, it’s a fun hunt. Some of the questions are actually kinda difficult but it makes you look around and notice things that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

Our meeting place was Shutters Restaurant inside Old Port Royale at 12:15. We headed over and sat in the lobby where others were waiting also. CM Vera came over, checked us in and gave us a boarding card for the bus. Once everyone was checked in, Vera took her Mickey glove and lead us out to the bus through the food court waving to everyone as we passed. The CMs were doing the limbo with the children so we all marched under the limbo bar as we proceeded out. It was so fun!

As we walked out, there it was! One of the new DCL buses! We were so excited that we were taking the “real” bus and not another Mears bus that we got stuck taking yesterday. WOOHOO!!

REAL DCL bus! And a new one too!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1663.jpg

Dan and I were able to sit together which was great because the last cruise we were not able to and it sucked.

View from inside the new porthole windows on the DCL bus
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1664.jpg

We waved good-bye to CBR reminding ourselves that we’d be back after the cruise. The bus headed over to Saratoga Springs Resort to pick up others. The bus filled up pretty quickly. These two women sat in the seats in front of us and one of them had really bad body odor. It had to be the longest trip ever. You’d think she just ran a marathon without any deodorant before boarding. :crazy2: :faint: Nasty.

About halfway there, the video came on to psych us up even more for the cruise. It’s a cute video to watch and I had to take a picture as we were heading in.

DCL movie
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0030.jpg

Up over the hill is the view we had been waiting 400 days to see. The Magic!!!

Up next: Come oooooooooon!

Kimberly815

11-13-2007, 08:52 AM

I know I know. So much to write about! Doesn't look like anyones reading it anyways

I'm reading! I want to hear all about it! I am just running a little late with these updates.

Now I don’t know how Dan did it but he found the perfect card thanking me for this trip. I paid for the majority of it as a combined New Years/Valentines/birthday/anniversary/Thanksgiving/Christmas gift. It was so cute and so thoughtful that I cried a bit. The best part, at the end of the card and of his kind words he wrote “ok enough of this sappy stuff, let the fun begin!” It was so awesome and he’s the bestest boyfriend ever!

Awww. How sweet!:goodvibes

That’s when he finally got the point and told his buddies that some crazy woman wants them to move. Yup, that’s me. Crazy for her Sox!

I would expect nothing less! I would probably ask you if you were feeling okay if you didn't ask them to move! I can't believe they were just standing there oblivious to the people behind them!

All the times I have stayed at a Disney resort, which actually isn’t that much, I’ve never set a wake up call.

Ya know, I never have either. I just don't think of it. I always just set the alarm myself. Then I come home and read the DIS and realize I missed out on Mickey waking me up.

We were so excited that we were taking the “real” bus and not another Mears bus that we got stuck taking yesterday. WOOHOO!!

:thumbsup2 I am glad you did get to ride the "real" bus! You and Dan talked about great it is to ride that bus to the cruise before you left!

Jennifer48

11-13-2007, 08:46 PM

Thar she is! http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0031.jpg

Because we took the DCL transportation buses, we didn’t arrive at the port until almost 2pm. Sure we were a bit bummed not to be spending more time on the ship but after the month we’ve had at work, we were just glad to be there. We went through security, up the escalator and double checked our Immigration forms because I can never remember how to fill out some of the spaces. We asked a nice CM who was at the front table and she clarified a few things for us. Thankfully we only had to change one thing on my form and Dan just had to fill the rest of his out. We proceeded over to the Castaway Club line since this was our first CC cruise and we were excited to be able to use this line! That port was nearly deserted since everyone else was already allowed to embark and was enjoying lunch on the Magic.

We got our CC lanyards from the CM at the desk and she gave us our Goofy Key to the World cards. We repacked the docs in my back pack and headed towards the giant Mickey ears for our embarkation to begin! First we went outside on the mini deck they have so we could get some fun up-close pics of the Magic. Hey it was our first time seeing her in person!

We love self-portraits!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1676.jpg

Take a look at the detail that they even put above the windows on the port!

DCL Terminal Window Decorations
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1674.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1673.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1672.jpg

One good thing, well two good things, about getting to the port later when everyone else was onboard was 1) no lines anywhere and 2) our room was already ready!

We took our photos with our Incredibles t-shirts on, headed up the gangplank and entered the ship.

The Incredibles are here!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/Embarkation2007.jpg

We had them announce us just as Jen and Dan since we aren’t married……yet ;-) :bride: We went straight to our room first to drop off our backpacks and then planned on heading up to lunch at Topsiders. This time, we got a Category 9 stateroom so we could have the porthole window. Best thing we did. Our room was 2082 and we loved it! We opened the door to our stateroom for the first time and saw all the gifts already sitting on our bed. And, what gift is that?!

Up next: Any dolphins around?!

Nora03

11-13-2007, 09:21 PM

scottishwee35

11-14-2007, 03:08 AM

Hi Jennifer

Enjoyed reading your story and love the photos too.

Looking forward next :thumbsup2

Scottishwee35:thumbsup2

Kimberly815

11-14-2007, 09:36 AM

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/Embarkation2007.jpg

Cute pic!:thumbsup2

I can't wait to see pics of your stateroom! I am totally living 'the trip that didn't happen for us' vicariously through your report!

Jennifer48

11-14-2007, 10:07 AM

Hi Jennifer,
I'm reading - just found your report. I used to be a lurker, but then I realized that writers like to be appreciated for their hard work. We appreciate you.

What a sweet man to find the perfect card for you - not all of them know how to do that. And, aren't you sweet to pay for most of the trip. It all balances out in the end.

Looks like you're off to a great start. We stayed at CBR many years ago - 1996 and loved it. Haven't been on a Disney cruise (Princess - and had a great time).

Looking forward to more trippie.

Nora

We're counting our days until Disney - 172 now (May 2008)

Hi Nora! Thank you very much for reading and your kind words. It does give me some confidence knowing that others are reading and enjoying my tale. :flower3: Before you know it, 172 days will be here! :goodvibes

Hi Jennifer

Enjoyed reading your story and love the photos too.

Looking forward next :thumbsup2

Scottishwee35:thumbsup2

Thank you Deborah! :goodvibes

I can't wait to see pics of your stateroom!

They are coming!

Jennifer48

11-14-2007, 04:49 PM

Along with our Castaway Club member gifts, there was one other sitting on the bed. That gift is the Romance Basket. Dan had secretly ordered it before we left to surprise me. Told you he was the bestest! :hug: I’ll let him post and explain more about it and how he came about ordering it.

Our gifts!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1678.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1683.jpg

We literally just dropped our backpacks down and headed up to Topsiders as it was now after 2pm. We had a scheduled DISmeet at 3p in front of Pluto’s at the Mickey pool.
It was a beautiful, sunny, hot day so that was our major decision in eating at Topsiders. We wanted to be outside as much as we could. Through the buffet line we went, not picking up as much food as we thought we would considering how hungry we were.

LUNCH! Mmmmm I :love: me some mac & cheese!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1684.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1685.jpg

We did feel very rushed though since we had our DISmeet soon. I was nervous about this. I had that first-day-of-school feeling where you meet new people that you don’t know. I’m weird like that. So we headed over to the Mickey pool to pick up our bracelets from Bareacuda (Ann) and meet our tablemates for the next 7 nights. It was actually pretty fun meeting people that you’ve only spoken to via the internet. You feel like you already know them based on online conversations so it went better than expected. Whew! The bracelets that Bareacuda (Ann) got for us were awesome! They were lime green and had ‘Cruisin’ the Magic Sept 2007’ on them. Guess what? I forgot my gifts for her and tinkerbelle77 (Tina) back in the room! We had to go pick up the water from tinkerbelle77 (Tina)’s room so we could bring the gift down then. Now it was just a matter of finding Ann in the sea of people later! (No pun intended).

Saying our hellos and goodbyes to our DIS friends, we headed back to our stateroom to do some unpacking and get our life vests for the mandatory lifeboat drill. There were a lot of people already heading up to their designated area BEFORE they even signaled the beginning! Rachel, our Cruise Director, specifically said to wait until they sound the blasts before heading out. Some people just don’t listen. :sad2:

The mandatory drill was boring and uneventful and quick, just the way we like it. :cool2: We headed right back to our room to drop off the life vests, picked up our cameras and headed up to deck 9 for the Sail Away Party aka Adventures Away Party.

What happened to Sail Away?!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1697.jpg

I was looking forward to this for months because I had purchased the High School Musical DVD and I learned the dance to “We’re all in this Together.” Yup, I’m a dork but who cares, I was on vacation! They did end up playing it and guess what? I forgot some of the steps! :rotfl: :banana: Oh well. As we were watching the Ariel View I saw Bareacuda (Ann)! She was watching from deck 10 so I ran up to give her her gift. :flower3:

Once we realized we were moving, we made our way up to deck 10 to wave goodbye to Florida. We kept our eyes peeled for dolphins but unfortunately we didn’t see any this time.

Bye Cast Members!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1701.jpg

I love waving to everyone on shore. It makes me feel like they are all thinking “man I wish I was on that ship” and I was!
After we were out of the harbor, we headed down to tinkerbelle77 (Tina)’s room to get our case of water and to give her her gift. We dropped the water off in our room and headed to Pluto’s to get our first plate of French fries on the cruise. We will frequent Pluto’s during the 8 day journey. Man free food is good food :rotfl2: . Plenty of time before dinner so we decided just to venture around. We ended up on Secret Deck 7. I made it a point to see it since last cruise we never made it down there even though we were only 3 doors away!

Good bye land!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0043.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0045.jpg

Time to head back to the room and get ready for dinner. We put up all our door signs before we got changed.

Our blood, sweat and tears went into making these door signs
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1686.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1687.jpg

Let me sidetrack for a moment and head back in time to the Monday before the cruise. I was watching HSN because one of my favorite inventors was selling her products again, Joy Mangano. If you don’t know who she is, Google her. She is a genius. She has a product called My Little Steamer. I wanted to buy it in the past but I just never got around to it. I really wanted it and thought it would be really useful on the cruise to steam our dress clothes. I purchased 2 online with express shipping so I could try it out before we left. It worked so well! Ok back to the present. We steamed our dinner clothes for tonight and decided to steam the rest later because we didn’t have enough time after we unpacked everything.

Dinner rotation was LAPLAPL so tonight we were heading to Lumiere’s.

Menu
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1715.jpg

We got to really meet our dinner companions, Lisa0503 (Lisa) and her husband Chris along with Hixski (Donna) and her husband Glenn. Lisa volunteered to contact DCL to link our reservations since we were three couples sans children and we all had the late dining rotation. Thanks again Lisa! :goodvibes

We had the best servers. Our head server was Jeevan and he was from India. We actually saw him many times during dinner and one night; he even took our dessert order! He was great. Our main server was Romeo and he was from the Philippines and our assistant server was Soumitra and he was also from India. Great team. This first night, Romeo took out a slip of paper out of his pocked, went around the table and guessed who we were and got us all correct! We were wickedly impressed. I’m really sorry but I forgot to take pictures of our food AND I even forgot what we ate! I’m such a bad trippie author. You can stop reading now if you’d like. I understand. I do remember that I had the chocolate soufflé for dessert. We told Romeo that Dan and I had Palo the next night so we would not be at dinner. He told me that if I liked this chocolate soufflé, it was nothing compared to the soufflé at Palo. He brought it to the table along with the chocolate sauce. He held it over my soufflé and as he was about to pour it, he would say something about Palo. Then he’d start to pour again and then stop in midway to mention something ELSE about Palo. This lasted about 2 whole minutes before I couldn’t take it anymore and told him to just pour the chocolate! :laughing: . It was great. I’m sure my tablemates enjoyed the laugh on my behalf.

