lborne
It all started with a rabbit
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2006
- Messages
- 1,387
Wonder Cruise - Day 1
Thursday, November 8
The main characters are me & DW, DS4 and DS9. We were on the cruise with MIL and FIL who are celebrating 50 years of marriage with at least 7 or 8 of them being happy as far as they can remember. My wife’s brother, his wife and son (16) are also on board as well as her other brother, wife, daughters 11 and 13 and son 20.
Background. My wife and I have been on 10+ cruises. This is the 3rd Disney cruise for us and the 2nd for our boys. The last Disney cruise was 1 year ago. MIL and FIL had never been on the Disney ship before, but have traveled on most of the other lines, NCL, RCCL, etc.
Thursday morning. The boys are a bit more hyper and excited than usual, although it is hard to tell really, since they are perpetual motion anyway. I begin to load the mini van with all the luggage that my wife has packed. Evidently, she thinks we must be relocating to Nassau permanently. She’s most excited about the fact that we don’t have to fly and thus don’t have to obey those pesky 50 lb limits and 2 bags per person limits. That’s fine with me, I didn’t need those spinal discs aligned anyway.
About 10:30 we leave the house and make it all the way to the end of the street before my wife declares she’s forgotten her sunglasses. As I’m backing down the road, DS4 screams “Dad, you’re going the wrong way”. So at 10:37, we leave once again, knowing full well that we’ve forgotten something despite the fact that we need a forklift to load the luggage onto the Wonder. (It was DS4’s blanket and stuffed dog). We stop at FIL and MIL’s house to pick them up as they live in the same city. Just as we are leaving their house I remember another thing I forgot – my earplugs. My wife and her family can all talk at the same time and can evidently listen to multiple conversations at once.
After an hour of “rock concert” level noise, a hush fell as the Disney ship came into view. That lasted about 2 seconds. It was around 11:45 and there were not many cars in line to drop off the luggage. I tipped the handlers $3 per bag – with the number of bags we had, I’m sure they can now retire comfortably. 5 minutes later, I was parked and making my way to the ship. We quickly got through security despite the Tigger like antics of our boys.
The terminal is beautiful. We got in the Castaway Club line and checked in amazingly fast thanks to having filled everything out on-line. BIG DISAPOINTMENT was that we did not get any CC lanyards or pins. We loved trading these pins at Disney World cause they seemed fairly rare there. Next we went over to the kids club line and got our pager and the boys got their ID bracelets. This also was very quick since we’d already pre-registered them. MIL and FIL are amazed at how quickly everything is going. We walk on board and our name is announced. We jokingly do the little “homecoming queen in the parade” wave. Later, as my SIL and family came aboard, she told them their family name was the “Fockers”. And YES, they announced it.
The VACATION can officially begin now – no more lines and no more forms to fill out. We got on the elevator and headed toward Beach Blanket for lunch. Because the gangway is covered and you do not see the ship, MIL thought we were still in the terminal. Woops. What was that about no more lines? The line for Beach Blanket was not long, but was moving slower than continental drift. I did find the problem - if only Disney could do something about all those picky kids on the ship. We sat outside and enjoyed lunch as the boys talked about all the fun things they were going to do. The weather was absolutely perfect. When lunch was done, it was 1:30, so we went to check into our room 2626. They were not quite ready, and it was about 1:45 before we were allowed in. The room was very clean, as is the entire ship. This is another example of where Disney outperforms most other cruise lines. They keep the ship and rooms in excellent condition – always painting and cleaning.
We had read the reports of this being a noisy room, but since we were just on the other side of the ship last year (2118) and found the room to be very quiet, we hoped the reports were wrong, or that the reporters were just “too sensitive”. Unfortunately, we did have some loud noises. They were repetitive bangs and hydraulic pump noises that never lasted more than 5 minutes, but were very noticeable. Thankfully, we never heard any between 11:00pm and 5:30 am. But still – if you like to go to sleep early and/or sleep in, this room is too noisy. Then there were our neighbors. Somehow, the guests in the room right next to us got on the wrong ship. I’m sure they were supposed to be on Carnival because they were rude, obnoxious and LOUD at all hours of the night.
