3 Night Anniversary Cruise w/out the Kids! More Pics added! Updated 11/12

[samily]

Ok, since my DD10 has had me recount the anniversary cruise my DH & I took earlier this month (without the kids) almost every night since we returned, I thought I would put it in writing so she can read about it when she feels the need Maybe others out there may get something out of it too…

A little history - we had cruised DCL 4 times with our kids (who are now DD10, DS7 & DS3) but we had not taken a vacation without the kids since I was pregnant with our oldest. Our 14th wedding anniversary was in September and our 20th anniversary of being together was October. I think we started pondering the idea of a no kids vacation in March or April - we (mostly me) were rather hesitant about the whole idea of leaving the kids - my youngest is VERY attached. When I threw out the idea to my mom, she agreed right away that she & my Dad would watch the kids and said that alone time for parents is indeed a good thing - some great advice - thanks, Mom!

When we first started thinking of places to go, DCL was the first pick, but since we wouldn’t have the kids we thought maybe we should look into places that we wouldn’t normally be able to go to with them - there were so many possibilities! Our only requirement was we wanted it to be warm (and I was also concerned with the cost )- should we do a couples only all inclusive? A Caribbean island? Mexico? Another cruiseline? I knew I wasn’t ready to leave the kids for a whole week, so I had it in my head that we could be gone 3 or 4 nights only. Since we had such a short time, I decided I wanted to be able to start the vacation as quickly as possible & I wanted as short a plane ride as possible. I figured a cruise out of Florida would be the best bet. Started looking at 3 night cruises - Royal Caribbean, Carnival & of course DCL all offered 3 nighters out of FL. The thing with the 3 nights is that they are on the older ships - we had done Carnival on one of their older ships a few years back and didn’t want to do that again & wasn’t thrilled with trying one of RCI’s older ships, so that brought me back to DCL. My DH was very patient during all of my going back & forth with what we were going to do - knowing all along I would end up deciding on DCL - I guess I have a tendency to do this with every vacation we plan lately!

Though I still felt guilty that we were leaving the kids at home, I was very excited to try all the adult areas on the ship that we never had the opportunity to enjoy previously - Palo, Quiet Cove, Rasul , Serenity Bay

Now we just have to tell the kids we are doing Disney without them...

 

[samily]

So we’ve told the kids Mom & Dad are taking a vacation without them. The first thing my DD says is “as long as it’s not a Disney Cruise” …uh oh ….way to add to my guilt of going without them! I decide it’s not time to tell them exactly where we’re going yet lol. Dh starts telling them we’re going to Alaska if the subject ever comes up , I just avoid it all together…

I was so excited and had a list of things I wanted to make sure we did, so I spent the time leading up to our date planning out our short 3 days. We got a great deal on flights coming in the night before and also a great deal on Hotwire for the Rosen Shingle Creek. I was a little worried with the low price we had paid for the hotel that they would have us sleeping in a broom closet but it turned out I had nothing to worry about! I’ll post some pics later…

A couple of weeks before we were due to leave, I received a package in the mail from a very nice fellow dis’er who sent us some snorkle gear for CC. When DS7 saw me open it, his response was “you guys aren’t going to Alaska, are you?” Ok secret’s out, no we are definitely not going to Alaska…maybe someday but not this trip…

The day finally arrived and it was time to leave…we had bought each of the kids a little going away present - we gave them each their present and said goodbye . None of them seemed too concerned about us leaving, I guess this will be easier than I thought…my DS3 said “have a good trip!” while he sat on the floor playing with his new Lincoln Logs - he was the one I was most concerned about - and he didn’t seem to care we were leaving…hmmm, why am I the only one having problems leaving??

We got to the airport with our ONE suitcase and ONE carryon, we constantly felt like we were forgetting something - we have never traveled so light before! So it was at the airport that I had my one mini meltdown over leaving the kids - we found a girl maybe a year or two younger than our DD on the floor huddled in a ball and crying. We stopped to see what was wrong and learned she had been separated from her parents. We got her up off the floor and calmed down and tried to get some information from her. Her dad showed up and she ran into his arms and started crying again. We went our way. I started thinking about the girl and about my kids and how they may have reacted in the same situation. What really bothered me was there were so many people around and walking right by her and nobody stopped to see if she needed help! I started missing the kids (we had been gone a good couple of hours after all! Lol) so I decided to call home for the first time and see how things are going - I called my Dad’s cell phone and talked to him. He understood right away when I told him about the little girl and assured me the kids were fine. Thanks, Dad!

