As we entered the atrium, the first thing we noticed was the carpet. Obviously new, it was spongy and about five inches thick. The kind you sink down in when you walk over it. Oh, and it looked pretty nice, too. We checked out the Helmsman Mickey, as this was our first time seeing it. It seemed very large. Ariel on the Wonder must be smaller. The atrium was lovely. Behind us I heard Tiffany and family getting introduced and screamed a woo-hoo shout out across the room for them. We did not linger there, however. Remember, we were on a mission. We parked the kids and the towering stack of bags in the chairs by Guest Services and scooted off to Rockin Bar D to change our dinner rotation. We had requested PLLAPLA. In my mind that is just the perfect rotation. It has the latest start time (8:30) which works really well for us, plus you are in Lumieres on Formal night and Parrot Cay on Pirate night which provides the perfect atmosphere for those themes. Of course we got stuck with this stinky LAAP, which had us in Animators on the night we had Palo. We got in the dining changes line, which was fairly short. We were only about the third group back. Across the room, the Palo line was a mess. It was huge, probably 50-75 people over there, plus it didnt appear to have a clear queue, it was just a huge mob. I hoped we wouldnt have to go over there. While in line, I noticed plenty of our meet group around. Erik, Jason, Hadley and gang were in line next to us
and there were a few more over by the Palo area. While we were standing there, I finally looked closely at my KTTW card and noticed the rotation was not LAAPLAP as I expected
it actually said LAA
PPLA. What!?!?!?! Two repeaters in the middle? Talk about confusing! I was shocked. I must have been grumbling about it fairly loudly b/c Hadley and Erik heard me from the other line and said They changed Pirate night. Its now Tuesday. Were staying in Cozumel until 1 AM. Awwww, MAN. All the hard work I did sifting through all the Navigators
calling DCL. All the people who posted asking, and PMed trusting ME as the rotation guru, and I misled them all. Not to mention I had put it in print. And it would get worse. As I stood there in the line, probably a nice bright shade of beet red in embarrassment over being wrong and how everybody I guided had to now come here, the folks in line ahead of us (who were now up at the table talking to the CM), well the gentleman was trying to make his point, and to my chagrin he pulled out of his pocket of all things, my spreadsheet- and proceeded to point out to the CM that he had the rotation right there and that he, the CM, was obviously wrong! The horror! My face was heating up and I was looking frantically for a rock to crawl under. The CM said to him, Where did you get that? I was literally looking at the ground and hiding my face with my hand. I just told everyone I was sorry. Repeatedly.
So then it was our turn and we told the CM we wanted our rotation to begin with Parrot Cay. It took a few minutes for him to figure out (we also requested to have a table to ourselves, so Im sure that didnt make it any easier), but finally he told us to report to dinner at PC at 8:30, and that we would be seated at table 22. On the way out, Ron said to me, I hope we didnt just switch ourselves into bad servers. I certainly hoped that as well.
Back at the mass of luggage, we decided I would take all the kids and head to the embarkation buffet at Parrot Cay, while Ron would take most of our carryons and deposit them in the forward elevator lobby up on 6. I hoped they would be alright just sitting up there, especially since one of the bags had my underwear in it. He took the stroller and used it as a cart to haul all the stuff up there.
In Parrot Cay, we were seated at a 6-top in the rear middle, next to a pole and a stack of highchairs. The highchairs are the basic wooden things with no tray or no back, so I wasnt quite sure how well Sarah was going to do in it. Not too well. I gave up on it in short order but here is a pic I took first:
Hand over the pudding in the tall glass and nobody will get hurt:
We had to wait a while to get drinks. By the time a server took our drink order, Ron was already almost back (he walked in right after that). They all headed up to the buffet while I held Sarah. Their selections:
I should have noticed right there that none of them had very much food. I went up to the buffet. By now I was hungry, and I had waited a year for some of the awesome chicken strips. I could taste them! But I got up front, and not only were there no chicken strips, there was nothing else either! The Wonders buffet put this place to shame. On the Wonder the kids have about 3 tables of food to choose from, burgers, chicken, etc. Here, one measly table with spaghetti (real spaghetti, not the Mickey head stuff) and corn dog nuggets. There was the big table of bread, and I took a roll or two. Over by the salads looking for the cold strawberry soup I had heard about but never tried
.nope
there was some sad looking salad and funky pasta stuff. I took like three cucumbers. They had peel & eat shrimp still but I dont like cold seafood so I passed on that. They also had the usual selection of Caribbean stuff like yellow rice, pork, etc. Nothing looked appealing. They had deli lunch meats all rolled up and cheese triangles, I took some cheese and gave up on the food. I would be heading to Plutos as soon as we got on deck. I did hit up the desserts and grabbed some chocolate cheesecake square and a little chocolate cake thing. I didnt see any of the tall puddings that your spoon doesnt fit in up on the buffet, but I did see them on peoples tables. So I had three cucumbers, about 3 cheese triangles, two rolls and two desserts. It was a disappointing selection to say the least. Plus the buffet just looked torn apart up there, nothing was replenished. Could we have really gotten there so late that the crowd and already come through and trashed everything???? Ron wasnt impressed either, and the kids hardly ate a thing. (Whats up with the missing ice cream sundae station in there, also?)
