Disneyzell magical christmas cruise 2008-4/7/11:TR from my 8 year old pg 9 COMPLETED! [Archive] - The DIS Discussion Forums

DisneyZell

12-08-2008, 05:51 PM

Hi everyone! So we are 12 days from sailing and DW told me that if I'm going to do a pre-trip report I better do it before actually sailing. Go figure! As I love to bore everyone with my adventures I figure we may as well start now!

Soooo, without further ado, here are my cast of crazy people...er I mean characters. We are, once again, travelling with our neighbors so they are part of the cast!

DH - That's me, Andrew. Because we are lazy and refuse to come up with a separate log-in, DW posts all the time under Disneyzell, so it's hard to tell who is who. Here is a tip: if there is something useful posted....that's DW. If you are bored out of your mind...that would be me! :thumbsup2

DW - My lovely bride, Deanna. She is the all-knowing planner. I'm pretty sure she spends 28 hours a day on the DIS answering and asking questions and hooking up with all those people who are going on our cruise (hooking up in the strictly non-prostitute meaning of the word).

DS10 - Our son Nick, he is fired up to go on his 3rd :scared1: cruise. holy cow we have given alot of our money to Disney. He is currently in 5th grade and recently made high honors at school! :banana: Thank the lord he got DW's brains. He also just finished up football where his team won the state of New Hampshire :dance3: . I was a coach. Yet we still won. Crazy. Thankfully he got his mother's athletic ability as well! :laughing:

DS6 - Our son Connor. He is also excited for cruise #3. The first one he was just a baby, Flounders for him (booooooring, wait, did I say that out loud???:blush: He also just finished football...yes, he is 6 playing tackle football. and yes, Child Protective Services has considered visiting our house. Now, if your lucky we will post a picture of him in his uniform and bore you even more....

Now our neighbors.

DNH - Mike. Mike is the man with all the tools. He is always around to help and has saved me from myself on multiple occassions. We have lived accross the street from them for 4.5 years and have somehow managed to remain friends. they did, however, put up a fence. Hmmmmm, but that is a story for another time!

DNW - Kim is the better half of that relationship (don't go there). She is an avid runner, even in the cold of winter (did I tell you we are from New Hampshire?). 6-7-8 miles are no problem for her. I would join her on those runs, but I'm a much better :cheer2: and just wave as I drive by and splash her. DW tried to run her off the road one day. She claims is was an accident as she came around the corner...but maybe she is jealous about how much Kim exercises? :rolleyes1

DNS12 - Chris. To be honest, not entirely sure if he is 12. Luckily I can correct this if he isn't. And I'll erase this note anyway, so you won't have any idea that I'm not always the smartest guy in the world. Or just don't pay attention. or all three. both, whatever.

DND8 - Kathryn. Same thing here on the age. I suck at this. I'm sure your asking yourself why DW isn't writing this. She is much better at the facts. Funny, I asked the same thing. Yet here I am. Kathryn is our resident soccer player and noter of all things that you might not have thought about. She will ask you questions you didn't even know should be asked. And naturally they are things, as an adult, you should know. Guess what? yup, I have no idea of the answers on those. DOH!:faint:

So that's it, although both families have dogs which will play a role later because they have to go somewhere while we are on a trip.

DDOG (Disney Dog???) - ours is Harley. He is just over a year old and is a Maltese. so, do you think of Maltese dogs as lap dogs? we did to. We are pretty sure he has ADD. We've considered drugs.

DNDOG (Disney Neighbor Dog?) - Theirs is Mulan (yup, named after that disney character). She is a Tibetan Terrier. She's a great dog, but a bit of an old biddy, and is the dog that keeps all the other dogs in their place in the neighborhood.

We head down to Orlando on the 17th, several days in advance!

More later on our preparations! :santa:

DisneyZell

12-08-2008, 07:27 PM

Yes, it is DW here and DNS Chris is 11 not 12. I don't know how many times I have to correct DH on this one. But, not only did he manage to get DND Kathryn's age right, he got the spelling right as well. That is another one he usually gets wrong. But he tries...I'll give him that. We cannot wait to get down to Orlando...DH is in Atlanta right now, but he left us behind and at the bus stop this morning, with wind chill it was -5 degrees:eek: New Hampshire sure was not my choice of states to live it! Hopefully we won't bore you too much and will enjoy our report.

DisneyZell

12-15-2008, 12:32 PM

Today is December 15th. We leave in two days for Orlando where we will spend several glorious days at Disney's All Star Resort! Woohoo!:thumbsup2

However....

our adventure really started last thursday night. We live in New Hampshire and as some of you may know we had an ice storm...but let me set this up for you...

My two boys play tackle football. Thursday night was the celebration for the end of the year where we go to a place called Chunky's which is a movie theater/restaurant (yeah, very, very cool!) to eat dinner and watch their highlight video on the big screen. We knew that we had freezing rain coming our way but were hoping it would hold off. It did. :banana: :banana: :banana:

On the way home it had started raining. For those of you who don't know what freezing rain is (as I didn't until two years ago), it's basically where up in the sky it is too warm to freeze the water and turn it to snow...but on the ground it is below or at freezing. So when the rain comes down it freezes. It attaches itself to everything, by the time we got home and I let the dog out, our basketball hoop was frozen solid. Overnight everything had about 1/4 inch of ice on it. By the way, tree's after freezing rain are beautiful, they shine in the sun...very nice! but I digress.

Two years ago when we had freezing rain we lost power for a day and a half. I remarked to DW when we got home that I was surprised power had not gone out yet. We got home just before 9pm. At 9pm the power went out.

We put the kids to bed and were doing the same when the power came back on...(dang it! think of thing things you can do in the dark with nothing else to do....:rolleyes1 )

We watched TV for a bit and then crashed. At some point during the night the power went out again. Um, that was Thursday night (for those of you not following along very well, today is Monday). The initial estimate was 2-3 days to restore power.

So a little power outage never hurt anyone, right? Well, there is a kicker to the whole thing, my Dad was coming in on his way back from a visit with my sister in Germany and was due in Friday night at 6pm, and staying until Tuesday afternoon.

So, let me recap...We lost power Thursday, due to be out 2-3 days and we have grandpa coming in for the weekend. That has interesting written all over it.

So I got ahold of his wife and left him messages on his cell to call me when he landed in Dulles airport. He landed late, and didn't make his original connection. We chatted and he decided to go ahead and come because he had not seen the kids in a while, which is cool. His reschedule plane was due to land at the Boston Airport (about 45 minutes from me) at 11:30pm :scared1: :scared1:

Now, luckily for us, we have nice neighbors. In fact they happen to be DNH and DNW who are going on the cruise with us. :worship: :worship: and they agreed to take us in, granpa and all. whew! They have one of those standby generators so they had everything except cable.

How many of you have gone 3 days without cable and internet? I have not done that in a while. It's amazing how out of touch you feel. No idea what was going on with the world, and missing all my shows! And on top of that, the last episode of this Survivor season was Sunday night. we didn't even get to see the prior Thursday's episode because we were out (Thank god for DVR's), so we were behind. What can we do! AND, the Patriots were on. Oh bother. So we went to a bar to watch the patriots, and then bought rabbit ears (Woohoo! it's not February yet, so rabit ears still work!) and watched fuzzy Survivor. Crises avoided. But I digress.

Sorry about that, but if you are going to read that you will just have to put up with it.

So it is Monday, we still don't have power and they are saying it might be next Saturday before we get it. Well, we will be on the cruise then!:yay: and hopefully our houses will survive the electricity coming back on!

One more thing before I sign off today...My dad appears to have the flu. :crazy2:

You ever have the feeling that hopefully things get better from here???

Hope I didn't bore you too much. There is a slight chance we might be able to go live from the Magic. :)

Next up: no idea because I don't know if I'll have power!!!

nzdisneymom

12-15-2008, 01:01 PM

Whew - I just saw your post on the DIS Meet Thread -- ay yi yi about the power outage -- you can definitely say this will be an adventure! And just think, it won't be long til you're in WDW and then on the ship - that's THIS WEEK! See you all soon!

DisneyZell

12-16-2008, 09:25 PM

We woke up this morning to electricity! Glorious, wonderful electricity. Who would have thunk it? The Sailing Shamu's were more than happy to get rid of us (of course we will be in close quarters when we have adjoining rooms anyway! :lmao: ).

Actually it was incredible to have such good friends as someone willing to take us in for 4 nights. It was better than a bed and breakfast! Thanks Sailing Shamu's!

So tomorrow we are off, flying down to Disney for a couple days before we hit the ship. I can't believe it's already here! sorry for this sad excuse for a pre-trip report...but I blame the electricity! really! Hopefully this whole thing will get better??

maybe, just maybe we might go live on this trip. time will tell. Until next time! go make someone's day!

nzdisneymom

12-17-2008, 09:44 PM

Yay for electricity. Yay for leaving for WDW. Yay for Saturday being just two sleeps away! Yay for great friends. Yay for new friends! Yay for DISBoards! See you soon.

strega7

12-28-2008, 12:02 AM

Hi DisneyZell, while searching for our stateroom number, it come up that you had ours that we will have in Feb. Then I noticed you started a pre trippie report. How was that location...did you feel a lot of the ocean? And, If you have any pics, I would love to see my upcoming room :love: . Welcome back, I can't wait to read your trip report. marci

DisneyZell

12-29-2008, 10:13 AM

it was a great room, and assuming they don't change hosts, P is a GREAT host..the best we have had so far.

I'll be starting my trip report either today or tomorrow, so look for it! sorry I didn't go live...just too much going on...ok, maybe a bit of relaxing too! :thumbsup2

Bytor01

01-01-2009, 02:17 PM

DisneyZell

01-02-2009, 09:48 AM

OK, it took forever and a day for me to sort through my pictures and get ready to post (alot longer than I thought it would!), so that added a few days, and, well, I've been distracted. what can I say, but you get what you pay for! :thumbsup2

So when last I left off, we had just gotten our electricity back :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: . You have no idea what it's like to not have electricity. Even just the every day sounds are different. Your house really makes more noises than you would think...and when there is no electricity it is complete and total silence and darkness. This is very cool when trying to sleep, but when the temperature of your house drops down to 30 degrees you start to worry. We turned off the water main and ran all the water out so that nothing would freeze, but still it was scary! :scared1:

But I guess I don't need to bore you with that. As I had mentioned, my dad was here during the outage and had the flu (or something). I took him to the airport Tuesday morning to sent him home to Oregon. Naturally I managed to pick up whatever he had, and could barely talk. I felt like half my lung was full of water, and each time I woudl cough, the other half would come up. lovely! Today is January 2, 2009 (happy new year everyone!), and I still have the cough. I also managed to have what I call Mickey's Revenge, but more on that later!:sick:

Back to the story...

We woke up on Wednesday, December 17th...it was time to go to Orlando! Naturally overnight it had started to snow...it was like New England wanted to grab us with it's icy glove and not let go! but we managed to get packed up and jam ourselves into our neighbor's minivan (yeah, we do sponge off our neighbors alot apparently, and these are different neighbors than the ones we dragged with us on the cruise. I recommend it). She drove us to the bus stop and we waited for our fellow cruising neighbors to arrive. Time ticked by and DW finally called to see where they were...they were just leaving, no way they would make the bus stop where we were...but they could make the next stop. Whew! :car: time to board the Boston Express, this was quickly turning into an episode of Trains, planes and automobiles.

In the interest of good (mediocre?) story telling I'd love to say that the bus ride was terrible full of white knuckle moments, car crashes and drama. But the only drama we got was from DNW (Kim) who kept having a whole bunch of Holy Crap :scared1: moments. She thought she had left her Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party tickets at home and spent time frantically searching and finally calling another neighbor (see, we aren't the only ones who sponge off of our neighbors) to go see if they were on the table. Luckily she had them, so no real crisis involved there!

We got to the airport no problem and went to check in. We were flying Airtran airways. Have any of you flown on them? They love to get out the measuring tape to ensure your bag is the correct size and shape to go on the plane. I've travelled alot but have never seen anything like that before. But we got Santa Clause :santa: who grabbed our bags and threw them on the belt without a second look. Our neighbors, however, were not so lucky and failed the weight test and had to do the luggage shuffle. Ah, the wonders of travel.

Can someone explain to me why they can't let a pound or two go? I understand the overweight bag thing (they need to limit the weight on the plane, and thus far real people are moving the bags on and off the planes (why they haven't come up with robots for this I'm not sure. The way these guys toss the luggage around they may as well let machines squish everything!). But if your bags are 51 pounds, does it really make that big of a difference? is the money that important??? I fly US Scare alot, and they charge $2 for a coke. what is this world coming to??). But I digress.

And now, wait for it...the first picture of the trip report!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0003.jpg

Everyone is hard at work in the airport doing Soduku. Notice you don't see me in this picture (well you don't know what I look like, but trust me, I'm not there).

Our flight was uneventful, we travelled through Atlanta and sit and wait for a bit, I continued to cough (sorry to everyone on the plane), and DS6 (Connor) had to have M&M's. Breakfast (or evening snack) of champions! I actually like Airtran, the people are nice and the seats are generally pretty comfy. and if you don't get a luggage Nazi you can have a pretty good experience.

We landed on time and made our way to Disney's Magical Express. DNH (Mike) had the best comment of the trip when he pointed out that if it was truely magical we wouldn't have to ride on a bus! I've been on the "Express" before and had to wait forever for us to leave the airport. I believe this is one area where Disney could improve. You have a bunch of kids on a bus with no entertainment of any kind...makes for a bad start to the trip if you ask me! But again I digress (I will stop being negative shortly...really. I will. I promise). We were finally off and driving. The driver was pretty funny, throwing out some trivia before the "movie" started. That was entertaining. Then the movie started.

*warning* *warning* more negativity coming...

the last time I rode the magical express they showed cartoons the whole way. Apparently Disney realized they were missing an opportunity with a captive audience and it has now become a non-stop commercial. I'm a marketing major, so certainly understand why you would want to do this, but couldn't you mix in one or two cartoons as well??? I mean...the kids don't want to see that stuff. Really they don't.

Ahem. back to the story.

DW had booked us at the All Star Sports resort. I had no idea what that was going to be like, but was excited to stay on-property which we have never done. We arrived around 10. The outside of the resort is very cool, and very well thought out in the theme of the hotel. This is pretty impressive. The lobby is very bright and inviting. We stood in line for a bit and get checked in and got that first of two allmighty key to the world cards! woohoo! I'm pretty sure whoever designed Las Vegas with the chips also worked at Disney. It's not like spending money...it's all free! except when you check out.

We were all hungry so figured we would stop by the food court before we were heading to our rooms (our luggage was not there anyway, those of you who have not done it, one of the perks of the magical express is that you put these luggage tags on your bags and Disney picks them up and delivers them to your room within 2 hours of your arriving at the resort. this is a nice little touch except...well, I'll get to that). The food court was basically a giant cafeteria with several stations. I got Pizza, DW, DS10, and DS6 all got cheeseburgers. We also splurged and got refillable mugs for soda. I want to say it was about $14 for each mug (we bought 2), but we know how much soda we drink so we figured it would pay for itself. What I didnt' realize is that the mug only holds a shot of soda. Another interesting Disney trick.

OK, so before I go on, let me say that I'm a HUGE disney fan. I know it doesn't seem like it based on what you are reading above. There are things that bug the heck out of me, and you, lucky reader, get to hear about it!. Again, I realize WHY they do some of this stuff, but it still annoys me! :thumbsup2

Time to go to the rooms! We were in the Baseball section of the hotel (the boys were bummed, they really wanted to be in Football). We walked through football on the way and again I was floored by the details of the resort. There will be pictures a bit later (it was nighttime so I want to try to keep things in order a little bit). Then we got to baseball and there was a pool in the middle of our portion of the hotel shaped like a baseball diamond with Goofy on the pitching mound shooting a cannon toward home plate (there was a fountain of water coming out). Again, a very neat design.

Then we got to the rooms. Have you ever sat next to that person on the plane that decided to use too much perfume or cologne? That was the experience when we walked into the room. Whoa! Not sure what they sprayed in there (or what they needed to cover up :headache: ), but it was pretty gross. Now, keep in mind that I am a hotel snob. I travel 80-100 nights per year, so I'm pretty picky. This room was only a slight step above a motel 6. Pictures:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0005.jpg Connor and the Mickey Shaped towel (let the towel animals commence!)

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0006.jpg The room (that good looking guy standing up in striped is me. No, I'm not just out of jail, I really like that shirt!)

Alas, but it is only a place to sleep. I always hear people say things like "you won't spend much time in the room anyway". I guess this was Disney's way to make sure that was the case! Get out there and spend! Ahem.

So by midnight (2 hours after we had arrived), we were looking for our luggage and really wanting to go to bed. I called and was told that it just arrived and they would expedite it over to our room. True to form it arrived 15 minutes later. Let vacation Begin!!!

Hope I'm not boring you too much...

next up: Day 2 Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party!

DisneyZell

01-02-2009, 09:51 AM

Still waiting for the TR...

Sorry! Life got in the way. chapter 1 is up for you to review! :thumbsup2

DisneyZell

01-02-2009, 10:56 AM

Today I'm running a two for one special. If I don't get another chapter out it might be a while until the next one!!

Sleep wasn't the best on the first night in the All Star Sports resort. I was still dealing with fluid filled lungs, first night in a strange bed, too hot, too cold, brain pondering all the things to come, ah the joys of vacation, and the exact reason we came several days before the cruise so we could wind down toward our actual vacation! :cool1:

We got up around 8:30, cruised over to the food court, grabbed some muffins, etc. to eat, it didn't cost us anything, just the swipe of the magical card (cha-ching) a quick fill up of a shot of soda in our refillable mugs (I'd like to see the mugs that aren't refillable. is that sort of like those movies that you can watch for 48 hours and then the disc destroys itself? Caution, this mug will self-destruct in 10 minutes. But again I digress.

Then it was time to hit the pool. As I mentioned the pool was cool (yes I love to rhyme). The kids had a great time playing around, climbing on Goofy (which of course they were not supposed to do), and naturally collapsing and becoming bathing beauties.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0007.jpg DS10 Nick (Left), and DNS 11 Chris (right) collapse by the pool.

DS6, from the moment we walked in, was far more interested in the giant football helmets, drink cups, and footballs that were used to hide the staircases at the hotel. Again, a very cool design. He bugged me for 10 minutes before I finally let him wander up the stairwell and into the giant cup. You know how when kids are younger and they actually play with the box more than the toy that you bought? Same concept here. DS6 could have wandered inside the giant cup for hours.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0009.jpg That's him, that spec right next to the cup.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0013.jpg And here are DS6 (Connor) and DND8 (Kathryn) in a bit tighter shot.

Then it was time to wander the resort a bit and take some pictures.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0015.jpg The Giant Football helmets. Our kids are there. Really.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0016.jpg See, I told you!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0020.jpg The football field in the middle of the football portion of the hotel was a big hit, and later in the trip a football game took place there with the kids running around. The "field" was a rubberized field...again, very cool.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0045.jpg At the entrace to the resort.

So, tired of not spending money (except those magical cards), DNW (Kim) had discovered that we were not far from McDonalds. Woohoo! So we saddled up and headed over there for lunch figuring we would save a few dollars for the adventure at the Magic Kingdom. The picture above was taken as we walked over. I also discovered that McDonalds had their own version of the refillable mug, it was called a cup and only cost $1.50. Amazing. Needless to say I used my refillable mug (er...cup) over and over in our short stay at McDonalds even though it held more than a shot of soda. It's a wonder that McDonalds stays in business :rolleyes1

After that it was back to the resort for a bit to get ready to go to....wait for it...

:cheer2: Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party :cheer2:

We were all very excited for this event and the opportunity to hang out in one of the parks. We love Magic Kingdom. Prior to this we had done Mickey's Halloween party (October 2006 before our last cruise!), and the Pirates and Princesses party (February 2008) during the February break for our kids, so we were well versed in the parties and knew we could go in at 4pm even though the even didn't start until 7. or was it 6? I'm sure DW will correct me if I'm wrong (she is much better at that stuff anyway).

OH! before I forget, big props go to DW. She wrote everything down in a handy dandy journal type thingy which I am liberally "repurposing" for my own use, so I figure I'd give her credit. Thanks Baby-Cakes! :love:

We saddled up at 2:30, figuring that we would end up on the slow boat to china (or in this case the slow motor coach to the magic kingdom) given that we were at a value resort. We got to the waiting area and only had to wait about 5 minutes for the bus to show up, and for some reason we didn't make any stops at all on the way to MK. We arrived at 3pm. Harumph. That's way to early.

Hoping for some pixie dust :tinker: we figured we would try anyway. REJECTED! naturally we played dumb :rolleyes1 OH, we can't go in yet? darn! the CM very nicely told us we could go ride the monorail to pass the time...an excellent idea! so we scooted over to the monorail. We asked about riding up front (something we have never done, but heard you could do!), and we waiting way up in front. Unfortunately when the Monorail arrived only 4 could go up there. We did what any self-respecting parent would do and we packed all our kids in the front while we went into the next car! Yeah! they loved it and even got a pilots license for their efforts. Very cool, I recommend it if you get the chance.

We rode over to the transportation center and got off. We still had some serious time to kill. To list off what we had ridden so far: Minivan (to the bus station), Bus (to the airport), Airplane (from Boston to Atlanta and Atlanta to Orlando), Train (from the terminal to baggage claim in orlando), Bus (to All Star Sports), Bus (to MK), Monorail (from MK to the transportation center), what was missing??? AH! Boat! We hopped on the Ferry, jumped to the top deck and rode. Very cool. I had never done this before (I don't think), and it's very relaxing.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0048.jpg Kathryn (left), Chris, Nick and Connor on the Ferry with MK in the background)

We still had more time to kill when we arrived, so we just stayed on the boat. We went back and forth 3 times, relaxing and just taking in the sights and watching people (holy cow the people watching is fantastic at Disney!). Finally it was time to go in!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0053.jpg The kids in front of the Christmas Party sign

We slid our tickets into the readers like pro's, waited patiently for the fancy Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party bracelets to go around our Wrists and off into the park.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0060.jpg Our family on Main Street, USA

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0063.jpg DW and the boys in front of the giant tree.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0067.jpg Us and our Neighbors at a photo spot

So one thing we did bring with us this year was our Nikon D50. We bought this Digital SLR camera after the Cruise in 2006 because we loved the pictures and were tired of waiting and waiting and waiting for pictures to take on the smaller cameras. One tip if you do this, the CM's in the park who take photo's will gladly take one with your camera which will save you a ton of money, and they do a great job. But I digress.

part 2 coming right up (I used too many pictures!)

DisneyZell

01-02-2009, 10:57 AM

Part 2
We still had 3 hours to kill until the party officially started, so we hit the rides. Pirates was first, and as usual one of the best. I don't know what it is about this ride, but it is just fantastic.

We then grabbed fast passes for Splash mountain and ran off to Big Thunder Mountain for our first roller coaster ride of the day. After that ride we discovered something wonderful. You can buy popcorn with the magical card! Apparently at some point in the past Disney added the ability to pay with your Key to the World card to it's carts. Woohoo! free popcorn! Disney just keeps giving and giving :woohoo: .

Back to splash mountain to ride. I have to be honest, I'm not normally a big fan of splash mountain or any log rides. I have issues when I'm not seat-belted in riding down a 5 story drop. Not sure why that it...it's a sickness I guess. But I discovered if you throw your arms up and scream at the top of your lungs on the way down it is much better! :scared1: Go figure!