We had an uneventful flight to MCO, found our ONE suitcase, grabbed our rental car from Avis and were on our way to the hotel pretty quickly. At this point I called my Dad’s cell (call home # 2 if you‘re counting!) just to let them know we had arrived safely - he told me that they had seen our flight go by our house (we live fairly close to the airport) and the boys swore they saw us waving to them out the window - very cute. Kids were in bed, no problems, so I’m feeling better too Here’s our car (it was a Standard class which supposedly seats 5 - there is no way we would have fit 4 adults in this car never mind 5 - so be careful when reserving your cars!)

The hotel was very nice - it was HUGE! It didn’t seem very busy at all. We checked right in and everyone was very friendly. I had read some negative reviews on trip advisor with people complaining over this or that - we found nothing to complain about at all. We were both so excited to get on the ship the next day though, I don’t know that we took enough time to truly enjoy the hotel itself! We reserved it off Hotwire - it had a 4.5* rating and we got it for about 60.00 and that included taxes! Here are some pics of the hotel:

Next up we're on our way to the port & embarkation (finally!!)

 

[samily]

The next morning finally arrived and we had a quick breakfast (bagels & juice as we knew we would be onboard soon enough!) at the hotel, took a few pics and headed out to the port. I had picked up a book in the airport so I read that for a good part of the ride and we were coming over the bridge before I knew it. I barely had time to snap a pic of the first site of her…you all know the feeling you get when you first see that magnificent ship …it was so distracting that we ended up following the signs to get to the port, but we needed to return the rental first! Ah well, we got a couple of pics as we drove by…very frustrating to be that close and then turn around and leave… Anyway we got back onto the main strip and gased up the car and got it dropped off at Avis. We only had to wait about 10 minutes for the shuttle and we were on our way!! When we reached the port, the drawbridge was up so we had to wait in traffic for a few minutes to get through … I was getting antsy now, I wanted to get there and get that #2 boarding card!!

The first site of the Wonder:

Driving by the port:

We finally got there and got dropped off - we left our one suitcase with the porter and made our way to the terminal - it was not very crowded at all. We get to the line to grab our boarding pass and we got #3. That darn drawbridge slowing us down! Ok, #3’s not bad either We hung around the terminal taking pics and enjoying watching other people struggle with their kids - lol. Now, I haven’t called home yet at all today, so I’m getting into this vacation thing!

Our boarding pass:

For some reason it seemed they started boarding a little later than we have experienced in the past - I think it was close to noon when boarding began… The 1’s boarded, then the 2’s, then us!!!! We have never taken a decent embarkation photo for some reason so we decided to not even bother this time - we just wanted on the ship! Once onboard, we headed to Parrot Cay for lunch. Now my DD had asked me to take pics of all the food we would eat on the ship, so I did my best…I never find the pics of buffet food very appetizing because there’s always too much food on the plate but here’s mine anyway…

Strawberry mint soup - surprisingly very good:

After a very relaxing and quiet lunch - we don’t have those very often! - we took our time and headed up to the Quiet Cove pool. We took a few pics along the way:

Triton’s:

Chihuly sculpture:

It‘s the Golden Mickey‘s tonight:

I have actually never made it to the Quiet Cove pool on previous cruises - I had walked by and thought how nice it looked but never had the opportunity to try it. We headed over to the Vista Spa to change into our bathing suits and just hung out for a while in the hot tub and the pool. It was a beautiful sunny day and nice and warm. We sat at the bar there for a bit enjoying a drink of the day (me) and bucket of beer (DH). The bartender Stefan was very nice and we enjoyed chatting with him.

We decided to head down to our stateroom and get changed up before the safety drill. Here’s some pics of the cabin - it was a connecting cabin and yes, we could hear our neighbors quite well as I‘m sure they could hear us :

An unexpected surprise:

The Castaway Club gift:

 

[samily]

After the drill, we headed up to deck 10 for the sail away party - this is always one of my favorite parts of the cruise - when I hear that magical horn, I know I am finally officially on vacation! With the kids, we are usually down on deck 9 by the stage but it was fun to see it from deck 10 this time:

I took a few photos as we pulled out of port (was hoping to see some dolphins, but couldn‘t find any):

We grabbed a quick snack at Pluto’s and headed back to our stateroom - we have the Exotic Rasul scheduled at 6:30...

