We are home after a whirl wind 9 day land/sea and then some vacation at Disney World and on the Wonder!
Myself (40), dh (40), b/g twins (16), ds (13), dd (11), ds (10)
had a MAGICAL time! After 4 nights and 3 days at Port Orleans Riverside and doing all four parks and also Downtown Disney and Disney Quest and getting lost twice we were SOOOOOO ready to get aboard the ship! And we were NOT disappointed!
We arrived at the terminal about 11:15 or so. My husband dropped us off as he had to go take our rental van to Cocoa Beach......DO NOT USE National for this reason.....they do NOT provide a shuttle. We were told they had one when we booked..only to find out later that there was not one. So, he had to take a taxi back to the ship. DH left his cell phone in the taxi and tried to chase the taxi down when he realized it. The nice security people at the Disney terminal came to the rescue and called the taxi co...who called the driver to come back. Meanwhile
my five kids and I are already standing in line waiting oh so patiently to board. The kids and I had pictures taken w/ Minnie and then later Mickey next to the model of the ship. They got autographs as well. Finally it was time to get on board. Only to discover that 3 of the kids cards (and my husband when he got on) had non working Disney World Cards......(don't let your magnetic cards touch if you carry them all together like we did most of the time). But, the sweet ladies got us new cards immediately and before we knew it we were back in line and getting our picture taken before boarding. I loved that they called out our names upon arrival and they were clapping...even my teens were impressed with that! I watched how big their eyes got as they came through the lobby and looked up and around. It was all worth it right there. We made our way up to the Beach Blanket Buffet as we were to meet my husband there. Cast Members tried to do crowd control and have us go into Parrot Cay, but we explained we were headed up to the 9th deck.
We had no problems getting right into the buffet w/ no waiting.
But, then Mommy tried to carry her tray of food and her tea out through closing automatic doors while dragging a carry on bag and purse, and tried to hit the door opener button w/ my elbow and promptly spilled my tea all down the front of my cute lighthouse vest! The waiters came to my rescue but didn't understand any of the babble coming out of my mouth!
I laughed it off to mommy always spills -- not my kids! We found some seats along the edge of the deck so we could look down and watch for Daddy to arrive. We never saw his comical scene of chasing down the taxi.......guess we were busy stuffing our faces w/ the good food!
We were already on the look out for a disboard member & her family that I met on line the week before the cruise. Our daughters had already been emailing and were anxious to meet. We saw them at lunch, but weren't sure it was them and we were shy about approaching them and looking like idiots. We watched them leave and decided we would stalk them later (LOL!) and approach them - if it we still felt like it was them. We had exchanged pics so we thought it would be easy to spot them or them us.
My dh found us and after he had lunch we let the kids go change into their suits for swimming. The boys were already off exploring! It was a huge adventure for them! I sent three of my kids (at different times) down to our room to see if we could get into our rooms.....but each were stopped by the host and not allowed to enter our room. DARN! We tried. Finally 1:30 came and we went to our room and already 4 of our 12 (YES 12!) were outside the doors. Before we knew it more arrived. Our ds - 16 found us and dragged us up to Common Grounds where he had already met the staff and wanted us to see "a beautiful girl " he met. There she was sitting at the coffee bar. He was too shy to go up to her a 2nd time ......and of course we were around, too bad because that was the last time he saw her again the whole cruise. The staff was friendly and great there. The twins had already registered themselves and their brother. Then we went to Oceaneer Lab and painstainkenly got through that. It was crazy somewhat and some parents did not see that YOU were in line before them! Ugh. We were patient though and finally were able to speak to a staff member and get our two younger ones signed up and got our pagers and off we went.
I had warned my husband to PLEASE make sure that our excursion to Blue Lagoon was in ink somewhere since we made the ressies by telephone. Glad that he did because they only had down that my husbands room (we had boys in one room .....girls in another) were signed up but the girls and I were not! So, we got that all straighted out. By this time our luggage had all arrived and we got our clothes put away and our room organized. With 6 bags and a carry on each to a room it was nuts. The room was a good size.......we were in 6041 & 6043. We had different hosts. Mine was Arman from the Phillipines and I'm not sure who the boys had. We had thought we would be down low on the boat, but we were very much in the middle and higher up.
It was time for the Sail Away party and we headed up to that. We were watching the characters dance......when my daughter spotted the family from Ohio again. We convinced her to go up to them......the music though was VERY loud and so she stood next to their daughter and didn't say a word. So, my husband and I stood near them and finally I thought what the heck.....and tapped Carol on the shoulder and asked if she was Carol......sure enough it was! THEY ARE THE NICEST FAMILY! We were privelaged to have got to know them on the ship! We spent some time together during the three days and we hope to keep up w/ them. Our daughters were instant friends and acted like they had known each other their whole lives. Later we introduced our son to their 13 yr old son and they had a good time together as well. My daughter already misses her new friend! Our two families went up to the higher deck and missed the employees at the terminal waving goodbye but we did wave to Soverign of the Sea Ship (Royal Cruise) and felt bad for them!
