BLT and first Disney Cruise Trip Report

Loved the updates!

Your drawing of Bolt was fantastic :thumbsup2

Can't wait for the cruise!
 
Loving your trip report, can't wait until you get to the cruise portion :)

I had no idea doing a TR would be so difficult. It's the photos that take all the time - yowza! I am almost finished with our first cruise day. Thanks for sticking with me. I hope to get this next installment done this week and then another one this weekend....

Your drawing of Bolt was fantastic

Thanks so much. We had SO much fun doing those drawings. In fact, we are heading back to Disney next month and we're doing some fun activities every few days to get us in the mood and help us count down. Tonight's activity was drawing Mickey again. Julia really got interested in animation on this last trip, and I have to say, I wish I could sit around and draw all day. It is quite relaxing! And it's so easy to fix mistakes - not like other things in life :)

We are applying to Kindergartens for Olivia and they asked to see some of her work. I think they expected her to have scribbles, because they were really surprised at her drawings - she has gotten quite good at drawing Mickey for a 4-year old!
 
Day 5, Saturday: #@!&$ Dryer and New Friends
So, this dryer fiasco was a real pain. We realized that if we used the permanent press setting, it actually did dry the clothes enough to pack them. If we had only realized that would be a problem a couple days ago, we would have had time to dry all the clothes. As it was, we ended up taking several jeans and sweat suits half-wet on the cruise to hang them in our tiny room there to dry. During all the fun of packing, we had to get some breakfast, but I knew there was no way we could make our ADR, so I cancelled it and took Julia down with me to grab food from the Contempo Café to eat in the room.

We got a very nice breakfast there: 2 Bounty Platters, a French Toast Platter, and kids’ pancakes. And since we each got two drinks for breakfast, we got lots of chocolate milk to take to our cruise stateroom. I wish I had thought to use up some snack credits there, but we were in a hurry. This was the first time I had ever purchased an adult meal with one of the kids’ dining credits since I only learned that you can do that during this trip. This is only possible with the Deluxe plan since they do not track adult credits separately from kids’ credits. Now that I know this secret, the Deluxe plan will be an even better value for us since we can share 2 adult-sized meals amongst the four of us when we eat counter service, which means even MORE signature dining is in our future… Cali Grill, here we come!

So once we finished our packing and gave our stuff to the bellman, I sent Gary to find our town car outside the Contemporary while the girls and I went to the Contemporary market to redeem our snack credits. That always takes a LOT longer than it should. We had 24 snack credits left, and I redeemed 17 for those big lollipops (or “hollipops” as Olivia calls them). I should not have taken the kids with me since I was in such a hurry. One thing we got that was really good was those giant cookies from Minnie’s bake shop. We got the peanut butter ones. In fact, we still have one left – I wonder if it’s still good – that would be a little scary!

We were scheduled to hand out lanyards for our DISboard cruise meet group of 100 people at 11am at the cruise terminal. I had all the lanyards, so it was pretty important that we arrive on time. I hate being late to anything, so I didn’t even think twice about volunteering for that job. However, the dryer from _ _ LL was the first delay. It turned out that even though the town car company told us to meet them in front of the Contemporary, they were actually waiting for us in front of BLT, which caused a second delay.

The problem was that Gary went to the Contemporary bell stand and they helped him search for our luggage. In the meantime, I was trying to make the girls happy with our snack credit choices, but the CM kept telling us that our choices weren’t valid for snack credits (even when they were only $3 items). I realized during this pandemonium that my phone was vibrating. On one line, it was Gary saying our luggage was missing and the car was not here yet. On the other, it was Tiffany Town Car looking for us. The good news is that they found our luggage and already loaded it. I sent them to the Contemporary lobby and raced down there to meet them.

The driver was very nice. I explained the dryer issue and the miscommunication about which lobby to meet at, and that I had 100 people waiting for me at the terminal. He did a great job making up some time, and we arrived at the terminal only 15 minutes late. I of course was a stressball. I do not do late very well. I wish I didn’t care, really I do, but it really bothers me to be late. Which is why it’s a bad idea for me to make firm plans on vacation. Remind me of this next time I start to volunteer for a job on the DIS boards, OK?

It all ended up fine – all of the DIS meet people were delightful. We hung out in the terminal until our number was called, which was perfect since it gave me time to unwind a bit.

