Maxxumuser
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2011
- Messages
- 103
I am writing this trip report to highlight the good and bad that happened to us on our nine days of vacation. This cruise was scheduled at the last minute. We had about a month to prepare for it. We booked a VGT GTY cabin and ended up with a Cat 7a Navigators Veranda on deck 5. Originally, it was to be a Western Caribbean but because of Hurricane Rina it became an Eastern Caribbean. Our ports of call were St. Maarten, Tortolla, and Castaway Cay.
Day One the 28th of October
We drove to the airport. I had scheduled the phone call from Mickey Mouse to come while we were driving to the airport. With the blue tooth radio, we all got to hear it. It really made my son Stephen's morning. He had thought that we were going to Great Wolf Lodge or somewhere that has water slides. We had only promised him that where ever we went would have a water slide.
Check in at Air Tran was easy, security was a breeze, finding our gate was easy, and now breakfast.
We had a two and half hour wait for our flight. Carol went to get some breakfast while I watched our bags. She bought some chocolate milk for Stephen. Stephen sucked down over half the bottle of chocolate milk then turned green. He then threw up for the next few minutes all over his clothes and the seats in the concourse. The milk was bad, note to self never ever buy airport milk.
Carol now had to go clean Stephen up in the bathroom and try to buy some airport clothes for him. Fortunately the Cardinals only had game seven left to play in the World Series so we were able to buy him an overpriced Cardinals shirt. Trying to find pants was an experience, three stores later she found an oversized pair of Rams shorts. They were down past his knees.
We finally got to board our plane and flew to Atlanta. He threw up two more times on the plane. We were in Atlanta for a three and a half hour lay over. He threw up once again. The flight into Orlando had one more incident of upset stomach.
Once on the ground in Orlando we went to the Magical Express and rode to All Star Movies. We didn't arrive until around 10 p.m. We did get to catch the final out of the World Series which was joyous for us being from St. Louis. We were in Bldg 7, one of the Herbie the Love Bug buildings. Stephen was still feeling ill, he did not even notice the large Volkswagon above his head when we entered the building.
Around midnight I called the luggage dept to find out where our luggage was. They told us that they only had four of our five bags at the resort, the fifth was still at the airport. They promised us that it was on it's way to us as I hung up the phone. At 2 a.m. I call them back and they tell me that they never got our fifth bag and that the operation was closed for the night. I was understandably upset on the phone, my son is in clothes that he had puked all over that day. The suitcase missing was his and had all of our FE gifts in it too. I suggested to the man on the phone that he hire a cab and go get my bag from the airport and he refused. He did offer to open the gift shop and allow my wife to go and pick out an outfit for my son. He also promised to call the airport at 7:00 a.m. Somehow he forgot to do that until I called again about 7:30 a.m. He then promised to make sure it made it to the ship for us.
Day 2, October 29th, 2011
We awoke around 7:30 a.m. We were up early for the luggage to be picked up. Stephen was feeling much better this morning, but he was definitely dehydrated from the day before. We wandered around the resort looking at all of the decorations and taking pictures. Had some breakfast at the counter service restaurant. Our bus to the ship showed up around 11 a.m. The ride to the port was full of anticipation. The videos played on the bus were nice, it kept our minds busy. We just missed Minnie Mouse in the terminal, Stephen saw her going back onto the ship. Processing through the terminal was quick, only two people in line before us. We registered him into the clubs and then went to the ship.
Our name was announced and we strolled onto the ship. Our first moment of Magic happened, Chip and Dale were in the atrium and Stephen got his picture taken with them. He was so excited, Chip and Dale quickly became some of our favorite characters on the ship. Dale poked him in the belly button and while posing, Chip covered Stephen's face.
We wandered down the hall and were asked by a young woman cast member in front of The Promenade Lounge, to buy a case of water and some special Halloween mugs. The Halloween mugs were only $7.00 each and would come later with a free Virgin Strawberry Dacquirri. The young woman mistakenly wrote up the bill as two beer mugs. That would be a fight I had with Guest Services later. The lounges also did not want to honor the free drink. The bartender told my wife that it should have come with the drink in it when it was sold to us.
Our cabin was great, it was on the 5th floor which worked out great for us. The Oceaneers Club and Lab were just down the hall, as was the Buena Vista Theater. We were right above Animators Palate and two floors above Parrot Cay.
