I was Scared at first but it turned out ok

[delo4]

We started this cruise with several surprises, but it turned out great!

The Cruisers-
Me - 10th Disney Cruise
My husband - 3rd Disney Cruise
Daughter # 1 -4th Disney Cruise
Daughter # 1's husband - 2nd Disney Cruise
Daughter # 2 - 3rd Disney Cruise
My Mom - 10th Disney Cruise
My Mom's husband - 10th Disney Cruise

As you can see, some of us are true Disney veterans. We have all cruised other lines, but this is for sure our favorite.

So, we arrive at the port promptly at 10:00 a.m. We are the first car in line. We wait just a couple of minutes and then a castmember comes and asks us to wait for four other cars to go in front of us. They had been waiting in the lot across the street since 7:30. YIKES! No problem. We drop off our luggage, park the car, go through security and up to the ticket counter.

Surprise # 1 - The lady hands me a card with our room number and guess what. Its not the same number that was on all my documents and on my luggage that has now been given to the porters downstairs. She tells me that the number she has is correct and doesn't know why it was changed. I explain that my luggage has been tagged with the original room number and she assures me that the luggage will be checked against the manifest and it will get to the right room. I don't want to disagree with her, because what do I know, but I can't imagine that every piece of luggage is checked again. Do you know how many pieces of luggage are on that ship???We were supposed to be in room 2606, deck 2 outside. We were changed to room 2652, deck 2 outside. However, this is the last room on deck 2 all the way aft. Be afraid, be very afraid! I try to have a good attitude about it, but I don't have a good feeling.

Since we have some time before boarding, I go to the restroom and when I come out, everyone in the terminal is walking towards the escalators and is exiting the building.

Surprise # 2 We have been evacuated due to a breach in security. We are one of the last ones out of the terminal which means we are one of the first to go back in. Yeah! We were only outside about 20 minutes. However, everyone now has to go back through security before going upstairs. They open some additional x-ray machines and it gets done pretty quickly.

Most of our party heads to Parrot Cay while daughter # 1 and I head to Rockin Bar D to make sure we have a table to ourselves and to make Palo reservations. Both of them were done in quick fashion and we joined the others for lunch. We hung out there until 1:30 when our room was ready.

Surprise # 3 - We arrive at our room to find the cooler that is usually in the cabinet near the desk, is now sitting directly under the desk and the cord is strung along the top of the desk and plugged in. Now the cooler seems a little larger than the usual so I guess that's why it doesn't fit inside. But it looks pretty ghetto with the cord running everywhere and there is no place for the little stool that usually goes under the desk, so it is just hanging out in the middle of the room. Weird!

Surprise # 4 - We go to use our phone to call others in our party since it is too far to walk. We have now been relocated about 50 rooms from the nearest person we are travelling with. Ok, so guess what, the phone will not work! No dial tone, no nothing. I hike myself up to guest services to report and they tell me that sometimes that happens between cruises since all the phones need to be reset. They tell me to wait a couple of hours and it should be fine. I hike back down, find the rest of our crew and let them know of our plans. (by the way, the phone finally got fixed later that evening, but only after the phone was replaced, the cord was replaced and something on the computer had to be re-set)

Surprise # 5 - Guess where all of our luggage is delivered? You guessed it, it was delivered to our original room. We had to keep hiking up the hall and retrieving our luggage, 1 piece at a time. Are we having fun yet?

More surprises to come - stay tuned

 

[delo4]

Surprise # 6 - we find that the in-room safe is locked from the previous cruiser. No problem - I hike back up to Guest Services ( I could have called, but well, I told you about the phone). They will send someone right away. They did and it was taken care of asap.

We head up for the lifeboat drill and sailaway party. It was a beautiful day and we hang around until the show. After the Welcome Aboard show, we head down to our room. Now if you remember, I told you to be Afraid, Very Afraid and for very good reason.

