Dream a Little Dream Feb 2/6/11 Finished 3/4/11

[MrsKP]

Thanks fro sharing!

 

[MomsOf2boys]

I've never tried escargot... my oldest son did and loved it.. i just can't seem to get over the mind part of it.

 

[jenseib]

Out of all 3 sit-down restaurants, this is my favorite. I would definitely repeat this one if given the chance. The only thing I didn't like was Princesses walk around but they only stop at tables with children. Since I do not have children I felt left out, especially since Aurora was walking around that night and she is my fave Princess. I was very very surprised that the Princesses only visited children. When you eat at a character dining restaurant at Walt Disney World, the characters stop at each table...even if you don't have children. Anyway, that is my only complaint.

Yours is the first trip report where I have heard of hte Princesses going through the dining room. I wonder if they are now adding this or if its a one time deal?
I want just about everything you had a picture of. LOL! I have a feeling I will be stuffed after dinner this night!

 

[gerberdaisy1234]

After the show, we grabbed a snack and then headed back to the room to watch the ship leave port.

Only on a cruise is this a SNACK!

 

[TheThomsLuvDisney]

Hello MissJ-

It was great seeing on this trip! I'm so glad you are writing this TR, it's nice to relive this fabulous vacation.

What a difference between this first cruise and the one following. On the 2/6 trip CC was soooo warm and sunny but on the 2/10, not so much. We actually walked the island because it was way to cold to sit on the beach. On our way back to the ship, it began to rain.....sideways! Also, on the second cruise there was about 1,100 more people on the ship. It honestly didn't feel any more crowded, I think it was because these people were the cast and crew of AFV! They were recording the season finale on the ship (my 10 DD thought this was the coolest thing ever, she was able to get a AFV shirt and had Tom Bergeron sign it!), my kids love this show!

FE's were fabulous, thank you for the coins! Where did you have those made?

Also, loved your letters that you had signed. I copied your vinylmation idea for the girls. They loved them, so much so, one of them was smeared as it was brought to bed with them!

 

[ALMPeters11-11-11]

I would be very sad if the princesses did not stop by my table Cannot wait to read more!

 

[ALMPeters11-11-11]

Oh! BTW...I am also stealing your design for an FE But ours will be honeymoon themed, of course

 

[missj1975]

Hello MissJ-

It was great seeing on this trip! I'm so glad you are writing this TR, it's nice to relive this fabulous vacation.

What a difference between this first cruise and the one following. On the 2/6 trip CC was soooo warm and sunny but on the 2/10, not so much. We actually walked the island because it was way to cold to sit on the beach. On our way back to the ship, it began to rain.....sideways! Also, on the second cruise there was about 1,100 more people on the ship. It honestly didn't feel any more crowded, I think it was because these people were the cast and crew of AFV! They were recording the season finale on the ship (my 10 DD thought this was the coolest thing ever, she was able to get a AFV shirt and had Tom Bergeron sign it!), my kids love this show!

FE's were fabulous, thank you for the coins! Where did you have those made?

Also, loved your letters that you had signed. I copied your vinylmation idea for the girls. They loved them, so much so, one of them was smeared as it was brought to bed with them!

LOL, I had to google AFV cause I had no idea what that was. But so cool that they were filming a show while you were there.

I am glad you like the FE gifts. My DH was very proud of those. They were from some company that makes geocoins. Have you ever heard of geocaching? It is kind of like treasure hunting with a GPS. Anyway, DH and I love to geocache and thought the coin would be a cool momento.

I am glad your daughters loved their new vinylmation. Mine is stuffed away in a cabinet because my dog eyes it a little too much. The letters turned out wonderful. now I just have to get off my lazy butt and hang them up.

 

[missj1975]

Oh! BTW...I am also stealing your design for an FE But ours will be honeymoon themed, of course

Steal away...but you have to take pictures and write a trip report. I insist.

 

[missj1975]

Did I mention our steward left us a cute elephant the first night?

We woke up early and headed to Cabanas for breakfast.

Today was Nassau day. We booked the Atlantis Aquarium excursion but the meet up wasn't until 11:45am. We debated whether to leave the ship beforehand. We had time to kill so we checked out Goofy's mini golf course. We enjoyed it.

 

[missj1975]

After mini-golf, the ship's captain announced that we could now disembark the ship. We decided to head into Nassau even though we only had an hour until we had to meet back in the D-Lounge for our excursion.