Once on board, we went to Rockin’ Bar D to change our Palo dinner to a different night. I also tried to get a brunch or tea at Palo, but no luck. I did sign up for the 3 days of unlimited use of rainforest room at the spa too. While we were there, Olivia started a trend that she continued throughout the voyage. She constantly wanted to be on stage. Anytime we were in a room with a stage, she asked us when it would be her turn:
PC050972.jpg


Next we explored the ship a bit and went to have lunch. I really wanted to go to Parrot Cay, but by the time we got there, they told us it was full and directed us to Topsiders. Here are Julia and I at lunch:
PC050976.jpg


And my plate:
DSC_7766.jpg



At 1:30 we went to our room, where some of our luggage had already arrived. The room was very nice, and I actually could tell it was bigger than other ships. I loved the split bathroom with two sinks. Our porthole was perfect.
DSC_7753.jpg


DSC_7755.jpg


DSC_7756.jpg


I read about how some staterooms have steamer trunks, so I thought some of you may want to see what they look like:
DSC_7762.jpg


And we all loved the cool propeller clock:
DSC_7763.jpg

It is for sale in the gift shop by the way. I think it was $40 – I was tempted, but we really don’t need a new clock….


I did a little unpacking while Gary took the girls to explore the ship, aka get everyone out of my way so I could work my magic. I loved having the over-the-door shoe organizer, so if you ever cruise, take one (thanks DIS!). Ours was bought at the dollar store, so it didn’t have a rack to hang over the door. No worries, I knew this in advance, so I bought those 3M hooks that are easily removed, and it worked like a charm. Besides shoes, we put the girls’ lanyards, sunscreen, tip money, and more in it.

And I really loved our packing cubes. I just put each person’s cubes in their drawers, and the empty ones that formerly held our shoes were put in a drawer for us to fill with dirty clothes as we went along. It really made packing at the end of the cruise less painful. We had an interesting experience with our luggage. There was a tag on one of our bags that said that that piece of luggage was damaged before it arrived on the ship. It has a HUGE rip in it. And of course since we left our luggage with the bellmen and our driver before arriving at the port, we had no idea who ripped it. We have had luggage damage almost every year, and we are never able to hold anyone accountable. It's a bummer....

I also loved having our fish extender hanging on our door. Even without all the awesome gifts we received, it was great to know which door was ours from waaaaayy down the hall.

If you are taking this cruise, I highly recommend joining your cruise meet thread. We made some great friends there. In fact, there are four families who all decided about a week before the trip to link our reservations so we could share a dinner table. It was one of the best decisions we made about this trip. I truly hope to travel with them again soon. My worries about some crazy pervert trying to lure us in online and then hurt our kids left my mind within a day or two of the cruise.

So, once I got a lot of unpacking done, I met the family and our fellow DIS cruise meet people at one of the lounges. After hanging out for a bit, it was time for the life jacket drill, so we left and reported to our muster station, Animator’s Palate. We were only there for about 15 minutes (it was raining, so they didn’t make us go outside), but Olivia’s excitement caught up to her and she fell asleep on the table.
PC050981.jpg


If I hadn’t known the CMs would need to setup for dinner in Animator’s I would have stayed there with her so she could sleep more than 10 minutes, but as it was, we had to head out to enjoy the sail away party. In case any of you are worried that Olivia would sleep through the fun, never fear – this was Olivia a few minutes later:
PC050991.jpg


We were assigned late seating, and I decided not to wait list for early dining. My theory was that the kids would care more about seeing the shows than eating dinner with us, so we should take them to the shows before dinner and let them leave our lonnnng dinner early to head to the kids clubs. It turned out to be a fabulous strategy for us, except that I was worried we were scaring away our new DIS friends since Olivia had a bit of trouble holding it together at dinner most nights after refusing to nap. Gary and I are usually very patient with the kids, but we were getting a bit frustrated with Olivia’s stubbornness about napping, which uses up our patience faster than usual. It didn’t help that we really overdid it at the parks and were all overtired. So, if I were to do this again, I would plan only half-days at the parks before the trip and make sure we were well-rested and not stressed out the first day of the cruise.

I also wanted to mention the “Voyage Personal Navigator” that was in our room when we arrived. It was really a great overview of what was coming during the trip. While I have cruised several times and researched this trip thoroughly, I do wish I had noticed it on our first day. It did have some good information, but that first day is just so busy.

