TJ_from_Nashville
DisneyRookEase
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2006
- Messages
- 51
Eastern Cruise on the Magic, January 20, 2007
Four Adults, Three Kids ages 5, 3, and 18 Months
Staterooms 6516 and 6518
Our cruise really felt like two separate cruises. Days 1-3 was sick tired kids cruise, days 4-7 was healthy well rested kids cruise – guess which one was more enjoyable. First a little background. Three years ago my wife and I went on our first cruise – to Alaska on Holland America without kids. We really loved it and had a great time. We would wake up late, wife would hang out at the spa and I would read a book and hit some wine tastings. In the afternoon we would hang out at the pool, and later listen to a jazz combo. Then at night we would enjoy a wonderful dinner and some interesting shows and then maybe catch a movie or hit the late night buffet or dessert extravaganza. On shore days we did some exciting excursions like riding down a mountain pass on bikes or seeing bald eagles and jumping salmon from our sea kayaks. We kept talking about how we needed to do another cruise, but we kept having more and more babies! Now we have completed our family – our three kids at cruise time were 18 months, one just turned 3 the day before the cruise, and one will turn 5 two weeks after the cruise. We knew with 3 boys along our cruise would not be quite the same as our first one, but we did bring reinforcements – Grandma and Grandpa. We got connecting porthole rooms and figured with their help (the kids love “Mama Lu” and “Pop Pop” and vice versa), we could have a somewhat modified repeat of our first cruise.
So having read these boards all year and read the Passporter book several times, my vision of our typical cruise day went something like this:
Ideal Cruise Day:
Our kids would quickly acclimate to “cruise time”, sleeping in till at least 8 or 8:30. We would order a delicious breakfast from room service and eat by the window while everybody got ready for the day. Soon the middle and oldest sons would be clamoring to go to the Oceaneer’s club, so wife would drop them off on her way to the spa treatment. Pop Pop would go off to explore the ship while Mama Lu and I would either check our youngest into Flounders or have him tag along while we did a galley tour or learned how to fold towels. At 11 or so we would try to drag the kids out of the club to put on their bathing suits and head to the pool. We would grab a delicious lunch from Topsiders and eat while watching our kids frolic in the Mickey pool. After all that activity, the kids would be getting tired, so we would all head back to our cabins for some nap time. The two youngest would take a long nap along with Pop Pop. The oldest might take a nap too, but would probably want to head back to the Oceaneer’s club. Meanwhile wife and I and Mama Lu would play some bingo or maybe do some wine tasting. After nap, we would all head back to the cabin to get ready for our 6PM dinner. We would have some time to kill, so maybe wander the lobby and lounges for an hour, taking some pictures with Mickey and Goofy. We would then eat our delicious meal while our wonderful servers entertained the kids with jokes, funny tricks, and empty plates with “Nothing” written on them with chocolate syrup. After dinner, we would wander over to the Walt Disney theatre to catch the fabulous evening show. Our youngest might fall asleep in our arms, but it would be no problem to carry him up to the room and transfer him to the crib. Our two oldest would laugh till the end, then run back to the cabin for jammies and maybe a late snack from room service while they watch a little tv. After the two oldest were asleep, Mama Lu and Pop Pop would watch some tv while wife and I would slip out to a bar for a nightcap while listening to a smooth jazz combo in the lounge. Then return to the cabin around 10:30, go to bed and repeat …
Needless to say, our typical cruise day, especially in the “sick and tired” phase was quite a bit different from the DIS boards ideal I had in my head. Keep in mind that a lot of people mainly post the highlights of their cruise, the “magical moments” that they will remember forever. We had some of those and I am sure most cruisers have them too. But no one wants to post about their kids horrible behavior and temper tantrums. This might lead some DIS board readers (hmm, maybe me?) to get a slightly distorted sense of a typical cruise day. But these unmagical moments will happen as surely as the magic moments, so it might be a good idea to be prepared. Maybe the following will give you a little dose of reality:
Real Cruise Day:
Our middle child wakes up the same time as home – 6AM on the dot, time zones be damned. He wants to watch a video, so we turn on the tv extra quiet so big brother 5 feet away won’t wake up. Middle child says he is hungry, so we order some toast from room service to tide him over. He gets upset because it is taking so long, waking up big brother in the process – first meltdown of the day and it’s a double! I throw on some clothes to get kids out of the room before they wake up youngest while wife struggles to force shoes on the kid’s feet. I head down to the dining room with 2 grumpy kids, but the chocolate danishes and mickey waffles cheer them up. Mama Lu comes down with the youngest a few minutes later – guess we didn’t get the kids out of the room in time. After breakfast we plead with the kids to please give the Oceaneer’s club one more try, but they go back into meltdown mode so we give up once again. Youngest child woke up with a fever again, so I call Flounders to cancel his session. Instead I take youngest on elevator rides while Mama Lu and wife wander around with two oldest children, trying to convince them to do something fun. Pop Pop hits the lounge to feed his rapidly growing bingo addiction – he didn’t miss a session all cruise. Youngest ends up leading me to the pool deck where I run into wife – kids decided they wanted to go swimming. Youngest wants to play with the ping pong balls. Middle child only lasts 30 minutes in the pool – the 40mph swirling winds on the deck are chilling him and he doesn’t realize he would actually be warmer if he just stayed in the water. Oldest wants to tough it out a little longer, so Mama Lu takes middle child back to the cabin. We all meet up back in the cabin a little later and get dressed. Children start destroying the cabin so we figure it must be time for lunch. Middle child is getting tired, has a meltdown in the lobby, rest of the family heads in to Lumineires for lunch. Middle child calms down eventually, I bring him in to find youngest child is done eating and wants