Hello....I thought this would be a perfect time to sit down and hammer this out. We came back from a lovely trip last weekend to be smacked upside the head with a reminder that this is, indeed, winter. So I have followed up a cruise in the Carribbean with 5 days snowbound with three children. I'm a mom on the edge.
The people on the cruise were myself and my husband, Greg; and our three children, Kate (11), Emily (9), and Andrew (6).
Let me preface this report by saying that in looking back, the rare times we met with "glitches" we all shrugged them off because WE WERE ON A DISNEY CRUISE. So, to be honest, the only things I would change were things or plans on our end, not Disney's.
5 days before we flew out of KC, my purse was stolen. The replacement cards (for the accounts we had payed down to 0 to take on the trip) didn't come till we left for Florida. So we frantically reshuffled some finances and it all worked out in the end. I momentarily panicked, but all was good, and WE WERE GOING ON A DISNEY CRUISE.
Greg had worked a really difficult week and was tired and cranky, and as excited as I was, I was also tired from the planning and the packing. The night before we flew out, our TA called to tell us that Disney had upgraded us from two connecting cat. 8's to two connected cat. 5's. The magic had begun.
We made it, after a connection in Charlotte, to Orlando. Our luggage apparently took a different route, and arrived at the hotel early Sunday morning. I had packed pjams in our carry-ons along with basic toiletries, and had experienced the late luggage thing before, so we didn't panic. We knew it would come during the night, we had pjams, and WE WERE GOING ON A DISNEY CRUISE.
Took out Sunday morning for PC, picked up some Coronas, checked in at the port and boarded by 12:00. I have to say, motoring down 528, cresting the hill, and seeing the Wonder right there is just amazing.
Once on board, we caught our breath, herded (well, they're as noisy as a herd) our children up to the 9th deck, and we were officially ON A DISNEY CRUISE.
Food: Gotta say, 95% wonderful. The 5 %? The embarkation buffet was not so great, and had me a little worried about the rest of the cruise. But from dinner on, all was beyond wonderul and delicious, and we have decided that the EB was an abberation and totally atypical. Our rotation was APT, and we were seated with a lovely family of three from Rhode Island. We did something different for breakfast each day, and found all choices good. For lunch, we tried the buffet, sit-down service in Triton's, pizza, and room service. We ate at our rotation-dining assignments each evening, because we wanted to try the varied menus. Only negative comment from Kate was that she didn't like the baked stuffed tomato (but I notice she ate it all.) And she and I didn't really enjoy the smoothies, which Kate had looked forward to. They were a little different that what we were used to, so I'm chalking that up to us and not Disney.
Kid's Clubs: Yowsa. I have trouble keeping 3 kids organized and out the door to school each day. Disney has the day-camp concept down to a fine art. Em and Andrew loved the Oceaneer's Lab and Club, respectively. They both participated part of each day, and really enjoyed themselves. I was impressed with the cleanliness of the facilities. The children had to wash their hands upon signing in each time, and they had frequent hand-washing breaks through out the day. As long as you paid attention to the kid's navigator's and planned for transition times, you were ok. Kate, being 11 going on 40, found the clubs, as she finds much in life right now, "lame." I do not think this is a comment on the quality of activites on the ship; I think Kate is an adolescent who really enjoyed an unprecedented amount of freedom onboard. She always carried a 2-way radio with her (which worked wonderfully for us all over the ship) and handled herself responsibly. She went to a few activities and really enjoyed the times that the 10 - 12 year olds were in Common Grounds, but overall, kept to herself and had a blast. We allowed her a $10 arcade card and a smoothie a day. Any other purchases had to be approved by us, and she kept to the rules.
Greg and I went into Nassau, and overall, kind of wish we had stayed onboard. Again, it is just us. We don't really do water sports, and if we did, I think the excursions offered would have been wonderful. We went to the Atlantis Resort and walked around and shopped, and it was ok. It was lovely weather, I was walking hand-in-hand with my fabulous husband and it was all good to me.
