MrsPotatoHead425
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2011
- Messages
- 245
This was DH and I's first experience with Disney, Disney World, Disney Cruise, cruising in general, going anywhere outside of the U.S., first time to Florida and stepping foot into a beach. A lot of new experiences for sure!
First off, I am an avid Disboards reader, and in fact, over-read and over-planned. That was the one thing I told DH that if anybody asks for my advice, it's to NOT spend months planning (I mean obviously you have to plan dates, cabins, and all that, but I had 2 extra suitcases with nothing but "stuff" that we "may" need from reading all the lists on here, and we never used once)
We went to Disney World for 3 days before our cruise and then decided that our bodies were obviously built for comfort, and not for the Florida humidity, so we only made it to one park (after spending a day touring all the resorts we could possibly tour) so we went to Magic Kingdom per all the recommendations saying that we HAD to go there to get the whole "feeling" of Disney. It was good, Thunder Mountain Railroad was closed, so I was a little disappointed with that, but I knew ahead of time, so I wasn't expecting to ride it anyhow. Thank goodness for fastpass though, because it was amazing!! I just can't understand why people choose to stand in line when they could have gotten fast passes! I do think we'll enjoy the other parks much more, as we are more into rides for the thrill of them, not for the "awww factor" of them, but I'll admit, I cried once I saw the castle, and just happened to catch a show in front of it in the afternoon (had no idea they even had one, so that really worked out great!) The 3D movie was GREAT! Every-time I go to our local theater to watch a 3D movie I get so irritated for having to pay more for the glasses, and honestly, it could have just been a regular movie, but Phillarmagic was exactly what you think of when you hear 3D!
We stayed at Old Key West Resort (rented points from someone we met on another forum who couldn't use them) and it was wonderful, 0 complaints!
The day of our cruise was so exciting. I remember DH yelling as we were crossing the bridge (I can see the ship!!!!!) and I can't ever remember him being so excited, so that will be a lasting memory for me. We parked at Park N Cruise (got the holiday special for $4.99) and pulled in through the building, and was a bit overwhelmed with how fast they were. They immediately took our suitcases, DH paid while I parked, and then I ran back because they were getting ready to leave with the shuttle. I had to "collect" myself once we got to the port terminal because I'm just not used to doing things that fast. (Picture this, here I am, newbie, with my big binder FULL of papers that I've made, facts, maps, emails, reservations, confirmations, the whole 9 yards, and they didn't need anything!!) The ride wasn't that far, and we'll be using them again. OH WAIT!!! We made a new family rule... unless some unforeseen reason, we are NEVER driving to Port Canaveral again!!!! I hated it, and I usually LOVE to drive!!! (In fact I spent most of my time making CD's for the car ride, planning routes, interesting things along the way, etc....and it was miserable!! We drove straight through for 16+ hours taking turns sleeping in the front seat, and I vowed I will NOT be doing this again, but that's a whole other story for another time!)
Our first thoughts of the ship were that it was beautiful (I love the look of the older ships, not into the new fan-dangled paint jobs some have, I love the beauty of a regal classic ship, which Disney does very well!) and it was a lot bigger than I imagined! (Again, reading how small the Magic was compared to other ships, and how old it was and how much it needs to be repaired, I was expecting to be disgusted.. well I've never been in anything bigger than a flat-bottomed fishing boat, so it was huge!!!!!)
Our stateroom was great! We have heard so many people say that they will never stay in an inside cabin because they need a view/window/more space, so I was expecting some rinky-dink room, but it was the total opposite. We were in room 6019 which was a sideways room (which I have a feeling helps a lot) and our room was very clean and spacious, and I never remember thinking "Gee, I wish I had a window!" because in all honesty, we were hardly ever in our room except to sleep in! (Note here, I bought a bunch of light/glow sticks to hang everywhere after reading how dark it is so we'd be able to see, and didn't even take them out of the package, because we just turned the TV onto that channel that shows the stars and then changes to the cam on the bridge) Our stateroom host was wonderful, and DH thought the towel animals were the funniest thing ever.
Dining was great. We didn't go to Palo, because we couldn't find anything on the menu that even sounded good (we are southern people here, your basic meat and potato type people, and we don't eat fish, so that cut out half of the menu there) I wasn't thrilled with the pirate night menu, and there were a couple of things I didn't care for, but there were several things I had never tried before (lamb, duck, etc) that I fell in love with. DH keeps telling me since we got back that he's ready for his 3 course meal and he needs his bed turned down with a navigator and chocolate every night.... needless to say, that ain't happening.