We grabbed dinner at Cosmic Ray's and discovered another little known Disney bonus...the cheese sauce! over by the topping bar there is a little nozzle where you can get cheese sauce. All you want! What better thing to have than cheese fries in the park. Sad, isn't it, that I get so excited by the little yummy things. :worship:

Finally the party started, and things got even better because the crowds thinned out. The weather was beautiful (especially given that it had snowed 9 inches overnight back in new Hampshire) and we were ready to have a great time. We hit the Laugh Floor (which is fantastic and not to be missed if you ever go to MK). For those of you who have never done it I won't ruin it, but let's just say that each show us unique which makes it very, very fun). We also went on Space Mountain for the first of 3 times (each kid HAD to ride in the front car),

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0077.jpg Everyone else on Space Mountain

and finally Buzz Lightyear would round out our visit to Tomorrow land.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0070.jpg Deanna and Kim

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0071.jpg Mike and Kathryn

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0072.jpg Nick and Chris

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0074.jpg Connor and Me

Buzz was an adventure, it kept breaking down as we were getting going. a CM wandered out onto the ride at one point, then came back and they tried to reset it. She had to reset it maybe 6 times to finally get it going. Pretty funny, too, that she had to say the same thing EVERY time she reset the ride. Oh for the love of scripts! The last time we got stuck Connor and I were able to shoot and score, so I was naturally running up my score so that I could win. MUHAHAHAHA :darth: All a part of my diabolical plan. Finally we got going and we successfully defended the earth against Zurg.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0076.jpg But they put the kids in jail because they wouldn't behave!

It was nighttime now and the castle was lit up. Holy cow...what an amazing sight. I'm a big christmas light guy, and I HAVE to figure out what kind of lights they use on the castle, the whole thing was lit up. maybe fiber optics? not really sure, but it was incredible!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0078.jpg The Castle

the benefit of Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party wasn't just the lack of crowds, but it was also free cocoa (or apple juice) and cookies! We only took advantage of this once, however...

The rest of the night was spent doing rides and shows (mickey's philharmagic), and of course watching Holiday Wishes, the fireworks show.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0097.jpg fireworks light up the night

We were headed out when we bumped into the show at the end of the night (not sure what this one was called), so we watched that before we headed out. Disney sure does put on one heck of a show, no matter what you may think of the Mouse, you can't help but be entertained by that!

That was it, the night was over, and a bus (excuse me, motor coach) ride back to the hotel was it for the night. What a great day, tiring but a ton of fun.

Hopefully this one was more positive for you!

Next up: A short one, Downtown Disney, some drawings, and the last day at All Star Sports!

Bytor01

01-02-2009, 11:12 AM

Great reading...looking forward to the TR as we are leaving on DCL on the 17th so it will be nice to read a long as our day gets closer.

Tim

DMMarla07860

01-02-2009, 11:25 AM

great reading so far, and you got some great pictures

nzdisneymom

01-02-2009, 11:40 AM

Sounds like you guys enjoyed your pre-cruise relaxation time. We noticed quite a few families who were frazzled the first day because of travel woes. Going down a day or two early really does help you get ready for the cruise! Looking forward to upcoming chapters! Can you believe this time last week we were at Castaway Cay? And the Wonder was sailing by?

strega7

01-02-2009, 06:29 PM

Yeah!!! I was looking forward to your trip report, and you have already posted two segments. Can't wait for the cruise part. The MK was beautiful! Can't wait to read more. Marci

DisneyZell

01-02-2009, 06:50 PM

Great reading...looking forward to the TR as we are leaving on DCL on the 17th so it will be nice to read a long as our day gets closer.

Tim

Thanks :)

great reading so far, and you got some great pictures

I'm telling you, it is all about the camera. If someone like me can take pictures like that...you know the camera has to be good. and no, I don't work for Nikon! :thumbsup2

Sounds like you guys enjoyed your pre-cruise relaxation time. We noticed quite a few families who were frazzled the first day because of travel woes. Going down a day or two early really does help you get ready for the cruise! Looking forward to upcoming chapters! Can you believe this time last week we were at Castaway Cay? And the Wonder was sailing by?

I have chosen to not believe that I'm off the Disney boat. Of course this time last week was one of the saddest days of my life...so it's all relative! And DS6 and I felt like we were still on the boat up until yesterday...but that will come later! One more chapter to go and then we will be on the boat. You know I have to do the setup! popcorn::

Yeah!!! I was looking forward to your trip report, and you have already posted two segments. Can't wait for the cruise part. The MK was beautiful! Can't wait to read more. Marci

Thanks! I enjoy typing...work may get in the way next week...but hopefully not too much!

thanks for your comments everyone, keep them coming, and let me know if i'm boring you...my goal is to try to keep it somewhat entertaining, but no promises!

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

Kurby

01-03-2009, 09:39 PM

TotallyAngelic

01-04-2009, 04:35 AM

TammyNC

01-04-2009, 08:59 AM

Enjoyed reading so far, will be back for more.

DisneyZell

01-04-2009, 01:16 PM

ahhhh i'm totally into your report (you're a great story teller) but it ended. :( :( :(

don't you know you're not allowed to have a life until you finish the report - the whole report - and nothing but the report????

now i have to wonder what happened at DTD, what did you draw.

hurry back

Thanks for the encouragement...er....threats??? :lmao:

I know, I know, I should do nothing but sit here and type the report...unfortunately my family and boss don't agree with that... :)

WOW - we had P looking after us on deck 6 in October - he was great! Really looked after us well!

He is just the bomb...we've been on three cruises, and I think he was great. He's been doing that for 7 years...wow that's a long time to be on a cruise ship cleaning cabins, but I'll bet he supports a family that way.

Enjoyed reading so far, will be back for more.

and I'll provide more...right now! :thumbsup2

DisneyZell

01-04-2009, 02:08 PM

Friday the 19th came along and I was wrecked. My cold, coughing and lack of sleep had definately caught up to me. DW and DNW and the kids (minus DS6) walked to McDonalds for breakfast (you know what? we found out that little plastic card that you swipe actually costs money! it's not just Mickey's way of giving you things for free. How crazy is that??? :laughing: ), while DS6 and I stayed in bed trying to sleep it off. My goal was to be the smallest amount of sick possible by the time the cruise started...

When everyone got back it was time to hit the pool again. go ahead and use your imagination on this one...this was Goofy shooting the water cannon toward home plate (DNS11 is on top)

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_00012.jpg

By about noon it was time to head to Downtown Disney. Because we were staying on property, the easy thing to do was to hop a bus (er...motorcoach, I wonder if I'll ever get that right!). This ride was an adventure. Let's say slow boat to china would have been giving a compliment here! we stopped at every All Star resort and then we took the longest way possible to get to Downtown Disney. :snail: I can think of a few other ways that would have been better:

:teleport:

:car:

:boat:

:moped:

or even: :firefight

but I digress. The hightlight of the trip, actually was talking with a couple of kids from Pennsylvania who were there for a high school basketball tournament. They had qualified for the finals the night before and had the day off to wander and do the parks, etc. These were great examples of young people who will one day lead the country. They were very polite and very well spoken, especially when faced with 4 adults firing questions at them about what they were doing. Unfortunately I don't remember the school, and the chances of them reading these boards are slim to none, but if they do, I hope you guys won (nope, I have no idea!), and thanks for being so polite!

Ahem. Anyway, back to the story.

OH! WAIT! why do I know we took the long way to Disney you ask? (ok, you didn't really ask, but bear with me! :rolleyes1 ). The company I work for had assigned me to Disney, so I spent quite a few weeks on-property in spring 2008. Alot of driving from the Team Disney building (right accross from DTD) to these trailers behind the scenes at AK. That was actually pretty cool. you had to go past this guard shack where they would check your name, and they have these massive barriers that would pretty much keep anything from getting through. However, once your back there you can drive around wherever you want to go. One time I took the long way out which took me by the parade staging area and who is standing on his float waiting to start the parade? :mickeyjum (seriously, if you didn't know the answer to that question you should get some sleep or something. Why are you reading this if you aren't a disney fanatic???). Anyway, he was even in character with the CM's he was interacting. Naturally I could not get my dang camera phone to work. That would have been too easy! OK, one more behind the scenes story and I'll move on (sorry).

I had one meeting behind the scenes at Disney's Hollywood Studios. There are a bunch of office buildings on the property there. After the meeting was over I was walking along chatting with a coworker. We stopped at the edge of a street when all of a sudden... :scared1: Along came the tram for the studio tour! Yup, the one you get to ride if you are in the park. What would you do in that situation? Think about if for a second.

OK, times up. Yup, I waved at everyone like I was someone important. I'm sure some of the kids thought "wow, that must be someone really important there". Or not. Anyway, the cool part is that once your inside you pretty much can go anywhere. I could have walked right out onto the path where the trams were. We also could see the warm-up area for Lights! Camera! Action! or whatever it's called.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, DTD. Dang, is anyone still reading this??? I owe you a cup of coffee.

so we arrived and went to Earl of Sandwich for lunch. Holy Frijoly, have you ever eaten there?? They had this Holiday Turkey sandwich with stuffing and cranberry sauce on this incredible bread and their on proprietary (no idea how to spell that word) kettle baked chips. YUM! I had never eaten there. I find that truely sad because I spent so much time there and never knew it existed. I'm going to assume that it was built recently and that there was no way for me to know. WHEW! I feel better, do you?

After that it was shop until you drop. I drop I almost did because I still wasn't feeling well. And shopping with a 6 year old is quite the experience. He is all about pirates, and guns (:scared1: ), so we spent alot of time looking at that stuff. But it gets really old really quickly. PLUS we knew we would have time to shop on the cruise PLUS we were thinking about coming back in February to hit the parks pixiedust: pixiedust: pixiedust: pixiedust:

So we made our way out of World of Disney and down to the sports store. Have I mentioned that our kids are all about sports? I think I already bored you with that so I won't do it here.

WAIT! I forgot to mention! All T-shirts and hats were 40% off, and all Christmas stuff was 50% off. I looked like this when I saw that: :eek: Disney, on sale? how weird is that? Hopefully it will still be on sale when we return in February. Oh yeah, we are coming back :)

We did have time for a picture:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0101.jpg All the kids in the postcard spot.

Anyway, to the Sports store (I don't remember the name). Spent alot of time looking around, found some New England Patriots trading pins for $3 (bargain, bargain, bargain!), and not much else until...wait for it...we found the clearance hats! They were well hidden throughout the store, but I think we walked out with about 6 hats of various kinds (mostly ESPN). Very cool! I feel like I belong on the Slickdeals.net website or something! we were on fire!!

DNH and family had to rush off because DNH's cousin was coming to meet them at the resort with their kids...so they ran off and we went to the other bargain spot around DTD...Goofy's Candy Company! I'm going to let you in on a secret now...so go get your pens. Seriously. go get them.

ho hum, ho hum...OH, you have a pen now? ok.

don't buy the pre-packaged stuff in the case...keep going to the right toward the back. There is a big counter with paper and pencils and you can choose your own combination of carmel apples, pretzel rods, marshmallows or rice crispy mickey heads. What do I mean? I mean...dip it in light chocolate, dark chocolate. then have them cover it in chopped up M&M's, resess peanut butter cup, white and dark chocolate chips, sprinkles, just about any concoction you could ever ask for. and you can pick as many as you want...not just one. The apples are the best, they are around $6. yes, $6. and when they are done they are HUGE. We have bought carmel apples like this in the store for $15 or so...and they weren't nearly as good as these. It's a great treat.

(Disney, you now owe me the sponsorship fee for this segment...oops, did I say that out loud??? :cool1: )

so anyway, we each got a mickey head rice krispies treat and covered it in our various concoctions. We would have gotten an apple but didn't figure we had a way to cut it up. Only to find out later that they will do that for you! yet another service provided by the latest tip from disneyzell!!!

So it was around 5pm when we made our way back to the bus, back on the slow boat to china, or snailcoach. :snail:

DisneyZell

01-04-2009, 02:10 PM

We have a tradition in our family. Whenever we go on vacation we wander and take pictures of our kids on things that look cool. There were lots at the All-Star sports resort.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0108.jpg Somwhere in the middle of the resort...DS10 and DS6.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0109.jpg Yup, a giant basketball hoop. very cool.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0112.jpg A giant pool cue ball? A spit wad? nope, the marble in the middle of a giant whistle. You couldn't see the kids if we took a picture of the whole thing!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0116.jpg Yes, Donald was angry. Who wouldn't be with kids hanging all over him all the time.

by then DNH's kids and his Cousin's kids were all in the pool so we joined them. The kids had a great time swimming and then they even played a game on the football field in the football part of the hotel. I guess this hotel turned out to be pretty good overall.

One thing our kids had bugged us about non-stop since we arrived was the Caricature guy in the lobby. they soooooo wanted to do this. We finally relented and got them each one after parting with our right and left legs. Oh wait! we used the plastic card! It was free for us!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0117.jpg Connor gets drawn

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/connordrawing.jpg And Connor's drawing. Note the 33, that was his number when he played for the Amherst Patriots this year!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0118.jpg Nick gets drawn

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/nickdrawing.jpg And Nick's Drawing. Same thing with his 81. He so wanted to be like Randy Moss!

After that it was time to shop a bit more (why not??), and go back and pack...for tomorrow we head to the ship! What can be better than that? We had lots of things planned, a 8am pickup by the van we were taking, so our 6:45am wake up call was entered.

So at 6:45am Mickey called to get us out of bed (I just love that). No time for breakfast...but being the incredible parents we are, we DID have chocolate and various other candy covered mickey mouse shaped rice krispy treats...and rice krispies are a breakfast cereal, right?

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0119.jpg Connor Chows down

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0120.jpg Nick does too...I would tell you about the outfit...but you will have to wait a bit longer for that!

So that's it! Thanks for sticking with me. I honestly thought this one would be short. But apparently I'm long winded. If you fell asleep and your head hit the keyboard I recommend Advil. Until next time...go make someone's day!

Next up Chapter 4: Van, Grocery Store, the terminal and yes, Day 1 on board!

strega7

01-04-2009, 07:39 PM

lillylynnb

01-05-2009, 07:49 PM

ok so waiting for more!!! we are home now for about a month and miss it very much so bring it on!!!!

LITTLEKID58

01-06-2009, 07:19 AM

Subscribing... :goodvibes

autigger

01-06-2009, 08:46 AM

subscribing

kde175

01-06-2009, 11:15 AM

Subbing...great report so far!!

DisneyZell

01-06-2009, 01:28 PM

great report so far!!! We leave in 45 days and your report is what is getting me thru till we leave. I am really looking forward to your next segment....I can't wait to hear about my room. :banana: Marci

OK, I'm now jealous. we, of course, are all done with our cruise and your in the fun run-up time to yours! I'll try to do the room justice! :)

ok so waiting for more!!! we are home now for about a month and miss it very much so bring it on!!!!

I know...I missed it pretty quickly after we got off. My neighbor put it best...someone else is sleeping in my bed and getting taken care of! it's just wrong! :rotfl2:

And for those who just joined me on my journey, welcome! as I have already warned the others, Advil works best when you slam your head into your keyboard after falling asleep. And now...on with the show...

DisneyZell

01-06-2009, 02:33 PM

ok, so I promised alot at the end of the last chapter. But I have to be honest, unless I do a severe reduction in my story telling we aren't going to get all of that in. But I'll give it a try.

So I lied a bit at the end of my last chapter, Mickey didn't call to wake us up at 6:45, it was actually Mickey AND Stitch. They were fighting. Very, very funny. So if you stay on property, you HAVE to get a wake-up call. That holds for the cruise too, but we will get there...eventually, we still haven't even made it to the terminal yet! you people are so impatient! :eek:

Last cruise we rented a big van to haul the 8 of us to port. That worked just fine, but last time we weren't staying on-property for a few days, and so that just wasn't going to work. DW found Happy Limo (I'm sure by surfing on these boards as she spent many an hour digging through, helping out and liberaly stealing ideas). So they were all set to pick us up at 8am.

I know. 8am. Surely it takes 4 hours to drive to the port, right? 8am? we are going to beat the ship to the port. BUT, with all that DW has done, do I complain? of course I do, but that was before we even left, not when we were at the resort. I'm not that crazy! :scared:

Ahem. Anyway, so we dragged our 8,000 suitcases (ok, not really that many, but I think we had 4 big suitcases and 2-3 carryon's...we had alot of stuff. Too much stuff you ask? Alas, another answer for another time. Holy cow, I hope I remember all these things I'm promising to tell you later. I'm sure all of you will remind me, right???:rolleyes1 ) to the front desk. I don't think we had to check out because Mickey came and put our bill on the handle of our door.

And guess what??? Much as I referenced in my last report he DID charge us for all that stuff! :scared1: All those free things that we got just by swiping a plastic non-credit card card? not free. Harumph. :mad: (Just in case someone you really believe that I believe that Disney believed they were giving me anything free clearly believe that I believe that I'm insane. No I don't have any idea what that sentance means).

So we walked outside to get in our Happy Limo van. HAPPY LIMO. Hmmm...that man in the hat that appears to be our driver apparently has not read the side of the van he is driving. I think I'll write a letter to the company and suggest that when he drives they have one of those magnetic signs (much like the door signs...but, DOH, that comes later! Oops, there I go again) so he can change the van to read "GRUMPY LIMO". Think of the Disney tie in! Money to be made there. Cha Ching. Anyway, we weren't going to let a grumpy old man make our trip not good!

The big advantage of Happy Limo is you are allowed one stop at a grocery store on the way to the port. Woohoo! :drinking1 Yes, this means Beer. So we stropped at Publix when we were almost there. One thing we screwed up on in our planning was we forgot to bring a soft-sided cooler. We have one. Oh yes we do, from the last cruise. It was sitting nice and dusty and dirty on top of our refrigerator at home (which was sitting unplugged from the ice storm where we lost all our food. :scared:

the other good thing about Publix was that I was still coughing up a lung and running out of drugs...so restocking too place. We checked out the soft sided coolers they had...and they were all expensive. But we each grabbed one anyway...as it just wouldn't do to not have beer. And then we found a whole other option. Have you ever been to the grocery store and seen those HOT/COLD bags? They are silver, about 2 foot square? DW has some for taking home cold stuff. At least she used to...now we are on to these cloth bags which she bought because they are easier than the hundreds of plastic bags...but I digress.

These hot/cold bags are about $2 each. So we each bought two. I figured we could put one inside the other when onboard and it should do just fine keeping my drinks cold. Woohoo! saving money already. cha-Ching!

We each grabbed a case of beer (Sam Winter (yum) and some wheat beer (not quite as good). We also each grabbed a six pack of froo-froo drinks for the wives. Oh, sorry, you don't know what froo-froo drinks are? Bacardi Ice is what we purchased in this case, but froo-froo could be anything like that...or even wine coolers. Not big drinkers, our wives. Then again, I'm not a lush either.

We just made our 15 minute limit (actually I have no idea if he would have thrown a fit if we went over it. He was rather grumpy so I'd say yes...but you just never know!) and jumped back into the van. We made it to the port at 9:30. We pulled up and unloaded our bags by gate 3 (at least I think it was gate 3. Here is a spot where GRUMPY Limo helped...he seemed to know where to drop the bags.

Here is where it got funny. A Disney guy walks up and asks us if we know where our ride is. Ahem, we just arrived, sir. OH! :scared1: scary psycho DISers clearly (well, I'm sure that is what he was thinking, he actually said, ok and verified the time we could actually go in and that our luggage was, indeed, in the right spot). The kids and wives went over to the entrance to the port to wait to go in and we kept our spot right where the porters would come. The kids and wives got to go in at 9:55 (can you believe my memory? incredible that I have this down to the minute...locked up in this steel trap mind of mine. Oh, what? You read that I'm using my wife's journal...DARNIT. thought I could sneak that one by you :thumbsup2 .

Shortly thereafter the guys took our bags (by the way, the porters are invaluable...on both ends. I remember our last trip when we had rental cars we pulled right up and they unloaded the bags and took them away...and this time they were so nice and helpful...I'm a big fan. they are worth every penny. but I digress). We strolled into the terminal, let our beer slide through the xray and up the escalators we went.

Did I mention we were the first ones in the terminal?

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0125.jpg Empty, Empty EMPTY empty!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0127.jpg Did I say empty?

yeah, we were. Very exciting stuff. Except that now we have to wait for 2 hours. DNH had to run over and show his ID, or give his credit card or something (I honestly didn't ask), but I was able to go plop down on the chairs with the family. We were all set, we had our boarding number:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0131.jpg Woohoo! #2. I gave DW a hard time, though because she somehow managed to snag a #1 the last time we were there. What can you do, she is slacking! :santa:

We also got our Castaway club lanyards (our neighbors got theirs for the first time), so we quickly looked quite stylish walking around the terminal. I noted that DW also handed me another card that looks suspiciously like the card I was given at All Star Sports. No way! I was not going to fall for that one again. Not this time. Noooooo....I know they are going to actually make me pay! :rotfl:

Now, it was time for pictures.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0129.jpg Christmas decorations were up...this was my favorite.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0139.jpg All the kids looking at the model

DisneyZell

01-06-2009, 02:35 PM

I guess now would be a good time to tell you about our outfits. We made shirts for this little adventure. Each person got a character that they either chose or suited their personality. more or less.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/Mickey-Mouse-Santa-Gifts.jpg I got Mickey. Clearly this was because I am regal in nature and will someday preside over the Magic Kingdom. And I'm the one that did them.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/Minnie-Christmas-present-surprise.jpg DW got Minnie because clearly she belongs with me.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/SailorChipabdDalebacktoback.png DS10 got Chip and Dale because he is sneaky and likes to have fun. Well, and they are his favorite.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/stitch-wrap-gift-christmas.jpg DS6 got Stitch. Let's just say it was a perfect fit!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/Christmas-Eeyore-Do-not-open.jpg DNH got Eeyore. ah....I'm going to leave that one alone :rotfl2:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/roogif.gif DNW got Roo...we were going with a theme here people, work with me!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/Christmas-Tigger-Wreath.jpg DNS11 was Tigger, his favorite character. He doesn't, however, bounce like Tigger!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/poohdchristmas.gif DND8 was Pooh...I love this picture.

On the back we customized it with the name, and of course our neighbors had one girl stick figure...here it is...

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/zellfamilyshirt.jpg

In addition we all had New England Patriots santa hats. That got us quite alot of comments at various times, including once when we had to take them off for a pictures....but you have to wait to find out about that! (DARNIT).

Where were we...oh yeah, pictures.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0146.jpg The kids came up with the idea of having the characters sign their shirts...what a great idea! The only bad thing was that at one point I stuck my foot in my mouth when I suggested we turn the shirts in to be signed by everyone. Both DS10 and DNS11 both said "So that's how you did that pillowcase the last time". The only problem was that the pillowcase was delivered home by none other than :tinker: *sigh*

But luckily that never came back up!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0134.jpg DNW and DNH hanging out before we got onboard.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0147.jpg Mickey and the crew in the terminal. Note what is on the kid's heads. This will come up later :)

About 10:30 the kids club table opened up so we grabbed the pagers, and got the kids signed up. We also moved DNS11 down so he would be in the same club as DS10. No wristbands yet though...there was a problem.

The rest of the time we just hung out...reading books, kids watched cartoons and wandered a bit. I did got get a Diet Coke (in the 3 cruises I had never gotten anything in the terminal). I tried to pay with cash. No go...they will only accept those evil cards....it starts already!

So, we have our shirts, we have our dining rotation (APLPLAP) and our Table (#16), and we are all ready to go.

At 11:50 (yup, mind like a steel trap!) they called boarding group #2...that's us!

But you will have to wait until next time!

Next up: Chapter 5: Finally! Day 1 onboard the Magic!

nikkistevej

01-06-2009, 03:09 PM

nzdisneymom

01-06-2009, 03:59 PM

I remember seeing you all in those shirts in the terminal. Wow - you guys were there first? How very cool! We got there early enough that it wasn't busy in the terminal yet, but it did pick up.

jollytammy

01-06-2009, 07:51 PM

Loving your report, and your pictures are absolutely wonderful! Thanks for sharing!

MaryAz

01-06-2009, 08:23 PM

Great TR-no Advil needed. Thanks for the tips on the cheese sause and apples. That terminal looks great empty. Can't wait for the cruise report.

