Video Killed the Trip Report Star: A Little Halloween Magic (Western) Complete!!

[jediobiwan]

Thanks for the report! Yours is the first I have read all of and helped me get a good idea of how I wanted to write my own!

 

[2littlegirls]

Nice work, can't wait for the next chapter. I am taking a 3 year old in two months....I am now starting to rethink the stroller.

 

[knewton64]

love to hear how Halloween was on the ship

Cant wait to hear more!

T.T.F.N.

 

[anewmac]

glad you had an easy time with the shuttle. I am so envious of the photo boarder on the 1st photo. They didnt have that on our 08 cruise.. at least not on ours? (i know such a dumb thing to be envious of LOL)

Cant wait to hear more.. meltdowns and all (it wouldnt be a vacation in my book without a few of those! LOL)

 

[myelton01]

I'm so excited you updated!!! You just made my day today. I LOVE the pic of you and the girls with Minnie, I think Sarah is so stinkin cute looking at Minnie like that. You also made me feel better about waiting until our son is 5 before we go! I can't imagine going with a toddler. I can't wait to hear how it turns out!

 

[JKSWonder]

I wish we had done early dining. We had meltdowns every.single.night!

Honestly, we didn't fare much better, even with early dining. Michael was not well behaved for many of the dinners. A few times Mike or I had to walk him out of the restaurant to calm him down. He spent two minutes in time out in a corner at Parrot Cay on one of the nights.

Michael is a VERY structured kid and changes in his regular daily routine do not go over very well. Thank goodness I had requested a Table for 4 for just this reason and that my request was granted. I would have been mortified if we had ruined someone else's meals by having to observe one of our children at their worst.

I think if we had late dining though, it probably would have been worse, since he was already so tired from all the daily activity by dinner time. (Did you see the pic of him I posted on our cruise meet thread passed out on the bed after dinner on Halloween?...That pretty much says it all!)

 

[nenner1]

Finally an update! Keep it coming... it's great!

Thanks for the proofreading!!!

loving your report, can't wait to read more

Thanks!!! Glad you are enjoying it!

Thanks for the report! Yours is the first I have read all of and helped me get a good idea of how I wanted to write my own!

That's so awesome! I'm looking forward to reading it. Wish I could make one of the Podcast cruises, would have loved to go this time but I cannot take off work in December. Have a fantastic cruise!!!

Nice work, can't wait for the next chapter. I am taking a 3 year old in two months....I am now starting to rethink the stroller.

LOL, now some 3 y/o (in fact probably most) would be fine. Sarah is 2 1/2 and totally full on in the terrible twos. She wants to do what she wants to do, when she wants to do it and doesn't understand when she can't. Although she is beginning to talk up a storm, her comprehension is still marginal..throw in the excitement and variations in schedule and it's a recipe for disaster. OK, I guess that's a little melodramatic, but she had her moments for sure and just having a stroller to contain her on deck or even in the ports we didn't think we would need them for would have helped in our case tremendously.

love to hear how Halloween was on the ship

Cant wait to hear more!

T.T.F.N.

Halloween was a lot of fun. We did not get to experience as many of the onboard Halloween activities as we would have liked since we really oversheduled ourselves that day. I have a little sampling of what we did catch though, and it was a great time!!!

glad you had an easy time with the shuttle. I am so envious of the photo boarder on the 1st photo. They didnt have that on our 08 cruise.. at least not on ours? (i know such a dumb thing to be envious of LOL)

Yeah that really stunk, that is the one reason we did not buy the embarkation pic last time. I don't know why that happened back then- I guess just another thing to chalk up to being post dry-dock.

Oh and they are ready for you to come back onboard- all the Kiosks and around shutters says photography and videography strictly prohibited! (LOL!!!) I still blame you for them throwing out all my pics on Independence when they caught me taking a pic of a pic!

Cant wait to hear more.. meltdowns and all (it wouldnt be a vacation in my book without a few of those! LOL)

Oh heck , those are probably the most amusing parts...NOW.

I'm so excited you updated!!! You just made my day today. I LOVE the pic of you and the girls with Minnie, I think Sarah is so stinkin cute looking at Minnie like that.

Thanks!! She just adored the characters! And we got some fantastic ones later int he week with Mickey- her giving Mickey a kiss on the nose. So precious!!!

You also made me feel better about waiting until our son is 5 before we go! I can't imagine going with a toddler. I can't wait to hear how it turns out!

LOL it's so funny, i never would have imagined it would be so difficult, then I thought back to when the older two were toddlers and pre-schoolers and realized we didn't go on many vacations and now I know why!!!

Honestly, we didn't fare much better, even with early dining. Michael was not well behaved for many of the dinners. A few times Mike or I had to walk him out of the restaurant to calm him down. He spent two minutes in time out in a corner at Parrot Cay on one of the nights.

Michael is a VERY structured kid and changes in his regular daily routine do not go over very well. Thank goodness I had requested a Table for 4 for just this reason and that my request was granted. I would have been mortified if we had ruined someone else's meals by having to observe one of our children at their worst.

