Disneyland, Wdw, Universal & Disney Cruise 2015-2016

[LivingforDisney]

Our first full wday at sea was beautiful, it was very relaxing.
We had our meet and greet with Anna & Elsa, my daughter only went to meet the Princesses and I took photos of her.
My sister and I went to Bingo, didn't win.
First port of call was Cozumel, bugger it was raining.
We didn't get off the ship until around 11 am, as were we only planning on having a walk around the port.
Anyhow, We all got Disney ponchos ( the ones they sell at the parks), handed to us on embarking.
It was only sprinkling, so we walked around having a look in the shops, bought some little souveniers.
We returned to the ship and had lunch, kids decided to stay on board, so my sister and I got off again and wandered a bit further, found a supermarket, where we bought some things, it was massive and sold everything. Very cheap.
By now the rain had stopped and the sun was shining.
Our 2nd port was Cayman Islands, we had to go in a tender for this port, Disney of course is very organised, you go to the Walt Disney theatre , wait there and then they take a whole group at a time .
The weather was hot here, they have minivans and you just pay $20 each for a tour of the island.
We found a driver, asked him were he would take us and got in the van with about 8 other people.
He drove us around the island, pointing out things, we stopped at Hell, the Rum Place and then the Dolphin Swim place, we just went in and had look at the people swimming with dolphins. This was just in a big pool, not the ocean.
The turtle farm was across the road, we didn't go in , because you had to pay extra.
Mind you Hell, is really only a bunch of black rocks, but they have a post office and a couple of little shops where you could buy a t shirt.
The Rum place we got to try rum cake.
Funnily there were chooks, roosters everywhere.
On the way back to the ship, he asked if anyone wanted to go to the beach, so we said yes.
He dropped us off, and said there would be plenty of buses to go back to the ship, just get on one when we were ready, oh and yeh it's $5 per person to get back.
The beach was ok, kids went swimming, we stayed for about 2 hours, it looked like a storm was coming in so we then got a van back to the ship, we had a look around the shops that were at the port.
It was more expensive in the shops than Cozumel.
By the time we got on the tender the rain started, was a rough ride back to the ship lol.
We had a fun day, it is a very beautiful island.
First couple of photos at Cozumel and others Cayman Islands.
Next day is Star Wars Day at sea.

 

[Aussiefamof5]

LivingForDisney- I've just read your trip report. Its Amazing, THANKYOU so much for posting... now I really want to change my trip and head to Disney World Instead hahahahaha

 

[LivingforDisney]

Ty, we had a great time, it was our 2nd visit, but this time we spent longer there, so we're able to spread things out.
The 2nd time was better, in that we did a lot of table service /character meals , and we were not so overwhelmed by it all as in the first visit.
If you do go and get the free dining, it was really worth it for the 4 us of us.
Was a lot of planning.
Not sure if we will do it again, would love to,but it is costly.
Maybe when my kids get jobs, they will shout me lol.

 

[Aussiefamof5]

Ty, we had a great time, it was our 2nd visit, but this time we spent longer there, so we're able to spread things out.
The 2nd time was better, in that we did a lot of table service /character meals , and we were not so overwhelmed by it all as in the first visit.
If you do go and get the free dining, it was really worth it for the 4 us of us.
Was a lot of planning.
Not sure if we will do it again, would love to,but it is costly.
Maybe when my kids get jobs, they will shout me lol.