From Pluto's (these are my DS7’s favorite):

Next, a review of Rasul…

 

[squitty]

Great report and lovley photos.

Our upcoming cruise will be the first without kids.

Looking forward to reading more.

 

[lovesDCL]

thanks for sharing your trip! we are going on our honeymoon cruise in february so i'm looking forward to rest of your TR...and also for your review on the rasul

 

[frdeb1999]

Thanks for sharing your report!

 

[samily]

Great report and lovley photos.

Our upcoming cruise will be the first without kids.

Looking forward to reading more.

Thanks, I'm sure you will have a great time!

thanks for sharing your trip! we are going on our honeymoon cruise in february so i'm looking forward to rest of your TR...and also for your review on the rasul

Congratulations! We were seated at dinner with a few couples all on their honeymoons...

Thanks for sharing your report!

It's fun going through the pics and reliving it I'll be posting more pics shortly...

 

[DCLdiva21]

HEY MOM WHATS UP??????

 

[samily]

Now where was I, ahh the Rasul… when I told my DH about this, he was quite interested in booking it so I made the reservation for our first day on the ship to start things right. We arrived to the spa about ten minutes early and we were asked to fill out some paperwork. We sat down on the comfy sofa with the clipboard. From what I remember there were a lot of questions on your stress level, condition of your skin, if you have muscle aches, etc. It was at the bottom of this form that I wrote “No sales pitch please” and had DH do the same (that was a tip I learned here on the DIS!). When we were done with our paperwork we were brought back to the changing rooms and were given instructions on how the lockers work and to change into the robes they provided. Surprisingly it took my DH longer than me to get changed up - I don’t think he had paid attention when she was telling how the lockers work - lol. She then brought us to the Rasul chamber. Inside the main room there was a tile bench with two swan towels forming a heart. There was also a small table with various products for your skin and 2 big cups of cold water - we had brought bottled water in also, not realizing they provided it here. She briefly explained the benefit of each product tailoring it to the information we had provided when we filled out our paperwork earlier. When she was leaving I asked her about the steam room & was told that she had turned it on & we couldn’t turn it on/off .

…Ok, I’m going to say “hi” to my DD here as a reminder she will be reading this report

When we were alone we took turns using the various products which left our skin so soft & smooth - I was very pleased with that. I did not enjoy the steam room part of this at all - the steam made me feel like I couldn’t breathe & very claustrophobic - I think it was all psychological, but I could only stand in there for short periods of time & only if I was standing in the cold shower. Overall, the time went by very quickly and before we knew it we got the knock on the door. We quickly rinsed off and got dried up and back into our robes. When we came out we were given more water (w/ lemon) and seated outside for a few minutes. The girl started talking to us about the products and I thought a sales pitch was coming but it didn’t so that was nice - I hate having a nice relaxing treatment and then be hit with a sales pitch. We got dressed again and headed out to get ready for dinner. While the rasul was fun, I don’t think I would do it again as I didn’t enjoy the steam room at all - I am glad we did try it though.

There are 2 dinner seatings - 5:45 & 8:15 - we have the 8:15 and our rotation is PTA, so we are in Parrot Cay tonight - dress is cruise casual and the show is The Golden Mickeys. We should have looked for our table number at lunch & we would have found that we were seated at a table for 10 - when we have cruised with the kids our family has always been seated at a table by ourselves so this was a new experience. There were 4 other couples at our table - 2 younger than us and two older than us - all on their honeymoons! We turned out to be the old married couple at the table! lol Our servers were Edwin from the Philippines and the assistant server was Jo. He was also training a new server, Nicole. They were all very friendly and quick - drinks were refilled before we finished them & without asking. At the end of the meal, we let Edwin know that we had Palo scheduled for the next evening at 6:30 so we would not be at dinner - he invited us to come by Triton’s for dessert if we liked when we were done at Palo. Little did I know how stuffed I would leave Palo - I didn’t have room for another bite of anything! Here are pics of some of our dinner at Parrot Cay:

Smoky chicken, vegetable & cheese fritters:

Island roasted rib eye of beef:

Barbecued pork tenderloin with prickly pear glaze:

Chocolate s’more vanilla cake:

We found this when we got back to our cabin:

The next morning we arrived in Nassau - it had a rather dreary start, but it burned off quickly:

We went down to Triton’s for breakfast - usually when we have the kids with us we do BBB for breakfast, so this was nice to have a sit down breakfast - and it was yummy!

