kendall
live, love, learn
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2000
- Messages
- 1,489
Trip Report: Disney Magic 4/5/03
Eastern Itinerary
DH 40, Me 38, DS 12, DD 10
Traveling with another family of 4, kids ages 10 and 8
Trip Report Part 1 The ship!
Trip Report Part 2 Fun ashore!
We had a wonderful experience on this, our second Disney Magic Cruise. We only heard of 1 incident of illness where someone was quarantined by overhearing a conversation. We didnt see anyone ill, and the food service procedures were primarily self-serve. Handwashing reminders were visible, and we did see cast members continually cleaning, wiping, painting ..
I will organize this report by category for your reading pleasure!
Transportation
Our family of 4 and a second family of 4 traveled together on the 4/5/03 Disney Magic Eastern Cruise. We used YourRide for transportation from our airport-zone hotel to Port Canaveral and back to the airport. We worked with Rabbit via email and phone, and received wonderful, courteous, and professional service. We arrived late Friday evening and used the Renaissance Hotel Shuttle for transportation from airport to hotel. We had to wait approximately 10 minutes for the Renaissance Shuttle. We called Rabbit at his request, to confirm that we had indeed arrived. Rabbit was waiting for us with a van the next morning at our hotel. The van was very comfortable, with plenty of room for the 4 adults and 4 children and our luggage. Rabbit had Monsters, Inc DVD playing for the kids, making for a smooth grocery stop and quiet ride to and from the Port. Since we had a late flight after our cruise, we took a taxi to Cocoa Beach for the morning and arranged with Rabbit to be picked up at Ron Jons in Cocoa Beach for our return trip to the airport. Rabbit also gave us a 10% discount card for Ron Jons. Overall an excellent experience with YourRide and I highly recommend Rabbit and his colleagues! YourRides website is http://www.yourride.net .
Pre-Cruise hotel
We stayed at the Renaissance Hotel located near the airport via a Priceline bid. Priceline bidding information is available at http://www.biddingfortravel.com , and I highly recommend you read the FAQs thoroughly a wealth of information is available there. The Renaissance was beautiful, with a restaurant on the first floor. No Disney theme in decor, but lovely nonetheless. I would recommend if you are using a transportation provider with a grocery stop, to simply pick up breakfast at the grocery store instead of the high prices in the hotel restaurant. We happened to pack pop tarts, granola and protein bars as snacks in our carry-ons for our previous evenings flight, so we were all set for breakfast.
Checking in at the terminal
Security is at the entrance to the terminal. We picked up a corkscrew at the grocery store and put it in our carryon bag. I would recommend putting it in your suitcase instead of carrying it on through security. Checking in at the counters was smooth we were asked if we had traveled to Asia recently and read a letter about the importance of handwashing. We arrived at about 10:45 a.m., and went into the end of the roped area for the cue to board. We took turns holding our place in line and exploring the terminal. The green Home Depot Mickey paint chips worked great to identify DIS board members, many of whom were also early arrivers to the terminal. And of course, a DISer was even first in line to board the ship go Hersh! Our family used the paint chips as ID tags on our carry on bags I left the Mickey ears on the card, hole-punched the card and tied it to our carry-on bags. I also tied one to my belt for easy identification within the terminal. We had a great time meeting fellow DISers throughout the terminal and the time waiting went by so quickly! We boarded at noon! Embarkation photos were taken in the hallway leading to the ship, before crossing the gangway. I didnt really care for the background it produced, but we bought the photo anyway. And upon stepping aboard, hearing Welcome to the Kendall Family from Michigan were sweet words to our ears!
The reservation process and kids club registration
Reservations for the Spa and Palo were open when we boarded at noon. I went to Palo first, booked for Thursday evening (Captains formal night) dinner. Proceeded to the Spa and booked the Absolute Facial and Total Body Massage. We ate lunch at Topsiders then took care of the kids. The kids clubs were also open for registration, so we registered DD at the Lab no pager issued for the 10-12 year old group. DD received a sticker on her card and a clear plastic nametag holder with a small jaw clip and a bar-coded sticker. She was able to use this holder all week long with her clothing very, very handy! DS was within range of his 13th birthday, so he opted for the Teen club since he was in the 10-12 group last cruise in 2001. Went to the open house in Common Grounds and DSs name was checked off on their roster.
