3/17 Update Day 13 of our 14 day! DISUnplugged PODCAST CRUISE and a rainy week at WDW

Our pretrip plans:
May 8th 2009
The start of our 2 week vacation!

May 8th is Jason and I's 5th anniversary, not marriage, but the day we met. We were married on Sept. 29 2006. This day will be special, Jason will be surprising me....and I will be surprising Jason.

So we are flying down and arriving at MCO at 10:10 am and renting a car from Dollar.

We will be heading over to the Dolphin and eating lunch at The Fountain. We have yet to eat here and we have heard that it is comparable to Beaches N Cream....our last trip we ate at Beaches N Cream and LOVED IT! So we are really excited to give The Fountain a try!

In the afternoon, we will check into the resort and get situated and then head out and explore the resort and head over to the Boardwalk to look at some of the new items that are for sale and perhaps search for hidden mickeys and pin trade!

Then we will come back to the room get ready for our 8:20 pm ADR for Narcosse's. We have not ate here either but have heard good things about it from Kevin on the podcast. Hopefully Wishes will be at 9:00pm or 10:00pm tonight so we can see it from Narcosse's. Or maybe we will go to the shoreline after we eat and watch Wishes from there. We will have to see. We will then be coming back to the Dolphin to rest up for Day Two!


What it actually looked like:

We ended up arriving closer to 11:45 because our flight left an hour later, and there were heavy storms so we flew over Detroit and headed down the Atlantic coast. Our flight went by really fast though. Since it was our anniversary Jason gave me a card and a cute little Nemo cross-stitch to keep me busy on the plane :). That was fun....I worked on it throughout the trip, some in the hotel rooms at night, some on Castaway Cay and I finished it just before touching down in Chicago!

When our plane pulled up to the terminal a two little love bugs came up to our window to greet us....but I just missed them :(.
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Upon arriving we headed over to the Crocs store inside MCO and didn't find any Disney Crocs :(. I really wanted to get new woman colored Disney crocs, because the only Disney crocs that I had were dark blue with the lime green strap. Oh well...the hunt continues.

We were able to walk out and pick our midsized car from National. We changed to National so we could drop off the car when we were done with it, at the Dolphin resort. We picked a Saturn Aura. We really enjoyed this little car, we have to keep this in mind when we are in the hunt for a car. A picture of our rental car:
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We drove up showed them the papers and we were off! We arrived at the Dolphin and wow we were confused:scared1:. We never really have stayed at this fancy of a place before. When the bellhops asked if I needed help with my luggage, I was like NO STAY AWAY! So weird. Well we checked in and the receptionist asked if we would like to be higher up or lower. Um....higher please!!!:yay::yay::yay: Our room was already ready, even though check in wasn't til 3 or 4!!!!!

So Jason tells me bring the bags up to the room and I will go park the car.

I took the central elevators up and found our room on the 16th floor :woohoo:. I wasn't sure what side of the building I was on, but I was thinking we would have a tree view, and maybe be able to see AK in the distance. But when I went over to the window I saw World Showcase to the left
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and HS to the right:
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And our view looking across, they really need to clean our their fountains:
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I was sooo excited I immediately had to call Jason to tell him about our view!

Will we eat lunch at the Fountain? :confused:
 
Great start,
and wow you had a great view.
See the tall buildings way off in the horizon?
I stayed in one of those in April.
It was my first time staying off site. LOL.

Looking forward to hearing about the POD Cast Cruise. You are one of the first TR's I found, that is reporting.
 
So by this time we were pretty hungry, I think it was close to 2 pm.
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We headed down to The Fountain, we heard many wonderful things about this restaurant and even heard them being compared/better than Beaches N' Cream :confused3. We had Beaches N' Cream on our last trip in Sept '08 and thought their burgers were extremely good so of course we had to try The Fountain's

We walked down to The Fountain and found a seat and ordered a burger, well two burgers. In the meantime I saw Jaime (tiggerbell) walk down the escalator (I recognized her from her TR and also from meeting her (sort of) in person at a DIS meet in Chicago) I was too chicken to say anything, I wanted to scream Jaime, but I will now!

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All I have to say is YUM!!!:thumbsup2 I don't know if it is necessarily better than Beaches N Cream, (or worse) but if you like Beaches N Cream's burgers definitely try The Fountains!

