Aug 23, 2007 Wonder - precruise and day 1

[Ski-and-Sea]

Cast of characters……me, DH and DS (12) and DD (11). This was DCL cruise #6 – 4 on the Magic and our second Wonder cruise.

Our trip planning began in early 2006 when the DISboards broke the news that the Magic was heading to the Med in the summer of 2007. You gotta feel for DCL that someone in Barcelona blabbed that the Magic was coming before they could officially announce it.

But our interest in the Med ended when DCL decided on the western Med itinerary and not Greece. Our wallets thanked us.

So our focus switched to the Wonder and another Land-and-sea vacation. We did the land-and-sea vacation in 2005 when the Magic was in CA. That time we did 3 nights at the parks and 4 nights on the ship. Three nights just isn’t enough to do WDW so this time we opted for 4 nights at the parks. Besides, having done a 4-night cruise, I was curious to see what a 3-night cruise was like.

I’ll digress a bit at this point and say that I think DCL needs to dissolve the whole land-and-sea plan and just let everyone book the parks and the cruise separately. Let people pick the number of days you want to stay at WDW and at which resort. When you do the land-and-sea you either have to start your trip on a Thursday or a Sunday. I don’t know about you, but most people I know prefer their vacations to go Saturday to Saturday. DCL must think the same way since the Magic sails Saturday-to-Saturday.

Given that we made our bookings right when the 2007 dates were released, we thought we’d try for something special…something unqiue…the Holy Grail of bookings……we asked if a mid-ship Category 3 room was available. We’ve stayed in a Cat 3 before but never the mid-ship ones. We always hear on the DIS that these mid-ship ones are better than the other Cat 3s.

So our TA speaks with inventory control……and…and….and……IT’S A WALK OFF GRAND SLAM FOLKS!!!!!! We got 8032!!!!!! It was going to be a long 17 month wait until August 23rd.

Fast forward to mid spring 2007. We get a phone call from our TA. DCL has given her our flight information for our trip and she sees that DCL did NOT book us on a direct flight from NJ to Orlando. WHAT?????? Okay, every year between 2002 and 2006 DCL has always booked us a Continental non-stop flight from Newark to Orlando. What gives?

So my TA calls DCL and asks to switch us to a direct flight. DCL says “no can do – there aren’t any available”. My rather taken aback TA reminds DCL that we made this booking 17 months in advance and there were plenty of opportunities to book a direct flight for a long-time DCL customer.

That didn’t work. My TA then checks Continental herself and low and behold – there are direct flights available both ways and seats available. AAAAAND…..guess what….. for the exact same price DCL was charging us.

Our next move was a no-brainer. Our TA canceled the DCL flights and booked us on Continental. I will give DCL credit that they refunded our money right away. But we will never let DCL book our flights again.

Fast forward again to the beginning of the summer. It’s a Friday night, I’m walking around the house gathering up dirty plates and mugs that the family has left behind to put in the dishwasher. I’ve got two mugs in the left hand and two mugs in the right hand. I’m turning the corner to head into the kitchen when I walked straight into the corner of the vacuum cleaner. A Hoover Windtunnel upright, the kind with a self propelled motor, the kind that weighs a ton.

I actually felt the bones in my toe shatter. The only question was it just one toe or multiple toes and was it just the toe or further into the foot. Most of my foot turned the exact color of the water you see in the Caribbean – that beautiful turquoise blue.

I went and got it checked out. Multiple fractures to the pinky toe of the left foot. You can’t put a toe in a cast; so I got it taped up, given a special shoe to wear, a cane and plenty of pain killers.

(did you know your pinky toe is the second most important toe in your foot after the big toe? Your pinky toe provides your lateral support when you stand)

After the initial visit to the ER, I saw a podiatrist. He tells me the toe should heal in 6-8 weeks. I do a quick mental calculation. Yikes, that’s cutting it really close to our land-sea vacation……the kind of vacation where you do loads of walking around WDW not to mention snorkeling on the cruise.

And even more pressing…..a trip to the New Jersey shore in early August.