Stateroom
We were in a secret porthole room, 5020. This is a category 10 room located on deck 5, which has a large porthole and a slightly obstructed view. We would book this room again without hesitation. The metal bars that extend in front of the porthole were not distracting at all. We dont spend that much time in the room, and would rather spend our dollars on other things. Our stateroom host, Alejandro, was friendly and efficient. We use an over-the-door hanger for small odds and ends, reducing the clutter around the room. The split bathroom was wonderful, no odor present. Plenty of room to store suitcases beneath the bed. The upper safety rail of the bunk did rattle with movement, so each night we stuffed a towel in the rail thereby eliminating that problem! No other problems at all with the stateroom. On our day in port at St. Maarten, we did have a gentleman outside our stateroom checking the barrel located just outside our porthole. Fortunately, DH pointed him out before I peeled out of my wet swimsuit!
Dining
We had the PLA rotation this cruise, LAP last cruise. Both were fine with us. PLA put us in Lumieres for the semi-formal night and Parrot Cay for tropical night kind of nice for the themes. As for the menus, Animators is my least favorite, with fewer choices that appeal to me compared to the other menus. Memorable dinner dishes across the restaurants: Sea Bass, Grouper, Fillet Mignon, various cold soups, chicken tenders appetizer, a number of desserts (which were improved over our 2001 cruise). Our servers were Nadeem from Mauritius and Leeroy from Bahamas (or Jamaica I forget), our head server was Kayhan. All three were very good. Nadeems recommendations for dinner dishes were always on target. We ate breakfast and lunch at Topsiders. The fresh omelets were my personal favorite (located past the initial serving lines), along with the abundance of fresh fruit at both Scoops and Topsiders. On St. Maarten day, the deck party was fun. Check out the buffet that opens at about 10:45 pm the desserts were absolutely awesome! DD was in heaven with all the chocolate selections. Our character breakfast was Thursday morning. DD ordered blueberry pancakes and only 2 little pancakes arrived on her plate. While this serving may be appropriate for a 5 year old, my 10 year old ordered a second serving immediately! The coffee. It really does need improving but was tolerable for the week.
Palo
Yes, Palo deserves its own category. First, High Tea. I attended high tea with a female friend, and we had a wonderful time! The finger sandwiches and scones are excellent, and definitely the best part of the tea. I found the tea selection to be limited but OK. The chocolate éclair was fine, but the pudding/jello/cake dessert could be dropped in my opinion. Very relaxing, not crowded at all (perhaps 8 tables), all females attending the tea. Now to dinner. Dinner was fabulous, from start to finish. DH and I ate dinner on Thursday evening, Captains Gala. Kids at in AP with our friends, and the kids actually encouraged us to go to Palo since we did not do so in 2001. We were seated by the window, and sunset would have been wonderful had the weather cooperated instead there were thick clouds. But, back to Palo. Our server was Dalibor, from Croatia. Besides being absolutely, incredibly handsome, he was professional, courteous, charming, knowledgeable, and observant I could go on but you have the picture. The breads and dips were quite tasty, as were the olives. I love olives, so I was in heaven. DH enjoyed the non-olive elements! For appetizers, I had the warm shrimp grilled with paprika and served with baby asparagus. DH had the basil, tomato, mozzarella salad, and we shared a plate of calamari (which were excellent a light breading and fried to perfection tender, not at all chewy). For the entrée we both had grilled lobster tail, each of which easily was at least 2 pounds. Dalibor removed the meat from the tails for us. Scrumptious lobster! Of course, for dessert we each had the chocolate soufflé, which I had read so much about. I was not disappointed! Wow what a delicious dessert! Coffee and cappuccino completed our meal. Dalibors timing and service was impeccable, my iced tea glass was never empty; DH and I decided that if we were ever to cruise Disney without children, we would definitely eat in Palo more frequently for dinner. We left a tip in addition to the $5 per person surcharge. By the way, we received a reminder phone message for our reservation, and on Friday a second message hoping we enjoyed our dinner at Palo and informing us there was space available for Friday evening however we decided to stay with the children and dine in the main dining room to close our week. DH and I definitely recommend including dinner at Palo with your week on the Magic. The food, service, ambiance all combine to create a wonderful dinner and such a contrast to the noisy main dining rooms!
