The Little Disney trip that kept growing Magic Western 01/24/2009 COMPLETED 04/19

[Happy Elf]

Joining in! Your daughter is beautiful! I have a curly, red-head myself! My DD sounds a lot like your DD! Reading about your TR makes me want to take a cruise. I think we will wait until DS is a little older though.

 

[Sophie_2003]

Joining in! Your daughter is beautiful! I have a curly, red-head myself! My DD sounds a lot like your DD! Reading about your TR makes me want to take a cruise. I think we will wait until DS is a little older though.

Yes, I would suggest waiting until they can both go to the club...although I hear Flounder's reef is just fine as well!

 

[lindaso]

Hi Sophie...enjoying the trip report so far. Glad that you and Cyndi and the families all bonded. Looking forward to reading the rest of the week.

 

[Sophie_2003]

Hi Sophie...enjoying the trip report so far. Glad that you and Cyndi and the families all bonded. Looking forward to reading the rest of the week.

Hey Linda! I am expecting a report from you as well...we all feel like we know your family from your 2006 report

 

[cyndik1111]

Just a little history on the two beaches. Our DD is 5 years old. Way too young to enjoy all the "toys" that Paradise offers. (unless we spend all our time out there in the deep water with her) I really just wanted to relax on the beach and not have to be "on" the whole time. Also, i was worried that the beach might be cold, rocky, too many waves etc for a 5 year old. So when i found San Fran Beach with the pool. I thought it was what we wanted. But the other 3 families we were traveling with loved Paradise and were really pressuring me to go there instead. And of course DH was thinking we should follow the crowd. But I stood my ground.
I really liked the pool and would go back again. We just didn't stay that long to enjoy it that much.

I got the massage from the San Francisco's beach people. We were seated right next to the massage "hut". But it was the hut for Paradise Beach. So those wonderful looking massages were not what I got. An unenthusiastic lady lead me to an area under a tent. I was wearing a tankini. It was thick with one of those built in bras. she had me lay down on my stomach and she pulled the top over my head. She was not gentle! The she proceeded to give me a "masaage".

1st, she used enough oil to fry fajitas.
2nd. she was only 1/2 into this thing. She was busy talking to her partner and she was having quite the conversation is spanish. she would stop massaging, just kind of have her hand on my shoulder or back while she was in the heat of a conversation. Then occassionally she would rub a little here and there. You could tell she really wasn't putting her heart into it.
3rd. when she was done, she left me to put my top back on, with no offer to hold a towel up to give me a little privacy. So there I was trying to get the size DD girls back into a snug tankini without giving the beach an xrated show. And don't forget all that oil- that didn't help either.

Then she tells me $50 and asked for a tip. So i told her $60 total (I put it on my credit card) I figured $10 tip for 1 hour massage (that wasn't that good) was more than fair. she kept repeating to me "$10?" in a tone that suggested I was being very cheap. I just kept saying "$10" there was no way I was going to fell obligated to give more. Then she lead me to a lady at a counter where they rang it up. Again i was asked "$10?" with that usual insulted tone. I stood my ground. The bill came up something like 780 pescos. they assured me that equaled $60 american. We'll see when the bill comes. That was a lesson leaned. I liked the beach, and the pool was great and the food was really good, but DON'T GET THE MESSAGE.

Oh one more thing, i always felt like they were planning on ripping us off. Could have just been me, but I help my wallet close to me the whole time.

I found out later that I could have just asked the Paradise beach people to get a message under their tent. Who knew? Our friends did get one from them and loved it.

Also, in case anyone is interested: you can go to San Fran beach for the pool, spend the $10 per adult on food/beverage, and also buy the $10 bracelet for paradise if a person or two with your group wants the "toys" on Paradise. They are right next to each other, you'd never know they were a different beach if they didn't tell you.

 

[Sophie_2003]

Hey Cyndi,

you are like Gayle to my Oprah; Regis to my Kelly...lol. Thanks for jumping in. I will try and write more tomorrow, I have busloads of laundry to fold again (how can 3 people generate so much laundry???) and I will be watching "24", which, like LOST, requires all my attention, besides the fact that Keifer Sutherland is yummy!!!

