Disneyzell magical christmas cruise 2008-4/7/11:TR from my 8 year old pg 9 COMPLETED!

[pogopossum]

i wasn't really tryin' to goad you into reading my report, but it would be an honor if you did. it was kind of a lame attempt at humor at the expense of those who mebntion their own work as much as possible.

i really need to finish mine up as well, and i don't have work to blame. maybe looking for work is getting in the way, that and the lack of internet access at home, right now. gotta get to work on that. it's amazing how much there is to do even when you aren't working enough.

but i don't want to bring diown the room, and i'll get my report finished soon. maybe because it covers the last day on board, and then it really will be over, so maybe that's the cause of my block.

 

[JDBlair]

What a fun report. I always love a TR from the male perspective!!

 

[DisneyZell]

Ho hum..shameless self promotion. This one sat idle for a long time, but now that I'm done with the Mexican Riviera I was considering dusting it off and finishing it. Anyone have any interest? or is it just too old? This is, of course, assuming I can find DW's notes from way back then...as you all know my memory is similar to swiss cheese.

DZ

 

[TinkLoverSam]

I'm in!

I loved you MR cruise and I just read through this one becasue you are soo funny!

 

[jedijill]

I would love you to finish!

Jill in CO

 

[DisneyZell]

I'm in!

I loved you MR cruise and I just read through this one becasue you are soo funny!

I would love you to finish!

Jill in CO

OK, but blame these two if you are injured while reading my TR's. They are *very* dangerous for your health!

I found the journal...so shall wander onward!

DZ

 

[DisneyZell]

So let me start with this: I'm not the smartest person in the world signing back on to finish a report from almost 3 years ago. OK, 2 years and change (DW would have surely corrected me on that). I have a hard enough time remembering a month ago...and what happened in what order...let alone what happened two plus years ago. I had to re-read everything, and look through my pictures to make sure that I didn't bore you (more than I already have!) with duplicate pictures. Now, I believe I have it in the right spot...but don't know for sure...so if I don't...well...you get what you pay for, right???

Anyhooooo, as this cruise was a double-dip (my favorite kind of cruises), we had the opportunity to hit Castaway Cay a second time (and yes...Cay can be pronounced "KEY" or phonetically "Cay". I just found that out on my last TR (or Trip Report for those of you initial challenged) . We absolutely, positively love Cataway Cay...and have not been there since they expanded the beach to accommodate the Dream. Really looking forward to that...and you can look for my pre-trippie to begin on that soon! As if you haven't heard from me enough!

We had our character breakfast at Lumiere's that morning...so no Topsiders this day (whew...almost said BBBBBBB). And we got to deal with our oh-so-wonderful servers. Ahem.

Anyway, at some point the captain came over the loudspeaker and informed us that while we were at Castaway Cay the Wonder would be passing by (I know, a lot of you are now Wondering why the Wonder is passing by Castaway Cay when it is currently cruising the West Coast. Those of you that are truely wondering clearly have not gone back to read the previous posts in this thread...as this particular Christmas Cruise is from 2008, pre-Dream! ).

This passing was a very rare event, and in fact it was only the third time in the history of DCL that this had happened. We thought this was cool and wanted to get a picture of both ships...as we thought this would be a good keepsake. More on that later.

I honestly have not read any TR's lately about Castaway Cay...but when we were there we had the opportunity to participate in a Pirate Scavenger Hunt. We had to go to Guest Services and grab the pirate map which would give you clues on the island to the "treasure". We had heard about this, but had never done it...so today was our day to try something new. Actually we tried a whole bunch of things new.

The first couple of times at Castaway Cay all we did was hang out on the family beach and eat at Cookies. If you have been following along in this particular TR (and you *have* been following along, right? no cheating!), you know we rented bikes and tubes this trip...so we expanded our horizon. This would continue on the second visit!

Time to head off the ship...our first clue took us to the Post Office.

Naturally we had to take this picture as Stitch was (and still is) DS8's favorite character

And a few others along the way

aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhh a Pirate!

Honestly we never figured out the clue at the post office...but continued down the path anyway. Luckily Disney takes into account that some families just might not be smart enough to get the first clue.

