verygfy
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2009
Hello All, we had an amazing time on our first cruise and I wanted to share our wonderful experience with everyone.
Let me introduce the cast to you. My name is Angela . Im 32 and am a Disney nut. My husband Mitch is 32 and is into things like golf, football, and relaxing. He is not as big of a Disney freak as me but he does enjoy everything Disney. Then there is our son Scott 12, he is my handful, especially right now. He knows everything; mom knows nothing. He loves to read, play video games and his new obsession is Facebook. And last but not least is our daughter Haley 4; she is my bashful child (I dont know where she gets it from) and loves the Fab 5, Cinderella, Tinkerbell and pretty much anything Disney.
So how did we book this cruise, you ask. OK you didnt ask, but I am going to tell you anyways
. DH and I have been visiting the Parks since I was 18 years old. We lived in South Florida until about 7 years ago when we moved to Georgia and used to head to the parks about 4 times a year at a minimum. We loved the parks, loved staying on property. After moving to Georgia we cut down on our trips to about twice a year that drive just was too much to do. DH and I had talked about a land/sea trip for quite some time but it never seemed to work out between money and time off from work, so it always ended up being a land only vacation. Plus every time I would look up a cruise that initial price gave me sticker shock. I was so used to breaking up the cost of our trips by booking a hotel room for 4 days, and then a month later I bought the park tickets, and so on. So when I looked up a cruise and for four days it said $1800+ 
Well this year when DH and I started talking about our family trips, DH nixed the multiple trips to Disney Parks saying he did not want to do the 16 hour drive there and back multiple times this year and doing the parks commando style. He was interested in doing a relaxing vacation this year. Then DS pretty much put his foot down on not doing the parks this year 
. What was I going to do, I needed my Disney fill and DD loves all things Disney. With that I looked into the cruise, hmm we get all things Disney, this beautiful ship, entertainment, and dining. DS gets to swim; play at the beach, DD gets to see Mickey, Minnie, Donald and the gang, and DH gets his relaxation. This seemed to be a fair trade off. So I booked us on the 4 night Wonder for Sept. 19-23rd to Bahamas in a cat 11 gty about 6 months out.
After I paid the deposit and looked at the brochures and picked up the Passporter (I tried to wait for the 2010 version, but it seemed that thing was never coming out so I purchased the 2009 version) I was kind of lost, now what
. No planning dinner arrangements, no planning which parks to attend what day, no downloading touring plans. Planning is part of the fun for me. What do you mean no planning!!! Then I lived on the DIS cruise forum 
. I started reading trip reports and asking loads of questions. Joined our cruise meet, and oh yeah started planning our trip 
.
One of the exciting things we did for the cruise was purchase our passports. DH and I really debated this topic pretty heavily. I knew that we could cruise to the Bahamas with just our birth certificates and drivers license, but with DDs asthma (sorry reactive airways according the doctors) we decided it was best to get the Passports just in case something happened and one of us had to fly home (Murphys law and all, we seem to get hit with that a lot).
After our great passport debate it was time to start making magnets, join the cruise meet, and start looking at the ports and any excursions. DH and I intensely looked over the excursions, since DHs only experience on a boat was a fishing trip with a bunch of guys from work and he got terribly sea sick and neither of the kids had been on boats we decided that we would not book any excursions this trip and just test out the waters!! Not to mention the last year has been crazy hectic for both DH and I at work. It has not been unusual for the both of us to put in 80+ hours a week and we both were looking forward to some relaxation and not a crazy commando vacation
.
Our plans for the trip were as follows:
Leave Saturday morning around 8:00am and drive down to the port. Have dinner and relax by the pool.
Nassau was going to be a slow day, play it by ear kind of day.
Castaway Cay was going to be a relaxing beach day; this was the day I was most looking forward to.
And do you remember how I said no parks this year
, well
I was able to convince DH to extend the trip a day and attend MNSSHP for Thursday we got off the ship.
The final countdown began, we were 6 weeks out and final payment was due around July 4th. We paid the final payment and we were in countdown mode. Then it happened, DD broke her arm. Her and I were sitting on the couch watching tv, she was in a goofy mood that afternoon and I had taken this picture of her with a birthday hat on and sunglasses.
I then got up to check on dinner and DD started to jump on the couch, as I came around the corner to sit back down I saw her take a nice little flip over the side of the couch and onto the floor. Oh the screaming, it was terrifying. DH immediately rushed her over to the Urgent Care Center where they promptly took pics and sure enough she broke it in two places just above her wrist. The next day we took her to the Ortho and they said 6 weeks in a cast, 6 weeks
, we were only 4 weeks out from the cruise. Luckily the doctor said she would be in a full arm cast for 4 weeks and then the Thursday or Friday before we left for the cruise they would swap out her full arm cast to a short arm waterproof cast that she would have to wear for about two weeks 
. Crisis averted.
Then it happened again, it was the weekend before we were leaving and I was out running last minute errands and DH was out helping his sister with some remodeling project for her house when he called and said his battery was dead
. The bright side was that it happened the weekend before that we could just handle it and not next weekend when we were stuck at a rest stop off of 75 waiting for tow truck. So a hundred dollars later and we were set to drive down to Florida.
I hope you are still with me I know this was an extremely long introduction.