Now we were off to explore the resort....and our first encounter of Peekaboos?!? Oh my! I walked by and heard the birds chirping what is this place? I didn't want to know:scared:....so we walked on.....and out to the pool area, I was sooo shy at this point I was hoping that no one would recognize me! :rolleyes1 So we zoomed past the pool bar, and headed over to the white sandy beaches! On the way we saw these giant checkers, how cool? Anyone wanna play?
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We ended up walking all the way through that side of the resort and through the Swan and headed over to the Boardwalk to pin trade a little and look for hidden mickey's.
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Our view of the Dolphin from the Beach Club.
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We wanted to have a No Way Jose sundae from Beaches N Cream, but it was really busy and we were pretty full from The Fountain, so we just walked through the Beach Club and Yacht Club, we headed back to the Dolphin. By now it was around 3 and we had some time to kill before we had to get ready for dinner, so we walked the back way through to the Dolphin parking lot, Do not do this! You will see what is behind the curtain. LOL! Jason was smart and stayed on the path, I on the other hand thought I found a shortcut, but all I really saw were some loading docks :(. :headache:


We headed out to do some shopping at the outlets! I am still on my mission to find my Disney Crocs, and I heard from Kevin that there is a CROCS OUTLET!!:banana::banana:
Will I find a pair?!? :confused:
 
Great start,
and wow you had a great view.
See the tall buildings way off in the horizon?
I stayed in one of those in April.
It was my first time staying off site. LOL.

Looking forward to hearing about the POD Cast Cruise. You are one of the first TR's I found, that is reporting.

Hi! :flower3:
Which tall building? That is cool!! was it a fun hotel to be in off site?
Thanks for being the first one to post on my TR! :woohoo:
Jaime (tiggerbell will also be posting a TR) she is a seasoned vet compared to me :goodvibes
 


So we head out and drive to Disney's Character Warehouse at the Prime Outlets. Of course we take I drive up! We have to get our fill of tacky gift shops! :lmao:

When we find the store I cannot believe how big it is! I was in this store for a very long time! I loved the fact that most of the CM's wear lanyards for pin trading here! And the merchandise is all yesterdays Disney stuff! Jason got a really nice button down shirt with a Mickey silhoutte embrodiered on the pocket for $15. I also picked up some plastic Mickey plates for 1.95 a piece, and a Disney note pad. I was happy with this store, I will have to come back!

We were really hot so we headed over to Starbucks to grab some tea! :banana:

Then we were off to Orlando Premium Outlets....and on our way we saw Herbie! :hug: (see him between the two cars?)
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I don't know why, but seeing him made me really happy!
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Turning into the Outlets we spot these on top of the lights?!? :confused:
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I guess they are for cops to know when the light is red from every direction to deter red light runners. Sounds like there would be an easier solution to the problem.

We get to the outlets and head straight to the Crocs outlet I am so excited I can't contain myself!! Finally going to get my hand on a pair of Disney Crocs! :yay: I see the rack with the Disney Crocs! :dance3: They look like my color! Pink and Purple ones! :woohoo: Looking through the sizes I don't find my size :eek:. It is ok though, I know there has to be my size somewhere, so I keep looking and.....nothing :sad1:. Ok, don't panic there has to be some regular Crocs in my size. :rolleyes1 I searched and searched and searched and searched some more, Jason was getting really tired of waiting for me. So I gave up :laundy:. Let me just say...if you have extremely large fit, you will get whatever you want at this Croc outlet. If you have normal sized fit, Good Luck! Don't get me wrong I could have bought the more expensive Crocs for $30 there, but I knew at the Crocs website they were selling the Disney Crocs for 17 dollars so I was just going to wait until I got home to buy them.

After that disappointment (looks like I will be wearing my navy blue with the lime green strap Disney Crocs the whole trip) we head over to check out Disney's Character Premeire. I really didn't like this store as much as the Disney's Character Warehouse. The Premeire felt smaller and not really organized well. I liked all the castmembers wearing the lanyards though! Time for more pin trading! We left and headed back to the Dolphin to get ready for our 8:20 pm reservation at Narcoossee's for our anniversary dinner! :woohoo:
 
Getting ready for our dinner! We realize that Jason doesn't have any dress shoes! :lmao: He forgot to pack them! Guess I know what we will be doing tomorrow! Can't go to formal night on the cruise in Crocs! But he will go to Narcoossee's in them! :rotfl2: (see below) Jason is also wearing the shirt we just bought at the outlet!
All ready!
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After looking back I wish I took more pictures or asked more people to take our picture. We don't have many pictures of us together.