Entertainment
The opening and closing variety shows were fine similar to what we saw in 2001. Morty the Magnificent was our least favorite show, well performed, but the content is boring and pace of the show is slow for kids. Millionaire and Hercules were entertaining, Disney Dreams was excellent. One evening for the main show Piglets movie was debuted definitely more for the little ones The cabaret family shows were entertaining. The first night we did the Mickey Mania in Studio Sea DD and I were picked as one of 4 parent-child contestants. There were three rounds of trivia: round 1 was question/answer, round 2 was what happens next, where a scene of a movie was shown and we had to write down what happens next in the scene, and round 3 was name that toon, where an image of a character was swirled digitally, slowly unraveled and focused first one to identify the toon received points. DD and I were trailing going into round 3, but DD has an excellent eye for art and soon she was blowing away the competition in identifying the toons. We ended up winning the contest (really, DD won it, I wasnt too much help looking back on that night) and receiving lovely Im a winner medallions! It was a neat way to start our cruise! The other evenings we attended the entertainer family cabarets in Rocking Bar D each of the entertainers created a good 35 minute set we really enjoyed the shows. Some of the entertainers were the same ones we saw in 2001, but each had some new material, and all worked in improvisation based on the audience. We did the music trivia during the week interesting and tough! During our first cruise in 2001, we didnt take advantage of many of the 7:45 pm cabaret shows instead we hurried to the Walt Disney Theater to get good seats for the show. This time, we took advantage of the cabaret shows, had a wonderful time, and still had fine seats for the Theater shows. We sat in the back by choice for a couple of the shows, and the seats were fine there really arent bad seats in the theater. So enjoy the cabaret shows! The Tropicalifragilous deck party was a good time, the kids enjoyed dancing and the character show. We all enjoyed that event and the buffet that came with it at about 10:45 pm.
Oceaneer Lab
DD registered with her friend for the Oceaneers Lab. They participated in some of the activities during the week, and enjoyed their time there, however they certainly didnt choose to spend a lot of time in the Lab. What time they did spend there was positive. On the night the kids made slime, two boys were asked to leave because of hitting and biting each other (this is the 10-12 year old group). I was pleased that appropriate behavior was expected and consequences enforced. Overall the girls enjoyed the Lab. DS, 12, didnt care for the Lab as he was in that group when he was 10, and didnt care for the teen area (he was within a month of his birthday and offered to move up) he is definitely an inbetweener at this point and preferred to do his own thing or hang with the family, which was also fine. He checked out Common Grounds a couple times, but just didnt want to deal with the crowds literally too many teens. Perhaps the shift from the current location to the ESPN club will create a more spacious place for the teens.
Photography tidbits
*Photographs from Shutters: we purchased the 10 6x8 plan for $85 and for 2 of the 10 prints we ordered reprints of our favorite shots for Grandma. Reprints can be processed within hours. One negative 8x10 photos cannot be produced in the smaller 6x8 format. We discussed that Disney is working on a system to use digital photographs the challenges include coding each photograph to the stateroom and providing adequate previewing capabilities. Perhaps if anyone has suggestions on that they should write DCL! And 8x10s are about $20, 6x8 $10.
*Another photography issue: DD brought her camera. On the second to last night DD took her camera to the character farewell in the atrium and clicked so many photos through her teary eyes. The next morning I questioned DD about packing film in the carry-on and she said she hadnt run out yet. Uh Oh. I knew we had a problem. Here DDs camera never had film in it. Needless to say, she was crushed and in tears. I tried to convince her that I have many of the same photos with my digital camera, but it just isnt the same as through the eyes of a child.
*Lighting: I used a digital camera, and the lighting was sometimes difficult to judge inside the ship. Depending on the type of digital camera you use, be sure to play with lighting settings before any important photos. Also plan on how to store your photos (download to a laptop, extra memory cards, etc.)