We had a lovely view of the garbage bin outside our stateroom window and DS4 waved to all the union workers loading on the food. Our luggage had not arrived yet, so we just changed into our swim suits which we had packed in our day bag and headed for the Mickey Pool. It was a bit windy and chilly on deck, but that did not stop the kids from enjoying the pool and slide – with an occasional trip to warm up in the hot tub. While the boys enjoyed themselves, my wife and I got the drink of the day (Bahama Mama). I got a hot dog, chicken fingers and fries from Pluto’s Dog House. YES, I know I just had lunch, Thank You Very Much. Those are the only items I like from Plutos. The hamburgers are not nearly as good as you will get at CC.
DS4 on slide. Ignore those dark clouds in the sky.
Getting warm.
Wife and her father and Bahama Mama.
Well, before you know it, we have to do the emergency drill. DS4 asks what’s going on and I made the mistake of telling him we had hit an iceberg, not realizing that DS9 had recently told him all about the Titanic after reading the Magic Tree House book about it. After my wife calmed him down and finished hitting me with the life vest (that little light hurts), we made our way to Animator’s Palette to listen to all the kids blow on the whistles. I didn’t know why we were not meeting at the life boat, but I suppose in a real emergency, I’d want to try to get one last meal in before the ship sank.
Back in the room my wife starts to unpack (our luggage had arrived), and the boys start to argue about what to watch on TV – just like home, except this time it is costing us a lot more money to listen to them argue. DS9 and I go up on deck to the sail away party and watch as the ship sails out of the port. I was able to capture the ships horn on the camera which I had missed last year.
If you look off to the port side of the ship near the coast guard station, you will see two yellow buoys that sort of look like Gemini Space Capsules. One has a white radome on top and the other does not. I was the project engineer on that buoy and they were constructed where I work. There is one in the Sea of Japan and one in the Med. These two are used for testing and spares.
Back to the room to get ready for dinner. Our first night was Parrot Cay at 6:00 pm. We were a party of 14 and had table 23. Our server’s English was a little hard to understand at first, but he was excellent. You seldom read about bad wait staff on DCL (probably because they are not American and actually work hard). It takes me several months back home to get used to eating at restaurants and putting up with the horrible service from waitresses and waiters. I guess if it were not for such horrible meals back at home, we would not appreciate the cruise meals and staff as much. Our boys were anxious to get to the kids clubs despite the wait staff going to great lengths to make things fun for the children. In fact, another reason we love DCL is that ALL the staff cater to the kids and try to make everything fun for them. Our waiter was able to get their meals out quickly so that after about 1 hr, I checked them into the club and lab. Compared to last year, the food quality seemed a bit lower, but it also could have been our expectations. I’m always amazed at how good the food tastes considering they have to serve so many people. For appetizer I had the baked crab martinique which was on the cheesey side but was excellent. I also orderd the cold cream of mango and papaya soup which is like drinking melted mango and papaya ice cream - yummy. My DW's cream of sweat onion soup was also fantastic. For the entree I ordered the mixed grill. The best parts were the bacon wrapped suasage, the shrimp, and the lamb - and I don't usually care for lamb. It was perfectly prepared. My DW ordered the Grouper but with the sweet potato fries from the ribs entree as her side. However, the sweet potato fries were really large chuncks of potato that had NOT been fried. But that was our only disapointment with the meal, so can't really complain. On to desserts. The creme brulee cheesecake tasted like typical NY style with no creme brulee flavoring, but still really good as cheesecake goes. I had the French toast banana bread pudding with coconut ice cream. It was VERY good.
