4/25-5/2/2009 Eastern Magic w/ Tortola - no kids, DETAILED + 1,172 photos!

[ilovecraigandcooper]

OT: i just read that you do the grocery game, is that not the most awesome thing ever!!! i tell my husband all the time, i clip coupons so we can cruise more!

 

[Aquagirl]

Great report! I absolutely LOVE your blue diamond ring!!! I want a blue diamond ring. We are going on the 4-day cruise in 10 days, maybe I will find one in Nassau.

 

[aznaphrodite]

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVED THE TRIP REPORT! the more details the better in my opinion! thank you so much, it was great reading material!

p.s. i clicked on your blog and read some of your other entries and because i heart all animals i have to ask, was colby okay?! you wrote earlier in may about having to take him to the vet...let us know!

OT: i just read that you do the grocery game, is that not the most awesome thing ever!!! i tell my husband all the time, i clip coupons so we can cruise more!

Yes! I love Grocery Game! There's a ton of us in my town that do it though so things are often sold out!! But the money we save is SO worth it!

Thanks for asking about Colby! I sent you a PM!

Great report! I absolutely LOVE your blue diamond ring!!! I want a blue diamond ring. We are going on the 4-day cruise in 10 days, maybe I will find one in Nassau.

Thanks! I hope you find something nice in Nassau! There are so great stores over there. I bought a gorgeous Dooney & Bourke suitecase at a great discount with no tax during our 4-night cruise in 2006.

 

[skoi]

Great trip report. But I might have missed something- why the Sailor Venus house? I did read the whole thing I swear, but didn't get that. Our oldest daughter (soon to be 15) is a huge Sailor Moon fan- she's trying to get an on-line role play off the ground as we speak, and if there's some back story to go with the Sailor Venus house (other than the colors)- we'd be interested in hearing it.

Julie

 

[aznaphrodite]

Great trip report. But I might have missed something- why the Sailor Venus house? I did read the whole thing I swear, but didn't get that. Our oldest daughter (soon to be 15) is a huge Sailor Moon fan- she's trying to get an on-line role play off the ground as we speak, and if there's some back story to go with the Sailor Venus house (other than the colors)- we'd be interested in hearing it.

Julie

Hi, Julie!! Glad you enjoyed the report!!

That's so funny you picked up on the Sailor Venus house caption and yay for your daughter being a fan of Sailor Moon! I'm a huge fan also and own a Sailor Moon web site, MoonPrincess.com.

I also cosplay (or costume play), which is dressing up as characters, and I used to play Sailor Venus in a professional costume group. We were hired to perform and make appearances at conventions and Japanese cultural events in Los Angeles. Here's a photo of me as Sailor Venus:

I called that house in Tortola the "Sailor Venus house" because it was in Sailor Venus' colors and I posed in Sailor Venus' signature pose!

This is the pose I was doing in front of the house:

Anyway, you can see more of my costume on my web site, if you're interested:

http://www.ladyrebecca.com/index.php?content=cosplay_costumes

I'm actually going to an anime convention this weekend, though I won't be wearing Venus because I need to replace the shoes!

 

[skoi]

So cool. My daughter would be so impressed. I'm trying to figure out how to tell her, because our cruise is a surprise. The kids think we're cruising on Carnival, because we're evil and we want to trick them. The littlest kids have no idea there's another cruise ship other than Disney, so--

I guess I'll tell her we're going to Tortola on Carnival, so I was reading about it. She might not buy it, because she's too crafty.

She'd do cosplay, but it's too expensive right now, so she's stuck with the internet. I'll send her to your site and just tell her you're from the Disney board. Hopefully her role play site will get more people. She wants to play Sailor Saturn . No idea why. On the other site she's on the only choices were Venus and Uranus, and she went with Uranus. Again- Probably because I always liked Venus.

We were thinking about going to whatever convention is happening in Baltimore, but she changed her mind about it.

Julie

 

[Desi]

I loved your TR. Thank you for putting so much time into it for the rest of us.

