Andrew DEREK UK
08-19-2009, 11:18 PM
UPDATE 9/10/2009
This has been so popular with 4.5k views my photobucket account exceeded its bandwidth, it will be back on the 21st!
Magical mystery tour should be Tortola, but Headed West.
Wednesday 12th August.
We had a good flight to Florida albeit the flight had a delay of 95 mins; the weather was perfect with no turbulence at all.
We were able to disembark the pane, go through immigration and collect our luggage in about 20 mins a record, we were first at the car rental desk, but the guy there was quite chatty so we were there about 20 mins.
We had a good drive to the WDW Contemporary resort and as I had completed online check in, that was very fast, also at the entrance the security gate had our car parking ticket already prepared for us on production of photo ID.
The Contemporary staff however were a bit confused on a few things, they didn’t know how to add a 21 day UK WDW ticket pass onto our room cards, we had to go to MK and get separate tickets, and when I asked to arrange for my luggage to go to the cruise direct, (it can be done, concierge sent me to Bell services who sent me to either Polynesian or Grand Floridian, who when we did catch up with them ask us to call DCL direct, and also said Contemporary could have done it, and DCL on the phone said, any of them could have done it!.
Anyway, it seems they do it through the new Bay lake tower; it’s been in operation three weeks and hence the considerable confusion.
Anyway The Contemporary resort has been upgraded the Bay lake tower looks fantastic, and our room on the 10th floor had a fantastic view of Seven seas lagoon, the Grand Floridian Polynesian, and the MK and all the transport, Monorails, buses and boats.
Rooms are really nice in the Tower, modern bathroom, TV etc, large Balcony.
We went to MK, Wednesday night, as we missed our Chef Mickey’s reservation, and went on a few rides, it was very busy, and then started to rain. We had a burger and it was 8.50pm so we snagged a place to view Spetromagic, it was delayed however due to the rain, started 9.20am. Ws great as usual.
As it ended we quickly exited went by monorail to the Contemporary and our room, and then watched the Wishes fireworks, in fact we did this every evening. Great view and in comfort.
Thursday and Friday we both in the MK, early entry on Thursday, normal entry on Friday, We had ADR’s and had meals at Tonys Town square, Liberty tree tavern, and on Friday Crystal palace and Tonys town square, all the food was great, a note that on the bills they now quote tips on them at 185 and 205 never seen that before helps the maths, and I think in the past I over tipped as I could never work out the percentage.
We did all the major rides, I must say crowds were ok, till say 11am then rammed everywhere, we did what we wanted to, now an example we were on Splash mountain at 8.00am, it opened at 7.50am, no queue, later it was 70 mins and fast pass allocation three hours ahead.
I love Big Thunder Mountain, as well as Splash, Mickey’s Philamargic, is great, we remember seeing previews of this in 2003, before its soft opening and it was great.
Space Mountain was down for refurbishment, a pity but we knew that in advance.
Saturday morning we went to Chef Mickey’s for breakfast, at 7.00am not so bad when you just go down an elevator from 10th to 4th floor, I like the new layout of the 4th floor the expanded Chef Mickey’s, the Fantasia shop in the middle the Contempo café, etc.
Chef Mickey’s was great as before and we had a server who has served us in past years, Spooky!.
I was in the Contemporary resort that tropical storm ‘Ana’ had been ‘named at 5am and was heading in the direction of our cruise ports. Also Bill was developing fast and just behind at that time.
I said to the kids we are not going on an Eastern and I bet we go to Castaway Cay first then a Western to avoid the storms.
No luggage collected from our room so I prompted bell services and they did take it and it arrived on ship.
We drove to the port getting there for about 10.20am without the need to drop off our luggage we parked the car up, and went to the concierge desk, there was a sign saying ship is full and no upgrades.
We were in a bit of a queue at that line so a CM form the Castaway Club line took over our check in. He advised there and then the cruise was altered to Castaway Cay, Sea day, Cayman, Cozumel, Sea day then either CC again or Key West, (on the cruise a second stop at CC was confirmed.