LOL! We stood in the wind and watched the coast guard fly over and their boat lead us to open sea.
We then dressed for dinner and met our new friends to see a very funny comedian Rich Purpura & the variety show in the Walk Disney Theatre. After that we went down to see the Family dueling pianos. We found out that both of our families were also on the same dinner rotations! They actually were at the table next to us! We all had late seating and were happy w/ that.
Our first rotation was at Triton's......where we were seated at a huge long table w/ a NICE family from Pittsburgh! I hope they survived our Southern accents! We actually thought they were the ones w/ the accents. Our server was EGI (Aggie) and
Jackie and last night eating dinner out in our hometown we joked that we wish Egi and Jackie were serving us! We missed having them put the napkin in our laps. Jackie always had a glass of tea waiting for me as soon as I sat down. They were both FANTASTIC and they memorized our names right off the bat. They totally spoiled us and as Egi would say "YOUR ON VACATION!".
Afterwards we tried to go see Chicago.....my husband lasted a whole 15 min......he was falling asleep he was so tired.
I stayed. But, after getting paged three times by my kids at Oceaneer Lab I too headed out of the theatre. We had both seen it before so it was not like we were missing much.
I found my two younger ones and we got them in bed and
then later our older ones came in.
Our older boys found that their thing was playing basketball.....they made a lot of new friends and actually didn't want to go eat dinner w/ us! But, being the mean parents that we are we made them eat w/ us all three nights. We had to lay down the law fast though because once they discovered the hot dogs, pizza, hamburgers and ice cream out on deck......we had to have them stop snacking after 5:30 each day, or they wouldn't even attempt to eat at dinner. We let the older kids stay out till midnight or 1 a.m. the first two nights. They would go to movies or play basketball and were having a fun time. We didn't worry really and we know they are good kids, so we trusted them. The last night we let them go to a Karoke night till 2 a.m. They paid for it a few hours later when we had to wake them up to disembark the last day.
That is it for the first day. I will try and be much more brief on the next two days! LOL! It was just all so exciting that I had to share!
We slept like babies!!!!!!! Only 3 of us took pills. Didn't take anymore after that. We did sway a lot that first night, it was weird walking around ......but didn't notice it much the following days. I do wish we had taken a small alarm clock that glows. I never knew what time it was......as we were in a inside cabin.
They have clocks in the room, but I had to turn on a light to see what time it was.
Debbie in Okla.
Myself (40), dh (40), b/g twins (16), ds (13), dd (11), ds (10)
had a MAGICAL time! After 4 nights and 3 days at Port Orleans Riverside and doing all four parks and also Downtown Disney and Disney Quest and getting lost twice we were SOOOOOO ready to get aboard the ship! And we were NOT disappointed!
We arrived at the terminal about 11:15 or so. My husband dropped us off as he had to go take our rental van to Cocoa Beach......DO NOT USE National for this reason.....they do NOT provide a shuttle. We were told they had one when we booked..only to find out later that there was not one. So, he had to take a taxi back to the ship. DH left his cell phone in the taxi and tried to chase the taxi down when he realized it. The nice security people at the Disney terminal came to the rescue and called the taxi co...who called the driver to come back. Meanwhile
my five kids and I are already standing in line waiting oh so patiently to board. The kids and I had pictures taken w/ Minnie and then later Mickey next to the model of the ship. They got autographs as well. Finally it was time to get on board. Only to discover that 3 of the kids cards (and my husband when he got on) had non working Disney World Cards......(don't let your magnetic cards touch if you carry them all together like we did most of the time). But, the sweet ladies got us new cards immediately and before we knew it we were back in line and getting our picture taken before boarding. I loved that they called out our names upon arrival and they were clapping...even my teens were impressed with that! I watched how big their eyes got as they came through the lobby and looked up and around. It was all worth it right there. We made our way up to the Beach Blanket Buffet as we were to meet my husband there. Cast Members tried to do crowd control and have us go into Parrot Cay, but we explained we were headed up to the 9th deck.
We had no problems getting right into the buffet w/ no waiting.
But, then Mommy tried to carry her tray of food and her tea out through closing automatic doors while dragging a carry on bag and purse, and tried to hit the door opener button w/ my elbow and promptly spilled my tea all down the front of my cute lighthouse vest! The waiters came to my rescue but didn't understand any of the babble coming out of my mouth!
I laughed it off to mommy always spills -- not my kids! We found some seats along the edge of the deck so we could look down and watch for Daddy to arrive. We never saw his comical scene of chasing down the taxi.......guess we were busy stuffing our faces w/ the good food!
We were already on the look out for a disboard member & her family that I met on line the week before the cruise. Our daughters had already been emailing and were anxious to meet. We saw them at lunch, but weren't sure it was them and we were shy about approaching them and looking like idiots. We watched them leave and decided we would stalk them later (LOL!) and approach them - if it we still felt like it was them. We had exchanged pics so we thought it would be easy to spot them or them us.