You know, that is so right, about the schedule variations. Sarah is a stickler for her schedule too, and due to me working nights we have her on a really strange schedule where she stays up late at night and sleeps in plus has a nap in the early evening (so I can get a nap before work). Being up early and up all day on the cruise really threw her for a loop. We thought late dining would have been good, since it is the time we normally eat at home, but we were constantly up and down and in and out. We were so lucky to have such a fantastic serving team, and luckily we were at our own table- which no way could we have shared---yikes!

I think if we had late dining though, it probably would have been worse, since he was already so tired from all the daily activity by dinner time. (Did you see the pic of him I posted on our cruise meet thread passed out on the bed after dinner on Halloween?...That pretty much says it all!)

Yes, that pic was adorable (lol although I know getting to that point wasn't so easy!) You're right, it does say it all. and I have at least one of those too!

 

[jns]

another great update

 

[In Luv with Disney]

WHat a great Trip Report so far! We will be taking our 2nd Disney Cruise in 95 days, and we are doing the Western! I'm soooo excited and live reading about your trip. Can't wait to hear more!

 

[nenner1]

another great update

Thanks!!

WHat a great Trip Report so far! We will be taking our 2nd Disney Cruise in 95 days, and we are doing the Western! I'm soooo excited and live reading about your trip. Can't wait to hear more!

Thank you so much, I'm glad you are enjoying it. Hope it helps you plan a fantastic cruise!!!

 

[Jennifer48]

Do they take your photo anymore after check-in?

Are the Navigators in color now? They look awesome!

 

[nenner1]

Do they take your photo anymore after check-in?

Yes, they actually take it right at the check in desk. They took it as a group photo (gathered all of us together right there at the check in window) then I guess the agent split us up in the computer so that each person's KTTW only showed their head not all of us. I saw mine when embarking and it was just my head isolated out of the group shot taken in the terminal. I thought that seemed like a tedious way to do it, but then I guess it is easier than each individual person posing.

Are the Navigators in color now? They look awesome!

Yes they are, and the paper is very nice quality too- a little glossy. Held up well onboard! And like you said they look great too!!

 

[JKSWonder]

[/color][/font]Yes they are, and the paper is very nice quality too- a little glossy. Held up well onboard! And like you said they look great too!!

I was kind of shocked that we didn't get one when we checked in....maybe because we didn't arrive until after 2:00 p.m.? I had to go directly to guest services to pick one up after we boarded.

We seemed to get the next days navigator kind of late each day too. On the Wonder, it was always waiting for us on the bed after turndown. This time, nothing at turndown (except the towel animal and the chocolate, of course!). At first we thought our room steward forgot it and Mike went down to guest services to get one. He was told they weren't ready. He got the impression they were having issues with them. It ended up being slid under our door later at night, well after turndown. Sort of frustrating, because it didn't leave us too much to time to review it before turning in for the night.

 

[farah]

Awsome trip report. Looking forward to reading more!

 

[harrowgirl]

Great trip report. We are travelling in January with a 7 month old and 2 1/2 year old. Should be interesting LOL! At least my ILs are coming, so we will have an extra set of hands.

I have a stroller that converts from a single to a double. I"ve been debating whether to bring the second seat or not, thinking perhaps the kids could alternate in the stroller. I'm bringing the second seat for SURE after reading your report.

 

[nenner1]

We last left off right after our tasty embarkation buffet lunch at Parrot Cay. We ambled around, enjoying the ship. We hung out in the lobby area for awhile, there were some surprise appearances downstairs and the kids had fun chasing after (and not catching) the characters.

We could only stay in the lobby for a limited amount of time, as the welcome announcements are very loud and hearing them over and over was giving us a bit of a headache. (Another one of those Cast Member ‘How Do They Do It?” moments!). So thinking it was nearing 1:30, we decided to head to Deck 6 to see if the rooms were open yet.


When we arrived at the Deck 6 Midship Elevator Lobby we were shocked to find throngs of people cramming the area waiting for the fire doors to open. In the past, they had simply used those queue divider ribbons to block off the hallways until the rooms were ready, however this time all of the fire doors were closed tight. We would find out later that the ship and crew were undergoing a Coast Guard inspection and that was causing things to run late.

The bad news was that the jam packed lobby was full of people and more than a bit claustrophobic. The good news is that it was full of all of our friends and cruise mates! (Deck 6 held the highest Dis population, we had joked in the meet thread that that was where the party would be onboard, and sure enough, there we all were, ready for it!) I was finally able run into Ellen here, as well! We enjoyed catching up about how we managed to miss each other at MNSSHP among other things. We all ended up waiting for what seemed to be forever (but what was really probably only about 15 minutes.) It was amusing to watch the elevators arrive and the doors open and the people inside see the packed lobby and decide to just go back up to Deck 9!

