Girls only on the Dream! Jan 2-6 2013

MichelleVW

<font color=green>I call them "the people that liv
Joined
Dec 13, 2005
Ok...I"m not much for writing trip reports, but I'll give a go at it!

Originally this cruise was booked as a 7 night out of Galveston for me and DH, but he decided that he didn't want to do that, so I re booked as a 4 night on the Dream for me and my DD's!! :thumbsup2 Had to go in the winter since they are both in college and figured that Jan 2nd would work great!

Day One

Trip started on a late flight on Jan 1st as we flew Southwest into Orlando! Flights were great and we were landing in MCO on time! Since we were staying at the MCO Hyatt all we had to do was collect our luggage and walk to our room!! It was sooo nice to not have to worry about anything that night except going to bed. We did take the luggage to the room and then went down to McDonalds in the food court since it was the only thing open that late.

Had a great night sleep and woke up the next morning and headed down to the buses!! We left our luggage in the room and the Hyatt took it to the buses for us and we saw it again a few hours later near our stateroom. Super easy!!

We were on the second bus out of the terminal and it was such a non stressful way to head to the port! Before we knew it we were there!! No line at the terminal and we went right to the Castaway Club desk and checked in! We were boarding number 5!! :cool1:

Saw Mickey while we were waiting!!!


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When we cruised summer of 2011 the terminal seemed really busy, but for some reason it didn't seem that bad to me this time. The check in for the kid's clubs were HUGE, but thankfully we didn't need to go there.


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Stitch (he always travels with DD21) had to make a few phone calls before we were at sea!!



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Before we knew it they started boarding and we were heading through the Mouse Ears!! Headed up to Cabanas (forgot how big the ship was lol!!) and I ate all the Peel and eat shrimp I could eat!!

After Lunch we ran into Pluto!


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and had the first of MANY ice cream cones!!!


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Were pleasantly surprised when we opened the room to our stateroom and found out that we had a basket waiting for us from Dreams Unlimited!! That was awesome Pixie Dust that we did not expect!! Also we had $175 of OBC when I was only expecting $100 (still not sure where the $75 came from?)


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We also LOVED the Castaway Club gift and used it after the cruise at the parks!


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Day One cont

Headed to the DVC Members thing at 2:30 so we could get new hats!!!


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Had to cut it short and not stay the whole time since we had a Dismeet at 3 pm!! Dismeet was great and it was nice to be able to meet everyone that showed up!

Then we headed back to our room to unpack a bit before the safety drill. DD21 was watching the "portal" as she called it so she wouldn't miss any of the animation! We figured out the timing after the first night (every 30 minutes).


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After the safety drill we went to the Adult Area and enjoyed the hot tubs while we sailed away!! The Adult pool is pretty much empty during the Sail Away party so we had the hot tubs to ourselves except for one or two others. We saw dolphins as we were sailing away!

Cleaned up, went to the show, had good seats even though we got there a few minutes before it started.

Here are the girls ready for dinner at Enchanted Garden.


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Had AMAZING Tablemates and totally enjoyed dinner. After dinner the girls headed off to the night club for the 18-21 group meet and I went back to the room and chilled.
The girls said the Magic Show they watched that night in the club was pretty cool and I should have went, but it was nice for me to chill alone in the room.

next up...Day at Sea
 
Great start to your cruise, looking forward to more reading and pics! We also cruise in summer 2011 on the Dream!
 
Hooray! This will be fun to see how much different our trips were! :cool1:
 


Sea Day!

Lazy Lazy Lazy Day!! Woke up relatively early and went to Cabanas for breakfast. After breakfast we wandered around and took some pics. The ship was still decorated for Christmas which was awesome!


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DD19 went into one of the shops and bought herself a DCL hat and I bought DH a polo that was on sale! (17.99 since it was a discontinued style!)

Then it was time to find a quiet spot on the deck and get some sun!!

Day at Sea is honestly a blur Lol. We spent a lot of time in the sun and I am pretty sure I drank a good bit. We had intended to see a few movies and also go to trivia, but instead we just chilled on the deck all day!



DD21 took a nap (it's pretty much her favorite thing in the world).


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she missed this while she was asleep...


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Then it was time to get ready for the Golden Mickey's and semi formal night!


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Wandered around some more and took some pics before the show.


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Ship is just BEAUTIFUL!!


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Loved the Golden Mickey's and then dinner at The Royal Palace.

After Dinner we headed to go watch Match Your Mate. Didn't expect to learn so much about a fellow Dis'er while we were there!! :rotfl2: Match your Mate was HYSTERICAL!!! Sat in the back next to this elderly man who just happened to be from a town near ours!

After watching Dave Dizney and wife spill their guts on stage we headed back to the room and found this little guy!


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Then we turned on a Disney movie and drifted off to sleep.....

Next up Nassau
 
Nassau!!