Ok....here we go! I grab the paper sack that my present is in (I was too lazy to ever wrap it) and head out the door! I am really anxious to give Jason his present, and I really want it to be the perfect time to give it to him.

We arrive at Grand Floridian and there are lots of kidlets running around in the lobby....don't want to give it to him here, plus we are running a little late for our ADR, we like to arrive 15 minutes early. And we only have a few minutes to spare. We get to Narcoossees and check in. Now where can I give Jason his present, I really want to give it to him before we eat dinner because I don't want to carry a paper sack to the table! :rotfl:
I see the wrap around porch has benches on it! :woohoo: We walk a ways out around the building and sit down a bench over looking the lagoon and MK, we can see the castle. Here is a perfect spot, perfect time and some jazz music is coming out of the speakers. (found a picture kind of our view from wdw.info not my picture) I didn't take enough.
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Just when I hand over the paper sack a family decides to stand right next to us! :headache: Jason gets a little anxious and I want him to open the sack before dinner! Woo hoo! The family leaves in the nick of time and Jason opens the present! I got him an awesome book kind of like a scrapbook that I did at Shutterfly. I put every picture of us together ever taken in chronological order with a Disney love quote on every page that fit the pictures. It turned out really cool and Jason even welled up! I think he cried but he denies it! Just when he was done looking at the book our buzzer goes off! :banana: Bring on the food!

Our drinks! I got a Mojitocoossee...and Jason got some foo foo drink?!?
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Appetizers Narcoossee's Seafood Bisque - A hearty soup of Maine rock crab and a sourdough crostini and Jason got some asparagus wrapped with some Prosciutto. The soup wasn't very hearty, it was more like Seafood broth, the spiciness of it was really red pepperish. I liked the spiciness, it could have just used more meat! Jason's asparagus was really good!
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Right when our dinner was served Wishes started! I started crying at the dinner table!
My dinner...Crab-crusted Yellowtail Snapper - Served with Meyer lemon-butter sauce, crushed Fingerling potatoes, and haricot vert. I really enjoyed my entree. I loved the flavors of lemon and crab together!
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Jason's dinner...Grilled Filet Mignon - Served with potato gratin, broccolini, and choron sauce. hmmm....it looks like green beans to me.
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Dessert...Almond-crusted Cheesecake - Inspired by the Year of a Million Dreams and served with Lambert cherry sauce. All I have to say is WOW I LOVE Lambert cherry sauce!! :love: Where do I get more!?!?
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Total bill was $150 with tip, not bad! I thought the food was excellent! I will definitley be going back! Our happy selves after a ummy meal!
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After our wonderful dinner we strolled over to the GF beach. There was a hammock unoccupied so we hopped in.
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We relaxed under the moonlight, tonight was a full moon!
Jason's lovely dress shoes ;)

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What will day 2 bring?popcorn::
 
Ok so I just figured out how to make the pictures smaller without causing me a lot of grief.

Our one and only day to sleep in....so what do we do:rolleyes1........WE SLEEP.

Since we already went to the outlets on day 1 we don't have to do these today....it leaves alot of the day open for who knows what!!

Here is what we had planned
May 9th 2009
Well, I just got off the phone to make my ADR for today, after a nearly 30 minute wait! At least you get to listen to Disney music while you wait, not that elevator stuff :D!

Here is our plan for today.
Wake up and drive to the Disney outlets by 10am.
Head over to the Belz Factory Outlet Character Premiere Mall #1 Store #47
Then Character Warehouse Mall #2 Store #109-110 this is also in the Belz Fatory Outlet, I would also like to find the Crocs outlet when we are here.

Then drive over to the Orlando Premium Outlets
And go to Disney Character Premiere Suite #1252

By this time we will be hungry and we will be eating at the Celebration Town Tavern based off of the many postive reviews of this eatery by the DIS team. After lunch will explore Celebration.

We will come back to the resort and maybe enjoy the pool, or go play some mini-golf.....our afternoon is pretty open.