Shopping: There really is a nice selection onboard at the shops. I read a tip somewhere to go each day as there are different specials and clearance items each day, and we found this to be true. We went each day, and kept a running list of what we wanted to purchase. Here is a tip: if you have a AAA membership card, you will get 10% off your total purchase at Mickey's Mate shop for total purchase over $75. We made our purchases the last day, making sure we had a list that had at least one souviner per person. We think that kind of planning also helped us stay within our trip budget.
Shows: The Golden Mickeys were just wonderful. We were all absolutely entertained, and found the entire production amazing. Gotta say, after that, we found ourselves in a definate minority that did not enjoy Disney Dreams. Andrew had fallen asleep at the table at dinner, so I took him back to the cabin, put him in bed, and watched it on tv. Greg took the girls, and Kate became bored and left halfway through. Overall, maybe because it is new and fresher, we enjoyed Golden much much more. Again, just us. I thought the performances in Dreams were very good, we just didn't enjoy it nearly as much.
We found disembarkation to be beyond efficient and easy. (We found it ironic that USAir mishandled luggage for 125 people but Disney so efficiently handeled luggage for 2700.) From the moment we exited the ship, it took 15 minutes to get our luggage, go through customs, and walk to the Budget shuttle tent. Wow.
We were motoring along 528 towards Orlando by 8:30, and we sprang one more surprise on our children: they were in the backseat, chatting about how much they hated for the trip to end, and Greg and I announced that we were actually not going home that day, but going to MGM and Magic Kingdom for two days. Kate was 11 again for a bit and squealled as loud as Em and Andrew. It was a great way to wind up our trip, and capped off an unforgettable week.
I'm hard put to think of anything I'd change on Disney's end. While not to my taste, Disney Dreams is a huge favorite among many cruisers. The food was wonderful, the accomodations were outstanding, and the service we received from Jarov and Renee, our servers, and Roy, our room steward, was far above and beyond. It was a wonderful week with my family, and yes, I would like to do it again.
Brenda
Here are some of the pics that we took. Enjoy!
http://community.webshots.com/user/bnickle3
The people on the cruise were myself and my husband, Greg; and our three children, Kate (11), Emily (9), and Andrew (6).
Let me preface this report by saying that in looking back, the rare times we met with "glitches" we all shrugged them off because WE WERE ON A DISNEY CRUISE. So, to be honest, the only things I would change were things or plans on our end, not Disney's.
5 days before we flew out of KC, my purse was stolen. The replacement cards (for the accounts we had payed down to 0 to take on the trip) didn't come till we left for Florida. So we frantically reshuffled some finances and it all worked out in the end. I momentarily panicked, but all was good, and WE WERE GOING ON A DISNEY CRUISE.
Greg had worked a really difficult week and was tired and cranky, and as excited as I was, I was also tired from the planning and the packing. The night before we flew out, our TA called to tell us that Disney had upgraded us from two connecting cat. 8's to two connected cat. 5's. The magic had begun.
We made it, after a connection in Charlotte, to Orlando. Our luggage apparently took a different route, and arrived at the hotel early Sunday morning. I had packed pjams in our carry-ons along with basic toiletries, and had experienced the late luggage thing before, so we didn't panic. We knew it would come during the night, we had pjams, and WE WERE GOING ON A DISNEY CRUISE.
Took out Sunday morning for PC, picked up some Coronas, checked in at the port and boarded by 12:00. I have to say, motoring down 528, cresting the hill, and seeing the Wonder right there is just amazing.
Once on board, we caught our breath, herded (well, they're as noisy as a herd) our children up to the 9th deck, and we were officially ON A DISNEY CRUISE.
Food: Gotta say, 95% wonderful. The 5 %? The embarkation buffet was not so great, and had me a little worried about the rest of the cruise. But from dinner on, all was beyond wonderul and delicious, and we have decided that the EB was an abberation and totally atypical. Our rotation was APT, and we were seated with a lovely family of three from Rhode Island. We did something different for breakfast each day, and found all choices good. For lunch, we tried the buffet, sit-down service in Triton's, pizza, and room service. We ate at our rotation-dining assignments each evening, because we wanted to try the varied menus. Only negative comment from Kate was that she didn't like the baked stuffed tomato (but I notice she ate it all.) And she and I didn't really enjoy the smoothies, which Kate had looked forward to. They were a little different that what we were used to, so I'm chalking that up to us and not Disney.