 

[Sophie_2003]

All righty. We came back onboard, and since I had had some frozen concoction of a drink on the beach , running to the gym was out of the question. I know, I know. Bummer . I took DD to the club and DH, who had abstained from alcohol for an unknown reason (he is a beer man, and I think he may have had to abstain for fear I was getting tanked with one frozen drink, which has already happened, so he would need to remain sane parental authority for the afternoon )…anyway, DH went to the gym. He actually contemplated gong ashore for his run, therefore completing the trifecta of running at every port of call, but the busy streets did not appeal to him, and off to the gym he went .

I waddled to the Quiet pool, got a nice padded lounger and relaxed a bit. I am actually amazed that I almost finished a 400-page (and almost 400 pounds) novel on this cruise. Interesting coincidence, the book is called “Scarpetta” by Patricia Cornwell, and my tablemate was reading the exact same 400-pound book. I fell asleep for a bit. I vaguely recall Cyndi & DH were supposed to join us but they never did? Anyhow, DH joined me at the quiet pool after his run, and our tablemates sat with us a bit at the adult pool, their DD was in the lab. Just as we marveled at the fact that DD seems to be enjoying the club and is always willing to go…well, the dreaded pager goes off, for the first (and only) time of the cruise. Those messages are so ominous "Susie Tanner would like to be picked up from the Oceaneer’s club” OK, her name is not Susie Tanner, but you get the jist. So we barrel down the 4 flights of stairs and run to get DD…who was just a bit tired.

We decide to go back to the cabin and let her take her customary 45-minute cruise shower to get ready for pirate night. Now I had not really obsessed about pirate night. DH is not a costume guy, and I would have just worn a POTC t-shirt if we had gone on the ride at WDW (we didn’t). So DD put on her princess wedding gown, we dress casual, apply some tattoos we got in our FE and put on some bandannas I brought from home, and we head for dinner. I was thrilled to have Pirate dinner at Parrot Cay, just seems appropriate. Dinner was ok, nothing amazing that I even remember. Dessert had some kind of meringue base which DD loved. That was to be our last night in the dining room, unbeknownst to us at the time, and I feel bad because we didn’t properly say goodbye to our tablemates – they were at Palo that night. Their DD had dinner with us, and I dropped her off at the club after dinner.

Some dinner photos:


a chocolate cookie smile

playing around with Pirate Menu

Pirate me and pirate DD

After dinner, since there was no show, we kicked around and saw a couple of characters: pirate Mickey, and Peter Pan/Wendy. We went back to the room and DH and I had a friendly disagreement about what to do about the deck party. I won (big surprise). We basically had to decide which she would enjoy most: a loud deck party with some fireworks at the end, or a character breakfast the following morning at 8:15 (keeping in mind we were going to move the clocks forward). Character breakfast won out and DD was swiftly put to bed, followed immediately by tired (and cranky) mommy. DH did walk up on deck to check the party out and said it wasn’t that busy, but that there were many many tired/cranky kids who looked (and acted) like it was waaayyyyy past their bedtime!!!

Some more pics:

Pirate Mickey

PPan and Wendy

This character in our stateroom

Next : sea day, DD has had enough!

 

[Sophie_2003]

Day 6 – Sea Day


Aaahhhhhhhh. A sea day. Our very last sea day We are once again blessed with very nice weather and awaken by our alarm clock as this morning is our character breakfast. Since we have early dining, the breakfast is at 8:15. That’s a tough one!

You see, we had figured DD would be so over the characters by now, after 4 days at the parks and 5 days on this ship where you can’t avoid the fury ones even if you try. But noooooooooooooooo. This is the kid who ran into the street during our rinky-dink holiday parade hugging any reindeer/elf/Christmas Tree costume that walked by.

The breakfast was very good, and the characters a bit rushed, but that’s understandable. It is difficult to take decent pics as you are right at your table and there isn’t a lot of wiggle room. Of course, DD barely ate because anytime she sat down she would spot yet another character we hadn’t seen yet. It was over in a flash and we decided to try out the Playhouse Disney dance party at the promenade Lounge right by Parrot Cay.

A few breakfast pics:

DD getting custom Minnie Ears

OK, so we weren’t into it much, but it was a pretty lame party. A social host would play some tunes from Playhouse Disney shows and try to get the kids to dance. Which is fine. Then a couple of parents get in on the action and ruin it for the rest of us parents who thought we could sit down, finish our coffee and peruse the Navigator . Oh well. We were out of there in about 5 minutes, and I could already sense DD was going to have one of THOSE days. You know, the cranky, overtired, nothing will satisfy the diabolical preschooler day? Well. It was shaping up to be that way.