My MIL still recalls stories of the great depression days, so for her, you just can’t waste food. She’s the type that has hundreds of parkay butter containers in the fridge, none of which actually contain parkay. They contain all her leftovers going back to the Carter administration. She’s also the one you see at restaurants putting the extra bread rolls into her purse along with packets of sugar (which they will never miss). So she was having a hard time letting the waiter take dishes away with food still on them. First, she’d try to pass it off to one of the children or grandchildren. Then, she’d ask for a to-go box. Eventually she dealt with the fact that she could not change the way Disney operated their dining room; although I am sure they will be getting her recommendations in writing shortly. One of my SILs was feeling sea sick even though I could barely tell we’d left the dock. She was not sick enough to leave the table, but you could tell she was not 100% either. So every time she looked over at my direction I’d slowly sway side to side. She didn’t get the joke.
Mickey with lycoprene.
It was about 7:50 when we left the table. We grabbed an after dinner drink at the Promenade Lounge and listed to the live music. Then it was time for Hercules the Muse- Ical. We checked out DS4, but DS9 did not want to see the show. He remembered it from last year and was having too much fun in the club. The show was good by cruise ship standards, but still, we’d seen it back in 2000 and again last year. DS4 laughed quite a bit even though he did not get the jokes.
After the show, my wife and DS4 went to sleep. I took DS9 out of the kids club and we walked around the upper decks and stopped by the arcade. We still had money left on an arcade card from last year, and since it was just under 365 days, it still worked. I’m always amazed at how much money some kids spend there and Disney makes it very easy to charge to your room key. I also like the marketing brains at Disney who decided the costs for each game. Its not your typical 25, 50, 75, 100, etc. There are some that are 35, 40, 60 and other odd numbers. The idea must be that you end up with a card, like we did, with 20 points on it and since you don’t want to leave that unused portion and there are no games for 20, you need to add more money to the card, except the minimum is 100 points. Genius.
Well, I was tired, DS9 was now tired, and despite it only being 10:30 and my feeling like I was cheating myself out of more fun and food, I headed for the room and sleep.
Complete photo album here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Bornefamily
Thursday, November 8
The main characters are me & DW, DS4 and DS9. We were on the cruise with MIL and FIL who are celebrating 50 years of marriage with at least 7 or 8 of them being happy as far as they can remember. My wife’s brother, his wife and son (16) are also on board as well as her other brother, wife, daughters 11 and 13 and son 20.
Background. My wife and I have been on 10+ cruises. This is the 3rd Disney cruise for us and the 2nd for our boys. The last Disney cruise was 1 year ago. MIL and FIL had never been on the Disney ship before, but have traveled on most of the other lines, NCL, RCCL, etc.
Thursday morning. The boys are a bit more hyper and excited than usual, although it is hard to tell really, since they are perpetual motion anyway. I begin to load the mini van with all the luggage that my wife has packed. Evidently, she thinks we must be relocating to Nassau permanently. She’s most excited about the fact that we don’t have to fly and thus don’t have to obey those pesky 50 lb limits and 2 bags per person limits. That’s fine with me, I didn’t need those spinal discs aligned anyway.
About 10:30 we leave the house and make it all the way to the end of the street before my wife declares she’s forgotten her sunglasses. As I’m backing down the road, DS4 screams “Dad, you’re going the wrong way”. So at 10:37, we leave once again, knowing full well that we’ve forgotten something despite the fact that we need a forklift to load the luggage onto the Wonder. (It was DS4’s blanket and stuffed dog). We stop at FIL and MIL’s house to pick them up as they live in the same city. Just as we are leaving their house I remember another thing I forgot – my earplugs. My wife and her family can all talk at the same time and can evidently listen to multiple conversations at once.
After an hour of “rock concert” level noise, a hush fell as the Disney ship came into view. That lasted about 2 seconds. It was around 11:45 and there were not many cars in line to drop off the luggage. I tipped the handlers $3 per bag – with the number of bags we had, I’m sure they can now retire comfortably. 5 minutes later, I was parked and making my way to the ship. We quickly got through security despite the Tigger like antics of our boys.