SnowWhite2

01-07-2009, 07:00 PM

I'm still trying to figure out how you got to the terminal before me! I swore we were the first ones checked off at the gate. It was really nice and empty for awhile, wasn't it? I was just glad that DH put our luggage right by the place where the gates opened. That was just luck on our part.

Loving your TR! It's always nice to read the reports of others on your same cruise.

BearFan

01-08-2009, 07:54 PM

Happy New Year Zells!
Love reading your TR. Can't wait for more!!

Lisa Marie

mickeywho?

01-08-2009, 09:27 PM

Loving your report! Keep it comin'

j2bmickey

01-08-2009, 10:53 PM

Another outstanding start to what is sure to be another great report. I decided not to be a lurker this time, but I may have to egg (I mean encourage) you on to finish before our trip in May (an Eastern this time). I will say that you are my muse for writing my own report.

I am with you on the castle lights. We went to Disneyland for Thanksgiving and I was thinking that I have got to get some of those lights.

That is a great idea for using the shirts as autograph books. I will be interested to find out how often they were used.

PizzieDuster

01-09-2009, 02:03 AM

DisneyZell

01-09-2009, 07:08 AM

Oh, I am just loving your trip report.

Can't wait for more! :surfweb: :grouphug:

Is it just me or does anyone else love reading trip reports from an enthusiastic DH point of view! I love it! :)

This is my DH:

ME: Oh look honey, "Disney on a Dime" is on!
DH: Does it say "Just don't go? Save your dime?"

ME: Oh, look honey, the Travel Channel has "Disney Cruise Line" on!
DH: Do they have the same ol shows? Same ol food? Lame last night?"

:) :) :) :) :) See why I can't wait to read more?!!!!! :) TMI ;)

Hi PizziDuster...this is DW...I love DH's point of view as well. My contribution is the the play by play of what we did by keeping the journal, DH is the one to really turn it in to a story. I love looking back at his TR's and re-living the cruise. I love your "Disney on a Dime" line...just wish it was true! We are going to go back to WDW for our kids Feb. break and could really use that show!

DisneyZell

01-09-2009, 10:15 AM

Awesome trip report- I'm waiting(and not so patiently) for the next installment:lmao: :lmao: :lmao: I can't believe you guys were first to the terminal- that's nice. Love the pictures!!

They do say that Patience is a virtue, right? I believe that Mickey believes that too! and good things come to those who wait? It was cool to be in the empty terminal, but don't tell DW, we don't want her getting all cocky on us...that could prove not beneficial to me in the long run. :rotfl:

I remember seeing you all in those shirts in the terminal. Wow - you guys were there first? How very cool! We got there early enough that it wasn't busy in the terminal yet, but it did pick up.

yeah, it quickly got busy. We originally had 8 chairs with 8 people in them, but we consolidated because it got busy quick...and we were up and about taking pictures, etc. Didn't want to be those evil people who save chairs and then disappear! Thanks for posting :)

Loving your report, and your pictures are absolutely wonderful! Thanks for sharing!

And thanks for your comments, they are appreciated! :thumbsup2

Great TR-no Advil needed. Thanks for the tips on the cheese sause and apples. That terminal looks great empty. Can't wait for the cruise report.

Thank you, the advil is my attempt at self-depricating (I honestly don't know if thats how you spell the word) humor! I'm very pleased that you are being entertained!

I'm still trying to figure out how you got to the terminal before me! I swore we were the first ones checked off at the gate. It was really nice and empty for awhile, wasn't it? I was just glad that DH put our luggage right by the place where the gates opened. That was just luck on our part.

Loving your TR! It's always nice to read the reports of others on your same cruise.

Ah, that would be courtesy of DW. She times things very well. And if you had your luggage right by Gate 3 (which is where they first take it in), then he was probably standing right next to us because we were right there too. It was a good group of people. Of course we were the Psychotic ones that were there a good hour before they opened the gates...but what can you do???:dance3:

Happy New Year Zells!
Love reading your TR. Can't wait for more!!

Lisa Marie

Ah! BearFan! we enjoyed chatting with you, so happy new year right back at you! Thanks for coordinating some of the events onboard! That was great! :worship:

Loving your report! Keep it comin'
Thank you, thank you...it's through my audiences generous contributions that I'm able to continue! :)

Another outstanding start to what is sure to be another great report. I decided not to be a lurker this time, but I may have to egg (I mean encourage) you on to finish before our trip in May (an Eastern this time). I will say that you are my muse for writing my own report.

I am with you on the castle lights. We went to Disneyland for Thanksgiving and I was thinking that I have got to get some of those lights.

That is a great idea for using the shirts as autograph books. I will be interested to find out how often they were used.

Great! don't just lurk as the feedback keeps me going!

However, you know I can't promise that I'll finish before you go in May. But I'll give it a try! ha ha!:rotfl2:

Not sure how often I'll talk about the shirts, and I'll have to look when I get home from (I'm on a business trip), but I'd say that we probably got 10 or so signatures from various characters. Pretty cool all-in-all and frankly I was surprised at how nice they all were to do it.

One thing, don't forget a sharpie. I can't believe we didn't bring one with us...and they don't sell them in the ship stores...but DS10 was able to con customer service out of one which we used for the length of the cruise. Can you imagine that, DISers who didn't bring a sharpie???:lmao:

Oh, I am just loving your trip report.

Can't wait for more!

Is it just me or does anyone else love reading trip reports from an enthusiastic DH point of view! I love it! :)

This is my DH:

ME: Oh look honey, "Disney on a Dime" is on!
DH: Does it say "Just don't go? Save your dime?"

ME: Oh, look honey, the Travel Channel has "Disney Cruise Line" on!
DH: Do they have the same ol shows? Same ol food? Lame last night?"
See why I can't wait to read more?!!!!! TMI

Holy crap that was funny. I'm sitting in a conference room with a bunch of coworkers and snorted. I never snort. :lmao:

You are cracking me up to no end. I'm a firm believer that Disney has a magical vacuum that attaches to your wallet as soon as you are on-property and doesn't let go until you actually take off from Orlando (thus the Disney store at the airport!). So next time you drive through the pearly (ok, purple) gates of WDW, listen for the giant sucking sound! :rotfl2: :lmao:

The bad part of your post is that now there will be questions of how manly I am. can you be manly and write a TR?? Huh...I'll have to think on that one for a while. Good thing I'm married and don't have to worry about that! ;)

Hi PizziDuster...this is DW...I love DH's point of view as well. My contribution is the the play by play of what we did by keeping the journal, DH is the one to really turn it in to a story. I love looking back at his TR's and re-living the cruise. I love your "Disney on a Dime" line...just wish it was true! We are going to go back to WDW for our kids Feb. break and could really use that show!

thanks Baby-Cakes for weighing in. No way I could do this without you. Those little tidbit facts are incredibly helpful and remind me of what occured while we were there. My short term memory stinks!

I do find it entertaining that I can take a half page of your journal and turn it into a full page of trip report. Dang I'm full of it! :)

Anyway...I bow down to your journal writing abilities...I couldn't do it without your skills! :worship:

I'd love to say, on with the show and give you another chapter...but alas I'm in Atlanta and DW's journal is in New Hampshire so it will have to wait another day or two.

Thanks to everyone for reading, and especially those of you who post! it makes my day! if your lurking, post something, let me know your there! :)

so I just learned that the 25 picture limit INCLUDES emoticons! Holy cow! no wonder I have issues posting on this board.

:thumbsup2 Until later...go make someone's day! :thumbsup2

SandieT

01-09-2009, 10:18 AM

ME: Oh look honey, "Disney on a Dime" is on!
DH: Does it say "Just don't go? Save your dime?"

ME: Oh, look honey, the Travel Channel has "Disney Cruise Line" on!
DH: Do they have the same ol shows? Same ol food? Lame last night?"

:) :) :) :) :) See why I can't wait to read more?!!!!! :) TMI ;)

PizzieDuster,
Your post cracked me up. When I read these I think it must only be my family that is just not interested in anything until the day before we leave and then all of a sudden my husband starts asking questions.
What time do we leave?
What did you plan?
Where EXACTLY are we going?
Why did you plan that?
Even my kids are like mom stop talking about our cruise!
I did finally get him to look at our room location on the boat. He said since we were now in the same year as our trip, he would look. (Trip is March 28th).:scared1:

SandieT

01-09-2009, 10:30 AM

strega7

01-10-2009, 10:31 AM

After I had such a long horrid day, it was great to come home and see you posted a trip report.....now make my weekend better...:)

DisneyZell

01-10-2009, 03:21 PM

Andrew & Deanna,
I too am having such a fun time reading this. I have never really read these but now I am hooked. I am motivated to try one of these myself. However since I will be responsible for ALL packing/planning etc (See earlier post) we will see how much time I have. (I also have an elementary school yearbook to get to the printer the week before we leave. Last year I put about 2500 photos in it. :surfweb: )
I love the shirt /autograph idea AND I will be purchasing a shiny new journal to document our trip. I put together photo books (iphoto) and it will be nice to write captions to go with the photos. :thumbsup2

VERY glad to hear that you are enjoying it...and that some of our tips will help (yeah, the Journal thing saves me! :cool1: ). sounds like you have alot to do...why is it that people that get involved tend to get way involved and do things to the Nth degree (myself included!). We are way to involved in our Kid's football program (I'm Vice President an an assistant coach, Deanna is team mom for not one, but two teams!). but it's fun...crazy, but fun. 2,500 pictures is alot to deal with! good luck with that! :thumbsup2

After I had such a long horrid day, it was great to come home and see you posted a trip report.....now make my weekend better...:)

I'm torn here, do I say..."good!" implying that I'm happy that you had a Horrid day, or "oh no! hope it gets better"...I guess I'll go with #2. Never good to have had a horrid day. And I'm glad I can brighten it just a little!

So...officially now, on to the next chapter. I have my M&M's, and my diet coke, have to go log into photobucket so I can include those fancy pictures!

Enjoy the next chapter!

DisneyZell

01-10-2009, 04:46 PM

So, it was that magical time...and just to remind you which boarding group we were in....

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0131.jpg Woohoo! We're #2, We're #2!!

it was time to board. This was our third Disney Cruise, but the tingling never stops. The excitement that it was time to get onto the ship...the anticipation (and planning) over and time to shift to vacation mode fully. As you read, our plan was to get to Orlando a few days early so by the time we hit the ship we would be in full relaxation mode. We were. There was little to no stress at this point, just the fun of heading for that Mouse Ear entry way to the magical ship. Woohoo! At this point there was no considering a week from then when we would be getting off. That was one disadvantage of getting to the port so early, seeing all those folks DISembarking...sad really, but I digress :banana:

Naturally we had to take the obligatory boarding picture.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/boarding.jpg Here is all of us decked out in our shirts and New England Patriots Santa hats.

And then...the moment had arrived...

"The Disney Magic proudly welcomes back, The Zell Family!"

"The Disney Magic proudly welcomes back, The DeChambeau Family!"

Woohoo! we were onboard! Lots of clapping for us (because let's face it, dressed like that we had to be celebrities or something. Surely no one else would dress like this. But I digress). At entry you have a choice for where to go to get lunch. They try to direct you to a dining room (I have never really understood why they don't tell you to go directly to topsiders, maybe the dining staff wants people to take care of at this point? but again I digress. Just for your information, I finished the M&M's and now am on to little bags of chips which are normally for the kids' lunches. Don't tell DW! :scared1: ).

Ahem. Anyhoo, we decide to hit the top of the ship. But we are taking it one step further this year than we did the last time we cruised. Last time we hit topsiders and sat outside to eat, and then went to the pool. My suggestion to all of you, and what we did, was to go and get a couple table by whichever pool you feel you will be spending the most time at. This way you don't have to move, and frequently by the time you’re ready to swim, the chairs and tables are all occupied. So we did just that. Grabbed a couple tables, one person sat at each while the others went to go get lunch. This worked out perfectly. By the way, we chose the Mickey Pool. Check it out.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0152.jpg Yeah, not alot of people in the pool yet!

OH, by the way, I was just looking at my pictures. To give you an idea of what your in for, we are on page 4 of 13 of pictures. Not sure why I'm telling you that, because most likely you don't care. But I thought it was kind of cool...and frankly this is my story! :cool1:

As we were on the ship by noon, we have about 1 1/2 hours until we could go into our staterooms. But that is ok with me. I love to sit and people watch. It is VERY interesting to see what people wore to board the ship. It ranges from shirts, t-shirts and flip-flips to one family who was dressed like they were going to the country club. Long sleeves and everything. Now, I understand some people travel before they get on the ship, and everything, but boy, they must have been really, really hot!

DisneyZell

01-10-2009, 04:47 PM

so, time for lunch. the lunch spread at topsiders is awesome. tons of different types of food. The funny thing for me was that DS6 liked what I think was chicken fried steak (the closest thing I can really compare it to was weinerschnitzel from Germany (no, not the hotdog chain) which is really thin pork deep fried. That's what it looked like, but I'm assuming it was chicken fried steak). He just isn't the most adventurous eater in the world.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0154.jpg All the kids enjoy their first meal on the Magic!

While eating there were roaming characters (shocking for a Disney ship!). It was very cool and we got some early pictures, and some additional autographs for the shirts.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0155.jpg DS6 and DS10 with Goofy

It was also time to hit the pools. DS6 and DND8 hit the Mickey pool while DS10 and DNS11 hit the Goofy pool. But before they went we got a shot of all of them in the empty Mickey pool.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0162.jpg All the kids in the pool.

Then it was off to the different pools for a while. But of course the characters kept coming...which had no problem dragging the kids out of the pool!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0165.jpg DS6's first picture with Pluto. I love the ear thing.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0165.jpg DNS11, DS10 and dS6 pose with Chip and Dale. Chip and Dale, in case I haven't told you, is DS10's favorite. Now that I think about it I think I told you that back when I talked about the shirts. Now that I'm continuing to talk about it I'm boring you even more. Time to move on???

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0168.jpg Shirt signatures...yes we made it this far and they were still signing shirts! woohoo!

Then it was back in the pool. DW and DNW went to sit by the Goofy pool while DNH and I protected the stuff. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it. I purchased the first beer of the cruise (Red Stripe) because the ones we bought weren't cold (because you can't bring Ice through X-ray...or because they just want to charge you more money...hmmm, this IS Disney!). We sat and enjoyed our beer and found The Panini place. I can't for the life of me remember what that is called. But they had some killer sandwiches which we got, and let the eating frenzy begin. My goal was to eat at least every 20 minutes on this cruise, and I was making sure my average stayed up from the very beginning.

shortly after this was the first trip (followed closely by the second trip) to the ice cream machine. Now, I think the very first time we cruised they had Scoops open where you could order a hand scooped ice cream. I honestly don't remember if that was any good (I COULD go back and look at DW's journal from that trip, although, I'm not sure where it is, and I'm not sure if she had realized she SHOULD journal yet). However, the past two trips I have been a big customer of the ice cream. Not at this point, but quickly I discovered something even better. They have these little tiny bowls for the ice cream. Is that good enough?? no way, jose. Conveniently located just steps away from the ice cream machine is the famous drink station on Deck 9.

I love the drink station. I know that someday I will go on another cruise line (it's just bound to happen, Disney is getting WAY to expensive). And I know I won't get the drink station as I think pretty much Disney is the only ones who do this. But to me, this is like having a soda fountain in your house that you don't pay for, and that someone else refills and takes care of. Anytime, day or night, you want a soda? Deck 9. need some ice? Deck 9. Anytime. Sprite? Deck 9. In my case, Diet coke? Say it with me, Deck 9! Anytime! But I digress.

Wow, I need to stop doing that. I didn't even finish my thought before wandering off that time. Eh, it is what it is.

So...again, steps away from the ice cream machine is the drink station. Which has cups. These cups, by the way, are much larger than the ice cream cups (mainly because they aren't for ice cream, but I don't let something like that get in my way). So you simply get a large cup, walk over and fill it to your heart’s content with ice cream. Add some syrup and you are all set.

Now, if you are a patient person (note that I am not, but DS10 is), you can mix and mold your ice cream in a cup into that ice creamy treat known as a milkshake...which you can then sip through a straw. Consider that Disney charges a arm and a leg for smoothies, and I don't even know if they have milkshakes...this is a pretty good (and free! well, ok, not really free any more than my charges on that cute plastic card at All Star Sports was free). Needless to say I was in heaven, and I was all settled in for vacation. Beer, Panini's and ice cream. What could be better? Pizza! Oh wait, I'm getting ahead of myself there. I didn't hit Pinocchio’s until later in the cruise. so sorry.

Now...drum roll please! It was that time. DW with her eyes on her watch like a hawk realized it was exactly 1:30, time for her and DNW to dash down to deck 6 (that's where we were!) to get the room ready. Always fun to do that before the kids see it. So off they went. They put the magnets on the doors (a MUST by the way) and hung the fish extenders.

Ah yes, the mighty fish extender, or what is frequently referred to in DISspeak as FE. I don't think that anyone on these boards has any idea that it's a whole other language. It took me weeks to figure out what the heck CM meant. And even longer for DW, DH DS6 all that. I figured maybe everyone is actually in the military and these were all military codes. But eventually I DID figure them all out. OK, DW figured them out and shared them with me. She is much smarter than me.

So I remember the first time I saw FE. I read and re-read the post to try to figure out what the heck FE could be. Obviously there were gifts involved, and people would give you things (which I always find to be a positive thing). But FE? Again DW to the rescue. Fish Extender is what FE means.

For all of you who are new to DIS, or haven't read these threads, don't worry if you are still scratching your heads. I was too. But fortunately for you, I have a picture which will make it all clear.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/fe.jpg Here is ours! our neighbors was exactly the same.

DW spent a lot of time on this...using her sewing machine to put everyone's names on it, and designing the whole thing. The mickey heads at the top went through a couple of iterations. originally they were going to be black, but unfortunately the black spray paint ate the foam balls (oops!). So that got nixed. DW decided white was good and away we went! Pretty darn cool if you ask me.

DisneyZell

01-10-2009, 04:51 PM

Now, door magnets. Some people do them, some don't. Some people just do one or two...some do more. We are somewhere in between. I had a great time creating ours for this cruise, and this year we even bought the magnet paper (best deal, by the way, is Wal-Mart if you think of it soon enough to ship it to the store. I think it was around $6 for 5 sheets. However we didn't do it soon enough, so we had to do Sams Club who would ship it faster. It was around $8 for 5 sheets...so not too bad!

Here is our door decorated with Magnets:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0536.jpg Top of the door. The mickey ears are key. IMHO!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0537.jpg Middle of the door

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0538.jpg Bottom of the door. OK, this one actually didn't go up until Pirate night...but I figured I'd be nice since, by the look of day 1, this report might last for another year.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0178.jpg bottom of the door (That's our Dog, harley who was in the Kennel right next to Mulan, our neighbors dog). Our dog one says "have you seen my family? Call 1-800-Kennel. the one I made for our neighbors said something like "they get to go on a cruise, and I go to jail!". Pretty funny. Now, Mulan doesn't really like Harley, he is a bit overbearing as he is young. She tries to avoid him at all costs, and I'm sure even being in the kennel next to him stressed her out! So I made another one where we have a picture of the two of them with "BFF" across it. Little inside joke.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0176.jpg This one was my favorite...hopefully you can make it out.

Anyway, they got the rooms all set up and we all traipsed down there. We got our Castaway Club gift:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0173.jpg Pretty cool (and useful as we found out) bag.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0174.jpg And we got a basket from Shirley with sand toys and Candy...and DW had Shirley stick in a German Weiss beer. Yum! Life was good for me.

Luckily we already had three suitcases so we started unpacking and getting the room all ready. I'm sure you don't need to hear about that excitement. But one of the things we unpacked as the Christmas Tree and some decorations for the Balcony door.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0206.jpg Decorations on the balcony door

I have pictures of the tree, I swear I do...but I have no idea where they are...so I'll just stick em in later. :thumbsup2

The time came for our DIS meet which we skipped on the last cruise. We decided we wanted to follow through on this one, so we went down. It was a quick introduction and everyone recognized everyone's screen names, etc. Very cool to immediately have some people to know around the ship and several of them we chatted with regularly throughout the cruise. I highly recommend it. You can participate as much or as little as you want in the DIS stuff...but it's neat. oh, and don't....DO NOT skip the fish extender gifts. that's GREAT!

Alas it was the time that all knowledgeable cruisers dread...that time when you don't look your best...and look even worse with a big orange life preserver around your neck. Now, last time we cruised we got to be in Animator's Palette. You get to sit and relax (as much as you can with a big orange noose around your neck). This time we got to go to Deck 4 and stand in the sun. That stank. Naturally there were people that were late...which just ticks me off.

OK, folks. It stinks...not any fun. But if your late, you make everyone else wait for YOU. I think that's just plain rude. Many people kept trickling in. Rude, rude rude! I hate waiting for people. And believe me, I don't like being there either! But I digress.

it was over soon enough and it was time to sail away! We got a great spot on the Goofy Pool (in case you don't know, they pull a top over the pool so you can dance and party under the big screen). Speaking of big screen...

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0186.jpg Yup, those 4 red shirts are us on the big screen! woohoo!

We danced, we screamed, we saw the characters and generally had a good time. they gave everyone streamers which looked very cool all around you. Everyone was very good natured and seemed to be having a good time. This was all very fun...except...last time they had a contest and people won stuff. Harrumph...apparently Mickey is getting cheap! :) But we counted down...and then the magical horn sounded. Yeah! We are ready to go! Very exciting! :woohoo:

But of course the ship didn't move that instant. We got to go up on deck to check it out.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0196.jpg DNH and DNW, aren't they cute?

Oh my gosh! It's 5:00! time to go get ready for dinner. We are those crazy people who do early seating. It seems to work for us. We all got gussied up (is gussied even a word? Even if it is I'm sure I hacked it), and headed for Animators which was our first rotation. We got table 16, unfortunately. But more on that later.

Our main server was Toby from Australia. Toby was in his final few weeks before getting off the ship. Needless to say his service level was less than stellar. Last cruise we had Adrian from the UK. He went above and beyond so we were really spoiled. The drop off was tremendous...as Toby went below and behind. :laughing: It was very unfortunate. Our assistant server was Nadja from Germany. She somewhat made up for Toby's lack of interest or whatever...but only barely. She was new...I think 6 weeks in. Interesting combination. It took her a while to get in the groove, but she definitely was the better of the two.

Dinner took FOREVER. If we weren't the last people to leave the dining room we were very close. And it wasn't because of us...we were sitting around a lot. Toby would disappear for long periods of time. Not sure what he was doing. We had to ask for the desert menu's, which was weird. The whole thing was very strange.

BUT, of course we had pictures.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0197.jpg DW and DNW looking beautiful at dinner

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0198.jpg DS10 and DNS11

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0199.jpg DS6 and DND8

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0201.jpg Two very good looking men at dinner. Yes, the one on the right is me.

Shortly thereafter we went back to the rooms, met "P", our room steward (his name is much longer...he told us to call him P...thankfully!). He was great. We told him what we needed, namely Ice in the beer!, and we were on our merry way. He seemed nice.

Then it was off to the welcome aboard show. Most of that was the same as the last time we cruised, but they did have previews of a hypnotist and a juggler/comedian. Both were extremely funny and we looked forward to seeing them later in the cruise.

After the show we hit the stores. Time to help Disney cope with the economy. We walk in and what do my eyes see??? All 2008 cruise stuff is 50% off! :scared1: Holy cow! Just like at WDW, T-shirts, Hats Towels and mugs were 40% off, and Christmas was 50% off.

now, I've been around Disney for quite some time...and other than a few clearance items I don't think I have EVER seen a Disney sale. Holy cow!

I don't think we bought much...but we knew we would be back. And back, and back, and back...and back.

When we got back to the room, we got our first Towel animal...

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0202.jpg Mr. Snake came for a visit

It was only the first night...but it was time to deliver some FE gifts! We split it up. I think it was around 30 total. Dw and DS10 took 6,7,8 and DS6 and I took 1,2,5. It didn't take long, and I don't know about DW and DS10, but we followed some other DISers around so they could find the rooms for us! Yes, I'm generally lazy. :lmao:

Back to the room...the kids wrote in their Journals (their "homework", and we relaxed. Time for Bed...

