Dwayne & Katie's R & R Cruise 12/2 to 12/9

[KT27]

Cast:

Katie: 28 years old, massage therapy student, army wife, disboard junkie
Dwayne: 33 years old, Army mechanic, deals with Katie's problem

Precruise:

We were married in Feb 2006 while visiting Disney at the courthouse. We had our official wedding at Disney in May 2006 which included a ceremony at Sea Breeze Point, Reception at the Beach Club's Ariels and a Dessert Party at Illuminations in the Lower UK Terrace. We disneymooned in July aboard the 4 night Wonder and then stayed 3 nights at The Yacht Club. Then August arrived, Dwayne deployed to Iraq for a one year term. When he arrived he was due to pick his 2 weeks leave which he did in Feb 2007, half way through his one year. Meanwhile I was at home living in a rental while our new house (that was supposed to be completed prior to Dwayne leaving) was finished up. Finally when it was done I moved us, set up the house, dealt with the sod guy, the fence guy, the handy man, picked out the blinds, broke the garage door (we will leave it at that) and otherwise got frustrated.

I started school for massage therapy in October also. And I took care of our zoo...Minnie 70 lb lab puppy, Tigger (tabby cat), Gizmo (purebred Bengal) and our newest addition Lumpy aka Heffalump (purebred siamese sealpoint).

I started planning a cruise in Feb for his R & R with my sister & her family. Then I got the call late October that his leave dates were changed. So I contacted our travel agent, found out we could sail 12/2 on the Magic with the military discount and I booked it. But in the back of my mind hoping the Army didn'y switch his dates around again. Dwayne left Iraq on 11/27 and arrived at DFW on 11/29, his 2 weeks leave began the following day. I finished my classes on Thursday and went home to finish packing. I was exausted between the nerves of him flying all that way through some pretty tough areas, to making the house look perfect for when he arrived to see it, putting the Christmas tree up & decorating outside. Finally we leave the next day!

12/1: We board our Southwest flight in Austin to Orlando at 2:10. Of course I had my sister check us in because I was at school when online flight check in began. For some reason I was flagged for a security check at the airport but Dwayne got the "A" pass. Really a quiet uneventful flight which is fine by me. We went to baggage claim, then fastbreaked to Budget and we were off in our pumpkin spice mobile!

And we were off! We headed towards the Port and arrived at hotel about an hour later. We checked into Radisson at the Port with a military rate of $105. We got 2 queen sized Sleep Number Beds. We stayed here in July and loved the pool and being able to relax however this time we were on the 2nd floor, the room smelled musty, wall paper was peeling & overall the condition of the room was poor. I was disappointed especially when we drove by the shiny new Mariott Residence Inn. We will not be staying at the Radisson again unless a major rehab is done. We walked next door to a pizza place called Kelsey's http://www.kelseys.com/. We had ordered a pizza and an appetizer. I am from NY and being moved to Texas I miss 3 major things from NY : NY Pizza, NY Bagels & NYC. There is NOTHING close to real NY pizza in Texas. So I had a glimmer of a hope that this pizza would be ok. It was good but not NY good. We watched a movie & off to bed we went.

 

[JanDave]

Katie: Enjoyed reading your TR. Can't wait to read more.

Jan

 

[LITTLEKID58]

I have susbcribe to you report....cannot wait for the rest..

txs

 

[KT27]

The alarm goes off at 630 am I shower & get ready, then I try to awake Dwayne. No such luck! Finally he gets up and gets ready.

Tip: If you are staying the night before somewhere make sure you pack a seperate bag for the clothing & items you need for the one night. This way you can pull out 1 bag from the car instead of all the luggage. Then I just emptied the bag into a suitcase & this became our carry on for the cruise.

We leave and head to Dunkin Donuts for an iced coffee & donut. Dwayne gets powdered sugar all over his shirt. At this point we are wearing matching outfits, he loves this! We still have a bit of time before heading to Budget so we head to the atm & then the beach.

Then off to Budget. There is a bit of a line when we get there because one of the girls at the desk was running late. Dwayne unloads the luggage while I stand on line. Who ends up behind me? A DIS'ER! JanDave! I over hear her talking and tell her who I am....Hi Jan!!! Seems her hubby lost his license and their friends were going to be driving. Then there is a woman who just got off a Carnival (I know, gasp) and was wondering about DCL....well she picked the right line. I think we blew her away with too much info. Meanwhile Dwayne is staring at me through the glass like who in the world are you talking to!?! I turn in the car, say my good byes and Jan comes outside and points out a few DIS'ers. Dwayne is totally embarassed now. They thank him for his service and we board the shuttle. The driver tells us Disney doesn't like its passengers to be dropped off too early and he will do his best. He drops us off at the back of the line. A security guard (non Disney I am hoping) gives us an attitude and I throw mine right back. I had no problem sitting on the bench people watching till it was time.

