Vacation: My favorite subject!
We arrived on Wed the 18th and stayed at a Comfort Inn for $29. What a great deal that was. They had just refurbished the hotel and everything was wonderful (honestly, comparable to a 4 star resort…the rooms that is).
The next day we checked into OKW at 10 and our room was ready! Went over to Winn Dixie and bought 4 days worth of groceries. Then back to the resort to meet my friend Debbie who was coming up from Jupiter. She and I went over to DTD to get some gifts for her granddaughter.
At 4 we went to
MVMCP. I have to say, in all the years we have gone to Disney, this was the best time I ever had at MK. The crowds were so light….get this….Peter Pan (one of my favs) was walk-on!!! As was Dumbo and the Tea Cups! (my first time ever on the cups). I was able to video the entire parade with not one person standing in front of me (and we arrived 5 minutes before the parade). The fireworks over the Castle were also awesome, again, not surrounded by thousands!
The next day my friend left and we went to Animal Kingdom and MGM. Both places had light crowds. I cannot believe it, but we forgot to do Toy Story Mania. We have never done this ride!
Saturday I went to DTD alone and rode the balloon that goes up 400 feet. What a kick that was!
Sunday we went to Epcot. It was so funny. If anyone remembers this past January I had a major gripe about Soarin’. The CM who bypassed the next 2 in line (that would be us) with “party of 4, party of 5 and party of 7! Well this time we were hundreds back in line. And the CM came walking towards the back saying “party of2”? No parties of 2 until us!!!! So we got to walk on the next ride!!! Woohoo there is justice!!!
Monday we got up bright and early for our drive to Ft Lauderdale for our 11 night cruise.
Oh my gosh. What a drop dead gorgeous ship the Equinox is. That is the first time we have ever gone on a brand new ship, no rust anywhere!
We had a great cabin with an extra big balcony. The only snafu was that it was not supposed to be obstructed and it was. I wanted the cruise line to know that they had made a mistake (I booked a certain category and did not get it). They insisted that we receive a $200 shipboard credit (believe me, I did not complain to get the money, I was more upset about having to look at the tops of life boats and not wanting anyone else to be give that cabin without realizing it was obstructed).
We also got another $100 credit (which I didn’t know about when we booked) so we had $300 to spend! (We usually don’t spend a lot of money on cruises).
We had booked an excursion to Gutan Locks at the Panama Canal. This was the only one we did and it was great. We have watched just about any special that has to do with building the canal and has fascinated us both for a long time. To be able to see it up close and watch it work was wonderful. Yeah, we are nerds.
The entertainment was great. One guy was so good (Doug Cameron) that he got a standing ovation! One comedian had me laughing for a full hour (and I am a tough audience, believe me!).
I am not a fan of food on ships. I must say, this was the best I ever had. Well, except for Thanksgiving turkey dinner. Nuff said…..
They had lots of entertainment on the ship throughout the day and evening. A 4 string quartet was wonderful, we caught them many times. And a singer with his guitar (and his oh-so perfect pitch) was great.
They had so many great chairs and places to lie down. Yup, lie down! Leather loungers, large bed type things surrounded by cloth that were very comfy.
And look at what is on the top deck! Grass!! The Lawn Club. We sat up there and it was wonderful. In the pic if you look down at the balconies, we were on the ‘hump’, towards the right of the picture, see how they are longer.
Oops, kinda big, I will delete it an a few days (must conserve bandwidth!)
I took that puppy out and gave it a post of it's own!
Here was the pool and some cool chair/beds
The main dining room
One of the shows. Kinda Cirque-ish (but not quite as good as Cirque)
This is what our cabin looked like. We loved the bed next to the balcony. Got to lay in bed and look at the ocean!
The beautiful atrium
They also had a glass blowing (Corning) show up on the top deck. Interesting.
All in all, we highly recommend cruising!
9 days
Let me know if they're annoyingly large & I'll resize them
a few more
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Sounds like your granddaughter is having fun! 
) We missed the Merry Mixer(again). We were sitting at America, and realized at 4:45 that it was going on. None of us had the energy to RUN to get there before 5. Steve and Joy told us about it, and after hearing the crowd issues, glad we missed it.
