First-time Dis cruisers 1/31/09 Eastern w/phots, navs, menus-FINAL THOUGHTS 3/21

I too am enjoying your TR! :) Keep it coming... I would love to hear about your St Croix day and excursions as well!!!
 
Thanks for your trip report! I am also going on the 2/28 7-day Eastern so this is a lot of help.
Even though this is not my first cruise, it will be a first with my DD(3) and DS(1).

I was wondering if you had any advice about leaving your DD in the Oceaneer Club. My DD just turned 3 last month. I guess I'm just worried about leaving her around older kids (since she'll be one of the younger ones).
I'll be waiting for the rest of your TR!! :cool1:
Hi there - I'm so excited for you, and jealous at the same time. I want to go back NOW. :) We loved the club. Malia was 3 last August, but there were some children younger than her. The club splits children up by age group, so she was just with 3 and 4 year olds, most of the time. Sometimes, she was merged with the 5-7 year olds. But even when she was with her smaller group or the larger one, they often split up to enjoy different activities. For instance, on the last night when I went to get Malia, she was in the computer room playing dress up with other girls. Many other children were doing an activity with a counselor. They had a lot of counselors on hand too, who I really liked. There was one male counselor, Fabrice, who was great with Malia. But I also saw the counselors playing with the kids. They were very interactive. It was great. I'll post pictures of the club in one of my future posts. The counselors also are good about paging you if there is a problem or just if your children are tired and want to see you. I'm sure every child is great, but if yours are usually good with a babysitter or child care center or play groups, I would imagine they'd love it.


First of all, Welcome Back! I am really enjoying your TR so far. Your pictures are fantastic! I'm looking forward to hearing about your day on St. Croix, since I have been wondering what to do with DD5 and DS3 when we are there.

On our last cruise, a Western, we were in a room near 8014 -- that's a great part of the ship and the extra space in the room was awesome! I like your door magnets, and also a big *THANK YOU* for posting the Navigators. I look forward to more!
Thank you! We loved St. Croix and will tell you more later. But for your question about your children, I was also concerned ahead of time. Our fears were eased. The club opened earlier than usual so people could go on land or on excursions early. The pager didn't work when we were off the boat (except on Castaway Cay) but we were really near the boat and only gone for 3 1/2 hours. By that day, we'd spent two full days on board and we knew she loved it. I don't think she noticed we were gone. And the next day, when we went to St. Thomas, she said she wanted to go back to the club. We took her back and we left again to go shopping.


Great TR!! :banana: Anxious to see how your 3 yr. old liked the club.
She loved it! She wants to go back right now, and would if we let her. :cool1:

You ar doing a great job. Thank you you adding things I wanted to ask but thought I should not like how long is the boat drill.

YOu little girl is so cute. Believe me write down the cute things she says. I wish now I would have. I have a 9 and 6 year old and they say less and less cute things

I am so happy you got better. I was reading and saying to my self. this is us we are going to get sick. We are only 15 days away. We have two big things and then I think I am going to lock us in the house. Ok maybe I can't but i am thinking it:sad1:

I can not wait to hear about CC. We are also doing nassau but I do not think that you went there. I am so glad you are adding the navigators:yay:

I can not wait to see the menus. How did you get yours. I want them so bad also. I scrapbook:cool1:
Thanks. Don't worry too much about getting sick. I think the trick for us all getting over it was making sure we kept up on sleep and took our vitamin C. I never usually do that, but I figured if I got too tired, I would get really sick.
I'll continue posting navigators and menus for each day as I write about them. The way I got them was just by going to guest services and asking for a copy. They were great about it and made the copies right away. I also wanted them possibly for a scrapbook one day. Plus, I hoped they would be useful for those who haven't seen them yet, or for those looking to see if things have changed since their last trip.

Thanks for reading. I'll update more later.
 
We had dinner at Lumineer’s the first night. It was a pretty restaurant and we met our tablemates from New Jersey. I’ll be honest, we were most worried about who we would be seated with at dinner. When we went on Holland America the first time, we sat by ourselves. The second time, we sat with family members. This would be the first time we would sit with strangers all week.

Turns out there was nothing to worry about. We became fast friends. Our DDs became even faster friends. They really made our trip much more memorable and fun. In fact, we got a big laugh at the end of the first night when the husband of the other family told my husband that he had been concerned when he first sat down because he thought my husband had large hoop earrings in his ears. (It was the way the band that he wore around his neck to keep ahold of his sunglasses looked.) We all got a giggle out it.
The food on the other hand – well, it was just OK. In some cases, it was less than OK.

Day one menu
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That night, I had the shrimp medley, (which was pretty good,) I had the Boulllibaise soup, (which was ok but had only a couple pieces of seafood in it, but I didn’t expect much in the soup,) I had Coquilles St. Jacques, (which had scallops, mushrooms and shallots in white sauce. They were baked with mashed potatoes on top. I really like seafood, but it wasn’t good at all. I will say though that there was quite a bit of scallops in this dish.)