to pull off the tablecloth. Tag team dining continues with wife taking youngest for a walk while I play catch up with lunch. After lunch youngest starts acting tired (in other words, throwing wild tantrums), so wife takes him back to the cabin for more Tylenol and a nap. Mickey bars at lunch have given two oldest boys a burst of energy which lasts till about two – we play some ping pong until argument ensues about middle child not “hitting the ball right” then down for some shuffleboard until children start swinging the shuffleboard sticks around, almost taking out a few joggers. I take crying kids back to the room for naptime. Once in the cabin they find playing on the bunk beds is much more fun then sleeping in them. Tantrums ensue, waking up youngest child early from his nap – first three way scream fest of the day! Wife wants to cancel her spa treatment, but I force her to go for her own sanity. Youngest and I hit the elevators again while Mama Lu tries to get the other kids to sleep. Pop Pop gets his afternoon bingo fix. Wife back from spa, kids still fighting and not sleeping. Wife hits the wall, sends oldest out with Mama Lu and takes nap with middle child. Everybody returns to cabin for our somehow too early and yet too late 5:30 dinner. At 5:20, middle child is still napping. Foolishly decide to wake him up – big mistake. Carry crying child to dinner, stops crying by the time appetizers are served, but oldest, napless child is tired and hungry so he has a go with a tantrum of his own. Tag team dining ensues. Kids cheer up a little after dinner, but still have over an hour until the big nightly show. Can they make it? Survey says no! Instead, wife and Mama Lu take youngest back to cabin while Pop Pop and I take the two oldest to the family cabaret. After cabaret is done, oldest is a walking zombie, so we head back to the cabin. Youngest is in full tantrum mode – too tired to sleep. He is so loud, wife takes him for elevator rides to get him out of the cabin so oldest can sleep. Middle son not quite as tired as oldest, wants to play on the bunk bed, tantrums ensue. Finally, two oldest fall asleep, I head out to the lounge for a nightcap, solo. Wife eventually returns with youngest. Both fall asleep, exhausted. I return to cabin around 10:30 – go to bed and repeat …
By Tuesday afternoon, our youngest son had finally gotten rid of his fever. Eventually the kids started taking better naps and we developed a routine and some guidelines that really helped us, some of which I’ve written out next, along with some comments. The last few days of the cruise were really quite pleasant – we even had a four way nap on our final sea day with wife and all three kids sleeping simultaneously for a good two hours.
As I said, our youngest son was sick at the start of our cruise. He has had constant ear infections starting last summer, so we had tubes put in his ears the week before the cruise. We thought that would be the end of our troubles, but even though he was still on the antibiotics, he started getting really grumpy the first night of the cruise and woke up Sunday morning with probably a 102 fever. This led to the “lowlight” of our trip, but probably what I may remember the longest. Sunday night he went to bed right after dinner, around 7:30. But he woke up at 11:30 with a fever and would not go back to bed. Wife gave him some Tylenol and took him out for elevator rides. I was stressed out because the cruise wasn’t living up to my inflated expections, so I couldn’t get to sleep either. Wife returned around 1 and put him down, but he immediately started screaming bloody murder. “Your turn” wife says. I am super upset now, but youngest child and I calm down a little once we get outside. He just starts exploring the ship and I follow behind. We hit every elevator bank and every stairwell and every little seating area. I figure eventually he will start rubbing his eyes, but he is wide awake. Let me say that the cleaning crew on the Magic is fantastic. Every single one would stop their work and play peekaboo or whatever with my child. We would see a cleaner in the Promenade Lounge, then an hour later in the lobby, then an hour later in the forward elevators. My son would wave and smile and they would all wave and smile back. I was dead tired and those workers kept me from going insane. At 3AM I was struggling to stay awake in the lobby chairs when one of those magical moments occurred. Kimi from Japan, the woman who works the night shift at guest services, came out to ask if we were ok. I said my son would not go to sleep. She played with him and said she was sorry he was still awake, but she was so happy because she never gets to see the kids during her night shift. She then said “Let me see if I can find something for him” She went back behind her desk and came out with two toys, a stuffed Mickey and a Pooh pillow. My son really liked the Pooh pillow, he and Kimi played ball with it for a long time and she said we could keep it, maybe it would help my son fall asleep. Eventually, my son wandered over to the elevators and on to Beat Street, dragging the pillow behind him, so I bye to Kimi. About 4:00AM I noticed that the ship was stopped. I carried my son out to the promenade to check it out, but saw nothing. Then we walked to the other side and there was an island right there. We were supposed to be in the middle of the ocean. A bunch of yellow jumpsuit guys were standing there looking at the island. I asked one why we stopped and he said it was a medical emergency. Apparently, they diverted the ship to Grand Turk and launched a lifeboat to take someone to the hospital. The crewmembers were waiting for the lifeboat to return. We continued wandering the ship, checking outside once in awhile and eventually I heard a putt-putt sound and saw the life boat light. The lifeboat chugged right up and we watched them winch it up and out came a nurse with an empty stretcher. I looked over at my son and he was asleep – 5:15 AM
I was afraid to take our youngest son to the clinic. I had visions of them quarantining our whole cabin – our youngest son would go crazy and so would we. But after my all nighter I relented and wife took him down. The doctor said he had an ear infection and gave him a different antibiotic than the one he was already on. We emailed our pediatrician friend (wife is a doctor and has good connections ). He said with tubes our sons ears would be draining if they were infected. He said it was probably just a cold. But anyway, wife was impressed with the clinic and expected the bill to be more than the $115 they charged us. But best of all – no quarantine. Of course we kept him out of Flounders though.