Next we had to go to Marge's Barges and decode nautical flags. This one was a breeze (maybe we are not *quite* as dumb as we thought...but that lead us to the next spot...and we couldn't figure that one out...so maybe we are. Grrrrrr, this is supposed to be easy...come on Disney!

On to Mt. Rustmore....and that one was easy. What the? It's like a great big tease! Disney is so mean! But on we go! Thankfully you can miss a few and still be ok. Oh yeah, this *is* Disney.

Onward we went, clue by clue. I won't bore you with every detail, and I don't want to give it away if they are still doing it (I'll bet you $100 that DW does know and will chime in). We found a spot for our towels while walking past the family beach and headed out to Heads Up Bar where there were a few more clues (I know, I said I wouldn't...and then I did anyway). But it was almost time for the Wonder to come by...and we decided this would be a great spot to catch the action.

This was one of our new things...we actually had a couple of drinks. As you know, we bring our drinks on...so this was a departure from normal. Cheap I am!

The kids enjoy their drinks

Our family at Heads Up Bar

The boys with the Magic in the background

 

[DisneyZell]

Naturally when you are told 11am or so...you think...hey, it should happen around 11. But as is often the case in life the ship was behind. As we weren't on the Magic...we had no idea what was going on...but we waited...and waited. Finally at noon there she was...off in the horizon. We had never really seen the Wonder except in pictures...as we had only sailed the Magic. Shortly she was close enough for us to take pictures...

Did you know that the Wonder was built in one piece...not two like the Magic???? Me either up until my last trip!

The ships started up their horn war...playing back and forth. If you have never seen this, go to Youtube and enter Disney Cruise Line Horn War and you will see and hear it. Pretty cool stuff to hear, if you are a Disney fan!

Unfortunately from where we were they didn't get close enough to get a picture with both of them. Disney somehow managed to get one...and of course were offering it for sale. Not sure which part of the Island they were on...but clearly not near us.

Then it was time to finish the hunt...we had the rest of the clues and found the treasure chest! again I don't want to give too much away...but here is when Connor found it:

Connor strikes gold! or at least a silver Disney Cruise Line coin.

We headed to lunch at Cookies...nothing new to report there...we have done it several times before. The food, like the rest of the Cruise is good...not necessarily great. The only really, really good thing about the island is (well, was, we hear they have changed vendors...so they don't get the good stuff anymore) the soft serve ice cream. They had cookie dough that was to die for.

And we ate a lot!

After lunch DNH and I took the kids back over to Grouper Pavilion to play games. This was our other new thing. They have shuffleboard (like we didn't play that enough on the ship!), ping pong and some basketball hoops among some other stuff.

The basketball hoops

Nick, Chris and I entered the basketball shooting contest as well...that was fun...but we weren't quite up to winning that day!

Look out Michael Jordan! OH, you don't know who Michael Jordan is?

Oh yeah, they had pool too

and of course Foosball.

DW and DNW hit the beach. They started out near the trees...but there were a bunch of creepy crawly bugs there...so they took chairs down to the water to escape. Yuck.

The rest of the day was spent playing in the sand and swimming. Now apparently they have a waterslide...that adults can go on too...I'm sure we will spend a lot of time on that when we go in July!

Just before 4 we headed back to the ship.

Pluto and the boys by the ship.

It was then off to get ready for dinner. Tonight was in Parrot Cay...and was the night to give tips. This was the first time we gave the minimum to our servers. They really weren't good. Which was too bad. The server was really bad...the assistant server was brought down by him we think...and I assume that was the case because we actually took a picture with her and the kids.

So maybe my memory isn't good on her

Connor looking cute...ah...aren't they all at those young ages? What happens to them???

We went to the "till we meet again" show and it was pretty good. Then it was up to the room to pack up the last items and kick our luggage out into the hall.

At 10pm the characters were out one last time...so we headed town to take pictures again and get some signatures on the kids' t-shirts.

Santa Goofy

Christmas Donald

The adults again went down for another adult show (we definitely took advantage of those on this cruise...again something we had not done before!

