2nd Anniversary + 2nd Chances = Our 2nd Cruise! 7/20 NEWS!!

[croppincolburn]

We stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort. It is nice but spread out. There is more than one pool. Food can be far away. I don't have DVC. Can you stay there? I'd consider an ocean view stateroom. Good luck when you go to make your reservations!

 

[pmama]

Enjoying your PTR. One suggestion I have is that if you find the category you are interested you save it on the DCL website. They will save your category and cruise for I think 10-15 days. You can then book and have 5 days to pay your deposit.

 

[ariel1025]

Loving it so far! My 2 cents - cruising DCL without a verandah is not like cruising other lines without a verandah. While we could not live without it on any other line on Disney we can be just as happy in an oceanview. I do need to ask about the Beach Club Club level picture.....is that recently? We stayed CL there last April and it looks bigger and a bit different. Would love to know if they have refurbished it. Thanks and cant wait to hear more!

From what I've read the Beach Club CL has been refurbished. I got the picture off of allears, but when I was reading the thread about Beach Club on the resorts board it stated it was re-done.

Thanks for the feedback about the ocean view

We stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort. It is nice but spread out. There is more than one pool. Food can be far away. I don't have DVC. Can you stay there? I'd consider an ocean view stateroom. Good luck when you go to make your reservations!

On DVC you can actually stay there but it's not a good value for points. However, we aren't using our points to stay since we will be out of points for the year from the cruise. We will be paying in cash and a moderate is the most we can afford

Enjoying your PTR. One suggestion I have is that if you find the category you are interested you save it on the DCL website. They will save your category and cruise for I think 10-15 days. You can then book and have 5 days to pay your deposit.

Thank you for joining and thank you SO much for the suggestion I will definitely keep that in mind for the future!

 

[ariel1025]

Our first "land day" of the cruise will be at Castaway Cay - which we LOVED last time!

The itinerary has us docking at Castaway Cay at 8:30 am, but don't have any real plans for this day as far as excursions or anything go. The plan is to sleep until our "internal alarm clocks" wake us up and then grab some food. If we wake up early we will get breakfast - either at the buffet or if one of the sit-down restaurants is open we will go there. Then again, maybe we will just order room service If it is too late to eat breakfast, we will grab a quick snack to hold us over until lunch time.

We will definitely put aside some time for snorkeling

However, since we are going to be going to Castaway Cay twice we decided it was a better value for us to buy our own snorkel gear. It comes out to slightly more than renting the gear twice, but this way it will be ours and we will have it for future cruises <-- look at that positive thinking Plus, I'm a little weird when it comes to putting my feet into something that somebody else's feet were already in. I know they clean them and all, but feet just weird me out

I have been looking around for the best deal and I am madly in love with this set

It's SO pretty!! And don't worry - it comes in blue for Candi

We are also thinking about renting an aquatrike sometime during the day as well. I think they look super fun - plus we can get a little bit closer to

We are both HUGE fans of the "Pirates" movies, so this is cool to us in the "we are such great big dorks" sort of way

Whenever we get hungry we will grab lunch from Cookie's or the food place at the adults only beach.

Which leads me to the second area ya'll can help me with - Is there a difference in the food they serve at the two food places on Castaway Cay?

It looks like we are scheduled to leave Castaway Cay at 4:30 pm which gives us a pretty full day there. However, we do not have any other plans here. The "non-plan" is to relax and hang out all day, doing whatever sounds good at the moment.

Of course, we will be having dinner that night. Possibly at Tritons??

This was Candi's least favorite restaurant the last time, he didn't mind the food but he always thought it had a weird smell in there. We ate there twice and he said it was there both times, but to be honest, I really don't remember.

Other than dinner I'm not sure what we will be doing this night. Some options (which are also some repeats of cruise day one) are:

* Playing a game of BINGO
* Watching a movie in the theater
* Ordering a bunch of yummy snacks from room service and hanging out on the verandah (if we decide to get one)
* DVC presentation (if there is one) <-- I am hoping they will be showing the new Hawaii resort and its progress

And that pretty much sums up Day 2! No real plans, no worries, no cares!!!

Magical Memory Of The Day:

Have a great night everyone!!!