Happy to be back:
We didnt linger any longer and headed to GS to see if there were new rooms ready for us yet. Waited in quite a long line, nothing. But I did get two tickets to the galley tour on Thursday, which I had eagerly anticipated finally getting around to on this cruise. We walked through the Beat Street area and then up the forward elevators to 6 to see just how bad the stateroom situation was.
All of our junk was still in the lobby, which was good. We went straight for 6018, but we passed 6019 on the way. Nothing looked amiss outside the door to 6022; therefore you could hear my eyes rolling. I put up my We moved magnet which I made to direct everyone dropping off FE gifts and Secret Mickey (SM) gifts to our new home.
It turns out the location worse than we anticipated. In the Passporter it looked like the door to 18 was about 20-30 feet down the hall from 19. It was more like 50 feet. There was no way the baby monitor would work from that far. So we went in to check out the room, and it was nice enough. The new flat screen LCD TVs are sweet, but the channels are confusing. For instance the first channel was 20.0 and went up to 20.1, 20.2
etc. Hard to get used to since all of the channel numbers sounded so similar. Nothing else in our room was refurbished. Same old linens, etc. Our carpet was not new, but it was clean. The part that comes up like a baseboard on the wall was very raggedy looking and dirty though. Speaking of walls, our room was in dire need of a paint job, and sure enough on the wall by the bed is the plaster repair spot I had read in the room report on the DIS. Some people have mentioned new tiling in the bathrooms, I dont think ours was new as the grout was dirty in some spots along the wall, but it did look different than I remembered having on the Wonder. Here are the pics of 6018:
We then went to check out 19. This room is a sideways 11 and we were anxious to see it, as we had read raves about the room setup online. Can I say
.it was all everyone said and more! We love, love, loved this room. If only it had some natural light. You walk right into the sitting area, no claustrophobic skinny hallway to squeeze in. The bathroom was off to the right in the corner (not by the room door, which was so nice. If I could have a nickel for how many times in our room I was in the toilet room and had to slam the door shut when Ron came into the room from the hallway, I'd be rich.) And the bed was off to the left. It had a steamer trunk and seemed so spacious and open. On the bed was our second
Castaway Club gift (Such a good thing we got two of them!) and also our gift from
Dreams Unlimited for having one of their group rooms (a memory box with small photo album and bendy Mickey picture frame inside):
Here are the rest of the pics of 19
.Look at all that open space:
So three doors in this small hallway belong to me (in my opinion). I was still pretty skeptical that there really was anything wrong with 6022. As we were leaving 19 to go back to 18, (and I was griping about how far apart the rooms were. Loudly.) we ran into our Stateroom Host, Calvin from Trinidad. He was so nice; it made me feel ashamed of complaining. He told us he would be bringing the Pack & Play for Sarah and asked which room we wanted it in, and we told him to set it up in 18.
I then took this opportunity to make myself at home and do some decorating:
Now that the important business had been taken care of, it was up to Deck 9 for drinks and a date with the Mickey Pool.
Up Next: They Dont Dance Like Carmen No More
Well....b/c we decided to go forward with my cousins wedding cruise on the Oasis in 1/10, now we aren't sure if we can handle doing two fairly expensive cruises in such close proximity. Since we pay for our cruises with our tax refund....the timing of the Oasis cruise means we will have to pay for it in '09...so it looks like we will probably change the '09 DCL Eastern to one of the 5 night Key Wests on the Wonder in '10.......
... yes I dont think E is completely onboard either. for now were on this one.. but I think he wants to wait till 2010... he really wants the med... so Now i need to see if i can get a cheaper one on another cruise liner. But i know the boys (well and me too) would love to play on the beachs again. Who knows.. I also have DU holding a trans western for me so we shall see what that one amounts too.. Might just talk E into that if the price is right LOL
Does E have to go back soon??
It would be great to sail with you again!!
Only $1600 more than we paid for this last cruise. Let me do my math here...
Yikes. 
That's more than the Oasis is going to cost for a balcony room when it is only 3 weeks old....
Plus we got our DVD from Grand Cayman (Captain Marvin's Stingray City/Snorkel tour) and we'll be watching that later....speaking of Rays....big game tonight (Go TAMPA BAY).
Thanks for reading & enjoy the TR!
It was 21 magnetic sheets worth. It seemed like a lot when I printed them but with two doors, they didn't go far. I did have a few more (Pirate Night, Formal, etc.) that weren't up then, and we got many more magnets from our Secret Mickey and also as FE gifts. My goal was to have some that I switched out each day, but I just didn't have enough...oh well. Thanks for your help and advice making them! Hope you enjoy the TR and your upcoming cruise