 

[aiken4mickey]

Introduction

My husband (Chris) and I are both 30-years-old and we have no children. We are both Disney fans and were employees of Disney Consumer Products in Burbank/Glendale when we lived in California. We used to go to Disneyland almost every month and prior to that, I was an Annual Passholder. (We now live near Dallas, Texas.) Chris proposed to me in front of Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland. Our honeymoon was 3 nights at the Grand Floridian at WDW followed by a 4-night Bahamian cruise on the Wonder so you can say Disney has always been a big part of our lives!

We celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary with the 7-night Eastern Caribbean w/ Tortola cruise on the Disney Magic from April 25 to May 2, 2009. It was the inaugural cruise for the Tortola port of call.


Trip Planning

I planned for this trip obsessively and I am an extremely detailed oriented person. These were the resources that made my trip a success:

+ Dreams Unlimited Travel: I booked both Disney cruises with them and have nothing but good things to say! The onboard credit was fantastic!

+ Passporter's DCL Guide Book: The fastest and most organized way to learn about DCL. Read it cover to cover first. (I also read their "Disney Cruise Clues" e-book and found that nearly all of the tips were in the guide book or can be found on DIS DCL Board.)

+ DIS DCL Board: Start by reading the DIS DCL FAQ and then read posts on a daily basis to learn new things, tips, and updates to things covered in Passporter's. You'll soon become a DCL expert!

+ Cruise Critic: The Ports of Call section was extremely helpful in planning days at ports of call. Got great tips on what to do, how to get around, and where to eat. The Tortola forum was also helpful in learning more about Tortola since Disney hadn't been there yet.

+ Frommer's Caribbean Ports of Call Guide Book: Extremely helpful in planning days at ports of call. Got great tips on what to do and where to eat. Also has great maps.

+ 2disneycruzrs's Packing List & Cruise Tips: There are several packing lists floating out there but I found this one to be the most thorough and up-to-date

+ aznaphrodite's Personal Itinerary: This is the personal itinerary I made for our trip. It includes a lot of the info I collected about Tortola, St. Thomas, and St. John on what shops to see and where to eat. It also includes some DCL tips as well.


Other Useful Info

We stayed at the Hyatt Orlando Airport Hotel the night before our cruise. We used DCL motorcoach transfers from the airport to the port and back. We also participated in Onboard Airline Check-in. Our flight home didn't leave until 4:25 pm so we spent the day at the Orlando Airport. Details for all of this can be found in my trip report.

DCL excursions:
+ Tortola: Tour to Virgin Gorda
+ St. John: St. John Island Tour
+ Castaway Cay: Castway Ray's Stingray Adventure


Trip Report

WARNING: My trip report is painfully detailed and is very photo heavy!!

Below are links by day to my DETAILED trip report with photos:

+ Day 0-2: Hyatt Orlando Airport, Port Canaveral, and At Sea

+ Day 3: At Sea w/ Character Breakfast

+ Day 4: Tortola & Pirate Night

+ Day 5: St. Thomas & St. John

+ Day 6-8: At Sea w/ Galley Tour & Beer Tasting, Castaway Cay, and Orlando Airport

+ All 1,172 photos from my cruise

I hope my report and photos help out future cruisers!

What great pictures! What type of underwater camera did you use?

 

[ilovecraigandcooper]

UGHGHGHGHGHGH it wouldnt let me PM you back because i have less than 10 posts (even though i feel i spend the majority of my day on here, lol) so i went to your blog to message you and i sent you a message on your ladyrebecca site, i hope thats okay. now i feel like a crazy stalker (since ive tracked down all of your websites and messaged you) but i promise im not i just hated to hijack your cruise thread! anyway keep me updated!

 

[aznaphrodite]

What great pictures! What type of underwater camera did you use?

We don't have an underwater camera. We used the Dicapac waterproof camera case with our regular digital camera:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001C20816/sailormoontop20

It worked out pretty well! I was very happy with it.

UGHGHGHGHGHGH it wouldnt let me PM you back because i have less than 10 posts (even though i feel i spend the majority of my day on here, lol) so i went to your blog to message you and i sent you a message on your ladyrebecca site, i hope thats okay. now i feel like a crazy stalker (since ive tracked down all of your websites and messaged you) but i promise im not i just hated to hijack your cruise thread! anyway keep me updated!

