March 1st-5th on the Wonder ... Our 10th Anniversary Getaway --COMPLETED 3/23 [Archive] - The DIS Discussion Forums

sas_mk

03-09-2009, 10:42 PM

I can't even begin to count how many trip reports I have read since I first found the DIS last April. I have loved every report that I read because it made me even more excited for my first Disney Cruise. Hopefully, I can pay it forward now by posting my cruise experience.

The Cast:

Me: I am a 30 year old who loves Disney. I love holding onto my youth and Disney helps me do it. I have been to Disneyland many times in my life and first visited DW when I was 12 years old. I have dreamed of going back and I finally got a chance! I had never been on a cruise before, but expect to go on many more in my life.

DH: He is my 33 year old Disney supporter. He doesn't love it, but he doesn't hate it. He would rather buy a new car or upgrade our house than pay for a vacation, but he comes along for the ride as long as he doesn't have to think too hard about planning it. DH had also not been on a cruise before, but I think I will be able to "drag" him on a few more in the future.

The Kids: We have a DS(6), DD(3), and a DS(1). Since we were celebrating our 10 year anniversary, we left the kids home with Grandma and Grandpa. There was a lot of guilt involved with leaving our kids behind while we went to DisneyWorld and on a Disney Cruise, but I think they might have had more fun being spoiled at Grandma's house then they would have had with us.

The Plan: Last March, my DH suggested we get away for our Anniversary. He briefly suggested we look into a Disney Cruise -- and I ran with that suggestion. I got on the Internet and started researching. We managed to find a Land and Sea vacation that we could afford, booked it and started dreaming of our time away.

We stayed at CBR from February 25th - March 1st. Then, we boarded the Disney Wonder from March 1st - March 5th.

Since I am posting this on the cruise forum, I will glaze over the Land portion of our trip and jump right into the first day of our cruise. I do want to say that DisneyWorld was crazy fun. We stuffed so much stuff into three days and wore ourselves out. Fortunately, we don't feel like we really missed anything. We did all of our "must-do's" plus a lot more. It is amazing how much quicker you can do Disney without little ones slowing you down! It would be nice to do a more relaxed trip someday, but we weren't sure when we would ever get back!

Feel free to ask any questions. I love reliving my vacation --especially as I look out the window at the blizzard that is coming down outside.

Up Next: Day One -- We make our way to the Wonder and start relaxing...

BrettySpaghetti

03-09-2009, 11:58 PM

Up Next: Day One -- We make our way to the Wonder and start relaxing...

I sailed right before you (Feb. 22-26) on the Wonder, so I'll be very interested to see if you guys had as great a time as I did! BTW congrats on your anniversary. When I sailed, I met a married couple in the Wonder's internet cafe who were camming with their child (who was being watched by grandma). So you're not the only adults to leave the kid(s) at home! :)

sas_mk

03-10-2009, 08:58 AM

I sailed right before you (Feb. 22-26) on the Wonder, so I'll be very interested to see if you guys had as great a time as I did! BTW congrats on your anniversary. When I sailed, I met a married couple in the Wonder's internet cafe who were camming with their child (who was being watched by grandma). So you're not the only adults to leave the kid(s) at home! :)

Well, you probably had better weather than we did, but I think we stil had a great time!

Thanks for the congratulations! We wore our Happy Anniversary pins to DisneyWorld, and I think we heard some form of congratulations at least 100 times each day. I never got tired of it though!

It was hard leaving our kids behind, but I think it is so important to get away without the kids every once in a while. We are very lucky that our parents agreed to help us out. They split the week, and I am sure we missed the kids more than they missed us. They were well taken care of!

sas_mk

03-10-2009, 09:19 AM

SUNDAY, March 1st, 2009:

We were both so excited to move onto the cruise portion of our Land and Sea vacation. :cool1: On Sunday morning, we slept in a little bit and walked over to the main pool at Caribbean Beach to sit in the hot tub. We headed back to our room and threw on some clothes. We had reserved a one-way rental through Enterprise Rental. We spent about $34 total between our car, tolls and gas to get to the Port. That ended up being a huge savings over taking the Disney Shuttle Bus and it gave us a little freedom as well.

We were supposed to meet our Enterprise Rental Car shuttle at 9:00 and we wanted to get over to the Custom House early enough to check-in at the cruise desk for the cruise. However, when we got back to our room, we saw the message light beeping on our phone. We had three messages that had been left the last couple of days, but this was the first notice we had gotten about the messages. :scared1: The cruise desk was trying to reach us to find out when we were going to check-in and how we were going to get to the port. Unfortunately, the third message told us that we needed to be checked in for our cruise by Saturday (the day before) at 10:00 AM or we would have to check-in once we arrived at the port. Oh well, this just gave us a couple of extra minutes to pack up and get ready.

We walked over to the Custom House (about a 10 minute walk) and arrived just as the Enterprise shuttle was arriving. The shuttle driver was very talkative and friendly. He gave us very detailed driving directions to get back to our hotel once we got our rental. We picked up our rental without any problems and drove over to Burger King for breakfast. We originally tried to go to McDonald’s (our favorite vacation breakfast), but their power was out and they were temporarily closed. After our quick breakfast, we easily found our way back to the resort, finished packing and started our journey to Port Canaveral.

We left Caribbean Beach Resort at 11:15. We hit a pretty big rain storm and a bit of traffic on our way, but the drive was very straightforward and easy. I loved the moment when we drove over the bridge and got our first glimpse of our home for the next four nights. :banana: :banana: :banana: I wanted to drive straight there, but we still had our rental car and had to ditch it first. We dropped off our car at the Enterprise location near the port and took the free shuttle to the Disney terminal. We finally dropped off our luggage just after 1:00 and went through security. :woohoo:

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There was no line to check-in when we got there and we were able to go through that process without any problems. We got boarding pass #19, but only after I asked for one. They weren’t calling out boarding numbers any more, but I wanted one anyway. The line to board the ship was actually quite long :scared: and it seemed that the line for the security pictures was what was holding everything up. We finally got our i.d. pictures taken and we chose to walk past the embarkation photo backdrop. We had no plans of spending any money at Shutters, so it was just easier to avoid the photographers so we wouldn’t be tempted.

It was finally time to enter the atrium on Deck 3. We walked onto the ship and we were greeted with a great big welcome to the “McKay Family”! :cloud9:

This is the beautiful, blown glass chandelier in the atrium:
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We were then told that our room was ready and that lunch was currently being served at the Beach Blanket Buffet. I wanted to eat at Parrot Cay, but when I asked about that, I was told that the restaurant was already full. :sad1: I was a little bummed, so we headed to our room on Deck 5 first to stash our carry-on luggage.

Up Next: The first look at our stateroom and the beginning of too much food... :rotfl:

disneychic

03-10-2009, 09:57 AM

Great start! Can't wait to read more of your trip report popcorn:: popcorn::

magic-camps

03-10-2009, 11:05 AM

Can't wait to read the rest. We are going on our first cruise April 5th:banana: :banana:

BrettySpaghetti

03-10-2009, 12:36 PM

sas_mk

03-10-2009, 01:05 PM

Wow, awesome photo with the scale-model Disney ship!