I actually love Nassau...I say this because most trip reports I read and most vacationers I talk to don't like Nassau. I think Nassau gets a bad rap because of the pushy islanders trying to make a living. It really isn't that bad...but then I have never had a problem saying NO to anyone and I personally love to barter.

So we headed to the straw market. I basically told DH to wait outside because he hates the straw market and I barter better by myself. I picked up a few items...we walked around for a bit...picked up some rum cakes...and headed back to the ship. We stopped by our cabin to drop off our purchases and found another cool FE gift.

Very creative, this is one of my favorite FE gifts from the trip.

We headed down to the D-lounge and to the chaos. Apparently half the ship signed up for this excursion. We stayed close to the door, got our stickers that identified us to the Shore Excursion Staff and got our bracelets that would allow us to walk around Atlantis.

Our SE Staff then walked us out of the ship and to tour buses but it wasn't a quick process. Lots of standing and waiting. We then were loaded onto tour buses, and headed to Atlantis. We were on the first bus but I think there were at least three more buses to get all the guests over to Atlantis. Luckily once we reached Atlantis we were split up into smaller groups (I think like 15 per tour guide).

Side note: Next time we plan an excursion, I doubt we go thru Disney. It would have been a lot quicker just to take a taxi to Atlantis instead of waiting around for the Disney Employees to get everyone their bracelets and bussed over to the resort. I personally hate wasting time and already the first hour of the excursion was wasted on getting to Atlantis...Atlantis which is just technically a five minute taxi ride from the ship.

Our excursion was just to view the Aquarium and the Atlantis resort. We had a nice tour guide who knew the name of every single type of fish. There are two aquariums in the resort and the tour guide managed to walk us thru the casino twice to see both aquariums...very clever indeed . We personally aren't gamblers so we weren't really impressed by the casino. Sure it was beautiful but we've been to Las Vegas and wasn't impressed there either.

Now we enter the Twilight Zone. The tour guide mentioned in the beginning of the tour that the final part part of the tour is a re-creation of Atlantis and the Atlantians....hmmm...really....as far as I remember from history...Atlantis is just a story, a fictional story...no physical evidence at all that there ever was an Atlantis. Well apparently the resort Atlantis and the tour guide never got that memo because she gave a lengthy recount of Atlantians and all this stuff they did with crystals...as if it really happened...and it didn't. DH kept looking at me like what the heck is going on? I just barely resisted the urge to laugh...alot.

I think what drove me crazy the most is the tour guide presented all the Atlantis crap as fact...if anyone was gullible enough they might actually think we could travel to outer space by harnessing the energy of crystals. Please if that was true Arkansas would be the richest state in the U.S.A.

As soon as we could escape the mad house...we hoped back on the tour bus and headed back to the ship.

 

[missj1975]

So we made it back to the ship around 2pm. We stopped by Cabanas for a nice lunch.

After lunch, we headed back to Nassau. Yep our third time leaving the ship. What can I say, we don't believe in relaxing.

DH wanted to check out the Barcadi store and I wanted to collect my free jewelry with the coupons from the shopping talk. I love all the jewelry stores, my favorite is Effy's. There are three Effy stores and with the coupons, you can get a free necklace at each store. I also stopped by the one that I bought my Parazul purse in December so I could by a charm for my purse. It was the same manager from my last trip and he even remembered me.

We stopped by the Barcadi store, had some samples and bought a rum cake. It was amazing...so much better then the rum cakes at Tortuga.

Here is a picture of all my free goodies.

A picture of our cabin. Our cabin is the first one on the left on the same level as the flag. DH read on the forums that the flag flapping was annoying to the guests with cabins nearby. We personally only heard it when we were on our deck and I liked the flag...thought it was cool to watch.

 

[missj1975]

Before the nightly show, we walked around enjoying all the little touches on the ship.

Tonight was the Villains show. It was awesome. My favorite of the cruise.

Pain and Panic walked around before the show being funny. One of them even stopped and bugged us for a couple of seconds. We loved it!

After the show, we waited to get our pictures taken with Donald Duck.

 

[missj1975]

We then headed to dinner at Animator's Palate.

Smoked Salmon Tartare - capers, onions, and micro greens topped with American black caviar, seasoned with Celtic salt

Black Truffle Pasta Purseittes - pasta purse filled with trufflec scented cheese and coated with a delicate champagne sauce.

This was my absolute favorite appetizer. I could have had like 5 plates and been perfectly happy.

