MouseFan88
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2014
- Messages
- 91
After an admittedly late night on Day 4 (mostly because we wanted to prolong the magic!), we woke up to the sounds of the ship docking at Port Canaveral early Friday morning. By the time we forced ourselves out of bed and looked out our port-facing porthole, we could see people already leaving the terminal. How sad! We were in no rush to get off the ship, thanks to a 7:15 pm flight home to St. Louis and no real plans for the rest of the day. Since we had late dining for the cruise, our breakfast wasn't until 8:30 in Royal Palace.
We met up with the rest of our tablemates for the last time at breakfast and enjoyed saying goodbye to our serving team, even though it was a little sad. Breakfast was really quick, but we didn't feel too rushed. We're naturally quick eaters anyway, and we finished up before most of the rest of the dining room. We walked out into the Atrium lobby and did one last look around before a big sigh and walking off the Dream
Disembarkation was a breeze - since over half the ship had already left, our bags were easy to spot and we rolled them through Customs by ourselves. There were no lines waiting for buses, so by 9:00 we were on the bus back to MCO.
I had originally booked a 12:15 pm nonstop flight back to St. Louis, but when we booked the DCL transfer back to MCO, it blocked me from booking the transfer unless I scheduled a different flight. The only other non-stop was at 7:15, so I took that instead and booked a day room at the Hyatt inside the airport. Of course, when we got to the airport it wasn't even 10:00 yet, so we hopped in the insanely long Southwest line and hoped we could get bumped up to the 12:15 flight. I would abandon what I paid for the day room, but getting home earlier would be worth it. We wait through the insanely long line and get what was quite possibly the world's rudest airline agent. Talk about a harsh whiplash back to reality! No more Disney customer service. We asked about the earlier flight and he told us we were wasting his time and that he would require $250 per person just to put us on standby. No thanks, Mr. Grumpy-pants! After all of that, he wouldn't even print out our boarding passes for our evening flight, so we hoofed it over to one of the self-serve kiosks, printed out our boarding passes, and headed up to the Hyatt.
Now, a day room at the Hyatt is way overpriced in my opinion. $99?! Come on. But, since it was DH's birthday trip and I knew he would be a grinch if he had to sit around in the airport all day bored, I booked the room so that the last day of our vacation wouldn't ruin the rest of it. The room was nice, and it afforded us the opportunity to recover from our previous night's lack of sleep. We watched about 6 hours of HGTV alternating with naps and a trip down to the food court for a Chick-Fil-A lunch. We are both Chick-Fil-A addicts (we eat there at least twice a month, and we aren't folks that eat out very frequently), so having that awesome chicken for lunch was a good balm to our vacation-is-ending depression.
Around 5:30 we checked out, headed back to the Southwest line, and checked our bags. Going through security was a bit of a fiasco - the lines were super-winding and slow-moving and everyone seemed confused. We eventually made it through and had time to grab a bit of soup and a couple of pastries from Au Bon Pain before heading to our gate. Before we knew it, we were back to the frigid St. Louis temps and headed straight to a Christmas party with our friends.
We both ended up absolutely falling in love with DCL. It was a perfect balance of relaxation, incredible food, and enough activity so that we didn't get bored. It allowed DH to experience his first ocean-swimming, and the best meal of his life
That all being said, we did not take advantage of the on-board booking for another cruise. We both agreed that while we would've loved to stay on the ship for another day or two or three, there are so many other places that we haven't vacationed yet either! We've only been married two and a half years, and in that time we've vacationed to Switzerland, New Zealand, WDW twice, DCL once, Gatlinburg, Washington DC, Colorado, Texas, and Marceline, MO. We love going to new places, and DH hasn't seen almost any of the US. So, we'll keep our eyes peeled for a can't-miss DCL cruise, but for now we're going to keep our options open.
We did such a fantastic job raving about how awesome the cruise was that my family and DH's family now both want to do family DCL cruises, so maybe we'll put one of those together. I was really tempted to book the 4/25 Eastern Caribbean on the Fantasy that went on sail late last week, and even got a dummy booking, but let the deadline lapse without putting a deposit down.
We've already got a ski trip planned for February, and we think we'll make our first-ever trip to Disneyland in April instead. I've been to WDW 7 or 8 times throughout my life, despite living 16 hours away, and we've been to Marceline to see Walt's boyhood home, but neither of us has ever been to Disneyland. DH hasn't even ever been to California, and I have only spent one day there (for a job interview in San Francisco). I priced it out and it'll be about 60% of the price of the 4/25 cruise if we do 3 days in Disneyland, 1 day at Joshua Tree, 1 day at Sequoia, and 3 days at Yosemite. Then in August we're planning a big 9-day southwest road trip with visits to the Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, and the works.