No one knew shore excursions, or what was going to happen to Palo, Anyway check in continued, the CM missed giving us lanyards or an embarkation navigator, but we had our photos taken for the key to the world card and was taken to the concierge area, this has moved now,, its old place is now where you have your photo taken for the KTTW card, and concierge is now in the round window area, that overlooks the ship.
The inside of the terminal is generally the same bar the new photo ID area and also the swap of location for suite customers, outside there is a lot of building and construction work for the new car parks.
We asked for our missing lanyards, and time flew and we were going on the ship at 11.40am, the concierge meeting was in sessions from 11.45am onwards, there they confirmed our Palo reservations, and times, and said CC orders for floats trips etc were swapped to Sunday as there isn’t a guarantee on Fridays visit, and Palo Brunch swapped to Monday from Sunday.
Shore trips were printed up as we were there came out and we had to make some quick decisions, the issue was this is our third Western trip so most of the trips we had done, we decided to book Rum point Tuesday, as we had done the island tour stingrays and, Turtles before, and have Discovery cove post cruise booked in Orlando.
Cozumel we have been to Tulum before and the Dolphins, so decided we would just go shopping.
Anyway, soon it was 1.30pm, so we entered our Cat 3, room. I have seen the pictures read reports, but it’s still so nice, so large, so much room, and a home from home, ours has a triple wide verandah. The double bed it’s larger than Cat 4s, the single bed is in the living area, off the wet bar, and one sofa is a double sofa bed. The wet bar was stocked with considerable cans of soda, water etc.
Shirley from the perfect gift had made up two cruises baskets for my children they were great, and had more drinks, bucket and shovel for the beach, and pirate gear.
We had a fruit basket in the room from concierge and had a form to choose an item each day, from cookies, to salsa and chips, to cakes, cheese board, canapés etc.
The kids ordered DVD’s and got popcorn each time.
The room is so nice we all spent a lot of time in it and didn’t want to leave.
Sail way party was great as Usual, Brent is out CD, and said hallo, as we went out to the sea however the ship did have big vibration, there were reports on TV of an Atlantic riptide off the coast, this caused the vibration and movement.
We had requested in advance PLA, with the new itinerary this was (at that time) a little out with the proposed evenings,, but not a problem, we asked for a central table and one for four, this was all accommodated, and our servers whilst we hadn’t seen them before are very good.
Our table was the same number as a previous cruise, nice, and also our stateroom host is our host from the 15 night panama crossing last year, so that’s nice!
Anyway Parrot Cay was moving a lot and vibrating a lot, being low down and aft, it moves more, in fact my DD felt queasy, and didn’t eat as much as usual. The ship was moving a lot lower down, so we went up to our room and it was fine there. With 5.45pm dinner we finished with plenty of time for the show. Back in the room, we just watched TV hanged out our stuff, and then went down to the WD theatre, there it was moving a lot, and for instance the jugular commented it was very difficult trying to stand on one leg whilst the ship moved, whilst this is a line they use often, this time he said it was really bad and he did have issues with the ships movement.
The show was great, but after it we went to deck 9 for drinks, here we didn’t feel any movement and the pool water didn’t have any movement.
Concierge really look after you, apart from the treats they phone you with various reports, drop in lists of when characters are around, what the weather in port will be, deal with any requests, they even get your photos up from Shutters to your room.
They would pop in at dinner at our table, and visit the room every so often.
We had an air conditioning issue one morning and maintenance came quickly to repair the leak, an exit pipe was blocked, but that moved the issue to the entrance door, and concierge noticed that and called maintenance back again.
Our room has a whirlpool bath and that’s great to relax in.
We are directly under the cover café, now it’s very quiet, unlike other reports, we haven’t heard deck noise, bar pirate night when we returned for about 10 mins. My family send me up to Cove café to get cakes every so often it takes only a couple of mins and this is the first cruise I have found cakes there!
