We're back! We had a great time. The weather was perfect, the sea was as smooth as glass. We're at Pop Century now, and we're both exhausted. I can't figure out how doing nothing but eat and sleep for four days can make me so tired!
I'm just going to post the highlights (and lowlights). I'll post some more details and pictures over the weekend. We're going to spend the day tomorrow at Epcot.
On the whole, we loved the ship. It's certainly huge! We thought the attention to detail was great.
We really loved the new Animator's Palette show. Over the weekend I'll tell you the story of how Jim ended up serving coffee to our Head Server (Simone from Italy), our server (Wemick from India) and our Assistant Server (Walter from Italy). It was a riot. We attracted a lot of attention last night in Animator's Palette!
"The District" was amazing. Even though we never actually found time to go there for a drink, we did get lost twice and ended up in there. Once, we couldn't figure out how to get out again, which brings me to my first complaint about the ship. The wayfinding signage isn't very good. There are very few signs giving directions to anywhere, and you're kind of on your own to figure out where you need to be!
Our room was great. We were in a 5D (6076) which was next to the mid-ship elevator. The location was very good, and we enjoyed having the verandah! Once we got used to having to use a card to turn on the lights, we were fine with it. What we didn't think was fine was the air conditioning. It seems to work like the resorts--if there's no movement in the room, it switches to a low-energy mode, which left the room very hot and humid in the middle of the night. I guess the people who thought up this system must be very active sleepers?
Another problem is the wake-up calls. The instructions supplied with the phone don't work. So Jim called Guest Services and asked for a wakeup call. We wanted a wakeup call at 7AM. Not a problem, right? Well, the first call came about five minutes after Jim hung up from Guest Services. He called them and they told him that they were having some trouble getting the system to accept the calls, but all was well and we'd get our call in the morning. Sometime around midnight we got another wakeup call. Fortunately, we hadn't gone to bed! Guest Services apologized (again). We did finally get our call at 7AM!!
In the "What on
EARTH were you thinking?" department--what genius decided that the perfect place for the basketball court is upstairs from Palo and Remy? I can't imagine paying the fee for Remy to sit there and listen to kids playing basketball over their heads during dinner!!!! We had brunch there yesterday. The brunch was wonderful, and the room is absolutely beautiful. However, the continued thumping of the basketballs and running of the kids ruins the peaceful, romantic atmosphere.
And, of course, there's the adult pool area. The pool is definitely much too small (you were right, Wendy!). We were able to use it both times we wanted to, but I think that's because the ship wasn't full. And having families parading through the area all the time really takes away from the "adult only" concept. There were at least two times when families with children had to be asked to leave the pool and the hot tubs. Who thought of putting the adult area right at the forward elevator? Bad decision. On the other hand, we did love the idea that we could look down through the floor of the hot tub and watch people reboarding the ship in Nassau. That was kind of cool.
Overall, it was a great time. In fact, if you look at my ticker, you can see that we had enough fun to rebook for December. And yes, we're doing the Western before, then spending a night at WDW and heading back for the four night! We thought about back-to-back Eastern/Western, but decided we'd rather do it this way and have different restaurants and shows for the second part of our trip!
OK, I'm heading off to sleep now. We want to get an early start since tomorrow will be our only park day!
Beth
Thank you for the link. Great pics! OMG! I can't believe how much Jasmine has grown. What grade is she in this year? 
Jennifer
I hope y'all can travel with us. 
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Bill and I just got back from San Diego for my nephew's USMC Graduation. I still can't believe he is a Marine. He looks so skinny! When he first got to see us on Family Day, he was not very talkative at first. He said he was in shock a bit. He's had someone in his face and yelling at him for three months. After about an hour, he relaxed a bit more and ate like I have never seen him eat before. All the guys were hungry!!! He only got ONE meal during the previous three days of their last exercise called the Crucible. I guess if your Platoon didn't make it in time, you didn't get your one meal for the day. 
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