Even the Best Plan Can Go......................
- Thread starter drag n' fly
- Start date
drag n' fly
Sassy, salty and sweet....
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2006
- Messages
- 6,574
Day 8 Christmas Day
It was overcast and quite windy on Christmas day in Nassau. Sometimes that be good weather however if you are doing non-water excursions. The kids had opened their presents at home and just opened their stockings on the ship. We were told Santa was going to be on the ship so we had told ds6 he could see Santa there......well it wasnt Santa it was Santa Goofy and he was taking pics and handing out calendars to all the kids. We had to do a little fancy explaining to ds6 why the real Santa was not there like we told him.
Did BBB for brekkie. It was pretty good but could definitely use a larger selection. We met in Wavebands for our Discover Atlantis tour. This is just a walking tour of Atlantis. I was happy to get off the boat and onto dry land. We all followed the Atlantis guide to the pick up point where the tour buses were parked. There were 2 tour buses. Those with strollers boarded first and the rest after.
It was time for our family of five to board and guess what.......... yup both buses were completely filled and there was no room left. While the entire group wheeled off to Atlantis on their tour we were left standing on the side of the road. Dh finally says, are you planning to get someone to pick us up? She says yes I am trying right now it shouldnt take more than a few minutes. Ok cool.....
Well 25 minutes later we are still standing at the side of the road no bus.
Finally 30 minutes after the first bus left a bus came to get us to take us to the resort.
The tour guide was really good and very informative. He dropped us at Atlantis and our group of course was nowhere to be seen. Out of nowhere an Atlantis employee approaches us and asks us if we would like to see the resort on our own or have a guided tour. We opted for the guided tour. Are we ever glad we did. We got a very knowledgeable guide name Avril. She explained the whole resort to us in detail. Well worth the guided tour!
Now we had notified Visa we were leaving the country but sure enough as soon as we tried to pay for our stuff our Visa wouldnt work. We later found out they had froze our Visa due to suspicious activity in the Bahamas! DOH! Dh had left his MasterCard on the ship fortunately I had mine. They told us to bring no US cash to Atlantis so we had none on us. We sure learned a lesson there. We paid for our souvenirs and jumped back on the waiting shuttle to the boat.
Got some food on deck 9. Best hotdog I have ever eaten in my life. I believe this was the night dd12 and I went to see Toy Story Musical. Very well done!
Tonight we had dinner in Animators Palette without the colours. It was a Christmas menu. I was smart and took Gravol as soon as I got back on the boat. I ordered the ham. Again the drinks took almost 20 minutes and the food was lukewarm and the ham had the texture of silly putty. Another disappointing meal. The food is better on deck 9 than it is in the dining rooms.
We headed back to our cabins. Tomorrow was our sea day.
Day 9 Sea Day
It was a lovely day! I discovered the higher up I am the less nauseous I am. As long as I am looking over the water I am ok. No amount of reading was to prepare me for sea day on a Disney ship. It was absolute chaos.....beyond belief chaos. The noise level was volume 10. Dh and I had a 1200 brunch at Palo. To me this is the quality of food they should be serving on the ship in the dining rooms considering the prices they are charging! We had afternoon spa appointment but my bff Mr. Seasick arrived again and I slept for three hours after brunch.
Dinner was at Animators Palette again this time with colour. I decided to try something different. I ordered off the vegetarian menu just to see if my meal would arrive hot. Sure enough it was freshly prepared and hot! The vegetables were way overcooked but at least it was hot. The dining room manager came around and asked us if we had any concerns. I decided at this point I was not going to say anything about our drink server. Some of his attitude was mainly due to cultural differences. I did notice by this night however drink service was speedy so she must have been on him.
