First Time Disney Dream Cruiser - 9/28/14 - 10/2/14

[Grumpy's Wife]

Following along. Happy belated birthday to you. What a wonderful way to spend a birthday!

 

[caughtabug]

I love the start of your trip report. We're thinking of taking four generations on a Disney cruise in 2015 and you're giving great tips (and solidifying our decision!). Thanks!

How AWESOME!!! That is so much fun! I saw a couple of large groups. One specifically in the dining room and I thought it was the sweetest thing seeing everyone all together. The nice thing about large groups is that you can split. Don't feel that you always need to be together for the characters. This way some of you can take pics with one character and the other with another. If you plan to get the photo package this will be a great way to benefit I'm dying to write more but the photo thing is hanging me up. I wish I could add pictures on here directly from my computer but I have to upload them into photobucket. It's a tedious process and I just discovered that there is a limit in photobucket and I have maxed it. So now I have to go clear pics to make room to upload more. I hope to update this report soon.

 

[caughtabug]

Thanks for posting! Really excited about reading your TP. We are on the Fantasy this Christmas in Room 8674 and we wondering if the Navigator's Veranda was a really obstructed view. How did you find it? Going on to read the rest of your report.

That's so funny - same room / different ship I never had a verandah before so it's hard to be the judge of that. I loved ours. I didn't see anything that obstructed our view from what we wanted to see. I hope this part of it helps lol. I want our next cruise to be on the Fantasy

 

[caughtabug]

Really enjoying your report, thanks for sharing

We are booked to go on the Dream for Christmas 2015, so I'm reading every report I can!

Looking forward to more

Claire

Coming up really close I hope I can get the picture thing resolved soon because I have lots to share

 

[caughtabug]

Following along. Happy belated birthday to you. What a wonderful way to spend a birthday!

Thank you It was a very special birthday!

 

[caughtabug]

As they say everything happens for a reason. We got ready for dinner early today because we were aiming to take pics with Peter Pan at 4pm. Our oldest daughter was Wendy in a play organized by professionals that were on and off broadway and she thought it would be cool to get a pic with Peter Pan this year. Tonight is Pirate Night!! Wouldn't you know it my daughter didn't make it back in time from the Vibe to shower and meet Peter Pan but her sister was able to meet him lol



Peter Pan looking under her eye patch...lol...


While there we noticed the Shutters set ups with different backgrounds. OMG and we have extra time before dinner. We would have never been there at that time if it wasn't to meet Peter Pan. We would have gone straight to dinner. So if photos is your thing. You may want to go check it out before your dinner or show depending on what you have at 6pm. There were a lot of photo ops. Three different backgrounds.

One of the backgrounds was with the Pirates of the Caribbean.


The other background was a white background. These come out so nice!!! I noticed my favorite photographer on the cruise was there. She does unique poses and really strives for that picture perfect picture. I love photography so I can spot a good photographer immediately. She took amazing pics of my daughter in her pirate costume. The best part - there were no lines for her. It was around 5:15pm.






We purchased our costumes from Party City. My husband bought the hat at Walt Disney World and wore that instead of the one that came with the costume (turned out really nice). Don't we look cute?! LOL


The other background was a beach background. No lines here either!!

 

[caughtabug]

After our photo ops, we headed to dinner for Pirate Night in Enchanted Garden. It was cool how even the servers were outfitted as pirates.








Here is the special Pirate menu...


They also have a special pirate menu with activities for the kids...


Came out rather dark but I was admiring those booth seats wishing we could be seated in one of those. We sat at a regular table.


Our oldest daughter ordered this for her appetizer...


The little one loves getting her salads...


I ordered the pineapple dipped in an orange sauce and coconut for appetizer. It was DELICIOUS!!!!


Hubby ordered this...


I noticed a salad on the menu with bacon bits. YUM!!! I asked them to tweak it a bit and they had no problem with it. In fact our server told me he would put in the request for tomorrow as well. So nice of him to think ahead My salad had mixed greens, bacon bits, cucumbers, and oil/vinegar. It looks like I didn't capture a picture of it...lol

For pirate night so hubby & I went for the ribs...


Our oldest daughter ordered the chicken...


Dessert time. Here is the pirate menu...


So the day after my birthday they bring me this and sing Happy Birthday to me....