DH had the duck appetizer, (which was mostly an empty pie shell.) DH had tomato and basil soup, (which he really disliked because it was very salty, said it tasted like it was made using sea water). DH had the roasted beef tenderloin – (he said it was pretty good.)

DD had hamburger from the kid’s menu. She hardly touched it. She did, however, have some of the pasta from the plate of our 3-year-old tablemate. She seemed to like it. To be honest, though, she was just tired and not interested in sitting still for two hours. We skipped dessert that night.

OK, so I know we sound like complainers when it comes to meals. It gets better for food later on, when we figure out what we think the ship does best when it comes to food. Now, even this first night, it doesn’t mean that hubby goes hungry. We couldn’t let that happen. He went to Pluto’s Dog House and got a hotdog and hamburger. The hamburger was nothing special, but the hotdog was good – He would have quite a few more later in the trip. I had some of the fries, which were really good.

Now, about that forgotten birthday. No one actually forgot DH’s birthday. But the ship was going to give him a cake that night, when I had requested it. But they forgot. I felt a little bad for him, in part because I didn’t want him to think I forgot him. So I told him what was supposed to happen and told him we’d probably get a cake later in the week. No big deal.

Before we went snacking, we went by the club with DD. She asked if she could stay for a little bit, which we said was fine. We went exploring and then went back to get her about an hour later. I actually went to get her, while DH went back to the room. So didn’t know the club had paged us. So when I showed up, I was in shock when they told me DD had an accident. Now she’s been potty trained since just after Christmas 2007. She hasn’t even used pull-ups at night for about 10 months. But the counselors were really nice about it. They said she was just excited. DD wasn’t phased at all. But she was fine about leaving the club that night.

The Oceaneers Club for 3-4 year olds, though sometimes also older children
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I think we had an elephant towel animal that night, but we didn’t get a picture. We were all just so tired.

Before we went to bed, we filled out the breakfast menu for 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. the next day. I know we got coffee and chocolate milk for DD (she lived on the chocolate milk that week. She will have a tough time adjusting to white milk again.) I know I also got croissants, which were pretty good and staple for me most of the week. We loved doing room service every morning, so we didn’t have to rush out of our room. If we were still hungry, we went to a restaurant later in the morning.

Room service breakfast menu
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We were probably asleep by about 10 p.m. – all of us.

UP NEXT: A birthday remembered, our first seat day, a visit with some more favorite characters.
 
You are doing a great job with the trip report!!! Looks like a few menu items have changed.. but thank goodness I still see my Creme' Brulee!!!

I had to laugh when you mentioned the large shrimp at the embarkation buffet... I live for that stuff!! See my tag? :wizard: The Tag Fairy knows I am a shrimp addict! One cruise they didn't have the shrimp in Parrot Cay and I almost fainted! :scared1: I think the Tag Fairy must have been on that cruise... ;) I found it later on up at Topsiders thank goodness!!!! Now I check the line before I sit down to make SURE it's there!!

Keep up the great report... Thanks for the navigators and menu and movie schedule especially.. we're looking forward to seeing Bolt! popcorn::
 

We loved ordering the continental breakfast at 7 every morning. We would order orange juice, a pot of coffee and some pastries. They always insisted on taking it out to the balcony, so I would open the door, tip him, climb back into bed for another 20 minutes and then we would go and have our coffee,etc on the balcony. Great trip report. Keep it up and Thanks for helping me relieve our cruise again.
 
Wonderful report!! You got on the day we got off. Yes, it was COLD!! I'm so glad you are posting menus so now I can try to remember what we ate! Looking forward to more.
 
Thanks for sharing your trip with us! I am also on the Feb. 28th sailing to St. Croix. Through your memories, you are creating more excitement for us with cruises coming up! Thanks again!
 
We went on this cruise. Trying to figure out if we should book the 3 day for 99.00 or go to the longer one. anyone have any suggestions it seems llike such a good deal to pass up? What is the Disney Vacation club is it really expensive? Missing the weather from the cruise it doesnt seem so bad now. :surfweb:
 
We went on this cruise. Trying to figure out if we should book the 3 day for 99.00 or go to the longer one. anyone have any suggestions it seems llike such a good deal to pass up? What is the Disney Vacation club is it really expensive? Missing the weather from the cruise it doesnt seem so bad now. :surfweb:

We're planning to book the 3-day for $99 a person later this year. It's worth it for us. We live close, so we don't have travel costs. But for those who do, I can understand it might not be as easy of a choice. We were thinking of making ours a longer trip with a stay at WDW before the cruise. But I agree that $99 a person seems like too a good to pass up. When we searched the cost of an August 3-night cruise for our family it would be like $3,300 for the same category 4 (not considering if we got a Florida resident discount.) Plus, we'd just love to go another cruise. And if we're able, we'd like to do another cruise next year. We're addicted now! :)

I'm only a little familiar with the Disney Vacation Club. I know the disboards has a whole section on it, that I'm sure would be helpful. It's essentially Disney's version of a timeshare. If we ever did a timeshare, I think we'd do DVC. But it is a bit pricey for us right now.
 