It also happened to be pirate night. Nice show. They had a buffet after but it sure didnt last long. We got back to our cabin and dh realized his lanyard was missing. Somehow his DVC lanyard came undone. It had his KTTW with charging privileges and his MasterCard in it. BTW that would be the third time DH had lost his KTTW card on the ship. So now we have a frozen credit card, a lost credit card and only 200US dollars between the 2 of us. Fortunately I still had my MasterCard but that was our last lifeline.....sheesh Live and learn eh! Dh cancelled everything and came back to the cabin.
We began the slow process of organization and packing. Tomorrow was Castaway cay Day and we wanted to not have to rush back and begin packing so we did most of it this evening.
Day 10 Castaway Cay
We slept in and ate brekkie at 9:30 we were off the ship by 10. We found five chairs together by the Gils and decided to stay there the whole day. It was the most perfect day ever. The weather was hot, lovely breeze....ahhh finally relaxation.
Lunch at Cookies was excellent! WE did the Stingray Adventure after lunch. The kids really enjoyed this! We spent the afternoon snorkelling and lying in the sun.
Dh and I did the Exotic Rasul after boarding. Oh man it was so great after a long hot day in the sun!
Tonight dinner was in Parrot Cay. This was the best dinner of the whole trip. The food was hot and very nicely prepared. Our drink server was totally on the ball it was all good!
We went back to the cabin and rushed packing even though we had started the night before. Our stateroom attendant took our luggage at 11:09pm we just made the cut...whew!
Day 11 Home
Debarkation was breeze!
Notes for those who care (disclaimer: remember this is my opinion only)
-I havent decided if I hate cruising or cruising with Disney. I am willing to give it one more chance with RCCL only though. This was my first cruise I had nothing to compare it to.
-The pools are far too small to accommodate the amount of people on that ship. Lobster tank it is.
-I dont know what kind of cleaner they use but everything was sticky on Deck 9. The doors, the railings etc!
-The noise darn near drove me insane. Even going to the adult area you could still hear it. I felt like I was trapped on a box in the middle of nowhere with too many noisy people.
-Constant white noise. It was everywhere. There was not one place I could go on this ship and not hear noise of some kind.
-Peter as charming as you are you also got on my nerves. He shouted everything he said. The only time I saw him use a normal voice was when I watched him on tv.
-My oldest ds14 did not like the kids club he said it was boring. DD12 only used the kids club maybe 40% of the time. There was no one her age they were all around age 10. Ds6 LOVED the kids club! We could not keep him out of the place.
- For the price I expected way better food in the dining rooms. As I said previously the food was fresher on deck 9.
-I hate dressing for dinner. It was a huge waste of our time. The meals drug on for far too long. If the buffet was not so small with such limited choices and closed half the time I would have been happy eating there every night.
Day 11 cont...
We flew into Tampa but were flying out of Orlando. I woke up with what looked like a very huge red and severely itchy rash. I thought maybe I had an allergic reaction to one of the spa products. I took some Benadryl. It got worse and worse until my whole torso was covered with hundreds of welts that were worse than mosquito bites. We flew from Orlando to Chicago and Chicago to Calgary. By the time I was halfway to Chicago I was in agony. The itching was so severe I was going bonkers. I took more Benadryl. We were probably three quarters the way to Calgary when the pilot announced we may not have clearance to land in Calgary due to weather. Forty five minutes later he came on again and said he did not have clearance to land due to fog and that we may have to fly to Spokane. After a 12 hour day we were looking at more flying....crap. I sure wished I had paid that extra 39 dollars for legroom now. He said he had to get a half mile visibility before he could land and would wait until we got close to Calgary. We I swear I couldnt see more than 50 feet out and he landed that plane.....WOOT we were finally home and it was cold as H E hockey sticks. I was never so happy to see snow in my life! My back was covered in welts I just wanted to strip and lay in the snow! YAY The adventure was officially over......or was it.?????????.....of course not that would be far too easy. Well we waited and waited and waited and almost an hour after we land they finally start moving the luggage down the chute. We waited and waited and waited.....wouldnt you know!!!! Not only did United lose our luggage on the way down folks but they managed to lose it on the way back also!!!!! I kid you not. We filled out the papers for the missing luggage and headed out to where the taxis where.