Up next: Meltdowns and potty breaks, oh my
Let me introduce the cast to you. My name is Angela . Im 32 and am a Disney nut. My husband Mitch is 32 and is into things like golf, football, and relaxing. He is not as big of a Disney freak as me but he does enjoy everything Disney. Then there is our son Scott 12, he is my handful, especially right now. He knows everything; mom knows nothing. He loves to read, play video games and his new obsession is Facebook. And last but not least is our daughter Haley 4; she is my bashful child (I dont know where she gets it from) and loves the Fab 5, Cinderella, Tinkerbell and pretty much anything Disney.
So how did we book this cruise, you ask. OK you didnt ask, but I am going to tell you anyways
. DH and I have been visiting the Parks since I was 18 years old. We lived in South Florida until about 7 years ago when we moved to Georgia and used to head to the parks about 4 times a year at a minimum. We loved the parks, loved staying on property. After moving to Georgia we cut down on our trips to about twice a year that drive just was too much to do. DH and I had talked about a land/sea trip for quite some time but it never seemed to work out between money and time off from work, so it always ended up being a land only vacation. Plus every time I would look up a cruise that initial price gave me sticker shock. I was so used to breaking up the cost of our trips by booking a hotel room for 4 days, and then a month later I bought the park tickets, and so on. So when I looked up a cruise and for four days it said $1800+ Well this year when DH and I started talking about our family trips, DH nixed the multiple trips to Disney Parks saying he did not want to do the 16 hour drive there and back multiple times this year and doing the parks commando style. He was interested in doing a relaxing vacation this year. Then DS pretty much put his foot down on not doing the parks this year . What was I going to do, I needed my Disney fill and DD loves all things Disney. With that I looked into the cruise, hmm we get all things Disney, this beautiful ship, entertainment, and dining. DS gets to swim; play at the beach, DD gets to see Mickey, Minnie, Donald and the gang, and DH gets his relaxation. This seemed to be a fair trade off. So I booked us on the 4 night Wonder for Sept. 19-23rd to Bahamas in a cat 11 gty about 6 months out.After I paid the deposit and looked at the brochures and picked up the Passporter (I tried to wait for the 2010 version, but it seemed that thing was never coming out so I purchased the 2009 version) I was kind of lost, now what
. No planning dinner arrangements, no planning which parks to attend what day, no downloading touring plans. Planning is part of the fun for me. What do you mean no planning!!! Then I lived on the DIS cruise forum . I started reading trip reports and asking loads of questions. Joined our cruise meet, and oh yeah started planning our trip . One of the exciting things we did for the cruise was purchase our passports. DH and I really debated this topic pretty heavily. I knew that we could cruise to the Bahamas with just our birth certificates and drivers license, but with DDs asthma (sorry reactive airways according the doctors) we decided it was best to get the Passports just in case something happened and one of us had to fly home (Murphys law and all, we seem to get hit with that a lot).
After our great passport debate it was time to start making magnets, join the cruise meet, and start looking at the ports and any excursions. DH and I intensely looked over the excursions, since DHs only experience on a boat was a fishing trip with a bunch of guys from work and he got terribly sea sick and neither of the kids had been on boats we decided that we would not book any excursions this trip and just test out the waters!! Not to mention the last year has been crazy hectic for both DH and I at work. It has not been unusual for the both of us to put in 80+ hours a week and we both were looking forward to some relaxation and not a crazy commando vacation
. Our plans for the trip were as follows:
Leave Saturday morning around 8:00am and drive down to the port. Have dinner and relax by the pool.
Nassau was going to be a slow day, play it by ear kind of day.
Castaway Cay was going to be a relaxing beach day; this was the day I was most looking forward to.
And do you remember how I said no parks this year
, well
I was able to convince DH to extend the trip a day and attend MNSSHP for Thursday we got off the ship. The final countdown began, we were 6 weeks out and final payment was due around July 4th. We paid the final payment and we were in countdown mode. Then it happened, DD broke her arm. Her and I were sitting on the couch watching tv, she was in a goofy mood that afternoon and I had taken this picture of her with a birthday hat on and sunglasses.
I then got up to check on dinner and DD started to jump on the couch, as I came around the corner to sit back down I saw her take a nice little flip over the side of the couch and onto the floor
. Oh the screaming, it was terrifying. DH immediately rushed her over to the Urgent Care Center where they promptly took pics and sure enough she broke it in two places just above her wrist. The next day we took her to the Ortho and they said 6 weeks in a cast, 6 weeks, we were only 4 weeks out from the cruise. Luckily the doctor said she would be in a full arm cast for 4 weeks and then the Thursday or Friday before we left for the cruise they would swap out her full arm cast to a short arm waterproof cast that she would have to wear for about two weeks . Crisis averted.
Then it happened again, it was the weekend before we were leaving and I was out running last minute errands and DH was out helping his sister with some remodeling project for her house when he called and said his battery was dead
. The bright side was that it happened the weekend before that we could just handle it and not next weekend when we were stuck at a rest stop off of 75 waiting for tow truck. So a hundred dollars later and we were set to drive down to Florida.I hope you are still with me I know this was an extremely long introduction.
Up next: Meltdowns and potty breaks, oh my
The hotel looked great! So you do not need to pay to store your care during the cruise just by paying for one night as well as free shuttle? That is a screamin' deal!
. The hotel was very nice, the pool area is a must for everyone. 
.