I will say that apparently Disney tries to "pair" people to sit with. Statistically, my husband and I fit into the party goer, wild young crowd. We were sat with another couple who had been married 2 years (that took 2 nights to figure out, because they didn't speak english) and 2 girls (cousins) who just wanted to go to a topless beach somewhere and who apparently met every single guy they could on the ship. My DH and I have been married for over 8 years, and I know we haven't experienced everything, but we've been through a lot, and are just more mature than most people our age (everyone at the table was the same age except my DH, he was the oldest teehee) so while we didn't "not" like it, we would have enjoyed sitting with older couples (we met several of those throughout the trip and enjoyed every minute of it, just like we do here at home!) or even a family much much much much more! In fact, I'm going to request next time to consider placing us with an older couple or a family, and we'll see what happens.
The shows and entertainment I'm kind of 50/50 with this review. The evening shows were okay. I'm probably going to get shot here, but I didn't really care that much for Villians Tonight
. Disney Dreams was my favorite 
. I loved Alfred and Seymour (the preview show the first night and the adults only show were wonderful, but by the time the family show came around, we had basically heard everything before, so it wasn't as funny. Still funny, just not the same deep belly laugh as before.)
We did a lot of the game shows, tastings, etc. throughout the days and found some of them were so corny, you couldn't even make yourself laugh. We went to "A Pirates Life For Me" game show on pirate night, and honestly, the girl who was leading it acted like she was drunk (I know she was trying to act dumb, and she succeeded, but it was like "really???") There were a lot of things we didn't get to do (to many choices!!) and we hope to do next time. The tastings were great! I would have never imagined you got that much alcohol at the tastings but WOW! We did the Tequila and Margarita tasting and then the Martini tasting. If I would have drank everything even just out of one tasting, I would have came out absolutely wasted. I can't imagine how I would have been after doing two in a row!
Customer Service was good. I would say great, but I'm still irritated at Elicia from the U.S. who works at the guest services desk. We were cash payers, and had bought a disney gift card to use for our account. It was for $400. We went as soon as we boarded the ship the first day to put the card on our account. Jazar is the person who swiped our card and added it to our account (he's the manager, fyi.) so on day 3, we decided we should go check our balances on everything.. and it showed we owed... a LOT. So we ask, where is our $400 DGC? They had no idea what we were talking about. So we go upstairs to our room to find a paper about it, and realized we didn't get one. So we go up to the top deck to make a phone call to the 800 number on back of the card (THANK GOODNESS we kept the card!) and she confirmed what we did. We went back to guest services, and they said they couldn't figure out what happened, and there was nothing that we could do.
Elicia, comforted me by telling me that i needed to relax because "money comes, and money goes". I'm not even going to start on this, because it raises my blood pressure.
Needless to say, we got the issue resolved with another lady, and she was very helpful, and discovered that Jazar had put our $400 on someone else's account, and that had we not kept the card, we would have just been out $400. Jazar then sent us a bottle of wine to our room with a card that said Happy Anniversary, so I'm not sure if we got that for our anniversary, or for an apology (we didn't put on our reservations that we were celebrating our anniversary, but we were, so i'm not really sure) we also got a voicemail message thing from him apologizing.
Key West Just to sum this up quickly, if we go there again, we'll be staying on the ship.
Nassau was wonderful. We did the Discover Atlantis tour through Disney (I can imagine it wouldn't have been as wonderful if we did stuff on our own like we did in Key West) We had an amazing time in the aquarium and I had the most memorable moment I'll probably keep for a lifetime there with a Manta Ray. We set a limit to gamble with (because it's easy to get carried away) just to say that we played there. We did see a guy win $8K though, and that was pretty fun to watch, he was so shocked! I'd do that tour again, but next time, I'll be wearing tennis shoes. Kids would love this tour and the aquarium, and I highly recommend spending the extra money to do it through Disney to not have to worry about things.
