ducklite
<font color=teal>Take the Poly, it's fabulous!<br>
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2000
- Messages
- 33,487
Day 1--The Magical start
We were up early at the Polynesian. DH went out for a long predawn run, and I crawled out of bed, showered and headed out with my laundry. There is something wonderful about the very early morning at the WDW Resorts, with only a few other early risers and some gardeners about; even when the only reason you are up early is to do laundry. I stopped for a few minutes to watch the ducks swim in the pool. I often wonder what the ducks at the World think about us humans
With the clothes in the washer, I headed back to the room to try to wake "The Lump". (DS earned the nickname "Lump" years ago, due to the soundness with which he sleeps.) He actually got out of bed fairly quickly once reminded that this was the day we had long been waiting on.
In between running back and forth on laundry duty, getting myself and the Lump up and ready, packing, and having some breakfast, I even managed to say goodbye to the wonderful concierge folks at the Polynesian! Mahalo!
Jimmy from Yourride.net was waiting for us when we finally arrived at the front of the resort. The bellman, Jimmy and my DH managed to get it all stuffed into the trunk, and off we went, towards the port. The lump layed down across the seat in the limo, and promptly fell back asleep. I woke him up as we approached the port and the Magic came into view. We had to pass through a couple of security checks at the port where Jimmy had to hand our Passports to a security person who checked us off against a passenger list. Finally we were there. A baggage handler relieved us of "the mountain" as we began to call our ever expanding pile of luggage, which would be larger still by the end of the trip.
We went through the security station where our totes were x-rayed and we had to walk through a metal detector. Then it was up the escalator to the terminal itself. All I can say is WOW! The building is just gorgeous. We found our way to the concierge check-in (which is all the way at the very end, after the Castaway Club checkin), and walked right up to the counter. We had arrived a few minutes after 11:00, and between checking our bags, going through security, and checking in, it was about 11:30 before we were all though. The line was already starting to snake through the terminal, but we were told to wait in the little seating area up by the doors as we would be preboarded. We walked around for a few minutes, and I went out onto the verandah area to get a few shots of the ship. While we were waiting, I noticed a family waiting in the same area with what looked to be a grandmother, husband and wife, and a couple small children. When I saw the grandmother rubbing her knee, I thought it must be GrannyMary, so I walked up to her and asked if she was Mary. She looked at me in shock, because it WAS her! I had found the first of many DisBoarders on this cruise. By 11:45, the line was wrapped all the way around the terminal, snaking about, and the only problem was to get to the restrooms, you had to cut through the line. Suddenly they told us they would begin boarding in a few minutes, and we went over to the doorway. A woman in a wheelchair was escorted on, then it was OUR turn! We walked up the gangway, where we had our photo taken for the first time of many, and at the doorway, they asked our names, then announced us as we walked onboard.
We headed directly to Sessions to meet with the concierge people. During my pre-cruise planning call with them, I had requested PLA for my dining rotation, and late seating. We ended up with LAP, which messed up my Palo's reservation that had already been booked (we would have been at Palo's on the Animators Palette show night). I weighed it through and decided to keep the LAP rotation, so I changed my Palo's reservation, which meant that I was eating there for brunch and dinner in the same day, which I was hoping to avoid, but ah well I also made Spa reservations for the Surial Bath, a massage, and a manicure. I also booked the wine tasting while I was there, and we confirmed our shore excursions. It was all set in under fifteen minutes. We also found that the dining was still in the "early" mode. Rather than 8:15, our seating began at 7:45, which was just perfect! (The concierge pre-planner had told me that it would be back to the later times when we sailed, so I was a bit surprised) From there we headed up to Topsiders for lunch.
I can't recall exactly what we had, it's actually a bit of a blur but I do recall peel and eat shrimp, a carving station, a variety of salads, and an decent dessert bar. I think we were all a bit too excited to eat! We sat out on the very back of the ship, where the weather was just perfect.
We saw a sea turtle off the side of the ship as we were finishing dinner, which was neat.
After lunch we decided to head to our stateroom, 8032, (it was almost 1:00pm by this time.) As we walked down the hall, we found another party trying to get into our stateroom--their keys didn't work, gee, I wonder why not!?!? They were actually in another stateroom on the other side of the ship never did quite figure that one out. I slipped my key in, and the little green light lit up, and suddenly I felt like Cinderella slipping on the glass slipper. We opened the door and walked in, and the first thing we saw were the GORGEOUS flowers that we had ordered from the Perfect Gift. The entire cabin smelled like the lilies that were in the bouquet.