Been to Nassau twice before but have never really done much except wander around the shops. This time we decided to walk to the Queen's Staircase and the Fort.

Woke up early (it's what I do. :confused3) I don't want to wake up so early, but I've got a ton of animals at home that wake me up every morning by 7:30 so I guess I'm just used to it.

Had breakfast and headed off the ship pretty early. Saw Dave Dizney get off right before us, so whenever his trip report says he left the ship that's when we left Lol.

Stopped to take the "tourist" pic!


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and then we had to get one with the Dream in the back!


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Walked past all the people trying to get us to take a tour or get our hair braided and headed off in search of the Fort. The map I had wasn't the best and I wasn't sure we were heading in the right direction so I stopped and asked a man who was sweeping the steps at a museum. I asked him if we were heading in the right direction of the Queen's Staircase and he said "no" I said, "do you know where it is" he said, "no". Uh.....no you don't know where it is or no we're not going in the right direction...he just said No again. Uh ok....keep walking girls! It was the only time I was a little freaked out about walking around by ourselves. We turned the corner and walked a little way down the street until we saw a street sign to regroup. Found out we WERE originally on the right street so we headed back to where the weird dude was sweeping the steps and headed up the hill. Passed the hospital along the way which I thought was pretty cool to see since I worked in the hospital in the Air Force before I retired.

The Queen's Staircase was really neat to see and I'm so glad we walked over there. I can imagine it would be SUPER hot in the summer, but thankfully January wasn't bad.


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Walked over to the Fort and paid the $1 per person to go in. There's not much too the Fort, but it's worth the $1 admission for the view of the ships!


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Had to bail DD out of jail.....


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Headed back into town and saw a lot of locals heading to the hospital with babies. It must have been "well baby check up day" because all the babies looked healthy and there were so many of them. Saw some CUTE CUTE CUTE babies and stopped to ooh and ahh over a few of them. :goodvibes The people we talked to with the babies were all so nice and asked us if we were enjoying our stay and told us to have a nice day. Everyone we ran across was so nice (other than the creepy guy with the broom).

As we were walking back into town we saw an empty lot with a pack of dogs. As the owners of 4 dogs and 4 cats (mostly rescue) seeing the dogs made us sad, and also made us miss our little pack at home. :(


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I wanted to head a few more places, but the girls were getting whiny so we just headed back to the ship.


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I stopped in the Festival Marketplace on the way back and took advantage of the Free Wifi to update my Facebook to let the world know I was still alive Lol! (I'm a social media junkie so 3 days with no Facebook/Twitter/Instagram almost killed me!) There were so many people there with laptops and phones using the free wifi, but I only stayed an extra 15 minutes or so and then headed back to the ship.

Headed back to the ship around 11 and were done with Nassau!

Day 2 Nassau to be continued
 


Great TR so far! I am planning on flying down the night before and staying at the MCO Hyatt as well. Did you book your air with Disney or on your own and add the transfers? We are five so private transportation is going to be cheaper, but the way you did it is so stress free.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards
 
Great TR so far! I am planning on flying down the night before and staying at the MCO Hyatt as well. Did you book your air with Disney or on your own and add the transfers? We are five so private transportation is going to be cheaper, but the way you did it is so stress free.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

We booked our air separately and Dreams Unlimited added the transfer for me. We had a rent a car for the return trip since we were going to the parks afterwards and were staying off site. Last cruise we rented a car both ways and stayed at Cocoa Beach the night before, but with a late flight (got in at 10 pm) it wasn't worth the hassle. I couldn't find a rental cheaper than the transfers since there were only 3 of us.
 
Thank you so much! You have just helped us decide what to do in Nassau.

I have been a little leery about wandering around but this makes me feel better.:thumbsup2
 
MichelleVW said:
We booked our air separately and Dreams Unlimited added the transfer for me. We had a rent a car for the return trip since we were going to the parks afterwards and were staying off site. Last cruise we rented a car both ways and stayed at Cocoa Beach the night before, but with a late flight (got in at 10 pm) it wasn't worth the hassle. I couldn't find a rental cheaper than the transfers since there were only 3 of us.

Thank you for the info! I think we will do what you did. This is such a quick trip that I need to maximize the time as much as possible. We are also landing at 10pm and we can't stay beyond our debarkation day but I did book a late flight (around 7) so I would like to rent a car and go to DTD for the day and head back to MCO around 5 if we can check in for our flight at the port. Not sure if that's still possible....we haven't sailed with DCL since 2006. Which rental car co did you use and did it go smoothly?

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards
 
Sea Day!

After Dinner we headed to go watch Match Your Mate. Didn't expect to learn so much about a fellow Dis'er while we were there!! :rotfl2: Match your Mate was HYSTERICAL!!! Sat in the back next to this elderly man who just happened to be from a town near ours!

After watching Dave Dizney and wife spill their guts on stage we headed back to the room and found this little guy!