We went up to Topsiders for lunch and sat outside. It was very breezy but we really enjoyed it. After lunch we strolled around the upper decks to see what was there, then ran down to The Promenade Lounge for our Dis group meeting.
It was really nice putting faces to Dis names. It was a nice little meet and greet, we saw many of our fellow Disers through out our cruise. The FE gifts we received were spectacular and creative. I wish I could thank everyone individually for their gifts, but Stephen always had them spread out and opened up before I could catch a name on them. He would get so excited coming back to the cabin and finding more pirate loot.
The Sail Away Party was great. I don't know where this child of mine came from, but he sure enjoyed dancing with the cast. This was his first time laying eyes on Mickey too. He was so enamored. We then took Stephen to check out the kid's clubs. We had planned on just looking around then going to another activity. Stephen had different thoughts about that. We ended up leaving him in the lab and Carol and I went to unpack.
Our lost suitcase showed up. It has two large holes in it, but it was there. I believe the damage is why it was lost at the airport. I think that the Mickey Express people damaged it and didn't put it on the truck to the resort hoping that we would forget that we had a missing suitcase.
I went back to pick Stephen up from the lab, he had learned how to get to the club and he was over there then. The club was having a dance party when I got there and low and behold who shows up to help them dance, no one other than Minnie Mouse in her Halloween witch costume. He danced up a storm.
Carol and I went to Shutters and paid for the photo cd. It cost $299.00, but it included every picture they took of us during the whole cruise. We spent the week running down Shutter's photographers to make it worth our money. We did end up with some great family photos and over 92 images.
We went to our first dinner at Lumiere's.Our server was Guiseppe from Italy, our assisstant server was Michelle from New Zealand, and our Head Server was Luis from Portugal. We fell in love with Michelle, she is a hoot. She fawned all over Stephen and took great care of us. I am a steak and potatoes guy, all the fancy foods on the menu did not appeal to me. I asked for a steak and Guiseppe got permission for it from Luis. Luis came to speak to me about the request and made sure that they had a steak for me each night from then on. Through out our cruise Michelle would give us crayon puzzles to solve while we were waiting for our food. Mommy and Stevie became very adept at solving them.
Stephen went back to the club while Carol and I ate our dinner. That is a great program offered by the kid's clubs. As soon as we would sit down, they would take Stevie's order for a pizza and fries and bring them right out. The club cast members would come around at 9:00 p.m. to pick up the kids going to the club and whisk them away to fun and leave mommy and daddy to some romantic time at sea.
After dinner we went to pick Stephen up from the club and went back to our cabin and quickly fell asleep. The gentle rocking of the ship made for a very peaceful sleep.
Day 3, our first full day at sea.
I awoke early when room service called to let us know that my order was on it's way. I had filled out the card and left it on the door the night before. We planned to let Stephen sleep in late to try and recover some from his illness on the flight down. I took my coffee and donut and went out on the veranda and enjoyed the sights, sounds, and smell of the sea passing by our cabin. I really enjoyed sitting out there drinking my morning coffee.
When Stephen finally awoke, the only restaurant still serving breakfast was Topsiders. We went up to have breakfast and see Michelle handing out the plates and trays. We ate our breakfast and enjoyed it. We went to the pool and let Stevie swim in the Mickey pool and play on the slide. He swam for over two hours.
We raced to the Atrium for the character dance party. Stephen stalked Mickey Mouse around the Atrium. I left it early to go to the Disney Vacation Club presentation. I won a Steamboat Willie pin. Carol and Stephen went to deliver some of our FE gifts and she realized quickly how large of a ship it really was after having done only two decks.
Stevie spent the afternoon in the club, mommy and daddy spent the day on deck with each other. We picked Stephen up early from the club to get him dressed for Formal Night. We then went and took some pictures of us all dressed up and went to see Twice Charmed. It was a great show, we enjoyed it very much.
Dinner was at Animator's Palate; it was very nice, but uneventful since there was no show on Formal Night. Stephen went to the club and we picked him up after dinner and went to swim in the Goofy pool. Stevie wanted to watch a movie while swimming. To our disappointment, Funnel Vision was showing Sunday night football. There was on adult watching the game and twenty kids upset that there were no cartoons on. Disney needs to rethink the showing of a standard football game instead of cartoons. Any adult that wants to see the game has many lounges and bars to go to. The Cove Cafe for one.