Surprise # 7-

We are walking towards our room and we realize that the noise from the engine or propeller or something is getting louder the closer we get to our room. I start to get very nervous, but trying to be optimistic. We get into our room and it sounds like a motorcycle is running right inside our room. The whole room is vibrating and its LOUD! We have no idea how we are going to sleep in this room, but we remember that we saw a sign earlier that said the ship was full! We decide to go to go to dinner and hope that when we return, the noise will be gone. We had the PLAPLAP dinner rotation, second seating. We had a great assistant server, but not a great server. She started with the excellent speech first night and wouldn't let up. We told her this was our tenth cruise and we knew the drill, but she said she wanted to "brainwash us" Whatever, we enjoyed Marcelito, our Assist server.

We arrive back at our room after dinner - Is the noise gone???

 

[LovableGluttons]

Oh no! I would have freaked if my room was noisy like that!

I hope it quieted down so you could enjoy your stateroom in peace!

 

[delo4]

Ok, so we head to our room and we are getting more afraid the closer we get to it. We get inside and it is so loud, I can't believe they put people in this room. The whole room is shaking and the noise is very annoying. My husband and daughter (who lives in a college dorm) decide they can sleep through it, but I head up to deck 3 atrium to read. I figure that maybe if I get tired enough I will be able to go to sleep. I go back to the room around 1:00 to find that my husband and daughter are now awake. They were both woken up by the noise. We decide to go up to Guest Services and see if there is anything they can do. The lady tells us that they have 1 room left on deck 5. It is an inside room, but we can stay there for the night if we want. WE WANT! We go back to our room, grab some pj's and head up to deck 5. When we arrive at the room, there is a steward there turning down the beds for us. That was quite a surprise, where did he come from in the middle of the night? The room is pitch dark when you turn out the lights, but is is quiet!!! We are all disoriented in the morning because of the darkness. We thought for sure it was still the middle of the night and it was 9:00. We head to breakfast and discuss what we are going to do about our room.

We go back to guest services and ask them what our options are. They tell us we can stay where we are or we can move to deck 5 inside. We hate to give up our oceanview, but there is no way we could sleep in that room. We decide to pack up and move everything up to deck 5. People kept staring at us hauling luggage around the next day. I am sure they were wondering what in the heck we were doing! Our room steward was Art from the Philippines. He was absolutely wonderful, full of personality, and treated us so well. We loved him! He did the most amazing towel animals. Actually, I think they could be called blanket animals. He made almost all of them with extra blanket in the cabinet. On the last night he made us a Jamaican man blanket with sunglasses and a drink in his hand. We laughed when we opened our door. Art was in the hallway and wanted to know "if that man had been drinking again and if he messed up our room." He told us that "he gets to drinking and makes a mess" It was so funny. He was always cheerful and asked us about our day.

More surprises and highlights of the week to come!

 

[delo4]

We arrive in Key West after moving all of our room that was so neatly organized. We have always stayed in an outside room, so this was a challenge since the room was set up differently and no split bathroom, which we love!

Key West was very warm, but not as hot as usual. We walk around for about an hour and head back to sit on our favorite deck 9 by the adult pool. We spent alot of time either on deck 9 or deck 4, the blue comfy chairs. We all like to read, so we were the group of 7 always hanging out on the deck reading.

Monday was a day at Sea, which we love. We are getting used to our new room and although I still prefer an outside cabin, this wasn't all that bad. We hardly spend any time in our room. We only missed it when we went into my Mom's room or my Daughter's room and were reminded of the view they had. But we kept telling ourselves - "quiet is much more important, sleep is necessary!"

Tuesday was Grand Cayman. We decided to not to an excursion, but go into town. This was a big disappointment. There really isn't much there. We have been to Rum Point and Seven Mile Beach before and next time we will do that again.