We didn't expect to picked - or to over-share like we did! Good thing our kids weren't there. Glad we entertained!
 
Nassau cont

Got back to the ship around 11ish and headed to Cabanas for lunch, but nothing sounded good so we just grabbed some pizza!

Changed into our bathing suits and found a quiet spot on the deck to attempt to get some sun.


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While we were lounging, we were looking down on the Carnival ship and feeling sorry for all those people since their ship wasn't anywhere near as pretty as ours!



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Stupid clouds rolled in and it appeared we weren't going to get the sun that we wanted.....I actually got a little chilly.


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I had a small headache all day and it was working itself into a migraine so we headed back to the room. Once we got there I started feeling really queasy from the migraine and thought some food might actually make me feel better so DD21 got on the phone and ordered me some tomato soup (and a chocolate chip cookie for her). Within minutes the soup and cookies arrived. The soup was delicious and settled my stomach a little. I thought maybe a bath would help my head, so I got in the teeny tub and the girls headed out with my camera to go meet some characters. I love that my girls are 19 and 21 and still are totally into Disney! :goodvibes

I got out of the tub, turned on a Disney movie and took a nap to fight off the stupid migraine...


While the girls were out they saw.....

Peter Pan (he's DD19"s fav)


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Pirate Donald


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Tink!!


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And Capt Jack who pulled them closer after he found out they were over 18 Lol!


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They came back just as I was getting out of the shower (they were gone maybe and hour or two) and they thought I had been in the tub that whole time!! :rotfl: We skipped the show that night because I seriously hate magic. It just makes me angry because I don't know how they do it and I'm a "need to know" kind of person.




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Pretty sure we went to Trivia before dinner, we usually did. Nick (the dude in charge of Adult Activities on the cruise) was super fun so we tried to go to stuff that he ran. We never even came close to winning trivia and we wanted to punch the people that usually won....they came across as serious "know it alls" and I can't stand those type of people. One night was awesome because they didn't know the song and Nick would only repeat the song if EVERYONE wanted him too...but thankfully I knew the answer and said, "Nope....that one was easy, I got it!!" ;) (they still won, but it was a small victory for me Lol)

After dinner we headed up to Deck 13 to watch the fireworks. So. Many. People. We couldn't see the show at all, but thankfully we were in an ok spot for the fireworks.

Then it was time for bed because I wanted to be on Serenity Bay EARLY the next morning!!!
 
Thank you so much! You have just helped us decide what to do in Nassau.

I have been a little leery about wandering around but this makes me feel better.:thumbsup2

The Queen's staircase is an easy walk (but hopefully you're a better map reader than I was Lol). I was leery at first since it was just me and the girls but we never got hassled at all and like I said, the people we encountered near the hospital were all really nice.

Thank you for the info! I think we will do what you did. This is such a quick trip that I need to maximize the time as much as possible. We are also landing at 10pm and we can't stay beyond our debarkation day but I did book a late flight (around 7) so I would like to rent a car and go to DTD for the day and head back to MCO around 5 if we can check in for our flight at the port. Not sure if that's still possible....we haven't sailed with DCL since 2006. Which rental car co did you use and did it go smoothly?

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

That sounds like a good plan. We used Thrifty and their rental counter was a little slow, but we were still at Disney by 10:30 or so.
 
Code:
Great review---how was animatorwhere you able torequest a table ifo a big screen to interact with crush?
 
Code:
Great review---how was animatorwhere you able torequest a table ifo a big screen to interact with crush?

We were actually right next to the screen without requesting it. Crush came over and started talking to our table, but the people at the next table started answering all the questions even though Crush was pointed at our table and no where near theirs. But whatever Lol.
 
MichelleVW said:
That sounds like a good plan. We used Thrifty and their rental counter was a little slow, but we were still at Disney by 10:30 or so.

Thanks...that's what I wanted to hear! I posted te question on CC and you'd think I was trying to tour all four parks with the answers I got lol.

The pics of your DDs with the characters are too cute. I love that they still love it all too! My boys are teens now and people are always surprised they can't get enough Disney.

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards
 
I was going to try and finish the report this morning before work.....but this girl had other ideas.....



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Spent my morning taking her walks and playing with her ball......PSA if you want a calm dog do NOT adopt the cute little herding dog puppy because they are "so cute!" :rotfl: I love my baby, but omg she's a pain!

I'll try and finish tonight after work....
 
I was going to try and finish the report this morning before work.....but this girl had other ideas.....



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Spent my morning taking her walks and playing with her ball......PSA if you want a calm dog do NOT adopt the cute little herding dog puppy because they are "so cute!" :rotfl: I love my baby, but omg she's a pain!

I'll try and finish tonight after work....

She is so cute!! Fortunately my couch potato of a pug wants nothing to do with the great outdoors today. It is snowing/sleeting at the moment and he could not for a minute think that was worth getting off the couch for :)
 

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