McDonald's is your favorite vacation breakfast place? :scared1: And they were temporarily closed??!!! :scared1: :scared1: :scared1:

Can't wait to read more! You know, we did have pretty good weather, although high winds and rough seas caused the cancellation of our snorkeling adventure at Castaway Cay. My report can be found here:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2103277

Maybe I should clarify. My DH loves McDonald's breakfasts, but the only time we EVER go there is on vacation. Eating at McDonald's is a sure-fire way to get him in vacation mode. It never fails.

I just read your trip report and loved it. :worship: I am actually feeling like I missed out on some wonderful activities. I wish the days on the cruise could just be longer. Oh well. All the more reason to return someday. :cool1:

sas_mk

03-10-2009, 01:20 PM

So...now it was time to find our room.

Our room was great! It was an inside Category 11 cabin on deck 5 (Room #5639). It was always clean and ready for us. Our Room Steward was Alain and he did such a great job! :worship:

There was plenty of room for the two of us. We had an Anniversary Card waiting for us on our bed and also four onboard credit slips equaling $325. We actually had $50 more onboard credit than I was expecting. I thought I was going to get $50 for paying for the cruise with my Disney Visa, but it was actually $100. :cool1: BONUS!! :cool1: We also got $100 for booking through Dreams Unlimited, $25 for booking online, and I had prepaid $100 of onboard credit. Somehow we managed to only spend $30 more than that while onboard. :confused3

I also saw our dining rotation for the cruise and I panicked. :scared1: We were going to eat at Triton’s, Animator’s Palate, Animator’s Palate, and then Parrot Cay. Unfortunately, I had scheduled Palo for our second night and that meant we were going to miss the show at Animator’s Palate. My DH suggested switching our dining rotation, but I really didn’t want to do that. I was sure we were too late to change Palo, but decided that was our only option.

We dropped off our stuff and headed up to Deck 9 for lunch. My DH could tell I was still bummed about not eating at Parrot Cay so he suggested we check it out first. He is so wise! :love: Parrot Cay was definitely not full and the cruise staff eagerly invited us in. We filled up on peel and eat shrimp, yummy sweet and sour pork, and delicious Chilled Strawberry Mint soup. I am sure we tried some other stuff, but now that the cruise is over, I ate too much food to remember what it all was!! :headache:

After lunch we headed to Wavebands to check on changing our Palo reservation. There wasn’t a line, and I walked up and told her I needed to see if there was another open reservation. She looked up my reservation and immediately saw my dining rotation. She knew right away why I would “need” to change, and asked me what night I wanted. I asked her if we could eat at Palo on Tuesday night (our third night). Luckily, we had no problem changing the reservation and we were happily on our way. :lovestruc

Now it was time to explore. We walked all around the ship. My DH hadn’t done as much (or any) Disboards "research" :rotfl2: before the vacation, so I had to tell him where everything was and what types of activities we could expect.

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We made our way to the spa and took a tour. I loved being able to look around the spa, but I felt like I was listening to a sales pitch instead of an informative tour. I didn’t really like wasting my precious cruise time listening to a sales pitch on teeth whitening or a detailed description of facial treatments. However, I was very tempted by the RainForest Room. :cloud9: The tiled loungers are heated and look so comfortable and relaxing. For two people for the length of the cruise it was only $60. Definitely a deal, but looking back, I can only see one day when I would have been able to use it, so I am glad I didn’t sign myself and my husband up for that.

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We needed to check-in at home before we sailed away, so we went into the Cove Café where it was nice, comfy, quite and not windy. I was really surprised at how much wind there was and how gloomy it looked outside. We both called our parents to make sure our kids were happy and that everything was OK. We had a nice time talking to some of the cruise staff in Cove Café. It had such a nice atmosphere!

Once we were up on Deck 9, somehow we decided we were already hungry again. :confused3 We walked around the food counters until we were really tempted by Goofy’s Galley. We both picked a wrap to try and I got some fresh pineapple. We were sure that we would be back for some of those delicious panini’s, but unfortunately never had another chance to try them. :sad1:

Coming Up Next: The Safety Drill, Adventure's Away and The Golden Mickey's...

sas_mk

03-10-2009, 01:37 PM

Before long, it was time for the Muster Drill. We headed back to our stateroom, got on our lovely :rotfl2: orange life vests and headed to Animator’s Palate where we found station Q. We sat at the tables and waited while they called off quite a few room numbers that had not arrived for the drill. :headache: We listened to the safety information and we were on our way. :woohoo:

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When we got back to our room, all of our bags had arrived. We changed into our swimsuits and then took about 15 minutes to unpack and get things settled before I made my DH stop so we wouldn’t miss the Adventure’s Away deck party.

We found a place up on Deck 10 and enjoyed some of the party. We waited for the lovely horn (I never get tired of hearing that horn), and then we walked to the Quiet Cove Pool to spend some time in the hot tub. :thumbsup2
We were the only people in the hot tub and really enjoyed the peace and quiet. We were probably the only people in the hot tub because of how cold and windy it was. :lmao: The sun was just starting to come out, but being wet on a windy deck did not work well together. Oh well, we enjoyed it! After a while, the ship started moving and we got out to watch us sail away from the port. It was awesome. We were really on a cruise!!!

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The show on the first night was the Golden Mickey’s. I knew I didn’t want to miss the show, so we got dressed again and found ourselves some great seats about 5 minutes before the show started. The show was amazing. Man, those actors can sing!! And…Tarzan was a highlight for me!!! :rotfl2:

After the show, we went up on Deck 9 and played some foosball while drinking some hot chocolate and sampling some of the pizza (as if we were really hungry again). We had a great time and I just felt so relaxed and ready for a great time.

Before dinner I made a quick stop at guest services. I had brought three pillowcases for the characters to sign. They were in a Ziploc bag with 4 sharpie markers. The guy at guest services quickly pulled out a form. He wrote all the important information down for me: three pillowcases, 4 sharpies, stateroom number, princess autographs on the pink pillowcase and the “allstar” autographs on the blue and tan pillowcases. He told me that the pillowcases would be delivered to my stateroom on the last night. It was very easy and now I could check it off my list. :thumbsup2

Up Next: Triton's, Entertainment and Room Service...

BrettySpaghetti

03-10-2009, 03:26 PM

I also saw our dining rotation for the cruise and I panicked. :scared1: We were going to eat at Triton’s, Animator’s Palate, Animator’s Palate, and then Parrot Cay. Unfortunately, I had scheduled Palo for our second night and that meant we were going to miss the show at Animator’s Palate.

I'm confused. Do they only do a "show" at Animator's Palate on Night #2?

Anyway, I'm glad you scheduled a night at Palo. Animator's Palate has my least favorite menu; as much as I love the decor, I would have rather eaten at Palo both of the Animator's nights! :)

BTW, you guys make a lovely couple!

sas_mk

03-10-2009, 03:31 PM

I'm confused. Do they only do a "show" at Animator's Palate on Night #2?

Anyway, I'm glad you scheduled a night at Palo. Animator's Palate has my least favorite menu; as much as I love the decor, I would have rather eaten at Palo both of the Animator's nights! :)

BTW, you guys make a lovely couple!