We went back to the cabin and decided to check out the pool where we met Cyndi and her DD who had been there for hours already. We sat down as the girls went back in the pool together, and after what seems like minutes, my darling DD announces that she has had enough swimming. OK. What now? Oceaneers’ club? No, she just wants to go back to the room.

This is where I was pretty happy we had upgraded to a balcony. DH and I took turns sitting with her on the balcony. She was so exhausted, poor kid really needed to reset. She wouldn’t nap for a million dollars, but kicking around the cabin, watching cartoons, playing with FE gifts was fine with her. I ordered us some room service of hot dog, fajitas and salad and forgot to order drinks. I also figured out I had no money whatsoever, but to my surprise you can tip the room service people on the KTTW card. We ate some, and I went back to my post on th balcony reading while DD chilled out.

Dh orchestrated a rescue mission by sending in Cyndi and family; their DD was on her way to the Club and tried to coax my DD to go, but she didn’t budge right away. A few minutes after Cyndi left, DD decided that this cabin was getting too small for the both of us chat: after a suggestion to her that I had no intention of spending this entire sea day in the cabin and if she wanted to stay in she would have to nap as it meant she was very tired…bad mommy!) So my DD went to the club and I was freed from house arrest.

I dragged my huge novel up to the quiet pool where I didn’t have that much time since I had booked a Frangipani scalp massage. I felt like getting another spa treatment but I didn’t want to spend too much. A frangipani is 25 minutes for $25. You are sent to the locker room to take off your top and put on a robe, and you sit in the salon area as you get a wonderful scalp and neck/shoulder massage. The only complaint I would have is that you are getting this massage while sitting in a hairdresser chair in front of a mirror…I would have preferred a darker massage room, but I guess that would mean more $$$ as it takes up space. Another issue is that your hair is very oily after all this, so a double shampoo is required.

We picked up DD from the club as I figured she would be hungry after not eating much. We also wanted to sign her back in at 4pm as they were rehearsing the “Friendship Rocks” farewell show that was at 5pm. I made the decision to skip Tea with Alice that was also at 4pm. I felt bad, but I had heard some kids got to sit with Alice, and if DD hadn’t been picked, she would have been miserable, and I knew we could catch Alice and get her autograph at another time. Anyway, back to lunch where DD polished off 4 slices of pizza as we sat by the Goofy pool. Which was ok because we hadn’t planned on eating in the dining room tonight.

Back to the club she went, off to shampoo the oil off my head for me. We went to the WD theater to see the farewell show which is exactly what you can expect from a bunch of under-10’s who got 20 minutes of rehearsal time . A big milestone for us is that DD actually wore the yellow tshirt (she never wears tshirts, weird, I know. It is long sleeve or tank top for her). Mickey and Minnie show up and do a little dance in their Club uniform and the kids are taken off the stage and corralled off back to the Club where hordes of parents wait to retrieve said kids for dinner/show.

A pic of the show (Mickey in yellow pants)

Our evening plans were to see the early showing of Disney Dreams, catch some Topsiders dinner and DH absolutely positively wanted to catch Bolt in 3D, and this was the last evening showing of the cruise. I had seen some of it early on in the week, and may I say 3D + ship motion is very interesting, and this 3D was really well done, not pie-in-your-face 3D.

We sat in the front row as has been our custom throughout the week and DD loved the show…and was unable to sit while bubbles came down during the Mermaid bit, and during the Lion King part. Beware, she almost got run over as performers run through the theater! The singer recognized her the following night as her number one fan! Again a very sweet show, but I can see that older kids would not appreciate as much.

After the show, we went to Topsiders but found out we needed over an hour to get dinner there, and we only had 40 minutes before Bolt started. To our dismay, our only remaining option was burgers/hot dogs, as Goofy’s galley deli closes at 6 and pizza closes at 6:30. This is one of the few times I wished there was a buffet option like on Carnival. But we made the best of it and had some burgers poolside.

DD decided to go see Bolt with DH which meant some alone time for mommy . I dropped them off at the theater and went to the Cove café to buy a frothy coffee and sit quietly on a lounger outside. I made a mental note of coming back for a hot tub dip after DD fell asleep but never did.