Castaway Cay AMAZING. Everything I thought it was going to be, it was! I've only seen the ocean at Virginia Beach and it was brown. I couldn't believe how blue the water was here!!! I went in shoulder deep and then a fish came about 2-3 inches from me, so I screamed, grabbed DH and got out as fast as I could, and then I was done. Yes yes, I have a fear of fish (I know, the ocean is NOT the place to be!) but I had to go in and experience it. We never made it to the adults only side (I know this is probably odd, but we don't have children, and we have always wanted some, but I have some issues that haven't allowed that to happen.. and I love being around them, I work with them, I enjoy being around families, and that's one of the main reasons we chose Disney to begin with, whereas a lot of people who have kids, wished they could go to the adults only beach lol) But I enjoyed DH burying my feet in the sand, sipping Konk Koolers, listening to the tropical disney music playing in the background, and just enjoying the environment. I can't wait to go back there again.
Shutters and Photography So I learned to take my camera so that the attendants can take the same photos of us with the characters, but I also will note that even though I zoomed in to the setting I wanted them to take it, they zoomed out everytime, so of course, their pictures looked better, so of course, we spent lots of $$ buying them. VERY busy place the last night!!
We were also warned to tie bright things on our suitcases because the big warehouses are terrible and it takes forever to find your luggage...so here we go, hot pink ribbon tied on our suitcases, other kinds of ribbon tied on them, the color coded tags they give you tied on, I was just ready for anything. We walked off the ship, walked right up to our organized luggage, and left.
My biggest things I learned on this trip is the following:
#1: Don't go if you can't fly (I know this isn't for everyone, but for us, that's it, unless it's out of Galveston or New Orleans or something.)
#2: Quit reading so much and planning so much and just go with the flow! I spent more time stressing over things that once we got on the ship, and I realized how much time I actually wasted, I was so disappointed!! I got all of our clothes into 1 suitcase. 1 suitcase!!! I worked so hard on that!! 2 outfits a day per person, plus extra just in case, and I got it all into 1 suitcase! I can't wait for next time because we won't have hardly any luggage at all because I'm not taking all that extra junk!!)
#3: Keep every paper, every card, and every receipt!
#4: Relax and have a magical cruise! You can't do it all, so don't even try!
We rebooked a dummy date for another cruise (although I don't have a receipt for that, and still haven't gotten an email about it..., and we can't wait to go. We are looking at other cruise lines also (we want to try them all and compare... well we aren't sure if we want to try Carnival or not because it seems like it's a "wild" line) but so far every day since we've gotten back home, I've looked for cruise dates/prices/etc.
First off, I am an avid Disboards reader, and in fact, over-read and over-planned. That was the one thing I told DH that if anybody asks for my advice, it's to NOT spend months planning (I mean obviously you have to plan dates, cabins, and all that, but I had 2 extra suitcases with nothing but "stuff" that we "may" need from reading all the lists on here, and we never used once)
We went to Disney World for 3 days before our cruise and then decided that our bodies were obviously built for comfort, and not for the Florida humidity, so we only made it to one park (after spending a day touring all the resorts we could possibly tour) so we went to Magic Kingdom per all the recommendations saying that we HAD to go there to get the whole "feeling" of Disney. It was good, Thunder Mountain Railroad was closed, so I was a little disappointed with that, but I knew ahead of time, so I wasn't expecting to ride it anyhow. Thank goodness for fastpass though, because it was amazing!! I just can't understand why people choose to stand in line when they could have gotten fast passes! I do think we'll enjoy the other parks much more, as we are more into rides for the thrill of them, not for the "awww factor" of them, but I'll admit, I cried once I saw the castle, and just happened to catch a show in front of it in the afternoon (had no idea they even had one, so that really worked out great!) The 3D movie was GREAT! Every-time I go to our local theater to watch a 3D movie I get so irritated for having to pay more for the glasses, and honestly, it could have just been a regular movie, but Phillarmagic was exactly what you think of when you hear 3D!
We stayed at Old Key West Resort (rented points from someone we met on another forum who couldn't use them) and it was wonderful, 0 complaints!
The day of our cruise was so exciting. I remember DH yelling as we were crossing the bridge (I can see the ship!!!!!) and I can't ever remember him being so excited, so that will be a lasting memory for me. We parked at Park N Cruise (got the holiday special for $4.99) and pulled in through the building, and was a bit overwhelmed with how fast they were. They immediately took our suitcases, DH paid while I parked, and then I ran back because they were getting ready to leave with the shuttle. I had to "collect" myself once we got to the port terminal because I'm just not used to doing things that fast. (Picture this, here I am, newbie, with my big binder FULL of papers that I've made, facts, maps, emails, reservations, confirmations, the whole 9 yards, and they didn't need anything!!) The ride wasn't that far, and we'll be using them again. OH WAIT!!! We made a new family rule... unless some unforeseen reason, we are NEVER driving to Port Canaveral again!!!! I hated it, and I usually LOVE to drive!!! (In fact I spent most of my time making CD's for the car ride, planning routes, interesting things along the way, etc....and it was miserable!! We drove straight through for 16+ hours taking turns sleeping in the front seat, and I vowed I will NOT be doing this again, but that's a whole other story for another time!)
