I Like DREAMin! 4/21/11 3-night Dream – First Timer Report

[Mom 3 mouseketeers]

Embarkation Day Part 2 – Touring & Sail Away

Right after our names were announced, a CM took us aside and told us that Cabanas was open for lunch, and that our stateroom would be ready at 1:30pm. We headed up to Cabanas where a CM showed us to a table and gave us a brief orientation to the buffet stations. They explained that it wasn't supposed to be one big line, but you could go up to any station and make your selections. I'm not usually a big fan of buffets – most are mediocre with lukewarm food. Thankfully, we were all pleasantly surprised with the selection at Cabanas. I had a delicious and flavorful tarragon pasta dish with some equally delicious lamb chops – and lots of shrimp cocktail - yummy! The kids were also very happy – even my picky-non-meat-eating son (this is a kid who won't even touch a chicken nugget with a ten foot pole!!) I found an apple for him, which I sliced up & peanut butter to dip the slices in – and he was a very happy camper! Here's a photo of my very happy kids at lunch -

There was plenty of variety – from carved meats, pasta, fish, pizza, breads, deli, salad bar, and more – all of us were very happy with our selections. Dessert was also delicious – we tried some great quality hard scoop ice cream, chocolate mouse, and key lime pie – again, all were yummy! By this time, it was 1:30 and we decided to go check out our staterooms so we could drop off our carry-ons.

DH, the kids and I were in cabin 8674 – category 6A. My parents were next door in the adjoining cabin 8676. Here's a photo of our cabin when we arrived (sorry about the glare from the window light):

A few notes about our cabin: We loved the layout – the kids loved the bunk that came down, and each had a chance to sleep in it (and enjoy the Peter Pan stars on the ceiling!) The split bathroom was perfect – it made it very efficient for all of us to get cleaned up after days in the pool or at the beach - and I just loved having the tub – DS still loves to take a bath, and I loved how spacious it was - and having a place to rest my foot while shaving was wonderful – ya know what I mean, ladies! There was plenty of storage – drawers, two closets, and tons of room under the bed for luggage. We never felt cramped at all.

Veranda notes – we asked our wonderful cabin steward, Caroline, to open the privacy panel between our two verandas, which she did during this afternoon. That opened up the space nicely. Our veranda is one of the ones that, on the left side, is actually enclosed and partially blocked by curved metal. (See the photos below.) This has the effect of partially blocking the view, which really didn't impair the viewing much at all – especially since we opened up the panel between our verandas. It also, very nicely, acted as a wind break, which was wonderful while we were moving.

Here are a couple of pictures of our veranda taken from inside the stateroom (before the privacy panel was folded back.)

This is my DS sitting in the enclosed side of the veranda:

In this picture you can see where the privacy panel was folded back, and you can see into my parents' veranda.

The kids wanted to see what the kids clubs were like, so we decided to go and check them out. First we went touring the Oceaneer's Lab & Club. DS was quite impressed with the amount of computer screens – different game stations, the floor, and game tables. He tried out a few of them while a couple of the counselors answered our questions. Here are a few photos:

The Lab:

In this one you can see into the large activity room – we saw a Silly Science presentation going on when we went to pick DS up the next day.

Andy's Room:

After we left the clubs, we walked through the atrium where more families were being welcomed to the ship.

Then we headed up to the Edge. DD got a chance to meet some of the counselors, and they invited her to come back that night for the ice breakers. They also told her about the secret elevator that could be activated only by her key card which brought her right up to the Edge – she thought that was very cool!

The Edge:

The schedule for that day: (DD loved GaGa ball – like indoor dodge ball)

Then we thought we'd check out the pool deck, so we headed up and toured around, getting the lay of the land. Since it was getting close to lifeboat drill time, we decided not to try & go for a swim. The kids were happy just walking around and checking everything out. I just love this photo – a thrilling view of the pool deck – makes me want to go back every time I look at it – all that excitement waiting to happen!

We headed back to our stateroom and our luggage was there..yipee! We unpacked our FE and hung it up and then headed to the lifeboat drill – very easy & quick. Then back up to the pool deck for the sail away party...whoo hoo!! They had yummy frozen concoctions for sale – grown up and kid friendly varieties. CMs were handing out streamers to get everyone in the party spirit. We were right on the (covered over) pool deck, but we were behind people, so we couldn't see the stage much directly, but everything was projected on the large screen. Here's a photo of the four of us – ready to sail away!!

And this was our view of the sail away show:

The kids had a blast watching the sail away show & I got a thrill when we heard the horn sound for the first time – we were finally here on our first Disney cruise!!

Next installment – Dinner & 1st Evening Activities

So I'm totally laughing at your pictures of the The Edge whiteboard, we did a B2B cruise with this leg being our 2nd. My son spent every waking minute at Edge the first part of the cruise, on the whiteboard you will notice on the right hand side the names of the CM's, well at the bottom it says Noah/USA, yes that was my son!!! He even added Lady at Gaga Ball!!! We had a great cruise, I've enjoyed reading your trip report!