The first day we signed our two oldest boys up for Oceaneers club and hung out for awhile. They seemed pretty impressed with the computers and had fun playing for awhile until our cabin was ready. So with high hopes we dropped them off the next day for “parachute play”. 45 minutes later we got the page – they were ready to go. That was the last of Oceaneers club. At the mere mention of it, oldest would start descending into tantrum land. I still don’t know why they didn’t like it. They go to the nursery at the YMCA and church every week and go to playschool twice a week. It seems like things would have been a lot easier if we could have convinced them to go – any tips out there for future cruises?
I don’t know why more cruisers don’t eat lunch in Luminieres. We tried Topsiders a couple times for lunch, but it seems like we had to go to several different locations to get everything everybody wants. With three kids to watch, that meant Mom watched the kids while dad got pizza at Pinocchio’s, and hit the drink machine while Grandma went to Plutos for chicken fingers and stopped at Goofy’s for fruit. Then mom and grandma went to Goofy’s for wraps and through the buffet line. When they returned, dad finally got a chance to go through the buffet line for himself. There is probably an easier process, but we couldn’t figure it out. And apart from the pizza, we didn’t think the food was that good on deck 9. So after a couple days of that, we just made the kids as presentable as we could and headed down to Luminieres every day for lunch. Wow, what a difference! No running around, the waiters do all the work for you! Every day it was almost empty. It seems like our waiters would only have about two tables to cover. The service was wonderful, better than dinner for us. We had many waiters throughout our week, and the previous ones would always recognize us and say hi to the kids. The food was great too – usually better than dinner for us. The fried calamari was the best I ever tasted. Mom had the herb crusted tilapia and said it was the best meal she had on board. The waiter said they don’t serve the tilapia for dinner. With all the running around necessary at the buffet, eating at Lumineres was actually faster for us and the waiters were always super quick to bring out the kids food first. One special moment was at lunch when we ordered our son a strawberry smoothie. The server asked our son if he wanted a cherry on top and our son said he loved cherries. Well, the smoothie came out with SEVEN cherries on top! Our sons mouth was hanging open and then he got a big ol’ smile on his face and got to work on those cherries.
Our family wasn’t too impressed with our server at dinner. He was professional I guess and got the food to us warm, but he didn’t seem very “magical” I think he really didn’t like our kids for some reason. We also could never make it to dinner right on time, we were always about 5 minutes late, so maybe that was messing him up. I really thought the early dinner would be 6PM, but we got the 5:30 slot, which was really tough to make. I mentioned how we woke up one son from his nap to go to dinner. We never did that again. We would just leave wife behind with the napper and order for her. She would arrive about the same time as the appetizers. Anyway, like I said, our server seemed pretty brusque and “put upon” with us. Our assistant server on the other hand was wonderful. She was so nice and personable. By the third day she would have the kid’s drinks ready and Mama Lu’s coffee cup on standby by the time we got to the table. Meanwhile, our server never did figure out that the kids like ketchup with their French fries, we always had to ask. The first thing I did when we got back from the cruise was to search for our server’s name. Well, he is Fitz from Jamaica and he got rave reviews. Everybody loved him and some wanted him for every cruise. Maybe he just had an off week. Our wonderful assistant server was Sara from Chile. It seemed like they didn’t work very well together – that’s just the impression I got. One thing that happened was one night Fitz backed up and bumped into Sara who was holding a chocolate smoothie on a tray. The smoothie went right into a boy’s lap. Sara was so apologetic, but Fitz looked like he was going to bite her head off. The boy and his family weren’t too upset – Sara and Fitz mopped him up with napkins and he went back to his cabin to change. Fitz had been kind of chilly before then, but after that it was a little uncomfortable even having him around.
I made it to a couple of the cooking demonstrations and they were pretty funny (I was the one following my youngest around the room while trying to listen to the presentation) I don’t know if it was seeing how it is cooked, or that they cook it in small batches, but the samples that they gave were delicious. We would order the exact same dish in the restaurant that night and it was never nearly as good.