The doc gives it to me straight – the fastest way to repair the bone is to keep the toe as immobilized as possible. No running, no yard work, no swimming in the ocean. I was good with the first two but had major problems with the third. I’m a Jersey girl at heart – we go to the shore every summer and I live in the waves. No ocean swimming hit me like a knife to the chest.

But I had a bigger prize in mind – WDW and the cruise. So I was good at the shore, though walking on the sand was a killer. And the weeds in my yard are now so tall they can conceal an army platoon.

So now let’s fast forward to about a week before we leave. I see the podiatrist to check on my foot. He looks at the latest x-ray and says the bone is healing but not completely. I ask what to do about WDW. He says when indoors to wear the special shoe but outdoors to wear a sneaker. Okay – I’m fine with that. I just won’t ride any rides where I can get wet since there’s nothing worse than walking around in wet sneakers. And for good measure I won’t ride any roller coasters or anything where I can bang my feet. Not so bad since I really don’t like riding roller coasters.

Sunday August 19, 2007

Our flight to Orland was at noon. The 10:30am flight was full. Yes, that means we miss half our first day at WDW. But that was fine with us. You see, on our August 2006 Magic cruise, we were foolish enough to fly in on the day of the cruise and our flight left at 6:50am which meant we had to leave the house at 4:00am to get to the airport extra early because this was right after the no-liquids rule went into effect and now it was taking longer to check in at the airports. It was a nightmare trying to check in at 5:00am at Newark that day.

This time it was completely different. And it started off right. Around 9:30am, a limo pulls into our driveway.

We’ve been using the same car service for years and we’ve never taken a stretch limo. Usually its been a beaten up van big enough to hold all our luggage but usually missing things like the seat belts.

There was plenty of room for all our luggage in a stretch limo.

Too bad we encountered absolutely no traffic on the way to the airport. It was a Sunday morning after all.

So the driver pulls in front of the Continental check in area and drops us off in front of one of the curb-side check in booths. There’s a bit of a line but nothing like we encountered last year.

We’re there barely five minutes when a Continental employee comes up to us and asks if we’ve checked in. Whoa. He grabs our boarding pass and asks us how many bags we’re checking in and disappears. He reappears after a few minutes, tags our luggage, puts it on a cart and wishes us a great trip.

Wow.

He got a huge tip for that.

Our flying time to Florida was two hours. Though it felt longer to me when one of the flight attendants dropped my drink on my lap. Thank goodness I don’t drink tomato juice.

Here’s what happened. I was sitting in the aisle seat with DS and DD on my left. DH was across the aisle on the aisle seat. Continental served a small lunch consisting of a turkey sandwich, bag of ruffles and a twix bar. Then a drink.

Now, why is it that us moms find our tray tables become a garbage can for the rest of the family’s trash? On my tray table was my own empty lunch tray plus DS and DD’s garbage as well as their empty cups. I wasn’t finished with my drink but had nowhere on my tray table to put my half full cup of soda.

So I took the empty soda cups and stack them then put my half full soda cup on top of that.

The flight attendant then comes around with the garbage bag. I give him all the trash. He then grabs the stack of soda cups and asks if I’m finished. I say “no, I’m still drinking” which at that point the soda cups slip out of his hand right onto my lap.

Now ordinarily, if a cup of liquid and ice falls on your lap you are immediately going to stand up so that the ice falls off your lap and onto the floor. But remember, I’m seated with the tray table directly above my knees. I physically cannot stand up.

Instead, I can do absolutely nothing but sit still while multiple cubes of ice race down between my legs to my backside where upon they instantly melted.

Nice. The flight attendant is beside himself with apologies. He goes to the first class section and gives me a cloth napkin and a can of seltzer.

To be honest, the cloth napkin had zero absorbency and the seltzer just made my pants even wetter.

When we landed my shorts were almost dry. Can’t say the same for my underwear but at least no one notices that.

One side night….on takeoff during our ascent, I could tell the pilot flew the plane is a perfectly straight line. How? Because someone at the front of the plane dropped their paperback book with a smooth cover onto the floor and book slid down the center aisle in a straight line all the way to the back of the plane.