Wednesday was Cozumel. We decide to go to Paradise Beach. This is the first time we have been here. It was ok. I thought it was great to have chairs and umbrellas provided, but they really pushed for you to purchase drinks and food. I wouldn't have minded since the chairs were free, but the food was extremely expensive and we were a little afraid to drink anything other than bottled water. The water wasn't all that nice and the chairs are all really close together. Sapphire Beach on the Eastern in St. Thomas is still our favorite beach.

Thursday, another day at sea and guess what?

Surprise #8. Daughter # 2 goes up to the room and discovers a beautiful fruit and cheese tray from Connie at Guest Services. She says that she is sorry about having to change rooms and to enjoy the tray with her compliments. Now this is not your ordinary fruit tray. It is covered with all kinds of fruits and berries, cheeses and is more than we all can possibly eat. I go down to Guest Services to thank her in person. She is extremely nice and I was so glad to get to meet her and thank her for the gift. I had already talked to her on the phone several times because she was trying to get us a credit since we changed room categories. She was very helpful in making sure we were aware of the process and answers she was getting from someone on shore.

Friday - Castaway Cay Day - Our favorite day of the week. The weather was perfect, the water was wonderful, the lunch at the adult beach was fantastic. Some of us had the steak, some hamburgers, all in all it was very good. We spent the entire day at the adult beach and did not want to leave, but we have Palo reservations for that evening at 6:00.

Palo Dinner. Mom, her husband, daughter # 1 and myself had been once before but no one else had. We saved this for the last night because we just knew everyone would enjoy it. We asked for Noemi to be our server. She had served us in the dining room on a previous cruise and she was fantastic. Dinner was wonderful. Friday was our favorite day of the cruise, a perfect day at Castaway Cay, topped off by a wonderful dinner at Palo.

Surprise # 9 - We arrived back at our room after dinner and sitting on the bed was a signed 5x 7 picture of all the characters taken at Castaway Cay. Connie from Guest Services had struck again! I told you she was fantastic!

Breakfast on the last day - we all looked like our best friend had just died. We had to the most wonderful week even in spite of changing rooms. We couldn't believe it was over so quickly.

I need to go to bed now, but will write more highlights of the week as I think of them.

 

[sherry]

Thank you so much for sharing. I always enjoy trip reports. I really hope you got a credit for the lower category since Disney was the reason you were moved to the noisy room.

 

[pppiglet]

Thanks for posting!

 

[Babs417]

10 times lucky you. Did you get a credit for changing rooms. We have room 2530 outside do you think it will be loud?

 

[delo4]

Babs 417 - the credit has not shown up on our credit card yet, but we are hopeful, unless that is Surprise # 10!!

Babs 417 - Your room should not be noisy. It started getting loud about 5 rooms away from our room and you would be pretty far up the hall. Our daughter and husband had room 2544 and my mom's room was 2654. Both of those rooms were very quiet. We have stayed all over deck 2 in previous cruises, but this was the first time we ever had a noise problem. Someone told us that our original room was near the propeller and that was the problem. As long as the captain didn't go over a speed of 18 knots, the room was pretty quiet except for a low hum. Anything over 18 knots it becomes louder and louder. When we checked the speed that night in the cabin, the ship was travelling at 20 knots which is why it was so loud. If we hadn't been able to change rooms, we were considering meeting with the Captain and asking him to travel less than 18 knots. (just kidding)

 

[delo4]

Things we loved -

Since some of us had been on previous cruises, we were recognized by our previous Dining Room Servers. Orlan from the Philippines was just a couple of tables over from us. We had him as our server 4 years ago. He made sure to come over every night at dinner, talk with us, clear our plates, and make us laugh. ALeksandra who is now a head server saw us in Topsiders one morning, walked past us and then backed up and said "you've been here before, no?" We hadn't seen her since our first cruise about 7 or 8 years ago. We kept running into previous servers or assistant servers all over the ship and were surprised by how many remembered us. It was really fun to chat with them again!

Loved breakfast at Topsiders - we headed up there most mornings around 9:00.

Loved deck 9 by the adult pool and deck 4 - comfy blue chairs. We spent alot of time on those two decks.