We went on this cruise. Trying to figure out if we should book the 3 day for 99.00 or go to the longer one. anyone have any suggestions it seems llike such a good deal to pass up? What is the Disney Vacation club is it really expensive? Missing the weather from the cruise it doesnt seem so bad now. :surfweb:

We are going to try and take advantage of the $99 per person 3 nighter! We offered to take my mother-in-law with us. My DH and I had a Cat. 6 booked and there will be plenty of room in our cabin for her. She's never been to Florida and never been on a cruise! It would be a group of 9 of us and we're planning on 1 to 4 nights in WDW pre-cruise. Some of us shorter than others. I'm hoping she decides to go! Me and DH have never seen the Wonder and it's got the new Toy Story Musical on it! I don't know anywhere you can go for only $99 that includes three nights accommodations, entertainment AND awesome food! Anyone that CAN go... should book it!!!!!!!!! :rotfl:
 
Awesome trip report and it is certainly getting everyone in our family fired up to go on April 4th. Thanks for the pictures of the Oceaneer Club. I showed them to my ds (5) this morning and now he is even more excited which I did not think was humanly possible.

Looking forward to the the rest of the report and I am glad that you had such a great time. Thanks.
 
Talked to my DH and we definetely gonna book. Dont know if we will try to do DW before. My daughter is so sick she got sick Friday and still isnt feeling good at all just sleeps. Takin her back to the dr today. I do hope that whoever got takin by helicopter is ok.
 
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Thanks. Don't worry too much about getting sick. I think the trick for us all getting over it was making sure we kept up on sleep and took our vitamin C. I never usually do that, but I figured if I got too tired, I would get really sick.
I'll continue posting navigators and menus for each day as I write about them. The way I got them was just by going to guest services and asking for a copy. They were great about it and made the copies right away. I also wanted them possibly for a scrapbook one day. Plus, I hoped they would be useful for those who haven't seen them yet, or for those looking to see if things have changed since their last trip.

Thanks for reading. I'll update more later.[/QUOTE]


I did not know you could ask a guest service. You are so smart.:woohoo: Thank you for that.:thumbsup2

I will have to buy us some vitamin c.:cheer2:

Thank you for doing all of this for us that have not been. We just love looking at the navigators and menus and to know what you thought. You are doing a great job. Can not wait to read morepopcorn::
 
Talked to my DH and we definetely gonna book. Dont know if we will try to do DW before. My daughter is so sick she got sick Friday and still isnt feeling good at all just sleeps. Takin her back to the dr today. I do hope that whoever got takin by helicopter is ok.

I'm so excited for you! That's fantastic about the trip. But I'm really sorry to hear your daughter is sick. I hope she gets better soon. I know it's a horrible feeling when our little ones don't feel well.

And I also read about the helicopter on Castaway Cay. I haven't heard yet what happened, but I hope eveything is OK for that family.

I'm hoping to post the next day tonight or tomorrow. I loved reading everyone's reports before we went on our trip. It helped me prepare so much. I'm glad to be able to add my little part, and it's a fun way to remember our trip. Thanks again for reading everyone!
 
So we started our first full day on the Disney Magic with roomservice in bed. We think we set it for 8 a.m., hoping our DD would sleep in. She was up around 7 a.m. But regardless, she watched television and enjoyed staying in the room for a while, and decided what to do that day.

NAVIGATORS
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We enjoyed our room service, which included a donut for dd (it’s vacation, so why not) but it was incredibly dry and bad. She didn’t even finish it. I had croissants, which I thought were pretty good. DH got an English muffin, which was fine – even still warm when they got there.

** One side note here - The day after our return, we let our daughter have a donut at home. She told me she was starting to feel sick (which she commonly likes to say for extra attention nowadays) so I said, OK, well give me your donut then. She said, "I'll finish my donut and then I'll be sick." :rotfl2: Needless to say, she never got sick, but we got a good laugh.

Now the way breakfast works is you can order it when you get up, or you can order off a menu that you put outside the door before 3 a.m. We did that every night.

The only real complaint of breakfast was the coffee. As I’ve read many times on the disboards, it was just not good. We’re not overly picky people when it comes to coffee (though right now, I think I’m sounding pretty picky :) and though we enjoy a Starbucks on occasion, we usually just make our own coffee at home. But it just wasn’t good. We later tried the Cove Café. DH got a cappuccino and I got a café moca. It was better coffee than room service, but not so great that we needed to spend money on coffee. Instead, we hit the first Starbucks we could find when we got off the ship at the end of the cruise.

After our light breakfast, DD said she was full (again, she wasn’t eating much, which is not like her, but she was excited) She asked to go back to the club to play. No problem, off we went.

So DH and I went to enjoy brunch at Lumineers (we took the idea to heart of eating several small meals a day rather than three large ones. The only problem is the small meals weren’t always so small. But we certainly enjoyed ourselves.

DH ordered a ham and cheese omelet, well done. It came out a little runny and without ham. I had eggs and bacon. The bacon was less than appetizing. The eggs were also runny. It also came with sausage, which was pretty good.
We decided to just get more from room service each morning after that experience. But we did have breakfast on a couple of other occasions later.
Then after some exploring and shopping in the shops, DD had us paged. The page said she was tired.

So we went to get her, took her back for room service (another cheese platter and I think a hotdog). We spent the afternoon shopping and exploring. She spent more time at the club.

Now we would normally have formal night apparently on the Sunday, but in this case, it was Super Bowl. So formal night was moved to Monday. It was casual night, in Animators Palate. (There was also no show, but Bolt was playing instead. We had already seen it, so we skipped the movie.)

MENU
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I had the seafood wrapper (which wasn't great) the salmon and goat cheese salad (which also wasn't very good) and the salmon entree (which I really liked)

DH had the mushroom appetizer (which he liked) the veal entree (which was pretty good) and the sirloin (which he said was OK)

DD had a hotdog, which wasn't on the menu, but our server was nice enough to get it from roomservice.

After a while, the girls wanted to go the club and one of our tablemates wasn’t feeling well because of all the motion (surprisingly, the motion never bothered me. But I definitely felt it.) So my DH and the mom of the other 3-year-old took the girls to the club and then the mom went back to her room. Soon after the husband left to see the Super Bowl. So my husband and I finished our dinner alone. Our server brought the cake out tonight and the servers sang to him. The cake was really good and moist. And the servers were nice.

Toney was our main server. He was very nice, quick to get stuff, knew his menus very well and great with the girls. Our assistant server was also very nice, but might have been newer. He was a little slow to remember what we liked (ice tea every night, never asked for anything different) But he was very friendly.

After dinner we got some pictures. Now this is another example of what Disney does well. First, the characters were always great with the children. They took their time and let the “handlers” help move people through the time. After doing some pictures, we tried to get one with Mickey and Minnie together. But when we got to the area, the handler said the line was closed.
We obviously looked disappointed, so she told us to stand in a certain area and she would be sure to take Mickey and Minnie that way and our DD could say hello then. Well, not only did they say hello, they took her hand and walked a while with her. It was adorable. I just thought it was also very thoughtful and we appreciated that kind of detail.

Mickey and Minnie photos
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The only slightly bad part about the character pictures are the lines - though they moved pretty fast. Still, I heard some people complain about waiting in line while on vacation. I can completely understand that, but I’ve tried to think of alternatives and haven’t come up with a great idea. We were just glad DD got to see so many of her favorite characters. She’s still talking about it.

Now, I wish we could say we bought a ton of photos. But we didn’t. Not Shutters fault – It’s more that our DD is going through what I call the “cheesy” phase. When someone says smile, she puts on the fakest smile ever. It’s amusing, but not great for pictures. We finally got around it later when I told her to laugh instead. She didn’t always keep still, but at least she didn’t look like she was faking a smile and posing so much. But I didn’t figure that out on this day, so not many pictures that we’re planning to frame.

Since she loves Cinderella, we did get that picture with a pretty natural smile (We got a few others later in the week and I'll post them on those days)
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I think our daughter went back to the club for just a little bit that night. But if she did, not long. Instead, we let her watch some tv, which she still considers a special treat.

TV SCHEDULE
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Up Next: Another Day at Sea, Our Character Breakfast, Formal Night and that mortifying moment we experienced courtesy of our adorable daughter.
 
Aweseome report! You are making these last 2 waiting weeks fly by!!

Looking forward to your St Croix day too!

Your daughter is adorable and how lucky to be able to go for a stroll with both Mickey and Minnie!! And a KISS!! WOW!

Thanks again!
 
"I'll finish my donut and then I'll be sick" LOL! She is too cute. You know, the donuts on the ship always do seem stale to me. I think they freeze them and then defrost them.

I loved the Cinderella picture! And what a lucky little girl to walk with Mickey and Minnie. You are really making me even more excited for our own cruise in just over 2 weeks! Also, thanks for scanning the in-room movie list.

We are also going to do a cake for DD's birthday in the dining room. Glad to hear that it is good.

Looking forward to more!
 
Great trip report, although, reading it makes me so much more anxious about our cruise, that I almost can't stand it.

Your dd is beautiful.
 


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