The “All Aboard” show was nice and reminded me that Disney is always a step above the competition. Every show had a surprise for the audience that was phenomenal! We tried to get some photos for you, but without being able to use flash, this was the best we did:
PC051000.jpg


After that, we went to King Triton’s Tree Lighting in the atrium:
PC051004.jpg


There, Olivia met this sweet little boy who was enamored with her spinning Minnie toy. They played for about 15 minutes before the tree lighting started – it was great!
PC051008.jpg


Julia kept herself entertained with her fancy confetti:
PC051009.jpg


She’s so sweet. She kept ripping strips of it off and dropping it down to other kids on the floors below.

Next, we went to the Promenade Lounge, where they had live music. The singer did a fabulous job of getting all the kids dancing. Oh, wait, is that… yep, it sure is… Olivia’s on stage again:
PC051024.jpg


Both of the kids had a blast dancing with everyone there. At Christmas time, the ship is all decked out. Here is this year’s gingerbread house:
DSC_7787.jpg


So, it was finally time for our first dinner where we could really meet our tablemates and get to know everyone. Our dining room was Parrot Cay for the first night, and we had table 23. It’s a rather large table, but it’s a wonderful location – right in the middle of the room. Our servers were great – Simoun was our head server:
DSC_7824.jpg



It was great to see that I wasn’t the only one who takes photos of our food when traveling – I guess I should have known since our tablemates were fellow DISers, huh? I will try to remember what we had to eat on the ship, but overall, we were not impressed with the food. We have had much better meals on other cruise lines – of course, we did not travel on other cruise lines during a recession, so perhaps it is an unfair comparison. We did get a lot of photos of our meals though….

However, this first night, Julia was feeling seasick. I always get a little queasy, so I took some Dramamine to help. But Julia has never gotten sick on past cruises, so we didn’t think to give her anything. I knew that it was worse in the dining room, so I walked her back to our room. She got to see how the top bunk bed folds down and she was happy to lay in her top bunk and read (she’s always wanted bunk beds):
DSC_7768.jpg



We decided to try using our walkie-talkies so that I could rejoin our dinner while she rested in bed. It worked very well – she even talked to me with them while I was back at dinner.

Here is our dinner that first night (sorry, but I don’t remember what we ordered):
PC051035.jpg


PC051036.jpg


I kept wanting a Mickey bar while in the parks all week, but decided to hold off and get one on the ship since it was free (silly since we didn’t even use all of our snack credits). This first night though, I didn’t get a Mickey bar for dessert, but the kids each got one:
PC051037.jpg


PC051039.jpg


Right after their dessert, the kids all went to the kids’ club. I was a bit sad that Julia was missing the first night in the club since I expected that a lot of friendships would result and that she may have a hard time not feeling left out during the next few days.

When we returned to our room to check on Julia after dinner, we already received some FE gifts from our fellow DISmeet travelers:
PC051041.jpg


It was exciting to get our very first gifts – the kids were really happy. I was actually a bit disappointed because I worried that we would end up getting all of our FE gifts during the first couple of days and then have nothing to look forward to receiving later. So we decided that we would give our gifts later in the trip so that people would have at least one gift later.

We also got our first note on our message board:
PC051042.jpg


Julia was feeling much better, and I encouraged her to go to the kids’ club even if only for 30 minutes so she could meet people. She took my advice and was glad she did.

Wow – it seems like we did a lot that first day… didn’t I keep saying while we were cramming too much into our park days that we could rest on the cruise…. Hmmm, maybe that wasn’t such a great plan after all….

Next Up: Gingerbread, martinis, formal night, OH MY!
 
Joining in late. Nice land and sea report! Oh, and I love all the food pics (you can never get enuf pics of food, I tell ya).

Believe it or not, I have wondered what the inside of the steamer trunk looks like. Thank you for posting that.
 













Receive up to $1,000 in Onboard Credit and a Gift Basket!
That’s right — when you book your Disney Cruise with Dreams Unlimited Travel, you’ll receive incredible shipboard credits to spend during your vacation!
CLICK HERE













DIS Facebook DIS youtube DIS Instagram DIS Pinterest DIS Tiktok DIS Twitter DIS Bluesky

Back
Top