I would highly recommend attending the family cabaret shows at 7:30. It was our kids’ favorite entertainment on the whole cruise. They let all the kids sit together in a big group on the floor in front of the stage so they are really close to the entertainers. Most of the performers really interacted well with the kids – it was sort of “I’m with you, kids – those grownups out there just aren’t cool like us” Rich Purpura was really good – the “best” magician in the world who does these hilarious magic tricks – then in the cabaret show he showed the kids how they are all done, which was a real treat. Then there was Jungle Jim – a ventriloquist who used animal puppets. After that, my middle son would keep asking at the Disney shows – “I want to see the gorilla again!” Then there was a juggling act, Wild and Haines. Their funniest bit was when one of them dropped a club and they had a big argument while juggling the other 5 clubs over who would pick it up. I was laughing harder than the kids for that one. The last was another magician, I forget his first name, but his last was Maggiaoli or something like that. He put on the best magic show I think I have ever seen. He came out to a techno dance track and for the first 5 minutes just did a barrage of tricks while dancing to the music – it was amazing. His hands kept lighting on fire, wands appeared out of nowhere and then turned into napkins, he made about 7 or 8 birdcages appear, and he turned himself into his assistant. It was just so non stop, with everything happening a mile a minute. He eventually slowed down and talked and did some more standard tricks. He cut a hole in a cardboard box and put it on his head, then made it move side to side like his head has disappeared. That was my 5 year old son’s favorite trick. He was discussing it with me in the bathroom after the show, saying, “I think he had a pretend head in that box” Then the magician comes in the same bathroom. I told him “I think my son may be on to your tricks, he thinks you use a pretend head” The magician laughed and said “That’s crazy talk – a pretend head – what are you talking about?!?” I was really looking forward to his act at the Till We Meet Again show, but it was nothing like his cabaret show. He did a few big tricks, one of which pretty much crashed and burned (the levitating woman trick – you could see one of the supports, his ring caught on the wire, and they dropped his assistant the last two inches when they were lowering her – he basically apologized to the audience after that one). There was none of the rapid fire showmanship that I enjoyed so much at the cabaret show.
Our middle son drinks strawberry flavored milk at almost every meal. So when the waiters would ask what he wanted to drink, he would say strawberry milk and be disappointed because they didn’t have it. A few times we got him a strawberry smoothie, but at $3.95 a pop, they add up fast. So if you or your kids have an unusual preference – strawberry Quik, Lucky Charms, Vegemite, etc, you might want to bring some along with you.
If you are a big coke drinker like us, you might want to plan your stateroom location based on its proximity to the aft port location of the drink machine on deck 9. We were on the complete opposite corner of the ship. This resulted in an approximately 1200 foot or quarter mile round trip for a drink, a circuit which we would complete about 8-10 times a day.
Rocking Bar D had Laphroaig Scotch, which wasn’t on the bar menu, at a reasonable $6.50 for a snifter.
If you sleep late or want to encourage the kids to sleep late or have an afternoon napper, bring a couple hair clips to completely seal the porthole/verandah curtain and shut out the harsh tropical rays.
I was a little disappointed we couldn’t order mickey waffles from room service – the kids made do with toast in the morning until we could get them hustled off to the restaurant. It seems like on our other cruise (HAL), you could pretty much order anything that was served in the restaurant to be delivered to your room, but Disney’s options were much more limited and the delivery time was pretty long, especially at peak times.
My parents really liked the coffee on board. We got the standard wine package – it was fun picking out a different wine each night. Our favorite was the Brancott Sauvignon Blanc – we got it twice.
Even if your kids don’t plan on going to the kids club, sign them up anyway and get the wristband. Both of our kids got lost on the ship during the cruise and the wristbands made it easy to get in contact with us as quick as possible.
Our server gave us the “excellence” speech, but it went completely over my head that he was referring to the comment cards, I thought he actually wanted our experience to be excellent – he got a “good” from us.
When our kids were playing in the Mickey pool, we just went ahead and sat on the “saved” chairs that had towels or shoes on them. We weren’t laying out, just sitting there watching the kids and we figured if anyone wanted their chairs back we would just move – usually nobody came back to claim their chair
My sons favorite things on the ship –
18 month old – riding the elevators and pressing the buttons
3 year old – playing on the bunk bed
almost 5 year old – Mickey pool
In conclusion, we had a fun trip and if parts of it weren’t fun, it wasn’t Disney’s fault, probably a combination of bad luck and poor parenting skills. Mama Lu and Pop Pop had a wonderful time and loved being with the kids. They weren’t sure they would like cruising, but now have decided to go on an Alaska cruise themselves, probably this summer. We will probably go on another cruise with the kids in a few years, but I don’t think it will be Disney. Our kids really weren’t that interested in the characters and the kid’s programs and the Disney shows, so for us I don’t think it is worth the price premium over the other lines. Now if they had a superhero cruise with Spiderman and Batman walking around the decks posing for pictures, that might be a whole different matter. We may try NCL next time. With their open dining, we wouldn’t be as tied to a schedule and would have more flexibility for nap times, etc. For us, maybe our kids were too young for a cruise this time. I think it will go a lot more smoothly when our kids are 7, 5, and almost 4.
If you made it all the way to the end, thanks for your time and feel free to add any comments or questions!