Now before we left we decided to drop our vehicle off at the dealership to get some warranty work done. Since we wouldnt have a vehicle to get home from the airport they gave us whats called taxi chits. These can be used to get a taxi from the airport home for free. Well the guy on the sidewalk calls us a taxi. Well between all the luggage and people we needed 2 of them. Dh hands me my chit and I go with two of the kids and some luggage. He goes with the rest of the luggage and the other kid in another taxi. We drive about thirty feet and I hand the chit to the taxi driver. Well he slams on the brakes and shouts at me in barely audible English over his blaring Islamic rap music. GET OUT This chit is not good. Pay with cash or you get our here and now. Kids suitcases freezing cold and snow he didnt care. All we had was US cash and Dh had it in the other taxi. I quickly call him on the cell and explain. Well apparently somehow the middle copy of the chit fell out at some point and was no good. The other 2 chits were in a suitcase somewhere. The taxi that dh was in pulls sideways in front of our taxi. Dh storms out and ...talks to the guy. Our only remaining CC was in one of the carry-ons but we didnt know which taxi it was in. He agrees to take us home and Dh finds another chit and pays the guy. The morons did not even help us with our luggage and dumped it in the snow in front of the house in our driveway.
WE WERE HOME WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Closing:
A lot challenged us on this trip. We have learned a few lessons for sure. I am hoping some of my fellow cruisers who were on my cruise thread will take mercy on me and be willing to donate some pics taken on the cruise at least so we can have some nice memories of our trip.
P.S Oh ya....that rash I have and still have a week later. Well if you have ever heard of sea lice then you know what it is. If you dont....just Google it. Even my beach day in paradise got the best of me. I am now going to go and hide under my flannelette sheets and vow not to travel anywhere for 2009!
P. S. S. The luggage finally showed up 2 days after we got home.
THE END!
It was overcast and quite windy on Christmas day in Nassau. Sometimes that be good weather however if you are doing non-water excursions. The kids had opened their presents at home and just opened their stockings on the ship. We were told Santa was going to be on the ship so we had told ds6 he could see Santa there......well it wasnt Santa it was Santa Goofy and he was taking pics and handing out calendars to all the kids. We had to do a little fancy explaining to ds6 why the real Santa was not there like we told him.
Did BBB for brekkie. It was pretty good but could definitely use a larger selection. We met in Wavebands for our Discover Atlantis tour. This is just a walking tour of Atlantis. I was happy to get off the boat and onto dry land. We all followed the Atlantis guide to the pick up point where the tour buses were parked. There were 2 tour buses. Those with strollers boarded first and the rest after.
It was time for our family of five to board and guess what.......... yup both buses were completely filled and there was no room left. While the entire group wheeled off to Atlantis on their tour we were left standing on the side of the road. Dh finally says, are you planning to get someone to pick us up? She says yes I am trying right now it shouldnt take more than a few minutes. Ok cool.....
Well 25 minutes later we are still standing at the side of the road no bus.
Finally 30 minutes after the first bus left a bus came to get us to take us to the resort.
The tour guide was really good and very informative. He dropped us at Atlantis and our group of course was nowhere to be seen. Out of nowhere an Atlantis employee approaches us and asks us if we would like to see the resort on our own or have a guided tour. We opted for the guided tour. Are we ever glad we did. We got a very knowledgeable guide name Avril. She explained the whole resort to us in detail. Well worth the guided tour!
Now we had notified Visa we were leaving the country but sure enough as soon as we tried to pay for our stuff our Visa wouldnt work. We later found out they had froze our Visa due to suspicious activity in the Bahamas! DOH! Dh had left his MasterCard on the ship fortunately I had mine. They told us to bring no US cash to Atlantis so we had none on us. We sure learned a lesson there. We paid for our souvenirs and jumped back on the waiting shuttle to the boat.