Then at 7:00pm we will head over to The Wave for our 7:30pm ADR which I made today. We have never ate here, but have heard good things about this as well.

After our ADR we will take the resort monorail over to the Poly Beach for the DIS meet before the cruise, to meet with our fellow cruisers and enjoy Dole Whips while watching Wishes.

We will then be going as a group over to Jellyrolls. I have yet to go here but have wanted to for a while, just never found time in our vacation to do it.

What it actually looked like:

We wake up and shower and get ready to head over to Celebration. It is around 10:30 when we head out the door.


On our way we see these cool power lines...
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Does anyone actually drive on this road to Celebration?!?! It was like a ghost town when we were on it....very strange.

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We find a place to park the car.....and head to the Town Tavern
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There is hardly anyone in the restaurant....it is just 11:00 am. We are asked if we would like to sit inside or outside, we choose inside as the humidity is already starting.
Our view from our booth.
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We get the menu and I see this....I am sure fellow cruisers will appreciate this list....
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We look over the menu and a lot of the items are seafood related, I was tempted to get the lobster, since I never had lobster before...but I ended up getting the broiled Boston Schrod.....:confused3...they told me it was a mild white fish. I really like fishy fish too...so I really wasn't concerned. Until it came to the table steaming and smelling like ammonia! :scared1:

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Oh and I got a salad before hand....with their house dressing (some type of mango dressing) but it tasted kind of like 1000 island to me. :sad2:

Jason got the Meatloaf stacker.

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All I have to say is my fish was barely edible! I ate as much as I could, and I am usually a member of the clean plate club, but I definitley could not even attempt to finish my fish. It tasted so much like ammonia that it was making my nostrils hurt from the inside! :rotfl2: Thank goodness that Jason is not a member of the club so I could eat some of that delectable meatloaf stacker. So Jason picked the good dish this time......that is what I get for trying to eat healthy! :lmao:

For dessert we order the Boston Cream Pie....since this is a authentic New England tavern.

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All I have to say is it tasted like a doughnut and not a good doughnut either.

I think I would go back to the Town Tavern on a future trip the atmosphere was nice, but I definitley would not get the Boston Schrod again! I should have known better with a name like Schrod....it sounds like something that you wipe off the bottom of your shoe.
I would not get the Boston Cream Pie again, either.


Hmmmm.....so I did a little research...no wonder it tasted so bad, it is the fish that nobody wants!

Scrod
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Scrode (or schrod) is a bycatch. It is a staple in many coastal New England and Atlantic Canada seafood and fish markets.

A dubious folk etymology holds that the term comes from the acronym "Small Cod Remaining On Dock", but it more likely comes from the obsolete Dutch schrood, piece cut off,[1][2] or from scrawed, from Cornish dialect.[3]

Others[who?] argue the term comes from either a sign on a wharf in Boston or a restaurant that advertised this kind of generic whitefish as "Special Catch Recorded (sometimes 'Right') On Day."[citation needed]

Others[who?] still say that the term was coined by Guy Perry, the maître d' for many years at the Parker House Hotel in Boston, to describe the hotel restaurant's "fresh catch" even before the chef returned from the fish market.[citation needed]
 
I constantly am trying to make this easier for people to read, so hopefully one day I will succeed and get a few :surfweb:'s.

After our yucky lunch we headed out to sit by the lake. We have an open afternoon until our 7:30 pm ADR at The Wave.

There sure were a lot of fowl.
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These ducks were really close....
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Jason and I found this sign quite amusing! Now I was determined to see an alligator in the damn lake! We start walking around the lake!
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Ok we are off! Hmmm....nothing here but some more ducks.....keep walking....
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ooohh something moved!
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Just two turtles.
Some fishes.....where there are fishes there must be gators!
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Loon??
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Bird of Paradise. oh wait that isn't an animal.
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Where are the gators!!
Squirrel! (hope your dog didn't just bolt for the nearest window, my Up reference)
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Nifty sign, but this won't help me find the gator!
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WHAT IS THIS!!! Do you see that thing swimming in the middle of the lake?:scared1: Could it be?!?!
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Let's zoom in!
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WOO HOO! I found a gator!! :yay::yay: Proof that we must heed Pete's advice! He is a wise man!