Eastern Itinerary
DH 40, Me 38, DS 12, DD 10
Traveling with another family of 4, kids ages 10 and 8
Trip Report Part 1 The ship!
Trip Report Part 2 Fun ashore!
We had a wonderful experience on this, our second Disney Magic Cruise. We only heard of 1 incident of illness where someone was quarantined by overhearing a conversation. We didnt see anyone ill, and the food service procedures were primarily self-serve. Handwashing reminders were visible, and we did see cast members continually cleaning, wiping, painting ..
I will organize this report by category for your reading pleasure!
Transportation
Our family of 4 and a second family of 4 traveled together on the 4/5/03 Disney Magic Eastern Cruise. We used YourRide for transportation from our airport-zone hotel to Port Canaveral and back to the airport. We worked with Rabbit via email and phone, and received wonderful, courteous, and professional service. We arrived late Friday evening and used the Renaissance Hotel Shuttle for transportation from airport to hotel. We had to wait approximately 10 minutes for the Renaissance Shuttle. We called Rabbit at his request, to confirm that we had indeed arrived. Rabbit was waiting for us with a van the next morning at our hotel. The van was very comfortable, with plenty of room for the 4 adults and 4 children and our luggage. Rabbit had Monsters, Inc DVD playing for the kids, making for a smooth grocery stop and quiet ride to and from the Port. Since we had a late flight after our cruise, we took a taxi to Cocoa Beach for the morning and arranged with Rabbit to be picked up at Ron Jons in Cocoa Beach for our return trip to the airport. Rabbit also gave us a 10% discount card for Ron Jons. Overall an excellent experience with YourRide and I highly recommend Rabbit and his colleagues! YourRides website is http://www.yourride.net .
Pre-Cruise hotel
We stayed at the Renaissance Hotel located near the airport via a Priceline bid. Priceline bidding information is available at http://www.biddingfortravel.com , and I highly recommend you read the FAQs thoroughly a wealth of information is available there. The Renaissance was beautiful, with a restaurant on the first floor. No Disney theme in decor, but lovely nonetheless. I would recommend if you are using a transportation provider with a grocery stop, to simply pick up breakfast at the grocery store instead of the high prices in the hotel restaurant. We happened to pack pop tarts, granola and protein bars as snacks in our carry-ons for our previous evenings flight, so we were all set for breakfast.
Checking in at the terminal
Security is at the entrance to the terminal. We picked up a corkscrew at the grocery store and put it in our carryon bag. I would recommend putting it in your suitcase instead of carrying it on through security. Checking in at the counters was smooth we were asked if we had traveled to Asia recently and read a letter about the importance of handwashing. We arrived at about 10:45 a.m., and went into the end of the roped area for the cue to board. We took turns holding our place in line and exploring the terminal. The green Home Depot Mickey paint chips worked great to identify DIS board members, many of whom were also early arrivers to the terminal. And of course, a DISer was even first in line to board the ship go Hersh! Our family used the paint chips as ID tags on our carry on bags I left the Mickey ears on the card, hole-punched the card and tied it to our carry-on bags. I also tied one to my belt for easy identification within the terminal. We had a great time meeting fellow DISers throughout the terminal and the time waiting went by so quickly! We boarded at noon! Embarkation photos were taken in the hallway leading to the ship, before crossing the gangway. I didnt really care for the background it produced, but we bought the photo anyway. And upon stepping aboard, hearing Welcome to the Kendall Family from Michigan were sweet words to our ears!
The reservation process and kids club registration
Reservations for the Spa and Palo were open when we boarded at noon. I went to Palo first, booked for Thursday evening (Captains formal night) dinner. Proceeded to the Spa and booked the Absolute Facial and Total Body Massage. We ate lunch at Topsiders then took care of the kids. The kids clubs were also open for registration, so we registered DD at the Lab no pager issued for the 10-12 year old group. DD received a sticker on her card and a clear plastic nametag holder with a small jaw clip and a bar-coded sticker. She was able to use this holder all week long with her clothing very, very handy! DS was within range of his 13th birthday, so he opted for the Teen club since he was in the 10-12 group last cruise in 2001. Went to the open house in Common Grounds and DSs name was checked off on their roster.