Day 4, Halloween, a day at sea
I had room service coffee on the veranda again. This was our character breakfast at Parrot Cay. Stephen dressed up as Mr. Incredible. The staff made a fuss over him and it made his morning.
He didn't want a napkin hat at first, then Michelle took him around the restaurant and he decided that he wanted one just like mine. She made him a matching hat with the plate covers like I had. We finally got to actually meet Mickey Mouse today. He had so much fun at breakfast.
We went to the pool and swam for a little bit. The pools are very crowded on sea days. At 4:15 p.m. trick or treating began. There were six stations for the kids to go to and get candy. Disney provided small bags for the candy.
I dressed up as Luigi, Carol as Princess Peach, and Stephen was Mario. It made Stephen so happy that we all dressed up with him. Trick or treating ended at the Goofy pool where the Halloween Dance Party was. All of the main characters came out in their costumes and danced with the kids and Donald Duck led the Halloween parade around deck ten.
Stephen met a little friend on deck who dressed up as Waluigi (evil Luigi). They then spent the entire party chasing a cast member named Matthew who was dressed as a robber. The boys had a ball, Mathew would let them catch him, then he would break away and the chase was on again.
The most disturbing thing to me was when they played The Time Warp from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I am not sure if it was the fat old man dancing and singing to it (me) or my six year old seeing Mickey and Minnie doing the pelvic thrust to each other that I found disconcerting.
Our first bad experience onboard then happened. Stevie did not come back to us at the end of the party. We started to panic, evil Luigi's dad was with me too. The two boys decided to just get on the elevator and go to the Oceaneer's Lab on their own. Carol and I had left the wave phones in the cabin since we were all together. We searched for them all over the upper decks and finally the other dad went to the Lab to look for them while I remained on deck where they knew we had been. We were not pleased that he left on his own, but very pleased that he at least went to the club. The club was sending us a text message as we were walking in to pick him up.
Tonight's show was Villains Tonight. It was a great show even though we didn't know who half of the characters were.
We went to the Promenade Lounge to listen to the music before dinner. Mommy and Stevie got on the dance floor and had some fun.
Stephen danced quite a bit by himself too. The Duet singing obviously are good with kids. They had a bunch of moroccas for the kids to play with while they dance.
Dinner was at Parrot Cay and was exceptional. We went to bed early since tomorrow was going to be our first port of call St. Maarten.
Day 5, St. Maarten
We went to breakfast at Parrot Cay. We preferred breakfast here, it was less hectic. We were going to check Stephen into the club but he decided that he wanted to see an island. We took him with us into town. We took the water taxi into town and went shopping in some of the stores. The Jewelry store employees are very pushy and will distract you from getting your free gifts. Kays was the worst, we even bought some chains there and they conveniently forgot to give us the free gift. We stopped and had a little bite to eat at McDonalds. We walked down to the beach and he got to put his feet into the ocean for the first time and played in the sand.
Sales people kept bothering us on the beach, trying to sell us shirts and beach bags. How many times do you have to say no??? It started to rain, but we were heading back to the ship anyway.
Once we were back on the ship we went up on deck and had lunch at Pluto's. Great chicken fingers and fries.
This was Pirate Night, we were back at Lumiere's. Guiseppe and Michelle took great care of us as usual.
Stevie had a lot of fun with the pirate theme and loved the dinner show. We just got up on deck as the Pirate show began. Stevie wanted to dance, so he and Carol went down to deck 9 while I stayed up on deck 10 and watched the show. As we were leaving the show we saw Michelle and she played with Stevie for a minute or two.
Day 6, Tortola
The day started well with my coffee on the veranda. Stevie was sluggish when we got him up, he was very rundown from all of the running we had done all week. We went to breakfast at Parrot Cay and were getting ready to leave Steve in the kids club for the day when he threw up. We took him back to our cabin and let him sleep for four hours. When he woke up it was too late to get off of the ship and look around at Tortola. It was an early return to ship time for us to make it to Castaway Cay on time. I took a nap and Carol did our laundry.
It turned out to be a good day for us just lazing around the cabin since it began thunder storming in the afternoon. We ordered room service that afternoon and they messed it up all three times. Stephen was like a new kid that night. It was show night for us at Animator's Palate. We had a great meal and then headed back to our cabin for the night.