Got some food on deck 9. Best hotdog I have ever eaten in my life. I believe this was the night dd12 and I went to see Toy Story Musical. Very well done!
Tonight we had dinner in Animators Palette without the colours. It was a Christmas menu. I was smart and took Gravol as soon as I got back on the boat. I ordered the ham. Again the drinks took almost 20 minutes and the food was lukewarm and the ham had the texture of silly putty. Another disappointing meal. The food is better on deck 9 than it is in the dining rooms.
We headed back to our cabins. Tomorrow was our sea day.
Day 9 Sea Day
It was a lovely day! I discovered the higher up I am the less nauseous I am. As long as I am looking over the water I am ok. No amount of reading was to prepare me for sea day on a Disney ship. It was absolute chaos.....beyond belief chaos. The noise level was volume 10. Dh and I had a 1200 brunch at Palo. To me this is the quality of food they should be serving on the ship in the dining rooms considering the prices they are charging! We had afternoon spa appointment but my bff Mr. Seasick arrived again and I slept for three hours after brunch.
Dinner was at Animators Palette again this time with colour. I decided to try something different. I ordered off the vegetarian menu just to see if my meal would arrive hot. Sure enough it was freshly prepared and hot! The vegetables were way overcooked but at least it was hot. The dining room manager came around and asked us if we had any concerns. I decided at this point I was not going to say anything about our drink server. Some of his attitude was mainly due to cultural differences. I did notice by this night however drink service was speedy so she must have been on him.
It also happened to be pirate night. Nice show. They had a buffet after but it sure didnt last long. We got back to our cabin and dh realized his lanyard was missing. Somehow his DVC lanyard came undone. It had his KTTW with charging privileges and his MasterCard in it. BTW that would be the third time DH had lost his KTTW card on the ship. So now we have a frozen credit card, a lost credit card and only 200US dollars between the 2 of us. Fortunately I still had my MasterCard but that was our last lifeline.....sheesh Live and learn eh! Dh cancelled everything and came back to the cabin.
We began the slow process of organization and packing. Tomorrow was Castaway cay Day and we wanted to not have to rush back and begin packing so we did most of it this evening.
Day 10 Castaway Cay
We slept in and ate brekkie at 9:30 we were off the ship by 10. We found five chairs together by the Gils and decided to stay there the whole day. It was the most perfect day ever. The weather was hot, lovely breeze....ahhh finally relaxation.
Lunch at Cookies was excellent! WE did the Stingray Adventure after lunch. The kids really enjoyed this! We spent the afternoon snorkelling and lying in the sun.
Dh and I did the Exotic Rasul after boarding. Oh man it was so great after a long hot day in the sun!
Tonight dinner was in Parrot Cay. This was the best dinner of the whole trip. The food was hot and very nicely prepared. Our drink server was totally on the ball it was all good!
We went back to the cabin and rushed packing even though we had started the night before. Our stateroom attendant took our luggage at 11:09pm we just made the cut...whew!
Day 11 Home
Debarkation was breeze!
Notes for those who care (disclaimer: remember this is my opinion only)
-I havent decided if I hate cruising or cruising with Disney. I am willing to give it one more chance with RCCL only though. This was my first cruise I had nothing to compare it to.
-The pools are far too small to accommodate the amount of people on that ship. Lobster tank it is.
-I dont know what kind of cleaner they use but everything was sticky on Deck 9. The doors, the railings etc!
-The noise darn near drove me insane. Even going to the adult area you could still hear it. I felt like I was trapped on a box in the middle of nowhere with too many noisy people.
-Constant white noise. It was everywhere. There was not one place I could go on this ship and not hear noise of some kind.
-Peter as charming as you are you also got on my nerves. He shouted everything he said. The only time I saw him use a normal voice was when I watched him on tv.
-My oldest ds14 did not like the kids club he said it was boring. DD12 only used the kids club maybe 40% of the time. There was no one her age they were all around age 10. Ds6 LOVED the kids club! We could not keep him out of the place.