Saturday night was reported as rough till Sunday arrival near Castaway cay, we didn’t have any issue but others reported a bad night.
Castaway we went in front (forward) first and so we overlooked the whole bay. As we went in you can see the cranes for the construction of the larger dock, and also there was building work behind Cookies BBQ, and it was going on and had slight noise, I think we were not expected, so construction workers had been booked to work on that day.
Weather was great hot and sunny the hammocks are all moved to the top end of the family beach to avoid fights, and we found a good covered location, went for a swim, hired floats, bikes, went for a long cycle, cookies opened early, and when we returned we had lunch, up to its great standards.
Whilst the itinerary has changed it was logical due to the storms but some of Brent’s announcements said people were disappointed and he couldn’t apologise as it was beyond their control, the captain made quite a few announcements re this and said the Magic is built to withstand these storms but the cruise experience would be poor, the water shore trips would all be cancelled, and maybe St Thomas port would be closed on our intended arrival.
So logical but it sounded like they had complaints.
PJ from Palo phoned me and remembered me, and confirmed all my Palo reservations personally which was great, they did a great job, we went Monday at 10.15am it was open then with a few people in and they doubled up with the Easterns two sea days combined into one, we know people got late bookings being called up during the cruise. PJ said that the fireworks night would swap to Cayman rather than Cozumel re predicted bad weather after our departure in Cozumel. This meant dinner rotations having to be changed and we had new rotation tickets given to us by the head servers.
Brunch was well fantastic as usual; great as we were there early most things untouched obtained some great photos, had good servers and PJ, and kept checking everything was ok.
He knew all of our Palo reservations and said he would see me at those times and said who he would allocate as servers as our Brunch server was off, I met him next day at Goofy galley and he had a chat there and knew my future Palo bookings as well.
The sea day was good weather, for most of the time, however we had a sharp rain shower, it was funny, I was at the Quite cove adults pool, and it suddenly came down, I ran to get my things, and went inside, and on the Magic PA system they were playing the rain song from Winnie the pooh, ‘the rain came down,’ now I know the entertainment staff have a wicked sense of humour. And we saw Cuba from the deck and our room all day.
Cayman was great but overcast and a thunder storm on arrival, the trip to Rum point was very disorganised, (three other Carnival ships in!)tendering has been fast in the past, it took us 80 mins to get from the shore meet in diversions, to the port, and the trip then another hour to Rum point, it was worth it whilst this is a small beach I would describe it as rustic, local untouched what you would think off for a local Caribbean beach, great clear water, lots of fish and stingrays in it. Food had a selection and was included and nice. The rain held off and we had a good day.
We had a private concierge party behind topsiders at 4.45pm I met the Captain, Brent, officers, and Donald Duck, not sure who is more important, anyway had shutters photos taken. Food and drink provided.
Pirates night show was Ricky Kalmon the hypnotist, we saw him on the Panama crossing last year, and he was really good, the show was basically the same but with different people from the audience as he says every show is new and the unexpected happens, and it did!
Pirates show went ahead even though it was slightly windy and there was lightning in the sky, it made the fireworks even better, very crowded on deck, but we obtained a good view, and I wouldn’t wish to be Mickey on that high wire, in that wind going high above the goofy deck, We watched the fireworks and went back to our room, we didn’t stop at the buffet as we had eaten far too much that day.
I have tried to use the internet connection but its rather poor against previous use, tried my room, and cove café just above but loos the connection every few mins which is very frustrating, my PC shows a good signal, but the internet explorer is very slow, and many people were off ship this afternoon we came back early.
Basically in Cozumel we were off at 9.00am went shopping for three hours, then back onboard and had lunch at Lumieres, our normal assistant server looked after us.
We were able to get a lot of family portraits done this year, in past years gave up as the crowds were high and queues long but we had four completed in about 10 mins, just after our dinner before the second captain’s reception and the exit time form the shows.