Adequately stuffed, we changed out of our nice clothes and headed up to the Goofy pool. They were showing Mary Poppins on the Ariel View and that was my favorite movie. It was wicked awesome watching it out in the warm air at night. Dan and I pulled up a chaise and I sang along. Vacation has begun. popcorn::

Our crabby towel animal for the night
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1716.jpg

Up next: What is that noise?!

scottishwee35

11-14-2007, 04:57 PM

MagicMe

11-14-2007, 05:10 PM

I'm really enjoying your trip report! Keep it coming!

Jennifer48

11-14-2007, 05:21 PM

Jennifer

Ah, bless you are so lucky to have Dan. As he is a great man to give you a surprise!!:thumbsup2

Ah, see the photo, make me want to go back on the Cruise:thumbsup2

Was any an interpreter on the Cruise?

I had two interpreter on my cruise last July as they were so fantastic and we all are hoping to meet again next May 08.:thumbsup2

Looking forward to read next one :banana:

Scottishwee35

I am very lucky to have Dan. I thank God every night for bringing him into my life. :hug:

The shows that we went to, we did not see an interpreter. I hope that only means that there was no one on board that needed the assistance.

Thank you again for continuing to read! :hug: :goodvibes

Nora03

11-14-2007, 07:37 PM

Jennifer - looks like Dan's a keeper! A surprise AND he worked on the signs too!

I love the picture of the wake behind the ship. Doesn't it give you a great feeling watching it?

Sounds like you had a blast. Looking forward to more.

Nora

Hixski

11-14-2007, 08:17 PM

We are up to Saturday!!!! You realize I don't need to do a trip report. You will probably cover just about anything I would!!!:rotfl2:

squall55

11-14-2007, 08:26 PM

I am very lucky to have Dan. I thank God every night for bringing him into my life. :hug:

Awwwww :sad: I'm all teary eyed!

You're the bestest too.
I love you! :love: :hug: :flower3: :love2:

squall55

11-14-2007, 08:42 PM

Well the whole thing about the Romance basket was this.

For anyone knows does not know about ordering things for the stateroom, for most everything ordered, it must be done no later than 48 hours before the day of the cruise. So the boat left on Saturday and I had meant to do this all week, but work got so hectic, that I kept not having the chance to do it. So Wednesday night around 9 at night, I finally got the opportunity to sit down and do it.

I called them up and asked them if it was too late to order the Romance Basket, she asked when I was leaving and I said on Saturday. She said that it might be too late, but that she would check. She took quite a few minutes to come back and when she did, she said that I had just barely made it and that they would not be accepting orders much longer. Just barely made it :yay:

Just another memory I wanted to give Jen of the cruise and how much I appreciated the gift of the trip she gave me. She was pleasantly surprised and we used the bathrobes the entire week.

Just to see her reaction was worth every penny. :woohoo:

---------------------------------------------------------------

Now, that peanut butter pie that we had from Topsiders has to be one of the most scrumptious dessert's on the ship. I looked forward to it all year long. The only day I ever saw them have it was the first day. Go figure. They need to have it more......so so good.

Kimberly815

11-15-2007, 08:55 AM

Good bye land!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0043.jpg

Oooh, I wish I was there now!! It look so serene!

And Dan was so sweet to get that basket!

Jennifer48

11-15-2007, 09:18 AM

I'm really enjoying your trip report! Keep it coming!

Thank you for reading MagicMe!:goodvibes

Jennifer - looks like Dan's a keeper! A surprise AND he worked on the signs too!

I love the picture of the wake behind the ship. Doesn't it give you a great feeling watching it?

Sounds like you had a blast. Looking forward to more.

Nora

Hi Nora, Dan is a keeper! I agree ;)
We watched the wake many times during the week, its so calming. :goodvibes

We are up to Saturday!!!! You realize I don't need to do a trip report. You will probably cover just about anything I would!!!:rotfl2:

Yeah you don't need to write one considering you'll be in most of mine! :rotfl: I just need to add that you drank a little more and you had different excursions. Other than that, same trip!

Well the whole thing about the Romance basket was this.

For anyone knows does not know about ordering things for the stateroom, for most everything ordered, it must be done no later than 48 hours before the day of the cruise. So the boat left on Saturday and I had meant to do this all week, but work got so hectic, that I kept not having the chance to do it. So Wednesday night around 9 at night, I finally got the opportunity to sit down and do it.

I called them up and asked them if it was too late to order the Romance Basket, she asked when I was leaving and I said on Saturday. She said that it might be too late, but that she would check. She took quite a few minutes to come back and when she did, she said that I had just barely made it and that they would not be accepting orders much longer. Just barely made it :yay:

Just another memory I wanted to give Jen of the cruise and how much I appreciated the gift of the trip she gave me. She was pleasantly surprised and we used the bathrobes the entire week.

Just to see her reaction was worth every penny. :woohoo:

---------------------------------------------------------------

Now, that peanut butter pie that we had from Topsiders has to be one of the most scrumptious dessert's on the ship. I looked forward to it all year long. The only day I ever saw them have it was the first day. Go figure. They need to have it more......so so good.

Dan, I didn't realize what a project it was for you to get that Romance Basket. Now it means even more :love: :hug:

Jennifer48

11-15-2007, 08:48 PM

Sunday September 16th:

Dan and I are not morning people and we do not like to be woken up if we don’t have to. So at 9am on our first ever at sea day, we were rudely woken up by some kind of strange noise. Was it the motor? Did we hit an iceberg? What the heck is going on? I jumped out of bed and did not see any land mass or other ship in our path so we figured they hit the breaks or something. Strange. So we decided since we were wide awake, we’d get up and be productive.

I said we were awake, that doesn’t mean we moved quickly. :teeth: We ended up heading to Topsiders for breakfast. What can I say, we like sitting outside whenever possible. Plus the scrambled eggs there are so great. Much better than the ones I’ve at WDW that’s for sure.

Food in our bellies, we headed up to deck 10 to just veg in the sun for the remainder of the day. Deck 9 was full and all the loungers were being held or occupied. There were a lot of people in the pool so I figured those loungers were being held by someone swimming. Now me, I’m a fair-skinned redhead so as you can imagine, I burn and I burn bad. I bought SPF 50, yes 50, with me on this cruise because I did not want that to happen. :cool2: I applied it before I left our stateroom everyday and carried it with me when we went to lie out. About an hour passed and I started to feel my legs burning a bit so I attempted to reapply the sunscreen. This was one of the Coppertone aerosol cans so I sprayed it liberally all over my legs. We stayed out there from about 11-1p when we figured we’d both had enough sun for the day. :sunny:

Before we left for the cruise, I hit up our local Home Depot to pick up some Mickey head paint swatches. They had just restocked and had tons of each color. So I did what any logical DISboard member would do, I took one of each! :lmao: Dan and I laminated them all and when we found out that our DISers cruise roster was called “Mickey’s Magical Gang” I decided to write that on each of the Mickey heads and put one on everyone’s door that I had a stateroom number for. ::MickeyMo So once we showered and changed from sunbathing, we went around with the Mickey heads and placed them on the doors we knew belonged to one of our DISboard friends. To our surprise, there were a lot of doors with no decorations and a few fish extenders. Once we finished with those (we only had about 30 to do), then we did some of our PassPorters Treasure Hunts. I can’t say enough about this book. It really makes you stop and look around. I’d love to take it to WDW and just do the hunts all day. It would be a lot of fun and I’d probably see more of the parks than I have in all my visits.

Hidden Mickey forward
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1720.jpg

Many Hidden Mickey's on the soap box!
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Despite the fact that we slept in, we were actually pretty tired. You know how the sun does that to you. So we headed in for a power nap before our Palo reservations and Red Sox / Yankees game this evening.

Up next: RRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG

Kimberly815

11-16-2007, 08:01 AM

Dan and I are not morning people and we do not like to be woken up if we don’t have to. So at 9am on our first ever at sea day, we were rudely woken up by some kind of strange noise. Was it the motor? Did we hit an iceberg? What the heck is going on? I jumped out of bed and did not see any land mass or other ship in our path so we figured they hit the breaks or something. Strange.

Oh, I hope this was a one time occurance!!

Once we finished with those (we only had about 30 to do), then we did some of our PassPorters Treasure Hunts. I can’t say enough about this book. It really makes you stop and look around. I’d love to take it to WDW and just do the hunts all day. It would be a lot of fun and I’d probably see more of the parks than I have in all my visits.

I have almost bought that book like 4 times now. Good to know that you like it. I think I might have to pick it up!

oybolshoi

11-16-2007, 08:04 AM

Love it! Makes me wish Jay and I were going on a cruise ...

Your Dan is such a sweetie ... definitely a keeper. :thumbsup2

Waiting for that Palo review ... :rolleyes1

Jennifer48

11-16-2007, 09:01 PM

Is that the phone?! Who would be calling us? Dan picks it up. They were looking for Sara. They woke us up from our nap to look for Sara. Damn you kids!! :mad: It was a nice nap while it lasted. We slept from about 4-5:30. Nice and refreshed despite another rude awakening.

I steamed the rest of our week’s dinner clothes while Dan showered. I’m telling you, good deal and so easy to use. My turn to jump in the shower and as soon as the water hit my legs, YEOWZA! :scared1: I got burnt! D’OH! :headache: And its only day 2 of the cruise! I was so upset with myself. It was only my legs and of course, the burn was uneven because when I sprayed the sunscreen on, it was windy. The darn wind took my sunscreen with it. I should have just evened it out with my hands. Live and learn.

Once dressed to the 9s, we headed up to the Promenade Lounge to watch the beginning of our beloved Red Sox vs. Spankees, I mean Yankees. Our dinner mates Donna and Glenn were having a pre-dinner drink so we bellied up to the bar and joined them until our Palo ressies which were at 8:30, same as our regular dinner rotation.

We were so excited for Palo. We never were able to get the brunch ressies so dinner was good enough for us, for now. We headed up to deck 10 to check-in and take a few pictures around the main lobby area.

Signage
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1729.jpg

Beautiful décor. We were promptly seated at a table for 2 in front of the windows and our server Sasha from Croatia came over to greet us. We aren’t wine people, nor are we fancy restaurant people so we kinda felt out of place. I didn’t know what to order, how to order, or what would be appropriate. Thankfully there was no one sitting near us to hear the dumb questions we asked each other. :rotfl: I did order the Fairy Tale Cuvee which was just champagne made especially for Disney. It was fabulous!
The bread was wicked good too. We shared the Pizza Margherita and both got the mixed salad. We were so used to seeing a typical salad that we were so taken aback by what it looked like when it came out!

How do you eat this salad?!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1732.jpg

We also both had the Filet Mignon as our entrée. A weird situation happened when we were eating our entrees. Rachel, our cruise director, came over the loudspeaker and basically made an emergency call for personnel to head to deck 2 and a specific room number. It didn’t seem like anyone else heard it in the restaurant but we surely did. It was strange.

Food was fantastic and you know of course I had to get the Chocolate Soufflé for dessert, so did Dan. He had it with the vanilla sauce and I had it with a mix of vanilla and chocolate. Sasha also brought us out Panna Cotta and two Limoncello shots. Not to mention when we were eating all this dessert, Sasha came over to see how everything was and he even asked if we wanted another entrée! Yeah right. Sasha was a lot of fun and I highly recommend asking for him the next time you are at Palo. He is wonderful. :thumbsup2 :thumbsup2 He gives you enough time to eat, makes sure everything is just perfect for you and what I love the most, he gives you time to eat. We never felt rushed at all. It was absolutely perfect.