Our first thoughts of the ship were that it was beautiful (I love the look of the older ships, not into the new fan-dangled paint jobs some have, I love the beauty of a regal classic ship, which Disney does very well!) and it was a lot bigger than I imagined! (Again, reading how small the Magic was compared to other ships, and how old it was and how much it needs to be repaired, I was expecting to be disgusted.. well I've never been in anything bigger than a flat-bottomed fishing boat, so it was huge!!!!!)
Our stateroom was great! We have heard so many people say that they will never stay in an inside cabin because they need a view/window/more space, so I was expecting some rinky-dink room, but it was the total opposite. We were in room 6019 which was a sideways room (which I have a feeling helps a lot) and our room was very clean and spacious, and I never remember thinking "Gee, I wish I had a window!" because in all honesty, we were hardly ever in our room except to sleep in! (Note here, I bought a bunch of light/glow sticks to hang everywhere after reading how dark it is so we'd be able to see, and didn't even take them out of the package, because we just turned the TV onto that channel that shows the stars and then changes to the cam on the bridge) Our stateroom host was wonderful, and DH thought the towel animals were the funniest thing ever.
Dining was great. We didn't go to Palo, because we couldn't find anything on the menu that even sounded good (we are southern people here, your basic meat and potato type people, and we don't eat fish, so that cut out half of the menu there) I wasn't thrilled with the pirate night menu, and there were a couple of things I didn't care for, but there were several things I had never tried before (lamb, duck, etc) that I fell in love with. DH keeps telling me since we got back that he's ready for his 3 course meal and he needs his bed turned down with a navigator and chocolate every night.... needless to say, that ain't happening.
I will say that apparently Disney tries to "pair" people to sit with. Statistically, my husband and I fit into the party goer, wild young crowd. We were sat with another couple who had been married 2 years (that took 2 nights to figure out, because they didn't speak english) and 2 girls (cousins) who just wanted to go to a topless beach somewhere and who apparently met every single guy they could on the ship. My DH and I have been married for over 8 years, and I know we haven't experienced everything, but we've been through a lot, and are just more mature than most people our age (everyone at the table was the same age except my DH, he was the oldest teehee) so while we didn't "not" like it, we would have enjoyed sitting with older couples (we met several of those throughout the trip and enjoyed every minute of it, just like we do here at home!) or even a family much much much much more! In fact, I'm going to request next time to consider placing us with an older couple or a family, and we'll see what happens.
The shows and entertainment I'm kind of 50/50 with this review. The evening shows were okay. I'm probably going to get shot here, but I didn't really care that much for Villians Tonight
. Disney Dreams was my favorite . I loved Alfred and Seymour (the preview show the first night and the adults only show were wonderful, but by the time the family show came around, we had basically heard everything before, so it wasn't as funny. Still funny, just not the same deep belly laugh as before.) We did a lot of the game shows, tastings, etc. throughout the days and found some of them were so corny, you couldn't even make yourself laugh. We went to "A Pirates Life For Me" game show on pirate night, and honestly, the girl who was leading it acted like she was drunk (I know she was trying to act dumb, and she succeeded, but it was like "really???") There were a lot of things we didn't get to do (to many choices!!) and we hope to do next time. The tastings were great! I would have never imagined you got that much alcohol at the tastings but WOW! We did the Tequila and Margarita tasting and then the Martini tasting. If I would have drank everything even just out of one tasting, I would have came out absolutely wasted. I can't imagine how I would have been after doing two in a row!
Customer Service was good. I would say great, but I'm still irritated at Elicia from the U.S. who works at the guest services desk. We were cash payers, and had bought a disney gift card to use for our account. It was for $400. We went as soon as we boarded the ship the first day to put the card on our account. Jazar is the person who swiped our card and added it to our account (he's the manager, fyi.) so on day 3, we decided we should go check our balances on everything.. and it showed we owed... a LOT. So we ask, where is our $400 DGC? They had no idea what we were talking about. So we go upstairs to our room to find a paper about it, and realized we didn't get one. So we go up to the top deck to make a phone call to the 800 number on back of the card (THANK GOODNESS we kept the card!) and she confirmed what we did. We went back to guest services, and they said they couldn't figure out what happened, and there was nothing that we could do.