Sesame-flavored Rock Shrimp and Caramelized Onion Cheesecake - with Asian barbecue sauce and topped with micro greens

Baked Potato and Cheddar Cheese Soup with bacon bits and chives

Grilled Pacific Black Cod with sauteed morel mushrooms on a yellow split pea puree

Marinated Angus Beef Tenderloin carved to order on wasabi mashed potatoes with bok choy and a tamarind-barbecue reduction

Sweet Temptations - a trio of crunchy walnut cake, pineapple financier, and lemon mousse

Yes Creme Brulee again. Not on the menu but I asked for it so our awesome waiter brought me one.

Our head waiter brought us an anniversary cake. Technically it wasn't our anniversary and I did mention that but the first night he kept pushing that we had to be celebrating something so I just mentioned we were happy to be married for a year so he decided we needed an anniversary cake. Who am I to disagree.

After dinner we headed to Skyline for cocktails. There was suppose to be a disboard meet and greet. We were late, not to late but everyone was already gone...must have been a short meet and greet. Oh well, we stuck around and had some drinks.

A snack buffet outside of one of the clubs. When we stopped by the station had run out of plates and there were no cast members around. Hmmm....I like free food...but not unattended free food that who knows how long it has been sitting around and how many hands have been on it since there are no plates or napkins around. Yeah we passed. Plus we were stuffed anyway.

 

[missj1975]

We decided to try Enchanted Garden for breakfast.

It was fine but it was a buffet. We should have just went to Cabanas because Cabanas had a better selection.

After breakfast we disembarked for the island. Perfect timing, we only had to wait a few minutes to see Chip and Dale.

We headed to the adult beach and all I can say...Wow what a difference low tide and high tide can make. In December we were there during low tide, perfect for snorkeling. Now it was high tide, not perfect for snorkeling and not very fun to swim in. ***I am just talking about the adult beach. The kids and family beaches are protected by barriers so the water is pretty much always calm there.***

Anyway, we were a little disappointed but it was still fun walking up and down the beach.

And yes I am one of those bad guests who pick up shells to keep even though the Castway club map says not too. Yes tar and feather me disboard police, I commited a dis-sin but yet no Disney employee accosted me when my bag went through the x-ray machine. Customs didn't fine me a gazillion dollars. And yes feel free to accuse me of destroying the eco-system for a million years because I picked up a handful of shells (which is really just sea garbage). Yeah I don't feel guilty beach combing on an beach which is already raked by Disney employees each morning.

I do appreciated Disney's little blurb on the map that says "Due to our commitment to the environment, we ask that seashells, coral, and other natural treasures be left undisturbed at Disney's Castaway Cay for all to enjoy." I actually found it quite humorous considering the fact that Disney destroyed part of Great Guana Cay's reef and they dredged tons of sand so the ship could dock...cause you know dredging sand wouldn't have killed any sealife at all...anywho...enough of me ranting. Yeah I ignored a suggestion by Disney. I'm not trying to say I was right...I'm just saying I don't feel guilty. Yep I'm rude like that. Besides I interpret the suggestion as not taking any live sealife and that I absolutely agree with.

After enjoying the beach for awhile, we spotted our tablemates..said hi..and then DH and I were off to rent bikes.

We were on a mission, a geocaching mission. We brought our trusty GPS device along because we did reseach and found that someone had hidden a geocache on the island. If you aren't familiar with geocaching, check out geocaching.com. It is a fun little hobby which is basically treasure hunting with a GPS device.

This one was hidden in a coconut, very very clever. We loved it. And it is well hidden so if you aren't a geocacher you probably won't ever come across it. But if like to hike outdoors, definitely look into geocaching.

We biked around for a bit before lunch.

After lunch we headed back to the ship. We had a plan. The Aquaduck opened at noon so we wanted to ride it with no waits. And we did...twice...it was awesome. We also enjoyed an empty adult pool and an empty hot tub for about an hour before heading back to our room.

 

[TheThomsLuvDisney]

found another cool FE gift.

Very creative, this is one of my favorite FE gifts from the trip.

This was from my DSIL (not on the boards), I will let her know it was a favorite, she will be thrilled !

 

[ALMPeters11-11-11]

Steal away...but you have to take pictures and write a trip report. I insist.

I already started a pre-trip report that will be a full trip report once the honeymoon occurs, of course
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=40095783#post40095783

 

[missj1975]

We had a six pm dinner time for Remy's.