Thanks! I'll take any compliment I can get!! :lmao:

They only do the "show" at Animator's Palate on the first night you eat there. The night you repeat the restaurant is Pirate Night, so they do the special Pirate Night menu in all of the restaurants -- I think. We missed eating in our rotational dining room on Pirate Night, but Palo was completely worth it!

LMO429

03-10-2009, 09:09 PM

great tr!

BeccahRN

03-11-2009, 11:21 AM

We were on the same cruise! Just haven't had time to do our TR. keep it coming, enjoying reading about your no-kid cruise! (DH and I are going on a 3 night without the kids in September with the $99 bounceback offer!)

DWGal210

03-11-2009, 03:46 PM

Great start so far, sounds like you guys are having a great time so far! :cool1:

Pinky166

03-12-2009, 03:53 AM

sas_mk

03-13-2009, 02:21 PM

Great start. I am looking forward to reading the rest as my DH & I are going on our first cruise in September, I haven't done lots of research yet so am hoping to pick up lots of tips from your report. :goodvibes

You will have so much fun! Just keep reading the Dis. I got so much info beforehand that I was afraid I would be disappointed once I was onboard. That didn't happen at all. Being informed just helped me to get the most of my vacation!

camarks1234

03-13-2009, 02:31 PM

great tr! I have so much fun reading these, it brings back magical memories! :)

sas_mk

03-13-2009, 02:56 PM

Soon, it was time for dinner. We were seated at table 9 with six other people. I thought DCL did a great job matching up table companions. One couple was on their honeymoon, another couple was celebrating their 10th anniversary (just like us) and the other two people were a dad with his 30 year old daughter. We had a wonderful time getting to know them! I loved our dining experiences because it was such a social time. :cool1:

Our server was Joani and our assistant server was Mehmet. Our dinners took longer than we would have liked, but instead of complaining about the speed of service we decided to find ways to enjoy the time instead. I thought the service was fantastic! We always had what we needed and our servers were there if we needed to request anything else.

I had one minor pet peeve about our assistant server. :upsidedow I ordered a Diet Sprite and my husband ordered a Diet Coke the first night. Every other night we were greeted with Diet Sprite and Diet Coke. Maybe that is a bonus for everybody else, but I sometimes like to have a different drink each night. I felt weird asking for a new drink when he seemed to be trying so hard to please us. I never even got a real chance to ask because I would have my drink as soon as I sat down and then a refill would appear before I was even done with the first cup. This was just a minor pet peeve and I just decided to deal with it and get a variety of drinks from the drink station at other times. Oh well.

For dinner that night I had the escargot, the tomato and basil soup, the citrus-glaze over baked duckling and the crème brulee. The escargot was something that I would never order in a restaurant where I needed to pay for it, but it was something fun to try. I actually liked it a lot – after I got past the mental image of what I was eating. The soup was delicious. The duck was good, but I am not sure I will order duck again – I guess it is just not my thing. The crème brulee was absolutely wonderful!

During dinner we all noted that the boat was rocking really hard. I was glad that I had taken some bonine earlier in the day. I had read that the first night can be rough, but we were told the boat was definitely rocking more than normal.

After dinner, we headed up to Deck 9 for a big cup full of ice cream (hint: get one of the insulated "hot" cups from the drink station and fill it up with the soft serve. You can get more and it keeps it cold) and took it back down to Wavebands where we watched Match Your Mate. popcorn:: The three couples and the M.C. were so funny!! I loved that the couple that had been married for 42 years was the one that won! :hug:

After the entertainment, we headed to Mickey’s Mates to buy a souvenir. We had gotten the “Welcome Aboard Coupon” that we could use for a free pin with any purchase. We also had coupons to be used on Nassau Day and on the Sea Day so we could get the entire set of free pins. Unfortunately, when we got to the store, it was closed with a sign on the door that said “Private Function”. It was just past 11:00 and the navigator said they should be open until 12:00. I was bummed because I wanted to get the entire pin set, and now I couldn’t. I walked down to guest services to see if they could help me. The woman working at the desk was so helpful. She assured me it wouldn’t be a problem to get the pin the next day because they had made an error in the Navigator about the store hours. :woohoo: She told me to just take the coupon into the store tomorrow and explain what happened. I felt better.

Now it was time to make our way back to our stateroom. We were greeted by a snake towel animal!! I loved being surprised each night by a new “pet” on our bed. I also love turn down service. :cloud9: It made the room so inviting at night when we were so tired and ready to climb into bed.

Our snake -- I ate one of the chocolates before I took the picture. Oops!
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I called room service to order some ham and cheese sandwiches, 2 bowls of fresh fruit, some Big Island chocolate chip cookies and some oatmeal raisin cookies. It took about 20 minutes to get the food delivered. We certainly weren’t hungry again, but we needed some lunch to take with us the next day to Atlantis. I packaged everything up in Ziploc bags, filled some bags with ice and put them all in our refrigerator for our Atlantis picnic lunch. We also filled out the breakfast hangtag for room service, put it outside our stateroom and went to bed. It was a FULL day and we slept really well!

Up Next: Breakfast, exercise, and a taxi on Nassau...

sas_mk

03-13-2009, 10:30 PM

MONDAY, March 2nd, 2009:

Knock, knock. . . oh crap! I had ordered room service for 7:30 and we were still sound asleep in bed. I stumbled to the door and opened it up. I had ordered juice and bagels. We were planning on going to breakfast at Triton’s, but I love getting room service. :love: We snacked on the bagels while we got dressed.

We went out and ran a couple of miles on Deck 4 before our real breakfast. I love running out on deck with the sea air! It was refreshing and relaxing. After our run, we walked to Triton’s for breakfast. We went to breakfast in our running clothes :eek: and my DH was really embarrassed. I didn’t care, it was my vacation and I don’t think I was bothering anybody – I was just wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and didn’t think I was any more underdressed than the majority of other people in the restaurant.

I ordered the French Toast Tower with grilled pineapple. I loved it. But, I am a sucker for any type of French Toast! :thumbsup2 My DH ordered the Belgium Waffles with dolce de leche on it. It was also delicious.

After breakfast, we got ready to disembark. We had hooked up with another family on our dismeet thread that wanted to share a room at the Comfort Suites across from Atlantis. This made the day much more affordable then doing it on our own or through DCL. I am glad we did it, because the day was not all we thought it would be. :sad1:

Before leaving, I got the room service sandwiches, fruit and cookies out of the refrigerator and shoved them into an insulated backpack. Now we had a delicious, free lunch to eat on Nassau. I had read conflicting information about taking food off the ship on Nassau, but I decided to chance it. I had read about getting the uncrustable sandwiches (still sealed) from room service, but we weren’t really in the mood for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, so I decided to just package up the ham and cheese for our day off the ship. I figured the worst thing that could happen is they would make me throw it away when we disembark so that I wouldn’t have to pay a huge fine. :scared1: I didn’t end up seeing any signs saying that food was prohibited or any bag checks so I am glad that we did it. Food at Atlantis wasn’t too expensive (around $8-10 per person for the least expensive options), but this saved us a few extra dollars to spend on the ship.