On ship it was confirmed the DREAM comes into service in January 2011, it will leave the shipyard in Germany before this, and have a shake down under Captain Tom, then go to Amsterdam, as it will not be able to get back in at the shipyard in Germany, and have final fitting out there.
My questions if the ship will make PR visits at ports on its way to Port Canaveral was unanswered and the replay was wait and see, the Wonder called at Southampton UK, on its way to PC, and there is possibilities for this.
DCL will release all cruises for 2011 in October, I was told it was ‘All’ by more than one source, Also it is noted the Mediterranean sea is an up and coming area for cruising, and many people like to cruise there, and DCL will be there and are increasing their staff and presence in their London office now for the future.
We had Golden Mickey’s on Monday, and will have Twice Charmed on Wednesday on leaving Cozumel, we are told the seas will be bad tonight and some of the sea day on Thursday but we are headed for a second visit to Castaway cay, and they are now taking bookings for CC for shore trips floats bikes etc.
I have visits lined up for Palo on Thursday, 20 August 2009; the kids will still go to normal dinner rotation on that night whilst we have Palo dinner.
Some observations, I noticed all cruise, but particularly in Cozumel today how well kept the Magic is at this time, she really is in very good condition for an 11 year old ship. All the woodwork is in prime condition, the pools, look very nice and ‘new’ and all carpets and interiors look the best I have seen, and I saw this ship first just a year or two after its first voyages’. After the Panama crossing last year she was looking a bit battered.
Still have kids messing around though, tonight with us in the elevator as well they were pressing the buttons for all floors, I asked why? And also as part of a FE exchange someone put letters on our door that make up our names, but overnight some kids like to change the letters around into rude words, pity they cannot spell, the letters were available so it’s bad education.
We are now told the weather should be too bad on Thursday, in fact a nice sea day, but Castaway might have churned up waters and there is still a chance of something changing its course and heading towards us, there is talk of the 22nd August trip changing its course to avoid issues.
This has been so popular with 4.5k views my photobucket account exceeded its bandwidth, it will be back on the 21st!
Magical mystery tour should be Tortola, but Headed West.
Wednesday 12th August.
We had a good flight to Florida albeit the flight had a delay of 95 mins; the weather was perfect with no turbulence at all.
We were able to disembark the pane, go through immigration and collect our luggage in about 20 mins a record, we were first at the car rental desk, but the guy there was quite chatty so we were there about 20 mins.
We had a good drive to the WDW Contemporary resort and as I had completed online check in, that was very fast, also at the entrance the security gate had our car parking ticket already prepared for us on production of photo ID.
The Contemporary staff however were a bit confused on a few things, they didn’t know how to add a 21 day UK WDW ticket pass onto our room cards, we had to go to MK and get separate tickets, and when I asked to arrange for my luggage to go to the cruise direct, (it can be done, concierge sent me to Bell services who sent me to either Polynesian or Grand Floridian, who when we did catch up with them ask us to call DCL direct, and also said Contemporary could have done it, and DCL on the phone said, any of them could have done it!.
Anyway, it seems they do it through the new Bay lake tower; it’s been in operation three weeks and hence the considerable confusion.
Anyway The Contemporary resort has been upgraded the Bay lake tower looks fantastic, and our room on the 10th floor had a fantastic view of Seven seas lagoon, the Grand Floridian Polynesian, and the MK and all the transport, Monorails, buses and boats.
Rooms are really nice in the Tower, modern bathroom, TV etc, large Balcony.
We went to MK, Wednesday night, as we missed our Chef Mickey’s reservation, and went on a few rides, it was very busy, and then started to rain. We had a burger and it was 8.50pm so we snagged a place to view Spetromagic, it was delayed however due to the rain, started 9.20am. Ws great as usual.
As it ended we quickly exited went by monorail to the Contemporary and our room, and then watched the Wishes fireworks, in fact we did this every evening. Great view and in comfort.
