1-3-04 Western - Day 1

[RKB]

Cast: Me mom, DD 15, DS 10 and family friend Nancy in her own stateroom. First we arrived in Orlando on 1-2-04 and stayed at the Pop Century Resort. We went to the Magic Kingdom which still had holiday crowds. We saw the new Philar Magic 3D show which was good. In the morning we went to the Swan to catch the DCL bus. They handed us a form that asked if any of us had had flu symptoms in the last 72 hours. The answer was no thank goodness! We got on the bus and they started showing the DCL video. Nancy called she was already on the ship. She said that our dining rotation was wrong (we had requested APL) she told me that she was going to fix it - which she did with no problem. We arrived at the terminal around 1:30. While waiting to go in a girl in line vomited. I don’t know if she had the flu or was just sick from the bus ride. I hope that everything worked out for the family. I did not see them again, but they may have been on. We got our photo taken and was announced in. We never could find the photo later at shutters… We found Nancy and went to Parrot Cay to eat lunch. The buffet was not that exciting. We watched to workers cleaning the windows outside. We went to our room 2066 category nine. We loved the split bathroom. Our two Castaway Pins and Beach towel were laying on the bed. No suitcases yet. We went to tour the ship. We had the safety drill. The kids went to the sail away party with Nancy while I unpacked - the suitcases had just been delivered. I found plenty of drawers, etc… I did use the extra hangers that I brought. Hid two suitcases under the bed and two in the closet. We went the 6:30 variety show. We laughed so hard that we had tears streaming down our faces at the ventriloquist act. We changed and went to Animators Palette for late dining. Our table was by the serving stations, but we had made the change on the boat so it may because of the last minute sign up for the table. Servers were friendly, but not overly "Disney" friendly. Nancy ordered lemonade and got sprite. When she asked she was told that they couldn’t get lemonade in the dining room - instead of letting her know right away when she ordered! It was hard through out the trip to get any of our drinks refilled in the dining room - including water. I will tell you about the food in my report since it was something that I was really looking forward to and there must be more people like me out there! From the appetizers at our table this is the order we ranked them in 1st smoked salmon, 2nd lobster wrap, 3rd flat bread with duck and goat cheese. My veal chop with Rissoto was great! Strawberry shortcake was really good. The Head Server brought our tickets over for the Character Breakfast for the next morning. We were too full to dance so we went back to our room. Found that the AC was blasting and we were cold. I turned it to the warmest setting and put a sticky note on the controls to leave it on that setting for the room host to see. My DS went to the gift shop with Nancy, my DD went to check out the Stack - she didn’t know if she would like it - she was then gone until midnight! Back to the room - the bed had been turned down already (no towel animals?!) , but we had wanted twin beds to be made. I found our room host and let him know. I went out to find my DS and Nancy. While I was gone he converted the beds. Still no towel animals - I figured he was really busy with it being the first night. But I did notice that we never had any paper, envelopes, breakfast room service forms, etc… that Nancy had in her room. My DS and I got ready for bed he asked for a drink and I noticed that we had no ice in our bucket. Since we already had on our PJ’s he just drank tap water. Nancy called to tell us that she had a towel animal - a puppy! My DS and I watched out the porthole awhile and saw another cruise ship all lit up - it was very pretty. We decided to go to sleep - we had Character Breakfast and Key West coming up the next morning! Helpful tip - the laundry bag idea is already coming in handy. We just brought a large plastic trash bag with us. I kept it stored under the desk area.

 

[Mjasp]

looking forward to day 2!

 

[Karel]

Every time I see your initials, I laugh, because those are me and my husband's initials.

I enjoyed your first day and will go look for the others to read. I love reading about the food! One little thing though, if you wrote shorter paragraphs instead one big chuck, it would be easier to read. Thanks.