At 9:30 we met the other family at the Deck 3 Aft Elevators. We made it to Deck 1 forward (although we made a few failed attempts because we didn’t realize that you couldn’t go all the way forward on deck 1 and we had to go up to deck 2 to find our way before going back down to deck 1). Once we got off the ship, I realized that I should have brought a jacket and some long pants with me. Oh well – I was sure it would warm up soon! :lmao: Too bad I was wrong!

We walked through the yellow building and immediately felt bombarded by people trying to get us to take their taxi. I was afraid a fist fight would break out between the different drivers as they argued over who would take us to Atlantis. We quickly settled on a driver and we were quoted $4 per person. The four of us loaded into her van and we were off. :cool1:

It didn’t take too long to get to Comfort Suites, but it was an exciting ride. The streets in Nassau are very narrow and the person who has the right-of-way is the person who honks the loudest. It was crazy!

Checking in at Comfort Suites took forever. :mad: We were the only ones at the counter, but it took us 25 minutes just to check-in and check-out. They were able to let me pay for half of the room on my credit card and they let the other family pay for the other half of the room. That was convenient for us. I was aware of the extra energy fees and the housekeeping fees before booking the room, but I am still bugged that we had to pay an extra $18 per person for energy and housekeeping that we certainly did not use since we never stepped foot into our room.

Coming Soon: A confusing walk around Atlantis and a VERY cold day...

sas_mk

03-13-2009, 10:50 PM

It was a quick walk over to Atlantis, but once we got there we were extremely lost. We finally found our way to an information desk inside the lobby of one of the buildings and she gave us a map. She even drew on the map where we needed to go. :confused3 That did not help us at all.

First, we wandered around for about 30 minutes before we finally found a towel hut where we could get our wrist bands. Then, we had to wander some more to find a place with lockers for our stuff. We paid $5 for a small locker (medium was $7 and large was $10). They only accept credit cards at Atlantis – no cash. Then, we were on our way. :yay:

We quickly got a tube and jumped into the Rapids Lazy River. It was so much fun, except for the fact that it was freezing!!!!! :sad2: The high for the day was 73 degrees and the water was actually pretty warm, but the air and wind were terribly cold. We sat in the tube and enjoyed going around and through the rapids, but every time we got wet, I knew I would just be colder.

We went down all of the slides without any lines – not many people were dumb enough to be at a water park in the cold and windy weather. Around lunchtime we bundled up in some towels and enjoyed a picnic lunch. The food was really good and had stayed plenty cold with the ice packs in my insulated backpack. No food poisoning -- phew!! :goodvibes

After lunch my husband wanted to go on some more slides, but I just couldn’t talk myself into getting wet again. I sat on a lounger, still bundled in a pile of towels, and watched as he went on the waterslides for about 45 more minutes.

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Once he felt he had gotten his fill of the waterslides, we walked over to “The Dig” to check out the aquarium. We also walked by the beach. The beach at Atlantis wasn’t anything special and was WAY to wavy for anybody to swim or snorkel there. I enjoyed The Dig. It wasn’t very large, and I would never book an excursion just to see the aquarium, but I am glad we saw it while we were there.

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It was time to head back to the ship. We walked through the lobby and asked for a taxi. The taxi driver drove around to meet us and told us that it would be $5.75 each for the ride back to the port because there were only two of us. I was just about to argue with her and try to get a cheaper rate when a family of four walked up and shared the taxi with us making it only $4 per person. The ride back took a little longer and was equally as exciting/scary, but we enjoyed swapping stories with the other family who were also heading back to the Wonder. They told us how much their kids were loving the clubs!

Once we got back to our stateroom, it was around 4:00 and we took some time to get warm and change into long pants and jackets. At 4:45 I remembered that I wanted to get my passport stamped. I was sure we were too late, :sad2: but we grabbed our passports and got back off the ship. We hurried over to the passport office and they were still there – yeah!!! :banana: :banana: It did look like they were packing up and getting ready to go home for the day, but they quickly stamped our passports and we were on our way.

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I thought it might be fun to head to the straw market, but I was pretty sure it was closed as well. It wasn’t very far so we started to walk towards the big tent. About half way there, it started to get a little darker and I felt like we were walking past some “shady” individuals. :cool2: We decided to call it quits. We stopped briefly in a little souvenir shop, picked up some cheap little souvenirs for our kids and walked back to the ship. We boarded the Wonder just before 6:00.

It was time for Toy Story – The Musical, but we just did not feel like seeing this show. I had heard it was a pretty literal interpretation of the movie, so we decided against seeing this one. Instead, we grabbed some snacks and headed to Bedtime Stories in the Buena Vista Theater. We had not seen this movie yet, and with three kids at home, we don’t get out to see movies very often. We missed the first 15 minutes of the show, but I really liked this movie!

After the movie we killed a little time and money at Mickey’s Mates. We were able to make two separate purchases and use our coupon from day one and day two to get the free pins. :woohoo: The cashier didn’t make a big deal out of it and I don’t think it would have been a problem to get both pins even if the store hadn’t closed an hour early the night before.

Up Next: Animator's Palate and WonderQuest...

Alice_on_WONDERland

03-14-2009, 08:05 PM

sas_mk

03-16-2009, 08:55 AM

I LOVE reading your TR! You're doing a fantastic job. My family and I were on the 4 day on Feb. 22-26th - man I love that ship!

I just have a few things for you... first of all, how did you get a one-way rental from Enterprise for $34?! You must be the queen of deals, my friend!

Also, while we were on our cruise I did order a few PB&J's from room service, but they were NOT sealed in their original packaging. I wanted to take a few with me on our excursion in Nassau as well, but those were not sealed up. It's a good thing us moms think ahead and take plenty of ziplock bags with us, huh?

Keep up the good work - can't wait to read more! (And girl you do NOT look 30 at all! What is your secret?!)

I am glad you are enjoying the TR. I love reliving every wonderful detail!!

I did a lot of shopping around for a reasonable one-way rental. I thought I had found the best price with Budget, but I finally decided to call Enterprise. They don't let you book one-way rentals on their website, but the person on the phone was awesome! She told me the rate and then upgraded the car for us without me even asking. The Enterprise rental saved us between $15-20 each way over Budget or Avis. Woohoo! :cool1:

Honestly, the ziploc tip that I read on here is one that my DH just shook his head at while we were packing. However, once we got to DW and then onto the Wonder, he was impressed that all of my planning really paid off!

sas_mk

03-16-2009, 09:14 AM

Now it was time to make our way to Animators Palate for dinner.

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Our table was against an outside wall so we made sure we sat so we were facing the whole room. I loved the lighting effects during dinner! :love:

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I also loved the food tonight. :love: I don’t remember what my appetizer was, but I am thinking it was something with mushrooms in it. I also remember that it was good! I also had the delicious Creamy Butternut Squash Soup and the Filet Mignon (cooked perfectly). My DH ordered the chicken that came with Jalapeno Mashed Potatoes – he REALLY loved the potatoes. I finished off with the Peanut Butter Pie – it wasn’t that great.