Aren't we cute?!:cutie:
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/Palo2007.jpg

They came around with a cart from the kitchen to load us onto since we couldn’t move we were so full. Just kidding. I wish they would have. It would have made it easier to leave! :rotfl2:

We went back to the room, changed into comfy clothes and headed to Diversions to watch the end of the Red Sox game since the Patriots had already won earlier in the day, without the use of video tape! The comedian, Rich Purpura, was in Rockin’ Bar D but that place was packed so they were showing his performance in Diversions and that was packed also. We wanted to watch baseball!! There was one TV in the corner playing the game so we planted ourselves there and Donna and Glenn were already there and they joined us. We basically closed the place down and were just about kicked out. That’s ok. We had a great conversation going and we didn’t want to finish but like everything else, it had to end. We said our good-byes and headed back to our room around midnight.

Any guesses?!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1736.jpg

Up next: To character breakfast or not to character breakfast, that is the question.

Jennifer48

11-18-2007, 09:57 AM

Monday, September 17th:

We decided that we would try to make it to the character breakfast this morning. We debated about it for a while because I had read that the characters don’t make it around to the tables like a normal character meal. But like anything else, we wanted to judge for ourselves.

Mickey’s Island Jam was held in Parrot Cay and our arrival time was 9:45am. Nice and late for us sleep-iners. Lisa and Chris joined us also at our table. Breakfast was delicious and the show was fun. The characters walked by our table and would stop for a few seconds at other tables that had children but we didn’t mind. We enjoy watching children interact with them.

Menu
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0055.jpg

Minnie
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0057.jpg

Lilo
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0061.jpg

Pluto
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0064.jpg

Lilo & Stitch
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0066.jpg

Minnie
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0067.jpg

Dale
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0068.jpg

Chip
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0069.jpg

Goofy
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0070.jpg

After breakfast it was almost 11am and time for the Castaway Clubhouse. We received our invites in our room the night before so we decided to check it out. We headed over to Rockin’ Bar D but since we were late, there weren’t any open seats left. We stood up in the back by the bar for a bit listening to Rachael and Captain Thord.

Captain Thord
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0071.jpg

A family in front of us left so we jumped to their table. We had a good time. Captain Thord told us that ¾ of the passengers were repeat cruisers. Shows you Disney does something right!

After the videos you watch, they have a raffle for some Disney Cruise Line clocks. Neither of us won but it was fun cheering those that did because as they were to go and receive their gift, Rachael made them do a happy dance. And can you believe it? I didn’t even eat a Mickey rice crispy treat…:eek: .sue me. We saw our DIS friends Lisa, Chris, Kamgen Kami and her husband there. Lisa told us at breakfast that they set up a DIS photo meet in the atrium lobby for 12 noon. So from the Castaway Clubhouse, we made our way to the lobby. Bareacuda Ann had set up for a DCL photographer to take our picture. She’s so smart like that! So we took a few happy pics and then one silly one. I never purchased any at Shutters but I did take pictures of them….shhh! Ironically the only one that came out focused was the silly one!

Silly DISers! :joker:
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/IMG_0026.jpg

Up next: Are you serious lady?!

Kimberly815

11-19-2007, 10:14 AM

Aren't we cute?!:cutie:
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/Palo2007.jpg

That is a very nice picture of you guys! I am so glad you enjoyed Palo! It sounds like it was a lovely dinner!

[I]Silly DISers! :joker:
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/IMG_0026.jpg

Looks like a fun group to cruise with!!

ETA: I need to know what the towel animal is too! A seal maybe? I don't know!

Jennifer48

11-19-2007, 05:55 PM

This was our only busy packed morning. After the DIS photo meet, we planned on hitting up the DVC talk in Diversions. It was freezing in there! They had the a/c cranked and my toes were numb. :cold: It was crazy. Anyways, we sat down and this woman comes over and hands us her DVC business card and says that if we sign up, mention her name and we’ll get a free gift. :confused3 Umm ok. She walks around the room giving out these cards. As soon as the DVC cast members began their spiel, she took off. She didn’t even pretend to stay. So I took her card, ripped it up and threw it away. How cheesy. Probably all so she could get extra points or something. There was one couple there from Georgia I believe that has been DVC members since the beginning. They now have 1720 pts! :eek: Crazy. I’d love to have them as my grandparents! :rotfl2: They said that they use those points to take their family to Disney. Must be nice! Dan and I didn’t sign up this time, but now that we know how everything works, maybe sometime in the future we will become DVC members. We just aren’t financially able to do it at the moment.

We had so much stuff between the CC and the DVC talk that we stopped in at our stateroom and then decided to head up to Pluto’s for lunch. Man I miss those chicken fingers!

Once stuffed with fluff like Pooh pooh: , we headed down to deck 4 to sit on the wonderfully comfy deck chairs and chill for a bit. We actually both napped on them for a while. It was soooooooo relaxing. I also read for a bit and Dan did his Sudoku. I’m not sure how long we were out there for but it had to be a couple of hours easy. After we were good and reenergized, we decided to do a bit more of the PassPorter’s Treasure Hunt. Now that I think of it, I should have taken pictures along the way. That would have been fun. Oh well. There’s always next time!

We dropped off our books and headed over to the Walt Disney Theater to see Twice Charmed. This is the one show we hadn’t seen yet and we wanted to make it a point to see it. We really liked it. The only bad part was about ½ way through the show, a family of 4 decided to show up and sit right in front of us. Mom & Dad explained the WHOLE DAMN Cinderella story to the kids. Are you serious? And then they decide to leave when one of the kids starts squirming. Thank goodness.

Back to the room we go to shower and get ready for dinner. And again, I apologize for no food pics :sad2:

After dinner at Parrot Cay, we changed back into our comfy clothes and headed up to deck 10 to walk around. We were passing by what we think was St. Thomas based on the map they showed on the stateroom tv. The island was all lit up. It was beautiful. Just staring up at the black sky with the twinkling stars was just so perfect with my Dan. *sigh* :cloud9:

They had Monday Night Football on the Ariel View but we didn’t care much for the game so we just lapped around deck 10 for a bit before heading back to the room for the night.

Up next: St. Maartin or St. Martin, which is it?

scottishwee35

11-20-2007, 07:19 AM

Kimberly815

11-20-2007, 08:36 AM

There was one couple there from Georgia I believe that has been DVC members since the beginning. They now have 1720 pts! :eek: Crazy.

Wow! That's a lot of points! I am so jealous!

It was beautiful. Just staring up at the black sky with the twinkling stars was just so perfect with my Dan. *sigh* :cloud9:

Sounds perfect! :goodvibes

Jennifer48

11-20-2007, 02:50 PM

Hi Jennifer48

I am same well as not sure about DVC well. My mil was asking lady from Chiago while we were sitting at cove cafe and she explained about DVC and I still not sure about it as she said long times ago was good rates. But now seem okay:confused3 I am still confusing with DVC too.

Can you tell me which one is best Disney Resort Hotel for one night? As I am searching for one night after flight back from LA after the Disney Cruise? We are staying in LA for 3 nights at Antheim Disney Hotel then flight back to Orlando for one night. It is much appreciated if you let me know which suitable for our kids as I don't want take them to disney park as want relax with lovely swimming pool before catch the flight at 6.30 pm.

Scottishwee35:thumbsup2

Hi Deborah,

Yeah the DVC was confusing to me also but once I sat and listened to their presentation, I understood it a bit more. They are free to attend so if you ever pass by one of the DVC desks, they will be happy to discuss it. :goodvibes

As for the Disney resort, it depends on what you are looking for. The Caribbean Beach was really nice for one night. It was a large area with beaches, hammocks, pools, and a great dining area. If you are able to afford that, I would recommend it. If you are looking for something in the Value range, I've only stayed at the All-Star Movies and that was a good choice also. I hope that helps! :flower3:

Jennifer48

11-20-2007, 02:51 PM

Wow! That's a lot of points! I am so jealous! The room was one large "WOW" when they said that. We were all pretty jealous! :3dglasses

Disneygrl36

11-20-2007, 03:04 PM

Jennifer....didn't realize you have a trippie. I will be back to read later.

Jennifer48

11-20-2007, 03:29 PM

Jennifer....didn't realize you have a trippie. I will be back to read later. I do! Its not as good as yours but I hope it will keep you entertained :rotfl:

Hixski

11-20-2007, 05:33 PM

The room was one large "WOW" when they said that. We were all pretty jealous! :3dglasses

1720 points makes our 200 points look like we don't have any at all.:rotfl2: But they get us to where we want to go.

Keep up the good work on the trip report.:thumbsup2

Jennifer48

11-21-2007, 10:18 AM

Tuesday, September 18th

Docked in St. Maartin; the view from our stateroom porthole
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0074.jpg

This morning’s alarm was set for 7:30am. We were to meet in Rockin’ Bar D at 8:45am for our Under Two Flags tour excursion. We were very excited to see the island. As we headed out of the ship towards our bus, we were to follow the Pluto Paddle of Power.

Signage
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0108.jpg

We were to line up 2 by 2 and we were close to the end of the line. We knew what was coming. Well, Dan knew what was coming. When we got on the bus, there were solo riders. The seats were 2 by 2. Sure enough, not only did people who were traveling together, split up so each had a window seat, but solo riders who were not with a companion also took up 1 of the 2 seats. :mad: So what ended up happening? Dan and I did not sit together, again. :sad1: He got stuck with some man and I got stuck in the back row of 5 seats between an annoying woman and her mother and this older couple. Why was she annoying you ask? Because every time we passed a goat or a Burger King she acted as if she never saw one before! Come on lady, you can’t be that sheltered. That and they both complained about how hot the bus was and I couldn’t hear our tour guide/bus driver. Despite them and the woman next to me from Knoxville who decided that I needed to hear her personal business, it was a great tour. Our guide was fun and very informative. It’s amazing how such a small island functions as two separate countries. He was telling us how for those that live near the border, to call their neighbor across the street in the other country; it is considered an international phone call. It would be faster and cheaper for them to walk across the street than to place that call. Crazy!

We made many stops along the way to get out and take pictures. The ship docks on the Dutch side and we drove all the way over to the French side and back. Our guide said that when we got off the bus on the French side that we have legally been to France, woo hoo! :woohoo: So now I can tell my friends that I’ve been to France, they just don’t need to know it wasn’t the one with the Eiffel Tower! :rotfl:

We're in France! :goodvibes
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0098.jpg

Colorful rooftops
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0090.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1783.jpg

This ship was pushed to shore due to a hurricane and they left it as a reef for the fishies
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1800.jpg

Border on the island between the Dutch and French sides
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1807.jpg

Once back on the Dutch side, we decided to head back to the ship for lunch before venturing back out to do some shopping. There were some ominous clouds on the French side and you could tell it was raining pretty well over there. In case they decided to head in our direction, back on the ship sounded like a good idea. We turn to head towards the ship and there docked beside the Magic was the Royal Caribbean ship Liberty of the Seas. This is the worlds largest cruise ship and it certainly looked like it. It dwarfed the Magic. Too big for my liking. That’s like taking the whole city with you on vacation. Too many people for me.

Massive ship!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1833.jpg

This sign made me happy as we were boarding the ship:goodvibes
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1839.jpg

Up next: Thunder!