Oh yeah, this was a double dip cruise...so Castaway Cay twice...tomorrow was Day #1! Woohoo!

So that's it. whew. I'm tired. My hands are tired and I'm out of chips (shhhhh). My soda doesn't have any more ice so now it tastes like water. Yuck.

We are supposed to get snow tonight 4-6 inches...so thank you for letting me imagine myself back on the ship...where it was just a tad nicer!

Until next time...go make someone's day!

Next up: Chapter 6: The first Dip

nzdisneymom

01-10-2009, 05:00 PM

Kay1

01-10-2009, 05:52 PM

I'm lovin' your report and pictures. When it's my turn, I want to be first at the terminal, too! :goodvibes

BearFan

01-10-2009, 08:32 PM

I wanna go back right now!!!!!!!!!

I'm looking into booking the westbound repo. We want to renew our vows for our 25th. It'd be great if your family were there too! Any thoughts of somthing like that?
Keep up the good work,
LM

PS Just love the pirate joke thread. pirate: I found it this afternoon and it made me laugh!

strega7

01-11-2009, 12:06 PM

As always...still enjoying your report! Thanks for the update. By the way, did your neighbors have the connecting cabin next door? My parents will be in that one and I wanted to make sure they are fairly quiet. Thanks, Marci

SnowWhite2

01-12-2009, 09:08 PM

I see DH in the white shirt behind the lovely ladies at dinner. Gives me the ability to drift back to cruiseland.....

We had David from Czech Republic as our server and Ali as our asst server. My DD's were in love with David - he was very good looking. He was a very good server, not great but very good. Ali was ending his first 4 month contract and I would suspect he won't be back. He was OK but I don't think it was his thing. Sorry your servers weren't that good. It can really make the dining experience seem to drag.

Kurby

01-12-2009, 09:42 PM

if your servers are that bad can you ask to be switched?

i know there are crappy people all over but it's something you really don't expect at disney

sailingshamu

01-13-2009, 02:39 PM

I love your trip report!:yay: I am literally on the edge of my seat. I can't wait to hear how the rest of your trip went.popcorn:: It sounds like you have some really GREAT neighbors:wave2: I'm not so sure about DNH, did you contemplate putting one of the seven drawfs on his shirt?(Say grumpy??:mad: ):rotfl: And the magnet of the 2 dogs BFF the black and white tibetan terrier is the cutest dog I've ever seen i believe you said his name was Mulan:rolleyes1

Please write soon, this trip report is starting to get goodpopcorn::

DisneyZell

01-14-2009, 08:21 AM

It's so funny because I saw you guys out by the pool area but didn't know then that you all were DISers - our DS11 was the first in line at Pluto's and then we walked right past where part of you all were sitting on our way into Topsiders to meet DH for lunch. DS12 was nearly first in line at the ice cream machine.

BTW, the Panini place is Goofy's Galley :)

Keep the chapters coming!

Ah yes, Goofy's Galley! that's it! don't know why I couldn't remember that.

Yeah, the people watching was fantastic. :)

I'm lovin' your report and pictures. When it's my turn, I want to be first at the terminal, too! :goodvibes

It's always good to have something to shoot for, and I highly recommend this one...it's pretty neat. But again, don't tell DW! :thumbsup2

I wanna go back right now!!!!!!!!!

I'm looking into booking the westbound repo. We want to renew our vows for our 25th. It'd be great if your family were there too! Any thoughts of somthing like that?
Keep up the good work,
LM

PS Just love the pirate joke thread. pirate: I found it this afternoon and it made me laugh!

AH! I'd love to do the westbound repo...But DW doesn't like the idea of pulling the kids out for that length of time. My dream, however, is to take a 10 or 11 day cruise. 7 days is great, but just as I'm truely getting relaxed...it's time to pack and get off :scared1:

As always...still enjoying your report! Thanks for the update. By the way, did your neighbors have the connecting cabin next door? My parents will be in that one and I wanted to make sure they are fairly quiet. Thanks, Marci

Yes, our neighbors were in the connecting cabin. Not sure what your asking, though. you want to be sure your parents are going to be quiet? :rolleyes1 I don't think I want to comment on that :) Their cabin was great too, no complaints, but they just weighed in, their nickname is Sailingshamus.

I see DH in the white shirt behind the lovely ladies at dinner. Gives me the ability to drift back to cruiseland.....

We had David from Czech Republic as our server and Ali as our asst server. My DD's were in love with David - he was very good looking. He was a very good server, not great but very good. Ali was ending his first 4 month contract and I would suspect he won't be back. He was OK but I don't think it was his thing. Sorry your servers weren't that good. It can really make the dining experience seem to drag.

Ah, that guy. That whole table was extremely loud and annoying. Just kidding!

Thanks about the servers..your absolutely right they can make a dining experience drag out. The way I look at it is this: the server can make a vacation better, but even a bad one can't make it worse. :)

if your servers are that bad can you ask to be switched?

i know there are crappy people all over but it's something you really don't expect at disney

Great question. I've read where people have done that. But remember this was just our first night, so we figured maybe it was an off night. Turned out it wasn't, but more on that throughout the trip report.

I love your trip report!:yay: I am literally on the edge of my seat. I can't wait to hear how the rest of your trip went.popcorn:: It sounds like you have some really GREAT neighbors:wave2: I'm not so sure about DNH, did you contemplate putting one of the seven drawfs on his shirt?(Say grumpy??:mad: ):rotfl: And the magnet of the 2 dogs BFF the black and white tibetan terrier is the cutest dog I've ever seen i believe you said his name was Mulan:rolleyes1

Please write soon, this trip report is starting to get goodpopcorn::

Hmmm, your writing style seems familiar. Yes, DNH could have been Grumpy, in fact we discussed that on the next cruise we would give him that Moniker. He didn't agree, however. :lmao: Mulan is cute, but NOTHING compared to Harley, sorry. Mulan has this annoying habit of pulling to get away from all people when she is walking. Also, when you go to visit her house she runs to her food to eat it...like I'm going to get down there and eat her food. Sheesh!

OH, everyone....Sailingshamu is our neighbor. :cool1: Welcome aboard Kim!

And now...without any further ado (whatever ado is. Sounds alot like poo), here is the next chapter!

DisneyZell

01-14-2009, 11:14 AM

I start today's chapter while we are getting an arctic front coming through the state of New Hampshire. How sad it is to look at pictures of us in short sleeves (or no shirts at all). *sigh*

Ever since our first cruise we had wanted to do a double tip (two trips to Castaway Cay for those of you who don't speak DIS or DCL). We love Castaway Cay as most people do, and feel like each time we go we discover something new, either from reading the boards or from exploring on our own.

So it was Sunday, December 21 (4 more days until Christmas on the high seas!). Today we would begin with our character breakfast.

But before I get to that I need to rant a bit. I'd love to hear from the folks who were on the ship with us if they agree with this comment or not. It really seemed like everything was rushed for us on this trip. Now, part of that could be that we drew the Character Breakfast first, but we had Character Breakfast and Formal Night on the same day, followed by Pirate night the next night...it just seemed like everything was very front-loaded and that made total relaxation take a bit longer than it might have otherwise. But I digress :)

The last cruise I got lots of pictures of the sunrise. This cruise I got one, and it happened to be today.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0205.jpg The Sun rises as we head to Castaway Cay.

There is something very calm about the sun rising while you are on a ship...pretty cool. But sleep took priority the rest of the week. Remember, I was still sick! :eek:

Some pictures from that morning:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0207.jpg DS10 in the upper bunk

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0208.jpg DS6 in the lower bunk

After the wonderful service of the night before we had to head right back into the dining room and our servers for Character Breakfast. But before that we did a little shooting around the ship.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0210.jpg DS10 and DS6 pose by Mickey

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0214.jpg DS10 and DS6 pose by the tree. The Christmas decorations, by the way, were beautifully done. In no way was it overboard Disney, but was, in fact very classic and nicely done throughout the ship. Disney just does a nice job with stuff like that and I hope all of you get a chance to sail during the holiday season and see it for yourself.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0217.jpg DS10, DS6, and DW pose by the giant gingerbread house. This thing was impressive. a good 10 feet tall on a ship! crazy stuff. It looked so real.

But enough decorations, on to the character breakfast. Now, I'm generally not a huge fan of the sit-down breakfast. I like to pick my own stuff, and I have some strange things that I get at breakfast. For instance, I love Bacon (who doesn't you ask, and that would be a logical question). It's not that I love bacon, that's pretty normal. But I love to dip my bacon in syrup. Again, not totally insane. But I discovered on the last cruise we took that it would be nice to pour a lot of syrup into a bowl by itself so that the dipping could cover the bacon completely instead of just spinning it around on the bottom of a plate.

Of course I COULD order a bowl of syrup to go with my bacon. But our server was already a little off...can you imagine his face if I ordered a bowl of syrup? so you see my dilemma. Topsiders is clearly the place for me....but I will not let the neurotic needs of my bacon eating to stop my children from seeing characters. Go ahead, say it...I'm a great Dad. I know. I can't help it. :rolleyes1

So let's see, we got visits from Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Chip and Dale. And what character breakfast would be complete without pictures:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0218.jpg DW an DS10 (no characters here unless you consider DS10 a character which he is).

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0219.jpg DS6 and I hanging out at breakfast. Notice the hat? Cheap hat from WDW!! :thumbsup2

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0220.jpg DS6 and Minnie. Doesn't he look thrilled!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0221.jpg DS10 and Minnie. on the other hand he DOES look thrilled. And he has checkout privileges. I think we better keep our eyes on Minnie this week.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0222.jpg Pluto and the boys

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0223.jpg Chip and the boys. At least I think it's chip. Chocolate colored nose from eating all the chocolate chip cookies? Frankly if eating chocolate turned your nose that color, DS6 would have one too...he is lovingly dubbed "Chocolate boy".

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0226.jpg And of course, the signing of the shirts. for those of you that asked if we continued to do that through the cruise, here is another example.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0229.jpg Goofy stopped by as well (are you sick of the pictures yet?

Once the characters stopped coming, our assistant server went to work...trying to show us that she doesn't stink like the server does. She made us hats.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0230.jpg DS6 is Peter Pan!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0232.jpg DNH is Goofy! and he is wearing a Goofy hat too!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0233.jpg DW gets something on her head. I honestly don't know what that is.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0234.jpg DS10 is goofy as well. enough said.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0236.jpg All the kids and Captain Mickey!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0239.jpg our table with our hats. No, I have no idea what is on my head either.

Whew...sorry about the many, many pictures. But I had to get them out there. Character Breakfast is good to go to. You get a nice opportunity to take pictures and I didn't feel rushed, unless how you sometimes can feel at WDW from what I understand. As you could also see, they were willing to sign the shirts too which was nice. One thing I found throughout is that the handlers for Mickey are not as patient as the rest of the handlers are. I don't know if it is a perception that they have to keep Mickey's image clean or what, but it's definitely different than the other characters. However, he does strike quite the image in his captain outfit which you don't get on the land. All-in-all I was happy with the character breakfast. The food was ok (no syrup, so how good could it be???). And we finished around 8:30. it was time to dock at Castaway Cay for the first dip...very, VERY exciting.

DisneyZell

01-14-2009, 11:14 AM

We love Castaway Cay. In my opinion there is no better port of call. So we had to go watch the docking so we headed up to our room to watch off the balcony.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0242.jpg you can see the island coming into view, and you can see DW and DNH peering over the rail. This is an exciting event for all of us. You can usually see some folks scurrying around getting the island ready for all of use to disembark.

The first two cruises that we took with Disney we didn't do any excursion type stuff. This time we decided to do the Extreme Getaway package. What a great name for a package. Reading that name I assume that we will be doing some mountain bike riding, skateboarding, some rock climbing, and maybe even some parachuting.

Alas, but that's not what we get. This package includes. the stingray adventure, bike rental for an hour, snorkel gear, and tube/float rental. Oh well, what can you do!

So we got ready to go, kids in their suits and slathered (I like that word, it's just fun to say. Say it with me, slathered) with suntan lotion and got our sand toys ready to take to the beach.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0244.jpg The boys, slimed up and ready to go.

We got off the ship at 9:30, handing those great pieces of plastic (I now knew were evil money sucking cards...more commonly known as keys to the world) to the CM's who wanted to know we were leaving the ship. Right off the ship was a very cool setup with a Christmas tree and two sand snow people.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0245.jpg DS10 and DS6 putting up with yet another picture.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0247.jpg The snow people were cool!

they also had a bubble machine going making it look like it was snowing. Ah, snow on Castaway Cay. Typical Disney! for me, a lot of what Disney does right are the little things that other companies wouldn't bother doing. For instance these snow people. Not necessary because life would be just fine without them, but it's so neat to see when you get off the ship. Another example is below:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0250.jpg The tram is dressed up like a reindeer!

We stopped by She sells sea shells and more to look for shirts. I really wanted a Castaway Cay shirt...as did everyone else. They had some nice designs. But we didn't want to haul the shirts all over the place, so figured we would come back later.

Big tip for all you first time cruisers...you can buy the shirts anytime...and have them brought to the ship. They will take them to the stores onboard where you can pick them up. They get new shipments in when the Wonder docks...so stop by the store on your way to the island...buy what you want and have it delivered to the ship. Shirt sizes sometimes aren't available later in the day...so if you see what you want, buy it! :thumbsup2

Our stingray adventure was at 10:00 so we headed over there. It's pretty funny, once you get past the family beach things just calm (and quiet down). We didn't venture very far on our previous two visits...so this was neat to see. We go there, and got our snorkel stuff and went down to the water to check out the rays. They have 50 stingrays in the lagoon, so they are everywhere.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0256.jpg DS6 checks out the rays

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0257.jpg DS10 gets in on the action

About this time we got yelled at to get out of the water that we weren't supposed to be down there. Now, I don't mind getting yelled at (happens all the time at home :lmao: Just kidding baby-cakes!), but they didn't tell us not to go down there...sheesh! a little touchy! But later I figured out it was because they had not taught us the stingray shuffle.

So we had to go back up under this canopy and hear about rays, the different types, and how big they can get. They can get very large, some 6 foot wingspans, and I think one that gets to 25 feet or something (she had a rope that she used to demonstrate how large they can get). The interesting thing for me was her comment that they don't want to sting you because they lose their stinger and are without it while it grows back. I'm thinking to the Crocodile Hunter who took one to the chest...but I didn't bring that up as I figured if no one else was thinking that they are better off anyway.

And then we find out that they clip the stingers of these rays. Naturally. that makes sense. Disney wouldn't do something where there is even a risk of getting zapped. Whew!

Finally it was time to feed them. They brought out these u-shaped things that had basically a track for the rays to take to get the food. They teach them to enter on the right, go across and leave on the left. How do they know where the food is? They have a black piece of plastic that they use as the target. Guess what shape the target is? :mickeyjum yup. I hope all of you got that...or again you need to do some serious Disney research before you board this ship!

This part was very entertaining. Basically you hold the food between your fingers while holding your hand flat against the ground and the target. The ray will cross in front of you and use their mouth to grab it. But it's not really a mouth, more like two plates grabbing together to get the food. I didn't feel unsafe at all.

there was, however, a woman that did. She nearly jumped out of her skin when the ray came near her hand the first time. The second time she made it to the point of the ray taking the food before losing her mind. Finally the third and fourth times she did ok, just a little whimpering. It was pretty interesting. good that she was willing to face her fears...but not sure what she thought the ray was going to do...eat her?

DS10 did awesome...he loves animals of all kinds...so he jumped right in and volunteered over and over again. DS6 was squeamish the first time, but did ok after that.

I really enjoyed it. It was a strange feeling with these plates sort of marching over your hand, but you could reach down and feel the rays, they felt like rubber except right down the middle of their backs which were raised spines. pretty cool. The lady who was helping us was very nice and patient, I'm sure she has answered all these questions every day for quite some time...but she answered them all and seemed interested the whole time.

Now we were done with that and had about 20 minutes to snorkel (part of the package). Before we went down there I was really concerned that the water would be too cold to snorkel...and it was a bit chilly. But once you got in it was fine. DS6 took some convincing to snorkel...he really wasn't interested, but once he got out there he had a great time. It was fun to float along after the rays...and to look for the ones that were buried in the sand. These creatures are truly neat...and do a great job hiding in the sand (thus the stingray shuffle...where you shuffle your feet while you walk so that they will feel the vibration and swim away. if you step on them in the wild they will sting you...which I wouldn't imagine would be a good addition to your vacation!).

Eventually our time was up...and it was on to the next thing...Bike rentals! We had talked about this for a while and thought it would be neat to explore the island. it was. We all picked out our bikes...and helmets for the boys (DW and I did not wear helmets. We are the rebellious types). And headed out. They have a path to the old runway, and then a path out to the lookout tower and back. So we did that...stopping along the way for *gasp* pictures.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0258.jpg our strong men.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0265.jpg Brothers to the end!

The observation tower is great, and I recommend you take a look if you go the Castaway Cay. You can pretty much see the entire island...and it's a great view. And if you go, look around on the ground near the tower...there are some funny "Disney" items around to look for. I won't spoil the surprise on those. The view was unbelievable...and you realize just how much of the island is left untouched. naturally this will have to change when they bring on the new ships...with all those additional passengers they will have to expand everything.

the first time we cruised we ran for the beach with the first group off the ship thinking we would have a hard time getting chairs. But since then we have learned that you don't need to do that. there are plenty of places to put your stuff down and it shifts throughout the day. So DO get off the ship early as you want to spend as much time on the island as you can, but don't feel like you have to race down to the beach. the only caveat to this is...if you want a hammock. Hammocks are in short supply, so if you want one of those...race away! but I digress.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0267.jpg DS6, DS10 and DW with the ship way off in the background. Check out the unbroken greenery all the way. There were a few folks out there at the same time as us...but for the most part it was like we were Castaway's! They also had viewers so you could check things out. And the viewers were free. I found that kind of weird for a Disney island :lmao: .

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0272.jpg DS6 on his bike

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0273.jpg Riding beauty

DS10 and I spent most of the ride back racing. DS10 always, ALWAYS has to be in front. I'm not competitive...so naturally I let him ride in the front the whole way. NOT! it was fun trying to trick him so I could get around him. And of course we just ended up having to wait for the other two...and I was exhausted. Man was I out of shape!

We returned the bikes. We were supposed to meet DN's for lunch at 12:30. But we were starving, and the thought of waiting just didn't work. So we grabbed lunch at Cookies. Here we had a dilemma. Tonight was Formal Night (which is fine), but more importantly tonight was Palo night for the adults. I didn't want to spoil that so I ate sparingly. I had a fish sandwich and some fruit. Both were very good. I did, however, have several ice cream cones. I think it was snickers. boy do I wish they had the same ice cream they have on Castaway Cay on the ship...then again maybe I'm not...as I already ate way too much without it being unbelievable!

We then got a couple of floats and a couple of tubes and headed for the water.

DisneyZell

01-14-2009, 11:15 AM

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0276.jpg Yup, still brothers.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0280.jpg We did some sand castle building...DS6 loves to dig in the sand. He is an expert at it. his favorite is to dig a hole and fill it with water. I have yet to get him to understand that God already did that. it's called the ocean!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0283.jpg Another brother pic. I love pictures of them with the Castaway Cay water.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0285.jpg Me in a tube. it's a wonder the tube would hold me up. This was a great time. I paddled out and floated around for a long time...just letting the ocean pull me around. this was VERY relaxing, and I highly recommend you either rent a tube (I think it was $6), or wait until later in the day and "borrow" an abandoned one. There are a ton floating around toward the end of the day.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0288.jpg DNS11 gets in on the action.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0296.jpg Do I even need to say why I posted this one?

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0292.jpg The wonderful Magic. Oh how I miss her.

Around 3:00 we decided to head back to the ship. One advantage of having another dip is that you didn't feel like you had to stay until the very end. Plus we had formal night and we knew we had to get all gussied up (another fun word by the way). AND, the Patriots were on TV, so we needed to check that out. We stopped by the store and purchased our t-shirts, and Connor purchased a stuffed stingray. Our money well spent we headed back to the ship...used the wipes to get rid of the nasty germs from the island and headed onto the ship. Naturally we had to send all of our stuff through a scanner, just in case, on Disney's Private Island, we managed to pick up a gun...or something. OK, Ok, I know it's there to keep us safe. But if I can't pick on Disney, who will???

We stopped by Diversions to see that the Patriots were killing Arizona (who by the way is now doing very well. So if Arizona wins the super bowl, I assume that the Patriots also won. it's my warped way of thinking. Bearfan, I think you can relate to this). They had some chips, salsa and Jalapeños. They didn't have any cheese sauce which was very disappointing. They said it would be along later.

Needless to say the wind was blowing and there was a bunch of snow accumulated on the sideline. That's what we would have been dealing with (and are now dealing with since we are at home!). So I think we had the better end of that deal! DW headed back to the room while the boys and I watched some more football. The Patriots won (yeah!), and we needed the Jets and Dolphins to lose also. Those pesky Dolphins won...but the jets game was just getting underway. I watched a bit of that, and eventually some cheese sauce did make its way out and so I had to enjoy that. Yes, I know...Palo...so I only had a little bit

Finally it was time to go back to the room to get ready. We all took our turn in the shub (not quite a shower, not quite a tub) and got squeaky clean. Both boys and I were in Tuxedos. I rented mine from a company that delivered it right to my stateroom. I had to sign my life away to assure everyone that I got it. What a great thing. Rather than having to bring yet another item with me, get it pressed, etc. I had it delivered. Well worth the expense, and it was fun to get dressed up on the ship.

We headed out to...wait for it...take pictures! Again, hard to believe I know.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0298.jpg Our family in the atrium

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0299.jpg The boys

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0303.jpg The boys again...note that DS6 seems to have something in his eyes. Let me explain about Connor. He is a drama queen. He can burst into tears if you look at him wrong...and can turn it off just as fast. He has the largest tears...it's amazing. In this picture he is crying because we told him he wasn't smiling very well (which he wasn't. Normally he has a great smile, see earlier pictures). He of course disagreed. I think we had some cranky going on.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0309.jpg DS6 kind of got himself together

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0318.jpg The boys in the porthole. So...at this point I noticed that the flash gave me a ghost image. How cool I thought. Why not be artsy!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0319.jpg DS10 and his reflection

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0321.jpg DS6 and his reflection

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0323.jpg DS10 and baby-cakes and their reflections

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0324.jpg I think you get the idea

sorry about all the pictures. I'm going to have to split this thing into 5 posts probably. You see, I write it all out, then copy it into Word (let it correct my horrific spelling), and then paste back a little at a time. It's a good idea for all you aspiring trip report writers!

As you already know, we had Palo that night...but we did need to feed the kids...so we went back to another torture session...er...dinner with our server. I believe we were in Parrot Cay, my least favorite restaurant. Though others in our party would disagree. :)

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0329.jpg DS10 and DNS11 looking great!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0330.jpg DND8 and DS6 looking good too. Note the hair. DND8 spent quite the amount of time on the island getting her hair done. It had to be painful. But then again, that's why I'm not a woman...i could never take the pain!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0331.jpg DW and DNW looking pretty

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0334.jpg The Men. Need I say more? :scared1:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0336.jpg All of us together

We finished dinner...took the kids back so they could change and it was up to the sports deck for 3 of them...and DS6 went to the lab. We had decided before the cruise that we would let DS10 and DNS11 check themselves in and out of their group. They had some strict rules...they were to page us with where they were going if they left...and if they left that spot they were to go back to the room and write on the board where they were going next. The rule was that if we went to where they said they were and they were not there...they would lose privileges. We also gave some other rules (no elevator and no running). We just didn't want our kids to get that bad reputation that some kids get onboard.

