How was your cruise Ed? I knew another couple from MA that was on your cruise. They booked the cruise just a couple of weeks before the sailing.
We had a WONDERFUL cruise, at least after we got away from Florida where it was chilly and raining. Out of 8
DCL cruises, that was the first time we've had the sailaway party in the atrium.
We did things a little differently this time (by design). Instead of going to one of the buffets for embarkation lunch, we went to Goofy's Galley and Pluto's..... only did the lunch buffet one time..... ate dinner every night in the dining rooms, instead of going to Palo, at least once..... skipped Palo brunch..... didn't do any excursions in Nassau (after our Segway tour was canceled because of the robbery a week ago)..... pretty much just hung out on the family beach at CC while DS spent about 3 hours snorkeling..... only went to one show (Toy Story). In general, we took it easy and really relaxed this time.
We had a great server team (Herbert from the Philippines and Zoe from Australia). Zoe has only been on the ship for a year and met her new husband on board (he's also a server). She has a great personality and was one of the best assistant servers we've ever had. Thanksgiving dinner was fantastic and better than anything we would have fixed at home (they even had lava cake and ice cream for dessert!).
We went up to the new Outlook Cafe right after we boarded to look around. It is a nice area, but will be pretty much useless during the day on most of the Alaska cruises. There is about 10 feet of open deck space just outside the windows on both sides, which (from experience on another Alaskan cruise) will be wall-to-wall people trying to see the passing scenery, so you won't be able to see much/anything from inside the Cafe.
The best part of the cruise was sailing side by side with the Magic for about 30 minutes on Friday, and hearing them do a battle of the horns. Having been on the Magic for 4 cruises, it was really neat to see her sailing so close.
The Gold/Platinum Castaway reception was nice, but Captain Henry didn't let anything new out of the bag. He did say that he had seen pictures of the Dream the day before, and it is starting to look like a ship.
Our DS has this fixation about wanting to be a Platinum CC member by the time we go on the Dream, so that was as good an excuse as any to book another 4 night for next August (that will be #10)!
All in all, it was a great cruise and we can't wait to go back in April. If anyone has any questions - ask away.
Ed