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Once again, our dinner took a little more than two hours, but we really enjoyed the show and the dinner conversation was a lot of fun. It was still hard for us to take that much time out of our vacation just for dinner, but we really didn’t want to complain because we weren’t clear if anybody else at our table wanted the dinner service to be faster. :confused3 We hated changing the pace for the six other people at our table just because it was taking too long for us.

After dinner, we went to Wavebands for WonderQuest. The game was a lot of fun. :rotfl2: We were sure our team was going to win because we were so fast finding every item for the “scavenger hunt”. We were baffled at the end when there was a three way tie and our team wasn’t even one of the top three. Oh well!! We had a lot of fun! :banana:

After WonderQuest, we hurried back to the Buena Vista Theater because we were about 20 minutes late for Confessions of a Shopaholic. popcorn:: I was freezing, so I ran to our stateroom and got a couple of blankets to keep me warm during the movie. The movie was great. The seats in the theater are not very comfortable, but we still really enjoyed seeing another movie without paying a babysitter $20 like we would have to do at home!

Back in our room, a darling towel dog greeted us. It was even wearing my sunglasses! We had had a day that was beyond full. We were exhausted. We slept so well in our “dark cave” with the ship rocking us to sleep. :cloud9: It was great!!

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Up Next: Castaway Cay -- Heaven on Earth...

sas_mk

03-16-2009, 09:33 AM

TUESDAY, March 3rd, 2009:

Castaway Cay Day!! :cool1: :cool1: :cool1: I must have been excited because I woke up just after 6:00 AM. Since I was up, I grabbed my camera and ran down to deck 4. I wanted to see that sunrise. I took some pictures and enjoyed the quiet morning sitting out on the comfy lounge chairs. It was very nice.

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I spent about 30 minutes out there, and then went back inside to snap some pictures of the mostly empty ship. I noticed that the guest services desk was open, so I stopped there to pay my tips and get them over with. It was a quick and painless process.

I headed back to my room and climbed back into bed. I was still tired and slept for a little longer before my DH was ready to get out of bed. We ate breakfast that morning at Beach Blanket Buffet. The buffet was very good and had a huge variety of options. I really liked the waffles, bacon and the fresh fruit.

After breakfast, we watched as the ship docked at Castaway Cay. It was cool to see how choreographed it is. Everybody on the dock knows exactly where they should be and what they should be doing to get the ship tied off. It is a pretty amazing process.

Once the ship was cleared, we disembarked because we were going to run the 5k at 8:30. My DH is a much better, faster runner than I am, so he actually ended up doing the 7K trail in the same amount of time that I did the 5K trail. The run was good. I ended up running the same pace as another cruiser and we talked a lot about our vacations and our families. We didn’t run the whole thing because she had a muscle cramp, so we walked part of it and just enjoyed the company. It was a great way to start out the day.

I got to see a lot of the island before all the passengers got off the ship. My DH and I had planned on renting bikes later on to “explore”, but the run took us on the bike path so we didn’t feel the need later in the day to see it all again.

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We met back up at the ship and walked over to get our picture taken with Captain Jack. The line was pretty long by the time we got there, but it was worth the wait. It was a lot of fun and we got a great picture.

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We got back on the ship and got ready for our day on the beach. We grabbed our snorkel gear that we brought with us, our iPods, and the sunscreen and headed out to the family beach. It was packed!! We walked quite a ways out before we found a couple of lounge chairs to set our stuff on. Then we grabbed one of the lovely yellow life vests and braved the cold water so we could snorkel.

Snorkeling was so fun! :banana: We spent a little over an hour in the snorkeling lagoon. We have been snorkeling before a few times and I was not impressed with the fish at Castaway Cay. :sad2: There were a few bigger, more colorful fish the farther out we went, but not very many. We did see a starfish. That was cool!

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It was also fun to swim from buoy to buoy searching for sunken treasure. I loved the Mickey and Minnie statues.

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By the time we were finished, we were really tired and extremely cold! There were not a lot of other snorkelers out in the water, but we were glad we did it – even if it was cold.

After we went snorkeling, we spent some time warming ourselves up on the beach. Then – we were hungry. We grabbed the tram and rode it over to Serenity Bay. There was hardly anybody there. The food there was awesome!! The grilled sirloin was marinated and tasted so good. I also fell in love with the ribs. Finally, I was so excited to try the Cookie Dough ice cream – it did not disappoint!! :worship:

We took our very full bellies and our ice cream over to the hammocks. We put on our headphones and relaxed on the hammocks for a few hours. It was heaven.

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I got a little cold (the weather was just not cooperating), so I just buried myself in towels again while I took a little nap. When I woke up it was time for a drink. I ordered a virgin Konk Kooler and split it between two cups. My DH and I shared it and it was delicious! :woohoo:

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It was about 3:30 when we decided to catch the tram back to the family beach area. We stopped at the little shops and bought a few tiny souvenirs before getting back on the ship.

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Coming Up: Palo and Pirate Night...

cakesnjammom

03-16-2009, 09:45 AM

Enjoying your TR...cannot wait for the next update. I love your "frugal" skills. I am taking notes from you. I need to cut corners everywhere we can ;) We are doing the Western C cruise in Sept!
More, more please!

LMO429

03-16-2009, 09:10 PM

awesome report

Disgirl83

03-16-2009, 09:42 PM

I'm loving your trip report! Can't wait to read more. :thumbsup2

HappyGrumpy

03-17-2009, 09:50 PM

I need more!!! Your giving me my "Fix"!:rotfl:

frdeb1999

03-17-2009, 11:40 PM

Great TR!! :)

mousetravel

03-18-2009, 07:35 AM

I'm enjoying your TR!

After dinner, we headed up to Deck 9 for a big cup full of ice cream (hint: get one of the insulated "hot" cups from the drink station and fill it up with the soft serve. You can get more and it keeps it cold)

This is a great tip! I figured that one out after seeing those tiny little cups by the ice cream station. Those cups are certainly too small for me!

sas_mk

03-18-2009, 09:27 AM

Tonight’s show was Bolt in 3D. :3dglasses Neither of us were in the mood to go and see this show, so we ran up to the Quiet Cove Pool to soak in the hot tub. The hot tub was pretty crowded, but I found a spot. :grouphug: My DH is not so fond of crowded hot tubs, so he went up to Deck 10 to shoot some hoops on the basketball court.

I left the hot tub and ran to iron my dress for Palo. There were two ironing boards in the laundry room on deck 6, and both were being used, so I had to wait about 10 minutes. After pressing my dress, I ran back to the room to get ready. We had Palo reservations for 6:00. I was hoping to catch the sunset from our table, but we were heading the wrong direction to be able to see the sunset. :confused3 Oh well!