LOL! Don't be silly! I'll respond to your e-mail shortly! Thanks!!

 

[Jennifer48]

Thanks for sharing your report Rebecca!! You did a great job and I love all your details and photos!

One question, did you leave all your photos in Shutters and then the last day decide which ones to take? Or did you take some everyday and then just swap some out that you didn't want? I would like to get one of those packages too but I don't want them to throw away any of the photos that I didn't want.

Awesome deals on your jewelry. Everything was gorgeous!

 

[aznaphrodite]

Thanks for sharing your report Rebecca!! You did a great job and I love all your details and photos!

One question, did you leave all your photos in Shutters and then the last day decide which ones to take? Or did you take some everyday and then just swap some out that you didn't want? I would like to get one of those packages too but I don't want them to throw away any of the photos that I didn't want.

Awesome deals on your jewelry. Everything was gorgeous!

Here's what we did:

Day 5: Gathered all photos we've taken so far and discarded ones we were definitely not going to buy. We didn't have a chance to go through all the photos so we left the ones we wanted to buy or didn't go through yet in a stack and put them back on the wall. (Make sure if you stack your photos that the front photo matches all the other photos around in on the wall.)

Day 6: Finished going through all the photos. Purchased photo packages and took photos we wanted with us.

Day 7: Purchased the remaining photos we took between Day 6 & 7 and got a refund/downgrade on unused photo packages.

I definitely do not recommend going through your photos for the first time on Day 7. That place is CRAZY.

There's also no harm in purchasing your photo packages early in the cruise and just changing the packages as you go. We just wanted to wait until Day 6 so we had a better idea of how many photos we were going to buy and there were more photos to sift through by then.

Also, you don't need to be concerned about them tossing your photos either. All your photos are stored on your KTTW card and you can look at them at the photo kiosk and tell Shutters to reprint them.

Hope that helps!

 

[gsnow]

I just joined disboards but read your trip report yesterday. Your report was really wonderful and very helpful. Great Job! We cant wait to go back.

 

[Im_A_Princess]

Thank you so much!!!!!!!!

 

[TotallyAngelic]

What a wonderful wonderful trip report - I have enjoyed reading every minute of your cruise adventures! Amazing photos too! Thanks for sharing!

 

[anetnmike]

Amazing trip report Rebecca! Thanks! It was almost like being there I am glad you went into such great detail. I am trying to decide if I want to do the Tortola trip. I loved your pictures too!

 

[suzyqn]

Your TR is great. We are dreaming of a 7-day cruise after we have recently returned from a 3-day.

I would love to know what type of camera you used for your pictures. I thought they looked great - especially ones where flash was most likely used.

Thanks!

 

[aznaphrodite]

Your TR is great. We are dreaming of a 7-day cruise after we have recently returned from a 3-day.

I would love to know what type of camera you used for your pictures. I thought they looked great - especially ones where flash was most likely used.

Thanks!

Glad you enjoyed my trip report! I'm dreaming of the Western 7-night cruise...or possibly where 2011 will take us with the new ships!!

All photos were taken with the Canon PowerShot SD790 IS digital camera. Underwater photos were taken using the Dicapac waterproof camera case and many of the shots of Chris and I together were taken using Xshot Camera Extender/Monopod.

Hope that helps!

 

[suzyqn]

Glad you enjoyed my trip report! I'm dreaming of the Western 7-night cruise...or possibly where 2011 will take us with the new ships!!

All photos were taken with the Canon PowerShot SD790 IS digital camera. Underwater photos were taken using the Dicapac waterproof camera case and many of the shots of Chris and I together were taken using Xshot Camera Extender/Monopod.

Hope that helps!

Thank you! I can't believe I have never seen a camera extender before. That thing is brilliant! I also will have to check out the waterproof camera.

 

[dumb4disney]

BY FAR one of the best TRs I have read on this forum and I have read a lot in the past few weeks, great job!!!!! I like the videos mixed into the report I like your COSplay costumes also on your website