December 12 - 19, 2009 Western Magic

[bevtoy]

Bev, I'm so sorry we didn't see you before we left. Hannah was looking for Anna. We LOVED spending time with your family. I'll PM you with contact info.

HAD A GREAT TIME!!!

We had a wonderful time and enjoyed your family too! The family got sea sick the last night and I didn't get to deck nine until very late.
I will look forward to your PM.

 

[bevtoy]

We booked another trip while we were on board, how many others did the same?

Also did anyone else see the tornadoes at Castaway Cay? I have photos and some video footage of them I believe we counted six different ones it was amazing but I had a limited camera and you can only see two at a time.

Wow it was quite an experience!

 

[Juney]

We booked while on board too. It's 2 years out, so there is no telling if it will actually materialize.

We didn't know about the tornadoes. WOW. Our Server is on contract 4 and I said "You have been around for a while .. how does this weather compare to what you have seen in the past?" He said in his Serbian accent "Vedy bad .. vedy vedy bad". Not very comforting.

I stopped by the airport tonight to try to avoid some of the hassle in the morning. Unfortunately the Delta desk had just closed. The Charleston, WV airport was closed today. The attendant I briefly spoke with said we might be able to get out, but people going in to the DC area, including Baltimore, or the NYC area will have a very hard time getting out. The man before me was told he couldn't get out before Monday. Right now we have 22 inches of snow in our front yard and as of 2 hours ago the main arteries in town had still not been cleared. So .. who knows when we will make it.

 

[Orlando36]

We saw water spouts forming out in the bay from a friend's verandah during the afternoon at CC. It was alarming! DD and I were both sick Friday night. I missed out on a beautiful steak, and she missed her birthday cake. Our server arranged for the crew to sing to her at Sat breakfast instead, was very nice of them!

 

[poohfriend]

Our family had a wonderful time.

For our most MAGICal experience: My girls, Kathleen and Caroline, made friends I am certain they will keep up with by email for some time to come. Many of these new-found friends are children of those that post to this thread. I never dreamed when we booked this cruise a month ago the relationships we would build in a short week.

The FE was great! Thank you for including our family. It reminded me of the times in the Disney parks when something unexpected happens and it just makes your day. And yes, FE gifts were expected, but we didn't know when they would arrive or what they would contain. Thanks for the lovely presents. Our family enjoyed the wipe boards, pirate stuff, candy, bookmarks, playing cards and specialty items. For those of you who created a customized gift...scrapbook items, picture frames, magnets, sticky notes...your creativity amazed us. The FE definately added to the MAGIC!

Our one low point was having to move rooms. After the water was off on Wednesday, we had a squishy carpet...and it seems the water was spraying out of a pipe under the floor. When I went to give the tip envelope to our first stateroom host, he told me it had continued and they didn't have it fixed. I guess I'm glad we moved as the musty smell would have bothered our allergies.

We were originally in connecting inside (cat 10) cabins in deck 7. Were moved to rooms still in the forward section on deck 8 -- cat 4. They were on the same hall, but several rooms apart. WE really LOVED having the connecting rooms and it was dissapointing to give those up. However, the positive was that we were in a category 4 room. The extra space would be nice if you spent a lot of time in your cabins. The only time we used the balcony was to take pictures of the tornados mentioned in another post. I'm pretty sure after this experience that I will never PAY to have a balcony. We just don't sit still for anything other than sleep.

okay, my post is long and I have tons to unpack as I just didn't have the energy to address it last night. More later.

Thanks to you all for adding to the MAGICAL cruise. It just would not have been the same without you.

 

[bevtoy]

We felt the same way it was great to meet people we only imagined from posting on this thread!

I have got to see your pictures of the tornado please? I got some video and a few pictures but the quality isn't good. Did you realize there were several tornadoes. We saw A pencil one, a column one and at least three tiny ones mixed in with them! They would appear and them lift up disappear and come back down so getting a picture was difficult at best.

Our family had a wonderful time.

For our most MAGICal experience: My girls, Kathleen and Caroline, made friends I am certain they will keep up with by email for some time to come. Many of these new-found friends are children of those that post to this thread. I never dreamed when we booked this cruise a month ago the relationships we would build in a short week.

The FE was great! Thank you for including our family. It reminded me of the times in the Disney parks when something unexpected happens and it just makes your day. And yes, FE gifts were expected, but we didn't know when they would arrive or what they would contain. Thanks for the lovely presents. Our family enjoyed the wipe boards, pirate stuff, candy, bookmarks, playing cards and specialty items. For those of you who created a customized gift...scrapbook items, picture frames, magnets, sticky notes...your creativity amazed us. The FE definately added to the MAGIC!

Our one low point was having to move rooms. After the water was off on Wednesday, we had a squishy carpet...and it seems the water was spraying out of a pipe under the floor. When I went to give the tip envelope to our first stateroom host, he told me it had continued and they didn't have it fixed. I guess I'm glad we moved as the musty smell would have bothered our allergies.

We were originally in connecting inside (cat 10) cabins in deck 7. Were moved to rooms still in the forward section on deck 8 -- cat 4. They were on the same hall, but several rooms apart. WE really LOVED having the connecting rooms and it was dissapointing to give those up. However, the positive was that we were in a category 4 room. The extra space would be nice if you spent a lot of time in your cabins. The only time we used the balcony was to take pictures of the tornados mentioned in another post. I'm pretty sure after this experience that I will never PAY to have a balcony. We just don't sit still for anything other than sleep.

okay, my post is long and I have tons to unpack as I just didn't have the energy to address it last night. More later.

Thanks to you all for adding to the MAGICAL cruise. It just would not have been the same without you.

 

[pxlbarrel]

We got home this morning around 1 am. I am soooo sorry I didn't get to the meetup on embarkation day. I went on the tour of the ship (this being our first time) and it went past 3 pm. I really wanted to meet some of you...but I did make aquaintance with some of your doors! LOL

This being our first cruise ever, we didn't know what to expect but we were ... blown out of the water, so to speak. We would do this again in a magical second. We didn't book another cruise yet but it's not a question of "if", it's a question of "when".

I've taken the liberty of creating a Facebook group for anybody who would like to share photos or other tales from the sea. I hope nobody minds.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=240058339387

 

[MemoryMakers2669]

We got home this morning around 1 am. I am soooo sorry I didn't get to the meetup on embarkation day. I went on the tour of the ship (this being our first time) and it went past 3 pm. I really wanted to meet some of you...but I did make aquaintance with some of your doors! LOL

This being our first cruise ever, we didn't know what to expect but we were ... blown out of the water, so to speak. We would do this again in a magical second. We didn't book another cruise yet but it's not a question of "if", it's a question of "when".

I've taken the liberty of creating a Facebook group for anybody who would like to share photos or other tales from the sea. I hope nobody minds.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=240058339387

I would love to join this Facebook group, but I won't if it's open to the public! anyway to make it private?

 

[pxlbarrel]

I would love to join this Facebook group, but I won't if it's open to the public! anyway to make it private?

I can make it so that it's members only....but I don't know how to accept members if I don't know who people actually are.... ummm.... let me see what I can do. I'm still trying to figure out how to do the profile pic! Facebook needs a bit of pixie dust today... or I will soon as it's driving me

 

[pxlbarrel]

ok, I've made the group "secret which means: The group will not appear in search results or in the profiles of its members. Membership is by invitation only, and only members can see the group information and content.

So if you're reading this post and want to be invited to the group, which is the only way we can make sure it's private, send me a private IM with your email and I'll invite you. (I think that's how it works.) As more people join, I'll let some others have adminstrative control so some of you can play with the settings.

 

[bevtoy]

ok, I've made the group "secret which means: The group will not appear in search results or in the profiles of its members. Membership is by invitation only, and only members can see the group information and content.

So if you're reading this post and want to be invited to the group, which is the only way we can make sure it's private, send me a private IM with your email and I'll invite you. (I think that's how it works.) As more people join, I'll let some others have adminstrative control so some of you can play with the settings.

I will join, PM on the way! Great idea!

 

[Juney]

After the water was off on Wednesday, we had a squishy carpet...and it seems the water was spraying out of a pipe under the floor.

Poohfriend, are you Kathleen's mother? My daughter just said "Mom, my friend Kathleen .. her room flooded". I had JUST read your post.

 

[pxlbarrel]

We noticed that the water was brown after they turned the water back on... My mom always has hot water as a drink for her meals and it was yellow that night. She asked our asst server and he said, "I don't know. I asked that myself." LOL

 

[pxlbarrel]

Here are some highlights (or lowlights) of our trip.

Caribbean Beach Resort as a moderate resort is kind of a ripoff if you ask me. Definitely overpriced. Not going back there even though our mousekeeper did give us some pretty nifty towel animals.

Two limo companies showing up to take us to Port Canaveral. Our travel agent booked two and forgot to cancel one, I guess. We took the one that had one of our credit card numbers and tipped the driver of the other company with apologies. That company is mad and wants to be paid for the entire amount of the trip. That's between them and my travel agent, as far as I'm concerned. That fiasco cost us about 45 minutes as we tried to figure out what the heck happened so we got to PC a little later than I had planned ... probably costing us tea at Palo (by the time we boarded, we were #3 on the waiting list for tea).

Nobody pointed us to the luggage check in and we somehow missed it so we ended up carrying all of our luggage up to the terminal and into the ship ourselves. Not a big hassle (we found a table on Deck 9 that had space for our luggage as we ate lunch) and we had our luggage right away. It would have been nice to have dumped them at the beginning.

Lining up to get our photo with Mickey Mouse in the terminal only to have him take his rest 3 families before us and we got Goofy instead. I love Goofy but Mickey was so cute in his winter sweater.

Our Grand Cayman tour, the Disney excursion, consisted of our mini bus/taxi driver pointing out the time shares, banks and his house while his microphone cut out half the time. Those of us on the tour started making up our own commentary. The turtle farm was very cool though. The rest of the tour was meh.

The Tulum ruins excursion from Cozumel was great except it was so hot. Our tour guide stood and gave us what must have been an informative lecture on the Mayans but I doubt anybody was listening as he went on and and on while we baked in the one area of the grounds that had absolutely no air flow. I also seemed to have been the main course for some of the Mexican insects. I did enjoy the outing despite the heat (beats the cold weather we came back to) and the beach and cliffs are beautiful.

The fishing excursion my dad and I were doing at Castaway Cay was cancelled due to the wind and rough seas. <sigh> I was really looking forward to that one too. Oh well, the family rented bicycles instead... which probably wasn't a good idea since my parents haven't ridden bikes in probably 2 decades. I've got an interesting photo of them on the airstrip. My brother is off in the distance on his bike, my dad looks like he's falling off of his and my mom looks like she's riding right into a bush.

My magical moment was being chased and chastised by Captain Hook everytime he saw me. The guys and gals inside those hideously hot costumes deserve a standing ovation from us. This guy made my day. It's nice to be remembered even if it is Captain Hook.

 

[Juney]

Our "lessons learned" ...

Never agains ..

We won't buy the wine package again. I'd rather drink the "drink of the day".

We won't go back to Key West or Grand Cayman. We really didn't like the ports at all. The dolphin excursion at GC was very good, but otherwise we shouldn't have left the ship in either port.

We won't spend the extra money for the veranda again. It was really great to have, but not worth the extra money. We didn't spend enough time in our room to justify it.

We had two excursions cancelled .. the two we were most excited about .. underwater scooters in Cozumel and the sting rays at CC.


Highs of our trip ..

The extreme attention paid to our daughters food allergies. I can not sing enough praises about the servers and allergy chef. Fitz and Igor were wonderful .. as was Mladen in Palo.

Cozumel .. LOVED it. This is the only port we spent money in.

Biking at CC. We really had a great time on the bikes.

Ocean Quest. My daughter loved it and the counselors were wonderful.

Rainforest Room is worth it's weight in gold. My husband and I went there everyday!! We won't sail Disney without it.

We really loved all of the live theatre. The shows were fantastic.

Danny in guest services. When our underwater scooters excursion was cancelled our daughter was upset. Danny sent her a plush Stitch to our room.

Room Service. Homemade brownies delivered every night @ 10:00 for our daughter. Amazing.

I ran on the treadmills on the first day. After that I ran on the track on deck 4. I LOVED IT!!

Drink of the Day. Drink it daily .. drink it often.

 

[pxlbarrel]

Being a first time cruiser on Disney, the thing that amazed me the most was how every single crew member treated the kids with such respect and care. I don't have kids and everybody who I told that I was going on a Disney cruise kept tellng me I would be sick of the kids onboard. Well, let me tell you guys that your kids were an absolute joy to be around. (Maybe not all the time ) I loved seeing the kids enjoy themselves. I loved seeing the servers interacting with the kids. It takes a special kind of person to work such long hours and still have the patience to deal with cranky adults and kids. I really did want to pack up some of those guys and take them home with me.

Here's a reminder for those still just getting home. I set up a Facebook page so we could share photos and videos a little easier than on the Disboards. It's a secret page so nobody but members can view it. Joining it is by invitation only so please private message me your email so I can invite you. We've got 4 members so far (that includes me!) and have a few photos up so far. I'm uploading a really badly shot video right now. LOL

 

[poohfriend]

Poohfriend, are you Kathleen's mother? My daughter just said "Mom, my friend Kathleen .. her room flooded". I had JUST read your post.

yes. Kathleen's mom from Ocean Quest.

 

[poohfriend]

Here are some highlights (or lowlights) of our trip.

Caribbean Beach Resort as a moderate resort is kind of a ripoff if you ask me. Definitely overpriced. Not going back there even though our mousekeeper did give us some pretty nifty towel animals.

Two limo companies showing up to take us to Port Canaveral. Our travel agent booked two and forgot to cancel one, I guess. We took the one that had one of our credit card numbers and tipped the driver of the other company with apologies. That company is mad and wants to be paid for the entire amount of the trip. That's between them and my travel agent, as far as I'm concerned. That fiasco cost us about 45 minutes as we tried to figure out what the heck happened so we got to PC a little later than I had planned ... probably costing us tea at Palo (by the time we boarded, we were #3 on the waiting list for tea).

Nobody pointed us to the luggage check in and we somehow missed it so we ended up carrying all of our luggage up to the terminal and into the ship ourselves. Not a big hassle (we found a table on Deck 9 that had space for our luggage as we ate lunch) and we had our luggage right away. It would have been nice to have dumped them at the beginning.

Lining up to get our photo with Mickey Mouse in the terminal only to have him take his rest 3 families before us and we got Goofy instead. I love Goofy but Mickey was so cute in his winter sweater.

My magical moment was being chased and chastised by Captain Hook everytime he saw me. The guys and gals inside those hideously hot costumes deserve a standing ovation from us. This guy made my day. It's nice to be remembered even if it is Captain Hook.

Caribbean Beach -- have you stayed at a moderate before? I think an arguement could be made when comparing Disney resorts to hotels around the country that all of them are overpriced. However, they have one really big thing going for them: LOCATION! I love the feel of Caribbean Beach...love the upgrades to the pool there...the lush grounds etc.

TWO LIMOS?! Yikes! that's a pretty big mistake. and yes the TA should foot the bill with the second company. nice of you to tip the driver.

Luggage Check. Oh no. I can't believe those gus were's trying to get your bags and your money! Now I'll have to remind friends that are going that there is a luggage check. Glad it worked out for you.

Mickey. Although he was available later in the week in his Christmas sweater...this would have been a real bummer after the limo fiasco, dragging luggage through security, only to get in line to see the big cheese and miss him. Sounds like your trip got off to a rocky start.

I completely agree with you about the balcony. However, I talked with many folks that LOVED sitting out there and reading. I can see that. With 3 kids though, we spent a good bit of time cheking in and out of clubs and being with our kids DOING stuff between activities they didn't want to miss at the clubs.

I was a little timid about Ocean Quest at the beginning. I wasn't sure I wanted my 11 year old daughter roaming the ship. However, seeing her enjoy it so much was wonderful. In a lot of ways, she grew up a lot this past week. But at home she can't walk to a movie theatre with a freind! too bad. Loved it and would recommend it as a feature of the Disney Magic now.

 

[bevtoy]

Highlights for my family:

Meeting other DIsers was so enjoyable for us!

Dancing with Disers to celebrate life and they being being cancer free.

The snorkel excursion we took was awesome! We went to Stingray Island, Starfish beach and a coral reef got fabulous underwater pictures and kissed a stingray for 7 years of good luck!

Getting pictures and video of a tornado was a thrill.

My 12 year old love it that she could roam the ship freely and just hang out with others her own age. I have to say the girls were so well behaved and they seemed to have a blast without any of the drama that usually occurs with teenage girls, it was so sweet!

Snagging a pair of great earrings at Cozumel which we loved!
I did not care for Key West or Grand Cayman but loved Cozumel.

Meeting Cherri, Robert and Hannah was a real treat and we all had a wonderful time meeting "Grandpa" one night. LOL

 

[bevtoy]

I added photos of tornado and a video but the video has poor quality

Being a first time cruiser on Disney, the thing that amazed me the most was how every single crew member treated the kids with such respect and care. I don't have kids and everybody who I told that I was going on a Disney cruise kept tellng me I would be sick of the kids onboard. Well, let me tell you guys that your kids were an absolute joy to be around. (Maybe not all the time ) I loved seeing the kids enjoy themselves. I loved seeing the servers interacting with the kids. It takes a special kind of person to work such long hours and still have the patience to deal with cranky adults and kids. I really did want to pack up some of those guys and take them home with me.

Here's a reminder for those still just getting home. I set up a Facebook page so we could share photos and videos a little easier than on the Disboards. It's a secret page so nobody but members can view it. Joining it is by invitation only so please private message me your email so I can invite you. We've got 4 members so far (that includes me!) and have a few photos up so far. I'm uploading a really badly shot video right now. LOL