With the kids all checked in it was time for Palo! I love Palo. The food, the service..it's worth every extra penny it costs. We had Lara from England as our server. At first she wasn't that great, but she warmed up VERY quickly...and we really enjoyed her. She shared a lot of stories about the crew and their various celebrations. Her group would have a Christmas party in Palo...they would rearrange things so they could have a good time...and of course that was all after the guests go to sleep (for the most part), so midnight, 1 or 2am! I can only imagine how tired they must be. Her stories were great...and I love to hear about how the crew live. I honestly thing they should do a tour down in the crew sections. Naturally they would never do this...and it would be inconvenient to the crew so I understand that...but I do find it interesting!

So no food pictures...we did that the last time...but not this time!

DW and I had Calamari (yum), and I also had the Tuna. Both were unbelievable. The Tuna I wasn't sure about. It was sliced really, really thin and had lemon over it. It tasted so good. Dw and I both had the Filet Mignon...also excellent. We all had the chocolate soufflé. I also had the Chocolate Hazelnut Gelato and split tiramisu with DNW. Yeah, I ate like a pig. But what else do you do at Palo's???

At the end Lara brought over a plate with "Happy Birthday" written on it in chocolate.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0338.jpg We stole the plate back to our room to take a picture.

This was a surprise to all of us. I HAD called and put on our reservation that we would want to celebrate DW's birthday (which is on 12/29) on Christmas night. Obviously Palo saw that and decided to join in...which was pretty cool.

So that ended our first time to Palo on the cruise (we had Brunch the next morning (whoa...that's a lot of eating). We headed back to change because we wanted to go see the hypnotist. DS10 and DNS11 were back in the cabins. DS10 wanted to go watch Sunday Night football on the big screen so we told him he could do that. DS11 was tired and didn't want to go. This would be Nick's first adventure on his own. I figured he was ready for it.

We went and checked on DS6 in the club (the moved at some point). He looked like he was having fun so we didn't disturb him. We went to check to see that DS10 was settled on-deck and talked with him for a bit. Since he was alone we decided to get him an arcade card. We gave that to him to play with a bit...he was very excited about that (we don't do the arcade thing in general...so this was a treat).

We met in Diversions to play cards for a bit with DN's. Hearts is our game...we play it Friday Nights frequently when at home....it gets quite competitive. Hard to believe I know.

Then it was on to the show in Rockin' Bar D. The last time we cruised we never did any of the adult things (well, ok, I think we did one, but that was it.). this time we were determined to do some of that stuff. They had the band on when we arrived at 10. We saw 15 minutes of that and then it was time for the hypnotist. I can't remember his name, and just searched around to try to find our cruise stuff to see who it was. But no luck. Hopefully one of the folks who was also on the cruise can enlighten my brain as DW didn't write it down!

The show was great. He was funny..and got about 10 folks on stage to be hypnotized. Throughout the program he would have them do different things. I don't want to go into too much detail in case you have the chance to see it live. DW and I disagreed on if the people were truly hypnotized...and we would get more details on that later in the cruise (there I go again). Either way I found it very entertaining and very funny, so I can't complain. He was going to do a family show later in the cruise...and we knew we would be going to that!

The show ended at 11...time to gather the kids. We went and got DS6 who had fallen fast asleep in the club on a mat. He gets this cute confused look when you wake him up from a deep sleep...and he did that here. We carried him back. I went up to find Nick. He ended up on the sports deck playing dodgeball in the dark. It looked like he was having a great time. I let him finish the game...and then we headed back to bed.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0337.jpg Our towel animal for the night.

That's it for today...whew!

next up: Chapter 7: Day at sea!

until then...go make someone's day!

WDBRDWLK

01-14-2009, 12:47 PM

jollytammy

01-14-2009, 01:54 PM

You have some really super pictures of your boys! Your pictures capture the disney magic perfectly. Each picture I see, just reminds me of our last cruise. Thank you for sharing!;)

DisneyZell

01-14-2009, 06:12 PM

Wow, I must have amnesia as I don't remember the stringray freakin out event...oh, wait a minute, I have not taken my cruise yet, it's in 7 weeks...BUT that could have very well been me! Last cruise we took I was in the water near the stringray lagoon and one escaped or should I say that he is the CM's pet...seems they name them! anyways I freaked out and then had a barracuda follow me...I couldn't get out of the water fast enough!

Funny thing is Hallmark decided a year or so ago to come out with these singing cards...Well, same reaction! I got a Cinderella card from my DH and it scared the crap out of me...I opened it, heard it talking and flung it across the room...my heart pounding! I'm a Nana, don't do that to me!

Your report is fantastic and it brings back so many memories from Feb. 2008 when the Patriots played (and lost) the superbowl...we were on that cruise and I might add we Patriot fans were in the minority! Boo

p.s. we got off the Magic and 3 days later our DGD 'Maya' was born..isn't she cute!

Ack! that sounds like an interesting adventure. now, don't get me wrong, I wasn't really trying to make fun of the woman (well, ok, maybe a little :rolleyes1 ) It was very impressive that she actually tried and didn't leave altogether. Clearly she intended to go through with it one way or the other.

Not many Patriots fans when we walked in, either...although it was a different situation. I'm sure you took some razzing when they lost last year...so very sad! perfect season down the drain!

and yes...Maya is a cutie :) I'm sure your proud. Thanks for the note! :thumbsup2

You have some really super pictures of your boys! Your pictures capture the disney magic perfectly. Each picture I see, just reminds me of our last cruise. Thank you for sharing!;)

me too...and it's so sad. Especially since tomorrow night it is supposed to be 7 BELOW zero. whoa...that's cold! I do ok in the cold...but that is just insane! thanks for writing! :)

strega7

01-15-2009, 07:09 PM

Thanks for another great post...your camera takes beautiful pictures, or maybe its the photographer, anyway great pics. Looking forward to reading more. Marci

frdeb1999

01-15-2009, 07:41 PM

Wonderful pix!! Looks like you had a fabulous time!!!:)

dvc4life

01-15-2009, 08:09 PM

O. . . M. . . G. . .!!!!!!! What a great report. You are just so entertaining. I absolutely love all the pictures of your family and your writing style. Your boys are so handsome and your wife is beautiful. I can't wait for your next update. Thank you so much for sharing your trip!!!!!

DisneyZell

01-16-2009, 09:58 AM

Thanks for another great post...your camera takes beautiful pictures, or maybe its the photographer, anyway great pics. Looking forward to reading more. Marci

Thanks Marci. I'm thinking it's the camera. We love it! :thumbsup2

Wonderful pix!! Looks like you had a fabulous time!!!:)

But ultimately anything is better than sitting in the snow...I have to say that Disney does it right... :cool1:

O. . . M. . . G. . .!!!!!!! What a great report. You are just so entertaining. I absolutely love all the pictures of your family and your writing style. Your boys are so handsome and your wife is beautiful. I can't wait for your next update. Thank you so much for sharing your trip!!!!!

Thank you, thank you. Comments like that early you alot of points, and another chapter! Here it comes!

thanks again all, I really do appreciate the comments, nice to know that people are actually reading...and not falling asleep. :lmao:

DisneyZell

01-16-2009, 01:05 PM

As I'm sure you all have been wondering, we are surviving the deep freeze that has settled into New Hampshire. We are saving on electricity by shutting down the refrigerators and freezers. the freezer stuff is out back in the snow and the refrigerator stuff is in the garage.

just kidding. But it is that cold. Officially it is 9 degrees outside right now. When I drove DS10 to school the temperature on the car red -20. yes, -20. crazy. I guess the official temp was around -4 or something. We have a four season porch which leads to the side yard where Harley does his thing. the porch isn't heated unless I turn on the pellet stove. This morning I had bare feet when I let him out and by the time he did his thing my feet actually hurt it was so cold.

When we went out to the bus this morning for DS6 my nose froze every time I took a breath. Ah, life in New England! The weird part is that it's actually beautiful outside...the sun is shining the day is bright. We have at least one inch of solid ice on our driveway. Soon I'll be selling ice skating spots for the neighbors. Earn a little money for my next Disney Cruise! :thumbsup2

OH, and I’m much faster now. I had to buy a new router…mine decided that being slow was good. Everything took FOREVER to load. Actually I think Comcast made a change of some sort to their equipment as our neighbors had a similar issue. But I’m now high tech with my Wireless-N router…so life is good for me!

But as usual I digress. Where were we? Oh yeah, asleep. When we woke up it was Day #1 at sea and Monday. Monday on the cruise is a sad day for me. Why, you ask? (well, maybe you didn't ask, but seeing as this is my story I get to tell you anyway. That's an added bonus and I will not charge you for it!). For some reason after the weekend is over it seems as if the cruise is almost over. I know, I know, I have 5 days to go, but for some reason it all seems to go faster after the first two days. So remember people that I'm dealing with depression here!

DW woke up early again (6:15 according to her handy-dandy journal!). She went out onto the balcony and read. Note that there is no sunrise picture for this day. Ahem. I don't like to assign blame, but it's her fault! :rolleyes1

The boys and I, however, continued to snooze. The last cruise I frequently got up and joined DW on the balcony. I didn't feel the need this time...sleep took priority. Could it be that we have been married so long that I don't need the alone time? or could it be that I was sick?

STOP IT, I was sick. Don't try to get my in trouble with DW!

ahem. Anyway, we took the kids upstairs for breakfast at Topsiders. Today was Palo Brunch day (thank god, I was starving. all this non-eating was killing me). We grabbed them food, and of course I grabbed some bacon and syrup (yum), but nothing else as I wanted to save myself for the gluttony that was yet to come.

Shortly thereafter it was time for the DIS meet ornament exchange! Woohoo! That started at 9:30 and was organized by Bearfan (Thanks Bearfan! :wave2: ). She did a great job. She lined the gifts up on the bar and had everyone pick a number. Then one by one we all picked. We got to the end and there was no gift for Bearfan.

What the?

:sad:

just not right! she organized it...and no ornament? So we all talk a bit about what to do (clearly the lead person HAS to have an ornament) when a random lady walks up and hands her a gift. This was one of those moments when you shake your head and wonder what the $&#*(@ (sorry about the profanity, but a couple years ago I read a book by Stephen King ("On Writing") and HE says that while you don't have to use a lot of profanity, there are times when it fits. I know, I know, it's a family board, but He IS the expert, and I didn't actually write the profanity, just a bunch of characters from the keyboard. Really people, let's all relax here, but I digress).

So some random lady apparently walked up, seeing people grab a gift she grabbed one for herself thinking they were for anyone. They were waiting in line (I'm guessing for the character breakfast). Thankfully she gave it back so we didn't have to worry about what to do. Whew. I'm telling you, you never know what might happen on the Magic :lmao: .

Bearfan also put together a digital scavenger hunt. She had identified a bunch of things to take pictures of which would bring you to areas of the ship you might not otherwise go. It was a very cool list, and of course I didn't know where any of them were (typical). I do want to thank her and her hubby for putting it together though, I'm sure it was a lot of work.

Once we were done with the ornament exchange we went through the atrium and WHOA! They are about to start Mr. Toad's Wild Race! In this race there are 4 wooden frogs on strings. You have to pull it toward you which raises the frog and then let the string go and the frog actually moves forward. You continue to do this until it reaches the finish point on the string.

All the kids wanted to play...so we signed them up. DS6, DNS11 and DND8 all won their first race (unfortunately DS10 did not, and he was crushed. He kept harassing the guy running the thing to let him go again. He is VERY persistent...and stubborn. Don't know where he got that from :confused3 .)

It was on to the semi-final round. DS6 and DND8 went up against each other. DS6 came out on top. DNS11 didn't win his round. So it was Connor in the finals. Lots of build up...you could cut the tension with a knife. The race was off and unfortunately DS6 lost. Not by much...his frog flipped over which didn't help. I'm not sure, but I think it was all fixed. I saw some money changing hands between the parent and the guy running it...I can't PROVE anything....but I'm just sayin' :rolleyes1 ha ha!

Anyway, the kids had fun. These little events are a kick...and I recommend doing them. The kids typically get something (a ribbon or whatever). Connor's ribbon was the beginning of what would turn out to be quite the winning streak for our family on the cruise. Not that I'm bragging because that would be wrong.

DisneyZell

01-16-2009, 01:06 PM

Anyhoo....time to go back to the room to change into proper attire for Palo. Our reservie was for 11am, and we were very much looking forward to it. We plopped Connor into the club where he was going to make Flubber. DS11, DNS11 and DND8 were all goign to their club for Goofy's World Records. I have no idea what that is, but it couldn't have been that great as they didn't exactly talk about it for hours after!

Then it was on to Palo. So I was waiting to see what DNH would come dressed in. He is one of those "I'm on vacation" guys who doesn't want to get dressed up. When we last saw him he had shorts on...I was curious if he would get away with that in Palo. BUT, he arrived in slacks. DNW talked him into changing at the last minute. :) True to form, however, he DID have flip flops on. Always the rebel.

So we had Lara again from England. That was very cool. She approached us at the end of dinner and asked... she was great so it wasn't a problem for us. We had that happen the last time we were on the cruise, but the guy wasn't quite as good. So that can be uncomfortable, and of course what can you say? "No, you suck, so we don't want you". And he didn't suck...that would be way to harsh.

Ahem. Anyway, Lara was great, taking us around and showing us all of the things that we could try, and all of the breakfasts. They like you to hit the buffet portion first (although unlike ANY buffet you will ever see. All kinds of cool things like Salmon Mouse, and Caviar. they also have a great selection of different types of cheeses and breads...yum, yum, yum. Now I'm hungry). Once your done with that you can order egg dishes and pancakes. I had the Eggs Benedict that's made with smoked salmon and isn't called eggs Benedict (but you get the idea). If you do brunch, listen to your server, they won't steer you wrong. Everything she suggested was fabulous. Definitely try the Pizza's! And the Salmon Mouse. and the deserts. Well, it's all good.

I've seen people ask on the boards about what is the best at Palo's, dinner or brunch. I honestly think they both have advantages. Dinner is like anything you would find at a fine dining restaurant with better service. Brunch has many unique items to choose from and try, and because most of it is a buffet you enjoy at your pace. I wouldn't WANT to pick between the two...but if I had to I'd say brunch is the place to be if you will only do one. There, you made me do it!

After brunch we grabbed the kids and went back to change. I took them up to deck 9 to get some lunch (for some reason I wasn't hungry. Hmmmm). DW went to deliver our pirate Fish Extender gifts. Yup, multiple gifts. DW is so good at this stuff it's scary. We are planning to go to WDW in February (if I could figure out how to do one of those countdown clocks I'd do it), and she is diving right in. I imagine that trip will be as thought out and enjoyable as the cruise because she just does everything!

At 1:30 Connor was going back into the club. He is a HUGE Stitch fan, and it was time for Stitch's great adventure. So I dropped him off there and DS10 and DNS11 headed out to do the digital scavenger hunt.

Now it was time for one of my must do's on the cruise. DW and I grabbed our books and headed to deck 4 to sit on the comfy padded chairs and overlook the ocean while reading, and maybe take a nap. OK, so the nap didn't happen, but it was very relaxing. The weird part is that sitting there you could be at a hotel or whatever, overlooking the ocean. Except, of course, for the fact that your moving. But it is a fairly surreal thing to do, and very relaxing.

DW had trouble sitting still, and it wasn't long before she headed out to go get Connor from the club. She then went to watch DS10, DNS11, and DND8 compete in the Mickey 2000 (it's a vegetable car race. your given potatoes and carrots and a few other things to make a car which is supposed to race down a track. It's a joint parent/kid thing. I didn't even know they were doing this, but, hey, I was doing one of my bucket list items for the cruise! :)

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0003-1.jpg DNS11 is on the right of the track, DND8 is on the left. DS10 is the one with his back to us wearing his brand new orange castaway cay shirt!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0011.jpg DND8 holding her vegetable car

Again, these events are cool. I'd love to tell you all about it, but I wasn't there, so I have no idea. I do know that the cars built didn't do that well, and that DS10 and DS11's car didn't even move. Ooops! :)

So now I'll bet your wondering what DNW was doing during all of this?

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0012.jpg Taking care of her own bucket list. Hi Kim!

I finally caught up with everyone back at the room changing into swimming suits. it was time to hit the upper decks.

First thing first, we had to play some foosball. I think we played 500 games of foosball throughout the cruise. I'm not sure why this was so exciting, but it was a lot of fun, and we did many different combinations of bigger kids and little kids and Moms and Dads. Again...no competitiveness in this family...but I won most of the time and had everyone complaining about my spin drop into the game.

By this time the ship was starting to rock pretty good. I think this was really the first time in the cruises we had taken that the ship moves as much as it did, fortunately none of us got seasick...but it was pretty interesting. Because the ship was moving so much, the pool became a wave pool. we had kids who were hanging on the sides and the pool would slosh away, and then come back and push them up. They really enjoyed it...and frankly it looked like fun. Ah, if only I was young again.

the only bad thing that happened was to DS10. My children have this thing that they do. They put things down. a lot. Who knows why they have to do this, but it could be lanyards, hats, or whatever. When it is inconvenient, they can't just leave the thing alone, they have to put it down. So DS10 didn't need his goggles on because he was in the Goofy Wave Pool. So what does he do? Puts them on the ledge....the next big wave comes along...and whoosh, the goggles go down underneath the decking they pull out for the parties. Bummer! you could see them, but they were so far back there was no way to reach them. We tried talking to some maintenance guys, but no luck. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't try, they even brought over a skimming net like they were going to give that a shot...but they decided not to for whatever reason. So no more goggles for the rest of the trip...one of two major lessons my 10 year old would learn on the cruise. the other one will come later!

DisneyZell

01-16-2009, 01:08 PM

So that night was Pirate Night! (see, I told you that everything was squished together!). We love pirate night. The first cruise we didn't really have anything to dress in. The second we did a bit better, but this time we planned over a year in advance and hit the Target after Halloween sales and picked up a bunch of stuff. DS6 and I were both Jack Sparrow want-a-be's, and Nick was a character from Pirates 3 with barnacles all over him. It also had a mask, but that just didn't work for what we were trying to do.

So we headed back to get our pirate stuff on. We got all decked out and it was time to get pictures! Yes, I know, you haven't had a lot of pics in this report, but that is about to change!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/Mickeypirate.jpg Our official Magic picture with Pirate Mickey. If you’re going to take this to be printed (as a keepsake of your visit here to my trip report) make sure you print out the shutters release form :lmao:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/minniepirate.jpg And of course Minnie

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0019.jpg our neighbors with Pirate Mickey

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0022.jpg and of course Minnie

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0341.jpg This was just a cool pic

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0344.jpg us and Captain Jack. Captain Jack is the one in the middle (in case you thought I was Captain Jack, a common mistake)

Off to dinner in Lumierre's. I'm sure I spelled that wrong, am hoping that spell check catches it, but if it doesn't, please forgive me. Again, you get what you pay for!

Dinner was decent. We all ate well as usual. Toby sucked...as usual. Well, ok, sucked is a harsh word, he was just uninspiring. He takes forever in everything he does. Nadja started to come around though. She was starting to figure out that she should bring extra diet cokes, so that sped up...and she started doing crayon tricks for the kids (I don't remember exactly, but she would put them down in a certain order and say things like "move 3 crayons to make a picture of the moon" (not the actual thing...I don't remember I said!)). The kids enjoyed that and it was a bit more like what we expected which was nice.

Now it was off to the show. I see from my wife's handy-dandy journal that the name of the Hypnotist is Rick Calvin. or Kalvin. or Ricky Calvin. something like that. I could go back and fix the trip report...but if your still reading your all set, and if someone doesn't make it this far...too bad for them!

Again he was great. This was the family show, but not really that different than the adult show. Same gig, he brought a bunch on stage and hypnotized them. He made them do funny things. The best part about him is he seemed to know when someone was faking and he would quickly send them packing. that was quite an impressive thing. One of the guys was from right by us and he was there with his daughter. We talked to him later and he was definitely under...he knew what he was doing but it didn't matter. the guy made everyone sing a Hannah Montana song and this guy said he didn't even know he knew that song. Pretty cool. anyway, if you get the chance, I really recommend this one...it was very entertaining.

After the show it was time to go up to the deck party by Goofy's pool (no goggles). It's a big show they put on...all the characters are involved, and naturally Mickey saves the day. So that's pretty cool, but pales in comparison to the fireworks display. In the middle of the ocean. Man, oh man, only Disney would figure out a way to make that happen. The display was impressive and really fun to watch. Again, when you consider your in the middle of the ocean, that's even more amazing! Another bit of Disney Magic (pun intended!).

After the show we hit the Pirate Buffet. I had intended to have a turkey leg because they have them there, but I was stuffed from dinner. The kids got a couple of sweet things and some chocolate which we sat and ate and we relaxed for a bit longer on deck. Then it was back to the room.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0346.jpg An elephant to end the day

Day 3 was done...and a great one it was. I personally love the sea days...almost as much as...well, you will have to wait to find out!

Up next: Chapter 8: Cozumel...or was it?

Now, go make someone's day! :)

Kurby

01-16-2009, 07:44 PM

and again it ends.

i'd wait until the whole thing is done but you've got me sitting on the edge of my seat.

i'm sooooo excited to go on the wonder in may.

glad toby won't be there ;)

BearFan

01-16-2009, 08:57 PM

Then one by one we all picked. We got to the end and there was no gift for Bearfan.

Was that funny or what?!? I guess she figured that Disney was just randomly handing out wrapped gifts! I mean, it's Christmas right? Thanks for the kind words about the exchange and the scavenger hunt. I had fun putting them together. I came up with a different idea for our next cruise. I think I'll have 10 pictures and then you'll have to go around the ship and find where they're located. Kind of a backwards scavenger hunt. That and I'd definitely think about doing a digital hunt for parents and one just for kids. But I've got lots of time to plan now with no firm travel plans. Sure you couldn't convince DW that a two week Transatlantic trip could be educational enough? I used to teach fifth grade, I'm sure I could come up with enough fun assignments to keep the two DSs occupied!

Stay Warm! (It was -25 here last night)

LM

nzdisneymom

01-17-2009, 10:28 AM

You know what I'm enjoying the best about this trip report? The fact that we've been home for three weeks now which seems like forever, but reading your trip report installments is extending our weeklong cruise into a month-or-more!

We, too, felt like once it got to Monday that things started going too fast. The first few days felt like multiple-days-in-one, but then wham - it was suddenly time to get off the ship.

We didn't have our character breakfast til Friday; if we'd had it early in the week, we might would've gone to it, but Monday was the last morning I woke up early (I was on our verandah around the same time as your DW - only I *did* get a sunrise picture - it was the only sunrise I saw, though, and no one else in my family saw one - hee hee).

I have to echo the shout-out to BearFan for the planning and organization for the ornament exchange and digital scavenger hunt!

And last comment for this time -- love love loved that snickers ice cream on Castaway Cay on Sunday and I was disappointed they didn't have it again when we went for our second dip.

LisaSp

01-17-2009, 07:12 PM

Your report is fantastic and it brings back so many memories from Feb. 2008 when the Patriots played (and lost) the superbowl...we were on that cruise and I might add we Patriot fans were in the minority! Boo

We were on that Superbowl cruise too last year. But we were among the Giants fans, sorry!

DisneyZell I am loving your report...keep it coming!

pogopossum

01-18-2009, 02:17 AM

hail fellow cruiser, i have to return the favor and get in on your thread. great report, i give it two thumbs up, or read it if ebert doesn't allow me to say that.

i know how that life thing gets in the way and have gotten back to updating my report. i also know a little about that freezing rain stuff you referenced as we tend to get more of that and sleet than snow like ya'll do. it is pretty until the trees start to break. as i mentioned in my report we ran away from that stuff on the day we left for florida as well. it was nice to get where we could put the shorts back on.

WDBRDWLK

01-18-2009, 10:51 AM

We were on that Superbowl cruise too last year. But we were among the Giants fans, sorry!

DisneyZell I am loving your report...keep it coming!