I'm not sure why they didn't do it on my actual birthday. I'm thinking because we showed up a little later but they really did have time for it. There's probably more to it like the server didn't know and they need advanced notice or something like that.

For dessert...my oldest daughter, husband, and I all ordered the same thing. We had the coconut dessert and it was soooo good. I love how they bring these artistic plates with these dabs of sauces that are soooo good.


The little one ordered the fruit bowl from the kids menu...


This background is cute for photo ops. It's by the entrance. It would probably have come out really nice if I had zoomed in.


Here is the manager for our table. I forgot the exact name they give him. I think his name is Zan or Zen. He was really nice and friendly...


Our head server also brought us a peach cobbler to try. We were so full!!! I already had two desserts since they brought me a birthday cake. I really wanted to try it though so I asked if I could bring it back to our room. He said yes.


We headed back to our room after dinner to put our dessert in the fridge. We had more FE gifts


Our room attendant left his creative touch again - tonights towel art looked like this...

It was cute how it was next to my youngest daughter's stuffed animal "bubbles".



Our oldest did this at the Vibe...


We hung it up on the bathroom door. If you have cute magnets that you are afraid will walk away from your front door, you can put them on the bathroom doors. Those are magnetic too

 

[caughtabug]

We went back to the atrium to take a few more pics before the show started. Tonight was Comedy Night. We took professional pics by the Halloween tree...




Before we went to Comedy night, our oldest left for the Vibe and we dropped off the youngest at Oceaneer's. We laughed a lot at the show - he was really funny!

After the comedy show, we wanted to take pics with Chip & Dale. They looked so cute but the line was incredibly long. It had to be the longest line I had seen yet on the cruise. Usually they are not bad. Way better than the lines at Disney. We ended up taking a pic with Tink. While I was on line for Tink...hubby ran to get our youngest daughter. There's this spot to the left of the Halloween tree where they have characters and I notice that they put up backgrounds there for those characters. It's cute!!


Someone made this at Oceaneer's and gave it to my daughter...cute...


Awww....we also saw Pirate Minnie...

 

[Grumpy's Wife]

Lots of great pictures and great costumes too!

 

[caughtabug]

Thank you for your comment

 

[caughtabug]

I think the best spot for the pirate and sail away parties is on the top deck looking down. This way little ones can see too. It's not as fun being in the back watching it from the tv screen. I like to see it live in person. Especially if you want to capture some pics






















Here's Jack Sparrow all the way at the top of the ship...


Jack Sparrow comes flying down...


The fireworks are on around 10:30ish. It was so amazing watching them come down right over us. Best location is on the top (back end over balcony). Our oldest went up with the Vibe group. It's funny because they ended up right next to us

While we were watching the fireworks I was sorry I didn't bring one of my other cameras that would have captured the fireworks better. These didn't come out too great.

 

[RatherDrive]

I think the best spot for the pirate and sail away parties is on the top deck looking down.

Thanks for the tip! My boys are a little crowd adverse, even the oldest at 6'5" still doesn't like crowds even though he can see over them!

With all of the pictures you guys had taken, did you find the CD worth the price? Since our upcoming cruise is our first, we want to have as many pictures taken as possible and figure we might purchase them all.

 

[SweetMickey]

I am enjoying your trip report! Your costumes are awesome - I am trying to convince my husband to dress up for our first cruise next month, but he doesn't seem terribly interested. I'm going to show him your pictures when he gets home!

Thanks for sharing your trip with us. I've been living vicariously through trip reports!

 

[caughtabug]

Thanks for the tip! My boys are a little crowd adverse, even the oldest at 6'5" still doesn't like crowds even though he can see over them!

With all of the pictures you guys had taken, did you find the CD worth the price? Since our upcoming cruise is our first, we want to have as many pictures taken as possible and figure we might purchase them all.

lol...WOW...he's really tall. Yeah if you're on the bottom deck you really can't see the characters unless you are all the way in the front or maybe 6'5" lol. At first we were standing in the back and I didn't like watching the show from the TV so we went up to the top deck. It's definitely the place to be. You can see everything if you're sort of right above where the presentations happen.