Day 7, day at sea
The day began with my coffee on the veranda, Carol joined me with her hot tea. The plan was to let Stephen sleep a little longer. Well, he had different plans. He woke up and didn't bother to look out on the verandah, he just got up and left the cabin and went and checked himself into the Oceaneer's Lab. We flipped out when we went back in the cabin and he was not there. I went to the Club and he wasn't there, but they did tell me that he was checked in at the Lab. I went over there to get him. He was so worried about us not being there (sarcasm) that he was engaged in a computer game and didn't even notice my presence for a minute or two. Then he was well aware of my presence and put on a tear show because he was in trouble. He got some time out time on the veranda.
We had breakfast upstairs at Topsiders. I finally found the omelet bar there too. I was really irritated that they didn't have an omelet bar for the first part of the week, if only I had opened my eyes while turning the corner by the coffee brewer.
It was swimming time again and we got to spend about an hour at the pool until some parent chose not to follow the rules and let their small child in a diaper into the pool. The closed the pool and emptied it to clean it out. We had other things to do that day, we took Stephen to the club and went and changed for our Semi Formal night.
Tonight was also the Friendship Rocks show. Stevie had a lot of fun up on stage with Mickey Mouse.
The evening show was Disney Dreams. It was a fun show to watch, Stephen left it believing that our ship was flying because of all the pixie dust that was spread over the audience at the end. He was so disappointed when he went on deck later and saw that the ship was back in the water.
After the show we took Stevie to the club for the Pluto's Pajama Party. They got to meet Pluto and were given a pillowcase to color and keep.
Dinner tonight was at Parrot Cay. We went to collect Stevie from the club and went to bed to be ready for Castaway Cay.
Day 8, Castaway Cay
Coffee on the veranda again this morning with Carol and her hot tea. We left the verandah door open today. Stephen woke up and we went to Parrot Cay for breakfast. The ship arrived at Castaway Cay late, we didn't get off the ship till 11:00 a.m. We had our photo taken behind the ship, with Chip and Dale at the post office. I sent two post cards there as well. We then got on the tram and rode it to Pelican Plunge and went on the slide. The water was cold. We did the slide twice then played on the family beach.
We had lunch at Cookies Too. Guiseppe stopped by and said hello, he was bussing the tables today. After lunch we walked up to the Monstro Whale Dig. It would have been more fun if we would have gotten there earlier. We asked three cast members for directions and they each sent us in different directions. Come on Disney, train your employees. One cast member told us to go through the restrooms and see if we could get into Scuttle's Cove that way. The maps of Castaway Cay are useless.
We spent some more money in the gift shops and then went to the snorkel beach. We had bought our own snorkel gear for the trip. We didn't feel comfortable renting gear there. We snorkeled for awhile and enjoyed it. Stephen got tired of it, so he and I got out of the water and found a hammock for him. A little girl comes up to me and asks me if I had lost my drivers license, I look down and realize that my water proof case has come open in the water and I had lost both mine and Carol's drivers licenses, ruined the two spare batteries for our camera, and lost a 4 gig SD card. Fortunately there were no pictures on it yet. The girls mommy had both of our licenses thank God.
We got back on the ship and went to take showers and naps before dinner. We took Stephen to the club and let him eat there and Carol and I had a private dinner at Lumiere's together. Michelle seemed pretty disappointed that he was not there.
We added $40.00 to Michelle's, $20.00 to Guiseppe's, and $15.00 to Luis's tips. They were a good team for us. We just felt that Michelle went above and beyond for us. Our cabin attendant was Oka. We saw him three times during the cruise. Once the first day he introduced himself, the day Stevie was sick he came to clean the room while we were there, and the last night to ask if I had gotten the stuff he had placed on our bed (tip envelopes). He kept our cabin nice, organized, and clean. We tipped him $20.00 extra too. We had great towel animals every night, we looked forward to them. One night we came back to our cabin and there was not an animal and I was a little disappointed.
I went over and sat on the sofa that was made up for bedtime and reached over to turn on the light and low and behold there was a monkey hanging above the lamp. I felt so silly.
Day 9, Our return home
We were up at 7:00 a.m. Since there is no room service on the last day, I went to deck 9 and got a cup of coffee for myself and some tea for Carol. We had our final breakfast at Lumiere's with our wait staff. Michelle hugged us all good bye. Unfortunately it seems that she will be leaving the Magic in January to be on the Fantasy. The Fantasy is out of our price range for now.
Disembarkation was a breeze, we were on the bus heading to the airport in less than five minutes. The bus ride was nice, our luggage was all taken care of for us. We of course had to spend more money at The Ear Port Disney Store. Getting through security was a breeze too. It was a non stop flight to St. Louis and we had a porter help with our bags there. A shuttle bus to our car and we were off to our house.
Overall one of the greatest vacations ever.
Bill
Day One the 28th of October
We drove to the airport. I had scheduled the phone call from Mickey Mouse to come while we were driving to the airport. With the blue tooth radio, we all got to hear it. It really made my son Stephen's morning. He had thought that we were going to Great Wolf Lodge or somewhere that has water slides. We had only promised him that where ever we went would have a water slide.
Check in at Air Tran was easy, security was a breeze, finding our gate was easy, and now breakfast.
We had a two and half hour wait for our flight. Carol went to get some breakfast while I watched our bags. She bought some chocolate milk for Stephen. Stephen sucked down over half the bottle of chocolate milk then turned green. He then threw up for the next few minutes all over his clothes and the seats in the concourse. The milk was bad, note to self never ever buy airport milk.
Carol now had to go clean Stephen up in the bathroom and try to buy some airport clothes for him. Fortunately the Cardinals only had game seven left to play in the World Series so we were able to buy him an overpriced Cardinals shirt. Trying to find pants was an experience, three stores later she found an oversized pair of Rams shorts. They were down past his knees.
We finally got to board our plane and flew to Atlanta. He threw up two more times on the plane. We were in Atlanta for a three and a half hour lay over. He threw up once again. The flight into Orlando had one more incident of upset stomach.
Once on the ground in Orlando we went to the Magical Express and rode to All Star Movies. We didn't arrive until around 10 p.m. We did get to catch the final out of the World Series which was joyous for us being from St. Louis. We were in Bldg 7, one of the Herbie the Love Bug buildings. Stephen was still feeling ill, he did not even notice the large Volkswagon above his head when we entered the building.
Around midnight I called the luggage dept to find out where our luggage was. They told us that they only had four of our five bags at the resort, the fifth was still at the airport. They promised us that it was on it's way to us as I hung up the phone. At 2 a.m. I call them back and they tell me that they never got our fifth bag and that the operation was closed for the night. I was understandably upset on the phone, my son is in clothes that he had puked all over that day. The suitcase missing was his and had all of our FE gifts in it too. I suggested to the man on the phone that he hire a cab and go get my bag from the airport and he refused. He did offer to open the gift shop and allow my wife to go and pick out an outfit for my son. He also promised to call the airport at 7:00 a.m. Somehow he forgot to do that until I called again about 7:30 a.m. He then promised to make sure it made it to the ship for us.
Day 2, October 29th, 2011
We awoke around 7:30 a.m. We were up early for the luggage to be picked up. Stephen was feeling much better this morning, but he was definitely dehydrated from the day before. We wandered around the resort looking at all of the decorations and taking pictures. Had some breakfast at the counter service restaurant. Our bus to the ship showed up around 11 a.m. The ride to the port was full of anticipation. The videos played on the bus were nice, it kept our minds busy. We just missed Minnie Mouse in the terminal, Stephen saw her going back onto the ship. Processing through the terminal was quick, only two people in line before us. We registered him into the clubs and then went to the ship.
Our name was announced and we strolled onto the ship. Our first moment of Magic happened, Chip and Dale were in the atrium and Stephen got his picture taken with them. He was so excited, Chip and Dale quickly became some of our favorite characters on the ship. Dale poked him in the belly button and while posing, Chip covered Stephen's face.
We wandered down the hall and were asked by a young woman cast member in front of The Promenade Lounge, to buy a case of water and some special Halloween mugs. The Halloween mugs were only $7.00 each and would come later with a free Virgin Strawberry Dacquirri. The young woman mistakenly wrote up the bill as two beer mugs. That would be a fight I had with Guest Services later. The lounges also did not want to honor the free drink. The bartender told my wife that it should have come with the drink in it when it was sold to us.
Our cabin was great, it was on the 5th floor which worked out great for us. The Oceaneers Club and Lab were just down the hall, as was the Buena Vista Theater. We were right above Animators Palate and two floors above Parrot Cay.
We went up to Topsiders for lunch and sat outside. It was very breezy but we really enjoyed it. After lunch we strolled around the upper decks to see what was there, then ran down to The Promenade Lounge for our Dis group meeting.
It was really nice putting faces to Dis names. It was a nice little meet and greet, we saw many of our fellow Disers through out our cruise. The FE gifts we received were spectacular and creative. I wish I could thank everyone individually for their gifts, but Stephen always had them spread out and opened up before I could catch a name on them. He would get so excited coming back to the cabin and finding more pirate loot.
The Sail Away Party was great. I don't know where this child of mine came from, but he sure enjoyed dancing with the cast. This was his first time laying eyes on Mickey too. He was so enamored. We then took Stephen to check out the kid's clubs. We had planned on just looking around then going to another activity. Stephen had different thoughts about that. We ended up leaving him in the lab and Carol and I went to unpack.
Our lost suitcase showed up. It has two large holes in it, but it was there. I believe the damage is why it was lost at the airport. I think that the Mickey Express people damaged it and didn't put it on the truck to the resort hoping that we would forget that we had a missing suitcase.
I went back to pick Stephen up from the lab, he had learned how to get to the club and he was over there then. The club was having a dance party when I got there and low and behold who shows up to help them dance, no one other than Minnie Mouse in her Halloween witch costume. He danced up a storm.
Carol and I went to Shutters and paid for the photo cd. It cost $299.00, but it included every picture they took of us during the whole cruise. We spent the week running down Shutter's photographers to make it worth our money. We did end up with some great family photos and over 92 images.
We went to our first dinner at Lumiere's.Our server was Guiseppe from Italy, our assisstant server was Michelle from New Zealand, and our Head Server was Luis from Portugal. We fell in love with Michelle, she is a hoot. She fawned all over Stephen and took great care of us. I am a steak and potatoes guy, all the fancy foods on the menu did not appeal to me. I asked for a steak and Guiseppe got permission for it from Luis. Luis came to speak to me about the request and made sure that they had a steak for me each night from then on. Through out our cruise Michelle would give us crayon puzzles to solve while we were waiting for our food. Mommy and Stevie became very adept at solving them.
Stephen went back to the club while Carol and I ate our dinner. That is a great program offered by the kid's clubs. As soon as we would sit down, they would take Stevie's order for a pizza and fries and bring them right out. The club cast members would come around at 9:00 p.m. to pick up the kids going to the club and whisk them away to fun and leave mommy and daddy to some romantic time at sea.
After dinner we went to pick Stephen up from the club and went back to our cabin and quickly fell asleep. The gentle rocking of the ship made for a very peaceful sleep.
Day 3, our first full day at sea.
I awoke early when room service called to let us know that my order was on it's way. I had filled out the card and left it on the door the night before. We planned to let Stephen sleep in late to try and recover some from his illness on the flight down. I took my coffee and donut and went out on the veranda and enjoyed the sights, sounds, and smell of the sea passing by our cabin. I really enjoyed sitting out there drinking my morning coffee.
When Stephen finally awoke, the only restaurant still serving breakfast was Topsiders. We went up to have breakfast and see Michelle handing out the plates and trays. We ate our breakfast and enjoyed it. We went to the pool and let Stevie swim in the Mickey pool and play on the slide. He swam for over two hours.
We raced to the Atrium for the character dance party. Stephen stalked Mickey Mouse around the Atrium. I left it early to go to the Disney Vacation Club presentation. I won a Steamboat Willie pin. Carol and Stephen went to deliver some of our FE gifts and she realized quickly how large of a ship it really was after having done only two decks.
Stevie spent the afternoon in the club, mommy and daddy spent the day on deck with each other. We picked Stephen up early from the club to get him dressed for Formal Night. We then went and took some pictures of us all dressed up and went to see Twice Charmed. It was a great show, we enjoyed it very much.
Dinner was at Animator's Palate; it was very nice, but uneventful since there was no show on Formal Night. Stephen went to the club and we picked him up after dinner and went to swim in the Goofy pool. Stevie wanted to watch a movie while swimming. To our disappointment, Funnel Vision was showing Sunday night football. There was on adult watching the game and twenty kids upset that there were no cartoons on. Disney needs to rethink the showing of a standard football game instead of cartoons. Any adult that wants to see the game has many lounges and bars to go to. The Cove Cafe for one.
Day 4, Halloween, a day at sea
I had room service coffee on the veranda again. This was our character breakfast at Parrot Cay. Stephen dressed up as Mr. Incredible. The staff made a fuss over him and it made his morning.
He didn't want a napkin hat at first, then Michelle took him around the restaurant and he decided that he wanted one just like mine. She made him a matching hat with the plate covers like I had. We finally got to actually meet Mickey Mouse today. He had so much fun at breakfast.
We went to the pool and swam for a little bit. The pools are very crowded on sea days. At 4:15 p.m. trick or treating began. There were six stations for the kids to go to and get candy. Disney provided small bags for the candy.
I dressed up as Luigi, Carol as Princess Peach, and Stephen was Mario. It made Stephen so happy that we all dressed up with him. Trick or treating ended at the Goofy pool where the Halloween Dance Party was. All of the main characters came out in their costumes and danced with the kids and Donald Duck led the Halloween parade around deck ten.
Stephen met a little friend on deck who dressed up as Waluigi (evil Luigi). They then spent the entire party chasing a cast member named Matthew who was dressed as a robber. The boys had a ball, Mathew would let them catch him, then he would break away and the chase was on again.
The most disturbing thing to me was when they played The Time Warp from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I am not sure if it was the fat old man dancing and singing to it (me) or my six year old seeing Mickey and Minnie doing the pelvic thrust to each other that I found disconcerting.
Our first bad experience onboard then happened. Stevie did not come back to us at the end of the party. We started to panic, evil Luigi's dad was with me too. The two boys decided to just get on the elevator and go to the Oceaneer's Lab on their own. Carol and I had left the wave phones in the cabin since we were all together. We searched for them all over the upper decks and finally the other dad went to the Lab to look for them while I remained on deck where they knew we had been. We were not pleased that he left on his own, but very pleased that he at least went to the club. The club was sending us a text message as we were walking in to pick him up.
Tonight's show was Villains Tonight. It was a great show even though we didn't know who half of the characters were.
We went to the Promenade Lounge to listen to the music before dinner. Mommy and Stevie got on the dance floor and had some fun.
Stephen danced quite a bit by himself too. The Duet singing obviously are good with kids. They had a bunch of moroccas for the kids to play with while they dance.
Dinner was at Parrot Cay and was exceptional. We went to bed early since tomorrow was going to be our first port of call St. Maarten.
Day 5, St. Maarten
We went to breakfast at Parrot Cay. We preferred breakfast here, it was less hectic. We were going to check Stephen into the club but he decided that he wanted to see an island. We took him with us into town. We took the water taxi into town and went shopping in some of the stores. The Jewelry store employees are very pushy and will distract you from getting your free gifts. Kays was the worst, we even bought some chains there and they conveniently forgot to give us the free gift. We stopped and had a little bite to eat at McDonalds. We walked down to the beach and he got to put his feet into the ocean for the first time and played in the sand.
Sales people kept bothering us on the beach, trying to sell us shirts and beach bags. How many times do you have to say no??? It started to rain, but we were heading back to the ship anyway.
Once we were back on the ship we went up on deck and had lunch at Pluto's. Great chicken fingers and fries.
This was Pirate Night, we were back at Lumiere's. Guiseppe and Michelle took great care of us as usual.
Stevie had a lot of fun with the pirate theme and loved the dinner show. We just got up on deck as the Pirate show began. Stevie wanted to dance, so he and Carol went down to deck 9 while I stayed up on deck 10 and watched the show. As we were leaving the show we saw Michelle and she played with Stevie for a minute or two.
Day 6, Tortola
The day started well with my coffee on the veranda. Stevie was sluggish when we got him up, he was very rundown from all of the running we had done all week. We went to breakfast at Parrot Cay and were getting ready to leave Steve in the kids club for the day when he threw up. We took him back to our cabin and let him sleep for four hours. When he woke up it was too late to get off of the ship and look around at Tortola. It was an early return to ship time for us to make it to Castaway Cay on time. I took a nap and Carol did our laundry.
It turned out to be a good day for us just lazing around the cabin since it began thunder storming in the afternoon. We ordered room service that afternoon and they messed it up all three times. Stephen was like a new kid that night. It was show night for us at Animator's Palate. We had a great meal and then headed back to our cabin for the night.
Day 7, day at sea
The day began with my coffee on the veranda, Carol joined me with her hot tea. The plan was to let Stephen sleep a little longer. Well, he had different plans. He woke up and didn't bother to look out on the verandah, he just got up and left the cabin and went and checked himself into the Oceaneer's Lab. We flipped out when we went back in the cabin and he was not there. I went to the Club and he wasn't there, but they did tell me that he was checked in at the Lab. I went over there to get him. He was so worried about us not being there (sarcasm) that he was engaged in a computer game and didn't even notice my presence for a minute or two. Then he was well aware of my presence and put on a tear show because he was in trouble. He got some time out time on the veranda.