Your right, I know I would have been very overwhelmed for my first time and our scheduled dates just wouldn't have been long enough to really enjoy it
Not to mention how costly it is to do both ugh

 

[LivingforDisney]

SWD at sea.
When I booked the cruise on first day it was available, it wasn't SWD at sea, this was a new thing by Disney added a few months after I booked.
We are not really Star Wars fans, and I did um and argh on whether to change our cruise to the Jan 2nd sailing, but I had planned out and booked hotels ect, I thought it would all be too hard, so left it as is and thought well this could be fun.
After we left the Caymans the captain said the weather wasn't looking great, so they would detour to try and find some good weather, we ended up sailing right around Cuba, quite interesting and also could see Puerto Rico, anyhow the plan worked and we had beautiful weather.
They had Star Wars music playing up on deck and in the corridors and the ship horn kept sounding off.
Not many characters though, they had like 2 storm troopers walking around. I snapped a photo if them on the pool deck, can u spot them?
To be honest I wasn't sure who were passengers dressed up and who were cm's lol. A lot of passengers dressed up.
They had some meet and greets going on and a Jedi training thing for kids.
Later in the afternoon we did come across some other characters up stairs near Shutters.
It was all a bit boring if you were not a Star Wars fan.
We just hung around up on deck, was sitting in the adults area with my sister and she started stuttering, it's, it's and I said it's who? And she said Douggie Howzer and I went who?
It was Neill Patrick Harris from How I met your Mother. He was on board with his husband and two kids.
Later on when we caught up with the kids at the pool, I told my daughter and she said , yeh I know they were just sitting next to me in the pool with their kids. Oh ok lol.
So the Star Wars day dragged on, for dinner there wasn't any really special, the servers wore their usual uniforms but had a Star Wars badge on and the dinner menu they handed out was fancy, the meals all had fancy Star Wars names.
Apparently a lot of people wanted to buy them? The menus that is.
I heard there were a lot of complaints on the day from the Star Wars passengers, a few things advertised didn't eventuate ect.
They didn't have any decorations, there was a sign thing you could stand in front of and take a photo.
They were showing The Force Awakens 3d in the Walt Disney Theatre 3 times during the day, so we went to the 4.45pm season, yeh wasn't bad, not a movie I would bother seeing twice though.
Anyhow after dinner, Which was scheduled 15 mins earlier than normal, as the Deck Party was due to start at 10.30pm. I said if you want to see the Stars Wars show / laser show & fireworks lets go straight up on deck as soon as we finished, which was around 9.15pm, didn't want a repeat of the sail away show.
Our normal dinner time was 8.15 & we were usually out of there by 9.30pm, always got the impression the servers wanted us out pretty quick.
Back to the show..... We got up on deck , really? Still 75 mins to Showtime, and Already a lot of people, but people had kids asleep on blankets laying along the deck up against the railing.
I saw a big gap further down, enough room for about 6 people to stand at the railing, can you see where this going?
As we walked up to the railing , this woman literally ran and knocked me out of the way!
***, sorry but I let her have a few choice words, she then stood with her arms outstretched and legs mind you up against the railing, I found this quite bizarre and wish I had got a photo.
She was of course saving the section for her family.
Well, I was going to stand my ground but my kids were freaking out, and said we are going to go downstairs in front of the stage, so I told the rude so and so to enjoy the show and decided to go and join my sister up on deck in the adults area and have a drink.
We could hear the music, the laser show wasn't much, saw a few lights, but the fireworks were pretty darn good, to Star Wars Music of course,from where we were sitting you could see the deck and the people were 30 deep railing to railing. Crazy.
My daughter taped the show and fireworks on the iPad, but I had a better view of the fireworks from where I sat.
She said the show was characters walking on the stage and then off and clips of Star Wars movies on the screen, exciting!

They had a midnight buffet, but we didn't go, looked like a madhouse!
So that was my experience of Star Wars day at sea.