Stateroom
We were in a secret porthole room, 5020. This is a category 10 room located on deck 5, which has a large porthole and a slightly obstructed view. We would book this room again without hesitation. The metal bars that extend in front of the porthole were not distracting at all. We dont spend that much time in the room, and would rather spend our dollars on other things. Our stateroom host, Alejandro, was friendly and efficient. We use an over-the-door hanger for small odds and ends, reducing the clutter around the room. The split bathroom was wonderful, no odor present. Plenty of room to store suitcases beneath the bed. The upper safety rail of the bunk did rattle with movement, so each night we stuffed a towel in the rail thereby eliminating that problem! No other problems at all with the stateroom. On our day in port at St. Maarten, we did have a gentleman outside our stateroom checking the barrel located just outside our porthole. Fortunately, DH pointed him out before I peeled out of my wet swimsuit!
Dining
We had the PLA rotation this cruise, LAP last cruise. Both were fine with us. PLA put us in Lumieres for the semi-formal night and Parrot Cay for tropical night kind of nice for the themes. As for the menus, Animators is my least favorite, with fewer choices that appeal to me compared to the other menus. Memorable dinner dishes across the restaurants: Sea Bass, Grouper, Fillet Mignon, various cold soups, chicken tenders appetizer, a number of desserts (which were improved over our 2001 cruise). Our servers were Nadeem from Mauritius and Leeroy from Bahamas (or Jamaica I forget), our head server was Kayhan. All three were very good. Nadeems recommendations for dinner dishes were always on target. We ate breakfast and lunch at Topsiders. The fresh omelets were my personal favorite (located past the initial serving lines), along with the abundance of fresh fruit at both Scoops and Topsiders. On St. Maarten day, the deck party was fun. Check out the buffet that opens at about 10:45 pm the desserts were absolutely awesome! DD was in heaven with all the chocolate selections. Our character breakfast was Thursday morning. DD ordered blueberry pancakes and only 2 little pancakes arrived on her plate. While this serving may be appropriate for a 5 year old, my 10 year old ordered a second serving immediately! The coffee. It really does need improving but was tolerable for the week.
Palo
Yes, Palo deserves its own category. First, High Tea. I attended high tea with a female friend, and we had a wonderful time! The finger sandwiches and scones are excellent, and definitely the best part of the tea. I found the tea selection to be limited but OK. The chocolate éclair was fine, but the pudding/jello/cake dessert could be dropped in my opinion. Very relaxing, not crowded at all (perhaps 8 tables), all females attending the tea. Now to dinner. Dinner was fabulous, from start to finish. DH and I ate dinner on Thursday evening, Captains Gala. Kids at in AP with our friends, and the kids actually encouraged us to go to Palo since we did not do so in 2001. We were seated by the window, and sunset would have been wonderful had the weather cooperated instead there were thick clouds. But, back to Palo. Our server was Dalibor, from Croatia. Besides being absolutely, incredibly handsome, he was professional, courteous, charming, knowledgeable, and observant I could go on but you have the picture. The breads and dips were quite tasty, as were the olives. I love olives, so I was in heaven. DH enjoyed the non-olive elements! For appetizers, I had the warm shrimp grilled with paprika and served with baby asparagus. DH had the basil, tomato, mozzarella salad, and we shared a plate of calamari (which were excellent a light breading and fried to perfection tender, not at all chewy). For the entrée we both had grilled lobster tail, each of which easily was at least 2 pounds. Dalibor removed the meat from the tails for us. Scrumptious lobster! Of course, for dessert we each had the chocolate soufflé, which I had read so much about. I was not disappointed! Wow what a delicious dessert! Coffee and cappuccino completed our meal. Dalibors timing and service was impeccable, my iced tea glass was never empty; DH and I decided that if we were ever to cruise Disney without children, we would definitely eat in Palo more frequently for dinner. We left a tip in addition to the $5 per person surcharge. By the way, we received a reminder phone message for our reservation, and on Friday a second message hoping we enjoyed our dinner at Palo and informing us there was space available for Friday evening however we decided to stay with the children and dine in the main dining room to close our week. DH and I definitely recommend including dinner at Palo with your week on the Magic. The food, service, ambiance all combine to create a wonderful dinner and such a contrast to the noisy main dining rooms!