Palo was amazing. :worship: :worship: :worship: We got there at 6:00 and we were immediately seated right next to the window. :thumbsup2 Our server, Judy, took good care of us. She listened carefully as we expressed interest in different menu items and made sure we got to sample everything we wanted. I “sampled” the Ai Gamberi Pizza, the Fritto de Calamari, Grilled Portobello Mushroom and Polenta with a Roasted Shallot Sauce (Amazing!), Lobster Ravioli (also Awesome!), Beef Tenderloin (cooked perfectly), Chocolate Souffle (yummm!), Panna Cotta (so refreshing), and the Pineapple Ravioli (wish I had more room to order another plate). We were so stuffed, but the meal, the atmosphere and the service are all things we would never pass up! It was an amazing dining experience. :love:

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A note on tipping at Palo: Before dinner, I called guest services to ask them about gratuity at Palo. I know tipping the Palo server has been discussed often in the cruise forum and I was still unclear/undecided about whether or not I was supposed to tip. The guest services employee told me specifically that tipping was not included in the $15 charge, but that tipping at Palo was not mandatory and was left up to my discretion. Don’t worry – the service blew us away and there is no way we would not have left a tip. :thumbsup2

After dinner, we killed a little time before the Pirates IN the Caribbean Deck Party. We got some hot chocolate and sat out on deck 10 while we waited for the party to start. The party was fun, but we were just not very into it. I think if it hadn’t been so cold, and we hadn’t felt so full, we could have had fun dancing and jumping up and down, but it just wasn’t for us. I was excited when Mickey saved the day and when the fireworks went off. What a cool thing to do on a cruise ship! :goodvibes

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After the pirate party, we got in line at the buffet on deck 9 and got a little fajita stuff (for my DH) and a giant turkey leg. I have always wanted to try one of these at Disneyland, but I am just too cheap! I really wanted one for “free” on the cruise. Unfortunately, it was pretty dry and tasteless. My husband really enjoyed the fajitas and we also liked the pineapple flambé that was served with ice cream.

We took these back to our room, where a cute towel monkey was hanging out waiting for us. We ate the food and then crashed for the night.

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Up Next: Sea Day, Exotic Rasul and Palo Brunch . . .

sas_mk

03-18-2009, 09:35 AM

WEDNESDAY, March 4th, 2009:

This was our Sea Day! :cool1: We started out our day at Beach Blanket Buffet. I ordered myself an egg white omelet from the omelet station and really enjoyed it. :thumbsup2 We also sampled a few other items from the buffet and we were not disappointed.

After breakfast, we headed to the Vista Spa for our Rasul Treatment. I really wanted to do a spa treatment on this cruise, but I really am too cheap. :sad2: I knew that I could go home and get a pedicure or a massage for half the price, and I couldn’t justify the cost. However, the Rasul was a nice way to do a spa treatment. We could both get a treatment for just $83 – the only catch is that we had to do the treatment ourselves. Not a problem for us!! :rotfl2: The creams and muds were very nice. I had heard that the steam room gets too hot, but we didn’t have that problem. It was actually very enjoyable – and that is all I will say about that! :love: :cloud9: :goodvibes

After the treatment, we were offered Champagne, but since we don’t drink, we got a glass of Sparkling Cider and they let us sip it while sitting in the RainForest Room. I was jealous of the people relaxing on the tiled loungers, but I figured if I had time later in the day, I would just come back and pay $15 – I never found that time. :mad:

I had written “No Product Sales Pitch Please” on the bottom of my paperwork, and we did not get any sort of sales pitch. I don’t know if we would have, but I appreciated not having to deal with a hard sale after such a relaxing treatment.

We got showered, dressed and ready because we were going back to Palo for brunch at 12:00. Honestly, at this point, I didn’t really care to ever look at food again. I was still full from the night before. I wish we could have cancelled it, but we were past the 24 hour cancellation period. We were going to pay that $15 either way so we decided to go and try to enjoy it. Apparently, I still had plenty of room in my tummy because I ate way too much at brunch. :rotfl:

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Our server, Kim, gave us a nice tour of the buffet items. She never rushed us and gave us a lot of good suggestions on things to try. I loved the seafood. :cloud9: I loved the stolen. :thumbsup2 I loved the chicken parmigiana (my husband’s choice). I ordered the eggs benedict and they were nothing special. I also ordered the pesto pasta. It was good, but not great. The desserts were also very good. :lovestruc I really can’t believe how much I ate. It was a much more relaxed and casual atmosphere at brunch. If/when I cruise DCL again, I will skip the brunch. The lunch buffet at Beach Blanket Buffet looked every bit as appetizing – and they had a sushi buffet. And, we could have gotten all that without an extra charge. :mad:

After brunch, we changed into our swimsuits and headed back to the Quiet Cove Pool. We grabbed a couple of loungers and relaxed/slept (I really can sleep anywhere) with our iPods. :goodvibes

Coming Soon: Bolt in 3D, Packing Up, Disney Dreams and Parrot Cay . . .

cakesnjammom

03-18-2009, 02:25 PM

still loving your report! I want to do the Rasual thingy in the spa...did you have privacy while in there? DH would love that!:lovestruc

sas_mk

03-18-2009, 02:59 PM

still loving your report! I want to do the Rasual thingy in the spa...did you have privacy while in there? DH would love that!:lovestruc

You should definitely book this if you think your DH would love it.

First, we changed in the locker room and put on a robe. Then she took us into a tiled room and then she actually locked us in (the lock is on the outside of the door). They have an "occupied" sign on the outside of the door. It is completely private in the room.

There was a table with all of the products on it. She discussed with us what each product was for (cleanser, exfoliation, moisturizer, etc.) and then she quizzed us to make sure we understood. The room had a tiled bench, a steam room, and a shower. I had read a tip to bring extra towels (because that tile is hard), but I forgot. We still survived! :thumbsup2

I think we had about 50 minutes total in the room for the "treatment". After about 40 minutes, she came and knocked on the door to give us our 10 minute warning. After the 10 minutes, we put on our robes and she came back to let us out of the room. She greeted us with our sparkling cider and took us to the rain forest room.

The rasul can really be anything you want it to be. It can be fun (mud fight anyone?), it can be relaxing, it can be romantic, it can be dirty, etc. I highly suggest it and thought it was a wonderful use of an hour and $90.

Wow -- was that TMI?? ;)

cakesnjammom

03-18-2009, 03:36 PM

great, I can't wait...dh and I talked about it and decided this was the "treatment" we should do too! We also like the price and the privacy!!

BrettySpaghetti

03-18-2009, 05:10 PM

Great report so far....I am jealous that you went on this trip, and I just went a couple of weeks before you!!

Alice_on_WONDERland

03-19-2009, 08:14 PM

Palo was amazing. :worship: :worship: :worship: Our server, Judy, took good care of us.

We had Judy too! She was AWESOME! I :love: Judy!

Our regular dining room servers weren't that great (to say the least) and when we went to see Judy we were taken care of just like I expected to be.

sas_mk

03-23-2009, 09:38 AM

At about 3:15 we decided to head to the Buena Vista Theater for another movie. They were showing Bolt in 3D again. :3dglasses We were about 15 minutes late (again), but we had seen it before, so that was no big deal. The 3D was very well done!

About 45 minutes into it, I started falling asleep and the boat was rocking a little bit too much for me. :sick: I leaned over and told my DH I was leaving. I went back to the stateroom and slept. He finished watching the movie and then he was ready for a little nap. We ordered some Mickey Ice Cream Bars from room service and relaxed in our room. :thumbsup2

We figured this was a good time to get packed up. We pulled our suitcases out of the closet and stuffed them full of clothes. We made sure we had everything we would need in the morning and then we were done. We had to do some repacking before we boarded the airplane the next day, but it wasn’t a big deal. It really didn’t take much time at all.

