A Grand Dream of a Honeymoon - June 2011

[Sunstar]

What a gorgeous sunrise! AKL is the one resort we've never gotten over to, but we're doing a dinner at Jiko this trip so I'm excited to see what it looks like! Can't wait to hear about your cruise!

 

[klacey1]

What a relaxing morning! Wow-- 30 cruises?! Can't imagine that!

 

[Mindy5767]

What a relaxing morning! Wow-- 30 cruises?! Can't imagine that!

I can. My in-laws have been on at least that many. Not one of them Disney Mostly they do Royal Caribbean. Some cruises they've done 2 and 3 times. I know they did Alaska 3 times and the Panama Canal twice and I'm not sure how many times they did Galapagos Islands! That IS alot of cruising. I'll just be happy when someday I can say I've made 30 separate trips to WDW!

 

[bmb3]

Congratulations! I love Disney honeymoons - we had one almost 5 years ago! I'm excited to read about yours too

 

[shippedtosea]

All caught up! I'm glad you started. Can't wait for more.

 

[sstewart]

Joining in...Can't wait for to hear about the cruise and the Grand Floridian!

 

[SOUTHERNtinkerBELLE]

What a relaxing morning! (Minus the waking up really early! ) When we stayed at AKL, my favorite time of day there was the morning, because it was so incredibly peaceful out on the savannah. Your pictures are really making me want to stay there again! It truly is a beautiful place.

Yay! I'm so excited you're about to go on the cruise!

 

[Dugette]

I think it was your TR that inspired me to find out about airport lounges for this trip.. didn't you get to use one in December?!
Yes, that was us! I'm glad the idea could help you. It does sound like you managed to have a really nice travel day, given the distance and all.

Love your morning at AKL. I never noticed the Lion King characters on the curtains! Yummy Boma breakfast...glad you both enjoyed it!

Excited to hear about your cruise!

 

[disneybarbie]

I love how peaceful everything looks in the morning. Glad you were able to relax a little after your long flight. We are staying at AKL in Sept. for a little suprise get away for the kids and we can't wait. I love it there and you're right...the breakfast at Boma is one of my favorites.

Wow that'll be an amazing surprise in September!
It was really peaceful that morning on the balcony - we could hear one other family on their balcony (only talking quietly) but it was just us and that beautiful view of the savannah!

Wow, that sunrise was amazing!!! Sounds like a great start to your honeymoon!

Thank you! so glad we had the cameras ready - the sun came up quite quickly.. it was very 'Lion King'.. I was humming 'Circle of Life' to myself hehe

I didn't know they had a list of all the animals of the savannah, which you can check off as you see them. Very cool.

The sunrise is very pretty.

Hope you got over the jet lag eventually and were able to sleep in a little more.

Yes I really liked the animal list.. nice touch!
The jet lag wears off after a few days - it's just part of going to the USA for us now, it works to our advantage at WDW because it makes it very easy to get up for early EMH, but we just don't manage to stay up very late for a few days

I love those Lion King curtains! I want those for my room at home

My family went to Boma a few years ago for dinner: I loved it, no one else did. The Breakfast looks really interesting/good!

Can't wait to read about the dream!

The curtains were such a nice touch.. only Disney would think of that! I'd had breakfast at Tusker House in AK a few years ago and Boma had similar food to there - I really like the mix of traditional breakfast items with African inspired dishes.

Great Report so far! Can't wait to hear the rest!

Thank you for reading!

As crazy as it may sound, I actually love mornings at WDW. Everything is so peaceful and quiet before the crowds wake up. That sunrise is so pretty!

How cool there's a check list to mark off the animals you see! Do you remember how many animals there were all together on the list?

Aw, I bet it was sad to say goodbye to the room. I always have a hard time with leaving!

How fun you got to spend some time around the Resort with breakfast and exploring before getting on the bus.

I really like the mornings at WDW too - being in the resorts or at the parks early is such a great time, waiting for the day at Disney to begin!

Hi Emma! Great start, your flight sounds like a mini vacation in itself!

I am so excited to read the rest of the report!