We started to investigate the cabin that would be our home for the next week, and were shocked by how large it was. When you walked through the door you were in a short hallway with a closet to the right and the first bathroom to your left. This is not a split bathroom, and is quite roomy. At the end of the hall is the living room, with a fold out sofa, two easy chairs, ottoman, dining table and four chairs, wet bar, entertainment center including a 32" TV, VCR, and CD player, beverage cooler, and Murphy bed. There were two sliding glass doors to the triple wide verandah. Off the living room was the bedroom with a king bed (the mattress was soft but firm, exactly what we love as we sleep in a waterbed, but would be too soft for anyone who likes to sleep on a floor hard mattress), easy chair and ottoman, a nightstand on either side of the bed, and a television. There were tons of shelves and closets in each room, and even with all of our luggage we didn't use half of the storage space.
At one end of the bedroom was the third slider to the verandah, and at the other was a beautiful dressing table with tons of drawers (one contained a "real" blow dryer). To the left was a roomy walk in closet with a set of drawers and a safe, and to the other was the step up to the room with the jacuzzi tub and double sinks. Beyond that was a smaller room with a toilet and shower. There were electrical outlets in the walk in closet, in the cabinet under the TV in the bedroom, and someplace behind a drawer in the vanity. I'm sure there were others, but because there was a "real" blow dryer in the room, I had no reason to even need one.
Here are the (approximate) measurements of the suite (all are in feet):
Living room 18 x 16
Entrance hallway, closet, and bathroom 5 x 10
Bedroom 9.5 x 16
Walk-in closet 5.5 x 6
Dressing area 5.5 x 5
Outer bath with double sink and jacuzzi tub 6 x 7
Inner bath with toilet and shower 6.5 x 3.5
Verandah 4 x 27
On the bed in the bedroom was the gift basket I had ordered from The Perfect Gift, with beer, wine, Brisk Iced Tea lest the Lump go into withdrawl, some sand toys, playing cards, a waterproof camera, some snacks, and a few other goodies.
We started to unpack, and the Lump headed off to Common Grounds. At 3:00pm we headed up to Deck ten to meet the DisBoards group. After getting to put faces with names, we headed back to our stateroom and found that our final bag had been delivered. We finished the unpacking just in time for the mandatory drill, which would have been a lot quicker except that some parties obviously didn't think it applied to them and kept everyone else waiting. Ah well
We headed back to our room, dropped off the life jackets, and went to explore the ship. We were late leaving port because the Magic had gotten into port late. There had been a medical emergency on the Carnival ship who had asked to dock first that morning. Of course the request was granted, but it meant that the Magic got in about an hour late. Suddenly we heard the horn, and knew our magical journey was about to begin. We decided to be antisocial and skip the sailaway party, and just watched us leave port from our verandah instead.
DS came back looking for something to drink, and I remembered that I had the coupon in my docs from AAA for the three free mugs. So we went off to find out where to get them. In the main lobby they hada table set up where they were handing them out. You give them the card, they mark it to indicate that you've gotten your mugs, it's as simple as that. The AAA mugs are different looking than the DCL mugs, but they worked just as well. They just aren't as pretty, if that's important to you.
A fruit bowl was delivered compliments of the concierge team...and there were bottles of soda and Dasani water in the room when we arrived from them as well. (We didn't get any further beverages from them, however we did get a treat every day delivered to the room.)
Very quickly it was time to change and head to dinner. Our first night we were in Lumiere's. We were seated with a pleasant couple who had a teenage daughter. They were great dinner companions, but we didn't have much in common, and didn't make a lasting friendship. Our servers were Ivana (Server) and Collin (assistant) who has only a couple more weeks on his contract. Both were excellent. Maclean was our Head Server. That night I had the Filet and Crème Brulee, both of which were excellent. I can't recall what the others had, I'll edit this post to include if I can find out. Because it was the first evening, all the restaurants were resort casual dress, they did specifically request no shorts or jeans in any dining room at any dinner except shorts were OK on Tropical night.
We got back to the room and had a phone message from Geri and Gabriella, our concierge ladies welcoming us and letting us know that they will do anything to make our journey comfortable.
We could definitely feel the movement of the ship on Saturday night, and I had my SeaBands on. They were doing pretty well, but by about 10:00pm, the combination of an early morning start and the rocking sea had me thinking that it was time for bed.
I want to mention that when we first arrived at our suite, we found two problems. One, the sliding door between the living room and bedroom wouldn't latch shut. The other was that when someone rang the doorbell for the cabin next door, it rang in our suite. We asked our stateroom attendant, Sompop, to look into it, and very quickly repair people arrived. They "fixed" the door, which broke again almost immediately. DH used a butter knife and fixed it himslef later in the day, and it worked fine for the rest of the cruise. The doorbell was a little trickier. It took them a bit of time, but they finally got the sensors positioned right, and it worked fine for the remainder of the cruise.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=259669 ]More to come...