Some pretty pictures from the town of Celebration before I go....

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And some of us....
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and.....remember......
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Look what I learned by Tiggerbell​

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I'm here! I'm here!

I enjoyed playing UNO on FB with you tonight! :)

So far I am all the way up to where you guys went out to eat at Narcossee's! (spelling?)

How romantic! Nice meal! Good company! And finished out in the hammock in the moonlight! I bet you guys were on cloud nine.


I will come back and read/post some more. But I must go to bed. I am turning into a pumpkin! :laughing:
 
I'm here! I'm here!

I enjoyed playing UNO on FB with you tonight! :)

So far I am all the way up to where you guys went out to eat at Narcossee's! (spelling?)

How romantic! Nice meal! Good company! And finished out in the hammock in the moonlight! I bet you guys were on cloud nine.


I will come back and read/post some more. But I must go to bed. I am turning into a pumpkin! :laughing:
Hi Mary! I also enjoyed playing Uno with you on FB! Hopefully we can do it again this Friday! :woohoo: Thanks for stopping by!
here as well! Liking it so far!

Hello there, glad you are enjoying my trip report! Where in Michigan? I am a Michigander too ;).
 
After Celebration, we decide to head over the Target on Irlo Branson to pick up Jason some dress shoes for the cruise (remember he had to wear his Mickey Crocs the other night). I just don't think Mickey Crocs will be okay for Palo brunch, or formal night. We see a Marshalls across the way and think they may have some Crocs there for me. We stop and I find some, but I don't want thong sandals endorsing Florida college schools, so I pass. We head next door to the craft store, so I can find a cross stitch that I could work on in case I get done with my Nemo cross stitch before our vacation is over. I find a cute mouse and cheese one that I could do for my mother's birthday. We then head over to Downtown Disney and I do some major pin trading! We then head back to our room at the Dolphin and get ready for our ADR and the poly meet! I am really nervous to go to the meet!!

Bay Lake Towers walk way to Contemporary
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Bay Lake Tower
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We head over to the podium around 7:20 pm and there is quite a long line to check in. I am worried, that we may be late for the DIS meet at the Poly beach. Oh well, we will see them on the cruise if we miss the meet. We are waiting for our 7:40 pm ADR for a long while. I think we finally got seated at 8:05:scared1: the meet starts at 8:30 tentatively...I think. Oh well, I am kinda bummed....but we will see what happens.

Had to take a picture of the butter, it was the same butter that was served to us at Narcoossee's the night before, with the Hawaiian sea salt on it. Also, a picture of the biodegradable straw and wrapper. This restaurant is very environmentally friendly.
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Our drinks!
Jason got the....Agave Nectar Margarita - Partida blanco tequila, organic agave nectar and freshly squeezed lime juice. - $10.25

And I got the organic beer Flight. $7.25

Blonde Ale - A light-bodied blonde ale with subtle malt sweetness and a crisp, dry finish

Pale Ale - An amber gold pale ale that blends caramel malt flavor and zesty citrus-toned Cascade hops

Blackwater Dry Porter - Medium-bodied, full-flavored with savory chocolate and roasted coffee notes deliver this dry porter's creamy unique flavor

I loved the Blackwater Dry Porter it went very well with dessert! Who would have thought beer with dessert would be good?!?!

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I got an app of the soup....it was the seasonal soup....I believe it was some type of butternut squash with small brie cheese sandwiches for $7.99
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Jason got the Cinnamon-rubbed Grilled Pork Tenderloin - with fingerling potatoes and apple cider sauce - $21.99
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I got the Grilled Marinated Flank Steak - Made with seasonal vegetables, Chimichurri, and guacamole. - $20.99
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Jason got the Crispy and Crunchy (the top 3) - Vanilla-braised Pineapple spears, Almond-pineapple-raisin "Baklava", or Zucchini-carrot cake with vanilla panna cotta. - $7.99
I got the Creamy Indulgence (the bottom 3) - Cheesecake with raspberry coulis, Coconut panna cotta with passion fruit drizzle, or Chocolate-passion fruit mousse with pecan-olive brittle. - $7.99
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I would give The Wave a 4/5. The food was superb! The wait was a tad too long for me! And the restaurant is very open and noisy! Almost feels like you are eating in a cafeteria. I found that the tables were also a little too close. I would definitely go back!