We left to make it to Dreams – An Enchanted Classic at 6:15. The show was awesome. I really liked the story, but I think I liked the Golden Mickey’s a little more. By this point, the boat was really, really rocking!! I was not feeling too good :sick:, and I was anxious for the show to end so I could get some fresh air. I think that affected my opinion of the show a little bit.

After the show, we went to Treasure Ketch to pick up our last souvenirs and our last free pin with purchase. We ran our purchases back up to our room and Alain, our room steward, dropped off three beautifully autographed pillowcases – yeah!! :banana::banana::banana: Free souvenirs to take home to the kids!!

We still had some time before dinner, so we headed out to deck 4. The fresh air was really good for me. I felt much better. We played a few rounds of shuffleboard and had a lot of fun. It is much harder, and much more fun than it looks! Then it was time for dinner at Parrot Cay.

The Sunset --Taken from Deck 4, while we were playing shuffleboard:
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Our Server (Joani) and Assistant Server (Mehmet):
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We sat down for dinner and I could immediately tell that I REALLY did not feel well. :sick: The boat was really rocking and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could sit there. I ordered my food and asked for a ginger ale. I ate a few bites of the delicious Baked Crab Martinique for my appetizer, and a few spoonfuls of the Cold Cream of Mango and Papaya Soup. Both were awesome. :thumbsup2 However, I finally decided that I needed to lie down or get some fresh air. My stomach only felt a little bit queasy, but my head felt really dizzy and the food didn’t look or smell good to me at all at this point. :sad2: I excused myself and headed back to my stateroom.

Once I got back to my room, I knew that I actually needed fresh air. I left a note so my husband could track me down later, then I grabbed two blankets and walked down to deck 4. I picked a nice, super comfy lounge chair, bundled myself up in the blankets, turned on my iPod, :music: and fell sound asleep.

An hour and a half later, my husband woke me up. He told me that dinner had been wonderful. The food was great. He handled the tipping and passed on the concern that everybody had expressed for me. He had gotten a few email addresses so we could keep in touch with our tablemates. I was really sad :sad1: that I had missed all of that, but I felt a lot better now.

We decided to walk through Shutters and check out our pictures. We had a total of three pictures taken while on the cruise. All three of them were great, but we didn’t have a hard time passing them up. We had taken a bunch of pictures with our own camera and saved a lot of cash by leaving the pictures there. :rotfl2:

Coming Up Next: 'Til We Meet Again and Leaving Our Ship . . .

sas_mk

03-23-2009, 09:46 AM

Now it was time for the ‘Till We Meet Again farewell in the atrium. We had not taken the time to track down any characters on our cruise, so this was our first time seeing many of them. We waited to get a picture with Cinderella (our daughters favorite) and we both posed with Captain Mickey.

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Then we headed back to our stateroom. It was time to take off my door magnets. :sad2:

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Tonight, our room steward had left us a bunny – I think. It was a little hard to tell. :confused3

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We double-checked our luggage to make sure we had packed everything and stuck them out in the hall. :thumbsup2 Our servers had packaged up a dessert for me since I missed dinner, and I loved it :love:– French Toast Banana Bread Pudding with Coconut Ice Cream (melted all over the plate) and Caramel Sauce. I was feeling well enough to eat just a few bites before getting ready for bed. We called for a wake-up call and went to sleep. I love sleeping in a dark room on a rocking ship – it is a great way to sleep! :cloud9:

THURSDAY, March 5th, 2009:

The phone rang at 7:15 in the morning – it was time to wake up.:mad: We showered, got dressed and threw everything into our carry-on luggage. We had breakfast at Parrot Cay at 8:15. We were dragging, but I think everybody does on their last morning.

I had my favorite breakfast of the entire trip at Parrot Cay. I ordered the Chef’s Farewell. :thumbsup2 It was an open-faced omelet with onions, swiss cheese and barbecue chicken. It was so good. :worship:

We ate our meal, said our final good-byes to our new friends, :sad1: and made our way to the atrium on deck 3. The line was pretty long, but it moved quickly. By the time we got out, our bags were the only luggage left in the “Orange – Goofy” section. We passed on the Porter’s offer for help and stood in line.

Before we knew it, we were waiting at the curb for the Enterprise shuttle. The shuttle took about 10 minutes to arrive. We loaded everything up. We had a completely full shuttle (10 people). The ride back to the Enterprise office was quick, but the wait for our car was not. :sad2:

The Enterprise office only had two people working the counter. When we got there, we had three people in front of us. By the time we left, there were at least 10 people behind us still waiting. :scared1: It really took forever – we didn’t get our car until after 10:00! Once again, it was much cheaper for this one-way rental than it would have been to take the Disney Shuttle. It only cost us about $40 for the car, tolls and gas. Also, this way, we didn’t have to spend the entire day at the airport. :thumbsup2

We got in our car and still hadn’t decided how to spend the next 4-5 hours before we needed to head to the Orlando International Airport. We finally decided to kill some time at Epcot and get some lunch in the World Showcase.

Up Next: Our last afternoon at Epcot and our flight home . . .

sas_mk

03-23-2009, 10:14 AM

The ride back to DisneyWorld was very straightforward and took just over one hour. :) We didn’t have to pay to park at Epcot. Our room keys from the Caribbean Beach Resort showed 2/26-3/5 as the date because we were on a Land and Sea package. That was a bonus! :cool1:

We entered the park and walked to the Land. We hadn’t even visited this area of Epcot yet, and thought we might try to ride Soarin’ or get a Fast Pass. Unfortunately, :sad2: the wait was 50 minutes and the fast pass return time was for 2:15. We needed to leave at 2:00, so we just passed on Soarin’. Fortunately, we have ridden this ride plenty of times before at Disney’s California Adventure. :love: We love it, but we figured we would have another chance to ride it again. :thumbsup2

We waited about 10 minutes for Living With The Land. I really loved this ride. :goodvibes It had a ton of information in it and was cool to see all of the different planting methods. I would love to have a garden, so it gave me a little inspiration.

After that ride, we walked over to the World Showcase. We stopped in Future World and signed up to help Kim Possible save the world! I loved this! We didn’t have kids with us, but our kids would have really loved it. :thumbsup2

Our mission was in France. We got to really take the time to explore France and learn a little bit about the different displays there. The mission took about 20-30 minutes and was time well spent on a day with no real direction.

After we explored France, we headed to the United Kingdom for some Fish and Chips. This was a really good counter service meal. It was very tasty and filling. :yay:

We walked around a little more and hit Norway on our way out. We stopped at the Kringla Bakery to pick up School Bread for each of us. I love toasted coconut and this was great. They are delicious and only around $2.60 each. What a (Disney) deal! :thumbsup2 We sat and ate our treat, called our Mom’s to check up on the kids, and walked to the car.

