tampadisneyfan
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2006
- Messages
- 16
Here is a little background first: Travelers are Me - DW 28 and DH 30. We have no children but are avid Disney Fans. This cruise was a surprise for DH's 30th Birthday. 
August 8, 2006,
I convince DH to come home from work at lunch time - I can't wait any longer to tell him!! I have been sitting on this secret for 179 days at this point! DH comes home, I pop the Big News! DH is in total shock!! I am wondering if this is a good idea after all. No reaction, he just looks at me with his chin on his shoe laces and says "this is not a funny joke!" I convince him we are really cruising - he finally believes me - still in shock! The bags are already packed and already in the car. After DH mows the lawn!?! we are on our way to Orlando. I booked one night in Orlando through Priceline. Four Star Hotel $109. We got the Radisson Maingate. NOT IMPRESSED!! We had a King suite. The hotel was very run down, the Air conditioner did not work in our room and our bathroom - with jacuzzi tub was very dirty. There was a very suspicious brown smear on the wall of the bathroom
We ate a wonderful dinner at Red Lobster and then returned to our room at the Radisson. The room did have a sleep number bed! This bed is an interesting concept - but made for a lot of fun later on in the evening! 
August 9, 2006
Like I said before, we are Avid Disney Fans, so as an extra surprise for DH's Birthday I booked us on the Backstage Magic Tour. $199 person, 7hours through MGM, Magic Kingdom, and Epcot. This tour takes place entirely in backstage areas. We saw the Disney Florist, The back workings of the American Adventure at Epcot, the perimeter roads, the Machine Shop where they build all the ride vehicles, and the Christmas warehouse. Funny enough -they were working on the Christmas tree for the Lobby of the WONDER!! Its Beautiful! This tour was OK at best. Our bus driver was new and kept getting lost, we lost at least an hour of the day waiting for him to figure out how to get certain places! We have done the Keys to the Kingdom tour twice! We really love the Keys to the Kingdom tour!! The Backstage Magic tour wasted a lot of time in transit - all though we got to ride around all day in a Disney Cruise Line Motor Coach! Great Touch Disney!! The only saving grace of the Backstage Magic Tour was that all the other people on the tour had already been on a Disney Cruise at one point or another. Everyone was excited to hear that we would be cruising the next day. Throughout the day, everyone came up to us and offered a plethora of tips and fun things to do on board. I already knew it all - thanks to the DisBoards, but it was great for DH. He went from still in shock to TOTALLY EXCITED! I don't think he listened to the tour leader at all! He was busy listening to all the people RAVE about how wonderful the Disney Cruise Line is. SO, $398 for Backstage magic tour - not worth the $$ for the Tour, but worth every penny to get DH excited about the Cruise!!
*The Keys to the Kingdom Tour is about $60 per person, includes lunch, not park admisson, worth every penny and more!!*
We left the Backstage Magic Tour at 5:00 and started to head out to Port Canaveral. That was when I suddenly remembered I had left my shoes for Pirate Night at home! I was so worried about packing DH's things, I completly forgot the shoes for my tropical dress! So, instead of going directly to the port, we stopped at the Prime outlets in Orlando to go shoe shopping! DH's Favorite thing ! After an hour we had finally found a pair of gold heels - had to be flip flop style, very little gold, no silver, and small heel, size 81/2! You would think this would have been an easy task! Not SO!!!
Anyway, we drove over to the Port area. By the time we got there we were starving! Thanks to my Passporter, I knew to head over to Grills Tiki Bar for a great meal. We really enjoyed eating there and we had a great table! About 8:00pm we finally headed to the Radisson at the Port where we had another King Suite waiting on us. We were very frightened!! - based on our experience the previous night. Once we checked in and confirmed our 10:00am shuttle to the port the next morning, we headed off to our Room. WOW!!!! What a beautiful room!! The Radisson is hereby forgiven! It was clean and Huge. Our bathroom was enormous with a clean jacuzzi tub and an awesome glass shower. They also had great products for us to take on the cruise like Oatmeal and Lavender soap, a bath poof, and a small bottle of Aloe for sunburns! We will definately stay at the Radisson at the Port again. Great Deal too!! $125 for the king suite and it included parking while we were cruising!
August 10, 2006 - Embarkation Day!!