The CM's all did a skit...sort of dancing around and generally blowing off steam. It was very funny...far and away the funniest show of the week. I'm sure it would be even funnier if you were a person who spent alot of time in the clubs and such and got to know the CM's more. We knew them in passing...but didn't do much late night stuff (beyond the adult shows). You definitely should go to that..it was called pub night.

One more towel animal...

That's it. Quick and easy. I'll bet you didn't even fall asleep. I don't think I left anything out...but you never know! Sadly the next day was debarkation...time to get off our home away from home.

Next up: Chapter 12: Sad day for all!

Thanks for reading along!

DZ

 

[jedijill]

Thanks for continuing!!! I'm really missing CC this year.

Jill in CO

 

[DisneyZell]

Thanks for continuing!!! I'm really missing CC this year.

Jill in CO

I hear you...I actually have gone back and read my first TR from 1996...the pictures are so fun from Castaway Cay...and I really missed not going there when we did the Mexican Riviera. Too bad Disney doesn't have a place in Mexico that they can do the same thing, I'll bet it would really be popular!

 

[DisneyZell]

Well, it only took me 3 years and 4 months to finish this Trip Report. I believe that should earn me some sort of medal...bronze at least.

If you've been paying attention I think I made it clear we didn't really like our servers...so we didn't need to go to the early breakfast to see them. Our time for breakfast was 6:30am (ouch! and as we had been getting up at the crack of dawn all week we were tired!). Our neighbor kept telling our Head Server that we wanted to do the later seating for breakfast because it was too early....so when we got back from dinner the last night there was a message from our head server that said they found a spot for us at the later seating.

So Mickey called and woke us up at 7am, and we go up and got all ready to go...bleary eyed we headed down to Parrot Cay for the late breakfast. True to form for this cruise, however, the head server was nowhere to be found...and no one knew anything about us coming to the later seating.

Now, I get that they may not want to seat us later...so just say so. At that point we are done with the cruise...they have their tips...so it made me really mad that they told us there was a place but didn't do anything about it. The Head server that was there told us we could wait and something should open up. Our neighbors decided to do that. Now having read Cruise Confidential I'm glad we didn't...as from reading that it really screws up the servers and assistant servers to have to go back into the kitchen and fight for food.

We headed up to Topsiders for one more hit of bacon and syrup (yum still). We actually ran into our server from Palo which was neat as a last minute thing.

We had a reservation with Happy Limo to pick us up at 9am, so we gathered our stuff and headed that way...and saw the unhappy sign:

While I appreciate that they will see me real soon, it's still sad!

We were outside by 8:45 hanging out, waiting for our driver and our neighbors (we were all going to the airport together). The driver appeared shortly, and our neighbors appeared right at 9am. We loaded up the van and headed out.

At the airport we arrived more than 4 hours before our flight...so we got to sit around for quite some time. That's really, really annoying! Try to time things better than us.

The big excitement of the waiting around happened when DS12 (currently) went to the bathroom. He had been wearing his lanyard with all his favorite pins. He took it off and left it behind in the bathroom.

Now...can someone tell me why you have to take off a lanyard to go to the bathroom? I don't care what kind of bathroom you have to go...I just don't see it! Sad for him as it was gone when we went back to check. His pins are out there somewhere circulating. Good lesson learned...as he had been on a losing things streak...onboard (not sure If I put this in the report or not) he had taken off his goggles and put them on the side of the goofy pool...inside the wood structure...and it was wavy..so the waves pushed his goggles underneath where they could no longer be reached. I wonder if he will ever learn???

One last picture...as this was the theme for the whole trip:

Kim (our neighbor) get's one more nap in at the airport.

So there you have it. Short and sweet...and ending to a great trip that happened long ago.

So now I'll be on to starting my pre-trip report for our trip this summer on the Dream. Look for that soon! Thanks for sticking with me...and I wonder...is anyone still on the boards that started reading this trip years ago???