Overall impressions - we both loved DCL so much more than we ever thought we would. I know this will sound like a cliche, but the whole week was like a dream. I'd go back and relive it in a heartbeat. But for now we want to explore other waters (or lands, as it were). I have no doubt in my mind we'll be back to cruise DCL again, and in the meantime I will get to keep reading other trip reports so that I can live vicariously through others
Thanks for joining me on this wild adventure - I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
We met up with the rest of our tablemates for the last time at breakfast and enjoyed saying goodbye to our serving team, even though it was a little sad. Breakfast was really quick, but we didn't feel too rushed. We're naturally quick eaters anyway, and we finished up before most of the rest of the dining room. We walked out into the Atrium lobby and did one last look around before a big sigh and walking off the Dream
Disembarkation was a breeze - since over half the ship had already left, our bags were easy to spot and we rolled them through Customs by ourselves. There were no lines waiting for buses, so by 9:00 we were on the bus back to MCO.
I had originally booked a 12:15 pm nonstop flight back to St. Louis, but when we booked the DCL transfer back to MCO, it blocked me from booking the transfer unless I scheduled a different flight. The only other non-stop was at 7:15, so I took that instead and booked a day room at the Hyatt inside the airport. Of course, when we got to the airport it wasn't even 10:00 yet, so we hopped in the insanely long Southwest line and hoped we could get bumped up to the 12:15 flight. I would abandon what I paid for the day room, but getting home earlier would be worth it. We wait through the insanely long line and get what was quite possibly the world's rudest airline agent. Talk about a harsh whiplash back to reality! No more Disney customer service. We asked about the earlier flight and he told us we were wasting his time and that he would require $250 per person just to put us on standby. No thanks, Mr. Grumpy-pants! After all of that, he wouldn't even print out our boarding passes for our evening flight, so we hoofed it over to one of the self-serve kiosks, printed out our boarding passes, and headed up to the Hyatt.
Now, a day room at the Hyatt is way overpriced in my opinion. $99?! Come on. But, since it was DH's birthday trip and I knew he would be a grinch if he had to sit around in the airport all day bored, I booked the room so that the last day of our vacation wouldn't ruin the rest of it. The room was nice, and it afforded us the opportunity to recover from our previous night's lack of sleep. We watched about 6 hours of HGTV alternating with naps and a trip down to the food court for a Chick-Fil-A lunch. We are both Chick-Fil-A addicts (we eat there at least twice a month, and we aren't folks that eat out very frequently), so having that awesome chicken for lunch was a good balm to our vacation-is-ending depression.
Around 5:30 we checked out, headed back to the Southwest line, and checked our bags. Going through security was a bit of a fiasco - the lines were super-winding and slow-moving and everyone seemed confused. We eventually made it through and had time to grab a bit of soup and a couple of pastries from Au Bon Pain before heading to our gate. Before we knew it, we were back to the frigid St. Louis temps and headed straight to a Christmas party with our friends.
We both ended up absolutely falling in love with DCL. It was a perfect balance of relaxation, incredible food, and enough activity so that we didn't get bored. It allowed DH to experience his first ocean-swimming, and the best meal of his life
That all being said, we did not take advantage of the on-board booking for another cruise. We both agreed that while we would've loved to stay on the ship for another day or two or three, there are so many other places that we haven't vacationed yet either! We've only been married two and a half years, and in that time we've vacationed to Switzerland, New Zealand, WDW twice, DCL once, Gatlinburg, Washington DC, Colorado, Texas, and Marceline, MO. We love going to new places, and DH hasn't seen almost any of the US. So, we'll keep our eyes peeled for a can't-miss DCL cruise, but for now we're going to keep our options open.We did such a fantastic job raving about how awesome the cruise was that my family and DH's family now both want to do family DCL cruises, so maybe we'll put one of those together. I was really tempted to book the 4/25 Eastern Caribbean on the Fantasy that went on sail late last week, and even got a dummy booking, but let the deadline lapse without putting a deposit down.
We've already got a ski trip planned for February, and we think we'll make our first-ever trip to Disneyland in April instead. I've been to WDW 7 or 8 times throughout my life, despite living 16 hours away, and we've been to Marceline to see Walt's boyhood home, but neither of us has ever been to Disneyland. DH hasn't even ever been to California, and I have only spent one day there (for a job interview in San Francisco). I priced it out and it'll be about 60% of the price of the 4/25 cruise if we do 3 days in Disneyland, 1 day at Joshua Tree, 1 day at Sequoia, and 3 days at Yosemite. Then in August we're planning a big 9-day southwest road trip with visits to the Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, and the works.
Overall impressions - we both loved DCL so much more than we ever thought we would. I know this will sound like a cliche, but the whole week was like a dream. I'd go back and relive it in a heartbeat. But for now we want to explore other waters (or lands, as it were). I have no doubt in my mind we'll be back to cruise DCL again, and in the meantime I will get to keep reading other trip reports so that I can live vicariously through others
Thanks for joining me on this wild adventure - I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
