Grendel
Where ever you go, there you are.
- Joined
- Nov 6, 2003
- Messages
- 680
If you want to read the pre-cruise part to the report go here..
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=564316
Finally!! A cruise trip report that is actually going to talk about the cruise! Would you be happy if I just said we got on the boat had a good time and went home? Just kidding
This is part 3 of a 9 part report..the first 2 are in Day 0 and Day 0.5 so dont skip ahead..youll spoil the story.
Soooo meanwhile back at AKL our cast begins to stir..........
We decided to not rush our morning and get the to the port extra early...I know I know...but what about our ressies?? Don't we need Palo reservations...what about the Spa....well...no....we decided to forgo these experiences this cruise...( but im willing to bet we wont on our 14 Day Eastbound Panama Cruise...woo hoo!!...but I digress...back to the story ). So since we didnt need to rush we decided we could let the kids sleep in just bit( they werent going to get many more opportunities ). Well believe it or not I hadn't filled out any of my cruise documents....I thought this might be a good time to get this done...after all I didn't want to procrastinate and wait to the last minute
lucky for me it was Saturday morning and a Disney Cruise Line rep was on duty in the lobby. Off to lobby I go and come to find out I didn't need to fill out as much as I thought I had...since the rep there works at the terminal she helped me get all my documents in just the right shape to expedite our checkin. Since I was already there I thought I might as well obtain directions to the port...I knew it was east somewhere and basically near the water....the directions helped narrow it down just a bit 
Back to the room where the rest of the family is enjoying zebras, elands and giraffes roaming and grazing below our balconly. Except DD13 who all of a sudden has become obsessed with finding out how the Red Sox are doing back home and is scaning the TV channels looking for box scores. Well DW has us all packed and ready to go....so its load up the car time... a quick stop at the food court for some breakfast to go...this seemed like a good idea at the time but once we saw the choices we realized we had to get Mickey Waffles to go...mentally im picturing these like the ones we have on the cruise...you know the cute small ones...but nope these were gigantic...I think they were made to scale of the acutal mickey....but they were good...albiet somewhat difficult to eat while driving....so now weve had our 2 nights at a Mickey resort...seen mickey animals...been to a mickey park...eaten a mickey breakfast,,we are READY for the mickey cruise!! we faithfully followed the directions given to us by the cruise rep...which is to say we almost got lost...but an hour or so after we left the resort we drove over the crest of the bridge into port canaveral...and there she is! "Love...exciting and new...welcome aboard weve been expecting you..the Love Bo...oh sorry wrong boat..." Red Smoke stack, gleaming ebony hull and all that ornate gold piping...man does she look beautiful...the Carnival ship Glory is right next to her....all I could think of was how depressing it must be to be departing on that ship and coming over the hill and seeing it docked next to the Magic...its like that scene from Finding Nemo where the sea turtle goes "You were like WHOA!, then you were like Whoa!...and then you were like whoa." But I was like WHOA! because we had the pretty ship.
