8/25 sailing. Hurricane Irene almost turned my DREAM into a Nightmare!

[SummerRoberts]

Got back from the dream on 8/29. We sailed during Hurricane Irene.
I kept checking with dcl and the concierge staff before we left for Orlando on wednesday. They said Everything was on schedule and not to worry, it would be "magical"

Stayed in the kids suite at portofino bay. The last time we were there it was an adorable dr suess themed room for the kids connected to a regular room for the parents. Not so cute anymore. Our bellman told us they lost the rights to dr suess and had to change the rooms. It was fine, just not worth the $500+ they charged for it to not be as cute. We got up early and went to islands of adventure, we did all the Harry potter rides (no motion sickness there) then left universal at around 10:30.
We headed to the port and made it there by 11:45. Drpped our bags at the curb and headed to the garage. Parked on 3 so we could take the walkway over to the ship. Security was super easy. Xray carry ons, no shoe removal, no body scanners, very smooth process. Walked into the terminal and waited in the concierge check in line. Even though we were 3rd in line That took a while. Our friends in the huge regular line were done before us. Took our pictures and boarded the ship. Missed taking a picture with minnie in the terminal, bummed about that as we never made it to any other professional character photo op's.
Gotta jump in the car and pick up my 3 year old, To be cont'd....

 

[SummerRoberts]

Was escorted into the atrium lobby and straight up to the concierge lounge. The concierge team immediately greeted us, offered us drinks and food then sat with us a a table and gave us our folder with all the info in it. The navigator and room keys and tons of other stuff were in there. We discussed our excursions, the weather and the options for canceling them if the weather was bad.

We went to check out our room which was 11008, a one bedroom suite. It was beautiful! High end finishings, nice sheets, big bathrooms, plenty of room to move around, very cool. decided to throw on the kids bathing suits which we brought in our carry ons and head to the pools. Best thing about being on deck 11 was that we were right near everything.

My older one ran off with his friend to ride the aquaduck and i took my 3 year old to the mickey pool. Once there of course he saw the mickey slide. He is only 36 inches tall and I didn't think they would let him on. There was a CM at the bottom who looked at him and said go ahead. I walked up the stairs with him and i'm glad I did. They need to have someone up there helping the kids. There's a red light green light system to let you know when to go but most of the kids up there had no clue what to do. So I became a CM for a bit and helped out. Was happy to help some of the little ones not miss their turns when some of the bigger kids cut in line. The stairs are slippery and with 8 kids in line someone could easily fall down those stairs.
After about 40 minutes of that I was over it and my bff and i got our kids to go in the mickey pool and Nemo's reef for a while. Nemo's reef was cuter than I was expecting and he loved it. The little slide in there was super fast just like I'd read in other people's trip reports. They did have a black rubber mat at the bottom now to break some of the kids falls but some kids flew right past it. There was a band playing and drinks being passed around. I think if you bought the drink of the day in the souvenir cup for $10 then refills were $4. We were having a great time walking around and checking things out
The whole boat was immaculate. On multiple occasions I saw employees scrubbing things with toothbrushes. There are wipes everywhere. I'm a total germ freak when it comes to my kids and at no point did i ever feel anything was icky. The handwashing stations in the oceaneers club were the coolest!

Around 5 we went to our rooms to get ready for dinner. We had early dinner and it always seemed to creep up on us. Our dinner rotation was r-a-e, so we went to Royal palace the first night. Dinner was good, I had the steak and lobster. It wasn't amazing food and it wasn't bad food. Better than in the theme parks but not like a real steak house. Our servers were very nice and brought over anything anyone wanted. We were starting to hit some rough water as dinner was about finished. We decided to go try some shopping but it was getting worse. I did manage to do some damage even though at this point I was starting to feel worse. Things were sliding off the shelves and some of the cm's looked worried but they said it should be fine.
It was about 8:45 and my little one was too tired for the club so we took him up to the room to take a bath and get ready for bed. That's when it hit me like a hammer. After 10 minutes in the room I started throwing up and did not stop until 3:30 the next day. I was awake all night and had never felt so bad ever!!! Could not keep any of the liquids or crackers that the concierge sent me down. Tried to get off the boat in Nassau at 1pm but I didn't make it too far before getting sick again. Decided to go back to the boat and ask about the probability of us going to castaway cay the next day. Would we have a day at sea? The way I felt that sounded horrible to me....

 

[Desi]

oh my!