 

[disneydawgs4]

....we will be on the same cruise as you guys and we will be staying at Beach Club before as well! How cool! We have never stayed there either, we are stuck on the Polynesian, but are looking forward to something different.
Our DS and myself will be celebrating our birthdays as well. how fun! May is a great month! Look forward to reading more of your plans and hope you got the stateroom you wanted on the cruise!

 

[ariel1025]

....we will be on the same cruise as you guys and we will be staying at Beach Club before as well! How cool! We have never stayed there either, we are stuck on the Polynesian, but are looking forward to something different.
Our DS and myself will be celebrating our birthdays as well. how fun! May is a great month! Look forward to reading more of your plans and hope you got the stateroom you wanted on the cruise!

Well you know what they say .... "great minds think alike" We figured that the Beach Club was the perfect pre-cruise hotel

 

[ariel1025]

Ya'll remember this little list right?

Mickey Boat To Do List:

1. Book the Cruise <-- yeah, yeah, I know, but we went over this 'member?
2. Book our night at Beach Club
3. Decide if we are going to go Club Level or not
4. Make breakfast reservation at Cape May if needed
5. Find out what time the Cruise bus will pick us up
6. Make our budget
7. Put the rest of the money in savings
8. Book flight to Orlando
9. Book flight home
10. Book one night at AKL value studio with DVC points for night after cruise
11. Buy Passporters Disney Cruise book
12. Make packing list <-- yep, I am so sick that I put "make a list" on my "to do list"
13. Get swimsuit ready AKA lose weight (Candi goal: 30 pounds; Shanz goal: 15 pounds)
14. Start back up on Weight Watchers!!
15. Candi - get time off request approved <-- minor detail right
16. Cancel previous trip
17. Cancel previous meal reservations
18. Give A Day, Get A Day volunteer opportunity <-- park ticket for day AFTER cruise
19. Get answers to all my cruise questions <-- that's where ya'll can help me out
20. Change name on passport (haven't done it since we got married )
21. SHOPPING - after we meet goal weight, or come as close as possible
22. Buy Disney gift cards in the amount of our excursions <-- foolproof way that we will definitely have that money - no chance of money drama this time!!
23. Book excursions
24. Book Palo reservations <-- hoping for dinner and brunch
25. Make Magnets for stateroom door
26. Book room at CSR for after the cruise
27. Book cruise bus to and from hotels

Alright, alright - it looks just a tad different. That's because - WE GOT SOME STUFF ACCOMPLISHED

Let's take a look shall we? I mean, I know ya'll are dying to know the details. Ok, Ok, maybe not, but it sure does make me feel good

1. Book the cruise - Checked that off of the list as of this morning! They did not have the category 7 we were crossing our fingers for. However, they quoted me for the category 6 and it only came out to $80 more - SAY WHAT???? Yep, I booked that baby right up! Online it was a difference of $300!

3. Decide if we are going to do Club Level or not - Welp, we kept going back and forth on it and in the end we decided it wasn't worth the money. We love the idea of feeling all VIP, but the money saved will go towards upgrading our park tickets to park hoppers for our one day after the cruise. We have nicknamed that portion of our vacation "Around The World In A Day"

4. Make breakfast reservation at Cape May if needed - Since we are not doing the Club Level we decided to go ahead and make a breakfast reservation. In the honor of "relaxing and taking it easy" the reservation is not until 10 am. Hold on, hold on ... don't we have to board the cruise boat around that time? Oh yeah, did I forget to mention we are now arriving TWO days before the cruise Now, I know what ya'll are thinking - a repeat of the tiring honeymoon fiasco. Don't worry - it's not. We still are not going to the parks before the cruise and it's only because the flight is priced at a whole lot cheaper for the day before we planned on leaving. So our Cape May reservation is actually for the morning BEFORE the cruise. For the day of the cruise we are just going to grab something easy at the quick service place!