Thursday and Friday we both in the MK, early entry on Thursday, normal entry on Friday, We had ADR’s and had meals at Tonys Town square, Liberty tree tavern, and on Friday Crystal palace and Tonys town square, all the food was great, a note that on the bills they now quote tips on them at 185 and 205 never seen that before helps the maths, and I think in the past I over tipped as I could never work out the percentage.
We did all the major rides, I must say crowds were ok, till say 11am then rammed everywhere, we did what we wanted to, now an example we were on Splash mountain at 8.00am, it opened at 7.50am, no queue, later it was 70 mins and fast pass allocation three hours ahead.
I love Big Thunder Mountain, as well as Splash, Mickey’s Philamargic, is great, we remember seeing previews of this in 2003, before its soft opening and it was great.
Space Mountain was down for refurbishment, a pity but we knew that in advance.
Saturday morning we went to Chef Mickey’s for breakfast, at 7.00am not so bad when you just go down an elevator from 10th to 4th floor, I like the new layout of the 4th floor the expanded Chef Mickey’s, the Fantasia shop in the middle the Contempo café, etc.
Chef Mickey’s was great as before and we had a server who has served us in past years, Spooky!.
I was in the Contemporary resort that tropical storm ‘Ana’ had been ‘named at 5am and was heading in the direction of our cruise ports. Also Bill was developing fast and just behind at that time.
I said to the kids we are not going on an Eastern and I bet we go to Castaway Cay first then a Western to avoid the storms.
No luggage collected from our room so I prompted bell services and they did take it and it arrived on ship.
We drove to the port getting there for about 10.20am without the need to drop off our luggage we parked the car up, and went to the concierge desk, there was a sign saying ship is full and no upgrades.
We were in a bit of a queue at that line so a CM form the Castaway Club line took over our check in. He advised there and then the cruise was altered to Castaway Cay, Sea day, Cayman, Cozumel, Sea day then either CC again or Key West, (on the cruise a second stop at CC was confirmed.
No one knew shore excursions, or what was going to happen to Palo, Anyway check in continued, the CM missed giving us lanyards or an embarkation navigator, but we had our photos taken for the key to the world card and was taken to the concierge area, this has moved now,, its old place is now where you have your photo taken for the KTTW card, and concierge is now in the round window area, that overlooks the ship.
The inside of the terminal is generally the same bar the new photo ID area and also the swap of location for suite customers, outside there is a lot of building and construction work for the new car parks.
We asked for our missing lanyards, and time flew and we were going on the ship at 11.40am, the concierge meeting was in sessions from 11.45am onwards, there they confirmed our Palo reservations, and times, and said CC orders for floats trips etc were swapped to Sunday as there isn’t a guarantee on Fridays visit, and Palo Brunch swapped to Monday from Sunday.
Shore trips were printed up as we were there came out and we had to make some quick decisions, the issue was this is our third Western trip so most of the trips we had done, we decided to book Rum point Tuesday, as we had done the island tour stingrays and, Turtles before, and have Discovery cove post cruise booked in Orlando.
Cozumel we have been to Tulum before and the Dolphins, so decided we would just go shopping.
Anyway, soon it was 1.30pm, so we entered our Cat 3, room. I have seen the pictures read reports, but it’s still so nice, so large, so much room, and a home from home, ours has a triple wide verandah. The double bed it’s larger than Cat 4s, the single bed is in the living area, off the wet bar, and one sofa is a double sofa bed. The wet bar was stocked with considerable cans of soda, water etc.
Shirley from the perfect gift had made up two cruises baskets for my children they were great, and had more drinks, bucket and shovel for the beach, and pirate gear.
We had a fruit basket in the room from concierge and had a form to choose an item each day, from cookies, to salsa and chips, to cakes, cheese board, canapés etc.
The kids ordered DVD’s and got popcorn each time.