Oh yeah, I almost forgot, here's the Goofy:
Four Adults, Three Kids ages 5, 3, and 18 Months
Staterooms 6516 and 6518
Our cruise really felt like two separate cruises. Days 1-3 was sick tired kids cruise, days 4-7 was healthy well rested kids cruise – guess which one was more enjoyable. First a little background. Three years ago my wife and I went on our first cruise – to Alaska on Holland America without kids. We really loved it and had a great time. We would wake up late, wife would hang out at the spa and I would read a book and hit some wine tastings. In the afternoon we would hang out at the pool, and later listen to a jazz combo. Then at night we would enjoy a wonderful dinner and some interesting shows and then maybe catch a movie or hit the late night buffet or dessert extravaganza. On shore days we did some exciting excursions like riding down a mountain pass on bikes or seeing bald eagles and jumping salmon from our sea kayaks. We kept talking about how we needed to do another cruise, but we kept having more and more babies! Now we have completed our family – our three kids at cruise time were 18 months, one just turned 3 the day before the cruise, and one will turn 5 two weeks after the cruise. We knew with 3 boys along our cruise would not be quite the same as our first one, but we did bring reinforcements – Grandma and Grandpa. We got connecting porthole rooms and figured with their help (the kids love “Mama Lu” and “Pop Pop” and vice versa), we could have a somewhat modified repeat of our first cruise.
So having read these boards all year and read the Passporter book several times, my vision of our typical cruise day went something like this:
Ideal Cruise Day:
Our kids would quickly acclimate to “cruise time”, sleeping in till at least 8 or 8:30. We would order a delicious breakfast from room service and eat by the window while everybody got ready for the day. Soon the middle and oldest sons would be clamoring to go to the Oceaneer’s club, so wife would drop them off on her way to the spa treatment. Pop Pop would go off to explore the ship while Mama Lu and I would either check our youngest into Flounders or have him tag along while we did a galley tour or learned how to fold towels. At 11 or so we would try to drag the kids out of the club to put on their bathing suits and head to the pool. We would grab a delicious lunch from Topsiders and eat while watching our kids frolic in the Mickey pool. After all that activity, the kids would be getting tired, so we would all head back to our cabins for some nap time. The two youngest would take a long nap along with Pop Pop. The oldest might take a nap too, but would probably want to head back to the Oceaneer’s club. Meanwhile wife and I and Mama Lu would play some bingo or maybe do some wine tasting. After nap, we would all head back to the cabin to get ready for our 6PM dinner. We would have some time to kill, so maybe wander the lobby and lounges for an hour, taking some pictures with Mickey and Goofy. We would then eat our delicious meal while our wonderful servers entertained the kids with jokes, funny tricks, and empty plates with “Nothing” written on them with chocolate syrup. After dinner, we would wander over to the Walt Disney theatre to catch the fabulous evening show. Our youngest might fall asleep in our arms, but it would be no problem to carry him up to the room and transfer him to the crib. Our two oldest would laugh till the end, then run back to the cabin for jammies and maybe a late snack from room service while they watch a little tv. After the two oldest were asleep, Mama Lu and Pop Pop would watch some tv while wife and I would slip out to a bar for a nightcap while listening to a smooth jazz combo in the lounge. Then return to the cabin around 10:30, go to bed and repeat …
Needless to say, our typical cruise day, especially in the “sick and tired” phase was quite a bit different from the DIS boards ideal I had in my head. Keep in mind that a lot of people mainly post the highlights of their cruise, the “magical moments” that they will remember forever. We had some of those and I am sure most cruisers have them too. But no one wants to post about their kids horrible behavior and temper tantrums. This might lead some DIS board readers (hmm, maybe me?) to get a slightly distorted sense of a typical cruise day. But these unmagical moments will happen as surely as the magic moments, so it might be a good idea to be prepared. Maybe the following will give you a little dose of reality:
Real Cruise Day:
Our middle child wakes up the same time as home – 6AM on the dot, time zones be damned. He wants to watch a video, so we turn on the tv extra quiet so big brother 5 feet away won’t wake up. Middle child says he is hungry, so we order some toast from room service to tide him over. He gets upset because it is taking so long, waking up big brother in the process – first meltdown of the day and it’s a double! I throw on some clothes to get kids out of the room before they wake up youngest while wife struggles to force shoes on the kid’s feet. I head down to the dining room with 2 grumpy kids, but the chocolate danishes and mickey waffles cheer them up. Mama Lu comes down with the youngest a few minutes later – guess we didn’t get the kids out of the room in time. After breakfast we plead with the kids to please give the Oceaneer’s club one more try, but they go back into meltdown mode so we give up once again. Youngest child woke up with a fever again, so I call Flounders to cancel his session. Instead I take youngest on elevator rides while Mama Lu and wife wander around with two oldest children, trying to convince them to do something fun. Pop Pop hits the lounge to feed his rapidly growing bingo addiction – he didn’t miss a session all cruise. Youngest ends up leading me to the pool deck where I run into wife – kids decided they wanted to go swimming. Youngest wants to play with the ping pong balls. Middle child only lasts 30 minutes in the pool – the 40mph swirling winds on the deck are chilling him and he doesn’t realize he would actually be warmer if he just stayed in the water. Oldest wants to tough it out a little longer, so Mama Lu takes middle child back to the cabin. We all meet up back in the cabin a little later and get dressed. Children start destroying the cabin so we figure it must be time for lunch. Middle child is getting tired, has a meltdown in the lobby, rest of the family heads in to Lumineires for lunch. Middle child calms down eventually, I bring him in to find youngest child is done eating and wants to pull off the tablecloth. Tag team dining continues