Well a few short minutes its show your ids...drop off your bags( tip the baggage guy of course ) park the car for a small fee read the disclaimer about ants taking over your car if your silly enough to leave open food containers...( anyone actually have their car invaded by ants?? sounds scary ) a short walk through the metal detectors( DD13 set them off...i laughed and gave her a hard time...what a bad dad i am to get enjoyment fromt the embarassment of my children ) and up the escaltor...and were there! in the terminal!!! Believe it or not the Castaway Club line was empty...I walked up..did a little doc dance...and it was off to the the boarding line...*sigh* its long. Max ( goofy's son ) was hanging out at the end of the line so DD7 got to get her first Disney Cruise picture of the week...there just happened to be one of Disney's Photo Snipers there to capture the moment( I in no way mean this to be derogatory to the Photographers on the cruise..and we spent the equivalent of a small countries GNP on pictures this week...but lets be honest...thats what they are...your in thier sites ...they shoot..and then there gone.. ) DD7 is all smiles at this point...Max has now stolen her Pal Mickey and is playing keep away with it..we ended up with a great picture of kids with Max..and of course Pal Mickey as the center of attention. The boarding line ended up not being as bad as I thought...while long it moved quickly and before you knew it we were in front of our next Photo Sniper getting a welcome aboard photo...then were across the gang plank...."Now announcing the Burke family form NH" and were through and into the atrium. While Im not trying to diminish my wedding vows..it kind of felt like the after moment when you say "I do". 10 months of preperations and anticipation and were finally here....so what to do?...well its only about 12:30 and we have no ressies so we do what all good cruisers do...eat. It's up to topsiders to enjoy our first buffett of the week. Eventhough were in port we still enjoy sitting on the outside deck enjoying our first meal aboard and soaking up both the heat and the atmosphere. I managed to get the family past the desert as I had a surprise in the stateroom and I wanted them to still be a bit hungry. Our stomachs being sufficently stretched it was time for a quick tour to get familar with our surrondings. We had taken a Disney Wonder cruise 3 years before so we were a little familar with the layout( btw...just my opinion but a 7 day is so much better than a 4 day cruise ). I was amazed by the number of tables selling things...I didn't remember this from the cruise before. We passed on the soda cups( which ended up being a good decision as we ended up not drinking much soda during the week ) but ended up buying the case of water....I wished I had rememered the post telling me to bring my own...but its hard to remember everything. By the end of the week we were glad we had done this...having acesss to good drinking water is always a good thing. 1:45 rolled around and we realized that our room should be ready...so off to cabin 7078 we go. We got to our room and waiting was the tray of sweets I had ordered along with Sparkling cider. I thought the girls would get a kick out of toasting each other and eating the finger sized tidbits. I was right it was a big hit. The only disapointment was that I had order two "shore excursion kits". They are red disney cruise line gym bags with binocolaurs, water bottle and a beach mat. These were not waiting for us when we arrived. About 15 minutes after we were in our cabin they came. They even messed up the cards on the gifts...they spelled one of my daugthers names wrong..even though i spelled it out to the person when I ordered it...and for some reason they put both thier names on each package...oh well...i tried to take it in stride and hoped it was not a sign of things to come( it wasnt ). The only other odd thing was that the sparkling sider was actually sealed with a bottle cap...but no one left a bottle opener...i called guest services but after 20 minutes of waiting i ran up to bar on deck 9 and made friends with a bartender and borrowed theirs. Ran back to Deck 7 opened up the bottle..then ran back to deck 9 to return bottle opener...ok now all is right with the world. We got a chance to meet our room steward. He was Eric and he was from Jamaica. This is was his last week before he was heading home for his two months off. You could tell he was excited as he had two young ones at home who he hadnt seen in six months. I couldnt imagine doing what he does and having children..a single person sure...but not being married with children. Eric was great and he would quickly become one of our treasured memories of this cruise. The rest of the afternoon was spent unpacking, a little more exploring and of course the drill. Then it was back up to Deck 9 for the sailaway party and my first "Bahama Mama" of the cruise and one for DW as well. Then were clapping and dancing with the band and Mickey and his friends....the Magic's horn bellows "When you wish upon a star!!!!!!"