Atlantis Secret Tower (DH really liked this, in fact he just mentioned today that he is going to make sure we do a Triton‘s breakfast on our next trip so he can get this):

Little Mermaid’s Morning (this was good too):

After breakfast, we headed off the ship - we didn’t have any specific plans in mind, we just wanted to pick up some souvenirs for the kids and our parents. We found the Pirate Museum (where we met a very colorful pirate!), Tortuga Rum Cake store (yummy!) and Straw Market while we were wandering around. I also wanted to pick up a pair of sunglasses as I had forgotten to pack mine - we found a little store that just sold sunglasses & they were all 10.00, so I got a pair of Coach sunglasses for 10.00. We spent a couple of hours shopping and headed back to the ship for lunch.

 

[samily]

We headed to our stateroom to drop off our stuff and were disappointed to find that our room hadn’t been made up yet. We had gone to breakfast about 8:45 & it was now 12:30 and it still wasn’t done. When we left we made sure to hang the “Service Stateroom Please” sign and hoped it would be done by the time we got back. Our stateroom was very nice and pleasant but it seemed it took him quite a bit of time to get to our room everyday. Here is our lunch at Triton’s:

Tortilla chips & salsa:

They had a pasta bar set up in the dining room:

Half oven roasted chicken:

Banana cream pie:

Key Lime pie:

After lunch we headed up to the Quiet Cove pool - I was actually surprised how many people were there - we were able to get chairs but by the time we were leaving, people were waiting on deck chairs. Here is my drink of the day:

We hung out by the pool for a bit but the clouds began to come back and we started to feel a few raindrops. Luckily they didn’t last long. On the way back to the cabin, I wanted to show DH the secret deck 7 & 8:

Deck 8:

Deck 7:

We got back to the cabin & were happy to see it was clean. We have Palo tonight at 6:30, so we decided to hang out at Cove Café until it as time to get ready for dinner:

I had booked Palo for 6:30 figuring we would get nice sunset but unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate and it was a cloudy evening. Palo was soooo good! I have never eaten that much food in one sitting before. I ate so much I had no desire to go to the pirate party, so we watched the fireworks from our verandah…

Palo dinner:

Calamari:

Pizza:

Tenderloin:

The famous chocolate souffle:

Panna Cotta:

Amaretto Chocolate Indulgence:

Our towel animal that night:

Fireworks:

Castaway Cay tomorrow!

 

[ctalley]

I have enjoyed reading your trip report and seeing your pictures. We will be on the Wonder in December with the kids. It will be our DDs first cruise. I have enjoyed showing them the pictures from very ones trip reports. They are starting to see why I am so excited about our cruise.
Thank you for sharing!

 

[SunnyBunny08]

Thanks for posting your trip report. We getting ready to sail on our first DCL cruise, it sounds like you and your DH had a great time!

 

[TIGGERmetoo]

Samily - I've having a lot of fun reading your trip report. I wonder if we ran into each other without knowing. Question for you - I say your Vacation Club Member gifts and I was wondering if you booked your cabin with your points or not? Actually I want to know if you get the gifts if you are a VCM but you pay with cash instead of points.

 

[samily]

I have enjoyed reading your trip report and seeing your pictures. We will be on the Wonder in December with the kids. It will be our DDs first cruise. I have enjoyed showing them the pictures from very ones trip reports. They are starting to see why I am so excited about our cruise.
Thank you for sharing!

Thanks - I'm sure you'll all have a wonderful time! Have fun!

Thanks for posting your trip report. We getting ready to sail on our first DCL cruise, it sounds like you and your DH had a great time!

Wow, looks like you only have a month left! Have a great time!

Samily - I've having a lot of fun reading your trip report. I wonder if we ran into each other without knowing. Question for you - I say your Vacation Club Member gifts and I was wondering if you booked your cabin with your points or not? Actually I want to know if you get the gifts if you are a VCM but you pay with cash instead of points.

Hey there! Did you enjoy your cruise? The closest we came to a Dis'er was when we were heading to our stateroom, we walked by Bats' decorated door. We passed a couple heading in that direction & when we got closer to our cabin I turned around and I noticed they had stopped at about her door but didn't go in- I think they may have been delivering FE gifts - I was too far away at that point to say anything though.