 

[LivingforDisney]

Last full sea day or was it?
Got up, went and had breakfast, weather was beautiful.
My sister and I decided to go to the final Bingo session, $6,000 jackpot. Needless to say we didn't win, was packed house. It was shared by 2 winners and I heard they had to pay $900 tax each ?
We went to 3 sessions, it was fun, only like 4 games which took a hour, but it was expensive.
Found the kids having lunch, so joined them and then it started raining.
There isn't much to do when it rains unless you are into trivia, they seem to do a lot of that onboard.
We did get some character photos. I didn't think the lies would be so long on the cruise, but at every character meeting there were long lines, there were a lot of kids on the cruise, even though school was back.
I think I went to the cabin to pack up a bit of our stuff and we ordered Mickey ice creams from room service. We did this about 3 times during our cruise. We also did our order for room service as tomorrow was the day I had been waiting for and dreaming of for 12 months. We wanted to sit on our balcony and have brekky whilst docking at Castaway Cay, as I chose our cabin to be on the side where we could see the island.
A few photos onboard, The Pirates show inside because of the rain earlier in the cruise.
Photo going past Cuba.

 

[kbainbridge]

Thank you, thank you, thank you!! We are off to Disneyworld in September and have booked Caribbean Beach Resort, so I am super keen for people's thoughts on the resort as well as photos (rather than just the official Disney ones). Did your daughter find the pull out bed comfortable? And do you mind if I ask you how old she is? I am thinking it will be a good option for my 8 year old as the photos I have seen it looks a little on the small size (more suitable for a child/early teens rather than an adult?)

We are at CBR in September too!! What dates??

 

[Montanabel]

LivingforDisney - awesome photos. I am a Star Wars fan, so love seeing the storm troopers on the desk

 

[Montanabel]

Hi Kbainbridge, we arrive on 4 September (the day before our eldest DD turns 12) and check out on 18 September. I did our ADR the other day (fingers crossed for free dining) got all the bookings I wanted, including a few favorites on DD birthday.

What are your dates?

 

[LivingforDisney]

Jan 15th - Castaway Cay Now you see it Now You Don't.
We had ordered room service for this morning and it was promptly delivered at 7am, so we were sitting on the verandah eating brekky whilst we were , or so we thought reversing into CC, I chose our room so we could see the island once moored.
What? We are turning away! Announcement came over saying it was too windy and they could not get into the dock, lol you are kidding right, we were so close, nearly there.
It's ok going to try in another hour.
So we finished brekky and then went up on deck to see what was happening, we could see the island, the water was choppy, so after a while they tried again, didn't get as close this time and turned around again.
The captain then said he would try again in 2 hours, really?
We just sat up on deck and everyone was getting really antsy, are we going to get in or not.
Anyhow I am not sure if it was 2 hours or not, don't think it was and they tried again, they said the currents were too strong and that a storm was heading this way, so if they got in we might not get out.
I don't care!! Just get us in lol.
I felt this time there wasn't really an effort to get us in and then they said nup, not going to happen.
Well, the mood on the ship dropped.
Anyhow the sun was was shining and they arranged things to fill in the time, trivia , no thanks.
So we had lunch, where's the storm captain?
So we started heading back to Port Canavral, not really having much to do on board.
A few hours later it did start to rain, so we just went to the cabin and packed, the decks were so wet and it was quite windy.
Yep, it was a boring last day,had enough by now, just want to get off.
We went to dinner that night, the servers told us if we were getting Disey transport we should get off by 8am as the last bus goes at 9am, so we said our goodbyes and told them we would have breakfast at Cabanas in the morning.
Said goodbye to our table mates from Maryland as well.
After dinner I said we are going to go see the Farewell Show and we are going now, didn't want a repeat of what happened before.
So we stood at the railing for around a hour waiting and the show was so cute.
Added a photo of CC
The cruise was great, we all enjoyed it.
A few things annoyed me which are.
Rude people
The lines to have photos with characters were always long, long, long. I wasn't expecting so many kids on board in January, but I think the SWDAS changed that.
We all thought the food was good and plenty of it. Though in the dining rooms at night, we reckoned it was all very similar every night, just a different name.
Was annoyed that the Pirate Night was played down, because of SWDAS, the servers didn't wear costumes on pirate night, they're didn't on SWDAS either as a matter of a fact.
No fireworks Pirate night , which has I knew, they are on Star Wars day.
.
No pirates buffet, you can see how crowded it is in photo, dam rain. Lol.
The servers kept telling you about the comment cards and that they needed to get all excellent on it, we actually didn't even fill it out.
Having to pay for a tip for the head server, this guy just came over every night and said Good Evening! My son said why are you leaving a tip for him, he doesn't do anything lol. Well The tips were prepaid and maybe he helped other people , not sure what he was supposed to do anyhow.
Our server and assistant server were good, didn't mind tipping them and our room attendant was good as well, though a few days we did have to ask him for more soap and shampoo.
The shows were excellent, all in all it was a great experience but disappointing as well.
We were up early the next morning, told our cabin guy we were heading up for brekky, so we left our carry on luggage in the room.
It was a sad feeling leaving the ship, the crowd in customs was massive, but we found our bags and managed our way through the crowds and headed out to find our Disney bus to take us to the Boardwalk Inn for our last 4 nights.
We had 9 checked bags.
Was able to get a few photos of the ship whilst on the bus

