Cruising the Dream on our 1st cruise ever!!! (5 Night Double Dip)

[awtigger]

Love the TR...

How was the Ship Tour? Do you recommend it? I didn't realize that you could do this or I would have seen if it was available on our 1st cruise back in May 2010 on the Wonder.

Can wait to hear more....we are cruising in Oct and it can't get here fast enough

 

[franandaj]

Thank you so much for telling me some were still not showing up. I have literally gone through each post 5 times to make sure they're all showing up, and then they magically mess up again. This has been amazingly frustrating to say the least. Yes, that's what I had to do and thought they were all fixed and then they messed up again. I'm not touching anything else in photobucket! Hopefully I now know what not to do.

The thing with photobucket is that for newbies you don't know when setting up an account that you will want folders. So after you do your first couple updates, you start moving things to make it easier to find things and then all the links get broken. I've learned that if a photo goes to the wrong place, just LEAVE it there! it's a lot easier.

I have a picture of the special champagne that is specially made for the Dream and only served in Pink but for some reason it won't remain rotated when I post it. You can also buy bottles of it in the duty free shop to take home.

We never made it into Skyline, which is a bar that changes its 'skyline' to different cities around the world every 15 minutes. The drink menu is also supposed to change when the skyline changes. However, I have read many people have never seen it change no matter how many times they've been in there. Perhaps it's a glitch or perhaps they just happen to go in the same 15 minute cycle. Have any of you seen it change like it's supposed to?

I don't know if the boards are wonky, or photobucket still hates me, but some of the pictures remain huge no matter that they're saved a smaller size in photobucket, and some will not remain rotated when I post them. I'm going to wait and see if it works in a bit.

I find that when I rotate my pictures to the correct orientation and then save them to a new file, not replace the original it works. I have problems with the whole rotating the wrong way thing.

Leshaface posted about the Skyline changing on her Dream Cruise, did you read that report or just the current TR she is working on?

When you upload pictures to Photobucket, you can choose the size that they upload as. You need to set it because when I first started all my pictures were little, I finally set the default to bigger and they are all the same size. If you don't pick the size, perhaps it takes the sizing from your pictures.

Loving all your pictures! I can't wait to go on my cruise and then the Dream!

 

[Pinkocto]

Love the TR...

How was the Ship Tour? Do you recommend it? I didn't realize that you could do this or I would have seen if it was available on our 1st cruise back in May 2010 on the Wonder.

Can wait to hear more....we are cruising in Oct and it can't get here fast enough

Thank you Lots more to come. I'm going to talk about the ship tour in the next update.

 

[Pinkocto]

The thing with photobucket is that for newbies you don't know when setting up an account that you will want folders. So after you do your first couple updates, you start moving things to make it easier to find things and then all the links get broken. I've learned that if a photo goes to the wrong place, just LEAVE it there! it's a lot easier.

I find that when I rotate my pictures to the correct orientation and then save them to a new file, not replace the original it works. I have problems with the whole rotating the wrong way thing.

Leshaface posted about the Skyline changing on her Dream Cruise, did you read that report or just the current TR she is working on?

When you upload pictures to Photobucket, you can choose the size that they upload as. You need to set it because when I first started all my pictures were little, I finally set the default to bigger and they are all the same size. If you don't pick the size, perhaps it takes the sizing from your pictures.

Loving all your pictures! I can't wait to go on my cruise and then the Dream!

I did read that TR, totally forgot she said that.

Thank you so much for all the tips. I just went and changed the upload picture size. I've been resizing them all before putting them on here. Another weird thing is that it took overnight for the images to post the size I had saved them to. Last night some of the pictures were huge and the others were the size I wanted them all to be.

I didn't even read the warning it has when you move something, or did and didn't think it was that serious. I definitely created a lot of frustration for myself.

I really want to try all the ships. I know they're all beautiful, but for now I'm in love with the Dream

 

[dgbg100106]

for a first TR you are doing great! We have all done the broken link thing so don't worry about it.

 

[Pinkocto]

So we made it to the meeting point for the Ship Tour scheduled at 1:00 about 5 minutes early and there wasn't too many people so we thought we were in the wrong place. But the CMs in charge saw our confusion and waved us over. A friend of ours had told mom she MUST go on the ship tour the first day since it helped you so much. Well, I had been pouring over the deck plans for months and months so figured I knew everything there was to know so we could do our own ship tour on our own time. And since we had already just toured the District maybe we really didn't need to go on the tour. One of the CMs saw me looking at my Daily Navigator and asked what we had planned for the day, saw what I had circled and gave his approval. Well, this happened to be one of the most gorgeous men I've ever seen so this extra attention had me on cloud nine. His name was Shane, and every time we saw him for the rest of the cruise my heart went pitter patter So mom knew I really wasn't excited about the tour, and we were still hauling our backpacks around and were getting tired, so asked if I'd like to skip it. Well now that the gorgeous Shane was one of our leaders of course I didn't want to go And really, we were so glad we stayed because it was quite a nice tour and very informative. Our other guide was Brodie but he didn't say much.

So by 1:00 lots more people had joined us and Shane started off by going over the Daily Navigator in depth. This was so nice for mom, she really didn't understand my explanations. Then they did a short walking tour, about 35 minutes, first starting at the Walt Disney Theater where all the nightly shows are, then past the Buena Vista Theater, where they show 3D and regular movies. If Disney has a movie coming out in theaters on land they also show it on the ship opening night which I think is so cool. Then we went back to the District and toured the clubs. This is where we were told about the bubbles you can see through certain cameras, so of course everybody got out their camera which was cute. Then they showed us the three main restaurants, we didn't actually go down to Deck 2 to see the Enchanted Garden but they said where it was. Then we went back to where we started and Shane recapped. Very very glad we went, it made everything cemented in our minds when we got lost. And yes we still got lost even after all my research. We ended at 1:45 and headed up to our room. They did 2 ship tours and the next started at 2:00. I definitely recommend going.

They had a condensed version of the Daily Navigator in Port Canaveral which gave the highlights for the first day. Then when we got on the ship they had full Navigators in front of Guest Services, which is where we would always pick up a second one every day. They also put one in your room for the next day at night when they do turn down service. You will miss out on fabulous activities if you don't look over your navigator in depth. Of course you don't have to do any of the activities and just relax your whole cruise, but at least look at them to see if you'd like to do anything offered.

I'll be back later for an update with pictures.

 

[Pinkocto]

for a first TR you are doing great! We have all done the broken link thing so don't worry about it.

Thank you

It was just such a pain, I couldn't belive I'd created so much trouble for myself. And I must have had the camera on the wrong setting for some of the inside picture since they are showing a little fuzzy. Oh well.

Oh, everyone, I must apologize for some of the crooked pictures. Sometimes I would be taking pictures on the go and just hope they came out focused. Didn't even think about them being straight. I'm including them because they are probably the only ones I have of that area.

 

[Disney9.9.10]

Great update! I love all of your pictures The Dream is such a gorgeous ship, I don't think I can tire of looking at pictures of it lol I look forward to seeing more!

 

[Pinkocto]

Great update! I love all of your pictures The Dream is such a gorgeous ship, I don't think I can tire of looking at pictures of it lol I look forward to seeing more!

Thank you so much The whole trip we were enthralled and kept remarking how gorgeous she was. I can't wait to see the Fantasy and the new colors she has. The pink and greens just look so beautiful.

Lots more pictures I promise. I'm waiting for photobucket to 'save' my recent size changes. Last night when I posted about the night clubs some of the pictures would post on here huge even though I had resized them, and then this morning they were the size I saved them as.

The next update will be about the stateroom.

 

[dolphingirl47]

There was artwork everywhere! It was all such a treat to see. The only thing I was a bit disappointed with was the 'enchanted artwork' because they all had dust inside their frames. It just looked unsightly. I thought they would do a better job keeping those looking perfect since it's one of their new touches.

That really surprises me. On neither of I Disney cruises have I ever seen a hint of dust anywhere.

Thank you so much The whole trip we were enthralled and kept remarking how gorgeous she was. I can't wait to see the Fantasy and the new colors she has. The pink and greens just look so beautiful.

Lots more pictures I promise. I'm waiting for photobucket to 'save' my recent size changes. Last night when I posted about the night clubs some of the pictures would post on here huge even though I had resized them, and then this morning they were the size I saved them as.

The next update will be about the stateroom.

A bunch of people who I am going on the Hawaii cruise with have just come back from the Maiden voyage of the Fantasy and friends of ours have been on the Media preview cruise and so far the consensus is that the Fantasy is even better than the Dream.

Corinna

 

[Linda67]

Loving your TR, great detail and great photos

Looking forward to reading along

 

[trish.]

Fabulous TR! Thank you so much for writing!

 

[dgbg100106]

The little newspapers that tell you everything for the next day are of great importance. We now carry with us highlighters so we can mark what we are interested in, and sometimes we need multiple colors depending on what is first tier and what is second tier...

 

[Pinkocto]

That really surprises me. On neither of I Disney cruises have I ever seen a hint of dust anywhere.

I know, I was shocked myself. It was inside the frame of every enchanted artwork. The only thing I can think is the enchanted part could be making the dust since its a computer.

A bunch of people who I am going on the Hawaii cruise with have just come back from the Maiden voyage of the Fantasy and friends of ours have been on the Media preview cruise and so far the consensus is that the Fantasy is even better than the Dream.

Corinna

I can't wait to see the Fantasy! I'm trying to figure if I can sneak a little trip in before next March

 

[Pinkocto]

Loving your TR, great detail and great photos

Looking forward to reading along

Fabulous TR! Thank you so much for writing!

Thanks so much you guys Thanks for joining!

 

[Pinkocto]

The little newspapers that tell you everything for the next day are of great importance. We now carry with us highlighters so we can mark what we are interested in, and sometimes we need multiple colors depending on what is first tier and what is second tier...

Exactly, we did the same. I hated having to choose and miss something. Another excellent reason for taking longer cruises. I'm sure they offer things more times. We really wanted to do the salsa dancing class but it was only offered once.

 

[Pinkocto]

We headed up to Deck 5, stateroom 5532. Absolutely perfect location, Forward Starboard, and only a short walk to the forward elevators which were never busy. So we could walk down to decks 4, 3, & 2 which have all the main resturants, theaters, and shops, or take the elevator straight to the upper decks where all the rest of the action is. Alright, the moment I'd been waiting a year for had arrived Well, I'd been waiting for the whole cruise, but I was super excited to see the extended balcony we had been so lucky to get. I had also ordered the birthday decorations and cake as a surprise since it was mom's birthday the week before so I had her go in first while I secretly had the video already recording. I'm going to include a link to the video, it's about 3 minutes long so no need to watch if you don't want. There's lots of room pictures too. If you do watch please ignore my gum chewing.



I have to admit my first reaction was that it was smaller than I expected. But it only took a short while to realize it was perfect. Disney says their staterooms are some of the biggest in the industry and about 25% larger than other lines. Not ever having looked into that close detail at other lines I'm not sure how accurate that is, but I have looked at a lot of pictures of the other lines and it appears to be correct to me.

The couch turns into a single bed. Our hostess, Iryna from Russia, took it out at turndown and put it back when she cleaned in the morning.

Underneith the cake is where the fridge is. It kept things very cold. I would often get a cup of diet coke and keep it in the fridge for the next morning and it was as cold as my fridge at home.

They have two seperate bathrooms, one had a sink and toilet, the other a sink and shower/tub. I couldn't get a good angle in the bathrooms, so the pictures are choppy, my apologies. While we loved the convenience of the two bathrooms, they were quite short, so I have no idea how comfortable tall people feel in them. I am not tall so didn't have a problem. The tub was quite small, only adequate for bathing children in my opinion.

Thankfully we never tripped on this huge step.

And finally, the balcony. It was amazing. The reason why some of these are so extended is because of the life boats I think. You can see in my second post, last photograph, how they jut out.

View from the balcony

So we had about half an hour before the DVC member meeting we wanted to go to so sat and enjoyed a piece of cake, well maybe two pieces of cake. I get a horrible headache when I eat sugar so got the sugar free cake so we both could partake and it was delicious.

 

[franandaj]

Wonderful pictures so far! I don't mind if they aren't quite properly centered and stuff, it's better than having no idea what the place looks like! Loving the detail. Can't wait to hear more!

The little newspapers that tell you everything for the next day are of great importance. We now carry with us highlighters so we can mark what we are interested in, and sometimes we need multiple colors depending on what is first tier and what is second tier...

That's an awesome idea! I'll have to remember that for our cruise! I've already planned out most of it based on the Navigators that I've seen online and while things change, it seems that on the same itinerary, they offer most of the same things at slightly different times each day so I'm all ready and it's not even six months away!

 

[Pinkocto]

Wonderful pictures so far! I don't mind if they aren't quite properly centered and stuff, it's better than having no idea what the place looks like! Loving the detail. Can't wait to hear more!

Thank you I'm just amused that some are so crooked. When I looked back at them on the camera I can't remember them being crooked. Maybe it wouldn't show up looking at them like that. Who knows. I'll try to be more careful next time.

That's an awesome idea! I'll have to remember that for our cruise! I've already planned out most of it based on the Navigators that I've seen online and while things change, it seems that on the same itinerary, they offer most of the same things at slightly different times each day so I'm all ready and it's not even six months away!

That's what I found also. Things might not be at the same time, but the same things were offered. The show rotation was a lot different than what the previous navigators had though.

 

[skatingmom]

Loving your trip report! We will be cruising for the first time ever this June so your report and pictures are getting me REALLY excited for our "Dream" cruise!