We had a terrific time at WDW but the weather was scorching hot. Four days of brilliant blue skies. Its like the clouds took a holiday. It wasn’t that it was unusually humid, just day after day of being out in the hot sun. I’m surprised I didn’t see people pass out from the heat.

We took the bus from the airport to our resort and when the bus stopped at one hotel to let people off I saw a family unloading their luggage and on top of everything was a HUGE case of bottled water. DH laughed at that.

Well, that family had the last laugh after the large amount of bottled water we bought over our four days.

So how did my foot do? The answer is not good. But that’s because we way overdid it. Each day we went to the park that had the late night extra hours and took advantage of it. So I was on my feet a loooooong time. I did sit on park benches while DH and the kids rode the rides. But the heat and having my foot in a sock in a sneaker made my feet swell which pinched all my toes.

Each subsequent day my foot started to hurt earlier and earlier in the day so that by day four I was in a lot of pain. I sat on benches with my sneaker off and read the Passporter Guide to WDW. On most occasions I had to walk a far distance to find a bench in the shade.

One memorable experience at WDW was riding the bus from Animal Kingdom to the Magic Kingdom. The bus was packed and DD & DS sat in the front row and DH & I sat several rows behind them. Standing in the aisle next to the kids were several college-age girls and two CMs.

Well, this was day four and the heat was starting to get to DS & DD and they started arguing and bickering with each other. The college girls and the CMs start laughing. You would think a dose of public humiliation would get DD & DS to stop fighting but that just seemed to egg them on.

I stayed out of it completely and just enjoyed the show.

Next up……time to cruise…….

 

[Ski-and-Sea]

Thursday August 23, 2007 - Day 1.

The day had finally come. Figures, we wake up and look out the window and see more clouds than we had seen the prior four days combined. In fact, the clouds are looking rather gray and rain filled.

We catch the DCL bus at the Grand Floridan around 11:15am. We didn’t depart until 11:30am. Don’t know what the hold up was. We stop at the Poly to pick up more people then head over to the port.

It was a quiet ride……last year on the way to the port our DCL bus broke down and we had to wait on the side of the highway until another DCL bus showed up to rescue us.

I think we got to the port around 1pm or thereabouts. I didn’t look at my watch. Instead I was looking out the window because I saw drops of rain on the windows. Ugh. As we had checked into the cruise while at WDW we didn’t have to check in at the port. So I was anxious to get off the bus and go right onto the ship.

Except that I managed to pick the line through the security check that refused to move. Figures. DD walked up to see the problem and said some family had brought all their luggage with them rather than just their carry on and security had to go through all the bags. Ugh.

Finally, we get through and head for the stairs. No one is handing out boarding cards anymore. We head up the stairs and see the port is basically empty. Not even any characters.

Oh well, we head through the tunnel, take our embarkation photo and get onboard.

We’re greeted by a lady CM who asks our name then repeats our name and announces that it was our first cruise. Whoa, lady, where did you get that idea. You never asked us if it was our first cruise. Got a good chuckle there.

At this point most passengers usually eat lunch but none of us were very hungry….we were all feeling the heat from the inferno we experience the four previous days. But it wasn’t 1:30 yet so I knew we couldn’t go to our room.

So I decided to look at the papers given to us when we got on the ship. Good thing, too, because I noticed the concierge greet that usually starts at 2pm at previous cruises this time had started at 12:30pm.

Hey, let’s do that now then when we’re done the room will be ready.

So we head over to the concierge meet and see a bunch of CMs and absolutely no other passengers. Hmmm…..guess we must be the last ones.

So we introduce ourselves to the concierge staff which consists of three people on this cruise. An officer, one non-officer and a trainee. Plus one additional person who introduced herself as someone who worked in inventory control (boy did I want to make a comment about the fiasco when the 2008 dates came out but I held my tongue) but now is the person who handles the new “contact concierge ahead of time program”.

I learned this is a new thing for DCL that they are experimenting with. She said initially people didn’t call but now she’s getting 300 calls per week and its going well.

The concierge meet went by quickly. As it was a 3 night cruise and we didn’t make any Palo or spa reservations, there wasn’t much to discuss. The only thing I noticed was that concierge forgot to ask whether or not I wanted to make a hair braiding appointment for DD. But I was able to make that on my own later that day so no biggie.