We were so excited we couldn't sleep! We finally got out of bed at 8am and went across the street to McDonalds for breakfast. We lingered over fruit and yogart parfaits and coffee. At about 9:30am we went down to the lobby to check out and wait for the shuttle. At 9:40 the shuttle driver arrived and loaded all luggage into a trailer behind the shuttle bus. We departed the Radisson at exactly 10:00am. The shuttle driver was very nice. He told us trivia and facts about the Disney Ships on our way over. When we arrived at the port at about 10:10am, people were still debarking the ship. Apparently they arrived in port late. They still let us go through security and head up to the lobby. The large signs in the security area stating "No Alcohol" freaked out DH. It was then that a soft sided cooler full of wine, champagne and about 50 mini bottles, (to further enjoy the drink station on deck 9 thanks DisBoarders!) came flying my way! DH stated "I thought you said we could carry this on! I'm not carrying this, You take it!" When we approached the security person, I politely told him the cooler contained alcohol. He said that was fine and he hoped we enjoyed our cruise! I love it when I am right!!
DH then took the cooler back and we went up the escalators. For about 5 minutes DH and I had the entire lobby to our selves!! We walked around and enjoyed the peace and quiet before the floods of people came in. And of course - we got the Coveted #2 boarding pass! At about 11:30 they called for groups 1 and 2 to board the Wonder. We boarded, had our picture taken, heard our names announced, and headed to the BBB for lunch. We had a delightful lunch. Then we went to Parrot Cay, our first dinner roataion and handed off a bottle of wine and a bottle of Champagne we had brought from home. The head server was very kind and assured us it would be chilled and ready to drink at dinner. We spent the rest of the time walking around the ship and waiting to go to our room. Our Stateroom was ready a little before 1:30. We were very pleased! We enjoyed eating the snack and champagne tray left for us as well as the choclates in the Romance basket - Save your $ and don't buy the Romance Basket. The robes were HUGE!! We can both fit in one with room to spare, the silver frame is plain with no DCL markings, but the chocolate was good. ED was our room Steward and he was very nice. We decorated out door with a couple of magnetic signs and 100 Home depot Paint chips! It looked awesome and everyone enjoyed looking at our door during the entire cruise!! No theft problems at all!! 
After the safety drill we went up to enjoy the deck party. Very Fun!! Love the Horn!! We left port about 45 minutes late due to several late flights. We hear that many people missed the cruise completly! It is definatley worth coming in a day early!! Because we were late leaving, we had to hurry to get dressed for the show. Hercules was OK. The content left a little to be desired, but the talent and special effects were nothing short of amazing!! After the show we wandered around, had some pictures taken and headed off to dinner at Parrot Cay. Anil and Yasir were our dinner servers. They were OK at best. Both were new and they had trouble keeping up with so many tables at once. But, overall, we were treated like royalty and we understand that everyone has to learn sometime. We really enjoyed the two couples we sat with at dinner! They were so much fun! After dinner DH and I went to Wave Bands for the Match Your Mate Game. We were contestants #1 and went up against a couple that had been married 7 years and a couple that had been married 12 years. Having only been married 2 years - you can guess that we lost, but "on the Disney Cruise Line, Everyone is a winner!" and we got a cute set of gold medals anyway!
After that we headed back to our stateroom for the night.
*Just a note, I had started taking Dramimine -non drowsy for about 2 days prior to the cruise as well as the morning we sailed and again before we left port. I also took some ginger tablets the morning we cruised and again at lunch - just to be safe! DH refused to take anything! I was soooo sea sick the first evening!!! We finally went to the store on board and bought a set of the Sea Bands which worked wonders! I never took them off for the duration of the cruise! Maybe next time I will try the patch!
August 11, 2006 - Nassau
Today we slept in and ate breakfast at Parrot Cay around 11:00am. We walked around the ship for a while looking at the artwork. Around 1:00 we ate lunch at BBB outside. After lunch we sat on deck 7 secret deck and had it all to our selves for about an hour!! The goal for this cruise was relaxation! We definately achieved it - except for the first day of the cruise which was very hectic. After lunch we got off the ship and took some pictures of the Wonder from the docks. We got back on after an hour or so. DH went to the bridge tour at 3:00. He had a great time! I went to the Palo wine tasting at 3:00 and had an even better time! The head server at Palo taught us the greatest champagne bottle opening trick I have ever seen!! After our tours we ate Pizza on deck 9 and went back to our stateroom for a nap! The Golden Mickey's was a fun show and our dinner was at Triton's. Liz (DW of other dining couple) and I ordered one of everything on the dessert menu! Our DH's just ate Mickey Bars instead! The deck party was great and the fire works were awesome. We can't wait to do the "Carrots in the Pirrabbean" party again - its a little inside joke that presented its self at dinner - probably due to champagne and large amounts of sugar at dinner - and possibly 3 childless couples acting like children! We had a great day!!