with wife taking youngest for a walk while I play catch up with lunch. After lunch youngest starts acting tired (in other words, throwing wild tantrums), so wife takes him back to the cabin for more Tylenol and a nap. Mickey bars at lunch have given two oldest boys a burst of energy which lasts till about two – we play some ping pong until argument ensues about middle child not “hitting the ball right” then down for some shuffleboard until children start swinging the shuffleboard sticks around, almost taking out a few joggers. I take crying kids back to the room for naptime. Once in the cabin they find playing on the bunk beds is much more fun then sleeping in them. Tantrums ensue, waking up youngest child early from his nap – first three way scream fest of the day! Wife wants to cancel her spa treatment, but I force her to go for her own sanity. Youngest and I hit the elevators again while Mama Lu tries to get the other kids to sleep. Pop Pop gets his afternoon bingo fix. Wife back from spa, kids still fighting and not sleeping. Wife hits the wall, sends oldest out with Mama Lu and takes nap with middle child. Everybody returns to cabin for our somehow too early and yet too late 5:30 dinner. At 5:20, middle child is still napping. Foolishly decide to wake him up – big mistake. Carry crying child to dinner, stops crying by the time appetizers are served, but oldest, napless child is tired and hungry so he has a go with a tantrum of his own. Tag team dining ensues. Kids cheer up a little after dinner, but still have over an hour until the big nightly show. Can they make it? Survey says no! Instead, wife and Mama Lu take youngest back to cabin while Pop Pop and I take the two oldest to the family cabaret. After cabaret is done, oldest is a walking zombie, so we head back to the cabin. Youngest is in full tantrum mode – too tired to sleep. He is so loud, wife takes him for elevator rides to get him out of the cabin so oldest can sleep. Middle son not quite as tired as oldest, wants to play on the bunk bed, tantrums ensue. Finally, two oldest fall asleep, I head out to the lounge for a nightcap, solo. Wife eventually returns with youngest. Both fall asleep, exhausted. I return to cabin around 10:30 – go to bed and repeat …
By Tuesday afternoon, our youngest son had finally gotten rid of his fever. Eventually the kids started taking better naps and we developed a routine and some guidelines that really helped us, some of which I’ve written out next, along with some comments. The last few days of the cruise were really quite pleasant – we even had a four way nap on our final sea day with wife and all three kids sleeping simultaneously for a good two hours.
As I said, our youngest son was sick at the start of our cruise. He has had constant ear infections starting last summer, so we had tubes put in his ears the week before the cruise. We thought that would be the end of our troubles, but even though he was still on the antibiotics, he started getting really grumpy the first night of the cruise and woke up Sunday morning with probably a 102 fever. This led to the “lowlight” of our trip, but probably what I may remember the longest. Sunday night he went to bed right after dinner, around 7:30. But he woke up at 11:30 with a fever and would not go back to bed. Wife gave him some Tylenol and took him out for elevator rides. I was stressed out because the cruise wasn’t living up to my inflated expections, so I couldn’t get to sleep either. Wife returned around 1 and put him down, but he immediately started screaming bloody murder. “Your turn” wife says. I am super upset now, but youngest child and I calm down a little once we get outside. He just starts exploring the ship and I follow behind. We hit every elevator bank and every stairwell and every little seating area. I figure eventually he will start rubbing his eyes, but he is wide awake. Let me say that the cleaning crew on the Magic is fantastic. Every single one would stop their work and play peekaboo or whatever with my child. We would see a cleaner in the Promenade Lounge, then an hour later in the lobby, then an hour later in the forward elevators. My son would wave and smile and they would all wave and smile back. I was dead tired and those workers kept me from going insane. At 3AM I was struggling to stay awake in the lobby chairs when one of those magical moments occurred. Kimi from Japan, the woman who works the night shift at guest services, came out to ask if we were ok. I said my son would not go to sleep. She played with him and said she was sorry he was still awake, but she was so happy because she never gets to see the kids during her night shift. She then said “Let me see if I can find something for him” She went back behind her desk and came out with two toys, a stuffed Mickey and a Pooh pillow. My son really liked the Pooh pillow, he and Kimi played ball with it for a long time and she said we could keep it, maybe it would help my son fall asleep. Eventually, my son wandered over to the elevators and on to Beat Street, dragging the pillow behind him, so I bye to Kimi. About 4:00AM I noticed that the ship was stopped. I carried my son out to the promenade to check it out, but saw nothing. Then we walked to the other side and there was an island right there. We were supposed to be in the middle of the ocean. A bunch of yellow jumpsuit guys were standing there looking at the island. I asked one why we stopped and he said it was a medical emergency. Apparently, they diverted the ship to Grand Turk and launched a lifeboat to take someone to the hospital. The crewmembers were waiting for the lifeboat to return. We continued wandering the ship, checking outside once in awhile and eventually I heard a putt-putt sound and saw the life boat light. The lifeboat chugged right up and we watched them winch it up and out came a nurse with an empty stretcher. I looked over at my son and he was asleep – 5:15 AM
I was afraid to take our youngest son to the clinic. I had visions of them quarantining our whole cabin – our youngest son would go crazy and so would we. But after my all nighter I relented and wife took him down. The doctor said he had an ear infection and gave him a different antibiotic than the one he was already on. We emailed our pediatrician friend (wife is a doctor and has good connections ). He said with tubes our sons ears would be draining if they were infected. He said it was probably just a cold. But anyway, wife was impressed with the clinic and expected the bill to be more than the $115 they charged us. But best of all – no quarantine. Of course we kept him out of Flounders though.