We were standing over by the Internet Cafe and everytime I cheered for the Patriots I got alot of boo's. So after a while we decided to skip the potential 'knockout' from some 'other' fans and find something else to do...eat! It was worth it too. All good things must come to an end...and the Patriots were no different last year.

DisneyZell

01-20-2009, 01:06 PM

and again it ends.

i'd wait until the whole thing is done but you've got me sitting on the edge of my seat.

i'm sooooo excited to go on the wonder in may.

glad toby won't be there ;)

Sorry, it has to end sometime! Unfortunately it will be next weekend before I can plunk in another chapter. :sad2: But alas, it will come, I promise!

Was that funny or what?!? I guess she figured that Disney was just randomly handing out wrapped gifts! I mean, it's Christmas right? Thanks for the kind words about the exchange and the scavenger hunt. I had fun putting them together. I came up with a different idea for our next cruise. I think I'll have 10 pictures and then you'll have to go around the ship and find where they're located. Kind of a backwards scavenger hunt. That and I'd definitely think about doing a digital hunt for parents and one just for kids. But I've got lots of time to plan now with no firm travel plans. Sure you couldn't convince DW that a two week Transatlantic trip could be educational enough? I used to teach fifth grade, I'm sure I could come up with enough fun assignments to keep the two DSs occupied!

Stay Warm! (It was -25 here last night)

LM

I think the picture scavenger hunt is a great idea...and a great way to get fired up about your cruise! no go on the repo cruises, I tried (you can ask DW). Westbound wouldn't work because the kids are in school, and both of our boys play football (I'm a coach and vice president of the board, DW is team mom for two teams typically, so we have just a tad going on). I did try to talk her into eastbound. It was a good deal, around 7k before the discount for category 6. I'd love to take a cruise like that, what, 4 days at sea in a row, 5? Crazy fun! :) Thanks for the note.

You know what I'm enjoying the best about this trip report? The fact that we've been home for three weeks now which seems like forever, but reading your trip report installments is extending our weeklong cruise into a month-or-more!

We, too, felt like once it got to Monday that things started going too fast. The first few days felt like multiple-days-in-one, but then wham - it was suddenly time to get off the ship.

We didn't have our character breakfast til Friday; if we'd had it early in the week, we might would've gone to it, but Monday was the last morning I woke up early (I was on our verandah around the same time as your DW - only I *did* get a sunrise picture - it was the only sunrise I saw, though, and no one else in my family saw one - hee hee).

I have to echo the shout-out to BearFan for the planning and organization for the ornament exchange and digital scavenger hunt!

And last comment for this time -- love love loved that snickers ice cream on Castaway Cay on Sunday and I was disappointed they didn't have it again when we went for our second dip.

holy cow that ice cream was good. The cookie dough is good too, but not nearly as good! I wish they had ice cream like that on the ship! but then again, it would be empty alot. :lmao:

Thanks for writing! and for reading of course!

We were on that Superbowl cruise too last year. But we were among the Giants fans, sorry!

DisneyZell I am loving your report...keep it coming!

Ahem. Giants fan, eh? Guess I don't really have the ability to limit who reads it...but by continuing to read you DO show you have some taste...so you can't be all bad. :rolleyes1

hail fellow cruiser, i have to return the favor and get in on your thread. great report, i give it two thumbs up, or read it if ebert doesn't allow me to say that.

i know how that life thing gets in the way and have gotten back to updating my report. i also know a little about that freezing rain stuff you referenced as we tend to get more of that and sleet than snow like ya'll do. it is pretty until the trees start to break. as i mentioned in my report we ran away from that stuff on the day we left for florida as well. it was nice to get where we could put the shorts back on.

yup, I remember reading that in yours. We have moved off of ice and onto snow. if we keep getting snow like we have we might break a record. I don't mind it, but unfortunately I travel alot, and DW is left snowblowing the driveway. Let's just say she doesn't enjoy that. :crazy2:

We were standing over by the Internet Cafe and everytime I cheered for the Patriots I got alot of boo's. So after a while we decided to skip the potential 'knockout' from some 'other' fans and find something else to do...eat! It was worth it too. All good things must come to an end...and the Patriots were no different last year.

As you have already seen and will continue to see, I agree with you on the eating part 100%! and last year it was all jealousy until those lucky Giants came along. They strung 3 really lucky plays right in a row. Crazy! but the Pats gave it away. What can you do? :)

Well, thank you all again for the kind words, keep 'em coming! I'm travelling this week, so no additional chapter until this weekend. Sorry! :)

smeecanada

01-20-2009, 01:20 PM

Well, thank you all again for the kind words, keep 'em coming! I'm travelling this week, so no additional chapter until this weekend. Sorry! :)

In other words, DW's journal is at home and you are not. :rotfl2:

Great report, by the way. Entertains us poor smucks who don't have any firm plans to board the ships any time soon. The dates below my siggie are wishful bookings. :rolleyes2

Good luck with the snow..... they are starting to forecast the possibility again here. We don't do snow.....

DisneyZell

01-21-2009, 03:18 PM

In other words, DW's journal is at home and you are not. :rotfl2:

Great report, by the way. Entertains us poor smucks who don't have any firm plans to board the ships any time soon. The dates below my siggie are wishful bookings. :rolleyes2

Good luck with the snow..... they are starting to forecast the possibility again here. We don't do snow.....

Ahem...well...yeah, that might have something to do with it. Now, note that you can't really slam me for stealing directly from her journal...I have been very up front about how I have been repurposing her journalistic talents!

:thumbsup2

I like dreams, by the way...they are what keep us together. just ask DW how many times I have suggested that we should do the eastbound repo...:lmao:

DisneyZell

01-26-2009, 03:01 PM

Ah, how time flies when you’re not working on trip reports! Snow on the ground a snowstorm on the way and it's time to slide back into the dream world that is DCL.

by this time on the cruise time was really starting to march, but today was Tuesday, and we were docked at Cozumel. Today was a day for rebellion and relaxation. For today was a day we say "no thank you" to getting off the ship and instead stay at home the whole day.

I like to think of it as a bonus sea day...but with a kicker...no one else onboard! obviously that changed throughout the day...but you get my point!

However, before I go to far, wanted to share a pictures. This was taken by our neighbors in the cabin next to ours. I don't think I did a good end to end cabin shot...and they did....so I am stealing it for my purposes!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0059.jpg this is not our room. But looks very similar, only backward. :)

Alas, today was a day we got to return to the promised land....Topsiders. I diligently used the hand wipes on the way in (by the way (yeah, here I go), I think that it is very cool that they do everything they can to keep everyone healthy. I know, I know, it's in their best interest, but the fact that they have it out there in front of you all the time just says good things about DCL. Heck, it makes me want to make the kids wash their hands before meals. Not that I never did that before, but it definitely makes you think about being clean, and how that might, just might keep you healthy. The first cruise on DCL I don't think they did that...and Dw and I both were sick as dogs for a full day. So I choose to believe the reason it didn't happen after that was because of the people who have to stand there and hold the towels out time after time. Do you think their hands get tired after a while? but I digress).

And yes, it was time for bacon. And syrup. A bowl of it actually. Yes, to some of you this might sound gross, but those of you who think that are clearly the folks who have never tried to dip your bacon in a bowl of goodness.

Now, one thing I must say is that from the last cruise until now Disney must have changed syrup. It wasn't nearly as good as before. Not so bad that I'd want to say something, or complain about it (uh...well...um...ok, other than here), but it was not as good. Yes, I continued to eat it every breakfast, but something was changed about it....I think it's a plot by THE MAN. no, I have no idea who the man is...do you?

After stuffing ourselves (we had to stuff ourselves...heck, it had been almost 9 hours since our last meal! :scared: and you never know where you might find your next meal onboard.

Our next destination: Ocean Quest. Now, neither of our boys are old enough for Ocean Quest normally, but today was an open house. So we went and checked it out. It's basically a bunch of video game stations, and the mother lode, a ship simulator. There were kids playing it when we went in (who do they think they are???), so we dinked around on other things.

DW by this time was annoyed because it was just video games. While I remember this distinctly, I read in her journal what she really thinks of us and I quote "The 3 boys were in heaven. I decided to leave because I could play video games at home". Harrumph. Is it just me, or do you read into that sentence that she is implying that I am a boy? I mean...we have two boys...and the only other male member of our family was left at home in the Kennel. Do you suppose she could mean....me?

Anyhoo, she headed off to the pool while the kids and I hung around and shortly thereafter got to drive the Magic. Yes, DS6, DS10 and I drove the Magic. I didn't want to get involved. This was kid stuff, you know? But after driving the ship into the ground time after time after time (and the ship kept having to drydock, and I know how all of you hate drydocking because of the time you can't spend on the Magic), I felt it was time for me to step in where we successfully steered the ship on several missions including one where you had to turn it every few feet and maneuver through coral. We got a commendation for that one I believe, and I was SURE that Captain Tom was going to come and speak to us and ask us to come help him steer.

Surprisingly that did not happen. Ah well...such is life. Genius is often overlooked!

Now, if you were asking yourself why in the heck we would not get off the ship in Cozumel I think I already gave you the answer...but being generous I'll give it to you again! :)

In 2006 we did the same itinerary (except we didn't get to double dip!). So we had already don’t Cozumel. In 2006 DW and DS10 (then 8) did the dolphin excursion, and DS6 (then 4) went to a beach which I can't remember the name of. Frankly speaking it was a nightmare. I was constantly worried about my video camera...we were hungry and I was a bit afraid of the food (being Mexico). We were supposed to meet the ladies and older boys at this beach but they never made it because the dolphin thing took too long...all-in-all it just was not a good memory for me. We weren't doing any excursions this time, so no reason to get off the ship. Woohoo!

Why woohoo??? Picture a sea day...with activities and really nothing to do but WHATEVER you wanted to do. Now picture that with no people. That's why the woohoo. Obviously if you have never been to a port you should try to get off, I'm certainly not discouraging that. However, if you get the chance, experiencing an almost empty ship is nice. And because it's your home you are steps from everything you need. The pool is empty because everyone is at the beach instead. And there is no sand involved. Woohoo!

The rest of the morning was spent swimming and hanging out. Foosball was on the menu (I believe this was the day when everyone (ok, DW and DS10) was annoyed with my spin server in Foosball. Jealousy. We also took our turn at Shuffleboard. But I learned later in the cruise that I was doing it wrong. Who knew there were rules???

dinner was a casual affair made up mostly of Pizza. OK, so I just spent 10 minutes looking through my TR to make sure I hadn't already shared with you my tip for pizza. I feel like I have, truly...and if there is one tip you should keep with you this is it. So because of that I'm going to share it with you again, if I'm repeating myself...well....skip this part. :thumbsup2

I like the pizza onboard. it's not fantastic...and certainly not the best pizza anywhere. But I discovered a trick to make it even better. the main thing to me is that I like my pizza crispy and the pizza they make onboard just isn't. So when I went up I asked to have them put a couple slices into the oven for a few minutes. I'd go get soda from the drink station and when I get back...hot fresh and crispy pizza! this made all the difference in the world, really it did. I didn't know if it would matter the first time...but boy once I did that once I was hooked. The guy got to know me pretty well. OK, so he saw me coming. One day a new lady was there and there was confusion...luckily the cook saw me and remembered me and grabbed the pizza and threw it in the over. Ah! life is good.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0355.jpg Lunch on deck.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0357.jpg Kind of cool to be in port right next to these other big ships.

As you can see we started doing some wandering and picture taking. This reminded me that we have one picture we have taken on all three cruises with DS6:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0389.jpg 2008

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/connorfloor2006.jpg 2006

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/connorfloor2004.jpg 2004

Yeah, unfortunately I didn't remember exactly where Connor was in the previous years...but still, it's kind of neat to look back and see how he has changed while basically the ship has stayed the same.

Speaking of which, I've read a few places where people said they could see the wear and tear of a 10 year old ship. I really didn't see it. DNH said he did...but I have to say that IMHO that they do a great job of keeping the ship in great shape. Honestly if I didn't know it I wouldn't have known the ship was 10 years old. However, it did just come out of dry dock...so that's part of it, and the natural progression. Dry Dock, however, did not blow me away other than the TV's. The TV's and the added channels were fantastic. Not that we spent a ton of time watching TV, it's nice to have them available when you want them, you know?

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0364.jpg Both boys at the rail. Throwing them over wasn't really something we had to consider...they were actually pretty well behaved! :)

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0365.jpg Captain Tom gets us ready to go

If you have been following along so far and not skipping ahead to this chapter (and if you are skipping ahead, stop and go back to the beginning. ok, do what you want), you know that we have not been pleased with our servers. So we did what I never thought we would ever do, we skipped dinner.

DisneyZell

01-26-2009, 03:03 PM

Disney was playing Bolt in 3-d, so we went there instead of dinner. It was a pretty good movie. Disney, overall, has not been putting out the best movies lately...but this was pretty entertaining. I was VERY impressed with the 3d, DW wasn't. There were not a ton of things flying out of the screen in this one, but that wasn't necessary. Basically the whole thing was 3d, and the depth of the scenery, etc., was really neat. You felt like you were in it, and a part of the whole thing. The glasses were also heavier than any 3d glasses I had ever had on...and then got a bit uncomfortable after a while. But they did fit over my glasses...so that worked ok. This was all shown in the Walt Disney theater, so it was quite comfortable. The only issue was that it was full, and I was worried about it being loud. It wasn't too bad, but like most of the movies I've seen on the cruise ship people definitely know they are not paying for it and act like that...which I get annoyed with.

Speaking of movies (yeah...here I go), I was disappointed at the scheduling of the movies. To me they should have movies running throughout the day, so you have lots of opportunities to see the movies. Instead, they always schedule the movies as basically alternates to the shows that are going on. While this is a good idea, and we had seen some of the shows, it is annoying that you have to miss a show to see a movie you want to see. Maybe they pay for each time they show it? I don't know, but it is annoying. But I digress...

Nick wanted to play "Who Wants to be a Mousketeer" in his club. for those of you who don't know what "Who Wants to be a Mousketeer" is, think "who wants to be a millionaire with Disney type questions, and you don't get a million dollars. More on that in a later chapter when we play the family version!

Everyone else (we had re-joined our neighbors by this point who did get off the ship for a little bit, and did go to Dinner. Naturally the dinner service was the best one that they had had...so maybe it was me...hmmmm) went to the family show by Jeff Civillico. He is a juggler/physical comedy guy. We saw him briefly on the welcome aboard show and he was very funny.

He did not disappoint. First of all, both DS6 and DND8 got picked to go up on stage. This was a good thing. They are both very emotional and there would have been meltdowns if one had been picked but not the other...so bullet dodged there!

Naturally, there were pictures.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0047.jpg DND8, Jeff Civillico and DS6

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0049.jpg Connor gets a plate going

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0053-1.jpg so does Kathryn

Again, the show was fantastic, and there was a snap ending to it...when the pulled a guy up on stage to do some of the stuff, and he ended up proposing to his girlfriend. Yeah, that part was staged...but it was a very cool ending to a very cool show. One thing I can definitely say, the comedians, etc. that Disney brings on are very good and very entertaining, all in different ways. I have yet to be disappointed overall, although sometimes they have adult and family shows which are basically the same.

We grabbed Nick from his club, he didn't get picked to play the game so he was a bit disappointed. To cheer him up we went around and made him take pictures :scared: . yeah, I'm mean!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0395.jpg The kids with the large furry kids

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0396.jpg Nick's favorite...

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0398.jpg And with Disney's first lady

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0385.jpg Up on deck the ship was rocking and rolling again as we got underway...wave pool again. This didn't happen until later, but both kids were bugging us to swim in the Mickey wave pool. so at some point we went and they got on their suits and I took them up. when we got to the pool level DS6 realized he didn't have his goggles. As we only had a short time I told him we weren't going back to get them. That caused the whining to start. but we made it to the pool. they jumped in. A minute later DS6 was out again asking about his goggles. No, asking is too kind. Whining! He can pull out the crocodile tears with the best of them. My nerves were frayed at that point.

then DS10 decides to join the action and asks if we can go to the Goofy Pool hot tubs. I tell him no (again we only had a very short period of time) and he did what all 10 year olds do..."please can we go". I answer no. "Please? I really want to go". Ok, I lost it. I pulled them both out we got towels and went back to the room. I was ticked off. Most likely a overreaction on my part. you can ask DW, I NEVER overreact :lmao: . But boy do they ever know how to push the buttons. It's like one thing after another. sheesh! :upsidedow

Now it was time to go to Studio Sea for...wait for it...it's insania...it's Mickey Mania! If you go on a cruise, you have to do these events. They are so fun, and not very many people go, so you have a good chance to go and win something little (a hat, a pin, a mug). No, you won't win a million dollars, but you will have some good memories. And if you go, be loud. The last cruise I was fairly reserved...but this time I really got into it...making a lot of noise...and frankly I had a lot more fun because of it. Just let go...remember, other than those you bring with you, and your friends from the DIS boards, you won't have to be around these folks ever again!

Needless to say when they were picking people we were really, really loud and DW and DS10 got picked to go up. VERY exciting!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0402.jpg There they are, the Purple Plutos.

Basically it's a quiz show about Disney where you ring in. Each round they would ask a question and the contestants would ring in and answer it. And then they would throw a question out to the audience who, if they answer it right, gets to assign those points to the team of their choice. I was picked twice and got the answer correct twice...guess who I gave the points to?

Anyway, they did great, and ended up winning. I think they got ribbons. Again, we did pretty well in the winning stuff category! That and getting picked, it was a great cruise for that! Again....definitely do the game shows...it's fun.

The adults were going to go and see the adult version of the Jeff Civillico show. The kids really weren't into the clubs on this cruise, I don't know why. The older kids were not a problem, they could do whatever they wanted, but what to do with the bigger kids? Finally we just decided to leave them all in the cabins...open the connecting door and let them hang out. A risk, I know, but we figured the older kids could handle it, and we would only be gone for 45 minutes.

The show was still very entertaining, and man that guy can juggle. He picked a guy out (who then recruited his buddy) to be the cheering section and whenever Jeff did something good he was supposed to stand up and say "Your the Man Jeff". That became very entertaining. There was nothing rude about the show, just some suggestive language, etc., mostly by the crowd than anything else. We had brought beers with us and just had a good time overall. It was fun.

Then it was back to the room. The kids did great...we might be on to something here.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0367.jpg Stingray for the night

It was time for bed...This chapter didn't feel as good as the others...but I'm bringing DW's journal with me on my trip...we are going to WDW at the end of February, have to start my pre-trip report! but I can't do that until this is done...that just wouldn't be fair!

next up: Chapter 9: Grand Cayman....or was it?

Now, go make someone's day! :)

WDBRDWLK

01-27-2009, 10:15 AM

pogopossum

01-27-2009, 06:05 PM

i can't remember if the hand washing thing started by our second cruise or third one. but they had a bad experience with norwalk virus back around the turn of the century, and since then they have been very aggressive about handwashing. although it didn't seem to help me this trip (shameless plug for my trip report).

this was our third trip to cozumel on the magic, (first on purpose) so we didn't really have anything that we just had to do there either. good thing since i couldn't leave the room, much less the ship. if we had the money and late dinner, i would have considered the fury catamaran. we did that excursion our first time to cozumel and it is one of our favorite excursions of all time.

as to movie scheduling. we are right there with you. i seem to remember that there used to be more showings throughout the day. dw was excited to see that swing vote was showing, until she saw that we wouldn't be able to see it without missing something.

dvc4life

01-27-2009, 07:33 PM

I agree with the hand washing thing being a good thing. But for me, by the last day of our cruise my hands were so dry, and yes I was putting on lotion, they were bleeding. Ouch! But, we were healthy and no one was sick! :cool1:

Your boys are so photogenic. I just love your photos. Can't wait for the next installment! :flower3:

BearFan

01-27-2009, 10:11 PM

Hey Zell family!
Howdy from the frozen tundra known commonly as Illinois. Keep it coming!

Lisa Marie

KittyKat08

01-27-2009, 11:28 PM

Hello! Awesome trip report, I feel like I'm right there with you guys. I can't wait to hear about the rest of the trip.

WDBRDWLK

01-28-2009, 10:40 AM

Oh how I can relate to the pool and the waves! Last year while on the Eastern Caribbean to St. Thomas my DH and I decided to lounge at the pool area. But I decided to sit on the edge of the teak sitting area and just dip my feet for a while and like an idiot I stood up to turn around and the ship rocked abit and I slipped and found myself flat on my back in the water at the edge of the pool. In front of about 100 people!! How embarrasing.:rotfl2: My DH told me that in a flash I was gone...he jumped up so quick not knowing what had happened..I was bruised but okay...That was enough for me, I was done with the pool and we went to the spa instead and sat in the rainforest room for about an hour heating up my bruised areas!

SandieT

02-05-2009, 09:46 AM

Can't wait to read more!:cool1:

nzdisneymom

02-05-2009, 09:12 PM

So I have to tell you that DS12 and I were picked to be the Purple Plutos for the Saturday night episode of Mickey Mania, and we won, too! How cool is that?!

Love the pizza tip- I like crispier pizza than what Pinocchio's serves, so I'll have to remember to ask them to cook it a bit longer for me.

Keep up the great report!

DisneyZell

02-10-2009, 08:24 PM

Your trip report gets more and more entertaining with each installment...thanks for keeping us in fantasyland!

I must say that I adore the pics of your kids lying on the floor next to the logo. I wish I had done that beginning with our first Disney Cruise...oh well..maybe I will start with our next cruise which is less than a month away and I can not wait! Granted its only the 3 nighter but its Disney!
Of all the Disney cruises we have taken I do not remember doing the Studio Sea...we will this time, sounds like a blast!

Keep it coming! Feb. school vacation is only a few weeks away and you did promise to finish this TR before you start the next one!

to be honest, the picture thing was just a fluke...but I'm glad we did it. it's cool to look back, and of course to force you guys to look back with me! :)

i can't remember if the hand washing thing started by our second cruise or third one. but they had a bad experience with norwalk virus back around the turn of the century, and since then they have been very aggressive about handwashing. although it didn't seem to help me this trip (shameless plug for my trip report).

this was our third trip to cozumel on the magic, (first on purpose) so we didn't really have anything that we just had to do there either. good thing since i couldn't leave the room, much less the ship. if we had the money and late dinner, i would have considered the fury catamaran. we did that excursion our first time to cozumel and it is one of our favorite excursions of all time.

as to movie scheduling. we are right there with you. i seem to remember that there used to be more showings throughout the day. dw was excited to see that swing vote was showing, until she saw that we wouldn't be able to see it without missing something.

oh no! I'll have to go visit your report to find out what happened. Sounds like what DW had hit us on our first Disney Cruise. Luckily those memories go away eventually! I really hope they fix the movie thing...I wonder if they say to themselves "no one seems to come to these movies" without realizing that the reason is they don't schedule well! Thanks for the comments! :)

I agree with the hand washing thing being a good thing. But for me, by the last day of our cruise my hands were so dry, and yes I was putting on lotion, they were bleeding. Ouch! But, we were healthy and no one was sick! :cool1:

Your boys are so photogenic. I just love your photos. Can't wait for the next installment! :flower3:

I didn't have my hands dry out...maybe I wasn't scrubbing as much as I could have! I'll have to work on that the next time we go! thanks for the comments about our boys. they are good kids and have learned (except for the formal night incident) that it is better to just smile and get it over with than to fight it!

Hey Zell family!
Howdy from the frozen tundra known commonly as Illinois. Keep it coming!

Lisa Marie

Our tundra is pretty frozen as well! but we had our first official ice dam which caused water to leak from our roof. Never had that. :( and naturally it was while I was travelling. Not much we can do but have someone clear the roof off and look at it again once everything melts. Yuck! Anyway, Hi! :wave2: :wave2:

Hello! Awesome trip report, I feel like I'm right there with you guys. I can't wait to hear about the rest of the trip.

Thank you, thank you, and welcome to our adventure!