I’m looking out the port hole window and seeing that it is now completely overcast and I’m praying it doesn’t rain for the sailaway party.

We ate some of the goodies (fruit and veggies/dip) then time to go to our room.

Well, this is it…..time to see if all the hoopla about the mid-ship Cat 3 is true. We open the door and walk in.

My jaw hit the floor. Wow – this thing is like twice the size of the other cat 3s. The master bed area/bathroom is the same but the “living” area is significantly bigger. This is the best part of the mid-ship 3s. Yes, the room isn’t as deep as the other cat 3’s but I’ll take the extra living area space.

And the verandah is triple wide.

Here’s some pics…..

DS & DD promptly plop themselves on the coach and turn on the TV. Which, I’ll point out, is a big flat screen TV with a DVD player underneath. Cool.

Our luggage hadn’t arrived yet, so I sat and ate some of the fruit/cheese platter that my TA had sent us. It was nice – except the crackers were stale. I then take a look at the Navigator. YESSSSSSS its back to four pages. Last year on the Magic, DCL reduced the four page Navigator to two pages by printing it with a font size that is a negative number. DCL never mentioned we needed to pack a magnifying glass to read the Navigator. It was really that bad and to make matters worse, last year was when I realized I needed reading glasses. I’ve been fighting that for a couple of years but the inability to read the Navigator really drove it home.

I took no chances on this cruise and packed my reading glasses. Welcome to middle age.

We also found our castaway club gift. Rats – it’s the same thing as last year. Cloth bag with two mesh bags, small can of wipes, small notebook and pen, two plastic cups, DCL magnet and two new items…….two small CC flags and some kind of toy.

Here’s a picture.

Man, you got me on the flags and that toy. Why would we need these on a cruise?

Then I took the kids up to the arcade to buy their arcade cards. I told the kids they could play until it was time for our DIS meet.

So at 3pm I went to collect them then headed down to the Promenade Lounge for our DIS meet. I was so happy we had a cruise meet thread going. Two years ago on the Wonder no one started a cruise meet thread. Its such a treat to share a cruise with other people.

We didn’t have a large group of people but in some ways its easier to meet people for the first time with a smaller group. We enthusiastically greeted each other and the conversations flowed freely. We chatted for about half hour then headed back to our rooms.

By then our luggage started arriving and it was time to sort out the life vests. Christiaan is making announcements that the mandatory life drill will start promptly at 4pm. So at 3:55pm we head down to deck 4. The CM looks at our life vests and checks off our room #.

I have to say that with each cruise the lifeboat drill seems to take less and less time. I’m sure there are veteran cruisers out there that have the cruise director’s speech darn near memorized. I will admit that at that point I was glad that it was overcast and threatening with rain as it made the temperatures a lot more bearable then if it had been sunny.

Then back to the room to discard the life vests and get ready for the sailaway party. I gather up my camcorder and turn to my family and say “who’s ready for the sailaway party!!!” Anyone?......anyone?.........anyone?.......Bueller, Bueller……..dead silence.

Nothing. Now DH had a good excuse. He’s been swamped at work and was there was talk of arranging a conference call for the next day. But DS & DD had no excuse. But they had no interest. DCL party poopers.

Their attitude did nothing to curb my enthusiasm so I went by myself. Went upstairs to deck 9 and ran right into a DISer. Now I wasn’t by myself anymore.

The Sailaway Party had already started. The Wonder has a new sailaway party and its different from the one on the Magic we saw last year. There are some good things about the new sailaway party and some disappointing things.

Difference #1 is no live band. I remember last fall when it was first reported that the Wonder would lose the live band but the Magic would keep one. People on the DIS made a big deal about it. They are right. There is something special about seeing a live performance versus a DJ playing tunes. The live band seems more “classy”. That said, the Magic had some truly awful bands onboard last year and some would say a DJ does a better job.