Thank you! more to come soon

Love all the morning AKL pics! Looks like a great resort - can't wait to visit it.

Am glad you both enjoyed Boma for breakfast and can't wait to hear about the cruise

We really like AKL, such a beautiful and well-themed resort

What a gorgeous sunrise! AKL is the one resort we've never gotten over to, but we're doing a dinner at Jiko this trip so I'm excited to see what it looks like! Can't wait to hear about your cruise!

Hope you enjoy dinner at Jiko! I ate there years ago (think in 2000!) but would like to return

What a relaxing morning! Wow-- 30 cruises?! Can't imagine that!

lol I guess some of those cruises might have been back-to-back ones... amazing really, once we'd been on one though I could understand why someone would want to go again and again

Congratulations! I love Disney honeymoons - we had one almost 5 years ago! I'm excited to read about yours too

Thank you! next update coming soon

All caught up! I'm glad you started. Can't wait for more.

Thanks for reading! I've just caught up with your latest TR, all looks great so far

Joining in...Can't wait for to hear about the cruise and the Grand Floridian!

Thanks for reading!

What a relaxing morning! (Minus the waking up really early! ) When we stayed at AKL, my favorite time of day there was the morning, because it was so incredibly peaceful out on the savannah. Your pictures are really making me want to stay there again! It truly is a beautiful place.

Yay! I'm so excited you're about to go on the cruise!

Thanks Courtney! I'm so glad we decided to stay at Kidani for that first night.. completely different to the Boardwalk (where I think we would have been tempted to head into Epcot or DHS and end up exhausted on our first day!) .. cruise coming up...

Yes, that was us! I'm glad the idea could help you. It does sound like you managed to have a really nice travel day, given the distance and all.

Love your morning at AKL. I never noticed the Lion King characters on the curtains! Yummy Boma breakfast...glad you both enjoyed it!

Excited to hear about your cruise!

Hi! loved those net curtains, such a Disney touch we would definitely go back to Boma again, we're thinking of trying to make the goats cheese & scrambled eggs for breakfast at home!



Emma x

 

[disneybarbie]

June 21st Continued….

We were the last two people to get on the first coach - but luckily still got two seats together. Soon we were on our way and the DCL video started – it was up to date and focused on our ship.



After that there were Disney short cartoons shown and trivia questions – I played along while Steve slept a little.

You could tell that everyone was excited on the coach about our destination.. when we got closer to Port Canaveral and got our first glimpse of the Dream, it was easy to here the ‘Wow’s and squeals of delight from lots of people (including me!)

As the bus entered the port, we drove really close to the ship – it was good for photos!

The journey took about 50 minutes from AKL to the port – a CM from the terminal got onto our bus and explained how we would be going through security and then checking in; there wasn’t a large queue into the terminal building (it was about 1pm by now so I guessed that boarding the ship had already begun).

Getting through security didn’t take very long, about 10 minutes – I had to take off my ‘Just Married’ badge before going through the scanner, forgot it was made of metal!
Very soon we were heading up the escalator and into the Disney terminal….

There were several desks set up for the health questionnaires, we approached one & filled in our forms – and I asked a CM where the ‘non-US citizens’ line was (I’d luckily heard about this on the Passporter Moms podcast the week before!) – she showed us where it was and there was no one in line for it, while the regular queue for check in was still quite long.
A friendly CM checked us in – it didn’t take very long, and soon we were handed our Key to the World cards!

We were handed a second card which was our boarding group (30) – I’d heard an announcement that groups 1-24 were asked to board, so we didn’t have long to wait.

The family we’d spoke to at AKL had told us to look at the floor tiles in the terminal if we remembered to – it was a huge map of the sea and showed many of the ports DCL sail to!
We found some seats and both used the restrooms – there were television screens showing Cinderella; I didn’t see very much of it though as soon it was ‘group 1 to 30’s turn to approach the yellow Mickey ears and get ready to board!

Once through the ears, there was a short line to have our photo taken – we didn’t buy this one but I knew it was taken as the ship photographers used facial recognition from this picture to match all of our cruise photos to our stateroom keys (very clever… it was like photopass without needing a card!).
And then we were heading up the gangway and onto the ship!