The room is so nice we all spent a lot of time in it and didn’t want to leave.
Sail way party was great as Usual, Brent is out CD, and said hallo, as we went out to the sea however the ship did have big vibration, there were reports on TV of an Atlantic riptide off the coast, this caused the vibration and movement.
We had requested in advance PLA, with the new itinerary this was (at that time) a little out with the proposed evenings,, but not a problem, we asked for a central table and one for four, this was all accommodated, and our servers whilst we hadn’t seen them before are very good.
Our table was the same number as a previous cruise, nice, and also our stateroom host is our host from the 15 night panama crossing last year, so that’s nice!
Anyway Parrot Cay was moving a lot and vibrating a lot, being low down and aft, it moves more, in fact my DD felt queasy, and didn’t eat as much as usual. The ship was moving a lot lower down, so we went up to our room and it was fine there. With 5.45pm dinner we finished with plenty of time for the show. Back in the room, we just watched TV hanged out our stuff, and then went down to the WD theatre, there it was moving a lot, and for instance the jugular commented it was very difficult trying to stand on one leg whilst the ship moved, whilst this is a line they use often, this time he said it was really bad and he did have issues with the ships movement.
The show was great, but after it we went to deck 9 for drinks, here we didn’t feel any movement and the pool water didn’t have any movement.
Concierge really look after you, apart from the treats they phone you with various reports, drop in lists of when characters are around, what the weather in port will be, deal with any requests, they even get your photos up from Shutters to your room.
They would pop in at dinner at our table, and visit the room every so often.
We had an air conditioning issue one morning and maintenance came quickly to repair the leak, an exit pipe was blocked, but that moved the issue to the entrance door, and concierge noticed that and called maintenance back again.
Our room has a whirlpool bath and that’s great to relax in.
We are directly under the cover café, now it’s very quiet, unlike other reports, we haven’t heard deck noise, bar pirate night when we returned for about 10 mins. My family send me up to Cove café to get cakes every so often it takes only a couple of mins and this is the first cruise I have found cakes there!
Saturday night was reported as rough till Sunday arrival near Castaway cay, we didn’t have any issue but others reported a bad night.
Castaway we went in front (forward) first and so we overlooked the whole bay. As we went in you can see the cranes for the construction of the larger dock, and also there was building work behind Cookies BBQ, and it was going on and had slight noise, I think we were not expected, so construction workers had been booked to work on that day.
Weather was great hot and sunny the hammocks are all moved to the top end of the family beach to avoid fights, and we found a good covered location, went for a swim, hired floats, bikes, went for a long cycle, cookies opened early, and when we returned we had lunch, up to its great standards.
Whilst the itinerary has changed it was logical due to the storms but some of Brent’s announcements said people were disappointed and he couldn’t apologise as it was beyond their control, the captain made quite a few announcements re this and said the Magic is built to withstand these storms but the cruise experience would be poor, the water shore trips would all be cancelled, and maybe St Thomas port would be closed on our intended arrival.
So logical but it sounded like they had complaints.
PJ from Palo phoned me and remembered me, and confirmed all my Palo reservations personally which was great, they did a great job, we went Monday at 10.15am it was open then with a few people in and they doubled up with the Easterns two sea days combined into one, we know people got late bookings being called up during the cruise. PJ said that the fireworks night would swap to Cayman rather than Cozumel re predicted bad weather after our departure in Cozumel. This meant dinner rotations having to be changed and we had new rotation tickets given to us by the head servers.
Brunch was well fantastic as usual; great as we were there early most things untouched obtained some great photos, had good servers and PJ, and kept checking everything was ok.
He knew all of our Palo reservations and said he would see me at those times and said who he would allocate as servers as our Brunch server was off, I met him next day at Goofy galley and he had a chat there and knew my future Palo bookings as well.