Ready for 3D

Mommy's zen moment!

DD sat through the whole movie (she loves Mittens – a shame that the Bolt characters at Disney’s Hollywood Studios are only Bolt and Rhino). I found out Daisy was making an appearance right after the movie so we hightailed it to the lobby, got in line for a pic and off to bed we went!

Goofy and Daisy

Next up: Castaway Cay!

 

[ktmetke]

Loved the update! Especially after a looooooooong day at work...it's nice to escape to Disney via a Trip Report!

 

[cyndik1111]

Reg,
(or am I regis?)
So far so good. I have nothing else to add yet.
Looking forward to next installment

 

[Sophie_2003]

Well, it's been a while, and before this TR falls into oblivion, I thought I should put in a little update...

My TR writing has been interrupted by our kitchen renovations, and an impromptu mini-trip to WDW last week. We had a great time, stayed at our first "value" resort (ASMusic) and chased some more characters (DD, who used to be just a princess-obsessed girlie, now is on a mission to meet and get an autograph from every character she can think of). We managed 4 new ones (Jiminy, Buzz, Pinocchio and Rafiki). And we saw wishes, twice. I love Wishes.

Anyhow, I hope to wrap up this puppy of a trip report this weekend. We have this great shot of Cyndi and I in our running gear with Donald Duck that I need to scan and post.

Have a great day everyone!

 

[cakesnjammom]

I love your TR so far! Cannot wait to read the rest! Sounds likw a great trip!

 

[swankybeth]

Great report, can't wait for the next installment. I love that you went to WDW again before you even finished this report!

 

[Sophie_2003]

So I am sitting here thinking it is pretty pathetic that I have not finished my TR.

So here it is!

Last Day...Castaway cay.

Boy, this place had a lot to live up to. I have been on quite a few carnival cruises, and they don't have a private island. We went on one RCCL cruise and loved their private island, BBQ and all. So I was really looking forward to this day.

Little did I know we could have altogether missed CCay. Upon returning I saw quite a few reviews saying that the Wonder had failed to dock around the day we were on CCay.

I woke up to this beautiful sight of my DD waking up from a peaceful night's sleep. She is so cute.

Then I saw the message light bleeping on the phone, and I got the message that my parasailing excursion had been cancelled. This was a happy/sad kinda thing. I had been looking forward to it, but I also wanted to spend a quiet day with my little family as well. So the wind God made that decision for me. A lot of the excursions that day were cancelled. And here is the view from our room:

I then called Cyndi's room to see if we were going to join the CC 5k run we had been talking about. For anyone keeping track of this 5k, a Cm named Jay had been running it, and word had that he had been let go from DCL a few weeks prior under murky circumstances . Well the run was on the Navigator sked so we decided to go for it. We met a nice cm named Mark who explained the route to us and proceeded to run with the fast guy way up ahead, not to be seen until the end of our run.

There were about 10-12 runners. Cyndi and I ran sweep at the back of the pack. For anyone interested, it is just a little over 5k, I was wearing my DH's GPS running watch. It was kinda fun to run on the runway and bike path. I decided I would come back here and bike with DD if I cruise DCL when she is a bit older.

When Cyndi and I finished our run we saw the elusive Mark who handed us towels and congratulated us. We also saw a Duck...Donald Duck, and we took this great picture of two middle-aged sweaty ladies with a Duck wearing no pants. I would love to post this pic but it is now in a scrapbook and our scanned is on the fritz...so you'll have to imagine it! we also ran into our DH's who had rounded up the girls to head to the family beach. We got back on board to shower up. In the meantime, the girls cozied up with some beach bums...man, Goofy looks like he needs some food!:

NOTE TO ANYONE WHO SAYS: I will meet you on the family beach. It is a huge beach. It is a busy beach. You may never find them. Took me a while!!!

So we finally all got together. The play structure in the water was a bit too hairy for the little ones, so they played around on the beach and with our rented floatie. The water was surprisingly warm, we had heard such harsh reports we thought we may need wetsuits, but it was fine.

We had a nice BBQ lunch (sorry, no food porn) I loved the ribs, corn and bread. There is something about a nice outdoor BBQ you don't have to pay for. We then send the DH's out to their cabana massages. I had reserved my DH's as a birthday present, and Cyndi decided to send Greg along. Off they went, together, hand in hand...just kidding! Around that time I finally met Lindaso. They seemed to ba having a good time. Waiting for an update on the TR, Lindaso!!!