 

[LivingforDisney]

Sat 16th - Boardwalk Inn
The bus left not long after we boarded, we put 9 bags under the bus and took our carry ons on board, the bus wasn't crowded, which was good.
We arrived at BWI, the driver got all the bags, he said is that all, yeh that's it.
We checked in they said the room wasn't ready, so the kids sat in the lobby and I went for a walk, came back , was sitting down and said , where's that blue bag, it was aduffle bag, full of dirty clothes lol.
Oops, not here, we left it on the bus.
Anyhow the concierge people said they would sort it out and get it sent back here, lucky we put a tag on it with our name and BWI.
I think we waited about a hour from arriving until the room was ready and just as they notified us the room was ready our bag turned up.
The room was lovely, nice big room with a lovely big verandah, this was so nice to be able to sit outside, we could also see the Eiffel Tower and the fireworks from the verandah.
After unpacking a few clothes, we went down to the pool, the weather this day was around 28deg, after the pool we went to Beaches and CReam where we had a ADR.
The food was just ok, we didn't have dessert as we were too full. Maybe we should have had a dessert instead of a meal.
We were going to go to the Mini Golf , but no one could be bothered.
So we just had a wander around the Boardwalk.

Sun 17th Jan
Woke up today and the temperature had dropped down about 10 deg.
Today we just went to Disney SPrings for a little while and from there caught a taxi to the outlets to do some more shopping.
Was a much better experience than the outlets near Universal.
We managed to spend so more money and had a nice day.
We grabbed pizza on the boardwalk and took back to the room for dinner.

Mon 18th Jan
Today we went to Epcot, to finish off the lands.
It was even cooler today, about 14 deg, we had scarfs and gloves and of course jackets as we needed them.
We had our fastpassess, Soarin was now closed, so we did Nemo under the sea, I think that's what it is called and a character meet, which was excellent, we saw Minnie, Mickey and Goofy and got some great photos.
Our other fast pass was Test Track, so we did single rider first before using the fp.
We then went and did the rest of the lands that we hadn't done in Dec, we had a adr in Via Napoli, must say, the pizza was the best I have had in the USA.
We were going to stay and watch Illuminations, but it was too cold and I think by now as the trip was coming to a end , everyone had had enough so to speak!
So we strolled home, was so nice not to have to get a bus lol.
Back at the room, decided to repack the bags , it was a struggle to fit everything in.
Tomorrow our last day in a park and we have breakfast booked at Crystal Palace for 8am at MK.

 

[LivingforDisney]

Some photos at BWI and Epcot.

