We just got home late last night. Here I am checking out Disboards instead of doing work, laundry and putting away all the souvenirs we just had to have.
I hope everyone else had as much fun as we did.
Our land portion of the trip started off GREAT. We were seated on our Southwest flight from BWI to MCO across from Cal Ripken. This chance meeting made our ds9's trip (and ours too). Both Cal and his agent were extremely friendly and chatted to us off and on the entire flight. He let us take a family photo with him when we were getting off the plane. Most people didn't even recoginize or notice him on the flight. The guy behind him overheard us talking to him and asked if he'd played MLB and for who.
We LOVED Port Orleans Riverside. We will certainly be staying there again in the future. We didn't really care for Coronado Springs. The pool was nice, but the rooms were smaller than the other moderates we have been to (or at least seemed to be), we were on the 3rd floor and the lay out to get to our room from the parking lot was confusing. I found a dirty sock not belonging to us at the end of the bed the morning after we woke up from our first night there. I'm hoping it didn't fall out of the sheets! The food court was expensive for the portions we received and the food wasn't great. POR's food court was nice. We walked to Port Orleans French Quarter for breakfast which was a beautiful 5 minute walk. That food court was much smaller than POR's. We loved
MVMCP on the 5th. That is except for getting stuck on POTC for 40 minutes. Luckily they turned off the music and turned on the lights. We were under the hairy leg pirate. Everyone was doing the wave and singing Christmas songs. We spent the 6th hopping from Epcot to Animal Kingdom. The AK Jammin Jingle Parade was great. That night we ate 1900 Park Fare. It was much smaller than most of the other buffets we have been to and we weren't floored with the food. We definitely like the Crystal Palace 100% more. The Grand Floridian was nicely decorated.
We loved everything about the cruise. We met Itgir2001 and her husband on deck 9. Congrats again on your marriage! We had a lot of fun at the sail away party. We once again left during Hercules to go find something else to do. We purposely sat in the back row both times we have gone to see it because we knew from friends that it may not be something we loved. We watched most of it but our boys fell asleep and we left so they could nap before dinner. We loved Disney Dreams and the Golden Mickey's. The boys were interviewed on the red carpet in their Pirate costumes for the Golden Mickeys. DS5 kept yapping about his sword. What he really wanted to tell her was that his brother thought it was his sword, but that he really got it and he remembered where we bought it and when.
In Nassau, we walked through the straw market and went to the Pirate Museum. A dignitaries funeral was going on and the surrounding streets were packed. DH took DS5 back to nap because he was exhausted. He ended up going to the Oceaneer's Club once he found out cookie making was going on and not napping. DS9, my parents and I took a crazy taxi ride to Atlantis. We had on our pirate wrist bands from the museum and when my mom and I went to blow some $$ in the casino, my dad took ds9 outside to the beach and he said the security guard looked at their wrist bands and waved them through. They walked along to just check out the amenities. We left and went back to the ship to get ready for the show and pirate night. We loved
Castaway Cay and spent the morning getting character pictures and at the family beach. We went in the water a very brief time. DS9 went to the play area in the water but was blue after about 15 minutes and got out. We loved our lunch and went to Grouper's pavillian and souvenir shopping before heading back to the ship. We packed up and then went to the show and dinner.
We had the best service team we have ever had. Constantine and Miguel in the APT late dining rotation. They were awesome. The were very attentive to all of us and very good waiters. Constantine showed our ds5 and ds9 several magic tricks each night, made them airplanes, rockets, made me a paper rose, made great pirate and napkin hats and was just genuinely a very nice person. He gave ds5, who grew very attached to him and spoke to him non stop, a VIP Disney pin on our last morning's breakfast. Even though Constantine was very busy, he made sure to always fully listen to our sons and even took them outside the restaurant for a couple of minutes to race their airplanes. Miguel was quieter, but very attentive and had drinks constantly refreshed. They were the best service team we've had on our 3
DCL trips. Steven was our stateroom attendant and was very good. He was very quiet, but always pleasant and would say hello when we would see him.
We really enjoyed the entertainment and food. We didn't have one bad meal. We stuck with Tritons for breakfast and Plutos, Pinocchios or Goofy's Galley for lunch to avoid the buffets. I was really worried about getting sick after hearing so many reports of Dissers getting a virus. Luckily we were all fine. I made sure to bring an arsenal of hand gel and antibacterial wipes with us to the parks and on the cruise and made sure the boys didn't use hand rails. I bought the Orlando Sentinnel for the trip home yesterday and the front page had an article about 2 cruise ships returning to port with suspected norovirus outbreaks. Several posts from last week's Magic said that they were served everywhere and there was no self serve even at the drink stations.
There were only 2 things that were unpleasant on our entire trip. One was that our neighbor was a chain smoker who never left his verandah. We inhaled more than enough of his smoke. It was so bad the last night we called guest services because he was smoking in his room. The entire hall stunk and ds9 kept coughing (he has asthma). They brought us an air purifier that really cleared it out in a half hour. I think they also told him not to smoke in his room. The same guy also screamed at his family members several times using the F word and we could hear all of it from the hall and verandah. Besides that, we loved the room location.
The only other thing that irritated me was that my ds5 won a fake gold coin at Walk the Plank and desperately wanted to give it to Jack Sparrow. At CC, we went to Jack's line and at 10:10 were told the people in front of us would be the last ones and he'd be back at 10:40. We decided to just wait and let the boys play in the sand. DS5 had his coin and put it in his Mickey Crocs. A family behind us also had 2 young sons and an infant daughter and were playing in the sand. When Jack came, ds5 went to find his coin and it was missing. I looked every where in the sand. I had told the family behind us about his plans with the coin and they asked his son if he had it. He said no. I thought oh well and told my teary eyed ds5, it's hidden treasure that Jack can find later on. Later we were at the family beach and there was that family that was behind us with their son and he was playing with ds5's gold coin. DS9 and I were walking to get a drink when we saw him. I was stunned. Maybe it's just me, but if my son had taken anything belonging to someone else, especially when they knew ds5's plans and it was his, I'd have disciplined my child and personally hunted down the child he took it from and made him apologize and return it. Of course ds9 told ds5 and he ran over to the boy and asked him to return it. He said that he gave it to his dad and that his parents went back to the ship (he was with his uncle) and that yes, he'd taken it. Funny thing is, the family was sitting at the Pizza Planet dining area next to us at MGM on 12/11. I made sure not to say one word to the boys because I certainly didn't want to get in an arguement over a fake coin though I think the parents were in the wrong. We had a great time at MGM and went to MK that night to see Spectormagic and Wishes. It was EMH and the crowds really picked up. At first all the rides were walk ons and then were up to a 20 minute wait. We stayed at the Caribbean Beach resort and had a great room. Yesterday we went to breakfast with Lilo and Stitch at Ohana at the Poly. We loved it and decided we may be staying there if we do the land/sea package with
AAA on 8/13. We went to Downtown Disney until 3 when we headed to MCO for our flight home.
We had a great trip and can't wait to go back. Our boys did not want to get off the ship. We re-booked on board a 4 day for 8/19/07.
I hope everyone else had a safe journey home. Now it's back to the real world. It was tough to make beds this morning! The boys were not thrilled to go back to school.
I better get some work done. We've got major grocery shopping to do too.
Brrrrrr!!!! 
Can't wait! Our flight leaves Wednesday afternoon and since we have annual passes we're kinda doing a "cruise sandwich" with a little bit of WDW before and after the cruise. See everyone aboard! Happy packing!