- For the price I expected way better food in the dining rooms. As I said previously the food was fresher on deck 9.
-I hate dressing for dinner. It was a huge waste of our time. The meals drug on for far too long. If the buffet was not so small with such limited choices and closed half the time I would have been happy eating there every night.
Day 11 cont...
We flew into Tampa but were flying out of Orlando. I woke up with what looked like a very huge red and severely itchy rash. I thought maybe I had an allergic reaction to one of the spa products. I took some Benadryl. It got worse and worse until my whole torso was covered with hundreds of welts that were worse than mosquito bites. We flew from Orlando to Chicago and Chicago to Calgary. By the time I was halfway to Chicago I was in agony. The itching was so severe I was going bonkers. I took more Benadryl. We were probably three quarters the way to Calgary when the pilot announced we may not have clearance to land in Calgary due to weather. Forty five minutes later he came on again and said he did not have clearance to land due to fog and that we may have to fly to Spokane. After a 12 hour day we were looking at more flying....crap. I sure wished I had paid that extra 39 dollars for legroom now. He said he had to get a half mile visibility before he could land and would wait until we got close to Calgary. We I swear I couldnt see more than 50 feet out and he landed that plane.....WOOT we were finally home and it was cold as H E hockey sticks. I was never so happy to see snow in my life! My back was covered in welts I just wanted to strip and lay in the snow! YAY The adventure was officially over......or was it.?????????.....of course not that would be far too easy. Well we waited and waited and waited and almost an hour after we land they finally start moving the luggage down the chute. We waited and waited and waited.....wouldnt you know!!!! Not only did United lose our luggage on the way down folks but they managed to lose it on the way back also!!!!! I kid you not. We filled out the papers for the missing luggage and headed out to where the taxis where.
Now before we left we decided to drop our vehicle off at the dealership to get some warranty work done. Since we wouldnt have a vehicle to get home from the airport they gave us whats called taxi chits. These can be used to get a taxi from the airport home for free. Well the guy on the sidewalk calls us a taxi. Well between all the luggage and people we needed 2 of them. Dh hands me my chit and I go with two of the kids and some luggage. He goes with the rest of the luggage and the other kid in another taxi. We drive about thirty feet and I hand the chit to the taxi driver. Well he slams on the brakes and shouts at me in barely audible English over his blaring Islamic rap music. GET OUT This chit is not good. Pay with cash or you get our here and now. Kids suitcases freezing cold and snow he didnt care. All we had was US cash and Dh had it in the other taxi. I quickly call him on the cell and explain. Well apparently somehow the middle copy of the chit fell out at some point and was no good. The other 2 chits were in a suitcase somewhere. The taxi that dh was in pulls sideways in front of our taxi. Dh storms out and ...talks to the guy. Our only remaining CC was in one of the carry-ons but we didnt know which taxi it was in. He agrees to take us home and Dh finds another chit and pays the guy. The morons did not even help us with our luggage and dumped it in the snow in front of the house in our driveway.
WE WERE HOME WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Closing:
A lot challenged us on this trip. We have learned a few lessons for sure. I am hoping some of my fellow cruisers who were on my cruise thread will take mercy on me and be willing to donate some pics taken on the cruise at least so we can have some nice memories of our trip.
P.S Oh ya....that rash I have and still have a week later. Well if you have ever heard of sea lice then you know what it is. If you dont....just Google it. Even my beach day in paradise got the best of me. I am now going to go and hide under my flannelette sheets and vow not to travel anywhere for 2009!
P. S. S. The luggage finally showed up 2 days after we got home.
THE END!
winkers
<font color=blue>I was stuck in that position and
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2006
- Messages
- 9,078
I'll spare you my corny coment about driving so far you ended up in Russia.
I enjoyed your report!
Unfortunatley I know all to well about vacations not going as planned!