Oh how I can relate to the pool and the waves! Last year while on the Eastern Caribbean to St. Thomas my DH and I decided to lounge at the pool area. But I decided to sit on the edge of the teak sitting area and just dip my feet for a while and like an idiot I stood up to turn around and the ship rocked abit and I slipped and found myself flat on my back in the water at the edge of the pool. In front of about 100 people!! How embarrasing.:rotfl2: My DH told me that in a flash I was gone...he jumped up so quick not knowing what had happened..I was bruised but okay...That was enough for me, I was done with the pool and we went to the spa instead and sat in the rainforest room for about an hour heating up my bruised areas!

LOL! I can only imagine. That's something I could very much see happening to me...love those embarrasing moments. Take solace in the fact that most people (other than me because I clearly just did) won't laugh at you, but would be more concerned that you are ok. That can be painful. Luckily the spa was there to take care of your bumps and bruises.

Can't wait to read more!:cool1:

Yeah, sorry. traveling. I even brought the all famous journal with me so I really don't have any excuse at all! :)

So I have to tell you that DS12 and I were picked to be the Purple Plutos for the Saturday night episode of Mickey Mania, and we won, too! How cool is that?!

Love the pizza tip- I like crispier pizza than what Pinocchio's serves, so I'll have to remember to ask them to cook it a bit longer for me.

Keep up the great report!

No way! so cool! Go DIS! see, we are all so darn smart that we can win those things all day long! Hopefully you had an audience member giving you points as well!

Thanks for the comments everyone, I do appreciate it. I'm sorry that I was away for so long! No excuse...but on with the story!

DisneyZell

02-10-2009, 09:15 PM

Ah, similar title, but a whole other day. It was Christmas Eve Day, December 24th, 2008. Today's destination for the Magic was Grand Cayman. Again, since we had done everything at Grand Cayman (Hell, Turtle Farm and 7 mile beach), so we figured we didn't need to get off. I do recommend doing those things at least once if you have not done so. How often can you say you've been to Hell and Back, and really mean it? Hamm? And you can launch witty comments at your table mates the night before like "if you don't stop talking like that, you are going to Hell tomorrow!" (yeah, I actually said this. It freaked out DNS11 when I did. Of course he wasn't 11 back then!). We did ponder for a time getting off and hitting the rum cake and an ice cream place that we had heard good things about....but...well, it just didn't happen!

We hit topsiders for breakfast, and by now you know what that means. Yup, bowl full of syrup and bacon for me. yum! Yes, I gained weight on the cruise. No, I still haven't gotten rid of it. I can't say the breakfast at topsiders was unbelievable, but it is pretty good. I would have liked, at some point, to try an omelet, but the wait was always forever and a day (well, ok, 20 minutes), and we were generally in and out of there in less time than it would take to get one. So no omelet for me again.

Next up was a family craft. These were pretty cool, and free (well, ok most stuff is free on the ship). We really liked the guy who ran these events and got some good inside scoop on what happened on board the ship. Naturally I can't remember his name and DW didn't write it in her journal (so it's really her fault). But we did get an interesting lesson in level of the crew. The cruise staff were considered officers. Because they were officers, they were able to use the adult pool when they wanted to do so (and of course not in uniform). He said that he doesn't usually do it because he will get recognized, and that's not always fun. But he will get to the hot tub from time to time, usually when it is slow. I can certainly understand not wanting to have to talk to prying guests...uh...kind of like he was every time we did a family craft. :thumbsup2

Today's craft was door knob hangers. So we got a whole bunch of foam things to decorate the door hangers. The thing that was disappointing about this was that they weren't holiday themed. Now, I realize they probably have just big boxes of the stuff around so they pull it out. But we WERE on the holiday cruise, and Disney is generally very good at matching stuff like that up. But not in that case. All-in-all it was ok. I wouldn't say it was a huge highlight of the cruise, but since not many people do it, you can talk the ear off of the cast member if that interests you...and they have to stand there and talk to you! :lmao:

Next it was up to the pool. We got into port around 11:30 (late because of a storm we sailed through). But the ship was not nearly as empty as Cozumel...not sure why. You did have to tender...so maybe more people decided not to get off. But we did have a lot more people around us unfortunately, but we were still determined to make the best of it...and any decrease in people makes more room for us on the chairs!

Speaking of which, I've read horror stories about people saving chairs, etc in various posts and TR's. We were lucky, I guess, in that we didn't bump into this at all on this trip. So either everyone was very conscientious or I just wasn't paying much attention to it. Either is a strong possibility. But we did spend a lot of time around the pool, so I think I would have noticed.

Lunchtime was around the pool. guess where I went? Yup, time for the pizza dude. Slide some slices in that oven my friend...make 'em crispy! Pepperoni was my favorite. but it is always my favorite. I'm boring that way. I will put up with cheese if I have to, and naturally I can add things to my pepperoni, but it still isn't my favorite. Veggie you say? Veggie Pizza? That's not pizza. Sorry, pizza must have either some sort of meat or nothing. DW disagrees. But I'm not there to eat veggies unless they are nicely mixed with my pepperoni. by the way, I can eat pepperoni pizza every night for dinner if given the opportunity. but I digress (sorry, I can't promise that I will stay on task).

Connor went to his club just after noon for Ratatouille Cooking School. they were going to make chocolate chip cookies. Did I tell you that Connor loves chocolate. So this was a no-brainer. When it was over I went to pick him up. Needless to say he wasn't impressed. Overall the clubs were a bust for us on this trip. Not sure how I feel about that, as our kids are old enough that they don't need constant attention, can all swim, so they can be in the pool without me, so if I need a break I can take it. Or I can jump in the pool with them.

I believe this was the day (yeah, no reference in the all-mighty journal, so this memory is all mine believe it or not) that I was in the goofy pool and we started playing water football with a beach ball. I think we had 4 other kids with our 4, and of course me. I had two little kids (Connor and some other kid whom I didn't know and didn't know where his parents were) hanging on me from end to end. Great workout by the way. Basically you had to dunk the kids in the pool to "tackle" them. We played this for quite some time, and it was a lot of fun. I liked it so much that when we were at our gym's pool at home we played it as well. Pretty funny stuff. Especially when I make up rules which drive my 10 year old nuts. Did I mention that DS10 is a tad bit competitive? I had to remind him several times that this was Water Football. Not the super bowl.

Some pictures:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0408.jpg DS10 in the Goofy pool

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0410.jpg DS6 spent more time in the hot tub than anywhere else. A boy after my own heart.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0413.jpg Yeah, I think they are cute. But I'm supposed to.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0414.jpg and me! this must have been one of the few moments that I didn't have a pizza slice in my hand.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0416.jpg Yup. same kids.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0418.jpg DND8 jumping in. is that allowed?? Don't tell the Disney police!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0422.jpg And the slide....this is Kathryn.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0424.jpg and Connor

Kurby

02-10-2009, 09:17 PM

i soooo want to go down that slide.

you think anyone would mind if i went down while we were docked in nassau and everyone was off the ship?:scared1: :confused3 :rolleyes1

DisneyZell

02-10-2009, 09:19 PM

Then it was time for the Deck the Deck party. This one wasn't that great in my opinion. It really felt like it was a party because they felt like they had to have a party. That didn't make it incredible for me. Maybe I'm a bit cynical...I know I didn't spell that word right...hopefully spell check will catch it! The kids danced with the characters, but Connor wanted to be up on stage and he couldn't sneak up there. So that was a disappointment for him...which if you remember that he is drama boy...was borderline on crocodile tears. but he managed to get through it.

Dinner this night was the French dinner in Lumierres. That means, to me, that it's time to eat Escargot! I love Escargot, my mom used to make it once a year on her birthday (no, I have no idea why my dad wouldn't make it except that doesn't surprise me much), so I had been eating it most of my life. I really, really like to dip the bread in the butter afterword. Unfortunately the Disney garlic butter isn't the best in the world, but the snails are tasty. DS10 had the Escargot as well...so I was pretty proud of him.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0435.jpg DW and DNW hang out at dinner

Dinner service was again the same. SLOW. But we expected that by this point. Apparently the night before the service was very good (this was the night we skipped to go see Bolt). Naturally they kick up the service a notch when we aren't around. I think in the end I determined that our server just did not like me!

At some point I either went to the bathroom or took Connor to the bathroom (yeah, my 6 year old loves to go to the bathroom. There is no convenient bathroom to Lumierre's), and noticed big stacks of cookies and a big tub full of ice and milk. On the way to the bathroom I just thought it interesting, but on the way back it dawned on me why they had that. Disney thinks of everything and even had the milk and cookies for Santa! How cool is that? Again, not a huge deal, but it was yet another example of the little things that Disney does so well. Maybe all the other cruise lines in the world do the same thing...but it was very cool.

We weren't going to Twice Charmed (that night's show), and of course there was no movie for us to go see, so we did the character picture thing...and got quite a few:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0442.jpg Us with Minnie

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0445.jpg Nick and Connor with Pluto

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0446.jpg Connor gets a hug from his favorite. All the characters got a kick of out seeing the shirts that we had made, and of course Stitch was no different. They do a great job of pointing and making a big deal out of those things which is pretty cool.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0449.jpg After the hug...

Later that night we decided to hit yet another game show, this one called A Pirate's Life for Me. In this one, the audience was split into two teams. From each team they picked a Captain and a first mate. The first mate would run to the team and get answers to the questions, and then would run back and tell it to the captain who would ring a bell and answer the question. if they got it right they got a gold coin in a box.

DS6 got picked to be the captain and he was so excited. http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0452.jpg Connor is the Captain

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0457.jpg Connor gives his answer

At the end of that round they lined all the kids up to toss coins into the boxes and at the end they counted to see which team won. Ours managed to squeeze out a win, mainly because our CM cheated. but that's all good! Connor got a button for being the Captain. Our loot continued to grow!

After that it was back to the room for the kids so the adults to go to the show. It worked out so well to be able to put the kids in the room and have them hang out. It was nice as it would have been stressful to have to force them into the clubs where they so clearly did not want to be.

That night was David Morgan. I'm just not sure what this guy did (you guessed it, nothing in the journal). I think he might have done a show with a puppet which was very funny. Come on guys, refresh my memory and when I respond I'll tell you about it. Don't want to talk all about it and have it be the wrong night :scared1:

Back to the room for us...time to prepare for the next day...milk and cookies out, and of course reindeer food out on the balcony. Need to attract Santa!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0466.jpg DS10 puts out reindeer food

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0467.jpg Our job is done here. what reindeer wouldn't want to come visit us?

Well, that's it for now...thanks for putting up with my long delay on this one, hope you enjoyed this episode.

next up: Chapter 10: How do you fool two kids who are sleeping 2 feet from you?

Now, go make someone's day! :)

DisneyZell

02-10-2009, 09:20 PM

i soooo want to go down that slide.

you think anyone would mind if i went down while we were docked in nassau and everyone was off the ship?:scared1: :confused3 :rolleyes1

Wow, you are quick and jumped in right between my postings. I agree, I'd love to hit the slide, and wish they would let us do that. Maybe on the new ships??? Thanks for reading!

Kurby

02-10-2009, 09:55 PM

just happened to click in - perfect timing :)

looks like you guys had a blast

i'm enjoying the read

pogopossum

02-11-2009, 12:29 AM

BearFan

02-11-2009, 09:56 AM

Hey there!
Sorry to hear about the ice dam. Hope things are better now. It was 60 here yesterday and we're supposed to get 2 inches of rain today, yippee! It's a sure sign that spring is coming soon when the yard floods!! We caught Dave Morgan's family show that night. It was our first time seeing him and we were really looking forward to seeing someone new but we didn't find him very funny at all. He may have been stellar in the adult show but we skipped that one. We couldn't imagine him doing a total change though. Anyway, we had to sneak around that night and stuff Fish Extenders with CDs. That was much more fun, helping Santa out!
Keep up the good work and Happy Valentine's Day to all!

Lisa Marie

DisneyZell

02-13-2009, 06:44 AM

Just realized I didn't update the title on this whole thing...I DID finally add a chapter. :)

TotallyAngelic

02-14-2009, 03:37 AM

I can't wait to hear all abut your Christmas Day on the Magic!

OurOhana

02-14-2009, 09:29 AM

I think the idea of staying on the ship when you're in a port you've visited before is a great idea. I think we'd do that if we went back to St. Thomas (unless we had a great excursion planned. Sounds like a blast in the pool, and on your cruise in general. Can't wait to hear about Santa's visit.

pogopossum

02-14-2009, 08:06 PM

i think that the only port that we've been to so far that i wouldn't go ashore again would be nassau. our morning at the beach and atlantis was underwhelming at best, and we weren't enamoured of the straw market either. one of the other guys on board called it the mexican bordertown of the caribbean, very apt.

DisneyZell

02-16-2009, 05:15 PM

i've seen the new carnival commercial with an adult slide on it, so hopefully the new ships will be equipped for us big kids, as well.

david morgan had the yellow monkey puppet, from what i remenber from the show friday night. ds and i enjoyed what he did, but dw and dfil weren't amused.

yeah, I hope they do come equiped for the big kids. it's time to realize that not just the kids like being kids! :rotfl:

Ah yeah, the monkey puppet. I think I was more entertained by that than DW was, but we thorugh it was pretty funny. You definately have to let yourself go on that one...not high brow humor, that's for sure!

Hey there!
Sorry to hear about the ice dam. Hope things are better now. It was 60 here yesterday and we're supposed to get 2 inches of rain today, yippee! It's a sure sign that spring is coming soon when the yard floods!! We caught Dave Morgan's family show that night. It was our first time seeing him and we were really looking forward to seeing someone new but we didn't find him very funny at all. He may have been stellar in the adult show but we skipped that one. We couldn't imagine him doing a total change though. Anyway, we had to sneak around that night and stuff Fish Extenders with CDs. That was much more fun, helping Santa out!
Keep up the good work and Happy Valentine's Day to all!

Lisa Marie

Yup, the warm weather was actually what caused the issue. Had a roof guy out who cleared the snow off the roof and burned some paths in the ice for the water to flow while it melts. It has not repeated itself, so once the roof is clear we will have someone look at it and see if we need repair or if it took care of itself. That plus a little paint and we were really lucky!

Funny, maybe I was the only guy that thought the puppet was funny. But you can ask DW, I am VERY easily amused.

thanks for the note! :)

I can't wait to hear all abut your Christmas Day on the Magic!

and I can't wait to tell you about it. :)

I think the idea of staying on the ship when you're in a port you've visited before is a great idea. I think we'd do that if we went back to St. Thomas (unless we had a great excursion planned. Sounds like a blast in the pool, and on your cruise in general. Can't wait to hear about Santa's visit.

I highly recommend it obviously!

i think that the only port that we've been to so far that i wouldn't go ashore again would be nassau. our morning at the beach and atlantis was underwhelming at best, and we weren't enamoured of the straw market either. one of the other guys on board called it the mexican bordertown of the caribbean, very apt.

That sucks. nothing worse than getting off and not having a good time!

thanks everyone for your time and reading, I'll try to update another chapter in the next day or so!

Thanks!

DisneyZell

02-17-2009, 04:24 PM

So at some point during the night Santa came calling on our little cabin. Now, I'm sure that Santa was actually quite pleased with the Magic, all those people very close together in one place (albeit travelling on the ocean). He managed to get in, leave a couple of presents, eat the cookies and drink the milk, all without knocking over our little tree (which had a tendency to fall over), or waking any of us up. If you were not a believer in the magic of Christmas before this, you surely were now!

We woke up around 8, and naturally the first and most important thing was to check out the presents. Both boys got a video MP3 player for Christmas. They were all pre-loaded with music, and even had the highlight video for each kid from football season. Santa is very good. Santa also left a picture of all the presents that were left at home...apparently he felt that there was no way all the loot could fit in our stateroom, and for that I am eternally grateful!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0469.jpg Nick and Connor by the tree

We all got dressed and decided to go take pictures with Santa who, apparently, had finished his rounds of the earth and still had the energy to take pictures with kids onboard. This man is amazing, and has now become my hero. I can't walk around the block and still have energy for my kids. :worship: :)

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0472.jpg Nick and Connor with Santa on the Magic!

Disney had some neat stuff that morning. Each kid got a Pixar calendar as a present (I know, it's not huge, but they don't HAVE to give anything, so I thought that was pretty cool), and they had these nice cookies and various other things you could grab to eat. Actually the cookies were not very good. oh well, what can you do??? They also had face painting (or in our case arm painting and both kids got...what else? a santa Mickey.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0475.jpg Connor on Christmas Day

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0477.jpg Nick on Christmas day

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0478.jpg and in case you didn't get it...both of them!

After that we headed over to do sit-down breakfast in Parrot Cay. Well, actually it was sort of a hybrid sit down/buffet. It was ok.

When we finished breakfast we needed some pictures with holiday characters...

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0481.jpg Pluto...although now looking at it, I don't see what is holiday about him.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0482.jpg Nick and Connor give Mickey a hug. I love this picture, it's a bit washed out because it was a white background, but it's pretty neat.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0483.jpg Nick and Connor with Mickey. Note that they are not wearing their Santa hats. Do you recall me mentioning that earlier? No? then go back and read from the beginning because it's there. go ahead. I'll wait. Why are you still here? Go read!

OK, when we walked up to take a picture the CM conferred with Mickey and determined that they could not wear the Santa hats because they had the Patriots logo on them. Conflict of interest or something. Pretty funny. We didn't care, of course...but I still thought it was funny. Especially if you go back to earlier in my trip report (you never went, did you??), and see that in the terminal all of the kids are with Mickey, and they all have their Patriots Santa hats on. oh well...Mickey apparently isn't as consistent and Santa is!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0484.jpg The kids and Goofy

DisneyZell

02-17-2009, 04:26 PM

Next we headed to the next game-show..."So you think you know your family". With the luck we were having we figured we might get picked again. They gave everyone raffle tickets and drew for the 4 spots. We were picked 3rd...and it was my turn to participate with Nick. So we headed up there. Now, this was the type of show where they send off your child, ask you questions, and then bring them back and ask them the same questions. If you match you get points. I hate these types of things because I always feel like I'm put on the spot which makes me very uncomfortable. But what can you do? Naturally I want to win! :)

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0487.jpg Nick and I waiting for our questions

The kids got sent away first and we got to get the questions. The first one was "Who is your child's favorite Disney Character". Well, come on now...that's easy if you are psychotic Disney fans like us. Especially when we have shirts with their characters. I boldly answer "Chip and Dale". the host does a little bit of a double take...asks if I want to pick one. I say nope...no way, it's chip and Dale.

Question #2: "What is your child's favorite desert". This one was tougher. So many things to choose from. I pick one..."Ice Cream!". oh no, that's not good enough, what KIND of ice cream? Crap. That's not going to end well and I knew it. I froze, I mumbled...I fretted (not sure what that means), and finally picked cookie dough. I knew I was doomed.

Question #3: "Who is your child's best friend?" ah ha! another easy one for me! We were on the cruise with our neighbors...and our neighbors happen to include...Nick's best friend Chris! Easy. I answer and move on. I'm feeling pretty good about this time.

They brought the kids back and asked them the same questions. Question #1: Nick's answer: Chip and Dale! Woohoo! we were one for one..but so were some others.

Question #2: Nick's answer: Ice Cream! yup, he answered EXACTLY how I did! Did the force him to be specific too? yes. Strawberry. *GROAN*. I KNEW that answer...what the heck was I thinking????

Question #3: Nick's answer: Chris! woohoo! back in the game! 2 for 3 and tied for first. I was really quite proud. One other others missed the best friend question because the kid had two..he picked one...and the wrong one. ouch!

Now it was my turn to leave. they made us go down the hall and up a level and wait. and wait. and wait. Now, the longer I wait the more nervous I become. Who knows what they are asking these kids? we have no idea what we are in store for. Scary stuff. Finally she comes back and gets us. I obviously cannot relay what Nick did when they asked.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0494.jpg Nick gets quizzed while I am gone

Question 1: How old is your dad? Now, everyone was stressing that it's what NICK would answer, not necessarily the right answer. Since they kept saying this over and over, I clued in to the fact that most likely he did not answer correctly. I am very quick that way. So I knew I had to guess and threw out 36. I'm a touch older than that. His guess? 36! woohoo! we were 1 out of 1. Impressive since it was wrong.

Question 2:What is your dad's middle name? No hints that this was a problem...and my middle name is after my maternal grandfather who didn't have any sons...and it is also Connor's middle name. I answered McNeill and we scored point #2 in that round! woohoo!

Question 3:Who is the boss in your family. Ok, come on. Here is the example of the question you don't want to be asked. Fortunately it was easy. DW is definitely the boss. She runs the house, I make the money. Sounds like a good deal to me...and score one more for the good guys!

Question 4: yes, they gave me one more to answer than Nick. That's just not fair! Who in your family annoys you the most. Naturally I don't like this question, but it was an easy answer. Connor. I love him to death, but his bursting into tears drives me insane! :) Score another one...and even Connor was all smiles. We had gotten all the point we could and they were now tabulating. By my calculation we had tied with another team...and I was shocked when they awarded us the winners! We got baseball hats (with "Winner" across the front and Disney Cruise lines along the edge of the brim. Seriously, who would ever wear a hat that says "winner" on it. Well ok, Nick would. :) ), and two insulated DCL mugs. Those were very cool, and the two things were pretty cool! I was just happy that I guessed right on the age thing.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0496.jpg Nick and I while we answer questions

We dashed upstairs and grabbed some food so that we could go to the premier of Bedtime Stories. It was cool that they had a movie onboard that was premiering in the theaters on that same day. So score one for the movies even though it annoys me that they don't offer more throughout the day.

We all thought the movie was hilarious...and if you haven't seen it, go rent it when it comes out. You will not be disappointed!

Now it was time to build gingerbread houses! we had gotten tickets and headed up. We were a bit late because of the movie...but what can you do? We wandered off to a table and dug in. we had missed most of the instructions so we were on our own. Luckily we are pretty darn smart and were able to figure it out. I thought the spice drops were delicious and could have just eaten those and forgotten about the house. :)

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0500.jpg Nick Decorates...

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0501.jpg Connor Decorates...

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0505.jpg and we all pose around the finished house. It was a fine one. any self-respecting gingerbread man would be happy to live there.

DisneyZell

02-17-2009, 04:28 PM

Back to the room to get ready for our holiday dinner with a special menu that we got to take with us. That was a nice touch. Don't know what I'm going to do with a big red menu, but I have it anyway. This was Semi-formal night so everyone looked good again. It was also lobster night which was just like the past two cruises lobster nights...yuck. I don't know why I bother. The lobster just isn't good in my opinion. Note, though, that I'm from New England...and we are used to that kind of lobster, not the Caribbean kind which just doesn't taste as good in my opinion. Sorry to be negative...but it is what it is. DW was smart and ordered something else. She was right to do that!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0508.jpg Nick wanted to pose in front of the store...

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0511.jpg Nick and Connor all dressed up

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0512.jpg Chris and Kathryn all dressed up...

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0513.jpg DW and Connor looking good.

At some point DNW started not feeling good and she headed out for some air. She turned out to be just fine. But kids being kids...naturally the feeling passed to Nick and he decided he didn't feel good and wanted to go to the bathroom and go outside for a bit. we said fine. So we are sitting there waiting...waiting.

Normally this would not be an issue....but I had planned to surprise DW with a birthday cake on this night for her birthday (which is actually the 29th...shhh, don't tell Mickey). So I'm waiting for them to come back to give the high sign to the head waiter. Plus, we want to scoot so we can go to Who wants to be a Mousketeer...and DW of course doesn't know I'm waiting to do the cake. Our server had not come by with dessert menus....but that was just normal by this point!

finally I got up to go find them and they are out on the deck playing shuffleboard. OOoooooooh I was sooooo mad. :furious: His answer? I didn't know! I'm thinking...you should NEVER wander off where I don't know where you went...and add this....I was out of control. Good thing I don't beat my children cause I would have been tempted!

Crisis averted...we got the cake...they sang....DW was surprised (a big advantage that our wait staff was so slow she didn't know anything was out of the ordinary).