Kimberly815

11-21-2007, 11:47 AM

Docked in St. Maartin; the view from our stateroom porthole
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0074.jpg

What a beautiful view to wake up to!!!:thumbsup2

We were to line up 2 by 2 and we were close to the end of the line. We knew what was coming. Well, Dan knew what was coming. When we got on the bus, there were solo riders. The seats were 2 by 2. Sure enough, not only did people who were traveling together, split up so each had a window seat, but solo riders who were not with a companion also took up 1 of the 2 seats. :mad: So what ended up happening? Dan and I did not sit together, again. :sad1:

Well, that just stinks! It's never as fun when you don't get to sit with your travelmates!:sad2:

We're in France! :goodvibes
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0098.jpg

You've been to France!! :yay: You lucky girl!!

LITTLEKID58

11-21-2007, 12:29 PM

Tfs

frdeb1999

11-21-2007, 04:44 PM

Love the TR so far and all the pics! Look like you had a wonderful time! :)

scottishwee35

11-22-2007, 06:27 AM

Hi:thumbsup2

Beautiful pictures and shame about seat spilt up:sad2: Always like that is it!!

Oh no about Thunder next??

Scottishwee35:thumbsup2

Jennifer48

11-23-2007, 10:07 PM

Back on board, we headed up to Topsiders for lunch. We could hear the thunder rumbling around outside. We met up with Hixski Donna and her husband Glenn who were just finishing up their lunch. They had a snorkel excursion that morning over on the French side and they said that it rained almost the whole time. They even postponed most of it. They finished their lunch and left and another couple sat with us and ate as we were just about finished. It was a busy time at Topsiders!

Plan of attack was to now head back out and walk around some more. Visit the shops and check out the “amazing deals” in the electronics and jewelry stores. I didn’t do any research before we left so I had no idea if things were really “deals” anyways. All I know is how much I paid for my iPod and if I saw one cheaper I’d be upset :laughing: . So we checked back out and headed to the water taxi area. We paid $5 for unlimited rides and they give you a bracelet to wear. We walked around the beach area and made sure to put our feet in the Caribbean Bay! We really weren’t into shopping but we wanted to make sure we got to see as much as we could. We got tired pretty quickly and it was raining off and on since we were right on the edge of the storm that was hitting the French side so we decided to head back on board.

Dan shooting some hoops during one of the few times the court was empty!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1860.jpg

I'm checking out St. Maartin from the ship
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1846.jpg

Finding Nemo was playing on the Ariel View
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1853.jpg

We headed to our room to change into our swimsuits and headed up to the Quiet Cove pool. CMs kept coming out and closing the pool due to the thunder overhead and then within 5-10 minutes, they’d be back out to open it again.

After jumping in and out of the pool, we headed back to our room to shower and get ready for Pirate Night. I purchased a pirate shirt when I was at WDW back in January and you all know the story about Dan’s pirate shirt now. I also bought some PoTC jewelry to wear and we brought our old pirate bandanas as extras. Nothing special but we were in the spirit.

We added Pirate Night door signs
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1862.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1863.jpg

We went up to deck 10 to check out the lightning show. While we were up there forward, we looked over and saw a young couple and an older couple standing there laughing. Then we noticed that their hair was sticking up! Dan asked them if he could take their picture. Do not try this at home!!

Can you see their hair standing up?!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1902.jpg

There was that much electricity in the air that we were in striking distance of a bolt. Obviously we didn’t get struck but it was definitely cool to watch the lightning fingers crawl across the evening sky.

We went up to deck 4 to check out the characters in the atrium lobby in their pirate garb. There were long lines for them all so we headed outside to get some fresh air. Who was standing right outside the door??

Up next: Pirate Night!

Disney owl

11-24-2007, 12:01 PM

thanks for sharing

Jennifer48

11-26-2007, 09:13 AM

It was Captain Hook and Mr. Smee! Since they were all alone, Dan and I jumped in to have our picture taken with them. How fun!

ARG, Pirates!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1910.jpg

Now that I was in the mood to take character photos so we went back inside and I jumped in line to meet Pirate Mickey. Our dinner tonight was in
Lumiere’s and since we were right there, we weren’t that worried about being late. At this point, it was just about 8:30pm.

Pirate Mickey
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1919.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/PirateMickey.jpg

In to Lumiere’s we went after our picture and our table mates were already there. Again, sorry, no pictures! :sad2:

Our table is located near the windows to the hall. As we are checking out the pirates menu we hear a loud bang on the windows. We all look up and there is Stitch banging on the windows begging for some food! :stitch: The CM that was with him was yelling at him to leave us alone and she pulled him away. It was so funny!

The bestest servers! L-R Soumitra, Jeevan, Romeo
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1926.jpg

We didn’t eat dessert tonight because we all wanted to make sure we saved room for the buffet during the Pirates in the Caribbean party!

From dinner, we headed up to deck 10 to catch the party. I wanted to dance but we wanted to catch the fireworks so we started up there. Of course since we had the late dinner we were late for the party and all the good spots were taken. We found a hole near the back so we could have a good view of the fireworks.

The fireworks were shot off and only for about 2 minutes when one seemed to prematurely blow right on deck 10 next to Palo’s. :eek: No more fireworks. They were stopped for the evening. Boooo! So we went back down to deck 9 so I could get my groove on! :dancer: I danced the night away as others left for the evening. Hixski Donna and Glenn showed up with beers and I continued to danced while they chit chatted.

ARG!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1953.jpg

Once the party was over, they cleared the deck so everyone (or those that were left) could take the loungers back out and watch Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest on the Ariel View. It was so wonderful to see Captain Jack Sparrow and Will Turner magnified! *sigh* :love:

Captain Jack!pirate:
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1949.jpg

We stayed for about an hour to watch the beginning and we figured it was getting too late and we had a very early morning. Rachel had mentioned earlier in the day that they had to schedule Pirate Night this night because it was the only time they were safely able to shoot off the fireworks in a safe distance. Hey that’s what she said.

Towel gorilla?!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1930.jpg

Our stateroom host set up a bed for Mickey tonight :rotfl:
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1929.jpg

Up next: I don’t need any stinking immigration!

Kimberly815

11-26-2007, 12:57 PM

Our table is located near the windows to the hall. As we are checking out the pirates menu we hear a loud bang on the windows. We all look up and there is Stitch banging on the windows begging for some food! :stitch: The CM that was with him was yelling at him to leave us alone and she pulled him away. It was so funny!

:rotfl2: Ha ha! You gotta love crazy Stitch!! :stitch2:

The fireworks were shot off and only for about 2 minutes when one seemed to prematurely blow right on deck 10 next to Palo’s. :eek: No more fireworks. They were stopped for the evening.

Bummer!

ARG!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1953.jpg

I love this pic! You look like a real pirate! All you need now is some rum instead of beer (although, I think beer works just fine too!)! I am worried about your pillaging and plundering!

Our stateroom host set up a bed for Mickey tonight :rotfl:
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1929.jpg

How cute!! Now Mickey can get a good night's sleep!

Disneygrl36

11-26-2007, 05:49 PM

ReAnSt

11-26-2007, 06:01 PM

Monday, September 17th:

We decided that we would try to make it to the character breakfast this morning. We debated about it for a while because I had read that the characters don’t make it around to the tables like a normal character meal. But like anything else, we wanted to judge for ourselves.

Mickey’s Island Jam was held in Parrot Cay and our arrival time was 9:45am. Nice and late for us sleep-iners. Lisa and Chris joined us also at our table. Breakfast was delicious and the show was fun. The characters walked by our table and would stop for a few seconds at other tables that had children but we didn’t mind. We enjoy watching children interact with them.

Menu
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/th_IMG_0055.jpg

Minnie
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/th_IMG_0057.jpg

Lilo
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/th_IMG_0061.jpg

Pluto
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/th_IMG_0064.jpg

Lilo & Stitch
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/th_IMG_0066.jpg

Minnie
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/th_IMG_0067.jpg

Dale
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/th_IMG_0068.jpg

Chip
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/th_IMG_0069.jpg

Goofy
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/th_IMG_0070.jpg

After breakfast it was almost 11am and time for the Castaway Clubhouse. We received our invites in our room the night before so we decided to check it out. We headed over to Rockin’ Bar D but since we were late, there weren’t any open seats left. We stood up in the back by the bar for a bit listening to Rachael and Captain Thord.

Captain Thord
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/TH_IMG_0071.jpg

A family in front of us left so we jumped to their table. We had a good time. Captain Thord told us that ¾ of the passengers were repeat cruisers. Shows you Disney does something right!

After the videos you watch, they have a raffle for some Disney Cruise Line clocks. Neither of us won but it was fun cheering those that did because as they were to go and receive their gift, Rachael made them do a happy dance. And can you believe it? I didn’t even eat a Mickey rice crispy treat…:eek: .sue me. We saw our DIS friends Lisa, Chris, Kamgen Kami and her husband there. Lisa told us at breakfast that they set up a DIS photo meet in the atrium lobby for 12 noon. So from the Castaway Clubhouse, we made our way to the lobby. Bareacuda Ann had set up for a DCL photographer to take our picture. She’s so smart like that! So we took a few happy pics and then one silly one. I never purchased any at Shutters but I did take pictures of them….shhh! Ironically the only one that came out focused was the silly one!

Silly DISers! :joker:
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/th_IMG_0026.jpg

Up next: Are you serious lady?!

So Mickey's Island Jam was the one thing I really wanted to do my two weeks and never made it. The first week was the Behind the Scenes tour of WD Theater, the second week was our meet at the Quiet Cove Cafe. We even asked our head waiter if we could come another day and they said we could and I overslept. I should have tried to go in the later breakfast that day but we were told to come at a certain time and didn't want to cause any trouble so I never made it. Well just an excuse to go again.

I see myself as well. I didn't take any pictures of our group pictures.

Jennifer48

11-26-2007, 08:56 PM

Jennifer,
I am all caught up now.....
I love that rainbow picture. Beautiful.
Your tour guide stopped more than once for photos? We only got one stop. Hmmmmmmmmm.
Sorry bout your pirate night fireworks.......at least you made it to CC though right?
Cute picture with Smee & Cap'n Hook.

Melanie, our bus stopped a few times but we were only allowed to get out like 2-3 times. Most of the pictures you see were taken by Dan from the bus while it was in motion. Some stops were shorter than others but we did get to stop and take photos. It was really great. I'm sorry you only got one stop :guilty:

The fireworks were a disappointment but yes, thankfully we made it to CC!

So Mickey's Island Jam was the one thing I really wanted to do my two weeks and never made it. The first week was the Behind the Scenes tour of WD Theater, the second week was our meet at the Quiet Cove Cafe. We even asked our head waiter if we could come another day and they said we could and I overslept. I should have tried to go in the later breakfast that day but we were told to come at a certain time and didn't want to cause any trouble so I never made it. Well just an excuse to go again.

I see myself as well. I didn't take any pictures of our group pictures.

Becky, we wanted to do the Behind the Scenes tour but it never really fit into our schedule. Guess that means another cruise for me! :laughing:

Mickey's Island Jam was a lot of fun. Even though the characters didn't come to the tables and greet us, it was a blast watching them interact with the children around. :thumbsup2 Make sure you do it on your next cruise! :goodvibes

scottishwee35

11-27-2007, 07:42 AM

Jennifer48

11-27-2007, 08:22 AM

5:45am came way too quickly. It’s painful not being a morning person. But alas, it is something that has to be done so up we got and headed to the Walt Disney Theater for 6:45am. We were in the first group to go because we had an early excursion meet time which was 7:15am. Those that had late excursion meet times or no excursions at all, got to sleep in a bit longer. Grrr.