Kid's Clubs: Yowsa. I have trouble keeping 3 kids organized and out the door to school each day. Disney has the day-camp concept down to a fine art. Em and Andrew loved the Oceaneer's Lab and Club, respectively. They both participated part of each day, and really enjoyed themselves. I was impressed with the cleanliness of the facilities. The children had to wash their hands upon signing in each time, and they had frequent hand-washing breaks through out the day. As long as you paid attention to the kid's navigator's and planned for transition times, you were ok. Kate, being 11 going on 40, found the clubs, as she finds much in life right now, "lame." I do not think this is a comment on the quality of activites on the ship; I think Kate is an adolescent who really enjoyed an unprecedented amount of freedom onboard. She always carried a 2-way radio with her (which worked wonderfully for us all over the ship) and handled herself responsibly. She went to a few activities and really enjoyed the times that the 10 - 12 year olds were in Common Grounds, but overall, kept to herself and had a blast. We allowed her a $10 arcade card and a smoothie a day. Any other purchases had to be approved by us, and she kept to the rules.
Greg and I went into Nassau, and overall, kind of wish we had stayed onboard. Again, it is just us. We don't really do water sports, and if we did, I think the excursions offered would have been wonderful. We went to the Atlantis Resort and walked around and shopped, and it was ok. It was lovely weather, I was walking hand-in-hand with my fabulous husband and it was all good to me.
Shopping: There really is a nice selection onboard at the shops. I read a tip somewhere to go each day as there are different specials and clearance items each day, and we found this to be true. We went each day, and kept a running list of what we wanted to purchase. Here is a tip: if you have a AAA membership card, you will get 10% off your total purchase at Mickey's Mate shop for total purchase over $75. We made our purchases the last day, making sure we had a list that had at least one souviner per person. We think that kind of planning also helped us stay within our trip budget.
Shows: The Golden Mickeys were just wonderful. We were all absolutely entertained, and found the entire production amazing. Gotta say, after that, we found ourselves in a definate minority that did not enjoy Disney Dreams. Andrew had fallen asleep at the table at dinner, so I took him back to the cabin, put him in bed, and watched it on tv. Greg took the girls, and Kate became bored and left halfway through. Overall, maybe because it is new and fresher, we enjoyed Golden much much more. Again, just us. I thought the performances in Dreams were very good, we just didn't enjoy it nearly as much.
We found disembarkation to be beyond efficient and easy. (We found it ironic that USAir mishandled luggage for 125 people but Disney so efficiently handeled luggage for 2700.) From the moment we exited the ship, it took 15 minutes to get our luggage, go through customs, and walk to the Budget shuttle tent. Wow.
We were motoring along 528 towards Orlando by 8:30, and we sprang one more surprise on our children: they were in the backseat, chatting about how much they hated for the trip to end, and Greg and I announced that we were actually not going home that day, but going to MGM and Magic Kingdom for two days. Kate was 11 again for a bit and squealled as loud as Em and Andrew. It was a great way to wind up our trip, and capped off an unforgettable week.
I'm hard put to think of anything I'd change on Disney's end. While not to my taste, Disney Dreams is a huge favorite among many cruisers. The food was wonderful, the accomodations were outstanding, and the service we received from Jarov and Renee, our servers, and Roy, our room steward, was far above and beyond. It was a wonderful week with my family, and yes, I would like to do it again.
Brenda
Here are some of the pics that we took. Enjoy!
http://community.webshots.com/user/bnickle3
I am also a Missouri girl addicted to Disney!!!! I wish everyday I was back on the Disney ship! I am sick of all this ICE<SNOW AND COLD!
!! These are hard months for me! I need sunshine