My dh found us and after he had lunch we let the kids go change into their suits for swimming. The boys were already off exploring! It was a huge adventure for them! I sent three of my kids (at different times) down to our room to see if we could get into our rooms.....but each were stopped by the host and not allowed to enter our room. DARN! We tried. Finally 1:30 came and we went to our room and already 4 of our 12 (YES 12!) were outside the doors. Before we knew it more arrived. Our ds - 16 found us and dragged us up to Common Grounds where he had already met the staff and wanted us to see "a beautiful girl " he met. There she was sitting at the coffee bar. He was too shy to go up to her a 2nd time ......and of course we were around, too bad because that was the last time he saw her again the whole cruise. The staff was friendly and great there. The twins had already registered themselves and their brother. Then we went to Oceaneer Lab and painstainkenly got through that. It was crazy somewhat and some parents did not see that YOU were in line before them! Ugh. We were patient though and finally were able to speak to a staff member and get our two younger ones signed up and got our pagers and off we went.
I had warned my husband to PLEASE make sure that our excursion to Blue Lagoon was in ink somewhere since we made the ressies by telephone. Glad that he did because they only had down that my husbands room (we had boys in one room .....girls in another) were signed up but the girls and I were not! So, we got that all straighted out. By this time our luggage had all arrived and we got our clothes put away and our room organized. With 6 bags and a carry on each to a room it was nuts. The room was a good size.......we were in 6041 & 6043. We had different hosts. Mine was Arman from the Phillipines and I'm not sure who the boys had. We had thought we would be down low on the boat, but we were very much in the middle and higher up.
It was time for the Sail Away party and we headed up to that. We were watching the characters dance......when my daughter spotted the family from Ohio again. We convinced her to go up to them......the music though was VERY loud and so she stood next to their daughter and didn't say a word. So, my husband and I stood near them and finally I thought what the heck.....and tapped Carol on the shoulder and asked if she was Carol......sure enough it was! THEY ARE THE NICEST FAMILY! We were privelaged to have got to know them on the ship! We spent some time together during the three days and we hope to keep up w/ them. Our daughters were instant friends and acted like they had known each other their whole lives. Later we introduced our son to their 13 yr old son and they had a good time together as well. My daughter already misses her new friend! Our two families went up to the higher deck and missed the employees at the terminal waving goodbye but we did wave to Soverign of the Sea Ship (Royal Cruise) and felt bad for them!
LOL! We stood in the wind and watched the coast guard fly over and their boat lead us to open sea.
We then dressed for dinner and met our new friends to see a very funny comedian Rich Purpura & the variety show in the Walk Disney Theatre. After that we went down to see the Family dueling pianos. We found out that both of our families were also on the same dinner rotations! They actually were at the table next to us! We all had late seating and were happy w/ that.
Our first rotation was at Triton's......where we were seated at a huge long table w/ a NICE family from Pittsburgh! I hope they survived our Southern accents! We actually thought they were the ones w/ the accents.
Our server was EGI (Aggie) and Jackie and last night eating dinner out in our hometown we joked that we wish Egi and Jackie were serving us! We missed having them put the napkin in our laps. Jackie always had a glass of tea waiting for me as soon as I sat down. They were both FANTASTIC and they memorized our names right off the bat. They totally spoiled us and as Egi would say "YOUR ON VACATION!".
Afterwards we tried to go see Chicago.....my husband lasted a whole 15 min......he was falling asleep he was so tired.
I stayed. But, after getting paged three times by my kids at Oceaneer Lab I too headed out of the theatre. We had both seen it before so it was not like we were missing much.
I found my two younger ones and we got them in bed and
then later our older ones came in.
Our older boys found that their thing was playing basketball.....they made a lot of new friends and actually didn't want to go eat dinner w/ us! But, being the mean parents that we are we made them eat w/ us all three nights. We had to lay down the law fast though because once they discovered the hot dogs, pizza, hamburgers and ice cream out on deck......we had to have them stop snacking after 5:30 each day, or they wouldn't even attempt to eat at dinner. We let the older kids stay out till midnight or 1 a.m. the first two nights. They would go to movies or play basketball and were having a fun time. We didn't worry really and we know they are good kids, so we trusted them. The last night we let them go to a Karoke night till 2 a.m. They paid for it a few hours later when we had to wake them up to disembark the last day.
That is it for the first day. I will try and be much more brief on the next two days! LOL!
It was just all so exciting that I had to share! We slept like babies!!!!!!! Only 3 of us took pills. Didn't take anymore after that. We did sway a lot that first night, it was weird walking around ......but didn't notice it much the following days. I do wish we had taken a small alarm clock that glows. I never knew what time it was......as we were in a inside cabin.
They have clocks in the room, but I had to turn on a light to see what time it was.
Debbie in Okla.