DisneyMama27
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 1, 2006
- Messages
- 469
Thanks for making me laugh, Annette! You guys were troopers to survive all that! Makes me REALLY sorry I didn't meet you - would have been glad to take pictures for you all!I agreed about Parrot Cay - we liked that night best too. Our food was never cold, and I liked my meals every night, but DH had overcooked steak and our server was a little too focused on getting a good review.
Maybe we'll see you guys at AKV one day!
Shari
adrianna_sarah
Mother of two curious little monkeys!
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2005
- Messages
- 648
Wow, girl! Were we on the same cruise? Sorry about the mishaps. Better luck on your next vacation and thanks for sharing.
Annette, you definitely drank more than I did. I was always afraid I was going to get sick.
Your TR certainly made me laugh.....and cry and feel sympathy for you. I would have jumped overboard with most of the stuff that was going on for you. I would give DCL another shot if you can. We had a great time. DS11 had a great time in the lab and being able to do his own stuff. I think Aloft was a bit cliquey but I'm glad DD found some companions. Our food was always hot too. I guess you just got a bad team. I think we liked Triton's the best. We had the same rotation and same dining time. We were table 24. Too bad we never saw each other.
What did you find out about the camera? I'll be more than happy to share my pictures with you. Let me get them posted....preferably this weekend....and I will send you a link. I'm planning on doing them on flickr so I can play them on our tv.
Your TR certainly made me laugh.....and cry and feel sympathy for you. I would have jumped overboard with most of the stuff that was going on for you. I would give DCL another shot if you can. We had a great time. DS11 had a great time in the lab and being able to do his own stuff. I think Aloft was a bit cliquey but I'm glad DD found some companions. Our food was always hot too. I guess you just got a bad team. I think we liked Triton's the best. We had the same rotation and same dining time. We were table 24. Too bad we never saw each other.
What did you find out about the camera? I'll be more than happy to share my pictures with you. Let me get them posted....preferably this weekend....and I will send you a link. I'm planning on doing them on flickr so I can play them on our tv.
drag n' fly
Sassy, salty and sweet....
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2006
- Messages
- 6,574
No camera....
I am very fluey from all the sea lice stings........
Thanks to all my fellow cruisers who offered pics
A VERY special thanks to our SECRET Santa on the ship. I don't know who you were but we really enjoyed all the little surprises!!!!! 
Courtney....next time I am in Texas.....well put on the coffee doll I will be dropping by!
I am very fluey from all the sea lice stings........
Thanks to all my fellow cruisers who offered pics
A VERY special thanks to our SECRET Santa on the ship. I don't know who you were but we really enjoyed all the little surprises!!!!!
Courtney....next time I am in Texas.....well put on the coffee doll I will be dropping by!
brendalee59
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2006
- Messages
- 718
Annette, all I can say is wow! You guys certainly handled all this better than we would have. I also am sorry that on top of everything else, you were seasick. Gee, I must really be a seasoned sailer as I thought the ship was barely moving the first night. Actually, I thought it was the smoothest cruise we have ever been on. I have to agree, Parrot Cay was also our best meal of the cruise. I am so very sorry for everything you guys went through,but esp the loss of your camera. You are welcome to the few pictures we took. We were too busy making sure we got our money's worth out of that midship cat 3 to go out and take many pics
I wish we had been able to meet you. Maybe one of these days we will meet on a RCCL cruise.
I wish we had been able to meet you. Maybe one of these days we will meet on a RCCL cruise. 
Beep
My heart and soul live in Florida!
- Joined
- May 30, 2007
- Messages
- 1,745
I felt so sorry for you all reading this, but it was brilliant! One of the most entertaining things I have read in ages 
I hope you feel better soon. I have no idea what sea lice are and not sure I want to Gogle it to be honest but it doesn't sound pleasant.
Take care
I hope you feel better soon. I have no idea what sea lice are and not sure I want to Gogle it to be honest but it doesn't sound pleasant.
Take care
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