*~Cruising with a crew of 10 – May 16th, 2009 7 day Western Caribbean Cruise~* PHOTOS

[Tink113]

Hello and welcome to my trip report! It has been almost a month since our cruise and I still seem to be in vacation mode so I figured that I would relive our trip by writing about it. Hopefully this will help out those that plan to cruise with a large group. This will be a bit of a mix, as I will be adding as much feedback as I can from the rest of the crew.

Here are some topics that will be in this report that may be helpful:

- Info for those cruising in a large group (10)
- Info for those cruising while expecting – 1st trimester
- Points of view from a young couple in their 20’s, married couple in their 20’s, Family with 2 boys, & Grandparents cruising
- Cruising with someone who was TOTALLY against cruising!!!

The cast of crazy characters for our big adventure are:
Amanda (me – 28)
Jason (my DH – 28)
Carole (My mom – 50’s)
Bob (My dad – 50’s)
Rob (My big Bro – 35)
Alison + my new niece or nephew (Expecting Sister-in-Law – 35)
Their Kids Bobby (8) & Adam (6)
Kevin (My little Bro -22)
Melissa (My little Bro’s GF -20)

Some of you may have noticed a theme with the names. Yes, there are (3!) Robert’s that all go by different “nick” names. Although, if you ask the youngest Robert he is now too old to be called Bobby and has taken to correcting those who insist he is not.

I will start off by saying that some of us are repeat cruisers and some are not. This cruise was my 3rd, and DH’s, my mom’s, and my younger brother’s 2nd. All on Disney! The rest of the crew were 1st timers. The fact that this cruise happened at all was a miracle as my father has announced for years that he would never cruise! I figured I had only one option, book the cruise and tell him later. (Now, I will say this could have easily blown up in my face. In fact, it did for a while. However, the more excited everyone else got the less “friction” I got from my dad.) Skipping right to the end & I’ll tell you that my father had a GREAT time and re-booked while on board!!! Thank God! And not any cruise mind you....The 14 day repo cruise!!! Believe it or not he is looking forward to the sea days the most!

The Deals & OBC
We actually moved this cruise 3 times. The 1st was a 4 night on the Wonder, then we changed it to the May 9th Eastern. Well after the special pricing came out for the May 16th cruise, we switched saving us a total of almost $3,000.00! I re-booked for my parents while on board so they had a Cat 9 (2nd Deck) with the 10% discount & $200 OBC. I transferred theirs to a TA & got them a $200 Gift Card as well. The rest of us booked Cat 12’s GTY. All three of our rooms were upgraded to cat 11’s & I scored us $50.00 OBC from paying with a Disney visa & $115.00 OBC by transferring to a TA, for $165 total per room. The three of us were located on deck 6 & received gifts in our stateroom from our TA (Mom & dad had a different TA) All in all, the extra OBC paid for the tips! Since we were a mix of repeat cruisers and 1st timers, I booked a Castaway member in each room to be able to book our ressies at the 90 day mark. This also meant that every room had a Castaway gift bag as well. (Note: My brother & my hubby were able to explain on board and Disney gladly switched their keys, since I had booked them in the wrong room to get a castaway member in each cabin.)

Feel free to ask any questions along the way.....

Here is a photo of all of us taken on the ship.


Next up – A 14 hour Drive from Virginia to Florida, no problem & Day 1 - Cruising with the mouse

 

[dznyacct]

Yay Amanda ! Glad to see you started a trip report. I love reliving our WONDERFUL cruise with all our DIS friends .

 

[Kurby]

how fun - don't forget the photo's Love photo's

 

[lucyddr]

I'm reading.... Your mom made one of my favorite "memories" of our cruise. (She's a pretty witty lady!) When I mentioned that we had rebooked onboard, she quickly reminded me that I stated (and that she had it in writing somewhere), "I would NEVER cruise Disney again if we went to Nassau."

Oh well... I couldn't resist! (Though we will likely postpone for awhile...)

Can't wait to hear your perspective on the trip!

 

[Disgirl83]

Yay! More trip reports. I can't wait to hear how it was cruising with a large family group. I'd love for our family to do that one day.

 

[Tink113sMom]

Hello All...

You know I have to jump in here and make my presence known! It will be really interesting to see what Amanda has to say about the cruise... She is absolutely not exaggerating about her father's reluctance to go though... There were many heated discussions over the past 8 years before she played the "last family trip together card" and caught him in a weak moment. Even after he allowed us to start planning he complained often about letting us talk him into it!

--Carole

 

[Tink rules]

Good start.. hope you have pictures...

 

[Kara]

Looking forward to hearing about your trip!!

 

[PHP's Hubby Tony G]

Hi Amanda! Looking forward to reading your trip report! I can't believe it was a month ago already

PS Dont forget some photos (although I don't mind if you leave Nassau out! )

 

[Tink113]

Yay Amanda ! Glad to see you started a trip report. I love reliving our WONDERFUL cruise with all our DIS friends .

I'm reading.... Your mom made one of my favorite "memories" of our cruise. (She's a pretty witty lady!) When I mentioned that we had rebooked onboard, she quickly reminded me that I stated (and that she had it in writing somewhere), "I would NEVER cruise Disney again if we went to Nassau."

Oh well... I couldn't resist! (Though we will likely postpone for awhile...)

Can't wait to hear your perspective on the trip!

My mom's a trip, that's for sure! I'm not surprised that she caught you on that. My brother used to think she really did have eyes in the back of her head. He even tried to check once!

Hello All...

You know I have to jump in here and make my presence known! It will be really interesting to see what Amanda has to say about the cruise... She is absolutely not exaggerating about her father's reluctance to go though... There were many heated discussions over the past 8 years before she played the "last family trip together card" and caught him in a weak moment. Even after he allowed us to start planning he complained often about letting us talk him into it!

--Carole

Hi Mom!

Yay! More trip reports. I can't wait to hear how it was cruising with a large family group. I'd love for our family to do that one day.

Lynsey - I'm LOVING your trip report too!

Hi Amanda! Looking forward to reading your trip report! I can't believe it was a month ago already

PS Dont forget some photos (although I don't mind if you leave Nassau out! )

Tony - Where's your lovely wife? Probably slaving away over her AMAZING food report. How's it feel to be a celebrity Hubby? I'm with you on Nassua. Not my favorite port. This was the 1st time there and I was not really impressed.


Woo Hoo! Nice to have all my Key Lime Pie-rates along for the telling of the tale! I'm working on the photos. Sorry for slacking, but they were on the other computer! I think between Melissa, Rob, & I we have over 1,000 photos so there's no shortage there!


Welcome to all the non-Key Lime Pie-Rates as well!!! No worries we wont hold that against you! The Key Lime Pie-rates was our Cruise Thread name and we had, and still have a GREAT group!

Next installment coming soon... grab your popcorn and FE goodies now.

 

[dznyacct]

Next installment coming soon... grab your popcorn and FE goodies now.

Yay, can't wait for more . Believe it or not, we do still have some FE goodies left !

 

[Tink113]

6 people, 1 van, 14 Hours - Thursday/Friday

Only a few short days before the trip that we had been looking forward to for over a year, life jumped in to toss a few rough seas our way. (Isn’t that always the way!) One of our crew was told that their father had unexpectedly passed away and another was told that they would no longer have a job to return to after the cruise. Talk about crushing the pre-vacation high everyone was on! All I can say is this trip was meant to happen, because details were worked out and everyone (now needing this vacation and a little Disney Magic, more than ever) was able to go.

Have you ever had one of those days when you’re on vacation even before you get to work? Well that was me on Thursday! Today was the day! My husband woke up, looked at me and said “We are leaving for vacation today! Not a week from today, not three weeks from today, not three months from today. Finally, we leave today!” At that point I was as good as on the ship! After a good 30 seconds of that great vacation high, my mind started to list off all the things I had most likely forgotten to pack! To say I was useless at work was probably an understatement. Mom and dad were already in Florida and mentally so was I.

By 11:45am, I was half way out the door and on my way home to finish my last min packing and re-clean the house for the in-laws that were taking care of our puppy (Abby)! I swear I never stopped from the time I got home until Rob, Ali, and the boys showed up with the van at 6pm. After a tearful goodbye to our puppy, we were in the van ready to hit the highway! WE’RE OFFICIALLY ON VACATION!!! Who excited?

First things first, call the parents and let them know we are on the way and crack open the homemade chicken salad to start making sandwiches. Eating chicken salad has accidently become a very important part of our Florida road trips and 30 mins into our trip is long enough to wait, right? We all thought so too! After everyone was full, we each moved on to whatever we had brought to entertain ourselves for 14 hours. It wasn’t long before the big and little kids had played with all their toys and pulled out the pillows and blankets. Who doesn’t love sleeping in a car?

I’m not sure at what point watching the miles tick by on the GPS went from being depressing to exciting, but it did. Georgia at 3am probably! We were almost there!!! One more state!!!

At a little after 8am Friday morning we pulled into the drive way of our house in Winter Park. Real beds and the knowledge that dad was putting breakfast on the table (gotta love the man), was more than enough to have us running to the front door! The rest of the day was spent by the pool or taking long naps. It’s good to be on vacation! Kevin & Melissa were flying in early afternoon and soon mom would have all her chicks in one place.

WELCOME TO THE LAND OF FLORIDA! (Side Note: When Bobby was little, we told him we were going to Orlando, Florida and when we got there he wanted to know if we were in the "Land of Florida" yet. Took us a few mins to figure out what he meant & it has stuck ever since!)

 

[Pooh's-Honey-Pot]

Amanda I'm here, I'm here!!! Great start! I don't think I met your dad at all, and he sounds so funny!! Next time maybe . . .!!!

I did meet your lovely mommy though !!

 

[Tink113]

Gas - hundreds, Cruise reservations for 10 – thousands, the feeling you get when you 1st step foot on the Disney Magic – PRICELESS!

7:15am and the house is slowly starting to buzz with excitement! The boys had gone running wildly to the breakfast table talking 90 miles a min about Deck 9, the Mickey Slide, the beach, and going over what deck we are on & what deck Mamma and Grand dad our on. Port Canaveral was just under an hour away so after breakfast, we piled everyone into the 2 vans and found ourselves on the road again!

Photos and Disney Cruise Line DVDs still cannot prepare you for the sight of the Disney Magic is person! At the first moment the amazing ship was in sight, the boys were blown away by the size of it. “We are getting on that” they gasped! You got it!

We turned into the cruise terminal parking lot a little before 10am. Following instructions, we pulled up to the curb and unloaded all the luggage. Moments later a PT Cruiser pulled up behind us and out popped our very excited DIS thread mates, Sonya & Tony. After chatting back and forth forever on the DIS, we all felt like we were running into old friends. Not long after that we spotted the Red Miata that could only belong to Andy & Ashley, as few more Key Lime Pie-rates from our DIS thread. Wow, it was all starting to become so real!

Check in at the cruise terminal was a breeze. We got our Key to the World cards, Castaway Club lanyards, and were off to find a place for the 10 of us to camp until our 11:30 boarding time. We scored boarding number 2! The boys took this time to explore the model of the Disney Magic and check out the rest of the cruise terminal. Alison & Rob headed over to check the boys into the kids club, while mom & I spotted more fellow DIS Key Lime Pie-rates (KLP)! It was great to finally put some “in person” faces to the names. We all chatted for a while, as I handed out the Key Lime Pie-rates lime green wrist bands & Lindsey (another KLP) handed out her AMAZING mini-navigators. It was great to see everyone’s excited, lit up faces!

Bobby looking like Mr. Cool!

Before we knew it, it was time to board!!!

Amanda & Jason
Rob, Alison, Bobby, and Adam
Mom & Cabana Bob, I mean Dad
Kevin & Melissa did make it on the ship, I promise! We just weren't trilled with their photo.

Once on board we were greeted by very friendly cast members who announced our arrival to the nearly vacant atrium. Mom & I headed to Rockin’ Bar D to straighten out our Palo ressies while the rest of our group went straight to Topsiders for lunch! Luckily, the line at Rockin’ Bar D was not too bad and we were able to get brunch and dinner for all 8 of us. They even gave us the semi-private Palo dining room for both meals!!! After grabbing a quick lunch ourselves, it was just about time to sneak down to Rob and Alison’s room to leave the goodies we had brought for the boys as a surprise (Flip flops, sun glasses, sand toys, etc) When we boarded we were told that our rooms would be ready at 1:30 at let me tell you they work right down to the last moment. All the halls ways were partitioned off until 1:30pm on the dot! Next Jason & I headed to our room to unload our carryon bags, take some photos, and put up our FE & cruise magnets!

"cozy for 2, small for 4" cat 11



next up - walking ship tour, DIS meet, and Sail-A-Way party

 

[mickeyluv]

Really enjoying your report!! Love the pictures!

 

[texfinn]

I'm here! Great report so far! I can't bring myself to write one yet -- it will put an "ending" to all the fun....

Thanks for writing this!

 

[Pooh's-Honey-Pot]

Bobby looking like Mr. Cool!

I'm so excited, you managed to get a picture of us checking in!! If you look behind the Magic model, directlyh to the left of the big white post, that teeny tiny person in the blue shirt with the black bag on his back at the check-in desk is Tony!!! At least, I'm pretty sure it is!!

 

[my3m]

Subscribing...

 

[Tink113]

Taking the Magic out of Port Canaveral pun intended.

Our 1st afternoon on board was action packed. While Jason & I were stashing the gifts for the boys in their room, Bobby and Adam were enjoying a nearly empty pool.
Adam in the pool!

Time flies when you’re having fun! 2:30 snuck up on us pretty quick. The only activity my husband made clear he wanted to do was the walking ship tour at 2:30. Somehow we must have gotten things a bit mixed up because we were told that this was THE TOUR to go on if you wanted to see the bridge. WRONG! Nice general tour of all the decks, but not what we thought it was. If you’re a first time cruiser (as my brother & his family were), it’s a great way to find out what the ship has to offer and where. If you’ve been on the ship before, skip it and head to the pool! Poor Jason, still hasn’t made it to see the bridge. Sounds like the perfect reason to book another cruise!

After our walking ship tour we ran to our 3pm DIS KLP meet that we were late for!!! (I was feeling a little like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonder Land - I'm late! I'm Late!) Luckily, some people were still there! It was so nice to see all the DISers. We all chatting for a bit and then headed back to the room.

I was pleasantly surprised to find some of our luggage had begun to show up outside our room when we arrived. When you’re in a cat 11 room you have to make the best of the space you’ve got. Once each piece of luggage arrived, we began unpacking so we could shove our suitcases under the bed! Knowing that we would not have a steamer trunk in our room for this trip, I packed most of our shirts, dress clothes, etc with hangers. We stuck the rest of the clothes in the 3 small draws, make-up and electronics in the dressing table draws, and with that we were done. I was a little upset to find that each cat 11 was not made equal & Rob’s room only have 3 draws instead of the 7 we had (3 clothing size draws on one side of the dressing table and 4 smaller draws on the other side)! That certainly made things harder given that they had 2 adult and 2 kids in their room!

The Muster Drill was pretty straight forward. We went to our station on deck 4 and checked in. They went over what would happen if there was a real emergency. It couldn’t have taken longer than 15-20 mins. I was in such a hurry to get there that I simply grabbed 2 life vests without even looking. Let me tell you, Jason looked pretty funny trying to put on a child’s life vest! We quickly explained the situation and were told that a cast member would be sent to our room to make sure adult vests were available. (And they did!)

With as much as we had already done, I almost forgot we hadn’t even left port yet! Time to head up to deck 9 & 10 for the Sail Away Party!!! We met up with mom & dad on deck 10 for a perfect view of the party. Rob, Alison, and the boys were on deck 9 having a blast dancing and singing along!
Mom all excited to cast off!


With all the excitement on board I barely noticed the fact that the ship was moving! Woo Hoo! We are cruising!!! I know that there were lots of storms in the forecast and we must having been trying to outrun one, because once we left port we were booking it out to sea.

When we first booked our cruise we opted for late seating for dinner. I personally prefer late seating. You don’t have to rush back to the ship when we are in port and you don’t feel like you’ve just finished eating lunch just to turn around and eat dinner. However, after reading a few posts on DIS and re-thinking a few things, we switched to main seating. (5:45pm to be exact) There are lots of activities scheduled in the kids club that they would have missed if we had late dinning and my father has & will always be a fan of eating early in the evening! Our first night we dined in Animator’s Palette where we met our servers for the week, Alexander and Nicole. The food was good and the service was excellent.

Insert photo of servers here – coming soon.

After dinner we headed over to the Walt Disney Theater to watch the variety act. Our two guest entertainers were an illusionist, Mike Super, and a singing comedian, John Charles. The guys were pretty impressed with the comedian and looked forward to seeing his shows over the next couple of days. The illusionist was entertaining as well, but we all agreed that he talked too much. If you’re going to do magic, do magic. Don’t talk about doing magic. (This is just a personal opinion, no flames please.) That being said, we did go see his show later in the week and our opinion didn't change.


Our late night activity options were Karaoke and “Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer”. We opted for the later and snuck in late to see what it was all about. The game show was fun and the boys liked answering the trivia questions. By this point everyone was getting pretty tied, so it was off to bed to rest up before our adventure in Key West tomorrow.
Our Towel Animal waiting for us in our room

One of the best things about cruising is sleeping! The ship rocked us right to sleep in no time flat and we were out!

Next Up - Day 2: Key West & Cheeseburger's in Paradise at Margaritaville