Christiaan the cruise director comes out and then the big jumbotron is “broadcasting” from the bridge. Goofy appears on the bridge and is wondering why there is no physical bridge. Its cheesy but cute. Christiaan tells Goofy he needs to get down to the party. Then all the characters make their appearance and immediately Christiaan does the big countdown to the blowing of the horn. Whew, the horn worked. I was nervous when someone posted on the DIS that the horn didn’t work for their sailaway party.

Then the characters do their song & dance. I will admit I was disappointed with the character song/dance versus what I saw on the Magic last year. It’s a bit flat and the melody is outdated. The characters make full use of the stage since there is no band in the way but the song lacks energy and the recording sounded muffled. Its not a song that you want to dance to. I thought the best part of the song was when the jumbo screen started showing pre-recorded shots of different groups of CMs around the ship dancing and hamming it up. As soon as the song ends then the characters make their exits.

The entertainment CMs take over from here and now the dancing has started and things got more fun. Here is where the DJ had an advantage because the first song played was from High School Musical. Which, judging from the squeals of delight from the tweens in the audience, was a HUGE hit with loads of children singing along.

And I’ll admit one nice touch was when Ian invited all the kids to come up on the stage to dance. You can’t do that if there is a band taking up space.

So a mixed bag with the new sailaway party, I give a slight edge to the one on the Magic we saw last summer (even with a bad band). A better song for the characters would make a big difference. I think its better for the characters to do their song/dance first then blow the ship’s horn.

Hey, guess what, my family showed up. Better late than never. At this point the ship is pulling away and I had to do the one thing I’ve never done so far on five previous cruises. Go to the front of the ship to watch the boat sail from Port Canaveral. You see, usually we watch from our verandah but that’s from the side of the ship. I wanted to see from the front.

Sounds good, right. First thing I see is a fellow DISer (we’re a small group but we’re everywhere). The second thing I see is some really, really black clouds on the horizon and a light rain is falling. In fact, its looking downright ominous. Right on cue a couple of huge bolts of lighting light up the sky. Now its starting to rain harder. I watch for as long as I can then head back to the room.

Good timing as the heavens open up. Nice for Mother Nature to wait until after the Sailaway party.

Back in the room all our luggage has arrived. Time to dress for the show.

I have an admission to make. On previous cruises we’d gotten into the bad habit of blowing off the shows. Had the attitude of “seen them already” and enjoyed not having to rush to get ready. Plus, 5-6pm is the safest time of the day to swim in the Goofy pool.

But not this cruise. I read on DIS that Hercules would be replaced next year and Disney Dreams had new updates. So we hit all the shows this cruise.

Tonight was Hercules. I’ll admit it, it was my favorite. It was hysterical. I learned from Christiaan that the performers had been onboard for only three weeks so the jokes were up to date. Hades and Pain/Panic were a riot. I knew from other trip reports about the Britney Spears joke but Pain & Panic singing Avril Lavigne’s “Hey, Hey, You, You, I don’t like your girlfriend” had the audience in hysterics.

Of course Hades steals the show. In fact, DCL should just make a comedy show around Hades and Pain/Panic.

Here’s a picture of Hades. He insisted on that pose.

Oh and guess what. The male muse was our lifeboat drill leader. He was standing almost in front of us during the lifeboat drill and was great at interacting with people.

After the show it was time for bingo. We love bingo on DCL. In fact, we have a bit of streak going on. Three previous cruises we’ve won something. Two years ago on the Wonder we won over $300. Too bad that streak ended on this cruise. But we had fun along the way, isn’t that what its all about, right? Yeah, I don’t think so, either.

So we enter Wavebands and see its Pikey as the bingo king. But there are a bunch of things missing……where is the lighted bingo board, where is the bingo table, where are the rest of the bingo cards as we are given just a single sheet and where is the rest of the people playing bingo?

Yes, folks, bingo has gone high tech and I don’t like it. Bingo on DCL has entered the digital era. You don’t need the lighted bingo board as now the “board” is projected on a screen. No more bingo table, just a clear plastic bucket containing the bingo balls.

And get this……the bingo is verified electronically. When someone has a bingo claim, their card number is entered into the computer and that individual bingo card is projected on the screen and the winning numbers are high-lighted. You can instantly tell whether or not it’s a valid claim.

But the thing I don’t like at all is just receiving a single bingo card which you reuse over and over. Here’s the problem. The card is printed on a thick stock which makes it very difficult to punch and fold out the numbers. DD found it near impossible as did other adults who asked Pikey to slow down calling the numbers so that they had time to punch and fold.

Then at the end of the game you unfold the numbers. But the numbers are now creased and outright refuse to lay flat. So when another game begins you’re confused over which numbers have been called for which game.

But nothing beats the outright confusion over the games of bingo played on the first night. Its called “Dash for Cash” bingo. More like Dazed and Confused. I’ve never seen anything like it and I hope I don’t see it again on DCL. The concept is to have three rounds of bingo run quickly, hence the name.

The three games are a progression, one building on another but you’re actually playing games one and two at the same time with the idea that you create a pattern for the third game so the whole thing is rather weird.

Pikey promised that all bingo games thereafter would be “normal”. They were.

Afterwards he headed over to dinner in Animators Palette. First, we met up with DH near the atrium. As we were standing there telling DH about all the changes to bingo, we saw Christiaan walk by.

“Hey, its Christiaan” I say to my family. Christiaan obliges by stopping to chat. We make our introductions. Yes, Christiaan is spelt with two “A’s”. That’s not a typo.

Now I was very curious about Christiaan. Every comment I’ve read about him on DIS usually involves words like, “great”, “fantastic”, “wonderful”. Hmmmmm……Plus, he’s American. In my five previous DCL cruises, I’ve had either English or Australian cruise directors. In fact, I thought it was some kind of maritime law that your announcements have to be done with a British or Australian accent.

So it was a stunner to hear an American accent. I will admit I was a fan of hearing the English or Aussie accents making announcements. But Christiaan has the nicest voice I’ve heard on DCL. Ladies, its very, very, very nice. And he alters the pitch of his voice which adds to what he’s saying.

Another funny thing with Christiaan….he’s been working with DCL for seven years and he is well aware of his resemblance to Que, a former DCL CM. Christiaan mentioned people would confuse him and Que all the time.

Is Christiaan “wonderful”, “great” and “fantastic”? Absolutely!!!!! He is totally unpretentious and easy to talk to. He makes you feel right at home on the ship. Even though he is now a senior officer, he doesn’t come across that way. He’s a lot of fun. He started as a performer on the ship and his comfort being on stage makes him shine as CD. He likes to laugh and will laugh when making announcements. I swear he ad libs all his announcements.

DCL, like life in general, has its quirks and oddities and if Christiaan is making an announcement that sounds rather silly, he’ll point it out. The cruise director on my Magic cruise last year did the same thing.

I know there are many, many Brent fans out there who enjoy hearing his voice…. well you can keep your hunky Aussie, I’ll take Christiaan as CD anytime. It doesn’t hurt that he has really nice blue eyes as well.

Here’s a shot taken on the first night.

See that officer behind Christiaan? We saw him all over the ship. I have no idea who he is but he was everywhere.

And speaking of photographs. I learned the hard way on my last cruise that my digital camera takes crappy indoor photos. I have one of those small slim cameras that I bought to take with me when I’m skiing so I can just stick in my ski jacket. It takes great outdoor photos. But indoors, you push the button to take a picture and things go bad from there. That annoying red lights comes out and then the camera analyzes the situation then it takes it time deciding what to do then all of a sudden the flash goes off.

Three things happen…..your subject is thoroughly confused, you’re confused about whether or not the camera took a picture and the picture always comes out too dark.

Well, this cruise I decided to go for backup, call for reinforcements and go for shock and awe. Yes, I used a film camera for all my indoor photos. You know what, it puts those digital cameras to shame. Just point and shoot. No messing with that red light. You press the button and the camera takes the picture.

So after a nice conversation with Christiaan, we head off to dinner. Our first night was in Animator’s Palette. We had a table just for the four of us in the middle of the room. We sit down and are greeted by server Komang from Indonesia and Simona from Romania.

They both stunned us by greeting us all by name – all four of us. Wow – never had that happen in five DCL cruises. That got things off on the right foot and we had outstanding service. Simona was like a mother hen to DS & DD. She fussed over them. She made origami shapes out of the kids’ menu on the first night. She made hats out of the napkins.