Overall the Nassau day was fun, we ate way too much, but we really had a great time just putzing around the mostly empty ship and napping! Mission accomplished!
August 12, 2006 - Castaway Cay
After breakfast at BBB, we headed off the ship to Castaway Cay at about 9:30. Once on the island, we took the tram to Serenity Bay. We had reserved floats on the ship for the island, but when we arrived at the float stand DH remembered he had left our Rental Tickets in the stateroom! In true Disney Style, this was not a problem and they simply checked our name off a pre printed list. We joined about 20 other couples already firmly entrenched at Serenity Bay. We had plenty of chairs and umbrellas to choose from. Once settled, we jumped in the water with our floats and proceeded to nap until lunch time. The floats are so peaceful and the water was so calm! We ate a great lunch at the Adult BBQ. I had chicken and Mahi. DH had a Burger and 4 choclate chip cookies! After lunch we re-assumed our napping position afloat in Serenity Bay! After a thorough nap and sunburn, DH and I retreated to our stateroom around 3:15 for another nap, a snack from room service, and some well needed showers. Disney Dreams was the best show of the three and Dinner at Anamator's was fantastic too! Packing up our stuff was the worst part of the day. I think we could have easily stayed a few more weeks if they had let us!!
August 13, 2006 - Disembarkation day
We woke up about 4:30am due to a rain storm rocking the ship quite a bit. Much to our dismay, when we looked out our window, we saw Port Canaveral in the distance! We ate breakfast at Anamators at 7:45 and departed the ship sometime around 9:00. The Radisson shuttle was outside waiting for us when we came out of the port. They had us back to our car at about 9:15. We were sadly back in Tampa before noon!
Overall, we discovered that DCL is the ONLY cruise line for us!! We had a great time and felt that the money is well worth it! I wouldn't change anything - except maybe pack less. Thanks to the DisBoards and our Passporter - this cruise was a complete success!! DH had a wonderful Birthday too! I am also so glad I brought a sweater for the dining rooms!! Thanks Disboarders for the tip!
August 8, 2006,I convince DH to come home from work at lunch time - I can't wait any longer to tell him!! I have been sitting on this secret for 179 days at this point! DH comes home, I pop the Big News! DH is in total shock!! I am wondering if this is a good idea after all. No reaction, he just looks at me with his chin on his shoe laces and says "this is not a funny joke!" I convince him we are really cruising - he finally believes me - still in shock! The bags are already packed and already in the car. After DH mows the lawn!?! we are on our way to Orlando. I booked one night in Orlando through Priceline. Four Star Hotel $109. We got the Radisson Maingate. NOT IMPRESSED!! We had a King suite. The hotel was very run down, the Air conditioner did not work in our room and our bathroom - with jacuzzi tub was very dirty. There was a very suspicious brown smear on the wall of the bathroom
We ate a wonderful dinner at Red Lobster and then returned to our room at the Radisson. The room did have a sleep number bed! This bed is an interesting concept - but made for a lot of fun later on in the evening! August 9, 2006Like I said before, we are Avid Disney Fans, so as an extra surprise for DH's Birthday I booked us on the Backstage Magic Tour. $199 person, 7hours through MGM, Magic Kingdom, and Epcot. This tour takes place entirely in backstage areas. We saw the Disney Florist, The back workings of the American Adventure at Epcot, the perimeter roads, the Machine Shop where they build all the ride vehicles, and the Christmas warehouse. Funny enough -they were working on the Christmas tree for the Lobby of the WONDER!! Its Beautiful! This tour was OK at best. Our bus driver was new and kept getting lost, we lost at least an hour of the day waiting for him to figure out how to get certain places! We have done the Keys to the Kingdom tour twice! We really love the Keys to the Kingdom tour!! The Backstage Magic tour wasted a lot of time in transit - all though we got to ride around all day in a Disney Cruise Line Motor Coach! Great Touch Disney!! The only saving grace of the Backstage Magic Tour was that all the other people on the tour had already been on a Disney Cruise at one point or another. Everyone was excited to hear that we would be cruising the next day. Throughout the day, everyone came up to us and offered a plethora of tips and fun things to do on board. I already knew it all - thanks to the DisBoards, but it was great for DH. He went from still in shock to TOTALLY EXCITED! I don't think he listened to the tour leader at all! He was busy listening to all the people RAVE about how wonderful the Disney Cruise Line is. SO, $398 for Backstage magic tour - not worth the $$ for the Tour, but worth every penny to get DH excited about the Cruise!!