The sea day was good weather, for most of the time, however we had a sharp rain shower, it was funny, I was at the Quite cove adults pool, and it suddenly came down, I ran to get my things, and went inside, and on the Magic PA system they were playing the rain song from Winnie the pooh, ‘the rain came down,’ now I know the entertainment staff have a wicked sense of humour. And we saw Cuba from the deck and our room all day.
Cayman was great but overcast and a thunder storm on arrival, the trip to Rum point was very disorganised, (three other Carnival ships in!)tendering has been fast in the past, it took us 80 mins to get from the shore meet in diversions, to the port, and the trip then another hour to Rum point, it was worth it whilst this is a small beach I would describe it as rustic, local untouched what you would think off for a local Caribbean beach, great clear water, lots of fish and stingrays in it. Food had a selection and was included and nice. The rain held off and we had a good day.
We had a private concierge party behind topsiders at 4.45pm I met the Captain, Brent, officers, and Donald Duck, not sure who is more important, anyway had shutters photos taken. Food and drink provided.
Pirates night show was Ricky Kalmon the hypnotist, we saw him on the Panama crossing last year, and he was really good, the show was basically the same but with different people from the audience as he says every show is new and the unexpected happens, and it did!
Pirates show went ahead even though it was slightly windy and there was lightning in the sky, it made the fireworks even better, very crowded on deck, but we obtained a good view, and I wouldn’t wish to be Mickey on that high wire, in that wind going high above the goofy deck, We watched the fireworks and went back to our room, we didn’t stop at the buffet as we had eaten far too much that day.
I have tried to use the internet connection but its rather poor against previous use, tried my room, and cove café just above but loos the connection every few mins which is very frustrating, my PC shows a good signal, but the internet explorer is very slow, and many people were off ship this afternoon we came back early.
Basically in Cozumel we were off at 9.00am went shopping for three hours, then back onboard and had lunch at Lumieres, our normal assistant server looked after us.
We were able to get a lot of family portraits done this year, in past years gave up as the crowds were high and queues long but we had four completed in about 10 mins, just after our dinner before the second captain’s reception and the exit time form the shows.
On ship it was confirmed the DREAM comes into service in January 2011, it will leave the shipyard in Germany before this, and have a shake down under Captain Tom, then go to Amsterdam, as it will not be able to get back in at the shipyard in Germany, and have final fitting out there.
My questions if the ship will make PR visits at ports on its way to Port Canaveral was unanswered and the replay was wait and see, the Wonder called at Southampton UK, on its way to PC, and there is possibilities for this.
DCL will release all cruises for 2011 in October, I was told it was ‘All’ by more than one source, Also it is noted the Mediterranean sea is an up and coming area for cruising, and many people like to cruise there, and DCL will be there and are increasing their staff and presence in their London office now for the future.
We had Golden Mickey’s on Monday, and will have Twice Charmed on Wednesday on leaving Cozumel, we are told the seas will be bad tonight and some of the sea day on Thursday but we are headed for a second visit to Castaway cay, and they are now taking bookings for CC for shore trips floats bikes etc.
I have visits lined up for Palo on Thursday, 20 August 2009; the kids will still go to normal dinner rotation on that night whilst we have Palo dinner.
Some observations, I noticed all cruise, but particularly in Cozumel today how well kept the Magic is at this time, she really is in very good condition for an 11 year old ship. All the woodwork is in prime condition, the pools, look very nice and ‘new’ and all carpets and interiors look the best I have seen, and I saw this ship first just a year or two after its first voyages’. After the Panama crossing last year she was looking a bit battered.
Still have kids messing around though, tonight with us in the elevator as well they were pressing the buttons for all floors, I asked why? And also as part of a FE exchange someone put letters on our door that make up our names, but overnight some kids like to change the letters around into rude words, pity they cannot spell, the letters were available so it’s bad education.
We are now told the weather should be too bad on Thursday, in fact a nice sea day, but Castaway might have churned up waters and there is still a chance of something changing its course and heading towards us, there is talk of the 22nd August trip changing its course to avoid issues.