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0515.jpg Everyone singing

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0516.jpg The cake

but by now we were running late for Who wants to be a Mousketeer. We grab the cake and head that way. On the way in they obviously see it and I go back out to ask them to wish her a happy birthday. They didn't seem to want to do that (the host was the assistant cruise director). But said they would try. I was a little disappointed with that to be honest.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0517.jpg They brought us forks and we dug into the cake. It was very good...white cake with strawberry filling. Yum!

With Who Wants to be a Mousketeer they give you numbered slips when you walk in and then a computer randomly picks who gets to go up. We got 36, 37, 38, and 43. Someone else got picked first...and then we got picked! I told you, we were on a roll! Since Nick and I had just done something that morning it was Connor and DW's turn. They headed up and sat down. At that point they remembered it was DW's birthday, so they wished her one at that point. I guess I was satisfied. :thumbsup2

In this game you had to answer 5 questions to with the grand prize. DW didn't write down all the questions...so I can't give them all to you...but some included: Where did Cinderella lose her slipper? Which actor played some character in "The Rock" (answer was Sean Connory). There was one more easy one...which DW didn't write down (see what I have to work with? I just can't work under these conditions! I'm the creative guy, not the details guy!). There was a question about a robot which DW and Connor had no idea about so they asked the audience. I had no idea so kept my mouth shut. In fact, I probably wouldn't have gotten that far. good thing she did it! The audience got it right...and they were still alive!

The final question for all the marbles was the name of the boss on the TV series Dinosaurs. Hmmm...well, let's just say that we have never even heard of that...let alone seen it. They had 50:50 left, so they used that and were left with answers B and D. They still had no idea (naturally) so DW told Connor to guess. He guessed B.

What do you think the answer was? If you've been following along and seen our luck (what? you haven't been following along? go back and read. I'll wait. Really, I will. Go ahead. Take your time. ), the answer was B! Woohoo! pure luck. gotta love it. I'd rather be lucky than good, isn't that one of those sayings?? So they both got a Who Wants to be a Mousketeer pin and a magnet desk toy with little Mickey ear clips. It was a very cool prize.

At that point we handed off our other numbers to another family in hopes that they would get called up. Soon after we left and headed out to take pictures.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0527.jpg The boys on a bench

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0528.jpg In front of the ring...

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0529.jpg Connor wanted this one. Don't know why.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0533.jpg Ah, the irony. All those adults that don't want kids around :)

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0535.jpg And in front of our door...

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0540.jpg The stash of stuff that we had gotten from our Fish Extender. Thanks everyone! That really made our week...it was a lot of fun to look for something new every day! Definitely do that if you are going on a trip!

We skipped (obviously) the show for that night, Disney Dreams. We had already done it...so decided we didn't need to see it again. As with the other nights, the kids got booted to the rooms, we grabbed some beer and headed to the show. John Charles was our entertainer that night...he does all sorts of things with different songs...it is very entertaining and the time with him flew by. We definitely wanted to go see his family show as well.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0522.jpg An hanging monkey for Christmas night

time for bed...holy cow what a day! We had a blast...a great way to spend Christmas. I don't think I'd want to do it every year, but this was a real special treat, made even more so by Disney who just does such a great job.

Thanks for putting up with me...hope you enjoyed this installment.

Next up: Chapter 11: Castaway Cay part Deux...the countdown to the end!

Now...go make someone's day! :cool1:

TotallyAngelic

02-18-2009, 05:14 AM

WOW that was amazing - great photos as always (doens't Mickey look really strange in "normal" clothing). Christmas day on board ship looks really magical - may have to pencil that in for the future.

MicraPIP

02-18-2009, 07:05 AM

OMG... I have been reading every word and loving this

The Reason... I just booked our First Cruise... on the Wonder Dec 23-30 7 Day WC.

I've even been taking notes!!

Keep it up Looking forward to the second of the Double dip...

Love the pics as well!!!!
:woohoo:

fey_spirit

02-20-2009, 11:29 PM

I'm a little concerned - can we not use cash on board?
I only ever use cash when I go on vacations, it's how I keep track of how much I'm spending...

I
The rest of the time we just hung out...reading books, kids watched cartoons and wandered a bit. I did got get a Diet Coke (in the 3 cruises I had never gotten anything in the terminal). I tried to pay with cash. No go...they will only accept those evil cards....it starts already!

smeecanada

02-21-2009, 02:06 AM

I'm a little concerned - can we not use cash on board?
I only ever use cash when I go on vacations, it's how I keep track of how much I'm spending...

The ship is cashless. Everything is charged on your KTTW card. You can go Guest Services and settle or prepay your account whenever you wish. We tried paying with cash in the gift shop and discover that we couldn't.

fey_spirit

02-21-2009, 02:16 AM

Can you secure your card with cash instead of a credit card?
Can you use Disney dollars instead of cash?

I really need to find a way to maintain my spending habits so that I don't overdraw without realizing it...

The ship is cashless. Everything is charged on your KTTW card. You can go Guest Services and settle or prepay your account whenever you wish. We tried paying with cash in the gift shop and discover that we couldn't.

smeecanada

02-21-2009, 02:29 AM

Can you secure your card with cash instead of a credit card?
Can you use Disney dollars instead of cash?

I really need to find a way to maintain my spending habits so that I don't overdraw without realizing it...

Sorry, don't know those answers - maybe someone else does. We've always used a credit card because we are from Canada.

PurdyBertnie

02-25-2009, 08:40 PM

And yes, it was time for bacon. And syrup. A bowl of it actually. Yes, to some of you this might sound gross, but those of you who think that are clearly the folks who have never tried to dip your bacon in a bowl of goodness.

.

So I am totally loving this I just started reading but HAD to comment on this I LOVE that I am not the only person who thinks this is good, I just told my mom about this and she gives me this look like you are disgusting lol but it seriously is deeeeelicious lol ok I put in my 2 cents lol

tgropp

03-11-2009, 06:14 AM

Hope to see the rest of the report. A Christmas cruise sounds like the ultimate vacation

MomlvsGoofy

03-13-2009, 04:44 PM

Loving your TR! Can you tell me do you have to go to the formal dinner?

pmama

03-13-2009, 11:56 PM

Just came across your TR and am LOVING it! I love all the details and pictures. I actually find myself laughing outloud a lot reading your TR.:rotfl2: Great writing style. I'm only on the beginning of page 5 so I'm subbing to come back and read more. We are planning our first 4 night cruise on the Wonder in December so I am really enjoying your TR! Can't wait to come back and read more.:thumbsup2

smeecanada

03-14-2009, 01:40 AM

Loving your TR! Can you tell me do you have to go to the formal dinner?

The formal dinner hoopla gets blown out of proportion. It's really up to you how big a deal you want to make it. We are not formal dinner type people. We go dressed slightly more than a regular dinner but not overboard. As my DH says he's on vacation. That said, he and DS wear a nice dress shirt and tie with dress pants. DD and I wear a nice dress, but not overly fancy. The waiters will be dressed in a nice outfit, but aren't they always. The menu is a little fancier than normal, but there is still some regular options available.

Just go and enjoy the evening, don't stress out about it. I know it's hard - been there done that. Until you go - it's hard to figure out the expectation level. It's just an option for people to get dress up a little more fancy.

MomlvsGoofy

03-16-2009, 06:37 PM

Thanks, I feel better about it. We are not really formal people either. A simple dress and dress shirt and pants are much better for us then a tux and evening dress.

pogopossum

03-17-2009, 12:06 AM

as you can read in my (shameless plug) tr "a christmas cruise 08 story" we are not tux on a cruise people either. we wear nice dress slacks/shirts/dresses. i think it goes back to our first cruise in 99, itook coat and tie with me for dinner in lumiere's or palo (we didn't get res), and the people at our table told the waiter that they didn't have dress clothes and weren't coming to dinner the next night, so he said don't do that. so i decided to dress in order to not to show them up. and the ship didn't sink. and we all had a great time. so now i don't pack a jacket anymore, it takes up less of my suitcase room.

DisneyZell

03-19-2009, 06:58 PM

Loving your TR! Can you tell me do you have to go to the formal dinner?

You already have your answer below, but I'll answer too. First, no you don't have to go. second, you don't have to dress up. completely up to you. Remember, this was our third cruise and we thought it would be fun to dress up...so we did. It's nice to dress up a little...but definately not mandatory by any stretch!

Just came across your TR and am LOVING it! I love all the details and pictures. I actually find myself laughing outloud a lot reading your TR.:rotfl2: Great writing style. I'm only on the beginning of page 5 so I'm subbing to come back and read more. We are planning our first 4 night cruise on the Wonder in December so I am really enjoying your TR! Can't wait to come back and read more.:thumbsup2

Definately go in December, the decorations, etc...really made it worth it! And thanks for the compliment...good to know you are laughing and not banging your head on the keyboard when you fall asleep!

as you can read in my (shameless plug) tr "a christmas cruise 08 story" we are not tux on a cruise people either. we wear nice dress slacks/shirts/dresses. i think it goes back to our first cruise in 99, itook coat and tie with me for dinner in lumiere's or palo (we didn't get res), and the people at our table told the waiter that they didn't have dress clothes and weren't coming to dinner the next night, so he said don't do that. so i decided to dress in order to not to show them up. and the ship didn't sink. and we all had a great time. so now i don't pack a jacket anymore, it takes up less of my suitcase room.

OK, OK, I'll go read your report! of course I should finish mine first. Hmmm, it's been a while. sorry folks..this whole work thing is getting in the way. I'll try my best to get a new chapter up next week!

Thanks for reading! :)

pogopossum

03-20-2009, 12:35 AM

i wasn't really tryin' to goad you into reading my report, but it would be an honor if you did. it was kind of a lame attempt at humor at the expense of those who mebntion their own work as much as possible.:-)

i really need to finish mine up as well, and i don't have work to blame. maybe looking for work is getting in the way, that and the lack of internet access at home, right now. gotta get to work on that. it's amazing how much there is to do even when you aren't working enough.

but i don't want to bring diown the room, and i'll get my report finished soon. maybe because it covers the last day on board, and then it really will be over, so maybe that's the cause of my block.

JDBlair

03-28-2009, 10:09 PM

What a fun report. I always love a TR from the male perspective!!:thumbsup2

DisneyZell

04-04-2011, 05:30 PM

Ho hum..shameless self promotion. This one sat idle for a long time, but now that I'm done with the Mexican Riviera I was considering dusting it off and finishing it. Anyone have any interest? or is it just too old? This is, of course, assuming I can find DW's notes from way back then...as you all know my memory is similar to swiss cheese. :)

DZ

TinkLoverSam

04-04-2011, 08:27 PM

I'm in!

I loved you MR cruise and I just read through this one becasue you are soo funny!:surfweb:

jedijill

04-04-2011, 10:51 PM

I would love you to finish!

Jill in CO

DisneyZell

04-05-2011, 03:17 PM

I'm in!

I loved you MR cruise and I just read through this one becasue you are soo funny!:surfweb:

I would love you to finish!

Jill in CO

OK, but blame these two if you are injured while reading my TR's. They are *very* dangerous for your health!

I found the journal...so shall wander onward!

DZ

DisneyZell

04-05-2011, 04:03 PM

So let me start with this: I'm not the smartest person in the world signing back on to finish a report from almost 3 years ago. OK, 2 years and change (DW would have surely corrected me on that). I have a hard enough time remembering a month ago...and what happened in what order...let alone what happened two plus years ago. I had to re-read everything, and look through my pictures to make sure that I didn't bore you (more than I already have!) with duplicate pictures. Now, I believe I have it in the right spot...but don't know for sure...so if I don't...well...you get what you pay for, right???

Anyhooooo, as this cruise was a double-dip (my favorite kind of cruises), we had the opportunity to hit Castaway Cay a second time (and yes...Cay can be pronounced "KEY" or phonetically "Cay". I just found that out on my last TR (or Trip Report for those of you initial challenged) :thumbsup2. We absolutely, positively love Cataway Cay...and have not been there since they expanded the beach to accommodate the Dream. Really looking forward to that...and you can look for my pre-trippie to begin on that soon! As if you haven't heard from me enough! :scared1:

We had our character breakfast at Lumiere's that morning...so no Topsiders this day (whew...almost said BBBBBBB). And we got to deal with our oh-so-wonderful servers. Ahem.

Anyway, at some point the captain came over the loudspeaker and informed us that while we were at Castaway Cay the Wonder would be passing by (I know, a lot of you are now Wondering why the Wonder is passing by Castaway Cay when it is currently cruising the West Coast. Those of you that are truely wondering clearly have not gone back to read the previous posts in this thread...as this particular Christmas Cruise is from 2008, pre-Dream! :) ).

This passing was a very rare event, and in fact it was only the third time in the history of DCL that this had happened. We thought this was cool and wanted to get a picture of both ships...as we thought this would be a good keepsake. More on that later.

I honestly have not read any TR's lately about Castaway Cay...but when we were there we had the opportunity to participate in a Pirate Scavenger Hunt. We had to go to Guest Services and grab the pirate map which would give you clues on the island to the "treasure". We had heard about this, but had never done it...so today was our day to try something new. Actually we tried a whole bunch of things new.

The first couple of times at Castaway Cay all we did was hang out on the family beach and eat at Cookies. If you have been following along in this particular TR (and you *have* been following along, right? no cheating!), you know we rented bikes and tubes this trip...so we expanded our horizon. This would continue on the second visit!

Time to head off the ship...our first clue took us to the Post Office.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0545.jpg
Naturally we had to take this picture as Stitch was (and still is) DS8's favorite character

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0546.jpg
And a few others along the way

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0547.jpg
aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhh a Pirate!

Honestly we never figured out the clue at the post office...but continued down the path anyway. Luckily Disney takes into account that some families just might not be smart enough to get the first clue. :)

Next we had to go to Marge's Barges and decode nautical flags. This one was a breeze (maybe we are not *quite* as dumb as we thought...but that lead us to the next spot...and we couldn't figure that one out...so maybe we are. Grrrrrr, this is supposed to be easy...come on Disney! :)

On to Mt. Rustmore....and that one was easy. What the? It's like a great big tease! Disney is so mean! But on we go! Thankfully you can miss a few and still be ok. Oh yeah, this *is* Disney. :)

Onward we went, clue by clue. I won't bore you with every detail, and I don't want to give it away if they are still doing it (I'll bet you $100 that DW does know and will chime in). We found a spot for our towels while walking past the family beach and headed out to Heads Up Bar where there were a few more clues (I know, I said I wouldn't...and then I did anyway). But it was almost time for the Wonder to come by...and we decided this would be a great spot to catch the action.

This was one of our new things...we actually had a couple of drinks. As you know, we bring our drinks on...so this was a departure from normal. Cheap I am!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0558.jpg
The kids enjoy their drinks

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0559.jpg
Our family at Heads Up Bar

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0551.jpg
The boys with the Magic in the background

DisneyZell

04-05-2011, 04:04 PM

Naturally when you are told 11am or so...you think...hey, it should happen around 11. But as is often the case in life the ship was behind. As we weren't on the Magic...we had no idea what was going on...but we waited...and waited. Finally at noon there she was...off in the horizon. We had never really seen the Wonder except in pictures...as we had only sailed the Magic. Shortly she was close enough for us to take pictures...

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0572.jpg
Did you know that the Wonder was built in one piece...not two like the Magic???? Me either up until my last trip!

The ships started up their horn war...playing back and forth. If you have never seen this, go to Youtube and enter Disney Cruise Line Horn War and you will see and hear it. Pretty cool stuff to hear, if you are a Disney fan!

Unfortunately from where we were they didn't get close enough to get a picture with both of them. Disney somehow managed to get one...and of course were offering it for sale. Not sure which part of the Island they were on...but clearly not near us. :)

Then it was time to finish the hunt...we had the rest of the clues and found the treasure chest! again I don't want to give too much away...but here is when Connor found it:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0574.jpg
Connor strikes gold! or at least a silver Disney Cruise Line coin.

We headed to lunch at Cookies...nothing new to report there...we have done it several times before. The food, like the rest of the Cruise is good...not necessarily great. The only really, really good thing about the island is (well, was, we hear they have changed vendors...so they don't get the good stuff anymore) the soft serve ice cream. They had cookie dough that was to die for.
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0584.jpg
And we ate a lot!

After lunch DNH and I took the kids back over to Grouper Pavilion to play games. This was our other new thing. They have shuffleboard (like we didn't play that enough on the ship!), ping pong and some basketball hoops among some other stuff.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0575.jpg
The basketball hoops

Nick, Chris and I entered the basketball shooting contest as well...that was fun...but we weren't quite up to winning that day!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0578.jpg
Look out Michael Jordan! OH, you don't know who Michael Jordan is? :scared1:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0579.jpg
Oh yeah, they had pool too

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0580.jpg
and of course Foosball.

DW and DNW hit the beach. They started out near the trees...but there were a bunch of creepy crawly bugs there...so they took chairs down to the water to escape. Yuck.

The rest of the day was spent playing in the sand and swimming. Now apparently they have a waterslide...that adults can go on too...I'm sure we will spend a lot of time on that when we go in July! :)

Just before 4 we headed back to the ship.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0585.jpg
Pluto and the boys by the ship.

It was then off to get ready for dinner. Tonight was in Parrot Cay...and was the night to give tips. This was the first time we gave the minimum to our servers. They really weren't good. Which was too bad. The server was really bad...the assistant server was brought down by him we think...and I assume that was the case because we actually took a picture with her and the kids.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0586.jpg
So maybe my memory isn't good on her :)

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0604.jpg
Connor looking cute...ah...aren't they all at those young ages? What happens to them??? :)

We went to the "till we meet again" show and it was pretty good. Then it was up to the room to pack up the last items and kick our luggage out into the hall.

At 10pm the characters were out one last time...so we headed town to take pictures again and get some signatures on the kids' t-shirts.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0593.jpg
Santa Goofy

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0635.jpg
Christmas Donald

The adults again went down for another adult show (we definitely took advantage of those on this cruise...again something we had not done before!

The CM's all did a skit...sort of dancing around and generally blowing off steam. It was very funny...far and away the funniest show of the week. I'm sure it would be even funnier if you were a person who spent alot of time in the clubs and such and got to know the CM's more. We knew them in passing...but didn't do much late night stuff (beyond the adult shows). You definitely should go to that..it was called pub night.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0633.jpg
One more towel animal...

That's it. Quick and easy. I'll bet you didn't even fall asleep. I don't think I left anything out...but you never know! Sadly the next day was debarkation...time to get off our home away from home.

Next up: Chapter 12: Sad day for all!

Thanks for reading along!

DZ

jedijill

04-05-2011, 07:56 PM

Thanks for continuing!!! I'm really missing CC this year.

Jill in CO

DisneyZell

04-07-2011, 09:27 AM

Thanks for continuing!!! I'm really missing CC this year.

Jill in CO
I hear you...I actually have gone back and read my first TR from 1996...the pictures are so fun from Castaway Cay...and I really missed not going there when we did the Mexican Riviera. Too bad Disney doesn't have a place in Mexico that they can do the same thing, I'll bet it would really be popular! :)

DisneyZell

04-07-2011, 09:41 AM

Well, it only took me 3 years and 4 months to finish this Trip Report. I believe that should earn me some sort of medal...bronze at least. :thumbsup2

If you've been paying attention I think I made it clear we didn't really like our servers...so we didn't need to go to the early breakfast to see them. Our time for breakfast was 6:30am (ouch! and as we had been getting up at the crack of dawn all week we were tired!). Our neighbor kept telling our Head Server that we wanted to do the later seating for breakfast because it was too early....so when we got back from dinner the last night there was a message from our head server that said they found a spot for us at the later seating.

So Mickey called and woke us up at 7am, and we go up and got all ready to go...bleary eyed we headed down to Parrot Cay for the late breakfast. True to form for this cruise, however, the head server was nowhere to be found...and no one knew anything about us coming to the later seating. :furious:

Now, I get that they may not want to seat us later...so just say so. At that point we are done with the cruise...they have their tips...so it made me really mad that they told us there was a place but didn't do anything about it. The Head server that was there told us we could wait and something should open up. Our neighbors decided to do that. Now having read Cruise Confidential I'm glad we didn't...as from reading that it really screws up the servers and assistant servers to have to go back into the kitchen and fight for food.

We headed up to Topsiders for one more hit of bacon and syrup (yum still). We actually ran into our server from Palo which was neat as a last minute thing.

We had a reservation with Happy Limo to pick us up at 9am, so we gathered our stuff and headed that way...and saw the unhappy sign:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0636.jpg
While I appreciate that they will see me real soon, it's still sad!

We were outside by 8:45 hanging out, waiting for our driver and our neighbors (we were all going to the airport together). The driver appeared shortly, and our neighbors appeared right at 9am. We loaded up the van and headed out.

At the airport we arrived more than 4 hours before our flight...so we got to sit around for quite some time. That's really, really annoying! :) Try to time things better than us.

The big excitement of the waiting around happened when DS12 (currently) went to the bathroom. He had been wearing his lanyard with all his favorite pins. He took it off and left it behind in the bathroom.

Now...can someone tell me why you have to take off a lanyard to go to the bathroom? I don't care what kind of bathroom you have to go...I just don't see it! Sad for him as it was gone when we went back to check. His pins are out there somewhere circulating. Good lesson learned...as he had been on a losing things streak...onboard (not sure If I put this in the report or not) he had taken off his goggles and put them on the side of the goofy pool...inside the wood structure...and it was wavy..so the waves pushed his goggles underneath where they could no longer be reached. I wonder if he will ever learn??? :)

One last picture...as this was the theme for the whole trip:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/Disneyzell/Disneycruise%202008/DSC_0637.jpg
Kim (our neighbor) get's one more nap in at the airport.

So there you have it. Short and sweet...and ending to a great trip that happened long ago.

So now I'll be on to starting my pre-trip report for our trip this summer on the Dream. Look for that soon! Thanks for sticking with me...and I wonder...is anyone still on the boards that started reading this trip years ago???

:thumbsup2

DZ

DisneyZell

04-07-2011, 10:01 AM

My son, DS8, recently wrote about this cruise in his 3rd grade class. For whatever reason it was sitting in my office and as I was moving some stuff around this morning it caught my eye....I thought I'd add a TR from the perspective of an 8 year old....so if you bore easily you might want to tune out :)

The Disney Cruise

It was a warm day in December. I was getting ready for the Disney Cruise. I had to wait, and wait, and wait. I finally got on. We went to see our room. It was awesome. We had 2 TV's a bunk bed and a patio.

After we saw our room we went straight to the Pizza Place. I always get Hawaiian Pizza. After we ate we played foosball. I won against my brother and my dad.

After foosball I went to my room and got dressed for swimming. After my family was ready we went to the pool.

All of a sudden there was a bunch of waves! The pool was like a wave pool. the pool was filled with a lot of kids. My brother lost his goggles it was so filled. I finally figured out how the waves were forming. it was the ship rocking. The waves were there the rest of the week.

I got out of the pool and went to the waterslide. There was a long line, but it was worth the wait because it was fun.

After my family went swimming and to the water slides we got dinner at our favorite place. I had Snail. It was so good, I get that every time.

After we got dinner we went to our room and watched some TV. I watched Star Wars the Clone Wars. It was funny.

After Star Wars was over I put my PJ's on and went to bed.

The next morning I woke up, got dressed and went to breakfast. if was our favorite place. The Disney characters came out and you can take pictures.

After breakfast I went to Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer. I answered all the 5 questions and got them all right!

I won a prize! The prize was a magnetic picture holder. My mom and I really liked it.

After I won a prize I went back to my room. My brother and I were really excited as it was Christmas Eve. We were bouncing off the walls.

My brother made me sleep on the bottom of the bunk bed because he was scared. I said "OK".

I woke up and opened my present. It was a MP3 player! I was so happy!

Finally it was the end of the fun. "Time to get off" my mom said. I moaned and said ok.

It has been three Christmases now, but that Christmas on the Disney Cruise will always be the best.

Connor, Age 8