( the poor Carnival Glory..its only got its one toot...im sure it has horn envy ) and were sailing away to the sounds of "Celebration time come on!!! Theres a party going on...." My celebrating is short lived however. The family continues to party on...I however have been sent on a top secret mission..what you ask? Hair braiding!! Appointments are being scheduled at 5:30 at preludes lounge and im off to guarantee my DD's a spot. Well I did pretty good...I was the second one there. By 5:30 there was quite the crowd...and of course I'm the only man there...i even got mistaken for someone elses husband...after all what would a man be doing there by himself? They just dont know that I am extension of DW's hand and I am there doing her bidding...( I should probably get a t-shirt printed up or something it would make things easier ). Armed with 2 9am appts. for our first day at sea its back up to the stateroom to get ready for our early seating dinner at Animators Pallette. Our servers were DeePak( who ive seen mentioned on these boards ) from India and Cristi from Romania. I new dinners were going to be great when DD7 had her Pal Mickey stolen by DeePak. Cristi seemed reserved at first but I soon learned that it was just part of his personality and that he had quite a sense of humor. He love pulling the trick where he would bring over an empty coffee cup and slide a spoon through the handle and pretend to trip and drop the "hot" coffee on you..and the spoon handle catches the falling cup. I had visions of him having a checklist in is room going through each guest name..."ahhh ha...got him...check!" Dinner was great...I could write a seperate trip report just on the food..but ill refrain...lets just leave it at ..i like food...and it likes me and during the cruise we were very happy together. Once again were comfortably stretched and its off to the Welcome aboard variety show. Both of my girls just loved this. DD7 eyes just light up and her cheeks glow as soon as she sees mickey and his friends coming dancing and singing on stage. I was really surprised by this...I think i forget how young she is sometimes and how much fun these things are for her. Both the Ventriliquist( i cant spell.... so dont make fun of me ) and the other comedian were great. They appealed to adults and still managed to make both of my daughters laugh. DD13 is at that age were shes starting to grow into humor...she laughs at jokes that we consider old...but of course for her there new and the first time she heard them. She still giggles when she thinks about the joke where people walk crooked on the ship while drunk people can walk straight. Well believe it or not everyone's tired so its time to go back up to our room.....but first...remember the golden rule..."when we stop we shop"...sooooo its of to treasure ketch to do some first day souvenier shopping..the fear is that they might run out of something...so we do a quick browse through..and once again armed with thimble, spoon and magnet we retire to our room. DD13 checks the baseball scores then both DD's are in bed....while DW and I enjoy the stars for a few moments from our verandah. All in all a great first day.
next up Day 2 and Key West!!!!
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=566428
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=564316
Finally!! A cruise trip report that is actually going to talk about the cruise! Would you be happy if I just said we got on the boat had a good time and went home? Just kidding
This is part 3 of a 9 part report..the first 2 are in Day 0 and Day 0.5 so dont skip ahead..youll spoil the story.
Soooo meanwhile back at AKL our cast begins to stir..........
We decided to not rush our morning and get the to the port extra early...I know I know...but what about our ressies?? Don't we need Palo reservations...what about the Spa....well...no....we decided to forgo these experiences this cruise...( but im willing to bet we wont on our 14 Day Eastbound Panama Cruise...woo hoo!!...but I digress...back to the story ). So since we didnt need to rush we decided we could let the kids sleep in just bit( they werent going to get many more opportunities ). Well believe it or not I hadn't filled out any of my cruise documents....I thought this might be a good time to get this done...after all I didn't want to procrastinate and wait to the last minute