*The Keys to the Kingdom Tour is about $60 per person, includes lunch, not park admisson, worth every penny and more!!*
We left the Backstage Magic Tour at 5:00 and started to head out to Port Canaveral. That was when I suddenly remembered I had left my shoes for Pirate Night at home! I was so worried about packing DH's things, I completly forgot the shoes for my tropical dress! So, instead of going directly to the port, we stopped at the Prime outlets in Orlando to go shoe shopping! DH's Favorite thing
! After an hour we had finally found a pair of gold heels - had to be flip flop style, very little gold, no silver, and small heel, size 81/2! You would think this would have been an easy task! Not SO!!!Anyway, we drove over to the Port area. By the time we got there we were starving! Thanks to my Passporter, I knew to head over to Grills Tiki Bar for a great meal. We really enjoyed eating there and we had a great table! About 8:00pm we finally headed to the Radisson at the Port where we had another King Suite waiting on us. We were very frightened!! - based on our experience the previous night. Once we checked in and confirmed our 10:00am shuttle to the port the next morning, we headed off to our Room. WOW!!!! What a beautiful room!! The Radisson is hereby forgiven! It was clean and Huge. Our bathroom was enormous with a clean jacuzzi tub and an awesome glass shower. They also had great products for us to take on the cruise like Oatmeal and Lavender soap, a bath poof, and a small bottle of Aloe for sunburns! We will definately stay at the Radisson at the Port again. Great Deal too!! $125 for the king suite and it included parking while we were cruising!
August 10, 2006 - Embarkation Day!!We were so excited we couldn't sleep! We finally got out of bed at 8am and went across the street to McDonalds for breakfast. We lingered over fruit and yogart parfaits and coffee. At about 9:30am we went down to the lobby to check out and wait for the shuttle. At 9:40 the shuttle driver arrived and loaded all luggage into a trailer behind the shuttle bus. We departed the Radisson at exactly 10:00am. The shuttle driver was very nice. He told us trivia and facts about the Disney Ships on our way over. When we arrived at the port at about 10:10am, people were still debarking the ship. Apparently they arrived in port late. They still let us go through security and head up to the lobby. The large signs in the security area stating "No Alcohol" freaked out DH. It was then that a soft sided cooler full of wine, champagne and about 50 mini bottles, (to further enjoy the drink station on deck 9 thanks DisBoarders!) came flying my way! DH stated "I thought you said we could carry this on! I'm not carrying this, You take it!" When we approached the security person, I politely told him the cooler contained alcohol. He said that was fine and he hoped we enjoyed our cruise! I love it when I am right!!
DH then took the cooler back and we went up the escalators. For about 5 minutes DH and I had the entire lobby to our selves!! We walked around and enjoyed the peace and quiet before the floods of people came in. And of course - we got the Coveted #2 boarding pass! At about 11:30 they called for groups 1 and 2 to board the Wonder. We boarded, had our picture taken, heard our names announced, and headed to the BBB for lunch. We had a delightful lunch. Then we went to Parrot Cay, our first dinner roataion and handed off a bottle of wine and a bottle of Champagne we had brought from home. The head server was very kind and assured us it would be chilled and ready to drink at dinner. We spent the rest of the time walking around the ship and waiting to go to our room. Our Stateroom was ready a little before 1:30. We were very pleased! We enjoyed eating the snack and champagne tray left for us as well as the choclates in the Romance basket - Save your $ and don't buy the Romance Basket. The robes were HUGE!! We can both fit in one with room to spare, the silver frame is plain with no DCL markings, but the chocolate was good. ED was our room Steward and he was very nice. We decorated out door with a couple of magnetic signs and 100 Home depot Paint chips! It looked awesome and everyone enjoyed looking at our door during the entire cruise!! No theft problems at all!! After the safety drill we went up to enjoy the deck party. Very Fun!! Love the Horn!! We left port about 45 minutes late due to several late flights. We hear that many people missed the cruise completly! It is definatley worth coming in a day early!! Because we were late leaving, we had to hurry to get dressed for the show. Hercules was OK. The content left a little to be desired, but the talent and special effects were nothing short of amazing!! After the show we wandered around, had some pictures taken and headed off to dinner at Parrot Cay. Anil and Yasir were our dinner servers. They were OK at best. Both were new and they had trouble keeping up with so many tables at once. But, overall, we were treated like royalty and we understand that everyone has to learn sometime. We really enjoyed the two couples we sat with at dinner! They were so much fun! After dinner DH and I went to Wave Bands for the Match Your Mate Game. We were contestants #1 and went up against a couple that had been married 7 years and a couple that had been married 12 years. Having only been married 2 years - you can guess that we lost, but "on the Disney Cruise Line, Everyone is a winner!" and we got a cute set of gold medals anyway! After that we headed back to our stateroom for the night.
