1/17 MAGIC day 1 and 2

[BAKAROMA]

Characters- Keith, Barb, DD's Kaitlyn 8 Robyn 6, Maddie5 Well before we get to the cruise let me just tell you Friday p.m. we spent an hour on the runway in Houston. so needless to say after waiting another half our for the shuttle to the Hampton Inn we got to bed at 1:00 Saturday. We woke excitedly and wolfed a continental breakfast. We had secretly arranged a limo for transportation as our girls are fascinated by them and it was only about another fifty dollars more than DCL transportation. They were SURPRISED and had a blast. Our driver Chris from Tiffany Towncar was great and I highly reccomend requesting him. We stopped to get some snacks along the way. Chris pointed out the ship as soon as it was insight. The excitement obviously was mounting. Then an anti-climactic event. We had to WAIT. we had gotten there a little early. Chris tried a variety of "tricks" to improve our position in and was foiled at every turn. We finally enterd the property (10:30), pulled up, and hastened to the terminal. Upon entering we were about 100th. I still don't know how that happened?????? Anyway, we jumped in line to check in. SURPRISE, the raised seal on one of our kids birth certificates tricked us. It was a hospital certificate. The raised seal through me off, my fault. We just had to sign some paper and we were off to the Mickey ears line. We waited about 45 minutes and wathced the stars of Jim board and a few others who had some special needs get on. Finally the line moved. Quickly we were up. Pictures of embarkation. We dropped all of our stuff so as not to look like pack mules. However, it was still not our greatest picture effort and did not make the cut at shutters. The announced our names we smiled and moved quickly to Rockin D Bar for Palo reservation. Brunch Monday Palo Sunday night. Then spa ressies. Surial on Friday at 4:00 p.m. I talked with one of the show's writers and directors. They were very nice. We then went to our room 8518. We saw practically all of the Jim cast along the way or as we arrived at our room. The two girls from the show were a few doors down as were the Paisleys. And next to us was Coutrney Thorne-Smith and family. We played it pretty coool with them and just said hi. No picture stuff. Then off to Parrot Cay for lunch. It was very nice. I ate all the shrimp I could. I learned that the chocolate mocha is good except that bottom rubber layer. I then went to see if I could check to see who our scheduled serves were. I tried to be as discrete as possible. The head server I spoke with Alain, pupmed me for info. He assured me we would have the finest of servers.Next the boat drill, it went quick and painlessly. The sail away party was great. They were filiming throughout most of it. I had Robyn on my shoulders and we enjoyed the moments. We stood by Jim and Courtney prior to filming and they chose not to acknolwedge Robyn as she said hi and waved to them which kind of broke my heart. After that I went down to our DISmeet in Preludes and made a web post. Unfortunately there were only about four DIS'ers. It was great to meet them and say high to a familiar face throughout the week. My wife had enrolled the kids earlier in the Lab and the Club. They were not as eager to be there as I had anticipated. Dinner soon follwered and we met our unbelievable serving team of Marcel and Pairjo. Alain did us well. Dinner was fabulous as it was every night. I do miss the food!!!!!!! We all went to the variety show and enjoyed it tremendoulsy Gary Delana is great. After the show he was in the hall greeting peopla and was very personable. He is quite funny. We had the kids in the club and lab during the show so they could choose the rest of the week shows or club but wanted them to know what they'd miss in club/lab. We then milled around and looked in shutters. Bedtime came quickly and we snoozed hard.

 

[auntrenae]

This was great, I can't wait for more! please let us know where if you post on another thread. I'm getting on the Magic on 1/31, so I want to know everything!!!
Renae

 

[Magicboundagain4]

More more more...there just have not been enough trip reports lately. Thanks for writing yours.

 

[Carbomommy]

Yeah Keith! I was wondering which one from our cruise would be the first to post! You beat me to it!

Linda Davis

 

[julie junebug]

Hi Keith!