As Dan and I are walking towards the theater, who do we meet up with? But Donna and Glenn of course! Are you starting to see a pattern here? It was getting kinda creepy and you’ll hear about more later. So we give the happy CM our room number and let her know that we are all here and accounted for. We take our seats with all the tired, coughing people. Seriously, everyone was either coughing or sniffling. Gross. We were only there about 10 minutes or so before the immigration officers came in and they released us row by row. Not too painful. We said good-bye to Donna and Glenn and wished them luck and fun on their excursion and Dan and I headed up to the Buena Vista Theater for our St. John Island tour meet.

We checked in and got our Belle sticker and waited for the ok to disembark the ship. We saw the 2 annoying women that were on the Under 2 Flags tour with us yesterday and we didn’t want to be anywhere near them today. We made sure to keep our distance.

We followed the Belle Paddle of Power outside to a nearby water taxi that was to take us and another tour (I think it was the Trunk Bay Snorkel excursion) over to St. John.

Power paddle battle!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1969.jpg

There were two floors on the boat and also an inside sitting area. We opted to sit outside. We hadn’t been gone 5 minutes and it started to rain. There was a small overhang above our heads that kept some of the water away but the wind was pushing it right in at us. Everyone outside ran inside but we stayed put. We knew the rain would be over in a few minutes because we were on the edge of a small rain cloud. No harm, we didn’t melt. :umbrella:

The boat driver/tour guide was pretty informative. He was pointing out celebrity houses along the way and other interesting facts about St. Thomas/St. John. We couldn’t hear very well outside but we heard enough. Here are some of the houses we saw:

Michael Jordan's house
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1989.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1994.jpg

Michael Jackson's house...no children were inside
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1993.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_1998.jpg

We docked on St. John and were ushered off to begin loading into the open-air bus. We ended up in the front row next to a family from New Jersey.
Let me just tell you now, it was freaking hot out! I’m talking 86F with a dew point of 82F. That ‘feels like’ temperature is about 112F. It was nasty. Open-air bus = no air conditioning. This should be fun.

Our chariot
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2014.jpg

Our driver made the first stop about 100 feet away at the restrooms. He introduced himself as Chris. He sounded like he was going to be a fun guide. He told us that the more we “oooo’ed and ahhh’ed” then he’d stop the truck. When he was time to go he’d ask “what time is it?” Our response was “its time to go!” Then he’d ask “where are we going?” And we’d reply with “forward!” Good times. What a good way to get your customers to participate. :goodvibes

After the pit stop we were on our way. The second stop was overlooking the harbor that we pulled into. Chris told us that there is a 0% unemployment rate on St. John. This is due to the fact that the island is growing and there are many jobs to be had. Most islanders have multiple jobs. So any DISer need a job? Head to St. John!

Beautiful harbor
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0005.jpg

I won’t go into all the other stops along the way. Here is the beautiful scenery:

Trunk Bay; #2 beach in the world!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0010.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2044.jpg

All-inclusive resort
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2039.jpg

One of our beach stops
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2061.jpg

Reservation land
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2068.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2076.jpg
We also stopped at an old sugar mill. There wasn't much left to it.

View from the sugar mill
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2087.jpg

Up next: Mmmm smoothie!

Jennifer48

11-27-2007, 09:23 AM

Hi Jennifer

I enjoyed read your report trip and love the photos too.

Very good photo of you both at Pirate, What are you drinking with? lol:rotfl:

Dan got lovely tan as he is dark skin same as me:rolleyes1

Ian got sun burn his feet on the Cruise on sea day, terrible red look like chicken skin!!:headache: He got a lovely tan on his face and arm but leg none!!

Can I ask you a question - have you book another Cruise?:love:

I am waiting to hear the announcement for 2009 as I am hoping Northern Europe but got the feeling, don't think so. Hope we meet again in one day.:thumbsup2

Scottishwee35

Hi Deborah,

Thanks for the comments! :goodvibes Dan did get a good tan on that cruise, not fair! I only got a nasty sunburn :headache: Dan did burn his feet on the last cruise and that was horrible. 2nd degree burns that blistered! :scared1:

We did book another cruise! We put in a dummy date of October 2009 but I am also waiting to hear the 2009 announcement. I am hoping it is an Alaskan cruise so I can change my reservations to then! :thumbsup2 I hope we can meet on another cruise soon! :hug:

Kimberly815

11-27-2007, 12:20 PM

St. John looks absolutely beautiful!!! I wish I was there right now!!

Was it your favorite of the islands you stopped at (Castaway Cay not included)?

Jennifer48

11-27-2007, 12:52 PM

Was it your favorite of the islands you stopped at (Castaway Cay not included)?

Yes it was. It was so picturesque with the blue sky and crystal clear water. I'd move there if I could! Forecasting would be a cinch! :rotfl:

Jennifer48

11-28-2007, 05:22 PM

Another stop was at a beach that I can’t remember the name to. Sorry!

We were able to walk down to the water from the parking area. Chris told us that there are funny looking fruit along the way and insisted that we don’t touch or step on this fruit if it is lying on the ground. Hmmm curiosity peaked! :scratchin We got out and walked down to the beach area. So beautiful and peaceful. St. John is ranked number 2 in my book right behind Castaway Cay. It was wonderful.

Beach with no name
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2061.jpg

On our way back to the bus, we saw it. The starvation fruit.

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2064.jpg

We got on the bus and Chris asked if we all saw it. We said yes and some guy said it didn’t taste good at all. Chris’s jaw dropped, “you ate it?!” :eek: The man laughed and said no and we all got a good chuckle out of Chris’ reaction. He said it’s called the starvation fruit. It’s called this because it tastes so bad that the only reason you’d actually eat it, was if you were starving. :rotfl:

Next stop was a little area that had a snack and smoothie stand that a woman named Loralei ran. I went into a small store next door to buy some post cards and there was no one at the register. I told Chris so he came and rang up the postcards for me. I asked him if this was his second job and he said no, it was just helping a neighbor. So nice. :flower3:

After I bought my postcards, Dan and I bought a banana and mango smoothie from Loralei. It was delicious! If you are in St. John, hit up Loralei for a smoothie. They are fantastic!

Our tour had ended and we said good bye to Chris. The boat was still docked so we headed back on and they told us it would be leaving in about 30 minutes. There wasn’t anything to see nearby so we got back on the boat and just waited to head back to St. Thomas.

We ate lunch again in where? Topsiders of course. After being up so darn early and then being full of food, we were in desperate need of some zzzz’s so we headed back to the room to take a power nap.

Twenty minutes was all we really needed so we headed back to St. Thomas because I wanted to ride the Paradise Point tram.

Up next: Holy heat Batman!!

scottishwee35

11-28-2007, 06:34 PM

Hi Jennifer

What a beautiful photos of St John and the no name beach look so calm and beautiful.

Wish I be there now!:thumbsup2

Scottishwee35:thumbsup2

Kimberly815

11-29-2007, 08:01 AM

After I bought my postcards, Dan and I bought a banana and mango smoothie from Loralei. It was delicious! If you are in St. John, hit up Loralei for a smoothie. They are fantastic!

Mmmm. A nice cold fruit smoothie on a hot, hot day! I don't think it gets much better than that! Yummy!

Jennifer48

11-29-2007, 11:31 AM

Hi Jennifer

What a beautiful photos of St John and the no name beach look so calm and beautiful.

Wish I be there now!:thumbsup2

Scottishwee35:thumbsup2

Me too! I'm sick of the cold weather, I want to be back in the heat! :cool2:

Mmmm. A nice cold fruit smoothie on a hot, hot day! I don't think it gets much better than that! Yummy!

It was so refreshing! :goodvibes

scottishwee35

11-29-2007, 11:52 AM

Jennifer

What the weather like now?

Here the weather was sunny today and not very cold just mild.

Scottishwee35:surfweb:

Jennifer48

11-30-2007, 09:28 AM

Jennifer

What the weather like now?

Here the weather was sunny today and not very cold just mild.

Scottishwee35:surfweb:

Its cold, 38F :cold:

pierresgirl

12-01-2007, 11:09 AM

Great report! It looks like you guys had the time of your life! Huge Red Sox, Patriots and Bruins fans in my household :thumbsup2 Can't wait to read more....

Jennifer48

12-04-2007, 12:39 PM

Great report! It looks like you guys had the time of your life! Huge Red Sox, Patriots and Bruins fans in my household :thumbsup2 Can't wait to read more....

Thank you for reading! :woohoo: to NE sports fans! :thumbsup2 :goodvibes

Jennifer48

12-04-2007, 12:44 PM

We walked up the road to the Paradise Point tram station. We paid for our tickets and headed up a flight of stairs. At this point, I was already dripping with sweat. I couldn’t get over how damn hot it was. It was the humidity that was killer.

I read about this area online, DIS and PassPorter. I wanted to try to fit it in just so I could get the views that you see from up there. We ended up in a
tram with a nice couple that was on the Liberty of the Seas. They asked us if we were on the DCL and we said yes. Their response was “where are the kids?” “We don’t have any” we replied. Then we got The Look, “oh.” All you childless adults know the look I’m speaking of. The one that says “why would you be on a Disney trip without children?”

Tram car
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2163.jpg

Liberty of the Seas and the Magic
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2135.jpg

Some of my pics had issues loading onto Photobucket so I hope to post more soon.

Once at the top, we walked around and took pictures. On the other side of the hill there are some shops and a restaurant. All I wanted was some postcards and a shot glass for Dan. We walked into one of the shops and they had fake handbags! :rotfl: I laughed because I didn’t expect it. We also woke up the guy at the register. He was taking a nap. I don’t blame him. There’s not much else you can do in that heat!

We didn’t spend much more time up there because we were both exhausted and overheating so we headed back on the tram to get back to the ship.
This time our nap was about 2 hours long. That heat really drains you. After the nap we headed up to the pool to just relax and chill out before dinner. We got some yummy ice cream to cool us off. That ice cream area is horrible. I could just sit there and refill my cup over and over!

Dinner tonight was Animators Palate and we were disappointed that this was our only dinner here since we missed it on Sunday due to our Palo ressies. That also meant that no dinner show tonight. Oh well. It was still fun being there. Tonight was hysterical though because Romeo decided he wanted to show us one of his magic tricks. He put a handkerchief in a net and made it disappear and then reappear. Soumitra almost died laughing when he walked by and saw him doing this.

The Great Romeo
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2184.jpg

Tonight was 80’s Night so we decided to meet up with our table mates in Rockin’ Bar D after we all changed out of our dinner clothes. I wanted to go to this just because of the Thriller rendition that the CM do :laughing: . It was so much fun watching them. Sadly though there were quite a few songs that I had never heard which made everyone feel very old. :confused3 It’s not my fault I was born in 1980 and don’t listen to the Oldies station much!

Michael Jackson montague
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2189.jpg

After the back-in-the-day music was over, current tunes were played and I had to get up and dance to my Justin! :woohoo: Thankfully ReAnSt Becky was with us otherwise I would have been dancing alone! Thanks again Becky! My table mates AND Dan don’t dance, losers :rotfl2: .

A bunny?
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2187.jpg

Up Next: Rest and Relaxation

lillygator

12-04-2007, 02:27 PM

love the pics of St John and Trunk Bay.
Thanks for sharing!

Jennifer48

12-04-2007, 09:47 PM

love the pics of St John and Trunk Bay.
Thanks for sharing!

Thank you for reading!:goodvibes

Jennifer48

12-04-2007, 10:03 PM

Thursday, September 20th

Since this was our last at-sea day, we decided not to set any alarm and let the morning wake us up. With that said, we woke up around 10am. We delayed a bit but eventually got out of bed, dressed, and headed up to the Quite Cove pool which we got to by 11am. We just wanted to continue being lazy and enjoy doing nothing as much as possible. There was only one available lounger when we got up there. I wasn’t in the mood to swim just yet so I laid out and Dan sat on the edge of the pool to get rid of his raccoon tan. I read a few chapters in my book and got the happy hour mimosa. I forget how great it is to drink early!:thumbsup2 :thumbsup2 I finished up my drink and headed into the water since I was now very hot sitting in the sun. Guess who was at the pool also? Did you guess Glenn and Donna? Well you’d be correct! We chatted with them in the water about the time their house got struck by lightning. Cool story. Well not cool for them, fortunately no major damage was done but cool from a weather geek standpoint. That’s me, weather weenie.

I was cooled off so I got out and dried off in the sun while reading. Some loungers opened up next to Donna and Glenn so I moved our stuff over and let Dan know that he now had a chair if he wanted one. The pool was getting too crowded anyways. I think Dan said at one point he counted a total of like 29 people in the pool at one time.:eek: Crazy.

We were getting hungry so Dan ran and got some fruit for himself from Goofy’s Galley and he also got some chicken fingers and fries for me. Man I love those chicken fingers. I’m sad that they only give you 2 now. I could eat a whole basket of those without even blinking. I think Dan even went and got me another plate and some ice cream. We left the sun since I figured at this point my sun exposure was at its limit for today. We found a table still on deck 9 but in the shade as we finished our food. Donna and Glenn even came over and ate with us but left shortly after. As Dan and I were just chillin’ there, Minnie was strolling around the pool! I asked her if she would take her picture with me and she obliged.

Jenny and Minnie
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2204.jpg

From here, we headed down to the stores to look around at more merchandise. We didn’t buy anything but I did like their Castaway Club only ringer t-shirts. We headed back to the room to shower since it was about 4:30 at this point. After we were all cleaned up we headed back up to the shops. I think I bought some pins and a DCL scrapbook kit. Next up was Shutters. Its fun looking at everyone’s pictures even if you don’t want to purchase any yourself. The smiles on everyone’s faces are so great to look at to see that people are enjoying this vacation as much as you are.

Out of Shutters, we headed back towards the atrium lobby. We were watching everyone get their semi-formal pictures done. There was this one family that pushed their children first and then the whole family. As the little boy was standing there, he had to be no more than 3, he was holding himself like he had to go to the bathroom. Dan and I saw it so others must have too. Mom just kept making him put his hand down. The poor kid was doing the potty dance and it was obvious that he had to go. I felt like running down there and bringing him to the restroom myself. So what does mom do after the pictures are through? She drags him into Lumiere’s for dinner. I really hope she took him at some point because I thought he was going to lose it right there!:sad2:

Mickey and Minnie all dolled up
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0032.jpg

We made our way outside and walked around and enjoyed the beautiful air.

A new find for me, these compasses on Deck 10 above the Mickey pool
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0043-1.jpg

Watching cartoons on the Ariel View
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0058.jpg

My artistic side
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0049.jpg
Up next: Rebook or not to rebook, that is the question.

Kimberly815

12-05-2007, 07:41 AM

A new find for me, these compasses on Deck 10 above the Mickey pool
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0043-1.jpg

Are you waving at us in the reflection there?!? :thumbsup2 I love it!

Jennifer48

12-05-2007, 02:53 PM

Are you waving at us in the reflection there?!? :thumbsup2 I love it!

I am! Good catch ;) :goodvibes

Jennifer48

12-05-2007, 05:23 PM

We were hungry, again. The thought of free food just made our stomachs grow in size. So we headed back up to deck 9 and I got chicken fingers, of course, and I believe Dan got pizza. The pixie dust in the food told us to head back down and rebook our next cruise. How could we not? We looked over the brochure the night before. Since the 2009 dates were not out yet, we decided to book a dummy date in October for the Western Caribbean. Once the ’09 dates are out, we will reschedule. They put the deposit on my credit card and they even gave us our room number! We booked another category 9 and our room was closer to midship instead of aft where we were.
The sun was beginning to set so we made our way up to deck 10 to watch and take more pictures.

We headed back to our room to download our pictures to Dan’s laptop since our memory cards were getting full. As they were loading, I did some packing and we changed for dinner. We like bringing a laptop to do this. Not only can you format your memory card, but you can also look at all the pictures you have currently taken. :thumbsup2

Dinner tonight was in Parrot Cay and it would be another romantic dinner because all of our tablemates had Palo reservations so we had the whole table to ourselves. Well it was romantic until the little girl at the table next to us puked while sitting in her stroller. Mom was ready for it and had her throw up in a bag but then she made her sit there while everyone else ate dinner! The little girl was whining that she wanted to go lie down in bed so instead of one of the 7 adults at the table bringing the little girl back to the room, they took 2 of our empty chairs and made a little bed for her. :sad2: They laid her down and then Soumitra came by and put napkins over her as a blanket. It made me upset that they didn’t take her back to the room. Oh well.

They were taking professional photos out in the atrium lobby and I really wanted a picture in front of the Captain Mickey statue so we got in line.
We headed back to the room to change and take some meds. Neither of us felt very well but me especially. I don’t know if it was all the food I ate or the motion or both so I just loaded up on as much meds as I could because another night at Rockin’ Bar D was in our evening plans.

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2198.jpg

When we got to Rockin’ Bar D, the ventriloquist was still on so we sat outside the room in one of the porthole window seats. As we are sitting there I see a stroller with what I thought was just a doll in it. Now this is outside Rockin’ Bar D in the hallway. Then I see mom come out of the bar and check on the kid, apparently he was sleeping, and then she headed right back into the bar. I couldn’t believe it. She wasn’t even standing next to the stroller or even out in the hallway. She was INSIDE the bar area while her little child was sleeping in a stroller in the hall. Now I understand that if the kid was taken, they’d be able to find him, one would hope. But I could have easily just walked away with the stroller and no one would have known. I did feel like moving it to the other side of the hall just so mom could have a heart attack when she walked out and he wasn’t there, but I didn’t. I just took his picture instead to show everyone on the DIS :rolleyes1

Abandoned child
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2210.jpg

One Hit Wonders was the show when Rockin’ Bar D emptied out and we were to meet Glenn and Donna there. Well just as the rest of our week was going, we walked in from one side, they walked in from the other side and no joke, we literally met up in a table in the center without even seeing that the other was coming! :eek: Told you it was eerie. We watched a bit of the band High Frequency after the One Hit Wonders show and then we hit the hay around 1am. It was Castaway Cay tomorrow and we were so excited!!:woohoo:

Up next: KONK KOOLERS!

pierresgirl

12-05-2007, 07:01 PM

WTG on the rebook :dance3: I cannot believe someone left their kid outside of the bar like that! Crazy! That's a very cool compass pic, I love how your reflection shows up.

Hixski

12-05-2007, 09:24 PM

We still haven't figured out who was stalking who that week!!!!:rotfl2: We really did have some weird psychic connection or something.

scottishwee35

12-06-2007, 02:51 AM

Thursday, September 20th

Mickey and Minnie all dolled up[/I]
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0032.jpgBeautiful photo

We made our way outside and walked around and enjoyed the beautiful air.

A new find for me, these compasses on Deck 10 above the Mickey pool
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0043-1.jpgNever notice it so look it next time!!

My artistic side
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0049.jpg
Ah, it look so calm, beautiful photo

Scottishwee35:thumbsup2

scottishwee35

12-06-2007, 02:53 AM

WTG on the rebook :dance3: I cannot believe someone left their kid outside of the bar like that! Crazy! That's a very cool compass pic, I love how your reflection shows up.

Yes, terrible, she should take the kid to stateroom not leaving the kid outside of the bar!!:sad2:

If it was me, I take my kids back to room, if they are sick or tired. I cannot image that I leave the kids outside the disco or bar!!:sad2:

Scottishwee35

Kimberly815

12-06-2007, 08:42 AM

We were hungry, again. The thought of free food just made our stomachs grow in size.

Kind of like how the Grinch's heart grew three sizes because of the thought of the Who's in Whoville celebrating the spirit of Christmas?

(I don't know why, but that was the first thing I thought of when I read that!)

The pixie dust in the food told us to head back down and rebook our next cruise. How could we not? We looked over the brochure the night before. Since the 2009 dates were not out yet, we decided to book a dummy date in October for the Western Caribbean. Once the ’09 dates are out, we will reschedule. They put the deposit on my credit card and they even gave us our room number! We booked another category 9 and our room was closer to midship instead of aft where we were.

Very nice! Someday Joey and I will make it on a Disney Cruise.:rolleyes: If the fates ever align properly!

Then I see mom come out of the bar and check on the kid, apparently he was sleeping, and then she headed right back into the bar. I couldn’t believe it. She wasn’t even standing next to the stroller or even out in the hallway. She was INSIDE the bar area while her little child was sleeping in a stroller in the hall. Now I understand that if the kid was taken, they’d be able to find him, one would hope. But I could have easily just walked away with the stroller and no one would have known. I did feel like moving it to the other side of the hall just so mom could have a heart attack when she walked out and he wasn’t there, but I didn’t. I just took his picture instead to show everyone on the DIS :rolleyes1

This is just too weird. And just so irresponsible. I am very suprised that they would do this.

Jennifer48

12-06-2007, 08:51 AM

WTG on the rebook :dance3: I cannot believe someone left their kid outside of the bar like that! Crazy! That's a very cool compass pic, I love how your reflection shows up. Thanks! I'm actually going to try to push that dummy date out and book one of the new Eastern sailings to Tortola! :thumbsup2 :goodvibes

We still haven't figured out who was stalking who that week!!!!:rotfl2: We really did have some weird psychic connection or something. :rotfl: I secretly think you were stalking us. We are just that nice ;) :rotfl:

Kind of like how the Grinch's heart grew three sizes because of the thought of the Who's in Whoville celebrating the spirit of Christmas?

(I don't know why, but that was the first thing I thought of when I read that!) Kind of! Thats a good way to think of it.:laughing:

This is just too weird. And just so irresponsible. I am very suprised that they would do this. Isn't it?! I was so shocked when the woman came out to check on the kid because like I said, I thought it was just a doll in there! :eek:

Jennifer48

12-06-2007, 05:31 PM

Friday September 21

How does anyone sleep in on Castaway Cay day I’ll never understand. We set the TV alarm for 8am and we dragged our groggy bodies up and headed to Topsiders for breakfast since they weren’t letting anyone off the ship until after 9am. As we were eating they ok’ed it for everyone to disembark so we decided to wait until the mass of people were out as we finished up our breakfast and took some pictures. It was currently drizzling but we were optimistic that it would clear up for us.

Our first view of the Flying Dutchman!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0060.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0065.jpg

We walked out and took in the site of the Flying Dutchman. There was a small family walking behind us. Captain Jack Sparrow was standing in front of the Dutchman for photo ops. The father behind us says to his children, “look its pirate man!” The son says “that’s Captain Jack Sparrow” and dad’s like “oh yeah.” :lmao: Dan and I laughed the whole way to the tram. :rotfl:

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0069-1.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0071-1.jpg

We arrived on Serenity Bay around 10am. Glenn and Donna were already there and there were 2 available loungers right next to them so we plopped our stuff down and took it all in. Before we left, I purchased a water pack bag for my digital camera so I could take underwater pictures. I have to say it worked quite well but it took some adjusting to because it was difficult to zoom over the bag.