Before dinner, we decided to kill time by playing Bingo. On our last cruise, on the Wonder, we loved Bingo and played it everyday. This time we weren't as impressed. First off Bingo was in a theater instead of the club. No table to put your stuff on and no waiters to bring you alcohol...boring .

And the hostess just didn't have the same personality as the Jen from the Wonder. This was the only time we played Bingo...even though the jackpots were bigger on the Dream. The odds of us winning anything were not in our favor (cause we never win chance games...we are unlucky like that) so without a great hostess I had no desire to sit through a half hour of Bingo.

We went up to Remy's and were seated right away at a table with a great view.

I tried finding a menu on line to get the exact names of what we ordered but I didn't see a menu and I am too tired to dig deeper at the moment. All I can say the food was excellent. Seriously it was awesome and our server was cool to...maybe a little hard to understand with his French accent...but awesome none the less.

We totally enjoyed Remy's but would we do it again...no. Why do I say this...because we tried the Palo brunch the next day and absolutely loved it. Perhaps we are just French fooded out because we really loved the Palo selection and remember the food more then we do the Remy food.

The only way we would eat at Remy's again is if they changed the menu...and hopefully they will change it from year to year. We have at ate Victoria and Albert's twice and both times the menu was different.

But I still highly recommend Remy's to anyone who loves French food. It is well worth the surcharge.

 

[missj1975]

After Remy's, we headed back to the room to change. We then headed to the pirate festivities.

The navigator promoted some pirate game show. We missed the adult version so we checked out the family version.

With out this little drink of fruity goodness...the show would have been pretty boring. Because without the drink I would have never been brave enough to participate. Not that I am totally shy but the audience was a bit intimidating...intimidating because no one looked like they wanted to be there. Yeah seriously this audience was lame..either they were in a food coma or they had no idea they were on a Disney cruise ship and that they were suppose to have fun. Anywho, I got up and helped a few kids play the games because their parents were oblivious to the fact that 2 cast members weren't nearly enough people to help 20 kids play pirate games. Yeah I have my nice moments, just don't tell my boss because once the word gets out that I can be nice, he will be expecting it all the time and being nice to my co-workers is pushing the limit.

After the game show, we stalked Tinkerbell.

And then we watched the pirate shows on deck plus the fireworks.

The show featuring Jack Sparrow was nice but we actually liked the Pirate festivities on the Wonder better then the festivities on the Dream. Plus the Dream didn't even advertise that the pirate buffet was at Cabanas. Since no buffet was listed in the navigator, I just assumed they did away with the Pirate Buffet. Silly me, you know what they say about assuming, blah blah blah. Anywho, we cut through cabanas to get to our room, thank goodness cause look what we found.

Tacos always make me feel better so I no longer had a desire to go back to the room. Instead we decided to watch the showing of Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Mans chest...at 11:30 at night...did I mention it was cold that night...yep freezing but us being from St. Louis and leaving 10 inches of snow we had our winter coats with us. Apparently we were the only one with coats...or just the only ones not too tired enough to go back to our room to get them. Because we saw lots of freezing guests raiding the towel cabinets and trying to stay warm by huddling under a dozen white towels. I should have taken pictures. It was actually quite funny.

Anywho, the movie started with dozens of guest huddled on lounge chairs watching the big outdoor screen. And then slowly all the people disappeared. If I wasn't so engrossed in Jack Sparrow, I might have become concerned because one minute we are surrounded by people and the next minute we have the entire deck & pool area to ourselves. It was kind of spooky.

Ok I have seen Dead Man's chest at least a dozen times but there is just something about watching a movie on a cruise ship deck in the middle of the ocean that made the movie 100 times better. Especially towards the end when it was like our own private showing. Watching that movie on deck is one of our favorite experiences of the cruise. My husband still goes on about it. As a matter of fact, the other day he started asking questions about the plot line...davy jones..etc...and how this didn't make sense and that didn't make sense and I was like...honey...it was just a movie...a fiction movie...quit trying to dissect it and just write to Disney if you didn't like the plot holes. My husband is too serious sometimes.

When we got back to the room we had a nice thank you card and box of chocolates waiting for us from Remy's. Sorry I have no pictures of the chocolates because DH ate half the box in the middle of the night before I had a chance to take a picture. Because he was apparently still hungry after the 7 course meal at Remy's and the late night buffet.

 

[lucy0558]

Enjoying your report; you're a hoot! Thanks for taking the time.