Anne
We were up early at the Polynesian. DH went out for a long predawn run, and I crawled out of bed, showered and headed out with my laundry. There is something wonderful about the very early morning at the WDW Resorts, with only a few other early risers and some gardeners about; even when the only reason you are up early is to do laundry. I stopped for a few minutes to watch the ducks swim in the pool. I often wonder what the ducks at the World think about us humans
With the clothes in the washer, I headed back to the room to try to wake "The Lump". (DS earned the nickname "Lump" years ago, due to the soundness with which he sleeps.) He actually got out of bed fairly quickly once reminded that this was the day we had long been waiting on.
In between running back and forth on laundry duty, getting myself and the Lump up and ready, packing, and having some breakfast, I even managed to say goodbye to the wonderful concierge folks at the Polynesian! Mahalo!
Jimmy from Yourride.net was waiting for us when we finally arrived at the front of the resort. The bellman, Jimmy and my DH managed to get it all stuffed into the trunk, and off we went, towards the port. The lump layed down across the seat in the limo, and promptly fell back asleep. I woke him up as we approached the port and the Magic came into view. We had to pass through a couple of security checks at the port where Jimmy had to hand our Passports to a security person who checked us off against a passenger list. Finally we were there. A baggage handler relieved us of "the mountain" as we began to call our ever expanding pile of luggage, which would be larger still by the end of the trip.
We went through the security station where our totes were x-rayed and we had to walk through a metal detector. Then it was up the escalator to the terminal itself. All I can say is WOW! The building is just gorgeous. We found our way to the concierge check-in (which is all the way at the very end, after the Castaway Club checkin), and walked right up to the counter. We had arrived a few minutes after 11:00, and between checking our bags, going through security, and checking in, it was about 11:30 before we were all though. The line was already starting to snake through the terminal, but we were told to wait in the little seating area up by the doors as we would be preboarded. We walked around for a few minutes, and I went out onto the verandah area to get a few shots of the ship. While we were waiting, I noticed a family waiting in the same area with what looked to be a grandmother, husband and wife, and a couple small children. When I saw the grandmother rubbing her knee, I thought it must be GrannyMary, so I walked up to her and asked if she was Mary. She looked at me in shock, because it WAS her! I had found the first of many DisBoarders on this cruise. By 11:45, the line was wrapped all the way around the terminal, snaking about, and the only problem was to get to the restrooms, you had to cut through the line. Suddenly they told us they would begin boarding in a few minutes, and we went over to the doorway. A woman in a wheelchair was escorted on, then it was OUR turn! We walked up the gangway, where we had our photo taken for the first time of many, and at the doorway, they asked our names, then announced us as we walked onboard.
We headed directly to Sessions to meet with the concierge people. During my pre-cruise planning call with them, I had requested PLA for my dining rotation, and late seating. We ended up with LAP, which messed up my Palo's reservation that had already been booked (we would have been at Palo's on the Animators Palette show night). I weighed it through and decided to keep the LAP rotation, so I changed my Palo's reservation, which meant that I was eating there for brunch and dinner in the same day, which I was hoping to avoid, but ah well I also made Spa reservations for the Surial Bath, a massage, and a manicure. I also booked the wine tasting while I was there, and we confirmed our shore excursions. It was all set in under fifteen minutes. We also found that the dining was still in the "early" mode. Rather than 8:15, our seating began at 7:45, which was just perfect! (The concierge pre-planner had told me that it would be back to the later times when we sailed, so I was a bit surprised) From there we headed up to Topsiders for lunch.
I can't recall exactly what we had, it's actually a bit of a blur but I do recall peel and eat shrimp, a carving station, a variety of salads, and an decent dessert bar. I think we were all a bit too excited to eat! We sat out on the very back of the ship, where the weather was just perfect.
We saw a sea turtle off the side of the ship as we were finishing dinner, which was neat.
After lunch we decided to head to our stateroom, 8032, (it was almost 1:00pm by this time.) As we walked down the hall, we found another party trying to get into our stateroom--their keys didn't work, gee, I wonder why not!?!? They were actually in another stateroom on the other side of the ship never did quite figure that one out. I slipped my key in, and the little green light lit up, and suddenly I felt like Cinderella slipping on the glass slipper. We opened the door and walked in, and the first thing we saw were the GORGEOUS flowers that we had ordered from the Perfect Gift. The entire cabin smelled like the lilies that were in the bouquet.
We started to investigate the cabin that would be our home for the next week, and were shocked by how large it was. When you walked through the door you were in a short hallway with a closet to the right and the first bathroom to your left. This is not a split bathroom, and is quite roomy. At the end of the hall is the living room, with a fold out sofa, two easy chairs, ottoman, dining table and four chairs, wet bar, entertainment center including a 32" TV, VCR, and CD player, beverage cooler, and Murphy bed. There were two sliding glass doors to the triple wide verandah. Off the living room was the bedroom with a king bed (the mattress was soft but firm, exactly what we love as we sleep in a waterbed, but would be too soft for anyone who likes to sleep on a floor hard mattress), easy chair and ottoman, a nightstand on either side of the bed, and a television. There were tons of shelves and closets in each room, and even with all of our luggage we didn't use half of the storage space.
At one end of the bedroom was the third slider to the verandah, and at the other was a beautiful dressing table with tons of drawers (one contained a "real" blow dryer). To the left was a roomy walk in closet with a set of drawers and a safe, and to the other was the step up to the room with the jacuzzi tub and double sinks. Beyond that was a smaller room with a toilet and shower. There were electrical outlets in the walk in closet, in the cabinet under the TV in the bedroom, and someplace behind a drawer in the vanity. I'm sure there were others, but because there was a "real" blow dryer in the room, I had no reason to even need one.
Here are the (approximate) measurements of the suite (all are in feet):
Living room 18 x 16
Entrance hallway, closet, and bathroom 5 x 10
Bedroom 9.5 x 16
Walk-in closet 5.5 x 6
Dressing area 5.5 x 5
Outer bath with double sink and jacuzzi tub 6 x 7
Inner bath with toilet and shower 6.5 x 3.5
Verandah 4 x 27
On the bed in the bedroom was the gift basket I had ordered from The Perfect Gift, with beer, wine, Brisk Iced Tea lest the Lump go into withdrawl, some sand toys, playing cards, a waterproof camera, some snacks, and a few other goodies.
We started to unpack, and the Lump headed off to Common Grounds. At 3:00pm we headed up to Deck ten to meet the DisBoards group. After getting to put faces with names, we headed back to our stateroom and found that our final bag had been delivered. We finished the unpacking just in time for the mandatory drill, which would have been a lot quicker except that some parties obviously didn't think it applied to them and kept everyone else waiting. Ah well
We headed back to our room, dropped off the life jackets, and went to explore the ship. We were late leaving port because the Magic had gotten into port late. There had been a medical emergency on the Carnival ship who had asked to dock first that morning. Of course the request was granted, but it meant that the Magic got in about an hour late. Suddenly we heard the horn, and knew our magical journey was about to begin. We decided to be antisocial and skip the sailaway party, and just watched us leave port from our verandah instead.
DS came back looking for something to drink, and I remembered that I had the coupon in my docs from AAA for the three free mugs. So we went off to find out where to get them. In the main lobby they hada table set up where they were handing them out. You give them the card, they mark it to indicate that you've gotten your mugs, it's as simple as that. The AAA mugs are different looking than the DCL mugs, but they worked just as well. They just aren't as pretty, if that's important to you.
A fruit bowl was delivered compliments of the concierge team...and there were bottles of soda and Dasani water in the room when we arrived from them as well. (We didn't get any further beverages from them, however we did get a treat every day delivered to the room.)
Very quickly it was time to change and head to dinner. Our first night we were in Lumiere's. We were seated with a pleasant couple who had a teenage daughter. They were great dinner companions, but we didn't have much in common, and didn't make a lasting friendship. Our servers were Ivana (Server) and Collin (assistant) who has only a couple more weeks on his contract. Both were excellent. Maclean was our Head Server. That night I had the Filet and Crème Brulee, both of which were excellent. I can't recall what the others had, I'll edit this post to include if I can find out. Because it was the first evening, all the restaurants were resort casual dress, they did specifically request no shorts or jeans in any dining room at any dinner except shorts were OK on Tropical night.
We got back to the room and had a phone message from Geri and Gabriella, our concierge ladies welcoming us and letting us know that they will do anything to make our journey comfortable.
We could definitely feel the movement of the ship on Saturday night, and I had my SeaBands on. They were doing pretty well, but by about 10:00pm, the combination of an early morning start and the rocking sea had me thinking that it was time for bed.
I want to mention that when we first arrived at our suite, we found two problems. One, the sliding door between the living room and bedroom wouldn't latch shut. The other was that when someone rang the doorbell for the cabin next door, it rang in our suite. We asked our stateroom attendant, Sompop, to look into it, and very quickly repair people arrived. They "fixed" the door, which broke again almost immediately. DH used a butter knife and fixed it himslef later in the day, and it worked fine for the rest of the cruise. The doorbell was a little trickier. It took them a bit of time, but they finally got the sensors positioned right, and it worked fine for the remainder of the cruise.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=259669 ]More to come...
Anne