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We head over on the monorail to the Poly and walk towards the beach. It is pretty dark and hard to see anyone. I believe it is already around 9:30 pm and Wishes starts at 10:00 pm. Jen (DVCsince02) says Hi to me and tells me to go over to Tracy (winotracy) to get a lanyard, with your name tag. I find her and Tracy tells me that I look different. I had got my haircut since I met her in June 2008! This lady has a memory of an elephant! Mindy (ursulasshadow) saw Jason and I and said "aaronmckie and A. Mickey" and then we posed for a picture with her. I was starstruck...I didn't even think she knew who we were! :rotfl:

By this time I am feeling more at ease. Jason and I decide to head up to the bar to get a drink. Jason gets a lapu lapu and I get some kind of light beer. :confused3
We head back down and this is when I see Ann (maziezoe) on the beach. I recognize her because I see Piper and Logan (her kids) playing in the sand! I give her a big hug:hug:. We had been talking previously through emails on FB about the trip. Then Todd (jeanigor) came over and hugged Jason and I we had previously met at the DTD meet in December of 08. Jaime (tiggerbell) was close behind and said she would hug me but she is rather sticky at the moment. :rolleyes1. We talked to other DISers but at the time I didn't know who they were yet. Then we talked to Rob (guynwdm) right before Wishes started. We watched Wishes and then the crowd pretty much dispersed.

Jason and I headed back to the monorail and ran into Karen (klamchowder) and Robert (her husband) we told them that we would give them a ride back to the Dolphin and then we got talking to the meet that was suppose to happen at Jellyrolls after the Poly meet. I asked her if she knew if anyone was going and she said she didn't but would still like to go! I said the same so we drove over to the Dolphin and walked to Jellyrolls! We ate lots of popcorn and had a good time listening to all different sorts of music. At one time they were even playing tv theme songs one of which was the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. This was a lot of fun! I highly suggest going!
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Karen and Robert left around 1 am and we were close behind we had to get up in the morning for breakfast at Cape May Cafe.


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The day is finally here! My 1st time going on a cruise, and the Podcast Cruise! I am also a little sad that I had to leave our son at home and it is Mother's Day.

We wake up around 8 and there is much to do, we were signed up to go to the Cape May Cafe breakfast but we have to return our rental car and finish packing up our luggage and make it out to the Mears Buses by 9am? or was is 10:00am? Well, whenever it was...we head down to the Enterprise counter and find out that to drop off our rental all we have to do is give the keys to the valet! Is that the easiest thing ever....so we head out for breakfast. We head over to McDonald's and then stop across the street to fill up our rental with gas and purchase some slushies so we can use the large cups on the cruise. Tracy suggested to bring a larger container so the pop will make it back to your room....the cups that DCL provide are very small. I tried to purchase a scratch off ticket because I was feeling like I might get lucky, but the clerk asked to see my ID. Ok....forget it!

We drop off the keys to the valet and head over to where everyone is lining up for the buses!! We see Jaime again and we meet Robin (robind) on the boards. I am sure I saw other people too, there were alot of us! But at this time I was very shy and kind of scared to be cruising with this people that I don't even know for the next 4 days! Robin was telling us about her luggage and her fish extender presents and we were all admiring the way the driver must be great at playing Tetris trying to get all our luggage underneath the bus! Jason and I had to of course bring our old 80's hard shelled suitcase so the driver was having a tough time with our bag! We waited until our last piece of luggage was under the bus and came on board. We sat down in the 1st empty seat we came to, and then we felt a tap on our shoulders....who should it be but Jaime! She tells us that she has some seats in the back of the bus that she was saving for us! :hug: We got to meet Dave (mouseskywalker) and his family, and Ann (maziezoe) and her family were sitting behind Dave and Robin and Jaime were sitting across from us. And we are off to the Port!!! We had great conversations on the way and before we knew it!

Woo hoo! We see water!!
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There she be!
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There they be! (Robin snapping away, and Jaime in Awe!)
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Okay one more, because it is just a thing of beauty!
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We head off the bus and we thought we would have to take our luggage somewhere, but little did we know that these guys would just take our luggage directly off the bottom of the bus and on to these little weird things as long as we had our tags already on our bags.
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Security was a piece of cake! On our way to the security I saw Pete and Walter and Teresa and her family going through security! Is it weird that they feel like celebreties to me??
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(Wow! I was looking at this pic more closely, and I see a lot of DISers in it! Yvette, Jaime, Shelly, Judy, Kim, Dave and his family! Pretty cool! I also see a DISer with a green purse in front of Yvette, not sure who she is though?)