 

[SummerRoberts]

The concierge was awesome and let me know that we probably would not be going to castaway cay but would be going out to sea and then back to Naasau in the morning. I decided to get off the boat and stay at the cove at Atlantis for the night in the hope that a night on land would make me feel better. I had been planning this trip forever and really wanted to be able to enjoy the rest of it.
I did feel better in the morning, not great but better. Was definitely bummed I missed Animators palate and the pirate party on the ship but my husband and kids got to enjoy it and I had stopped throwing up so that was great.
My family came to Atlantis in the morning and got to do all the pools and slides that were open. They had suffered some damage from the hurricane so the cove pools were closed but the kids area and royal towers pool were open. The leap of faith and some other slides were open but the lazy river was closed.
We played on the beach and toured the aquarium went into the pools and had a great time. Was happy we got to enjoy Atlantis especially since our aquaventure excursions had been canceled. We had to leave around 1. I had to be back at the ship by 1:30 so I could go through immigration and re- embarkation.
Once I got back on the boat I tried to make up for lost time. I felt the best if I just kept moving and stayed out of my room. We walked around and did the detective agency thing. It was really cool, maybe one of my favorite things. Went to the oceaneers club with my 3 year old. All the counselors seemed to know him by name and that he was usually there with his friend. That was pretty impressive due to the number of kids they have in there. It did seem a little chaotic in there at times but he is at the bottom of the age range and he did okay. We would only leave him for about an hour and when we came back he was always busy doing something.

 

[KarlaG4Kids]

I can sure feel your pain. If I had been in seas that rocky I would have been praying to the porcelin god the way you were. Motion sickness is the WORST! It is wonderful that you were able to get off of the ship and stay the night and get your land legs back. Best wishes for a future cruise!

 

[seethruguy]

The concierge was awesome and let me know that we probably would not be going to castaway cay but would be going out to sea and then back to Naasau in the morning. I decided to get off the boat and stay at the cove at Atlantis for the night in the hope that a night on land would make me feel better. I had been planning this trip forever and really wanted to be able to enjoy the rest of it.
I did feel better in the morning, not great but better. Was definitely bummed I missed Animators palate and the pirate party on the ship but my husband and kids got to enjoy it and I had stopped throwing up so that was great.
My family came to Atlantis in the morning and got to do all the pools and slides that were open. They had suffered some damage from the hurricane so the cove pools were closed but the kids area and royal towers pool were open. The leap of faith and some other slides were open but the lazy river was closed.
We played on the beach and toured the aquarium went into the pools and had a great time. Was happy we got to enjoy Atlantis especially since our aquaventure excursions had been canceled. We had to leave around 1. I had to be back at the ship by 1:30 so I could go through immigration and re- embarkation.
Once I got back on the boat I tried to make up for lost time. I felt the best if I just kept moving and stayed out of my room. We walked around and did the detective agency thing. It was really cool, maybe one of my favorite things. Went to the oceaneers club with my 3 year old. All the counselors seemed to know him by name and that he was usually there with his friend. That was pretty impressive due to the number of kids they have in there. It did seem a little chaotic in there at times but he is at the bottom of the age range and he did okay. We would only leave him for about an hour and when we came back he was always busy doing something.

We were on this cruise and were lucky none of us got sick. We didn't know that we were returning till Nassau till after dinner. Actually they made the announcement during dinner but we couldn't here it in the dinning room, very garbled, but when we saw the long lines at guest services and at the excursion desk we knew we had a change in plans. What if they changed plans again? Although I guess there are worse places to be stuck then the Atlantis LOL

 

[SummerRoberts]

Thank you Karla! I have never been motion sick before and have been on boats, planes, helicopters, rollercoasters and even a submarine once. Was completely taken by surprise. Julia on the concierge team really saved my vacation. She's the one that coordinated everything for me.

With the little one in the kids club my husband and I ran around the whole ship. I have tons of pictures but can't figure out how to upload them! We went to shutters to check out our pictures there but since we were concierge our folder was up in the concierge lounge. They use facial recognition software to keep all of your families pictures together. pretty cool. Pretty soon it was time to get ready for dinner. We had dinner at enchanted garden that night. It was pretty and our servers were super sweet in welcoming me back. They had ginger ale waiting for me. I have never had so much ginger ale in my whole life! I ate super light that night, plain chicken breast off the diet side of the menu. Our servers brought us a special anniversary dessert and sang to us. (We got married 15 years ago in the wedding pavilion and had our reception at
the grand Floridian)
We spent the rest of the night shopping, the stores were great. Plenty of merchandise of all kinds. Sizes did start to get slim on the last night so if there is something you have to have get it the first night. We checked out the believe show and it was amazing!

 

[SummerRoberts]

We were on this cruise and were lucky none of us got sick. We didn't know that we were returning till Nassau till after dinner. Actually they made the announcement during dinner but we couldn't here it in the dinning room, very garbled, but when we saw the long lines at guest services and at the excursion desk we knew we had a change in plans. What if they changed plans again? Although I guess there are worse places to be stuck then the Atlantis LOL

I'm so glad you guys didn't get sick!! I was worried that the ship might not come back for me but Julia assured me it would. I was just so happy at the thought of sleeping in a non moving bed I was willing to go with it!

 

[HookedonMagic]

Thanks for your report. Again, so sorry that you felt so ill. But glad to know your family was able to enjoy most of what the ship had to offer...as were you once you returned on Saturday.

On a side note, my next door neighbor opened the wedding pavillion at the Grand Floridian years ago. She no longer works for Disney, but I'm guessing she (Rebecca) was involved with planning your wedding 15 years ago. . Happy Anniversary.

 

[SummerRoberts]

Thanks for your report. Again, so sorry that you felt so ill. But glad to know your family was able to enjoy most of what the ship had to offer...as were you once you returned on Saturday.

On a side note, my next door neighbor opened the wedding pavillion at the Grand Floridian years ago. She no longer works for Disney, but I'm guessing she (Rebecca) was involved with planning your wedding 15 years ago. . Happy Anniversary.

Yes, Rebecca (miller? I think) did help with my wedding planning! She and a girl named Suzanne Kennedy. The wedding pavilion had just opened and they were wonderful! They even arranged a fireworks display to Aladdin's "a whole new world" (it was new at the time) as a gift. Please send her a hello from a still happily married (even after this cruise) former client!

 

[HookedonMagic]

I'll pass your hello on to Rebecca(yes, miller is her maiden name...she was married soon after you at the Pavillion, too!) She's amazing and still in the wedding business as a consultant to other planners worldwide!

 

[SummerRoberts]

Thank you "hookedonmagic" That's awseome!

After checking out believe we walked around the ship for as long as possible. My little one was tired and we brought him upstairs at about 9:45. After putting him to bed I went out and walked around some more, checked out the help in the theater for a bit then finally went upstairs to bed.
my husband and i woke up at 6 the next morning, got ready and ran to cabanas to grab some breakfast to bring back to the room. This was the first time I had gone to cabanas and the first time since dinner on Thursday that I had wanted to eat anything. The buffet was great. We brought it back to the room and woke up the kids. We had to be off the boat as soon as they would let us. Left our room and headed down to deck 3 at 7:40. We went to the check out I guess you would call it. You need your room card to get off the boat. I had read that on someones TR and glad i remembered it. They scan your card to make sure you settled your bill. went down to the luggage area, porters are waiting to help you. He grabbed our multiple bags and showed us where to go. We Cleared customs and our porter helped us right to the car with the luggage. We were on our way by 8. We had a 10:50 flight to catch and a rental car to return so we were worried about time. We were fine. Made it to the airport and checked the bags by 9:20. Dropped the car and made it through security and on to the plane.
I have never been so happy to be home ever. I still love disney but I don't know that I'll ever cruise again.

 

[KarlaG4Kids]

I still love disney but I don't know that I'll ever cruise again.

Was this your first cruise? I feel bad for you because if it was the first cruise you got a really rotten deal with Irene. Because of my motion issues I never book during hurricane season (I don't want rough seas, let alone a hurricane) and I also book a lower deck with a cabin more midship. The one time we were upgraded to a suite (in the front of the ship) I had way more issues. I won't ever accept an upgrade if it is forward! I really enjoy cruising if I am careful with booking. Maybe you will give it a try again in the future!

 

[SummerRoberts]

Was this your first cruise? I feel bad for you because if it was the first cruise you got a really rotten deal with Irene. Because of my motion issues I never book during hurricane season (I don't want rough seas, let alone a hurricane) and I also book a lower deck with a cabin more midship. The one time we were upgraded to a suite (in the front of the ship) I had way more issues. I won't ever accept an upgrade if it is forward! I really enjoy cruising if I am careful with booking. Maybe you will give it a try again in the future!

Thank you so much for your advice! It was my first cruise since I was a teenager. I didn't even pick the date, I just took whatever date the dcl website spit out at me for a one bedroom suite! I guess for me midship and lower would have been better.
I grew up in Florida and am aware of the unpredictability of hurricane season but I am also a chicken and like the water (ocean, pools) to be really warm. If I ever cruise again (don't think I will) I will know so much more!!

 

[darwinsrule]

I decided to get off the boat and stay at the cove at Atlantis for the night in the hope that a night on land would make me feel better. [/QUOTE

Based upon the number of bags being off loaded on Friday either there were a lot of other people with the same idea or you travel with a lot of baggage (we saw probably two dozen suitcases being loaded on the pier). Don't blame you. If that had been my first cruise experience you would never get me back on another ship again.