We were both really excited – there were several CMs (they are ‘crew members’ on DCL rather than ‘cast members’, but just as fantastic) who greeted us and one asked for our family name.. we said Steve’s.. and as we entered the atrium she announced us and everyone clapped – it was a memorable moment and the atrium was breathtaking!

Another CM greeted us – he congratulated us on our marriage and then asked for our stateroom number, he then told us the best way to get there which was really helpful. It was after 1.30pm so we were able to go to our stateroom – so off we went!
Our luggage was already outside our door so we swiped a room key over the pad – and in we went!

...

 

[disneybarbie]

.....

Our room was fabulous – we’d booked a category 5A stateroom with a veranda. It was much bigger than either of us was expecting, with so much storage for our luggage (under the bed) and belongings.
I’d ordered some beers, wine, bottled water and a photo credit package for us – and all of these were beautifully displayed on the coffee table and desk area. But to our surprise, my sister had also ordered for us a ‘bon voyage’ package – so there was a bottle of champagne, plate of chocolates and fruit, a celebration cake and many decorations all over our stateroom!

View from the balcony..

Space Center!

Our first navigator was on the bed along with our dining tickets and confirmation of our booked excursions, spa appointments and speciality restaurant bookings.

Steve opened a beer & I had a glass of wine (the ice buckets for these were refilled by our stateroom host twice a day!) while I got on with unpacking our bags - then we went to explore the ship before the safety drill.

I put the magnets I’d made on our door (this was really helpful to locate our room on the corridor for the first day or so!)

Our room was well positioned near the elevators that went up into Cabanas at the rear (aft) of the ship – and we didn’t have far to walk to the next elevators that were midship.

First we went up to deck 11 – it felt really busy up here but exciting, there was music playing & people in the pool and on the sunbeds. We got a drink from one of the stands and wandered through Cabanas

We also wandered up to Deck 12 and saw the sports deck,

Then through the adult only pool area, Quiet Cove pool and Cove Café – this was much more relaxed, knew we’d be spending more time here later in the cruise.

...

 

[disneybarbie]

...
We went back to our stateroom just before 4pm, and very soon the sirens started and it was time for the safety drill! We went down the staircase to Deck 4, we were at muster station ‘N’. I liked going down the emergency staircases as it was a bit like going ‘back stage’ on the ship.

Once assembled at our station, a CM used a megaphone and asked us to name Disney characters beginning with the letter ‘N’ (we came up with Nana, Naveen, Nemo and Nigel the pelican).
The safety drill didn’t take long at all – we had to have our stateroom keys scanned and then were allowed to go leave.

s

We went back to the Atrium to take some photos, and stopped for lattes at the café there – these were a few dollars each but were very tasty. We noted how quiet it was now, considering there were 4,000+ people onboard, we were almost alone!

We walked around Deck 4 and 3 to see the menus at the Royal Palace and Enchanted Garden.

We went up to watch the Sailaway party from Deck 12 – it was very busy around here..

So instead we walked up to Deck 13 to the very front of the ship – we were right up against the railings and ready to sail out to sea!

We began moving, and the ship played ‘A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes’ on the horn – I couldn’t believe we were actually onboard our cruise!

Steve got a lot of great photos here of other boats… as well as a group of dolphins – one was jumping in front of the ship.

I liked that people on other boats and on the shore were waving to us and we all waved back.

An announcement was made that the first seating for dinner would begin soon (5.45pm I think) – I was glad then that we had second seating so there was plenty of time still. We went down to our room and got ready for dinner.

We spent some time out on the veranda…

Our seating was at 8.15pm so about 7.30 we went down to Deck 4 and had a look around the shopping district – there were several shops that were really nicely designed with a lot of good merchandise – I also spied the Dooney & Bourke DCL exclusive bags

While wandering around these decks we encountered our first ‘enchanted art’ pictures!

(video.. let me know if this works! )


These were really clever – although I soon learnt that not all pictures would start moving when I stood in front of them.