Here’s some pics…..

I thought the food was good in Animators Palette. I had a beef dish and it was cooked perfectly. I liked that the portions weren’t too big – nothing got wasted. I did have the Caesar salad to start and that was very good.

One thing I do find with DCL food is that they season/flavor dishes to keep everyone happy. Meaning the sauces tend to be a tad on the bland side whereas they need to be bolder. Its not something that adding salt or pepper will help. They do it right in Palo but not in the main dining rooms. I’d like to see DCL take more risks with their dishes in the spices/flavoring area.

When it comes to desserts, I admit I’m a total snob. I’m a serious choco-holic and picky about my chocolate foods. The only place where I’ve ever been awed by a chocolate dish is at the French restaurant in Epcot. Wow – that blew me away.

Bottom line – I didn’t order many desserts on the ship.

Poor Simona, we asked for English breakfast tea to have with our dessert and she had to search all over the ship to get some. We tried to stop her and say we’d be happy with something else but she ran off right through the galley doors.

Oh, the “show” in Animators Palette. To be honest, its been changed over the past two years and I liked the older one. DCL used to choose different animated segments in the past and the ones now are a bit bland. Plus, Sorcerer Mickey did NOT come out like he did on our Magic cruise. I did not like that at all.

But its not like it ruined our meal or anything.

Prior to dinner we had visions of the kids and adults going to our respective clubs after dinner but we were still feeling the effects of four sultry days in WDW and we were exhausted. So we headed off to bed.

One thing we did notice since we left Port Canaveral was the ship rocking. Nothing really bad but way more than you’d expect on a sailing to Nassau.

When we went to bed I discovered that our room squeaked. The walls were creaking. We did have a problem with bathroom and closet doors moving and making noise but you fix that by closing the door. I don’t know what you do about squeaky walls.

We never noticed squeaky walls in the other cat 3 rooms.

Next up: Day 2 – The DCL Weight Loss Program.

 

[CapnJackGroupie]

Loving your TR!!!!

 

[JoiseyMom]

We saw Christiaan all over the ship, I felt like he was cloned!! And he was very easy on the eyes, and a very sweet guy to boot. BTW, my dd loved your cabin. And she said your dd missed the bunk beds, my dd was willing to trade!!

 

[Ski-and-Sea]

We saw Christiaan all over the ship, I felt like he was cloned!! And he was very easy on the eyes, and a very sweet guy to boot. BTW, my dd loved your cabin. And she said your dd missed the bunk beds, my dd was willing to trade!!

Haha... kids are so funny. The only time DD gets to sleep in a bunk bed is on DCL and Girl Scout camping trips.

We only saw Christiaan during the evenings. I would have like to see him during the day.

 

[manntra]

Subscribing...we were on the cruise right after you ---the 26th-30th....Love your picture of Hades...that really cracked us up---and I agree with you on a show for just the 3 of them....they had really only been on the ship for 3 weeks?? That is unbelievable! Can't wait for more of your TR

 

[solgent]

Enjoying your report so far. We are going to do a Land/Sea (booking the Land portion on our own) at this exact same time, next year, so I'm very interested in your experience. It will be our first cruise.

 

[DAggiesRWe]

We were on the cruise after you (August 26-30) as well, and noticed the rocking starting during dinner the first night. We asked Captain John about it when we met him later in the cruise and he explained that it happens when the ship enters the Gulf Stream just off the Florida coast. This area has a lot of strange eddys and currents that cause the sea to almost always be stirred up (even in fairly mild conditions like we encountered). Unfortunately these seas slightly exceed the capacity of the stabilizers so you get the slight rocking motion. I noticed it again when we were coming back into Port Canaveral (starting around midnight).

Thank goodness for the stabilizers because our only other cruise (on RCCL) didn't have them, and we were rockin' and rollin' the whole 3 days.

Steve

 

[DMMarla07860]

yeah the first night on my cruise september 6th, you could deff tell we were rocking not bad but I didn't have to pretend I didn't almost walk into a wall once or twice