Elicia, comforted me by telling me that i needed to relax because "money comes, and money goes". I'm not even going to start on this, because it raises my blood pressure.
Needless to say, we got the issue resolved with another lady, and she was very helpful, and discovered that Jazar had put our $400 on someone else's account, and that had we not kept the card, we would have just been out $400. Jazar then sent us a bottle of wine to our room with a card that said Happy Anniversary, so I'm not sure if we got that for our anniversary, or for an apology (we didn't put on our reservations that we were celebrating our anniversary, but we were, so i'm not really sure) we also got a voicemail message thing from him apologizing.
Key West Just to sum this up quickly, if we go there again, we'll be staying on the ship.
Nassau was wonderful. We did the Discover Atlantis tour through Disney (I can imagine it wouldn't have been as wonderful if we did stuff on our own like we did in Key West) We had an amazing time in the aquarium and I had the most memorable moment I'll probably keep for a lifetime there with a Manta Ray. We set a limit to gamble with (because it's easy to get carried away) just to say that we played there. We did see a guy win $8K though, and that was pretty fun to watch, he was so shocked! I'd do that tour again, but next time, I'll be wearing tennis shoes. Kids would love this tour and the aquarium, and I highly recommend spending the extra money to do it through Disney to not have to worry about things.
Castaway Cay AMAZING. Everything I thought it was going to be, it was! I've only seen the ocean at Virginia Beach and it was brown. I couldn't believe how blue the water was here!!! I went in shoulder deep and then a fish came about 2-3 inches from me, so I screamed, grabbed DH and got out as fast as I could, and then I was done. Yes yes, I have a fear of fish (I know, the ocean is NOT the place to be!) but I had to go in and experience it. We never made it to the adults only side (I know this is probably odd, but we don't have children, and we have always wanted some, but I have some issues that haven't allowed that to happen.. and I love being around them, I work with them, I enjoy being around families, and that's one of the main reasons we chose Disney to begin with, whereas a lot of people who have kids, wished they could go to the adults only beach lol) But I enjoyed DH burying my feet in the sand, sipping Konk Koolers, listening to the tropical disney music playing in the background, and just enjoying the environment. I can't wait to go back there again.
Shutters and Photography So I learned to take my camera so that the attendants can take the same photos of us with the characters, but I also will note that even though I zoomed in to the setting I wanted them to take it, they zoomed out everytime, so of course, their pictures looked better, so of course, we spent lots of $$ buying them. VERY busy place the last night!!
We were also warned to tie bright things on our suitcases because the big warehouses are terrible and it takes forever to find your luggage...so here we go, hot pink ribbon tied on our suitcases, other kinds of ribbon tied on them, the color coded tags they give you tied on, I was just ready for anything. We walked off the ship, walked right up to our organized luggage, and left.
My biggest things I learned on this trip is the following:
#1: Don't go if you can't fly (I know this isn't for everyone, but for us, that's it, unless it's out of Galveston or New Orleans or something.)
#2: Quit reading so much and planning so much and just go with the flow! I spent more time stressing over things that once we got on the ship, and I realized how much time I actually wasted, I was so disappointed!! I got all of our clothes into 1 suitcase. 1 suitcase!!! I worked so hard on that!! 2 outfits a day per person, plus extra just in case, and I got it all into 1 suitcase! I can't wait for next time because we won't have hardly any luggage at all because I'm not taking all that extra junk!!)
#3: Keep every paper, every card, and every receipt!
#4: Relax and have a magical cruise! You can't do it all, so don't even try!
We rebooked a dummy date for another cruise (although I don't have a receipt for that, and still haven't gotten an email about it..., and we can't wait to go. We are looking at other cruise lines also (we want to try them all and compare... well we aren't sure if we want to try Carnival or not because it seems like it's a "wild" line) but so far every day since we've gotten back home, I've looked for cruise dates/prices/etc.
! And we're a bit older, even! Celebrating 20 years in July! We are "boring" - don't drink, don't smoke, and tend to go to bed early. But hey that's who we are! 