We had breakfast upstairs at Topsiders. I finally found the omelet bar there too. I was really irritated that they didn't have an omelet bar for the first part of the week, if only I had opened my eyes while turning the corner by the coffee brewer.
It was swimming time again and we got to spend about an hour at the pool until some parent chose not to follow the rules and let their small child in a diaper into the pool. The closed the pool and emptied it to clean it out. We had other things to do that day, we took Stephen to the club and went and changed for our Semi Formal night.
Tonight was also the Friendship Rocks show. Stevie had a lot of fun up on stage with Mickey Mouse.
The evening show was Disney Dreams. It was a fun show to watch, Stephen left it believing that our ship was flying because of all the pixie dust that was spread over the audience at the end. He was so disappointed when he went on deck later and saw that the ship was back in the water.
After the show we took Stevie to the club for the Pluto's Pajama Party. They got to meet Pluto and were given a pillowcase to color and keep.
Dinner tonight was at Parrot Cay. We went to collect Stevie from the club and went to bed to be ready for Castaway Cay.
Day 8, Castaway Cay
Coffee on the veranda again this morning with Carol and her hot tea. We left the verandah door open today. Stephen woke up and we went to Parrot Cay for breakfast. The ship arrived at Castaway Cay late, we didn't get off the ship till 11:00 a.m. We had our photo taken behind the ship, with Chip and Dale at the post office. I sent two post cards there as well. We then got on the tram and rode it to Pelican Plunge and went on the slide. The water was cold. We did the slide twice then played on the family beach.
We had lunch at Cookies Too. Guiseppe stopped by and said hello, he was bussing the tables today. After lunch we walked up to the Monstro Whale Dig. It would have been more fun if we would have gotten there earlier. We asked three cast members for directions and they each sent us in different directions. Come on Disney, train your employees. One cast member told us to go through the restrooms and see if we could get into Scuttle's Cove that way. The maps of Castaway Cay are useless.
We spent some more money in the gift shops and then went to the snorkel beach. We had bought our own snorkel gear for the trip. We didn't feel comfortable renting gear there. We snorkeled for awhile and enjoyed it. Stephen got tired of it, so he and I got out of the water and found a hammock for him. A little girl comes up to me and asks me if I had lost my drivers license, I look down and realize that my water proof case has come open in the water and I had lost both mine and Carol's drivers licenses, ruined the two spare batteries for our camera, and lost a 4 gig SD card. Fortunately there were no pictures on it yet. The girls mommy had both of our licenses thank God.
We got back on the ship and went to take showers and naps before dinner. We took Stephen to the club and let him eat there and Carol and I had a private dinner at Lumiere's together. Michelle seemed pretty disappointed that he was not there.
We added $40.00 to Michelle's, $20.00 to Guiseppe's, and $15.00 to Luis's tips. They were a good team for us. We just felt that Michelle went above and beyond for us. Our cabin attendant was Oka. We saw him three times during the cruise. Once the first day he introduced himself, the day Stevie was sick he came to clean the room while we were there, and the last night to ask if I had gotten the stuff he had placed on our bed (tip envelopes). He kept our cabin nice, organized, and clean. We tipped him $20.00 extra too. We had great towel animals every night, we looked forward to them. One night we came back to our cabin and there was not an animal and I was a little disappointed.
I went over and sat on the sofa that was made up for bedtime and reached over to turn on the light and low and behold there was a monkey hanging above the lamp. I felt so silly.
Day 9, Our return home
We were up at 7:00 a.m. Since there is no room service on the last day, I went to deck 9 and got a cup of coffee for myself and some tea for Carol. We had our final breakfast at Lumiere's with our wait staff. Michelle hugged us all good bye. Unfortunately it seems that she will be leaving the Magic in January to be on the Fantasy. The Fantasy is out of our price range for now.
Disembarkation was a breeze, we were on the bus heading to the airport in less than five minutes. The bus ride was nice, our luggage was all taken care of for us. We of course had to spend more money at The Ear Port Disney Store. Getting through security was a breeze too. It was a non stop flight to St. Louis and we had a porter help with our bags there. A shuttle bus to our car and we were off to our house.
Overall one of the greatest vacations ever.
Bill