10. Book one night at AKL value studio with DVC points for night after cruise - Ok, this isn't actually done but has to be crossed off. Since we upgraded one category for the cruise we no longer have enough points to do this

13. Get swimsuit ready AKA lose weight (Candi goal: 30 pounds; Shanz goal: 15 pounds) - Although not completely done I am proud to say that I have lost 3 pounds and that only leaves 12 to go. Candi on the other hand has lost 10 pounds

14. Start back up on Weight Watchers!! - This would be the reason we have lost the weight we have. Though I will admit we haven't be completely faithful to it and tend to "fall off the bandwagon" on the weekend

16. Cancel previous trip
17. Cancel previous meal reservations - Both were completed while booking the cruise!

22. Buy Disney gift cards in the amount of our excursions <-- foolproof way that we will definitely have that money - no chance of money drama this time!! - Ok, also not completely done - still waiting on that winning lottery ticket However, I have purchased a gift card to cover renting both the kayak and the aquatrike

25. Make Magnets for stateroom door
26. Book room at CSR for after the cruise
27. Book cruise bus to and from hotels

These are all things that I have now added to my "to do" list. I have started saving graphics that I like for our cruise magnets but I need to print them. A great big thanks to all the talented people on the cruise magnet design thread

Whew - I must say I feel quite proud of myself and very accomplished

Magical Memory Of The Day:

Doesn't it just scream Disney?

I will probably be back later today to do another update for our day at Nassau. If not, I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!!

 

[ariel1025]

Our Second port of Call is Nassau. According the current itinerary we are scheduled to arrive at 9:30 am.

We are actually planning on booking an excursion for this day so I'm not sure what time we will have to wake-up. I still have a little less than a month before I can book our excursions and it's driving me crazy

If you recall, I mentioned that on our honeymoon we had an absolutely horrible time at Nassau. We had booked the historical tour at the request of my Husband - he is a major history guy! Leading up to the trip we were super excited about this particular excursion. It promised a visit to castles and forts and Queens staircase and much more. Well, we did visit the queens staircase and one castle and one fort ... however, upon visiting these sites we rushed through them in 15 minutes or less and then dropped off at various flea markets for 30 or more minutes at the end of each stop. Needless to say we were fuming mad by the end

This year our only plan is to go visit Atlantis on Paradise Island

At the top of the fort we visited this was our view and we wished more than anything that we would have been there instead.

We are currently trying to decide between these three excursions:

* Atlantis Aquaventure - includes a guided tour of the aquarium, a wristband for access to the awesome looking waterpark and transportation to and from the port ($160.00 per person)

* Atlantis Beach Day - tickets to the aquarium w/o a tour guide, voucher for lunch and transportation to and from the port ($82.00 per person)

*Discover Atlantis - guided tour of the aquarium and transportation to and from the port ($52.00 per person)

With each of these excursions you also have the opportunity to visit the beach, the shops, the casino etc.

Here's where the dilemma comes into play. I am a HUGE fan of waterparks - love 'em, can't get enough of 'em. however, $160 per person OUCH - that hurts the wallet a bit. So, that is causing us to reconsider the Aquaventure excursion. Then there's the beach day, which is what we are more leaning towards right now. We love the idea of the aquarium being "self guided." As noted earlier, I don't like being told how long to spend where and what to look at. Plus, it kills a wanna be photographer like myself to not be able to take as many pictures as my heart desires before moving on The last option, Discover Atlantis, we of course like because it is the least expensive. However, we once again are stuck with the aquarium being a guided tour

Help again please - anybody ever done any of these excursions? What are your thoughts? Any pictures you can share? Thanks!

It appears that we are docked in Nassau until 7:00 pm, so that gives us a good, solid day there. I'm not sure how long we will spend on Paradise Island, but the plan is to go back to the ship after we are bored there. It looks like there are plenty of shops and such there so I don't think it will be necessary to hit any of the shops on the "main island."

Once we return to the ship, the plans are same as before. Decide what we feel like doing and go from there. Since, we now know that we definitely will have a verandah I think some room service while watching the sunset and ocean pass by are definitely in order Might hit up some late night activities since the next day will be a sea day and we can most definitely sleep in.

 

[pmama]

Yeah for booking the cruise. Sounds like your plans are really coming together.

 

[DisneyCruiser83]

Great report so far! I would have gone for the verandah, too. Great choice! For Atlantis what you can do is, rent a room at the Comfort Inn and Suites. It is less expensive than the Disney excursion, and you get full access to the waterpark, aquarium, beaches, etc. There is more information under the FAQ sticky on the main page. Just scroll down to excursions; Nassau. I think you asked before what time the Disney busses get to port... it's around 1PM. You will get there and pretty much walk right on the ship!