Notice the time.

 

[JanDave]

Katie: Sorry to have embarrassed Dwayne. We're all so proud of his service to our country.

Jan

 

[KT27]

Jan: I'm not sure if it was that or the fact that his wife was talking to her "internet friends" at Budget. I'm also VERY proud of him.

 

[Dixielady908]

Katie: great report so far....I was actually on the 11-25 with Jandave...keep the report coming......

Also, tell your husband Thank you from me also. My daughter is Army and in Iraq now also. So we are very proud of all our military serving now, here is to a safe return.

Denise

 

[miztigg]

just subscribing . i cruised with you !

 

[alwayslisad]

keep it coming - love it love it

 

[Holly&Joesmommy]

can't wait to hear more!

 

[momof6innc]

keep it coming - love it love it

Subscribing, Hi Katie!! It's fun to hear someone else's version of the same cruise! What a trip that was!

 

[KT27]

So we get to the terminal with an hour to go before they will let us in. We sit down on a bench and watch all the unhappy people that are coming off the cruise & have to return to the real world. We see stretch hummer limos, hotel transports, budget, avis, happy limo, friends & family all picking up people. It's funny to see them trying to manuever all the extra luggage. It's finally close to 10 and we head down to hand in our luggage. I grab the laptop case, DH grabs the carryon and we are headed to the terminal. Security is a breeze, we get #2 to board, and we are headed up to the castaway club check in (not that there is a person in site we could have gone to any line but hey we were "members"). We finish up the check in process and sit down. The terminal is decorated beautifully for the holidays.

Then we sit and wait...and meet another DIS'er, momof6innc recognizes us from our wedding pic on my posts and says hello. We go outside to look at the ship & snap a few pics. I am too excited. The terminal starts filling up and it's almost that time! Finally they call our boarding number and away we go. We get our welcome aboard pic taken:

As soon as we board I head to Guest services. Mom had given us a Disney Gift Card and I had a few Amex Gift cards I had been saving as well as Diney reward dollars and some disney dollars to add to the shipboard credit.

Tip: DCL does not accept AMEX Gift Cards, only the Credit cards but they do accpt visa gift cards go figure!

We then head to get a Palo Brunch ressie and to request a table by ourselves (we had a bad incident last cruise and I was not going through that again!) They told us to speak to Karol when we went to dinner & he would seat us.

We then wandered the ship, we saw the gingerbread house that you actually could smell before you could see it. I loves walking by it the whole cruise it smelled heavanly!

We went to Topsider's and had some lunch. We immedietly noticed the new service procesures that were in effect for sanitary reasons. Lunch was good, not great but we enjoyed it. We wandered down to the Quiet Cove Pool and sat down to have a drink. I ran into the spa to see if I could change my 2 cabana massage we had booked to the couples massage. We got the last one at 3pm. Then it was time to head to our stateroom. We had #6584, nice location, near stairs & elevators, laundry I loved the plexi veranda (last time we had a navigators). I hung up a few door decorations (forgot to take a pic of the door) I had shipped down 2 spa robes for us and they were already in the room.

 

[drclaws]

Hey Katie! Another fellow 12/2 crusier checking in! We had a good group....

 

[msaseifert]

Great report so far can't wait to read the rest!

 

[Babs417]

God bless you bouth

 

[cheriemek]

Thanks for starting your report! Another fellow 12/2 cruiser subscribing!

 

[scottishwee35]

Hi

I enjoyed read your trip report

Scottishwee35

 

[Jennifer48]

Hi there! Great start to your trippie! Can't wait to read more!

Thank your husband for me too! What a great man

 

[tjeagle]

More please!!

 

[KT27]

We hung out in the stateroom and planned on heading to the DIS meet. We arrived in the lounge but weren't sure who was who! We kind of stood to the side till everybody started introducing themselves, we sat and talked for a bit and headed on our way.

DH & I relaxed on our veranda for a bit. We heard the sailaway party going on above us but after it ended we didn't leave. I had heard that people were delayed because of the weather and we waited for them.

We decided to attend the tree lighting with the Disney Characters. It was very cute.

We had the late dinner seating with LAPLAPL Rotation We met Karol in the dining room and were seated at a table for 2. Our waiters were Philip & Daniel. They were amazing!

After dinner we walked the ship and deck 10. The headed to bed. It was a long day.