The terminal is beautiful. We got in the Castaway Club line and checked in amazingly fast thanks to having filled everything out on-line. BIG DISAPOINTMENT was that we did not get any CC lanyards or pins. We loved trading these pins at Disney World cause they seemed fairly rare there. Next we went over to the kids club line and got our pager and the boys got their ID bracelets. This also was very quick since we’d already pre-registered them. MIL and FIL are amazed at how quickly everything is going. We walk on board and our name is announced. We jokingly do the little “homecoming queen in the parade” wave. Later, as my SIL and family came aboard, she told them their family name was the “Fockers”. And YES, they announced it.
The VACATION can officially begin now – no more lines and no more forms to fill out. We got on the elevator and headed toward Beach Blanket for lunch. Because the gangway is covered and you do not see the ship, MIL thought we were still in the terminal. Woops. What was that about no more lines? The line for Beach Blanket was not long, but was moving slower than continental drift. I did find the problem - if only Disney could do something about all those picky kids on the ship. We sat outside and enjoyed lunch as the boys talked about all the fun things they were going to do. The weather was absolutely perfect. When lunch was done, it was 1:30, so we went to check into our room 2626. They were not quite ready, and it was about 1:45 before we were allowed in. The room was very clean, as is the entire ship. This is another example of where Disney outperforms most other cruise lines. They keep the ship and rooms in excellent condition – always painting and cleaning.
We had read the reports of this being a noisy room, but since we were just on the other side of the ship last year (2118) and found the room to be very quiet, we hoped the reports were wrong, or that the reporters were just “too sensitive”. Unfortunately, we did have some loud noises. They were repetitive bangs and hydraulic pump noises that never lasted more than 5 minutes, but were very noticeable. Thankfully, we never heard any between 11:00pm and 5:30 am. But still – if you like to go to sleep early and/or sleep in, this room is too noisy. Then there were our neighbors. Somehow, the guests in the room right next to us got on the wrong ship. I’m sure they were supposed to be on Carnival because they were rude, obnoxious and LOUD at all hours of the night.
We had a lovely view of the garbage bin outside our stateroom window and DS4 waved to all the union workers loading on the food. Our luggage had not arrived yet, so we just changed into our swim suits which we had packed in our day bag and headed for the Mickey Pool. It was a bit windy and chilly on deck, but that did not stop the kids from enjoying the pool and slide – with an occasional trip to warm up in the hot tub. While the boys enjoyed themselves, my wife and I got the drink of the day (Bahama Mama). I got a hot dog, chicken fingers and fries from Pluto’s Dog House. YES, I know I just had lunch, Thank You Very Much. Those are the only items I like from Plutos. The hamburgers are not nearly as good as you will get at CC.
DS4 on slide. Ignore those dark clouds in the sky.
Getting warm.
Wife and her father and Bahama Mama.
Well, before you know it, we have to do the emergency drill. DS4 asks what’s going on and I made the mistake of telling him we had hit an iceberg, not realizing that DS9 had recently told him all about the Titanic after reading the Magic Tree House book about it. After my wife calmed him down and finished hitting me with the life vest (that little light hurts), we made our way to Animator’s Palette to listen to all the kids blow on the whistles. I didn’t know why we were not meeting at the life boat, but I suppose in a real emergency, I’d want to try to get one last meal in before the ship sank.
Back in the room my wife starts to unpack (our luggage had arrived), and the boys start to argue about what to watch on TV – just like home, except this time it is costing us a lot more money to listen to them argue. DS9 and I go up on deck to the sail away party and watch as the ship sails out of the port. I was able to capture the ships horn on the camera which I had missed last year.
If you look off to the port side of the ship near the coast guard station, you will see two yellow buoys that sort of look like Gemini Space Capsules. One has a white radome on top and the other does not. I was the project engineer on that buoy and they were constructed where I work. There is one in the Sea of Japan and one in the Med. These two are used for testing and spares.