The first day we signed our two oldest boys up for Oceaneers club and hung out for awhile. They seemed pretty impressed with the computers and had fun playing for awhile until our cabin was ready. So with high hopes we dropped them off the next day for “parachute play”. 45 minutes later we got the page – they were ready to go. That was the last of Oceaneers club. At the mere mention of it, oldest would start descending into tantrum land. I still don’t know why they didn’t like it. They go to the nursery at the YMCA and church every week and go to playschool twice a week. It seems like things would have been a lot easier if we could have convinced them to go – any tips out there for future cruises?
I don’t know why more cruisers don’t eat lunch in Luminieres. We tried Topsiders a couple times for lunch, but it seems like we had to go to several different locations to get everything everybody wants. With three kids to watch, that meant Mom watched the kids while dad got pizza at Pinocchio’s, and hit the drink machine while Grandma went to Plutos for chicken fingers and stopped at Goofy’s for fruit. Then mom and grandma went to Goofy’s for wraps and through the buffet line. When they returned, dad finally got a chance to go through the buffet line for himself. There is probably an easier process, but we couldn’t figure it out. And apart from the pizza, we didn’t think the food was that good on deck 9. So after a couple days of that, we just made the kids as presentable as we could and headed down to Luminieres every day for lunch. Wow, what a difference! No running around, the waiters do all the work for you! Every day it was almost empty. It seems like our waiters would only have about two tables to cover. The service was wonderful, better than dinner for us. We had many waiters throughout our week, and the previous ones would always recognize us and say hi to the kids. The food was great too – usually better than dinner for us. The fried calamari was the best I ever tasted. Mom had the herb crusted tilapia and said it was the best meal she had on board. The waiter said they don’t serve the tilapia for dinner. With all the running around necessary at the buffet, eating at Lumineres was actually faster for us and the waiters were always super quick to bring out the kids food first. One special moment was at lunch when we ordered our son a strawberry smoothie. The server asked our son if he wanted a cherry on top and our son said he loved cherries. Well, the smoothie came out with SEVEN cherries on top! Our sons mouth was hanging open and then he got a big ol’ smile on his face and got to work on those cherries.
Our family wasn’t too impressed with our server at dinner. He was professional I guess and got the food to us warm, but he didn’t seem very “magical” I think he really didn’t like our kids for some reason. We also could never make it to dinner right on time, we were always about 5 minutes late, so maybe that was messing him up. I really thought the early dinner would be 6PM, but we got the 5:30 slot, which was really tough to make. I mentioned how we woke up one son from his nap to go to dinner. We never did that again. We would just leave wife behind with the napper and order for her. She would arrive about the same time as the appetizers. Anyway, like I said, our server seemed pretty brusque and “put upon” with us. Our assistant server on the other hand was wonderful. She was so nice and personable. By the third day she would have the kid’s drinks ready and Mama Lu’s coffee cup on standby by the time we got to the table. Meanwhile, our server never did figure out that the kids like ketchup with their French fries, we always had to ask. The first thing I did when we got back from the cruise was to search for our server’s name. Well, he is Fitz from Jamaica and he got rave reviews. Everybody loved him and some wanted him for every cruise. Maybe he just had an off week. Our wonderful assistant server was Sara from Chile. It seemed like they didn’t work very well together – that’s just the impression I got. One thing that happened was one night Fitz backed up and bumped into Sara who was holding a chocolate smoothie on a tray. The smoothie went right into a boy’s lap. Sara was so apologetic, but Fitz looked like he was going to bite her head off. The boy and his family weren’t too upset – Sara and Fitz mopped him up with napkins and he went back to his cabin to change. Fitz had been kind of chilly before then, but after that it was a little uncomfortable even having him around.
I made it to a couple of the cooking demonstrations and they were pretty funny (I was the one following my youngest around the room while trying to listen to the presentation) I don’t know if it was seeing how it is cooked, or that they cook it in small batches, but the samples that they gave were delicious. We would order the exact same dish in the restaurant that night and it was never nearly as good.