 

[Eshlyn]

I think we'll be on the same cruise as you, Wonder May 30th-June 4th Double Dip. Enjoying your PTR (you're to do list is longer than mine) Look forward to meeting the two of you.

 

[Fellow Passholder]

A clever way to save some $$ is if you can find another couple to split the cost of the room at the Comfort Inn. They will let you get up to 4 wristbands per room. Have a great trip!

 

[ariel1025]

Yeah for booking the cruise. Sounds like your plans are really coming together.

Thank you Now it feels real and WAY too far away

Great report so far! I would have gone for the verandah, too. Great choice! For Atlantis what you can do is, rent a room at the Comfort Inn and Suites. It is less expensive than the Disney excursion, and you get full access to the waterpark, aquarium, beaches, etc. There is more information under the FAQ sticky on the main page. Just scroll down to excursions; Nassau. I think you asked before what time the Disney busses get to port... it's around 1PM. You will get there and pretty much walk right on the ship!

Thank you so much for the advice about booking at Comfort Inn. I checked and right now the rates are a little high, but I will keep checking back

I think we'll be on the same cruise as you, Wonder May 30th-June 4th Double Dip. Enjoying your PTR (you're to do list is longer than mine) Look forward to meeting the two of you.

I just realized I never actually posted the dates of our cruise But, yes, we will be on the same cruise as you

A clever way to save some $$ is if you can find another couple to split the cost of the room at the Comfort Inn. They will let you get up to 4 wristbands per room. Have a great trip!

Excellent recommendation, thank you

 

[ariel1025]

Well, not really anything to follow-up on as far as the Mickey Boat To Do list. Trust me, I tried really hard to buy the Passporter, but absolutely nobody has it in stock. Even online it's backordered for 4-6 weeks and I'm too impatient to wait that long. I did go to the passporter website and found some free sample pages, which of course only made me want the book more

Oh, and got some great news about our room after the cruise. I was on the resorts board getting myself excited about our 2 hotels for this trip and saw the most magical sentence ever. While going through reading posts I saw that someone had posted that Disney extended it's percentage off deal for room only reservations. I immediately went to the Disney website and saw that this is true. I must say though, Disney was a little sneaky with this, only putting one small link to the extended discounts So big thanks to the person who posted this, otherwise, I'm not sure if I would have seen it! We still haven't booked the room yet, but when we do it will save us $75

Other than that, no updates on the "to do" list.

We have also made some changes at the start of our trip since we added an extra day. We are still staying at the Beach Club and we still are not going to add the Club Level, although I am crossing my fingers for an upgrade However, we now need "plans" for the new first day.

The flight we are planning on taking doesn't arrive until early evening so the only thing we needed to decide was on dinner plans. After talking it over we made a reservation at 'Ohanas.

We wanted to eat here on our last two trips, but couldn't ever get a reservation. I was positive that we wouldn't have any luck on this trip either since the ADRs went back to 180 days. But, when I logged on to check there was a reservation available for 9:45 I know that seems kinda late, but that's only 7:45 here at home. Plus, since we aren't arriving until the evening, I didn't want a reservation that was too early anyway. I didn't want us to feel like we had to rush to get ready and lose the "relaxation" feeling this vacation is meant for. Plus, we want to head over to the Polynesian early to roam around. We have begun to fall in love with the resort and don't mind spending some time there. The plan is to roam the grounds for a little while

and then grab a spot on the beach to watch Wishes that night. We thought it would super romantic and a great way to start the vacation. Plus, it works out perfect, Wishes is scheduled to start at 9:00 and then we can go check in for our reservation afterwards. Oh, I also want to go to the Tambu Lounge and get a Lapu Lapu. I am also going to try to get Candi to order a backscratcher because I heard they actually put a back scratcher in the drink and we have an inside joke about them

After dinner I am sure we will go back to the room and get a good night's rest. We have the Cape May breakfast scheduled for 10:00, but we aren't setting the alarm clock. If we wake up then we wake up and if we don't then we don't

For the rest of (what is now) day two we are planning on spending a chunk of the day at Stormalong Bay

I'm sure we will rent some rafts and float along the lazy river - Anybody know how much it cost to rent the rafts? - as well as hit the slide about a zillion times!!! Whenever we get hungry we will go in and clean up and grab a meal at Beachs & Cream Somewhere in the middle I'm sure we will take a nap and then we want to go over to the Boardwalk and roam around before dinner. Dinner that night is still at Fulton's and we will either grab a create your own treat at Goofys for dessert or head over to the Boardwalk bakery for dessert. That night I'm sure it will be super hard to sleep because the next day we leave for our cruise

 

[Jennifer48]

Just found your PTR and loving it!

I just want to say that you do not sound like an ungrateful brat, you know why? Because you are taking a shot at a 2nd chance and I love that.

Sounds great so far!

 

[DisneyCruiser83]

I don't think the passporter comes out until April, so you may have to wait a little more for it.
I love your plans so far, I have always wanted to both eat at O'hanas, and stay at the Beach Club, so I can't wait to read your reports!
I hope things are going well for you.

 

[4 mickey]

just love love your PTR
I'm hook and look forward to the rest of your PTR & TR

 

[ariel1025]

Just found your PTR and loving it!

I just want to say that you do not sound like an ungrateful brat, you know why? Because you are taking a shot at a 2nd chance and I love that.

Sounds great so far!

Thank you so much

I don't think the passporter comes out until April, so you may have to wait a little more for it.
I love your plans so far, I have always wanted to both eat at O'hanas, and stay at the Beach Club, so I can't wait to read your reports!
I hope things are going well for you.

April???? This does not work for an over obsessive planner like myself Hmmm...maybe I'll check out the library for last years edition

just love love your PTR
I'm hook and look forward to the rest of your PTR & TR

Thank you very much!!

 

[ariel1025]

Not a whole lot to report on but there is one very important announcement

WE ARE DOING THE DOUBLE DIGIT DANCE ONLY 95 DAYS TO GO!!!!!

There are also some small changes to the Mickey Boat To Do List ......

2. Book our night at Beach Club
5. Find out what time the Cruise bus will pick us up
6. Make our budget
7. Put the rest of the money in savings
8. Book flight to Orlando
9. Book flight home
11. Buy Passporters Disney Cruise book
12. Make packing list <-- yep, I am so sick that I put "make a list" on my "to do list"
13. Get swimsuit ready AKA lose weight (Candi goal: 30 pounds; Shanz goal: 15 pounds)
14. Start back up on Weight Watchers!!
15. Candi - get time off request approved <-- minor detail right
18. Give A Day, Get A Day volunteer opportunity <-- park ticket for day AFTER cruise
19. Get answers to all my cruise questions <-- that's where ya'll can help me out
20. Change name on passport (haven't done it since we got married )
21. SHOPPING - after we meet goal weight, or come as close as possible
22. Buy Disney gift cards in the amount of our excursions <-- foolproof way that we will definitely have that money - no chance of money drama this time!!
23. Book excursions
24. Book Palo reservations <-- hoping for dinner and brunch
25. Make Magnets for stateroom door
26. Book room at CSR for after the cruise
27. Book cruise bus to and from hotels
28. Order bottled water package

As always, the highlighted ones mean there is some progress Let's have a little look ...

13. Get swimsuit ready AKA lose weight (Candi goal: 30 pounds; Shanz goal: 15 pounds) - I am proud to say that I have now lost 6 pounds and Candi is down 12!!!!

14. Start back up on Weight Watchers!! - This has been an ongoing battle. We have both been sick and it's been hard to get back on track since we started feeling better. Anybody else snack like crazy after they have been sick. No? Guess that's just me

18. Give A Day, Get A Day volunteer opportunity <-- park ticket for day AFTER cruise - We participated in our volunteer even this past weekend. I have to say it felt really good to do something to give back to the community. We volunteered with the American Lung Association; it was called "Climb for Air" and participants raced up 19 flights of stairs to raise money for the association. We got to be "cheerleaders" for the racers and hand out bottles of water when they reached the top. We have since convinced the company we work for to be participants in next years race

28. Order bottled water package - Candi is super picky about his water and will only drink it if it's bottled/purifed

Welp, I guess that's really it right now. We only have one more week until we can book Palo and our excursions

Magical Memory of the Day:

Uh-oh .... Candi has competition

 

[Ryan & Maddie's mom]

Thanks for sharing your info....never been on a cruise we are going in November......loved your tips