Back to the room to get ready for dinner. Our first night was Parrot Cay at 6:00 pm. We were a party of 14 and had table 23. Our server’s English was a little hard to understand at first, but he was excellent. You seldom read about bad wait staff on DCL (probably because they are not American and actually work hard). It takes me several months back home to get used to eating at restaurants and putting up with the horrible service from waitresses and waiters. I guess if it were not for such horrible meals back at home, we would not appreciate the cruise meals and staff as much. Our boys were anxious to get to the kids clubs despite the wait staff going to great lengths to make things fun for the children. In fact, another reason we love DCL is that ALL the staff cater to the kids and try to make everything fun for them. Our waiter was able to get their meals out quickly so that after about 1 hr, I checked them into the club and lab. Compared to last year, the food quality seemed a bit lower, but it also could have been our expectations. I’m always amazed at how good the food tastes considering they have to serve so many people. For appetizer I had the baked crab martinique which was on the cheesey side but was excellent. I also orderd the cold cream of mango and papaya soup which is like drinking melted mango and papaya ice cream - yummy. My DW's cream of sweat onion soup was also fantastic. For the entree I ordered the mixed grill. The best parts were the bacon wrapped suasage, the shrimp, and the lamb - and I don't usually care for lamb. It was perfectly prepared. My DW ordered the Grouper but with the sweet potato fries from the ribs entree as her side. However, the sweet potato fries were really large chuncks of potato that had NOT been fried. But that was our only disapointment with the meal, so can't really complain. On to desserts. The creme brulee cheesecake tasted like typical NY style with no creme brulee flavoring, but still really good as cheesecake goes. I had the French toast banana bread pudding with coconut ice cream. It was VERY good.
My MIL still recalls stories of the great depression days, so for her, you just can’t waste food. She’s the type that has hundreds of parkay butter containers in the fridge, none of which actually contain parkay. They contain all her leftovers going back to the Carter administration. She’s also the one you see at restaurants putting the extra bread rolls into her purse along with packets of sugar (which they will never miss). So she was having a hard time letting the waiter take dishes away with food still on them. First, she’d try to pass it off to one of the children or grandchildren. Then, she’d ask for a to-go box. Eventually she dealt with the fact that she could not change the way Disney operated their dining room; although I am sure they will be getting her recommendations in writing shortly. One of my SILs was feeling sea sick even though I could barely tell we’d left the dock. She was not sick enough to leave the table, but you could tell she was not 100% either. So every time she looked over at my direction I’d slowly sway side to side. She didn’t get the joke.
Mickey with lycoprene.
It was about 7:50 when we left the table. We grabbed an after dinner drink at the Promenade Lounge and listed to the live music. Then it was time for Hercules the Muse- Ical. We checked out DS4, but DS9 did not want to see the show. He remembered it from last year and was having too much fun in the club. The show was good by cruise ship standards, but still, we’d seen it back in 2000 and again last year. DS4 laughed quite a bit even though he did not get the jokes.
After the show, my wife and DS4 went to sleep. I took DS9 out of the kids club and we walked around the upper decks and stopped by the arcade. We still had money left on an arcade card from last year, and since it was just under 365 days, it still worked. I’m always amazed at how much money some kids spend there and Disney makes it very easy to charge to your room key. I also like the marketing brains at Disney who decided the costs for each game. Its not your typical 25, 50, 75, 100, etc. There are some that are 35, 40, 60 and other odd numbers. The idea must be that you end up with a card, like we did, with 20 points on it and since you don’t want to leave that unused portion and there are no games for 20, you need to add more money to the card, except the minimum is 100 points. Genius.
Well, I was tired, DS9 was now tired, and despite it only being 10:30 and my feeling like I was cheating myself out of more fun and food, I headed for the room and sleep.
Complete photo album here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Bornefamily
I'm enjoying your TR. Keep it coming!
ou are a good sport for putting up with so many in-laws. Looking forward to reading the rest!