I would highly recommend attending the family cabaret shows at 7:30. It was our kids’ favorite entertainment on the whole cruise. They let all the kids sit together in a big group on the floor in front of the stage so they are really close to the entertainers. Most of the performers really interacted well with the kids – it was sort of “I’m with you, kids – those grownups out there just aren’t cool like us” Rich Purpura was really good – the “best” magician in the world who does these hilarious magic tricks – then in the cabaret show he showed the kids how they are all done, which was a real treat. Then there was Jungle Jim – a ventriloquist who used animal puppets. After that, my middle son would keep asking at the Disney shows – “I want to see the gorilla again!” Then there was a juggling act, Wild and Haines. Their funniest bit was when one of them dropped a club and they had a big argument while juggling the other 5 clubs over who would pick it up. I was laughing harder than the kids for that one. The last was another magician, I forget his first name, but his last was Maggiaoli or something like that. He put on the best magic show I think I have ever seen. He came out to a techno dance track and for the first 5 minutes just did a barrage of tricks while dancing to the music – it was amazing. His hands kept lighting on fire, wands appeared out of nowhere and then turned into napkins, he made about 7 or 8 birdcages appear, and he turned himself into his assistant. It was just so non stop, with everything happening a mile a minute. He eventually slowed down and talked and did some more standard tricks. He cut a hole in a cardboard box and put it on his head, then made it move side to side like his head has disappeared. That was my 5 year old son’s favorite trick. He was discussing it with me in the bathroom after the show, saying, “I think he had a pretend head in that box” Then the magician comes in the same bathroom. I told him “I think my son may be on to your tricks, he thinks you use a pretend head” The magician laughed and said “That’s crazy talk – a pretend head – what are you talking about?!?” I was really looking forward to his act at the Till We Meet Again show, but it was nothing like his cabaret show. He did a few big tricks, one of which pretty much crashed and burned (the levitating woman trick – you could see one of the supports, his ring caught on the wire, and they dropped his assistant the last two inches when they were lowering her – he basically apologized to the audience after that one). There was none of the rapid fire showmanship that I enjoyed so much at the cabaret show.
Our middle son drinks strawberry flavored milk at almost every meal. So when the waiters would ask what he wanted to drink, he would say strawberry milk and be disappointed because they didn’t have it. A few times we got him a strawberry smoothie, but at $3.95 a pop, they add up fast. So if you or your kids have an unusual preference – strawberry Quik, Lucky Charms, Vegemite, etc, you might want to bring some along with you.
If you are a big coke drinker like us, you might want to plan your stateroom location based on its proximity to the aft port location of the drink machine on deck 9. We were on the complete opposite corner of the ship. This resulted in an approximately 1200 foot or quarter mile round trip for a drink, a circuit which we would complete about 8-10 times a day.
Rocking Bar D had Laphroaig Scotch, which wasn’t on the bar menu, at a reasonable $6.50 for a snifter.
If you sleep late or want to encourage the kids to sleep late or have an afternoon napper, bring a couple hair clips to completely seal the porthole/verandah curtain and shut out the harsh tropical rays.
I was a little disappointed we couldn’t order mickey waffles from room service – the kids made do with toast in the morning until we could get them hustled off to the restaurant. It seems like on our other cruise (HAL), you could pretty much order anything that was served in the restaurant to be delivered to your room, but Disney’s options were much more limited and the delivery time was pretty long, especially at peak times.
My parents really liked the coffee on board. We got the standard wine package – it was fun picking out a different wine each night. Our favorite was the Brancott Sauvignon Blanc – we got it twice.
Even if your kids don’t plan on going to the kids club, sign them up anyway and get the wristband. Both of our kids got lost on the ship during the cruise and the wristbands made it easy to get in contact with us as quick as possible.
Our server gave us the “excellence” speech, but it went completely over my head that he was referring to the comment cards, I thought he actually wanted our experience to be excellent – he got a “good” from us.
When our kids were playing in the Mickey pool, we just went ahead and sat on the “saved” chairs that had towels or shoes on them. We weren’t laying out, just sitting there watching the kids and we figured if anyone wanted their chairs back we would just move – usually nobody came back to claim their chair
My sons favorite things on the ship –
18 month old – riding the elevators and pressing the buttons
3 year old – playing on the bunk bed
almost 5 year old – Mickey pool
In conclusion, we had a fun trip and if parts of it weren’t fun, it wasn’t Disney’s fault, probably a combination of bad luck and poor parenting skills. Mama Lu and Pop Pop had a wonderful time and loved being with the kids. They weren’t sure they would like cruising, but now have decided to go on an Alaska cruise themselves, probably this summer. We will probably go on another cruise with the kids in a few years, but I don’t think it will be Disney. Our kids really weren’t that interested in the characters and the kid’s programs and the Disney shows, so for us I don’t think it is worth the price premium over the other lines. Now if they had a superhero cruise with Spiderman and Batman walking around the decks posing for pictures, that might be a whole different matter. We may try NCL next time. With their open dining, we wouldn’t be as tied to a schedule and would have more flexibility for nap times, etc. For us, maybe our kids were too young for a cruise this time. I think it will go a lot more smoothly when our kids are 7, 5, and almost 4.
If you made it all the way to the end, thanks for your time and feel free to add any comments or questions!
Oh yeah, I almost forgot, here's the Goofy:
