I copied this from an e-mail I sent to our family & friends in case you are wondering why I was explaining some things that we all know on here!
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We’re home from our fabulous Disney vacation and boy are we EXHAUSTED! LOL We got home Thursday and our parents stopped by yesterday (and I spent quite a while getting our pics uploaded) so I haven’t really had a chance to get online until now. I have most of our pics uploaded online so I can share the links with you. I’m warning you, there are A LOT!!! We took about 875 from our camera and those can be found on Clark at http://disneytrip.Clarkcolor.com/clark. Here's the link to our Photopass pics from the parks part of our trip, which will be available until 12/1 to see. We traveled with friends so you’ll see their pics as well as ours. I’m warning you, we had over 200 just from ours, and their pics are on there now as well!! Once I'm done typing up my Trip Reports, I'll post a few of my fav pics.
Sunday was cruise day! The cruise was also fabulous! We left around 10 am to head to the terminal and got there around 11ish. They started letting people board around noon so our timing was great! We were in the first group to go on board and it was exciting to hear them announce “Disney Cruise Lines welcomes the Klein Family to the Wonder!” We went to lunch (if we thought Seth ate like a king at the parks, you should see some of the food he got on the cruise!!! OMG!!!) and then we found our stateroom. After putting our stuff away, we wandered around the ship for a bit and then went swimming. Seth wasn’t allowed in the Mickey pool since he still wears swim diapers, but they had a splash area for the younger kids, which he loved. Scott went with Jackie to the pool and she ended up going down the HUGE waterslide!!! Too bad I missed it since I was with Sethy. We met up with a group of people I met online next and it was nice to put faces with the screen names! After that we went to change and have the lifeboat drill, and then we went to the Sail Away Party, which was a blast! Dinner was next at Triton’s, which was yummy! We were seated with the family we saw at Beauty and the Beast. Jackie wanted to go to the Oceaneer’s Club (kid’s club) after dinner (we showed it to her when we were walking around the ship earlier) so we let her go while we took Seth back to the room.
Monday was our first Port of Call, Nassau. We had originally planned on going on a beach day at the Atlantis Beach Resort, which also included time at the aquarium, but we found out we weren’t allowed to take food off the ship (for Seth) and we wouldn’t be able to get back until 2 pm the earliest. Because of this, they gave us our $$ back for the shore excursion and we decided to go shopping instead. Jackie wanted to spend her time at the Oceaneer’s Club (of course) and we tried putting Seth in the nursery. He LOVED it at first and actually told us to leave, so off the boat Scott & I went. Then we got a page from the nursery that he was crying and they were trying to calm him down. A few minutes alter we got another page to get him. They told us he was fine until he saw another girl crying, and then he started. So we went back to the ship to get him and took him shopping with us. Scott got me a GORGEOUS bracelet with Caribbean Topaz for my early Hanukkah gift, and we went back to get Jackie for lunch. She actually cried when we told her it was time to leave the Club. After lunch, we tried to get everyone to take a nap but it was taking forever so Scott took Jackie back to the pool while I tried to get Seth to nap. By the time he woke up, it was time to get ready for dinner. It was dress up night (Jackie first through that meant dressing up in costumes like from her dress up trunk!) and we got some gorgeous pics of the family before heading to Animator’s Palate (my fav restaurant!). The kids LOVED eating there and seeing the walls change color during our meal, and Jackie went back to the Club afterwards! I had a NICE pedicure that night as well!
Tuesday was Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island. Before we got off the ship, the Captain announced that a hurricane was coming and there we’d be leaving at 2:30 instead of 5. If it weren’t for that announcement, and the wind, we never would have known there was a category 1 hurricane on its way! We went to the beach (stopping to see Captain Jackie Sparrow on the way) and spent over 2 hours playing in the sand and water! Scott had never been to the beach with the kids before (I’ve taken them to the lake once in a while) so he had as much fun as they did! It started to rain around 11:30ish so instead of eating lunch at the BBQ on the island, we went back to the ship. After lunch, Scott tried to get Seth to nap while I took Jackie to see Underdog in the movie theater. She seemed to like it until ½ hour from the end when she got scared, so I never got to see how it ends! (I THINK it was this day that I took her to the movie, I can’t remember! LOL) Seth got Pink Eye and we had to take him to the ship’s doctor before dinner. He got some drops and we’re praying our insurance co pays us back at least part of the $115 it cost us! We were told he wasn’t allowed to swim or go to the kid’s programs but we didn’t have to stay in our cabin (thank goodness!). We called the nursery and Palo (the adult only restaurant that we had reservations at for brunch the next day) to cancel. Then it was time to get ready for Pirate Night and we had dinner at Animator’s Palate again and Jackie went back to the Oceaneer’s club once again.
Wednesday was a Day at Sea and it was also Halloween and our last day on the ship. Jackie spent part of her morning at the Club AGAIN while we walked around with Seth. All the kid’s club had a special graduation in the theater so we got to see Jackie graduate! It was too cute! We got Jackie for lunch and then all went back to the room for naps. Seth wasn’t napping with us in the room so Scott went to take him for a walk in the stroller while I tried to get Jackie to nap, to no avail. She only wanted to get changed for Halloween and Trick or Treating (ToTing). We had planned on meeting the group I met online before the ship’s Trick or Treating to exchange goody bags, which we did and got some cute pics, then we all went down for the ship’s ToTing. Halloween on the ship was chaotic, they did a bad job of it this year (instead of handing us our trick or treating maps in our rooms earlier in the day, they had all 2000+ passengers meet in the atrium to get them. We couldn’t get off the elevator, it was so crowded!) We finally got our map and went to only 1 stop. It was just too hectic and crazy to continue. Luckily, the kids got plenty of stuff when we did the pre-ToTing exchange! We were all tired so we went back to the room instead of going to the Halloween deck party and rested before dinner. Dinner was at Parrot Cay that night and neither of the kids wanted to go dressed up. After dinner, Jackie wanted to dress up again for the Halloween Party at the Oceaneer’s Club and we went back to rest in the room (notice a trend with the resting?! LOL).
Oh yeah, that night we had to go through part of the hurricane which had been downgraded to a Tropical Depression and boy was the ship a’ rockin that night!
Thursday we had to get up VERY early for a 6:45 breakfast before it had to get off the ship and go home . Getting off the ship and getting to the airport was no problem at all and we even got a flight 3 hours earlier than our original one! Thank goodness for that since we’d have to sit around the airport for 3 hours with the kids if we didn’t! We ended up getting home about an hour after our original flight was supposed to take off!!!!
All in all, it was a FABULOUS trip! We are all overtired and exhausted and the kids are having a bit of a hard time re-adjusting to actual naps and sleeping alone again, but it was soo worth it! Our only complaints were with 2 of our neighbors on the cruise and the way Halloween was handled with the ship’s ToTing. The people right next door were VERY loud and rude and obnoxious and were yelling up until 1 am most night! The one night we knocked on their door to politely ask them to keep it down, the mom yelled at me that her kids were kids and there was nothing she could do, then the father slammed the door in my face. Needless to say, we were not worried about keeping our kids quiet when they woke up at 6:15 most mornings! LOL The other bad neighbor was chain smoking cigars on his verandah 2 rooms down. It was so bad that we couldn’t go outside on ours the first day and our room smelled. Scott asked if we could change rooms and the only one they had left had no verandah and they were not going to give us a refund of the difference. They did ask him not please try not to smoke out there and except for one other time he seemed to listen. We still can’t believe they allow smoking of any kind on the verandah of non smoking rooms!!
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We’re home from our fabulous Disney vacation and boy are we EXHAUSTED! LOL We got home Thursday and our parents stopped by yesterday (and I spent quite a while getting our pics uploaded) so I haven’t really had a chance to get online until now. I have most of our pics uploaded online so I can share the links with you. I’m warning you, there are A LOT!!! We took about 875 from our camera and those can be found on Clark at http://disneytrip.Clarkcolor.com/clark. Here's the link to our Photopass pics from the parks part of our trip, which will be available until 12/1 to see. We traveled with friends so you’ll see their pics as well as ours. I’m warning you, we had over 200 just from ours, and their pics are on there now as well!! Once I'm done typing up my Trip Reports, I'll post a few of my fav pics.
Sunday was cruise day! The cruise was also fabulous! We left around 10 am to head to the terminal and got there around 11ish. They started letting people board around noon so our timing was great! We were in the first group to go on board and it was exciting to hear them announce “Disney Cruise Lines welcomes the Klein Family to the Wonder!” We went to lunch (if we thought Seth ate like a king at the parks, you should see some of the food he got on the cruise!!! OMG!!!) and then we found our stateroom. After putting our stuff away, we wandered around the ship for a bit and then went swimming. Seth wasn’t allowed in the Mickey pool since he still wears swim diapers, but they had a splash area for the younger kids, which he loved. Scott went with Jackie to the pool and she ended up going down the HUGE waterslide!!! Too bad I missed it since I was with Sethy. We met up with a group of people I met online next and it was nice to put faces with the screen names! After that we went to change and have the lifeboat drill, and then we went to the Sail Away Party, which was a blast! Dinner was next at Triton’s, which was yummy! We were seated with the family we saw at Beauty and the Beast. Jackie wanted to go to the Oceaneer’s Club (kid’s club) after dinner (we showed it to her when we were walking around the ship earlier) so we let her go while we took Seth back to the room.