Entertainment
The opening and closing variety shows were fine similar to what we saw in 2001. Morty the Magnificent was our least favorite show, well performed, but the content is boring and pace of the show is slow for kids. Millionaire and Hercules were entertaining, Disney Dreams was excellent. One evening for the main show Piglets movie was debuted definitely more for the little ones The cabaret family shows were entertaining. The first night we did the Mickey Mania in Studio Sea DD and I were picked as one of 4 parent-child contestants. There were three rounds of trivia: round 1 was question/answer, round 2 was what happens next, where a scene of a movie was shown and we had to write down what happens next in the scene, and round 3 was name that toon, where an image of a character was swirled digitally, slowly unraveled and focused first one to identify the toon received points. DD and I were trailing going into round 3, but DD has an excellent eye for art and soon she was blowing away the competition in identifying the toons. We ended up winning the contest (really, DD won it, I wasnt too much help looking back on that night) and receiving lovely Im a winner medallions! It was a neat way to start our cruise! The other evenings we attended the entertainer family cabarets in Rocking Bar D each of the entertainers created a good 35 minute set we really enjoyed the shows. Some of the entertainers were the same ones we saw in 2001, but each had some new material, and all worked in improvisation based on the audience. We did the music trivia during the week interesting and tough! During our first cruise in 2001, we didnt take advantage of many of the 7:45 pm cabaret shows instead we hurried to the Walt Disney Theater to get good seats for the show. This time, we took advantage of the cabaret shows, had a wonderful time, and still had fine seats for the Theater shows. We sat in the back by choice for a couple of the shows, and the seats were fine there really arent bad seats in the theater. So enjoy the cabaret shows! The Tropicalifragilous deck party was a good time, the kids enjoyed dancing and the character show. We all enjoyed that event and the buffet that came with it at about 10:45 pm.
Oceaneer Lab
DD registered with her friend for the Oceaneers Lab. They participated in some of the activities during the week, and enjoyed their time there, however they certainly didnt choose to spend a lot of time in the Lab. What time they did spend there was positive. On the night the kids made slime, two boys were asked to leave because of hitting and biting each other (this is the 10-12 year old group). I was pleased that appropriate behavior was expected and consequences enforced. Overall the girls enjoyed the Lab. DS, 12, didnt care for the Lab as he was in that group when he was 10, and didnt care for the teen area (he was within a month of his birthday and offered to move up) he is definitely an inbetweener at this point and preferred to do his own thing or hang with the family, which was also fine. He checked out Common Grounds a couple times, but just didnt want to deal with the crowds literally too many teens. Perhaps the shift from the current location to the ESPN club will create a more spacious place for the teens.
Photography tidbits
*Photographs from Shutters: we purchased the 10 6x8 plan for $85 and for 2 of the 10 prints we ordered reprints of our favorite shots for Grandma. Reprints can be processed within hours. One negative 8x10 photos cannot be produced in the smaller 6x8 format. We discussed that Disney is working on a system to use digital photographs the challenges include coding each photograph to the stateroom and providing adequate previewing capabilities. Perhaps if anyone has suggestions on that they should write DCL! And 8x10s are about $20, 6x8 $10.
*Another photography issue: DD brought her camera. On the second to last night DD took her camera to the character farewell in the atrium and clicked so many photos through her teary eyes. The next morning I questioned DD about packing film in the carry-on and she said she hadnt run out yet. Uh Oh. I knew we had a problem. Here DDs camera never had film in it. Needless to say, she was crushed and in tears. I tried to convince her that I have many of the same photos with my digital camera, but it just isnt the same as through the eyes of a child.
*Lighting: I used a digital camera, and the lighting was sometimes difficult to judge inside the ship. Depending on the type of digital camera you use, be sure to play with lighting settings before any important photos. Also plan on how to store your photos (download to a laptop, extra memory cards, etc.)