Underwater photos
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0078.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0079.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0082.jpg

I think I had 2 Konk Koolers before lunch rolled around :laughing: so needless to say I was in an even better mood even though I was in paradise with my boyfriend and new friends. :cloud9: We made our way over to lunch around 11:30a. This was a good time to go because most people don’t eat that early so by the time we were already seated and eating, the line just kept growing!

Since you have to wait to swim after eating, Dan and I had planned on heading back to the other side of the island to rent a water trike. Once we got there, we saw the FunCat! Those that don’t know, it’s basically a motorized chaise lounge that you power with a button that moves you in any direction. So us being lazy, we rented this instead of the exercise we’d have to endure with the bike! :rotfl2:

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0117.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0120.jpg

While we were out there we noticed the most peculiar fish. It was as if it was swimming on its side with one fin out of the water but boy could he move! He was so fast that we couldn’t catch up to him and I caught only one picture of him but its not that great.

Can you see the fishie?
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0131.jpg

Now when you rent one of these floats they tell you not to get off of it and if you get stuck, just wave your arms and one of the life guards will come out and get you. I looked over and saw a water trike that looked like it had been abandoned. There, in the water, was a woman and her son. I couldn’t believe it! I took her picture to prove what I saw. By the time I took it she was already trying to get back onto the trike but she was unsuccessful. Dan and I headed in that direction to help her but the life guard was already on her way over to speak to her.

Not listening!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0125.jpg

Our 30 minutes were almost up so we headed back to shore and back to Serenity Bay. As Dan and I headed back into the water, there was a young couple snorkeling a little further out than us when the woman yells out that there is a giant stingray! I threw the camera to Dan and he started taking some photos. There were so many cute yellow fish around and even some large starfish.

He was so big!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0096.jpg

Giant starfish! No I didn't censor Dan, thats a water droplet :rotfl:
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0112.jpg

Future office
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2273.jpg

I headed back in after an hour or so because I had stepped on a sharp rock and it really hurt the bottom of my foot, plus I wanted another Konk Kooler :goodvibes Dan stayed out and took more fishie photos and chatted with the snorkeling Glenn and Donna.

We left Serenity Bay around 3:30 so we could go do some shopping at She Sells. There was also a huge thunderstorm building that we thought was heading our way so we wanted to head back by the time it started raining. I bought some postcards and a t-shirt and we headed back towards the post office so I could mail my aunt a postcard and Dan mailed one to his son. Wouldn’t you know it? As soon as we walked out of the post office towards the Magic it began to rain! Did we time the right or what?! I had to point out our room of course because this was the only dock that I could!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2292.jpg

My hair was a rat’s nest of gel and sea salt so I showered and we both changed before heading up to deck 10 to watch Castaway Cay get further and further away. Such a sad sight. Donna and I got some pizza and beer and chowed while our men took photos.

Good-bye Castaway Cay! :sad1:
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2296.jpg

Storm
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2305.jpg

Up next: ‘Til We Meet Again

Kimberly815

12-07-2007, 11:24 AM

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0120.jpg

This is such a cute picture!

Giant starfish! No I didn't censor Dan, thats a water droplet :rotfl:
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_0112.jpg

WOW! That's awesome!

Jennifer48

12-07-2007, 02:05 PM

Packing is another sad part of ones vacation but to do it after you’ve left Castaway Cay is just plain torture! :sad: But, it had to be done so we did a majority of it now before dinner.

I took a picture of our Cruise Director Rachel on the TV
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2312.jpg

We finished early and changed so we headed up to the Promenade Lounge and you’ll never guess who was there? Glenn and Donna is the answer for those of you that haven’t followed the pattern yet. So we had drinks with them before heading to Lumiere’s for our final dinner. :sad1:

'Til We Meet Again Menu
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2318.jpg

The show that they put on here on the final night was fantastic. Of course it made you want to stay even longer! We gave our tip envelopes to Romeo, Soumi and Jeevan. We took pictures with them and of them before saying our goodbyes. I hugged everyone and I didn’t want to leave even though I knew I’d see them all at breakfast the next morning!

Our awesome tablemates
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2319.jpg

The bestest waitstaff EVER!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2323.jpg

Dan and I headed out to the atrium lobby to watch the Til We Meet Again show because I missed it on our previous cruise because I hadn’t finished packing yet. So I wanted to make sure I caught it this time. I’d rather not give too much away since I think it’s a fabulous farewell and just enough pixie dust to make you run and rebook! This show was a close second behind Wishes of Disney shows that make me cry. It was just awesome and I hope everyone that is able to go on a Disney cruise has the time to make this show. It’s so cute.

Pinocchio
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2326.jpg

Captain Mickey
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2327.jpg

Beautiful Belle
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2329.jpg

Cinderelly
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2330.jpg

Lion King CMs
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2331.jpg

Sailor Goofy
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2332.jpg

Natalie from the UK... another awesome CM!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2333.jpg

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2341.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2342.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2343.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2345.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2346.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2351.jpg

Back to our stateroom to change into comfy clothes and put our luggage out. We had plans to head to Diversions to catch the Red Sox game and have our final drink with Glenn and Donna but it was Pub Night. We accidentally ran into this show that the cast members put on on the final night and it was so funny! I hope you can catch this show also. Those cast members don’t get paid enough in my opinion so I make sure to tip everyone plenty because I have had nothing but above and beyond service on both of my Disney cruises now and I certainly hope that is going to continue. :goodvibes

Back to the report, after the show and our final beers, we again said goodbyes to Glenn and Donna and Dan and I did not want to call it a night yet so we headed up to deck 4 to watch the lightning. It was wicked cool to see in the distance just lighting up the sky while sitting on one of the comfy loungers. A great way to spend our final hours onboard. We did get a bit antsy so we headed up to deck 10 and just walked around in total silence. No kids playing basketball, no one standing up there at all. It was so peaceful. I think it was after midnight by the time we were back to our room for our final sleep on the Magic.

Up next: See Ya Real Soon!

Kimberly815

12-07-2007, 04:43 PM

I’d rather not give too much away since I think it’s a fabulous farewell and just enough pixie dust to make you run and rebook! This show was a close second behind Wishes of Disney shows that make me cry. It was just awesome and I hope everyone that is able to go on a Disney cruise has the time to make this show. It’s so cute.

Awww! It sounds great! And it has to be if it makes you cry! :goodvibes

Back to the report, after the show and our final beers, we again said goodbyes to Glenn and Donna and Dan and I did not want to call it a night yet so we headed up to deck 4 to watch the lightning. It was wicked cool to see in the distance just lighting up the sky while sitting on one of the comfy loungers. A great way to spend our final hours onboard. We did get a bit antsy so we headed up to deck 10 and just walked around in total silence. No kids playing basketball, no one standing up there at all. It was so peaceful. I think it was after midnight by the time we were back to our room for our final sleep on the Magic.

What a peaceful way to end the last night! It sounds perfect!:thumbsup2

scottishwee35

12-07-2007, 06:05 PM

Hi Jennifer

Oh I loved your trip story.

Hey, you and me have same mind as I got a menu which you had photo it!!

I will show you the photo of last day on the sea as it is ready but Need to put Naples, Rome etc. you will see it.

Anyway, love your photos and love one picture I thought wow what a beautiful photo of Storm.

I remember I saw you both at Castaway last year and also you ran to say goodbye on last day while my son was crying. I never forget it.

Scottishwee35

Hixski

12-07-2007, 10:08 PM

Our awesome tablemates
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2319.jpg

I am sad just looking at this picture. Our last night.:sad1:

Sad too that the lovely tan DH and I had is lonnnnng gone!!! :rotfl2:

We are the ones in the back of the photo. The old folks keeping the kids in line that week!!!;)

ReAnSt

12-08-2007, 01:22 AM

[

Our awesome tablemates
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2319.jpg

Good to see all of you.:thumbsup2 :thumbsup2 You all look great. I bet you had a great time with your table mates. I enjoyed getting to know all of you.

Jennifer48

12-12-2007, 03:06 PM

I will show you the photo of last day on the sea as it is ready but Need to put Naples, Rome etc. you will see it.

Anyway, love your photos and love one picture I thought wow what a beautiful photo of Storm.

I remember I saw you both at Castaway last year and also you ran to say goodbye on last day while my son was crying. I never forget it.

Scottishwee35

Can't wait to see your Naples and Rome photos! :thumbsup2
Thank you for your kind words about our photos. We love taking pictures. Too bad the DIS only allows for 25 per post! :rotfl:
I remember that too. It was so great meeting you. You were my first DISer meet and I will never forget that either! :hug:

I am sad just looking at this picture. Our last night.:sad1:

Sad too that the lovely tan DH and I had is lonnnnng gone!!! :rotfl2:

We are the ones in the back of the photo. The old folks keeping the kids in line that week!!!;)

I know. Its sad not being there :sad1:
Tan?! That looks like we are all fried to a crisp! :rotfl2:
Old folks that can drink us all under the table! :goodvibes

Jennifer48

12-12-2007, 05:34 PM

Breakfast was at 8:45a which we were very happy about since we hate getting up early not to mention on our last day. All of our tablemates made it to breakfast which was nice to say our goodbyes a second time. Lisa and Chris were heading home today. They missed their children and were excited to see them. Like Dan and I, Donna and Glenn had planned an extra day at Disney. After the crazy week we had bumping into them everywhere, we figured we’d be seeing them again at some point later today possibly at Downtown Disney which was in both of our plans. Again, we all hugged, said good bye and headed for the door.

Down to the basement of the terminal, we followed the signs to our blue Donald luggage holding area. Our luggage was easily spotted as it seemed the majority of the ship had already disembarked! :woohoo: By the way, Glenn and Donna had joined us in line. They found their luggage just as quick as we did! Through the customs agents and we were outtie. Do you remember at the beginning of my trippie when we arrived in Orlando and got stuck with the one non-Disney bus for ME? Well we get outside the terminal and check in to take Disney transportation over to Caribbean Beach. There are 4 DCL buses and we get stuck with the Mears 8-passenger van!!

We get in the van and there is an older couple already there and not 2 minutes in, they already started talking to us asking us where we were from and where we were going. Oh boy. I just wanted to travel in silence. Then a family of 4 gets in and the couple starts talking to them. The couple was from MI and the family was from CA and they all talked about their cruise experience. The weird part was they all talked and Dan and I were sitting in the bench between them so it was kind of awkward. We chimed in every now and then but for the most part we didn’t care for their conversation. Thankfully the ride was short and we were the first to be dropped off. We gather our belongings and head inside of CBR which was a madhouse! I couldn’t believe how crowded it was! Kids running around, luggage piled up in a corner, complete chaos. I found a small spot for Dan to stand with the luggage as I went to check us in. I get to the counter after waiting in line for about 10 minutes and she takes my name and all the normal stuff. She’s over there clicking away on her computer and she says “hold on a minute, I’ll be right back.” I’m thinking ‘oh man did my TA mess up and not book this hotel?’ I started freaking out right away. Moments later the friendly CM comes back and this is how the conversation goes:
CM: I’m sorry but the resort has been overbooked. We would like to move you over to the Saratoga Springs Resort if that’s ok.
Me: Say what?
CM: Yes your room has been overbooked and we would like to upgrade you to the Saratoga Springs Resort.
Me: Do I have to pay the difference?
CM: Oh no. It’s a complementary upgrade
Me: How do I get there?
CM: We will have a van come by and pick you and your party up with your luggage.
Me: A Mears van?
CM: Oh no one of the WDW resorts vans.
Me: Sounds good to me!

I head back towards Dan to tell him the news that they overbooked our room and we have no place to stay. You should have seen his face, classic! :rotfl: I told him the truth and we headed outside to wait on our van.