 

[LivingforDisney]

Tuesday 19th Jan.
I went down to the front desk the day before to ask them would there be a bus earlier enough to get us to MK for our 8am ADR, park was as due to open at 9am.
The girl said be out the front just before 7am to get first bus.
Also asked if we could have the room a bit longer the next day as our flight wasn't till 7pm to LA and then we were catching a 14 hr flight.
Sob story worked she said we could have the room till 1pm.
Everyone was up rearimg to go and we were at the bus stop at 6.45am.
The bus turned up right on 7am, glad we caught it as the next one was 40 mins later, according to the board.
We had the bus to ourselves.
It was quite chilly, we had gloves and scarfs on.
Anyhow get to MK, what no Xmas carols playing now lol.
We had to get our names marked off and stood in a line, just before the Welcome show began, the they let us us into the park, there was probably a few hundred people. Was around 7.35am.
So we had some photos done on Main Street and in front of the Castle. Bad luck the crane was up.
We then went over to Crystal Palace.
Was fun, the characters were cute and the buffet was good. Though I don't think it was worth the cost we paid.
We were finished up around 8.45 and decided to make our way to Fantasy Land, was a bit annoyed to see all the people coming down Main Street, they had obviously opened the gates early as early as this was before 9am.
So when we got to 7DMT there was already a big line, so we joined in.
We more or less just went around and went on all our favourites.
The place was fairly crowded, but hey we just did Xmas here, we can handle it!
I remember the parade was going to start in the afternoon, we didn't bother finding a spot, just sort of walked along catching glimpses, we had rides to do.
We stayed until 5pm , as we had to be at the Contempary as we were doing the Pirates and Pals cruise, thought it would be fun for our last night.
I felt sad to be leaving the MK, not sure if I will ever get back there.
We hopped on the monorail to Contemp, once there found where we had to be.
We had to check in at 6pm for the party, which started at 7pm.
To pass the time we did a scavenger hunt around the hotel, then just sat and relaxed, been a long day.
Anyhow 7pm they let us into the room, where they had coffee, drinks, cake, fairy floss, pkts of popcorn and other healthy snacks. You could also take extra and put it in your bag for later on.
We filled up on rubbish as we hadn't had anything since lunchtime.
There was also a photo op with Smitch and Capt. Hook I think it was.
About 45 mins later were we all marched in 2 groups down to get on the boat.
The cruise was a lot of fun, we didn't find it too cold out on the water and they gave everyone a blanket.
It was actually quite beautiful watching the fireworks from the water with the music.
Probably would not do it again, was expensive for 4, but glad we did it once.
When we were returning to the dock, they told everyone to close their eyes as there was a big surprise!
The surprise was Peter Pan, he was so cute. So he walked with us all back to the hotel and then we had a photo with him, we were lucky to be at the front of the line and only waited 5 mins.
So glad I got a photo with him as the line was always really long in MK for him.
He was so in character, as were all the characters in the parks, resturants. Totally amazing!
So by now it was around 9.30pm, we were all starting to drop, been up since 6am, so we caught the monorail back to MK, had one last look at the entrance and then caught the bus back to the BWI.
Back at the hotel, the kids went and grabbed a pizza from the Boardwalk and I one again rearranged the suitcases. Ugh where did we get all this stuff.
After a hour or so, most of the bags were packed for our final journey tomorrow, just the last minute things to put in our hand luggage which had grown in massive proportions.
My sister and I went for a walk down to the shop, NO we are not buying anything else, oh ok maybe just spend the money we have left. I think I just grabbed Some snacks and a couple of key rings.
Last day coming up......

 

[LivingforDisney]

Some photos on the last day, the crane spoils it, but we got some great photos with the photographer which was good.