DZ

 

[DisneyZell]

My son, DS8, recently wrote about this cruise in his 3rd grade class. For whatever reason it was sitting in my office and as I was moving some stuff around this morning it caught my eye....I thought I'd add a TR from the perspective of an 8 year old....so if you bore easily you might want to tune out

The Disney Cruise

It was a warm day in December. I was getting ready for the Disney Cruise. I had to wait, and wait, and wait. I finally got on. We went to see our room. It was awesome. We had 2 TV's a bunk bed and a patio.

After we saw our room we went straight to the Pizza Place. I always get Hawaiian Pizza. After we ate we played foosball. I won against my brother and my dad.

After foosball I went to my room and got dressed for swimming. After my family was ready we went to the pool.

All of a sudden there was a bunch of waves! The pool was like a wave pool. the pool was filled with a lot of kids. My brother lost his goggles it was so filled. I finally figured out how the waves were forming. it was the ship rocking. The waves were there the rest of the week.

I got out of the pool and went to the waterslide. There was a long line, but it was worth the wait because it was fun.

After my family went swimming and to the water slides we got dinner at our favorite place. I had Snail. It was so good, I get that every time.

After we got dinner we went to our room and watched some TV. I watched Star Wars the Clone Wars. It was funny.

After Star Wars was over I put my PJ's on and went to bed.

The next morning I woke up, got dressed and went to breakfast. if was our favorite place. The Disney characters came out and you can take pictures.

After breakfast I went to Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer. I answered all the 5 questions and got them all right!

I won a prize! The prize was a magnetic picture holder. My mom and I really liked it.

After I won a prize I went back to my room. My brother and I were really excited as it was Christmas Eve. We were bouncing off the walls.

My brother made me sleep on the bottom of the bunk bed because he was scared. I said "OK".

I woke up and opened my present. It was a MP3 player! I was so happy!

Finally it was the end of the fun. "Time to get off" my mom said. I moaned and said ok.

It has been three Christmases now, but that Christmas on the Disney Cruise will always be the best.

Connor, Age 8

 

[heatherlynn444]

so glad you finished! we doubled dipped last year and rebooked onboard and will be going on teh dreams first double dip at the end of may. SO excited!
I think its awesome you got to see the wonder pass by while at CC! very very cool. Thanks again for sharing with us!

 

[jedijill]

Sounds like a great trip! I loved your son's mini-TR. He is as good as a writer as his dad!

Jill in CO

 

[DisneyZell]

so glad you finished! we doubled dipped last year and rebooked onboard and will be going on teh dreams first double dip at the end of may. SO excited!
I think its awesome you got to see the wonder pass by while at CC! very very cool. Thanks again for sharing with us!

yeah, Double Dip is the way to go, we are doing that in July and can't wait. Frankly they could just sail around and stop at CC every day and I'd be ok with that. Maybe I'd get bored after a while....but I doubt it! Have fun on your double dip!

Sounds like a great trip! I loved your son's mini-TR. He is as good as a writer as his dad!

Jill in CO

Actually I think he is better. very succinct and to the point.

Thanks for the comments!

Dz

 

[tony64]

Just read your trippie all the way through, I'm so glad you finished it.
Great report.

 

[DisneyZell]

Just read your trippie all the way through, I'm so glad you finished it.
Great report.

Thanks for reading it! DZ

 

[Grooovertoo]

DisneyZell,

So here I am researcher my Back-2-back cruise for 2013 during Christmas and low and behold I find that one of my favorite TR writers did a TR for their Christmas cruise. I’m not sure why I never noticed this in your signature before? Either way, thanks for the tid-bits and the insight of Holiday cruising.

Now I need to skim through you Dream report because I can’t remember if this was a B2B for you or not. (I’m trying to glean all I can from that experience as well.)

It was really cool going back and reading this TR after all your others. To see how your boys have grown is really something and the TR by your son was priceless. It is neat that he remembers that as his favorite Christmas and it didn’t have to include all the presents and over commercialization (except by Disney, we can excuse them though).

Thanks again for your TR’s and you give me inspiration for finishing mine….some time soon, dang life getting in the way of things.

Oh, and I did a animal magnet too, thanks to your idea…everybody loved that one the most, especially the 4 year old next door who thought he had to pet it every time he walked by.

Dave

 

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