lucky for me it was Saturday morning and a Disney Cruise Line rep was on duty in the lobby. Off to lobby I go and come to find out I didn't need to fill out as much as I thought I had...since the rep there works at the terminal she helped me get all my documents in just the right shape to expedite our checkin. Since I was already there I thought I might as well obtain directions to the port...I knew it was east somewhere and basically near the water....the directions helped narrow it down just a bit Back to the room where the rest of the family is enjoying zebras, elands and giraffes roaming and grazing below our balconly. Except DD13 who all of a sudden has become obsessed with finding out how the Red Sox are doing back home and is scaning the TV channels looking for box scores. Well DW has us all packed and ready to go....so its load up the car time... a quick stop at the food court for some breakfast to go...this seemed like a good idea at the time but once we saw the choices we realized we had to get Mickey Waffles to go...mentally im picturing these like the ones we have on the cruise...you know the cute small ones...but nope these were gigantic...I think they were made to scale of the acutal mickey....but they were good...albiet somewhat difficult to eat while driving....so now weve had our 2 nights at a Mickey resort...seen mickey animals...been to a mickey park...eaten a mickey breakfast,,we are READY for the mickey cruise!! we faithfully followed the directions given to us by the cruise rep...which is to say we almost got lost...but an hour or so after we left the resort we drove over the crest of the bridge into port canaveral...and there she is! "Love...exciting and new...welcome aboard weve been expecting you..the Love Bo...oh sorry wrong boat..." Red Smoke stack, gleaming ebony hull and all that ornate gold piping...man does she look beautiful...the Carnival ship Glory is right next to her....all I could think of was how depressing it must be to be departing on that ship and coming over the hill and seeing it docked next to the Magic...its like that scene from Finding Nemo where the sea turtle goes "You were like WHOA!, then you were like Whoa!...and then you were like whoa." But I was like WHOA! because we had the pretty ship. Well a few short minutes its show your ids...drop off your bags( tip the baggage guy of course ) park the car for a small fee read the disclaimer about ants taking over your car if your silly enough to leave open food containers...( anyone actually have their car invaded by ants?? sounds scary ) a short walk through the metal detectors( DD13 set them off...i laughed and gave her a hard time...what a bad dad i am to get enjoyment fromt the embarassment of my children ) and up the escaltor...and were there! in the terminal!!! Believe it or not the Castaway Club line was empty...I walked up..did a little doc dance...and it was off to the the boarding line...*sigh* its long. Max ( goofy's son ) was hanging out at the end of the line so DD7 got to get her first Disney Cruise picture of the week...there just happened to be one of Disney's Photo Snipers there to capture the moment( I in no way mean this to be derogatory to the Photographers on the cruise..and we spent the equivalent of a small countries GNP on pictures this week...but lets be honest...thats what they are...your in thier sites ...they shoot..and then there gone.. ) DD7 is all smiles at this point...Max has now stolen her Pal Mickey and is playing keep away with it..we ended up with a great picture of kids with Max..and of course Pal Mickey as the center of attention. The boarding line ended up not being as bad as I thought...while long it moved quickly and before you knew it we were in front of our next Photo Sniper getting a welcome aboard photo...then were across the gang plank...."Now announcing the Burke family form NH" and were through and into the atrium. While Im not trying to diminish my wedding vows..it kind of felt like the after moment when you say "I do". 10 months of preperations and anticipation and were finally here....so what to do?...well its only about 12:30 and we have no ressies so we do what all good cruisers do...eat. It's up to topsiders to enjoy our first buffett of the week. Eventhough were in port we still enjoy sitting on the outside deck enjoying our first meal aboard and soaking up both the heat and the atmosphere. I managed to get the family past the desert as I had a surprise in the stateroom and I wanted them to still be a bit hungry. Our stomachs being sufficently stretched it was time for a quick tour to get familar with our surrondings. We had taken a Disney Wonder cruise 3 years before so we were a little familar with the layout( btw...just my opinion but a 7 day is so much better than a 4 day cruise ). I was amazed by the number of tables selling things...I didn't remember this from the cruise before. We passed on the soda cups( which ended up being a good decision as we ended up not drinking much soda during the week ) but ended up buying the case of water....I wished I had rememered the post telling me to bring my own...but its hard to remember everything. By the end of the week we were glad we had done this...having acesss to good drinking water is always a good thing. 