We were done with Disney and we were ready to go home. We missed our kids. :sad1: This was a wonderful break from them and a great way reconnect with each other. :flower3: However, now we are trying to figure out a way to get back on the Disney Cruise Line with our kids. I know they would love it, and we would get an opportunity to have a completely different vacation. We would see different parts of the ship, attend different activities, and enjoy some family time together. :grouphug: Someday – we will just have to start saving our pennies!!! :rotfl:

We returned the car without any problems to the Enterprise location that is near the airport. They were fast and efficient. :thumbsup2 The driver quickly dropped us off, unloaded our bags and we were on our way. We checked in, went through the dreaded security check, and then we had one and a half hours to wait until our flight. It gave us time to check our email, call home one more time to check on the kids, and relax for a few minutes before being cramped in a small airplane seat for four and a half hours. :headache:

The flight was uneventful – thank goodness! Our kids met us at the airport with a darling banner they had made themselves. :cheer2: It said, “Welcome Home Mom and Dad!” I loved it. Our one-year-old son did not want anything to do with either of us at first. :scared: He clung to my father-in-law until I peeled him away. Once he was in my arms, he warmed up quickly. By the next morning, it was as if I had never left. :love: The other two kids were so excited to see us. It was fun to hear all about their adventures while they were with their grandparents. Our six-year-old loved being at Grandma’s because he had no time restrictions put on his Wii playing. :sad2: Our three-year-old loved all of the dress-ups at Grandma’s, and she got to sleep in a princess bed. princess: According to all reports, the kids had their "moments", but for the most part, they were good, helpful, agreeable kids. Whew!! Everybody survived!!! :cool1::cool1::cool1:

Up Next: Just a Few Closing Thoughts. . .

sas_mk

03-23-2009, 11:30 AM

This was an awesome vacation! I learned so much information before we went from reading the Disboards. My DH is not the biggest fan of vacations, so I knew I needed to impress him and make sure he had a great time. He definitely did. He is brainstorming along with me to figure out how to scrape up the money to bring our kids back on the $99 bounceback offer this fall.

Some tips:

1. Enjoy every second, but know that you don't have to do everything! If your idea of a wonderful vacation is to relax, nap and eat. You can definitely do it! If you are more of an "on-the-go" type of vacationer -- you will never run out of activities on the Disney ships. We chose to mix it up and had times where we were always on the run and other times where we just relaxed. I loved it!

2. Eat. My DH and I have spent a lot of the last year or so counting calories and exercising. We had lost a lot of weight and we stressed over the fact that we might gain some weight back on the cruise ship. We finally decided to just enjoy whatever we wanted. We both did gain weight (6 pounds each for our 8 day Land/Sea vacation :scared1:). It also took us a few weeks after getting home to get ourselves back on track and eating healthy again, but it was no problem to get that weight back off. I am glad I enjoyed everything I could while I was on the ship!

3. If you are going to eat -- find ways to move your body. :yay: We took advantage of the running track, the 5K on Castaway Cay, the enormous grounds at Atlantis, snorkeling, etc. We also tried to only take the stairs. We did take the elevator two times, but other then that, we gave our legs a little workout every time we needed to get somewhere. I think it helped.

4. Bring some warmer clothes. I only brought one pair of long pants and one jacket. I wish I had brought some warmer lounge pants and maybe a nicer sweater. Even if the outside weather is ideal, the AC in the theaters and the restaurants is pretty cold. It would have been nice to have more options to keep my body warm! :rotfl2:

5. If you are tight on spending money, don't worry!! We are not the type to go all out on spending money on vacation. I don't stress about EVERY penny, but I like to cut corners wherever I can. I enjoy spending extra time before the trip finding the best deals so I don't have to worry about it while I am on vacation. And . . . you don't have to buy Shutters overpriced pictures -- take your own. :thumbsup2 With a little editing software, you can crop your pictures and add borders just like the pics on the wall at Shutters.

6. Take Bonine. I only took bonine on our first day. I figured I had made it through the first night (I had read that was the rockiest night) and felt fine. I wish I had kept the bonine in my system for the last night. I don't think I would have felt nearly as sick if I had taken the medication each day. Oh well -- live and learn!! :lmao:

7. If you are trying to decide whether you should take a Disney cruise -- JUST DO IT!! This was a wonderful way to spend our vacation time. We loved every second of it. I highly recommend a Disney Cruise to anybody -- singles, adults without children, grandparents, families, etc. There really is something for everybody! :love:

Thanks for letting me relive my vacation through this TR. I hope you have enjoyed reading it and I hope a few of my experiences can help make your trip PERFECT!! :banana::banana::banana:

Ricky's Girl

03-23-2009, 02:16 PM

When we got back to our room, all of our bags had arrived. We changed into our swimsuits and then took about 15 minutes to unpack and get things settled before I made my DH stop so we wouldn’t miss the Adventure’s Away deck party.

We found a place up on Deck 10 and enjoyed some of the party. We waited for the lovely horn (I never get tired of hearing that horn), and then we walked to the Quiet Cove Pool to spend some time in the hot tub. :thumbsup2
We were the only people in the hot tub and really enjoyed the peace and quiet. We were probably the only people in the hot tub because of how cold and windy it was. :lmao: The sun was just starting to come out, but being wet on a windy deck did not work well together. Oh well, we enjoyed it! After a while, the ship started moving and we got out to watch us sail away from the port. It was awesome. We were really on a cruise!!!

http://i594.photobucket.com/albums/tt30/sas_mk/P3010186.jpg

I just had to check out your trip report since we were on the same cruise. :thumbsup2 Imagine my surprise to see my dh in the background of your photo! :rotfl2: He's just behind you to the right. I was on the same cruise thread as you and was so dissapointed not to meet any fellow DISer's while on board. Our cabin was 5635, just 2 doors down from you! I even took a photo of the magnets on your door. :rotfl:

Like you I loved the cruise, inspite of the rough seas on our first and last nights. I did take a Bonine the last night and it seemed to help. Next time I think I'll get one of those patches from the doctor.

Thanks for a great report. It brought back lots of great memories.

Pinky166

03-23-2009, 03:19 PM

Thanks for sharing your trip report. :goodvibes

I loved reading it and am so excited to be taking our first cruise in September. I have noted lots of your hints & tips. :thumbsup2

sas_mk

03-23-2009, 03:32 PM

I just had to check out your trip report since we were on the same cruise. :thumbsup2 Imagine my surprise to see my dh in the background of your photo! :rotfl2: He's just behind you to the right. I was on the same cruise thread as you and was so dissapointed not to meet any fellow DISer's while on board. Our cabin was 5635, just 2 doors down from you! I even took a photo of the magnets on your door. :rotfl:

Like you I loved the cruise, inspite of the rough seas on our first and last nights. I did take a Bonine the last night and it seemed to help. Next time I think I'll get one of those patches from the doctor.

Thanks for a great report. It brought back lots of great memories.

Ricky's Girl,

I had read on our meet thread before we left how close our rooms were. Everytime I walked past the three rooms at the end of the hall, I wished that I could meet one of you. That is funny that your DH is in one of my pics! :rotfl2:

I am glad somebody got a chance to see the door magnets!! :rotfl: