sounddesigner
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2009
- Messages
- 19
You may have read "Part 1" of my trip review at the POR as we did that part of our trip just prior to the cruise. I'm writing this report in the style I would have wanted to read one before booking my trip. It might be a little all over the place but I'll try to remember everything of note!
After 4 nights at the POR, it now Saturday, October 24 and we were ready to cruise! I had never been to WDW (I'm a West Coast resident) and had a great time but the real reason for my trip was the Disney Cruise. The land based part was a nice amuse bouche.
I've read the discussions of whether or not to do WDW first or second in relation to when to take the cruise. Our vote was WDW first and pamper yourself and relax on the cruise second. I will always go this route. This was our first Disney Cruise but our 4th overall cruise. We've done Celebrity to Alaska, RC to the Bahamas, and Carnival to Mexico. Disney was the best cruise we've ever taken as will be described below. It was the most costly as well but we've been planning this for a long time, been gathering points on the Visa Rewards for a few years, and have no regrets at all.
We pre-booked all of the online stuff we could do including excursions and spa. The only Palo spot we could get was the last night for dinner so we decided against it and didn't do it. We experience a lot of great restaurants in Los Angeles and it wasn't a huge priority for us. Excursion-wise, we did Golden Eagle Catamaran in St. Maarten, Coral Land & Sea in St. Thomas, and the Xtreme one on Castaway Key. (It was basically stingray, snorkel, bike, and floatie rental).
I'm hitting rewind now and we'll start the play-by-play. We go on the Disney Cruise Motor Coach at POR. That morning, we had tagged our suitcases and a bellman picked them up from our resort room. The next time we'd see them was outside of our cabin door by 3:00p or so. We arrived at Port Canaveral a little after 1:00p Since we did all our paperwork on-line, it was a breeze. Just prior to boarding, we stopped off at the kid's club table and got our beeper/pager for our 5.85 year old daughter. At that time we didn't know if we'd ever leave her in the club or if she'd want to go in the club but we were ready anyhow. We knew that we had a couples spa treatment later in the week so we'd have to have her in there for a couple of hours then.
Our cabin was ready as soon as we checked in so after boarding the ship and getting the embarrassing greeting, we headed up to our cabin. We had a Cat. 6 Veranda stateroom, number 6582. After dropping off the carry-on stuff, we hit the Deck 9 lunch buffet. Buffets. Here's my experience and opinions with buffets. I was born and raised in Las Vegas. That city is hands-down, the buffet capital of the free world and they know how to do it in all different ranges in regards to quality. Having experienced all kinds and being a foodie, I'll say that the DCL buffets throughout the trip were a little above average. The thing that most impressed me (because in my regular-life, I'm a happy-go-lucky-non-howard-hughes germophobe) were the crew members that would stand outside of every restaurant and hand anti-bacterial wipes to everybody going in. That was pretty awesome. The rest of the afternoon was spent unpacking, organizing clothes, attending the sail away deck party, and some general ship exploring. The only thing to note was a tip I got from the DISBoards about the pillowcase. A few nights before the trip, we had bought a white pillowcase and designed a cool logo with Disney Magic, the Date, and our daughter's name and did an iron on print on the pillowcase. I ran down to Michael's Craft store and got a variety pack of cloth markers and a big box of Sweet Tarts. All of that went into a big zip-loc bag with a note detailing our cabin and request for autographs. I took this down to the Guest Relations desk that first afternoon and had to fight the manager off for the sweet tarts. They had a little form to fill out and I left the baggie, which was delivered back to our stateroom the last night we were there. It was all signed and perfect. We hid the entire thing from our Daughter and gave it to her when we got home. She sleeps with it every night and it's truly one of the best keepsakes you can do for your kid.
Back to day one...We did the kid club open-house and she really liked it and we felt comfortable with the staff. Because she was in the middle age grouping, it seemed as if she would miss out on the older kid's "Lab" stuff but in retrospect, she got to do a lot of science based stuff when we did take her to the kid's club (just check the Navigator to see what is being planned) and because she's such a science based kid, she loved it. The next two days were sea days and IMO that was just right. By the time we arrived at St. Maarten, we were ready to get off the ship for something different. Anyhow, during those first two sea days we did a dry run and deposited her in the kid's club. It went without issue and we knew we'd be ok with our Spa Rasul later that week. After leaving her, my wife and I walked around in that weird daze..."what do we do now?" If you're a parent like us, you know what I mean. We explored the ship and stumbled upon the Cove. What is this strange area that you cross into after passing through 2 offset glass partitions??? A coffee bar, books, magazines, serenity, and no kids?! This was a great find for us. An adults only pool...how awesome. We grabbed a coffee and a table and started to relax. Five minutes into getting in the zone, mayhem starts. A not-very-happy woman, breaks into the Quiet Cove dragging her 10 year old daughter with her and proceeds to stand right next to the sign that says no kids, quiet, adults only, blah blah, blah. and proceeds to give a loud tongue lashing to her husband and probably 18 year old son. It's one of those yell, walk away, yell again then leave scenarios. Oh well, better them than me and it was a funny experience.
We did early dining and our rotation was Lumiere's, Animator's,and Parrot. Since Formal night (Sunday) was our Animator's day, we didn't get the b/w-->color show until our second visit on Wed.
At this point, I'm getting pretty lost in my report and since I'm just writing this for fun, here goes some jumping around...Oh yeah, on day one at Guest Services I booked a Galley tour for Thursday at 3:05p at guest relations on the first day. If you want to do this, get it done and they'll print you a ticket as they are limited to 150 peeps.
Ok...St. Maarten. We did the Golden Eagle Catamaran and it was great! The crew was really great and for an excursion run by "islanders" and not by Disney directly, there was a great sense of hospitality. The snorkeling was kinda blah but the little beach you go to was quiet and one we had to ourselves. The boat ride was nice and it was a great relaxing excursion. After the excursion, we grabbed lunch then walked around the town for a little bit where we finally came to the realization that we simply don't want another coconut purse, seashell with St. Maarten painted on it (made in china), or any of the other typical souvenir stuff you see at any other vacation stop in the world. Additionally, I don't think our fridge at home could hold another magnet.
Having said that, I'll move back to the ship. Our table-mates were a trio from Philadelphia. They were great companions with a boy about the same age as our daughter. Our server team was fantastic and even one of the more reasons we were glad to have stayed in the dining room for our dinners. As far as the food quality, in general at the sit-down establishments, I found it all to be good. My scale is poor/good/excellent and it was just ok. It's just that everything was prepared safe and when you're serving 425 guests at a time, you have to play it that way. It was always plated nice and with a good choice in variety. I stated this in my earlier land review but it sums up my opinion in the food pretty well. On the ship, there was a taco bar setup in one of the dining rooms for lunch one day. The lady in front of me said: "Are the tacos spicy?" The chef replied, "No, this is Disney. They are very Disney." That phrase nearly sums up my entire food review for the trip. Looking back at the food, there were two items that stood out to me where I was pleasantly surprised. One was an asparagus soup and the other a bisque. Both of those were in the excellent category for me.
Since I'm talking about food, I'll talk about the galley tour a bit. The most interesting thing I took away from it was the fact that they now "stock" enough food for 10 days on a 7 day cruise. The reason he gave was that in 2005 there was bad weather that prevented them from returning to the port and they ended up docking in Galvastan on the tenth day. He said there was a photograph of a big walk-in (fridge) with only one carton of milk left. That would be a sight to see. Another interesting thing was their handling of food waste. They take food off the line after 4 hours and it is put in a big garbage disposal. At that point most of the liquid is sucked out and it is compressed into blocks. Once they get to so many miles off shore, these are released into the ocean as fish food. The last interesting thing I saw on the tour was that I took a bunch of photos of food plating posters they had in the galley. These were guidelines so they knew how the plate was to look when being served to the guest so I took pictures of all the dishes and can now look back and see what I missed for not ordering a specific dish.
Next day/stop was St. Thomas. The excursion was 1/2 in a semi submersible boat where you could see some marine life in a little bay and the other 1/2 at the Coral World marine park which is like a mini Seaworld. Being a US territory, St. Thomas was full of American businesses including an Office Max, KFC, Wendy's, etc. I'm going to bet that crime is a bad problem there as many of the buildings and businesses have metal bard on the windows and drive-up barrier poles to detour theft. Either that or it was to detour all of the wild chickens that live on the island. KFC should have no problem serving free range in St. Thomas! In our previous lives as adults, my wife and I are certified SCUBA divers and have seen a lot in the Carribiean waters so doing a trip like this is kind of like hanging a big cheeseburger out of reach for a starving soul. However, priorities are different nowadays and until we can get our daughter certified (4 more years) this kind of thing is the closest we get besides snorkeling. It was a fun stop and worth the trip if you have young kids. If you wanted to be dropped off in the shopping district after the tour, they would do that or take you back to the ship as well.
The next day was another day at sea. We had the Couple's Rasul booked for my wife and I. This "excursion" has been given enough detail in other posts so I'll just say that it was a great treatment to do. We're both glad that we did it.
Because we sailed in October, there were special Halloween festivities. One of the nights, you could dress in costume and the kids could take an assigned route around the ship to collect candy. It was pretty chaotic but a blast for the kids. The trail ended up placing them on the deck where a party with the characters in costume followed. This was in addition the the pirate party that takes place on a different night. My wife and I actually had costumes for this night and I'm glad we did because one of the photos we had taken as a family of pirates is one of our favorites. The night ended in fireworks. I'm usually like, "Fireworks, oh well." This however, was a sight to be seen. I was thoroughly impressed at this show. Deck 10 is a good spot for this. As an added hint, you might want to stock up on those glow stick/necklaces/bracelets that you can get at a dollar store and use them on these party nights. The kids love them.
Since I'm talking about stuff to bring, I might as well talk about wine. Since DCL let's you bring your own on board, I thought it would be great to take advantage of it. I was able to bring some really nice wine that would have cost me an arm and a leg on board (and they wouldn't have had these brands anyhow). I'll give these packing tips and you can try it or not as it worked for us 100%. I googl'd and found a thing called a wine diaper. It's a reusable bag with an absorbent material in it. You put the bottle in and seal it. Should it break, it supposedly collects all the wine and keeps your other suitcase contents dry and stain free. We used these and put one bottle in each suitcase. We had no problems and it was a good peace of mind having them. Wine on the Veranda with a room service cheese tray and fruit was a really nice thing. We'd also pour a glass and take it with to dinner sometimes. Room service will bring you wine glasses and an corkscrew to use during your stay.
The last part of this report is about the private island, Castaway Cay. Having been to RC's private Island, I kinda didn't expect much but oh was I wrong! We booked the Xtreme adventure (or something like that) and it provided everything you needed. The only bummer part of the day was how little time you had on the island. We got off the boat between 10:00a and 10:30a and had to be back on the ship by 5:00. In hindsight, I would have actually loved 2 days at CC and skipped St. Thomas. The snorkeling was great! Just head to the family beach and swim out to each of the buoys. They mark sunken objects like airplanes and boats and there are tons of sea critters to see. They seem to be doing a lot of improvements to the island, like adding more infrastructure and it will be neat to see how it turns out.
Well, that's pretty much it. If you're planning on doing a Disney cruise, have a blast! I know we're already looking into which one we'll book next. I'm thinking Europe...
SoundDesigner
After 4 nights at the POR, it now Saturday, October 24 and we were ready to cruise! I had never been to WDW (I'm a West Coast resident) and had a great time but the real reason for my trip was the Disney Cruise. The land based part was a nice amuse bouche.
I've read the discussions of whether or not to do WDW first or second in relation to when to take the cruise. Our vote was WDW first and pamper yourself and relax on the cruise second. I will always go this route. This was our first Disney Cruise but our 4th overall cruise. We've done Celebrity to Alaska, RC to the Bahamas, and Carnival to Mexico. Disney was the best cruise we've ever taken as will be described below. It was the most costly as well but we've been planning this for a long time, been gathering points on the Visa Rewards for a few years, and have no regrets at all.
We pre-booked all of the online stuff we could do including excursions and spa. The only Palo spot we could get was the last night for dinner so we decided against it and didn't do it. We experience a lot of great restaurants in Los Angeles and it wasn't a huge priority for us. Excursion-wise, we did Golden Eagle Catamaran in St. Maarten, Coral Land & Sea in St. Thomas, and the Xtreme one on Castaway Key. (It was basically stingray, snorkel, bike, and floatie rental).
I'm hitting rewind now and we'll start the play-by-play. We go on the Disney Cruise Motor Coach at POR. That morning, we had tagged our suitcases and a bellman picked them up from our resort room. The next time we'd see them was outside of our cabin door by 3:00p or so. We arrived at Port Canaveral a little after 1:00p Since we did all our paperwork on-line, it was a breeze. Just prior to boarding, we stopped off at the kid's club table and got our beeper/pager for our 5.85 year old daughter. At that time we didn't know if we'd ever leave her in the club or if she'd want to go in the club but we were ready anyhow. We knew that we had a couples spa treatment later in the week so we'd have to have her in there for a couple of hours then.
Our cabin was ready as soon as we checked in so after boarding the ship and getting the embarrassing greeting, we headed up to our cabin. We had a Cat. 6 Veranda stateroom, number 6582. After dropping off the carry-on stuff, we hit the Deck 9 lunch buffet. Buffets. Here's my experience and opinions with buffets. I was born and raised in Las Vegas. That city is hands-down, the buffet capital of the free world and they know how to do it in all different ranges in regards to quality. Having experienced all kinds and being a foodie, I'll say that the DCL buffets throughout the trip were a little above average. The thing that most impressed me (because in my regular-life, I'm a happy-go-lucky-non-howard-hughes germophobe) were the crew members that would stand outside of every restaurant and hand anti-bacterial wipes to everybody going in. That was pretty awesome. The rest of the afternoon was spent unpacking, organizing clothes, attending the sail away deck party, and some general ship exploring. The only thing to note was a tip I got from the DISBoards about the pillowcase. A few nights before the trip, we had bought a white pillowcase and designed a cool logo with Disney Magic, the Date, and our daughter's name and did an iron on print on the pillowcase. I ran down to Michael's Craft store and got a variety pack of cloth markers and a big box of Sweet Tarts. All of that went into a big zip-loc bag with a note detailing our cabin and request for autographs. I took this down to the Guest Relations desk that first afternoon and had to fight the manager off for the sweet tarts.
They had a little form to fill out and I left the baggie, which was delivered back to our stateroom the last night we were there. It was all signed and perfect. We hid the entire thing from our Daughter and gave it to her when we got home. She sleeps with it every night and it's truly one of the best keepsakes you can do for your kid.Back to day one...We did the kid club open-house and she really liked it and we felt comfortable with the staff. Because she was in the middle age grouping, it seemed as if she would miss out on the older kid's "Lab" stuff but in retrospect, she got to do a lot of science based stuff when we did take her to the kid's club (just check the Navigator to see what is being planned) and because she's such a science based kid, she loved it. The next two days were sea days and IMO that was just right. By the time we arrived at St. Maarten, we were ready to get off the ship for something different. Anyhow, during those first two sea days we did a dry run and deposited her in the kid's club. It went without issue and we knew we'd be ok with our Spa Rasul later that week. After leaving her, my wife and I walked around in that weird daze..."what do we do now?" If you're a parent like us, you know what I mean. We explored the ship and stumbled upon the Cove. What is this strange area that you cross into after passing through 2 offset glass partitions??? A coffee bar, books, magazines, serenity, and no kids?! This was a great find for us. An adults only pool...how awesome. We grabbed a coffee and a table and started to relax. Five minutes into getting in the zone, mayhem starts. A not-very-happy woman, breaks into the Quiet Cove dragging her 10 year old daughter with her and proceeds to stand right next to the sign that says no kids, quiet, adults only, blah blah, blah. and proceeds to give a loud tongue lashing to her husband and probably 18 year old son. It's one of those yell, walk away, yell again then leave scenarios. Oh well, better them than me and it was a funny experience.
We did early dining and our rotation was Lumiere's, Animator's,and Parrot. Since Formal night (Sunday) was our Animator's day, we didn't get the b/w-->color show until our second visit on Wed.
At this point, I'm getting pretty lost in my report and since I'm just writing this for fun, here goes some jumping around...Oh yeah, on day one at Guest Services I booked a Galley tour for Thursday at 3:05p at guest relations on the first day. If you want to do this, get it done and they'll print you a ticket as they are limited to 150 peeps.
Ok...St. Maarten. We did the Golden Eagle Catamaran and it was great! The crew was really great and for an excursion run by "islanders" and not by Disney directly, there was a great sense of hospitality. The snorkeling was kinda blah but the little beach you go to was quiet and one we had to ourselves. The boat ride was nice and it was a great relaxing excursion. After the excursion, we grabbed lunch then walked around the town for a little bit where we finally came to the realization that we simply don't want another coconut purse, seashell with St. Maarten painted on it (made in china), or any of the other typical souvenir stuff you see at any other vacation stop in the world. Additionally, I don't think our fridge at home could hold another magnet.
Having said that, I'll move back to the ship. Our table-mates were a trio from Philadelphia. They were great companions with a boy about the same age as our daughter. Our server team was fantastic and even one of the more reasons we were glad to have stayed in the dining room for our dinners. As far as the food quality, in general at the sit-down establishments, I found it all to be good. My scale is poor/good/excellent and it was just ok. It's just that everything was prepared safe and when you're serving 425 guests at a time, you have to play it that way. It was always plated nice and with a good choice in variety. I stated this in my earlier land review but it sums up my opinion in the food pretty well. On the ship, there was a taco bar setup in one of the dining rooms for lunch one day. The lady in front of me said: "Are the tacos spicy?" The chef replied, "No, this is Disney. They are very Disney." That phrase nearly sums up my entire food review for the trip. Looking back at the food, there were two items that stood out to me where I was pleasantly surprised. One was an asparagus soup and the other a bisque. Both of those were in the excellent category for me.
Since I'm talking about food, I'll talk about the galley tour a bit. The most interesting thing I took away from it was the fact that they now "stock" enough food for 10 days on a 7 day cruise. The reason he gave was that in 2005 there was bad weather that prevented them from returning to the port and they ended up docking in Galvastan on the tenth day. He said there was a photograph of a big walk-in (fridge) with only one carton of milk left. That would be a sight to see. Another interesting thing was their handling of food waste. They take food off the line after 4 hours and it is put in a big garbage disposal. At that point most of the liquid is sucked out and it is compressed into blocks. Once they get to so many miles off shore, these are released into the ocean as fish food. The last interesting thing I saw on the tour was that I took a bunch of photos of food plating posters they had in the galley. These were guidelines so they knew how the plate was to look when being served to the guest so I took pictures of all the dishes and can now look back and see what I missed for not ordering a specific dish.
Next day/stop was St. Thomas. The excursion was 1/2 in a semi submersible boat where you could see some marine life in a little bay and the other 1/2 at the Coral World marine park which is like a mini Seaworld. Being a US territory, St. Thomas was full of American businesses including an Office Max, KFC, Wendy's, etc. I'm going to bet that crime is a bad problem there as many of the buildings and businesses have metal bard on the windows and drive-up barrier poles to detour theft. Either that or it was to detour all of the wild chickens that live on the island. KFC should have no problem serving free range in St. Thomas! In our previous lives as adults, my wife and I are certified SCUBA divers and have seen a lot in the Carribiean waters so doing a trip like this is kind of like hanging a big cheeseburger out of reach for a starving soul. However, priorities are different nowadays and until we can get our daughter certified (4 more years) this kind of thing is the closest we get besides snorkeling. It was a fun stop and worth the trip if you have young kids. If you wanted to be dropped off in the shopping district after the tour, they would do that or take you back to the ship as well.
The next day was another day at sea. We had the Couple's Rasul booked for my wife and I. This "excursion" has been given enough detail in other posts so I'll just say that it was a great treatment to do. We're both glad that we did it.
Because we sailed in October, there were special Halloween festivities. One of the nights, you could dress in costume and the kids could take an assigned route around the ship to collect candy. It was pretty chaotic but a blast for the kids. The trail ended up placing them on the deck where a party with the characters in costume followed. This was in addition the the pirate party that takes place on a different night. My wife and I actually had costumes for this night and I'm glad we did because one of the photos we had taken as a family of pirates is one of our favorites. The night ended in fireworks. I'm usually like, "Fireworks, oh well." This however, was a sight to be seen. I was thoroughly impressed at this show. Deck 10 is a good spot for this. As an added hint, you might want to stock up on those glow stick/necklaces/bracelets that you can get at a dollar store and use them on these party nights. The kids love them.
Since I'm talking about stuff to bring, I might as well talk about wine. Since DCL let's you bring your own on board, I thought it would be great to take advantage of it. I was able to bring some really nice wine that would have cost me an arm and a leg on board (and they wouldn't have had these brands anyhow). I'll give these packing tips and you can try it or not as it worked for us 100%. I googl'd and found a thing called a wine diaper. It's a reusable bag with an absorbent material in it. You put the bottle in and seal it. Should it break, it supposedly collects all the wine and keeps your other suitcase contents dry and stain free. We used these and put one bottle in each suitcase. We had no problems and it was a good peace of mind having them. Wine on the Veranda with a room service cheese tray and fruit was a really nice thing. We'd also pour a glass and take it with to dinner sometimes. Room service will bring you wine glasses and an corkscrew to use during your stay.
The last part of this report is about the private island, Castaway Cay. Having been to RC's private Island, I kinda didn't expect much but oh was I wrong! We booked the Xtreme adventure (or something like that) and it provided everything you needed. The only bummer part of the day was how little time you had on the island. We got off the boat between 10:00a and 10:30a and had to be back on the ship by 5:00. In hindsight, I would have actually loved 2 days at CC and skipped St. Thomas. The snorkeling was great! Just head to the family beach and swim out to each of the buoys. They mark sunken objects like airplanes and boats and there are tons of sea critters to see. They seem to be doing a lot of improvements to the island, like adding more infrastructure and it will be neat to see how it turns out.
Well, that's pretty much it. If you're planning on doing a Disney cruise, have a blast! I know we're already looking into which one we'll book next. I'm thinking Europe...
SoundDesigner
) But I thought you had said good before so I made that leap! 