1:45 rolled around and we realized that our room should be ready...so off to cabin 7078 we go. We got to our room and waiting was the tray of sweets I had ordered along with Sparkling cider. I thought the girls would get a kick out of toasting each other and eating the finger sized tidbits. I was right it was a big hit. The only disapointment was that I had order two "shore excursion kits". They are red disney cruise line gym bags with binocolaurs, water bottle and a beach mat. These were not waiting for us when we arrived. About 15 minutes after we were in our cabin they came. They even messed up the cards on the gifts...they spelled one of my daugthers names wrong..even though i spelled it out to the person when I ordered it...and for some reason they put both thier names on each package...oh well...i tried to take it in stride and hoped it was not a sign of things to come( it wasnt ). The only other odd thing was that the sparkling sider was actually sealed with a bottle cap...but no one left a bottle opener...i called guest services but after 20 minutes of waiting i ran up to bar on deck 9 and made friends with a bartender and borrowed theirs. Ran back to Deck 7 opened up the bottle..then ran back to deck 9 to return bottle opener...ok now all is right with the world. We got a chance to meet our room steward. He was Eric and he was from Jamaica. This is was his last week before he was heading home for his two months off. You could tell he was excited as he had two young ones at home who he hadnt seen in six months. I couldnt imagine doing what he does and having children..a single person sure...but not being married with children. Eric was great and he would quickly become one of our treasured memories of this cruise. The rest of the afternoon was spent unpacking, a little more exploring and of course the drill. Then it was back up to Deck 9 for the sailaway party and my first "Bahama Mama" of the cruise and one for DW as well. Then were clapping and dancing with the band and Mickey and his friends....the Magic's horn bellows "When you wish upon a star!!!!!!"( the poor Carnival Glory..its only got its one toot...im sure it has horn envy ) and were sailing away to the sounds of "Celebration time come on!!! Theres a party going on...." My celebrating is short lived however. The family continues to party on...I however have been sent on a top secret mission..what you ask? Hair braiding!! Appointments are being scheduled at 5:30 at preludes lounge and im off to guarantee my DD's a spot. Well I did pretty good...I was the second one there. By 5:30 there was quite the crowd...and of course I'm the only man there...i even got mistaken for someone elses husband...after all what would a man be doing there by himself? They just dont know that I am extension of DW's hand and I am there doing her bidding...( I should probably get a t-shirt printed up or something it would make things easier ). Armed with 2 9am appts. for our first day at sea its back up to the stateroom to get ready for our early seating dinner at Animators Pallette. Our servers were DeePak( who ive seen mentioned on these boards ) from India and Cristi from Romania. I new dinners were going to be great when DD7 had her Pal Mickey stolen by DeePak. Cristi seemed reserved at first but I soon learned that it was just part of his personality and that he had quite a sense of humor. He love pulling the trick where he would bring over an empty coffee cup and slide a spoon through the handle and pretend to trip and drop the "hot" coffee on you..and the spoon handle catches the falling cup. I had visions of him having a checklist in is room going through each guest name..."ahhh ha...got him...check!" Dinner was great...I could write a seperate trip report just on the food..but ill refrain...lets just leave it at ..i like food...and it likes me and during the cruise we were very happy together. Once again were comfortably stretched and its off to the Welcome aboard variety show. Both of my girls just loved this. DD7 eyes just light up and her cheeks glow as soon as she sees mickey and his friends coming dancing and singing on stage. I was really surprised by this...I think i forget how young she is sometimes and how much fun these things are for her. Both the Ventriliquist( i cant spell.... so dont make fun of me ) and the other comedian were great. They appealed to adults and still managed to make both of my daughters laugh. DD13 is at that age were shes starting to grow into humor...she laughs at jokes that we consider old...but of course for her there new and the first time she heard them. She still giggles when she thinks about the joke where people walk crooked on the ship while drunk people can walk straight. Well believe it or not everyone's tired so its time to go back up to our room.....but first...remember the golden rule..."when we stop we shop"...sooooo its of to treasure ketch to do some first day souvenier shopping..the fear is that they might run out of something...so we do a quick browse through..and once again armed with thimble, spoon and magnet we retire to our room. DD13 checks the baseball scores then both DD's are in bed....while DW and I enjoy the stars for a few moments from our verandah. All in all a great first day.next up Day 2 and Key West!!!!
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=566428