At 8pm we went to the Enchanted Garden and waited a few minutes for the restaurant to open.

...

 

[disneybarbie]

…

I liked it when we entered as all of the servers were lined up either side to greet us! One asked for our table number and we were led to our table.

It was just off the main dining area which was a bit quieter – we were seated on a table for four, but had no other guests seated with us! I had expected we’d be seated on a table of 6 or 8 with other guests, but our travel agent had requested smaller tables for us as it was our honeymoon.. which was exactly what we got!
Our servers were called Ivor and Caterina, they were very friendly and we had great service at all of our rotation meals with them. Our head server was called Gabor and he came over to introduce himself during the meal.

We ordered drinks and were given the bread (we noticed on the Dream that they always had delicious bread & butter with the meal – this one had red fruit in it, like a fruit brioche?).

For appetisers, I had ahi tuna and avocado and Steve had lobster ravioli

For main course, I had sea bass on a risotto, and Steve had pork…

The portions were smaller than normal WDW meals, so we made it to dessert most nights!
I had a bananas foster sundae and Steve had a strawberry shortcake.

The whole meal was delicious and we enjoyed all three courses, our only small complaint was that our dinner was served very quickly; we were finished within an hour! Our section was very quiet though so our waiters were able to be very quick for us.

After dinner we went up to the sports area to play mini golf! It wasn’t at all busy – but I found it quite breezy and realised I couldn’t play mini golf in a floaty dress! So I watched Steve and took photos.. it was quite a unique experience, playing golf while out in the sea on a huge ship!

Back inside, we saw Donald in the atrium..

Next we went to The District area to have a look around –

we made our way into the Skyline bar as I wanted to see the city ‘windows’ – and we decided to stay for a cocktail.

The barman, Augusto, was very friendly and gave us a light-up menu!

We weren’t sure what to order – the barman was making a New Yorker cocktail for another lady, so we decided to have two of those!
Another guest kindly took our photo.

This bar was really unique – it didn’t feel busy and the entire wall behind the bar area was like looking over a city from high up – it changed every 15 minutes, we saw Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Chicago, Hong Kong and New York. You could see lights turning on and off in the buildings and cars/boats moving along.

We stayed here for over an hour to see each of the city skylines – we asked if the picture ever changed to London – and Augusto told us that they would probably have that on the Disney Fantasy Skyline bar next year!

We headed back to our stateroom, it was nearly 11pm – we were already doing much better with the jetlag.

Our stateroom host (who we’d met briefly early, Nigel) had turned down our bed, drawn the curtains and left a crab towel animal with Sleepy dwarf chocolates as eyes!
There was also the next day’s navigator.

We’d had an amazing first day on our cruise and couldn’t wait for the next day to begin.



Coming up tomorrow… Castaway Cay (also known as paradise!)

 

[disneylovin24]

Love all of the cruise pictures

It really looks like such an amazing ship! I have never wanted to go on a crusie in my life but after seeing various TR's on the ship I really want to!

I love all of the goodies you had in your room when you arrived, such a nice touch.

Can't believe there is mini golf on the ship! It looks like so much fun!

 

[onelilspark]

Joining in! We're coming to Europe for a cruise for out Honeymoon!

Congrats on the marriage!

 

[lua1904]

Really enjoying this TR, we are having a very similar honeymoon next May at WDW and on the Dream. Can't wait to hear more! Congratulations on the wedding.

Laura

 

[Sweet Pea UK]

Wow Emma!!!! I want to go on a Cruise!!! What an amazing start! I can't wait to read more xx

 

[ronnmel]

When I was younger I was really interested in taking a cruise, but kinda forgot about it as I got older. Now with reading your TR it makes me want to take one!

It's incredible how a ship with so many people can actually look empty in some places!

What's this navigator you are talking about receiving?

 

[anjalee6]

Emma- Your pictures and descriptions are great! I wasn't sure whether I would ever want to go on a cruise (we've gone back and forth with the idea) but this makes me want to go on one and you have only been on the boat for a short time.

 

[klacey1]

I love your pictures! I can't believe how gorgeous the Dream is! I love the dress you wore to dinner, too!