 

[LivingforDisney]

We'd 20th Jan
What? We are going home today?
In a way I was happy to be going home , but in a way I wasn't. I am sure you all know that feeling.
So we had a bit of a sleep in until 9am, going to be a long day, mean couple of days.
Everyone got up, took it in turn to shower and dress, made sure all the suitcases were locked and hand luggage all packed.
Around 11am we headed down the Boardwalk to the Epson club to have a early lunch, whilst we are sitting there waiting for the meal, my sister goes Oh look at that!
It was Cinderellas carriage, well I jumped up and the server said . Oh it's a wedding, you don't see that often.
So I dragged my daughter outside and we walked up to where they had stopped.
Omg, it was beautiful, there was Mickey & Minnie and the bride & groom, I got my daughter to take some photos on her phone.
When we got back to our table, lunch was there, the server said that would have cost thousands, yeh I agree, she said they would come back past.
So we had our lunch and had a look outside , they were still taking photos.
They eventually came back in the carriage and it made its way around to the Swan & Dolphin.
After that excitement, we hurried back to room, it was now around 1pm, by the time we got down to the lobby it was around 1.20pm.
Our flight to LAX was departing at 7.01pm, so ME was not picking us up till 4pm.
So the kids made themselves at home in the lobby surround by the masses of luggage we had and my sister and I went for a wander. Had to get one last Mickey Bar in.
Bus was on time and we were off to the airport, we went up to print off boarding passes for both flights and it wouldn't except the passports?
So, one of the staff tried, after about 6 attempts trying our passports, she said she would do it on her computer.
She tried mine, um it is saying you and your son have already checkin in?
No we haven't, we just arrived. It ended up taking her aa good 20 mins to sort it out and print off the boarding passes.
She said where you staying at a Disney hotel, when I said yes, she said oh, well sometimes Disney automatically just check you in. Oh righto, not sure what she meant there.
So then we dropped the bags and we still had like 2 hours till flight time.
No one had wanted anything to eat, we had plenty of snacks in our hand luggage to tide us over to LA.
We went through security around 6pm, the flight was a little late leaving, which I think was due to the excessive amount of hand luggage being bought onto the plane by others passengers lol.
Got me a bit worried, hope we don't miss our next flight. Had 85mins if plane had took off on time.
The flight was fine, I couldn't watch any movies, was feeling very tired.
Delta was again excellent.
During the flight when we had about 2 hour to go, the flight attendants were sitting down, so I went up and asked if they knew if we would be landing in the terminal of our departure flight.
The girl looked it up on her phone and said , No you have to change terminals and should only take around 10 mins to walk.
Ugh, thanks.
She said she would check again when we're were closer and let me know if it changes.
So just before they sat down for the landing, she told me , it was the same as before, she said don't worry there a are few other passengers on boards getting that flight.
It would have been nice if they had let the passengers connecting off first, but no that didn't happen and know we only had one hour to our next departure.
We managed to find our way lugging our stuff down escalators , through corridors, even a lift at one stage, bloody hell how much further lol, when we got to the gate they said boarding would be starting in 10 mins. Was worried then if our bags would be on the flight.
Time for a quick bathroom stop, bad luck if you are hungry, you will get a meal on board kids.
Boarded and we were on our way, must admit we all did sleep a fair bit on the flight to Sydney .
So that was it, all done and dusted.
We were away 5 and half weeks with travelling time.
It was wonderful, everything went to plan, I got my dream of seeing Diseyland and Magic KIngdom at CHristmas.
Would I change anything, probably not.
We enjoyed being able to eat at the table service resturants thanks to free dining, the hotels we stayed at we're all wonderful.
We had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs along the way.
The only thing I would have changed If I knew was the cruise, I would have done the Eastern without SWDAS.
Would love to do it all again, but it didn't come cheap as you all would know.
Lucky people going soon the dollar is on the way up.
Some photos of the wedding and a couple of memory maker ones I copied onto iPad.
Btw our bags made it onto the plane with us.

.

 

[LivingforDisney]

Daughter having fun with her little Stich on the bus on way back from MK

 

[Montanabel]

Thank you for sharing your trip report LivingforDisney, what a wonderful trip!

 

[LivingforDisney]

Oops, photos didn't load, I think I was trying to put them on then the site went down.
So here goes

 

[LivingforDisney]

 

[LivingforDisney]