4/17 - Took Me a Week To Get Around to This!

[tinkattitude!]

Well despite some of the comments I have read to this point. We had an awesome time, and as soon as we can afford it again, we will book another cruise (although I have heard that they are going up up up in price for the next years!)<p>

We flew out to Orlando from South Dakota on 4/16. We stayed at the Hyatt MCO. Got in around 6pm, had dinner in the food court, walked around the shops a little, and then went to bed.<P>

Saturday Morning was CHAOS. Anyone who hasn't done this yet, and is staying at the Hyatt with Mears Bus transportation. Listen Up! First go to the men who are taking the transportation vouchers in your documents, THEN stand in line at the table. We went to get Krispy Kremes for breakfast, as the sign said 9:30 am check in for Cruise Guests, we were finished early so we went back to our hotel room, to wait until 9:30, imagine our surprise when we came down at 9:25 to find that they were already getting people on buses and such. Then we stood in line at the table (which said check in), after waiting in the typical "disney" line, we were told, no we have to go see one of the men in the blue jackets to get our transportation tickets taken out. So we had to stand in line to see him, then we had to stand in line again at the check in table. Don't make our mistake! Well finally we got on the bus and were on our way to port. We had no problems at Port Canaveral check in, due to the fact that we are Canadian Citizens, there was no line there!! I think the entire ship was from MA! (Am I right folks!!) So then we stood in line again, and after much anticipation were let on the ship. <P>
We went to Parrot Cay for lunch, we thought it was too cool outside for topsiders. We had nothing to do we didn't want to go to Palo, and found out that although we were waitlisted since July for first dining seating, we did get it! Then we went to the Lab to enroll our daughter, and again, no clear instructions on what to do. We filled out the sheet, stood in line, and again found out, no we needed a pager first. So then we had to stand in line for that, and stand in line again. I should be used to the whole line thing we are disney world veterans, so it should not have surprised me. <p>We did the ship tour with Dmitri in the afternoon, attended the sailaway party, and then went to get ready for dinner. We had APL rotation. Zaldy from the Philippines was our server. He was so great. Did crayon tricks for our daughter each night. Although we did get the "excellant" speech every night also! Our assistant server was not as memorable and had much to be desired. I'll leave it at that. We were celebrating our anniversary, and I was disappointed in the cake we got (I'm not complaining I think it was nice we got an extra cake at all), but we saw throughout the week, that they are not consistent in the cakes they give out. After dinner we went to the Variety Show, and then we went to bed.

 

[tchoney]

Oh my, it sounds like your vacation was nice, but could have been a lot better. My family experienced the EXACT same problems with Mears Transportation in 2002. We had a reservation and still had to wait almost 2 hours in line! I was furious, upon returning home, I wrote Mears a letter and they graciously refunded part of our money and was extremely apologetic as that is not typical of their company.

As far as the clubs go, when we checked in... It was Chaotic. My son was overwhelmed and decided that the clubs were not for him. He found other ways to entertain himself.

Its unfortunate that you did not have wonderful servers. We had Richard from Chile and Tomislav from Kroatia. I don't think that they could have done a better job if they tried. Absolutely Marvelous!

I guess nothing can be perfect all of the time. I am excitedly looking forward to our next cruise, and I hope that you will try another one as well!