I found the CD to be absolutely worth it. I knew I would most likely purchase it. I just didn't know how the photo ops worked and how many we'd get. We didn't get much on the 1st night but after that we got better at it once I recognized the pattern and best time to take them which is utilizing the hour between dinner/show and vice versa if you're show is before dinner. I love how Shutters has different backgrounds on different nights and that they do shots with characters and shots with no characters. I love how the photographers tell you what to do as far as poses and how to have your hands etc. We ended up with a total of 197 pictures. I don't know how we did that in 4 days. We didn't go to all the characters due to lines/lack of time. So if you do pics in just that one hour you really could end up with 200 pics just like I did. I had planned to just get the CD but I was loving looking through the photos so much I just wanted to take them all with me. For an additional $79 it was worth it because if I were to order them all from somewhere else they would cost me a lot more that that. It's like it only cost me about .50 cents a print. With the photo CD you can make your own photobook (i.e. shutterfly), holiday cards, etc.

For my daughter's 1st communion, I hired a photographer and she charged me $300 for 30 minutes and only 10 prints. Now that was expensive. To sit on the cruise and pick out photos to me is a waste of time and at $20 a print?!! The only time I would maybe choose this option is if I was a repeated cruiser or the photographers took crappy pics. We got so many amazing pics. It's some of the best photos I have ever gotten!!!

 

[caughtabug]

I am enjoying your trip report! Your costumes are awesome - I am trying to convince my husband to dress up for our first cruise next month, but he doesn't seem terribly interested. I'm going to show him your pictures when he gets home!

Thanks for sharing your trip with us. I've been living vicariously through trip reports!

Thank you soooo much My husband almost didn't either. I'm so glad he did because the pic just wouldn't come out the same if only 3 of us were in costume...lol.

 

[caughtabug]

After the fireworks, around 11pm, we got food from Cabanas and took it back to our room. Great idea if you have little ones and they are tired.



























Tonight was her turn to sleep on the top bunk bed - she was excited.




After all that food, I was out journaling on the verandah and my husband accidentally flips a switch (thinking he's turning off the light in the room to go to sleep) and that's when I discovered there was a light in the verandah. I think I may have mentioned this before in the report but in case I haven't, the switch is by the other switches on the vanity. Here's another tip for those of you who are planning to bring a night light. You can bring in a Bath & Body Works plug in with the scented oil. Works as a dual feature It always smelled so nice and coconuty in our room, lol. I actually brought this for the bathroom instead of an air freshner but there was no where to plug it in. I was glad I brought this little thing along

These are the moments when you go scramming for a camera to capture the moment. Our little one fell fast asleep with a pear in her hand.


....and when I woke up in the morning, I found the pear like this.... She was still fast asleep. She woke up at some point in the middle of the night and ate it lol

 

[caughtabug]

Today is Castaway Cay day. I didn't realize I pronounced this place wrong. I pronounced as it is spelled but the pronunciation of Cay is actually Key.







Love what I see Especially that our verandah is facing Castaway Cay. Yay!!

 

[caughtabug]

When we exited our room we noticed this little message from our friends that we met through our Facebook group from South Africa.



and hanging on the door was this bag from them....


they personalized it for our cruise


and in it was....

I love getting chocolates from other countries

here's a magnet we also received as part of another FE gift that we had hanging on our door. I think it's so cute how they incorporated our names and all things Disney Dream cruise


We went to Cabanas for breakfast before heading out to Castaway Cay. Guess who ended up sitting next to (without realizing it until we sat down) - the family we had just received the FE from (the ones from South Africa).

and here's my moment to rave about the Disney waffles. Have I done that before?! LOL
I miss those waffles!!!




cold cuts and cheeses....


yogurts and milk...


cereal....


toppings...

 

[mamagamp]

Great report. Thanks for this, and looking forward to the rest!

 

[BigTex71]

This is a great trip report and very helpful for me, since we will be going on our first cruise in January on the Dream for 3 days. I wanted to do the 4 day, but the 3 day sails on a Fri - Mon, so the kids will only miss two days of school.

I find the Nassau info very helpful also. We were thinking of doing the dolphin encounter or the beach thing, but I think we should stay on the ship to get to know it better and take advantage of all the amenities onboard, since we are only onboard 3 days. Of course, we will take advantage of Castaway Cay - I have heard nothing but glowing remarks about it!

I am looking forward to the rest of your report.