*Just a note, I had started taking Dramimine -non drowsy for about 2 days prior to the cruise as well as the morning we sailed and again before we left port. I also took some ginger tablets the morning we cruised and again at lunch - just to be safe! DH refused to take anything! I was soooo sea sick the first evening!!! We finally went to the store on board and bought a set of the Sea Bands which worked wonders! I never took them off for the duration of the cruise! Maybe next time I will try the patch!
August 11, 2006 - NassauToday we slept in and ate breakfast at Parrot Cay around 11:00am. We walked around the ship for a while looking at the artwork. Around 1:00 we ate lunch at BBB outside. After lunch we sat on deck 7 secret deck and had it all to our selves for about an hour!! The goal for this cruise was relaxation! We definately achieved it - except for the first day of the cruise which was very hectic. After lunch we got off the ship and took some pictures of the Wonder from the docks. We got back on after an hour or so. DH went to the bridge tour at 3:00. He had a great time! I went to the Palo wine tasting at 3:00 and had an even better time! The head server at Palo taught us the greatest champagne bottle opening trick I have ever seen!! After our tours we ate Pizza on deck 9 and went back to our stateroom for a nap! The Golden Mickey's was a fun show and our dinner was at Triton's. Liz (DW of other dining couple) and I ordered one of everything on the dessert menu! Our DH's just ate Mickey Bars instead! The deck party was great and the fire works were awesome. We can't wait to do the "Carrots in the Pirrabbean" party again - its a little inside joke that presented its self at dinner - probably due to champagne and large amounts of sugar at dinner - and possibly 3 childless couples acting like children! We had a great day!!
Overall the Nassau day was fun, we ate way too much, but we really had a great time just putzing around the mostly empty ship and napping! Mission accomplished!
August 12, 2006 - Castaway CayAfter breakfast at BBB, we headed off the ship to Castaway Cay at about 9:30. Once on the island, we took the tram to Serenity Bay. We had reserved floats on the ship for the island, but when we arrived at the float stand DH remembered he had left our Rental Tickets in the stateroom! In true Disney Style, this was not a problem and they simply checked our name off a pre printed list. We joined about 20 other couples already firmly entrenched at Serenity Bay. We had plenty of chairs and umbrellas to choose from. Once settled, we jumped in the water with our floats and proceeded to nap until lunch time. The floats are so peaceful and the water was so calm! We ate a great lunch at the Adult BBQ. I had chicken and Mahi. DH had a Burger and 4 choclate chip cookies! After lunch we re-assumed our napping position afloat in Serenity Bay! After a thorough nap and sunburn, DH and I retreated to our stateroom around 3:15 for another nap, a snack from room service, and some well needed showers. Disney Dreams was the best show of the three and Dinner at Anamator's was fantastic too! Packing up our stuff was the worst part of the day. I think we could have easily stayed a few more weeks if they had let us!!
August 13, 2006 - Disembarkation day We woke up about 4:30am due to a rain storm rocking the ship quite a bit. Much to our dismay, when we looked out our window, we saw Port Canaveral in the distance!
We ate breakfast at Anamators at 7:45 and departed the ship sometime around 9:00. The Radisson shuttle was outside waiting for us when we came out of the port. They had us back to our car at about 9:15. We were sadly back in Tampa before noon!Overall, we discovered that DCL is the ONLY cruise line for us!! We had a great time and felt that the money is well worth it! I wouldn't change anything - except maybe pack less. Thanks to the DisBoards and our Passporter - this cruise was a complete success!! DH had a wonderful Birthday too! I am also so glad I brought a sweater for the dining rooms!! Thanks Disboarders for the tip!
What a great report! Thanks for sharing.