Cyndi and I decided to round up the girls and send them to the club while we explored the adult beach. Another note: do not send the kid to the club wearing clothes...they will get wet! The outdoor club was ok-looking and we did feel guilty because it seemed the girls were not that much into going. But we got over it.

We took the tram to serenity bay and found it...eerily quiet. There were a handful of people, some seaweed on the beach as previously reported, and not much else. We walked along a bit before heading back. We collected our girls from the outdoor club (as reported, DD who had changed out of her bathing suit had gotten her dress completely soaked, so we put hr suit back on) and decided we would head back to the ship without the DH's...except my Dh had kept DD's ship card, and Cyndi's DH had left HIS card with HER stuff. So we waited for them to come back from their massages.

Note #3: walkie-talkies are very handy. Had we not had them we would have wandered around looking for the guys instead of being able to talk to them on their way back.

We boarded the ship all together; the guys both really enjoyed their massages, and knowing DH is a picky one when it comes to massages, I can vouch that the ladies do a great job. When I got to the cabin I had a little certificate congratulating me on completing the CC 5k. Cute.

I vaguely remember going up to the Mickey Pool, and we planned to blow off our last dinner in the dining room because it was too early (5:30) and we didn't feel like rushing to get there. We agreed to meet Cyndi's family for dinner at Topsiders (note #4...Topsiders os CLOSED the last night of the cruise...)

In the meantime, DH decided to go for his own run on Castaway Cay. he said it was really cool as most people had reboarded and it was very quiet. When he boarded at 4:30 he said there were 4 passengers left on the island according to the computer when you zap in your card. Here are a few of his pics:

I love the last one.

Up next...did we go hungry on our last night? and...till we meet again, last breakfast and goodbye Magic, hello Tampa airport, snow drifts and back to reality!!!

 

[anewmac]

you already have your pics scrapbooked LOL man you good!

Love the pics! cant wait for more!

 

[Sophie_2003]

And now it is time to put this TR to rest, once and for all!

As we got ready for dinner, Cyndi's gang and ours decided we felt like eating together our last night. We decided we would finally try TOPSIDERS. Mistake #1: Topsiders is not open the last night of the cruise, so we were contemplating dogs and burgers or room service but nowhere decent to sit in. Disney Magic happened. DH went to the dining Room to give our waiters their envelopes, and they graciously took our order with the promise of delivering it to Cyndi's stateroom where we were going to eat.

Cyndi's family ordered from room service and soon all the food showed up in the cabin. We decided to hightail it to the 9th deck to find someplace to eat, but it was windy and a bit coolish. Disney magic moment #2, they actually let us in to eat in Topsiders by ourselves even though it was closed. we really enjoyed out meal together!

We then dropped DD off at the club to finish packing, and went to get her right before till we meet again. Basically most of the characters show up and scatter around for a quick autograph/pic session. DD was happy and we managed to get the last few we were missing (Hook, Alice, Dopey) as well as some last minute hugs with her current fave, Donald.

Back to the room for our last night.

The next morning we awakened to our steward knocking on the door...uh oh. Quickly we gathered our stuff and went to Topsiders; I think we were the last group let in. I wish we could have gone to the dining room but our time was 6-something, so forget that. We ate with Cyndi and made our way off the ship, sad but happy it was a fun vacation!

We took a shuttel to get a rental car and drove to Tampa airport. Now this was Saturday as in Tampa the day before the SuperBowl Saturday, and my DH, the most unaware man in football history followed the GPS instructions right THROUGH Superbowl traffic. What fun that was!!! But we made it to the airport on time, got on our 5pm flight and we were home by 10pm.

There was snow everywhere, it was freezing cold, laundry to do and a kid to take back to PreK on Monday. The joys of regular life...

As our final assessment, we were seasoned cruisers but first-time Disney cruisers. Although we really enjoyed the Disney difference, we are not sure we would do it again just because the price is so much higher, and eventully DD will stop falling all over herself for any characters. In addition, DD preferred Camp Carnival to the OClub...not sure why! Room size, staff friendliness, entertainment, heated pools, Disney wins hands down. Carnival wins food and price!

Happy Trails everyone!