I wish we were DVC but we're not -maybe someday I think you are referring to the pics of the Castaway Club gifts for repeat cruisers.

 

[samily]

DH woke me up much earlier than I would have liked on Saturday morning - he wanted me to see the sunrise. Once I was up and out on the verandah, I knew why - it was absolutely breathtaking! We enjoyed standing out there watching the sun come over the horizon - I also took this time to write out our postcards and then we started to turn to Castaway Cay - another awesome site! The ship backed in so we were facing the beach side of the island. It started as a beautiful warm, sunny day.

The sunrise:

First views of CC:

We decided to head to Beach Blanket Buffet for breakfast, figuring it would probably be a little quicker than Triton’s. We sat out on the back deck overlooking the island.

We finished breakfast quickly and headed out to the island - We had brought along snorkel gear (thanks to a fellow dis'er - thanks dopey - lol) so we planned on doing some snorkeling and then head to Serenity Bay (we have never been there, so we were really looking forward to it). We stopped at the post office to mail the postcards - they only take cash - stamps are .65. We just got our postcards a few days ago - they took about 3 weeks to get here! As we were walking along we stopped and took a picture with Jack Sparrow - the only Shutters picture we took the whole trip! We snapped other pics along the way…

We snorkeled for a bit - the water temp was perfect! There was this one little fish that followed DH around just about the entire time - it was cute! We found the sunken Minnie, but we couldn’t Mickey! From there, we headed over to catch the tram to Serenity Bay.

When we got here, DH headed to find the restroom and I walked out onto the beach to wait for him. I was standing by the water scouting out where we should settle down when a very nice gentleman pointed to a hammock and told me it was free. Now I had read stories of the way people can get all worked up and fight over these hammocks, so that was an unexpected surprise! I declined his offer though, as I wanted to head further down the beach - we settled into some chairs and shortly after we noticed the last hammock down the beach was available. We figured we would get some hammock time so we moved a little further down the beach and I ordered my Konk Kooler - yum! We took a walk all the way down the beach and went in the water there- there was no one at all down there. We were in the water when we noticed something that kept flipping above the surface of the water - all of a sudden it was coming towards us - we both ran out of that water as fast as we could! I can just imagine what it must have looked like to anyone that may have looking up the beach at that time! Lol It turned out not to be the big shark I was envisioning in my head, but a big school of medium sized fish! Lol

This sign always makes me laugh (it‘s probably why I ran so fast out of the water earlier!:

My Konk Kooler:

 

[samily]

After all that excitement we decided to have lunch, so we grabbed our stuff from the chair and headed back up the beach. There was a line for the lunch there and it didn’t look like too many tables were available, so we grabbed the tram and figured we would eat at Cookies BBQ instead. I wanted to do some shopping over there anyway. We got back to that side of the island and it was starting to look a little overcast. We looked around the shops and figured we would instead head back to the ship for lunch - we did grab some ice cream along the way though - I didn’t want to miss the soft serve cookie dough ice cream!

Heading back to the ship:

We made it to Parrot Cay with only a few minutes to spare - I think it was only open until 1:30 for lunch. Again, it was a buffet:

I know it sounds silly, but these French fries were the best ! They were perfect - I couldn’t believe they came from a buffet:

 

[TIGGERmetoo]

Hey there! Did you enjoy your cruise? The closest we came to a Dis'er was when we were heading to our stateroom, we walked by Bats' decorated door. We passed a couple heading in that direction & when we got closer to our cabin I turned around and I noticed they had stopped at about her door but didn't go in- I think they may have been delivering FE gifts - I was too far away at that point to say anything though.

I wish we were DVC but we're not -maybe someday I think you are referring to the pics of the Castaway Club gifts for repeat cruisers.[/quote]


You are correct, I was referring the Castaway Club gifts. I was confused. I really like the bag you got! We really enjoyed the cruise. I'm ready for another one - but longer.

 

[UGAFan0829]

Hello! Wow, what a great trip report! I am loving it so far and can't wait to read the rest!! It sounds like you and the DH had a really wonderful, relaxing trip!!! I don't have kids myself, but I really felt bad when you wrote about leaving the kids. And good for you for helping the poor little girl at the airport...poor thing, that would have broke my heart!!!

 

[natale1980]

I didn't know you had a TR.
Can't wait to go!!!