Great report! I'm sorry we didn't make it to the DIS meeting. We were just having too much fun at the sail away party (watching Jim Belushi "wrestle" with Goofy on the stage right in front of us! My son just had to see Mickey Mouse and we stayed too long and needed to get cleaned up and ready for dinner quickly, so the timing didn't work out. I wish we could have met a few DIS people, but we had a great time and I look forword to the rest of your report. (I miss the food too!)

 

[BAKAROMA]

We had character breakfast today. We had lots of photo ops with Minnie, Mickey, Goofy, Chip, and Dale. The breakfast was very fun and of course the food was great. We bought lanyards for our Key to the world cards after breakfast. We checked the kids in to club and lab and went to the spa for a workout. I think there facilities are top notch. The Cybex weights they have are very good. My wife loved the elipiticals. The free weights were missing from like 10 to 25 ppunds so that kind of stunk. Jim B was there working out too. Barb and the kids went swimming and I watched us come into port in KW. It was cool. The captain had to sound the horn a few times to get a few sailboats a moving. I canceled a self tan appointment I had made at the spa for today. Even though it was inside 24 hours I did not get billed (not usually the case). The weather was warm and in the mid seventies as we disembarked after having a quick lunch. We hit the stores and explored. About forty minutes in DD's 5 and 6 were shot. So, we took them back in to the club and went back out shopping with DD 8. We saw a lot of neat things like sponges pulled up locally. DD 8 got her hair braided there with no wait. While she got her braids we shopped. I bought a swim suit and we mailed some post cards. We shopped our way back to the shipp as the weather looked ominous. Shortly after getting back to our room, the flood gates opened. It was raining HARD. It was quite fun to watch people dashing about below from our verandah. Then the funniest part of our trip happened. Two yellow clad workers came to change out the chairs on our verandah. It must be prescheduled. I thought our chairs were fine. Anyway. I am pretty sure these guys had never changed out chairs before. They got the first chair stuck in the doorway of our room for about ten minutes as they tried to figure how to contort it to get it out. Needless to say they beat the heck out of the door and frame and knocked the numbers off of our door. Finally, they solved their puzzle. The second chair only took them five minutes!!! It was hystairical. We got ready for Palo. I must say my wife was HOT in her black dress and I was pretty sharp in my tux. We got many looks and a few comments on our way to Palo. I cannot say enough about the food!!! Marco our waiter brought us just about every entree and for sure all of the desserts. We did our best to eat as much as possible. We seriously rolled out of there. I liked eating on Sunday. we missed Parrot Cay which was my least favorite for the noise and where our table was situated. We checked the kids out and went to Who Wants to be a Mousketeer. We had four rows to ourselves and still didn't get picked darn! There was a lot of help to get up the ladder a ways for each contestant. The day was awesome and we went back to our room to find our first towel animal. Maricar our stateroom hostess was OUTSTANDING. We truly loved our room for the five of us it was quite accomodating. Stay tuned for Monday. Please ask questions as I am sure I skipped much.

 

[auntrenae]

Hi,
I have a question, Where do you go to mail the postcards? I've been there 3 times and have never found a post box! We're going next week, so I really need to know this, my postcards are stamped, addressed and ready to go, but...
thanks, Renae

 

[Verandah Man]

Enjoying reading your trip report, especially on this cold, snowy, New Jersey morning.

 

[BAKAROMA]

The post office is very nearby. We just walked a few blocks. The funny thing is we got directions several times to get there as a few of the locals even seemed a bit confused. It is very near the Truman house. Verandah Man I came home to six inches of shoveling. From 81 to 18 yuck!!

 

[Rock'n Robin]

I'm enjoying your reports as we are doing the western in about 5 1/2 months. We had deck 8 on the Wonder last year right next to the Roy Disney suite and that is a great deck to be on. I would be excited to see Jim Belushi, but more excited to see Brad Paisley!
Robin M.