The CM driver was really nice and sweet….and short! So short that she couldn’t lift our luggage into the van so we had to do it ourselves. No biggie. Off we go to SSR and luckily we had gone here last Saturday to pick up other cruisers because the woman didn’t know where the entrance was! It was her first time over to that resort in the few years that she’s worked at WDW. I looked at Dan at one point and said “where did Glenn and Donna say they were staying?” His eyes got wide and he said “I do believe that they are staying at Saratoga Springs!” We both laughed uncontrollably at this point because we could not believe it was happening. But, we’ll see if we actually bump into them.

Up next: Have Glenn and Donna checked in yet??

Kimberly815

12-13-2007, 12:56 PM

Breakfast was at 8:45a which we were very happy about since we hate getting up early not to mention on our last day.

Is it difficult to make yourself get off the ship on the last morning? I think I would hate that part, especially if I had as good of a time as you guys did.

Jennifer48

12-13-2007, 01:09 PM

Is it difficult to make yourself get off the ship on the last morning? I think I would hate that part, especially if I had as good of a time as you guys did.

Its so sad knowing that you actually have to get off. You seriously start thinking of clever ways of stowing away!:rotfl:

Jennifer48

12-13-2007, 02:54 PM

We headed into the huge lobby in The Carriage House. It was beautiful. I headed over to the desk and explained my situation to the CM. I was assured by the CM at CBR that everything should be ok but she lied. My info wasn’t in the system yet at SSR so it took the CM about 15 minutes to enter everything in and confirm that this was a complementary, no charge, upgrade. My credit card was already stretching at the seams, I didn’t need anymore charges. So, I was patient and the CM thanked me for that because there were a few things she didn’t know how to do and had to get a superior to assist. No problemo. Once everything was hunky dorey, I asked her if she could look to see if friends had checked in yet. I had Glenn and Donna’s last name because Donna had given us her contact info to keep in touch in the future. CM said they hadn’t checked in yet.

Dan was chilling out on a nice round sofa when I walked over to him and let him know we were all set and that our friends hadn’t checked in yet. Before we left the lobby though, I wanted to verify that Magical Express would be picking us up and not heading over to CBR to wait for us. Things like that happen to me. So I headed over to the concierge woman and asked if she could look it up for me. She wasn’t sure exactly what to do so I gave her my ME confirmation number and told her that we got moved from CBR to SSR and we are scheduled to have ME pick us up on Sunday. She was a bit confused so I had to explain it 2 more times before the light bulb turned on and she called her handy dandy ME phone number. As I’m standing there waiting for my confirmation, I feel a strong arm around my shoulders. It startled me at first so I turned and there was Glenn! I laughed, he laughed, I looked over at Dan and Donna and they were laughing too. The odds of us running into each other this much is just unheard of. If Disney had a lottery on site I would have played it with as much money that was in my pocket because they were in my favor to win and win big. Here’s more insanity, we were in the same building! Yes, we were both booked for The Springs. There are 5 different sections and each section as approximately 3 buildings and we were totally booked in the same building, one floor apart. Unreal. Anyone else think that Dan and I were supposed to meet these people? Thankfully we like them otherwise it would have gotten really annoying really quickly! :lmao:

They had a rental car so we piled in and headed over to our home for one night. We headed our separate ways and bid adieu, again, and said that we’d probably see them later today at Downtown Disney. But will we? Find out next time!

Heres some photos of our room
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2360.jpg

We weren't used to this level of comfort. This is like staying in a 5 star hotel!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2362.jpg

Little sitting area
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2363.jpg

View from our veranda
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2366.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2367.jpg

Comfy bed!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2368.jpg

Armore
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2369.jpg

kitchenette
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2370.jpg

Hidden Mickey in the bathroom!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2372.jpg

Up next: Hoop Dee La!

Hixski

12-13-2007, 07:37 PM

Awwww....gee thanks!!!!! We like you guys too!!:goodvibes

Funny the pictures from your veranda look almost exactly like ours!!!:rotfl2:

Kimberly815

12-14-2007, 09:38 AM

I headed over to the desk and explained my situation to the CM. I was assured by the CM at CBR that everything should be ok but she lied. My info wasn’t in the system yet at SSR so it took the CM about 15 minutes to enter everything in and confirm that this was a complementary, no charge, upgrade. My credit card was already stretching at the seams, I didn’t need anymore charges.

Before we left the lobby though, I wanted to verify that Magical Express would be picking us up and not heading over to CBR to wait for us. Things like that happen to me. So I headed over to the concierge woman and asked if she could look it up for me. She wasn’t sure exactly what to do so I gave her my ME confirmation number and told her that we got moved from CBR to SSR and we are scheduled to have ME pick us up on Sunday. She was a bit confused so I had to explain it 2 more times before the light bulb turned on and she called her handy dandy ME phone number.

Kind of annoying with all the confusion moving resorts. But good thinking on your part about the ME pickup- that would have been much more annoying the next morning! At least you got a sweet upgrade with it! That was one nice room!

Jennifer48

12-19-2007, 02:58 PM

Our room at SSR was beautiful! There was just so much room compared to the value resorts I was used to staying in! We unpacked again and I turned my phone on to hear one missed voicemail from Kim. They had landed already at MCO and were getting ready to eat lunch. Dan and I were starving so we decided to hike it over to Downtown Disney for some grub ourselves. I called Kim back and left her a voicemail that that’s where we’d be.

Once we were outside, we realized that we were too tired to walk to DTD plus being new to the resort we didn’t know where the path was so we decided just to pick up a bus. Probably would have been quicker to walk! We stopped at every bus depot at SSR before finally heading over. Not to
mention, the drop off at Marketplace was being refurbed so we got kicked off at Pleasure Island and we had to walk. Oh well.

Earl of Sandwich was on our radar for lunch. We walked in and it was wicked packed! Our stomachs rumbled so we decided to find something else to eat. Since we were going to the Hoop Dee Doo tonight, we didn’t want to eat too much and spoil our dinner. When we first made our reservations for the Hoop De Doo, I informed Dan about it and every time after that he referred to it as the Hoop De La! :rotfl2:

Here’s a shocker, I’ve never eaten a Mickey bar. :eek: GASP! Yes I have no idea why but I haven’t so we decided to each eat one for lunch. Dan had never eaten one either so it was a fun first time for both of us.

We headed into the World of Disney store next in hopes of picking up some new postcards for me but no luck, I had them all so we made our way over to the pin station. I certainly didn’t have all of those! I like to buy pins that mean something so I’ve been trying to get the resorts I’ve stayed at and any special shows. So this trip I purchased a SSR one and a Hoop Dee Doo Revue one. They didn’t have a Caribbean Beach one! At least not one that I could find at CBR, WoD, or the pin station. :confused3

I missed another call from Kim so I called her back and left her another voicemail. Apparently our phones don’t work well at DTD! I let her know where we would be so we could meet up. We sat outside of Ghirardelli’s Chocolate Shop. That was a mistake. Imagine being hungry and seeing people walking out with these massive sundaes. Painful! Finally we saw Kim, her husband Joe and Kim’s sister Jen walking by so I flagged them down. She didn’t get my last message, good thing we were watching for them! We filled them in on our cruise and they filled us in with the current events back home.

Well, our prediction was right. Guess who showed up? MICKEY MOUSE! ::MickeyMo :laughing: of course I’m kidding and you are correct. It was Glenn and Donna! I can’t remember if they were on their way to Raglan Road for dinner or had just left there for lunch. Either way, we saw them, again. Anyone else singing “It’s a Small World?!” :rolleyes1

Without much further ado, we headed to Fort Wilderness for our Hoop Dee Do ressies. I was so excited to see this show and none of us have seen it before. Another first!

I think we only got lost once on our way to Fort Wilderness but that’s why we made sure to leave early to allow extra time. Upon arriving, we had to park about 4 miles away from Pioneer Hall where the Hoop Dee Doo revue is. So we hopped on a bus over. It was actually a confusing bus system and we weren’t sure which color went where. We obviously figured it out and jumped on the next available bus. We were about 45 minutes early I believe so we headed over to the Settlement Trading Post to see if we could find any good souvenirs. I bought another pin. A little advice to my readers, all 4 of you, don’t get involved in pin purchasing/trading. It’s horribly addictive and you have no control over yourself whenever you find a pin you like!

Kim checked us all in and we hopped in line since there was not much time to venture out and round. Someday I would like to stay and camp there. The cabins looked cozy too.

http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2386.jpg

Aunt Bee came out and had a volunteer ring the triangle to call us all to dinner. We were seated in the category 1 section because we booked a little late and that’s all that was available. We ended up about 2 tables from the stage. The food was deeeeeeeeeeeeeelicous! All you can eat family style with Ma's delicious fried chicken, smoked barbecued pork ribs, mashed potatoes, country style baked beans and corn bread. Mmmmmm the corn bread! I wish I took pictures of the food. I think Joe did. Maybe he’ll post some here.

The view from our table
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2388.jpg

The show began and we all loved it! It was so fun. For those that love corny jokes and puns, this is the show for you. I’m so glad I got to see it once and for all. At the end, our waitress brought out a washboard for me to play along!

Jammin' on the washboard!
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z172/jmoisan80/Disney%20Cruise/IMG_2389.jpg

After the show, we were all pretty tired from getting up so early so we decided to head back home. They dropped us off at SSR and they came to see our awesome room and we had bottles of water left over from the cruise that we never drank so we gave them to them for their week at WDW. My cold was getting to me so I took some medicine; we put the Red Sox game on and fell asleep.

Up next: Now its time to say goodbye….

Jennifer48

12-20-2007, 05:21 PM

Sunday September 23rd

We had set the alarm for 8am because we had to catch our Magical Express bus at the Carriage House at 10:30am. All the non-fun stuff occurred, you know, showering, packing, saying good byes to everything around you and making sure you grabbed all the free items ;-) Unfortunately Glenn and Donna were no where to be found so we had to walk over to the Carriage House with our luggage. Just as we arrived, there was an ME bus loading passengers on so we hopped on as well.

At MCO, we checked in and ate a pathetic lunch at McDonalds and then sat by our gate for boarding. I checked my work email and basically just deleted all nonessential spam and checked the DIS! To my surprise, some of my fellow Mickey’s Magical Gang friends had already posted that they were home. Actually I wasn’t really surprised because here I was in the airport terminal checking the DIS so who am I kidding?

They began boarding at 1:15 for our 1:30 flight. We flew JetBlue and the only thing that I kept thinking about were those horror stories of passengers having to sit in the plane for hours because of delays and how the toilets were all backed up. I quickly erased that from my mind and sat down. I took out my notebook to take notes as we were taxiing out when we stopped. The pilot came over the loudspeaker and said that we had been delayed due to a thunderstorm nearby. Sure enough, it got extremely dark and the skies just opened up and it poured. A normal afternoon thunderstorm in good ole Orlando. Thankfully it was relatively quick and we had only been delayed for 1.5 hours. I had booked this flight in the early afternoon so we could get home at a reasonable hour to settle in and unpack before worrying about dreadful w-o-r-k the next day. It’s a 3 hour flight to Boston, then we have to get our luggage, then we had to wait for the Logan Express shuttle to take us to our lot then from there we had to drive home. Needless to say, we were home around 8-8:30 which didn’t leave us much time to relax and share vacation stories with my parents. Plus Dan had to do laundry because he had nothing to wear to w-o-r-k the next day! Ah the fun times from returning from the best vacation ever. And it really was.

Thanks for reading!