13 First-Time Disney Cruisers leaving Galveston, TX on Friday, January 13th, 2017

[RockyMtns]

Wednesday, Jan 18th

Tinker Bell gifts were mainly Disney Jr themed: Sofia flute and stickers, Doc stickers, and some Frozen stickers


We were starting our morning with the Disney Jr breakfast - a ticketed event. It was in Animator's Palate. Once again, they transformed the restaurant to fit the theme of the experience.




Now, my daughter and I have done several character meals at WDW, and we both enjoy them. You meet several characters without a line - you just sit, eat, and wait for them to make their way to your table. My sister had never done one before, so she really liked it. The characters are: Mickey, Sofia, Doc, and Jake. I ordered the Denver omelet; not going to recommend it as it was pre-made but other entrees looked a lot better than mine. The whole experience lasted around 45 minutes.

For those of you with Marvel super hero fans, you could meet Spiderman and Captain America this morning. The line was wrapped around the atrium and down the hallway. We did not wait in it as our girls weren't interested; thank goodness. In fact, my daughter had mentioned she didn't want to meet anymore characters, and I said that was fine by me. Luckily, I still kept her autograph book in my bag.

 

[RockyMtns]

It was open house in the Oceaneer Club, so we headed over. The girls loved giving us a tour around and playing with us in there. If we could have done this the first day, it would have been beneficial for my niece - I think she would have wanted to go during more supervised activities because she would have felt more secure about it.




They even had some electronic games, which aren't always out.

 

[RockyMtns]

My daughter and I headed back to our room for a bit before we were both hungry again. I had read some good things about the schwarma station and she could get a hamburger at Pete's, so we headed to Deck 9. As we're eating, I look over and see Max (not published) and mention it to her casually so she could wave. She jumps out of her chair, tells me to grab the autograph book, and goes over to meet him. There was only one other person waiting to meet him. She had watched some of the older Disney Christmas specials, so that is how she knew who he was. This was a fun meet because there was no wait, it happened by chance (which I had read use to happen on the ships a lot more in previous years), and she'd never met him before.

She looks across the way and sees Stitch. Mom, we have to go meet him. What happened to no more character lines? HA! We like Stitch at our house - he doesn't always have the best behavior but he learns about being kind and helping others. We waited about 15 minutes. And, since I didn't get to finish my lunch from earlier, I grabbed a pretzel from Pinocchio's.


We needed a costume change because we're going to make it to a show: Frozen. As you may have noticed, we haven't attended any of the evening shows in the Walt Disney Theatre. It isn't because I wasn't interested, but by the time they would end in the evenings, there would definitely be meltdowns after the long days we'd had, so we had been skipping them on purpose. DCL, thank you for having a Frozen matinee.

It was amazing. The costume changes, special effects, and talent were extra magnificent when you thought about how the performance was on a cruise ship in a short amount of time. Big win for the cruise, and I recommend it highly. My daughter loved it as well.



We'd had a big day and my daughter wasn't interested in eating in the Kids Club tonight or the main dining room, so we skipped Triton's. She wanted to meet Daisy, so we got in that line.


Back in the cabins, my parents, sister, and BIL had decided they were going to skip dinner as well. They ordered pizzas from room service and hung out on the verandas all evening. The girls needed a break from each other, so we headed up to Deck 9 for dinner. It was deserted up there, which was kind of fun. My daughter got another ice cream from Mike's Eye Scream, which blew over in the wind. So, she got another one. We watched the end of Cars 2 on the Funnel Vision.


Donald was meeting at Preludes, and she decided she wanted to meet him, so we headed towards Preludes.


Then, we headed back to our room before our last sea day.

 

[heaven2dc]

I'm having a blast reading your TR! Love the pics of your daughter and nieces meeting the characters and princesses <3 I can't wait to take my granddaughters to see the princesses when we visit Disney World in November. Hoping to book a Disney cruise in 2018

 

[RockyMtns]

Thursday, Jan 19th

Tinker Bell left some Princess and Mickey/Minnie items for the last sea day.


My daughter and I headed to Cabanas for breakfast and grabbed a seat outside. Not a bad view!



Afterwards, my daughter went to hang out with her grandparents. Mainly, she watched Monkey Kingdom on their tv. I headed to the Rainforest Room. If you want the one-day pass, you need to purchase it before the cruise. And, I had to call. You must wear a bathing suit. I didn't know it was a co-ed experience so I had to go back to the room and get my suit. Inside the Rainforest Room, there are some heated loungers with privacy curtains. There was a steam sauna and a dry sauna with plenty of towels and infused water. There were also the three different colored showers with scents. I relaxed in the lounger for a bit, and you could hear the basketballs from the sports deck. After a while, my sister came in - she had just gotten a facial and massage. It was very expensive, but she enjoyed it. She wanted to know where the hot tub was - no hot tub. She wanted to know if we paid $20 for some heated loungers and cold showers. This is one experience I don't know whether to recommend or not. It wasn't a lot of money, but it was small with very little amenities. There were less than 10 people in there, so I cannot imagine what it would be like if there were more people.

I picked up my daughter, and she got ready. We decided to try out the character dance party in the atrium. It was crowded but fun. We stayed in one little corner and the characters rotated around the room, which is a great idea.

 

[RockyMtns]

We grabbed some lunch on Deck 9, and my daughter wanted to go to the Kids Club. I headed over to the cruise desk. My family had all decided they didn't want to spend the money to cruise Disney again. I made sure that my deposit was fully refundable, and I booked a placeholder. Just in case.

I went back to the room to pack up before I was paged to come get my daughter. Then, her and her cousin dressed up in their matching Minnie dresses to meet Minnie. When we got to the atrium, there were no Shutters photographers and the lighting was dark. They were up a level with Disney Jr characters, but they weren't with Minnie? Oh well, the girls looked adorable!



The plan was to take her back to the Kids Club for the Friendship Rocks preparation, but she didn't want to do it. So, we just went around the ship a bit. We looked at the Shutters pictures, and I tried to pick up the USB drive. I was informed that we couldn't get those until 10pm that evening or tomorrow morning. What? Those are inconvenient times. Why would the people that purchased the full packages have to wait the longest? If you cannot tell already, I wouldn't recommend the full packages for two rooms like we did. There were some great pictures, but I would have been just as happy getting the 10 or 20 picture package. I didn't even think that I could have switched my package until we got home. A little too late. Now that all the pictures are digital, I'm unsure why they still only took two or three photos of each character meet. If you ask at WDW, they'll take pictures while your kid is hugging the characters and talking to them - those can be some of the best photos.

My daughter got changed into her pajamas before dinner because the Kids Club was having Pluto's Pajama party. She went to the Kids Club, and I went to Animator's Palate for our last dinner onboard. I ordered my appetizer off the kids menu (veggies), the wedge salad, chicken schnitzel, and this dessert:


Tonight, we drew pictures and then watched them on the screens. It was a fun way to end our dinners.

My mom and I headed over to the Kids Club and just "spied" on her. We were standing next to the Lab door when this guy with a backpack walks out of the club, something hits the glass door, and the whole door splinters. They moved quickly and had the whole thing barricaded in no time. I had to walk over to the Club entrance to check her out. We went back to our room and finished packing. She was still awake, so I took her with me to get our Shutter USB drives and then we spent our last night on the ship.