Like Tom Petty says, the waiting is the hardest part:

After what seemed like forever, the doors opened and everybody filtered out to find their staterooms. We had to wait for the crowds to dissipate to get to our carry-on bags which we had left near the table and chairs there in the lobby earlier. As we walked the port hallway from Midship and approached Aft, we smelled it- the stink. We had been advised on the boards by the folks that had sailed in the two cruises prior to ours that after dry dock that there had been some sewer troubles, causing pervasive raw sewage odors and many reports of plumbing problems, from toilets not flushing to leaks and then some. We were hopeful that they had managed to fix the problem in the meantime, however as soon as we caught a pungent whiff our fears were realized. Luckily though, that day and that place (near the aft elevator lobby) was the worst we would experience it all cruise.

We arrived at our staterooms, two on the Port side Deck 6 Aft: 6132 and 6133. The location was great, very convenient and not too far from the lobby, but far enough to not have the noise problems. We saw this on the door and my reaction was “Gee,hun, you bought us DVC, Oh you shouldn’t have!” (I guess the previous occupants had left it there, as we are not DVC owners).

Inside room 6133, a Cat 11 Inside. Our last inside room was a sideways Cat 11, and we did prefer that setup to the normal room configuration. This would be Brendan and Savannah’s room, though so we would not find ourselves here much during the course of the week.

A step across the hall was our room, 6132, a Cat. 6 verandah room. It was as nice as we remembered. One thing that took us by surprise though was the ugly black fridge under the desk. At first we were put off by it, since it meant the little stool that is normally under the desk was now out in the middle of the room, and we are always hurting for space. We would grow to be fond of the little black fridge, cause it was just that-a real fridge not just a cooler. Ron really appreciated his beers being ice cold all week, so it ended up being a real bonus.

The fridge:

The Empty hole where it was supposed to be:

On cruises past, we had always received our luggage quickly, this time would not be the case (again delayed by the Coast Guard inspection). The room hosts and hostesses were working rather frantically in the hall and I was surprised to not be greeted by ours. As we were relaxing and getting used to our room, we heard a flurry of panicked sounding announcements and by the time I realized they were not the kind of announcements we would normally hear I was able to make out a call of “Red Party in Parrot Cay, Red Party in Parrot Cay”, and then immediately following a different voice: ”Attention! The Red Party is cancelled, repeat, the Red Party is cancelled, the fire is out”. Ron and I looked at each other surprised they would actually add the “fire is out” part at the end and give away their “code”. Who knows how close we were to becoming a Carnival Splendor (!) While it would make sense that a drill would be run during the Coast Guard inspection, it was certainly not announced as such, and frankly whoever was on the PA did sound panicky. So I don’t know if it was real or not, but I’m inclined to believe it was.


Our view:

The Castaway Club Gift:

We spent a few more minutes making ourselves at home. Our doors were in dire need of decoration. I was actually very disappointed that I had ended up printing out so few magnets, and some of the ones I really wanted printed out I didn’t end up printing. They still looked nice, though and we had so many compliments over the course of the week!

The kids' door (overview then closeups):

Our room: (overview, then closeups)

Our Fish Extender: (still going strong!!!)

Now that we felt somewhat settled we were ready to get the party started!!!



Up Next: A DISer's Life for Me!

 

[nenner1]

I was kind of shocked that we didn't get one when we checked in....maybe because we didn't arrive until after 2:00 p.m.? I had to go directly to guest services to pick one up after we boarded.

We seemed to get the next days navigator kind of late each day too. On the Wonder, it was always waiting for us on the bed after turndown. This time, nothing at turndown (except the towel animal and the chocolate, of course!). At first we thought our room steward forgot it and Mike went down to guest services to get one. He was told they weren't ready. He got the impression they were having issues with them. It ended up being slid under our door later at night, well after turndown. Sort of frustrating, because it didn't leave us too much to time to review it before turning in for the night.

Really? Huh! No we didn't have that issue, we always had them at turndown. We did tend to have a later turndown though, usually it was while we were at dinner, so maybe that's why.

Awsome trip report. Looking forward to reading more!

Thanks so much for reading! I'm glad you are enjoying it!!

Great trip report. We are travelling in January with a 7 month old and 2 1/2 year old. Should be interesting LOL! At least my ILs are coming, so we will have an extra set of hands.

I have a stroller that converts from a single to a double. I"ve been debating whether to bring the second seat or not, thinking perhaps the kids could alternate in the stroller. I'm bringing the second seat for SURE after reading your report.

Thanks so much! Yes, definitely bring the second seat, you won't be sorry! Hope you have a wonderful cruise!!!!

 

[podsnel]

I did not hear ANY of that about the red party!! I also had no idea about why we didn't get into our cabins until later-

Are you sure we were on the same cruise????

Oh yea....

Hmmm...I guess we were...

 

[livingis2me]

Awesome, an update! Keep it coming!

The real fridge was definitely a blessing in disguise! It was so nice to get an ice cold beer without having to get a bucket of ice.

I wonder if they called the red party on the Carnival ship?

 

[anewmac]

LOVE the magnets. you did a great job! your hired for my next cruise!

How did you score the fridge, was it left from the DVC last occupents LOL Im with Ron, cold beer SCORE!

Btw take good notes (as i know you will when you are on the allure, were planning that for E's 20th yr in the Corps. 2013 hurry up LOL)