After we get our boarding pass and are all checked in, of course I have to call my Mother, it is Mother's Day too remember ;).
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They had a cool model of the ship and I tried to take a pic so I could photoshop all the pics together but it didn't work out that great.
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(FYI the purple square is where our room was...we booked a category 12 inside stateroom...we didn't care about our room, we just wanted to be on the ship!)

I wasn't really mingling with anyone at this point....we were just waiting for our boarding number to be called and then they take your picture before you board. This was kinda neat, because they first day many of us wore the GKTW shirts so we could spot each other and later in Shutters since everyone got a picture taken before boarding the boat it was really cool and easy to pick out all the DISers. then we walked onto the ship!!
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We are on the ship! We are on the ship!

We follow the stream of people that are heading for lunch. Your room isn't ready until around 1:30 and what do we do til then? WE EAT!
Parrot Cay is full so we have to go up to Beach Blanket Buffet. The food is not very appealing....I start feeling worried for what is ahead for the rest of the cruise as far as the food goes! It was sooo bad....I didn't even take a picture of it! :rotfl: Basically, it was a step down from Old Country Buffet.
We sat with Robin for our lunch. Then we parted ways and went to explore the ship.

Proof that Jason is on the ship!
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The Mickey Pool before it turned yellow!
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The Goofy Pool
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The Adult Pool.....hey I spot Robert :banana:
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Aloft the teen club! I wanna check this place out sooo bad! I think it is pretty cool that their club is in a smokestack. Guess I will have to wait until Aaron is a teen!
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Look who we run into!
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Out on the WW of Sports Deck....or whatever it is called no one is there, so we decide to play a mean game of Ping Pong.
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I have to get my "I am King of the World" picture
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By this time our room is ready so we go down and lookover our Navigator for the day....at 2:30 there is a ship tour, so we meet in the elevator lobby for the tour!
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(wow this ship is BIG! I am really glad we went on the tour, it helped us get our bearings)

I see a pretty cool carpet where all the adult clubs are located, since Jason and I both grew up off of Route 66, we take our pictures next to the locations we grew up:

Jason next to Lake Havasu City, AZ
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Me on a cornfield somewhere between Joliet, IL, and Kankakee, IL
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Now it is time for the muster drill!
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(we got lucky and our meeting station was in the Walt Disney Theater)

We attend the sailaway party, and turn around to see that we are pulling away from port?!?! I didn't even feel the ship move, and look how far away from land we are already?!?
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Yeah, you're on the ship - I'm so jealous!!!!! :mad:




Oh, wait, I was there - I'm going through security!!! :lmao:
 
I'm "onboard" - well in spirit - and for your trippie!

Thanks for the link Tiggerbelle!

I think after reading these trip report we will be booking a cruise in the not too distant future! I'm so jealous!

Keep up the great work and great pictures!
 
I am all caught up now!!

Awesome update! I love the larger print - definitely easier to read!! :)

How much fun it looks like you guys were having!

First...The town of Celebration does seem like a desolate place. But we were there in the middle of the night going to the hospital - but I remember some of those intersections. Even in the night. :thumbsup2

Your pictures are great! I love the muster drill pic! I can't wait to read more!!!!
 
Loving your report! The Swan/Dolphin hotels are so pretty and the views are awesome:love: I would love to stay someday but can't convince the rest of family to stay anywhere other BWV. Maybe my next trip I'll arrive a couple of days early and stay there.

How exciting to join other Diser's on a cruise! I've been following along with Jamie's report and it's cool to see your perspective. You are doing a great job :thumbsup2 Am anxious to read how you liked your inside cabin (I think Jamie gave a tip that if you keep the tv tuned to the channel showing live pics from the ship that at least you don't feel all disoriented in knowing what time it was. I had the same experience on my 2001 Princess cruise being in an inside cabin but it was great too for napping!)

You and Jason are an adorable couple and your son is so cute! Love your new haircut :)
 

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