Monday was our first Port of Call, Nassau. We had originally planned on going on a beach day at the Atlantis Beach Resort, which also included time at the aquarium, but we found out we weren’t allowed to take food off the ship (for Seth) and we wouldn’t be able to get back until 2 pm the earliest. Because of this, they gave us our $$ back for the shore excursion and we decided to go shopping instead. Jackie wanted to spend her time at the Oceaneer’s Club (of course) and we tried putting Seth in the nursery. He LOVED it at first and actually told us to leave, so off the boat Scott & I went. Then we got a page from the nursery that he was crying and they were trying to calm him down. A few minutes alter we got another page to get him. They told us he was fine until he saw another girl crying, and then he started. So we went back to the ship to get him and took him shopping with us. Scott got me a GORGEOUS bracelet with Caribbean Topaz for my early Hanukkah gift, and we went back to get Jackie for lunch. She actually cried when we told her it was time to leave the Club. After lunch, we tried to get everyone to take a nap but it was taking forever so Scott took Jackie back to the pool while I tried to get Seth to nap. By the time he woke up, it was time to get ready for dinner. It was dress up night (Jackie first through that meant dressing up in costumes like from her dress up trunk!) and we got some gorgeous pics of the family before heading to Animator’s Palate (my fav restaurant!). The kids LOVED eating there and seeing the walls change color during our meal, and Jackie went back to the Club afterwards! I had a NICE pedicure that night as well!
Tuesday was Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island. Before we got off the ship, the Captain announced that a hurricane was coming and there we’d be leaving at 2:30 instead of 5. If it weren’t for that announcement, and the wind, we never would have known there was a category 1 hurricane on its way! We went to the beach (stopping to see Captain Jackie Sparrow on the way) and spent over 2 hours playing in the sand and water! Scott had never been to the beach with the kids before (I’ve taken them to the lake once in a while) so he had as much fun as they did! It started to rain around 11:30ish so instead of eating lunch at the BBQ on the island, we went back to the ship. After lunch, Scott tried to get Seth to nap while I took Jackie to see Underdog in the movie theater. She seemed to like it until ½ hour from the end when she got scared, so I never got to see how it ends! (I THINK it was this day that I took her to the movie, I can’t remember! LOL) Seth got Pink Eye and we had to take him to the ship’s doctor before dinner. He got some drops and we’re praying our insurance co pays us back at least part of the $115 it cost us! We were told he wasn’t allowed to swim or go to the kid’s programs but we didn’t have to stay in our cabin (thank goodness!). We called the nursery and Palo (the adult only restaurant that we had reservations at for brunch the next day) to cancel. Then it was time to get ready for Pirate Night and we had dinner at Animator’s Palate again and Jackie went back to the Oceaneer’s club once again.
Wednesday was a Day at Sea and it was also Halloween and our last day on the ship. Jackie spent part of her morning at the Club AGAIN while we walked around with Seth. All the kid’s club had a special graduation in the theater so we got to see Jackie graduate! It was too cute! We got Jackie for lunch and then all went back to the room for naps. Seth wasn’t napping with us in the room so Scott went to take him for a walk in the stroller while I tried to get Jackie to nap, to no avail. She only wanted to get changed for Halloween and Trick or Treating (ToTing). We had planned on meeting the group I met online before the ship’s Trick or Treating to exchange goody bags, which we did and got some cute pics, then we all went down for the ship’s ToTing. Halloween on the ship was chaotic, they did a bad job of it this year (instead of handing us our trick or treating maps in our rooms earlier in the day, they had all 2000+ passengers meet in the atrium to get them. We couldn’t get off the elevator, it was so crowded!) We finally got our map and went to only 1 stop. It was just too hectic and crazy to continue. Luckily, the kids got plenty of stuff when we did the pre-ToTing exchange! We were all tired so we went back to the room instead of going to the Halloween deck party and rested before dinner. Dinner was at Parrot Cay that night and neither of the kids wanted to go dressed up. After dinner, Jackie wanted to dress up again for the Halloween Party at the Oceaneer’s Club and we went back to rest in the room (notice a trend with the resting?! LOL).
Oh yeah, that night we had to go through part of the hurricane which had been downgraded to a Tropical Depression and boy was the ship a’ rockin that night!
Thursday we had to get up VERY early for a 6:45 breakfast before it had to get off the ship and go home . Getting off the ship and getting to the airport was no problem at all and we even got a flight 3 hours earlier than our original one! Thank goodness for that since we’d have to sit around the airport for 3 hours with the kids if we didn’t! We ended up getting home about an hour after our original flight was supposed to take off!!!!
All in all, it was a FABULOUS trip! We are all overtired and exhausted and the kids are having a bit of a hard time re-adjusting to actual naps and sleeping alone again, but it was soo worth it! Our only complaints were with 2 of our neighbors on the cruise and the way Halloween was handled with the ship’s ToTing. The people right next door were VERY loud and rude and obnoxious and were yelling up until 1 am most night! The one night we knocked on their door to politely ask them to keep it down, the mom yelled at me that her kids were kids and there was nothing she could do, then the father slammed the door in my face. Needless to say, we were not worried about keeping our kids quiet when they woke up at 6:15 most mornings! LOL The other bad neighbor was chain smoking cigars on his verandah 2 rooms down. It was so bad that we couldn’t go outside on ours the first day and our room smelled. Scott asked if we could change rooms and the only one they had left had no verandah and they were not going to give us a refund of the difference. They did ask him not please try not to smoke out there and except for one other time he seemed to listen. We still can’t believe they allow smoking of any kind on the verandah of non smoking rooms!!