Love the 24 hour beverage station on deck 9.

Loved Art from the Philippines, our room steward. Fantastic! Daughter # 1 and her husband had the room steward we had last October. I can't remember his name right off, but he recognized us right away and he was wonderful as well.

Loved our Assist Server Marcelito from Philippines. He was full of personality, was extremely attentive and we looked forward to dinner each night.

Loved Palo - 5 of us had the filet and both daughters had the pasta arrabiata which they loved. Our steaks were amazing. The choco souffle was great. Noemi, our server also gave us some bananna gelato and hazelnut gelato which were very good. Daughter # 2 had taken a trip to Europe a couple of years ago and she loved gelato in Italy. She said this was very close and she really enjoyed the bananna gelato.

Loved Castaway Cary - we had a perfect day, warm with a great breeze, almost perfect.

Ate in Lumiere's for lunch one day since our previous server Orlan was working. He told us what days he would be there so we could have lunch there. He told us that they changed the burger on the Lumiere's menu so that it is not like the ones they serve on deck 9 at Pluto's. It is freshly made pattie and he was right. It was a really good burger. We enjoyed spending our lunch with him. He had lots of time to talk since we were his only table.

Connie at Guest Services- She's the best!

Loved the Ship horn - we got into a little horn playing competition with a Princess ship in Cozumel. Their horn would sound, then our horn, then their horn, then our horn, then we played the When you wish upon a star and everyone on princess clapped. I think we won the competition.

Several of our party took the Galley tour and really loved the tour and the tidbits of information they give you. (you can get tickets for this at guest services)

Loved Christiaan the Cruise Director. We all looked forward to his announcements. They were always humorous and he has a great personality. Some past cruise directors seemed like they were getting paid by the word and never stopped talking. He was always right to the point and very funny. We got to speak with him the night of the Pirate party. He mentioned that he reads the Disney Boards and he can't believe how quickly people post about things that happen on the ship. He told us about the misfire of the fireworks that night and by the time he got to his boss to tell him about the missfire, it was already on the Disney Boards.

Things that were ok -

Our server in the dining room was not our favorite. She gave us the excellent speech to much and something in her personality just didn't mesh with ours. She was very efficient, but she kept giving dirty looks to Marcelito whenever he was busy and she had to pour a drink that would normally be his job! She also did not appreciate that our former server Orlan would stop by the table each night. She never said anything, she just looked like she wasn't happy and she wouldn't speak to him.

The lounge chairs on deck 9 are soooo hard. We would spend hours sitting there and after awhile every part of your body would start to hurt. Maybe that's their plan - that way you don't take up the chairs for so long, but we loved deck 9. The view of the ocean is amazing.

All hands on deck cheese tray from room service - it used to be much larger, but they have really skimped on the cheese and crackers.

Lunch buffets at Topsiders - not our favorite. We usually would go and look to see what was being offered, but we did not eat there. Typically, we had lunch at Pluto's or Goofy's.

Not having a split bathroom. It really is not much larger and there is much less storage. It was hard with 3 people, someone was usually waiting for something. We love the split bathroom much better!

Rich Purpura - he is really funny, but he does the exact routine he does every single cruise. With the ship full of repeat cruisers, you think he would mix it up some. He also mentioned reading the Disney Boards!


That's all I can think of for now.

 

[nenner1]

Thanks for your trippie! Its too bad to hear about all the trouble you had with your room! I will definetly be avoiding deck 2 from now on! Also helps to hear that having the split bathroom and more stoage in the higher categories makes a difference...(I insisted we book at least a cat 10 for any future cruises since we had some space and bathroom issues on our cruise)
Great report!

 

[oceangirl]

I really enjoyed your trip report. I'm dismayed by all the trials that Disney put you through with the room, though it seems that at least Connie was helpful. In general, not what I'd expect from Disney. I certainly hope you get the credit they owe you - at the very least! I also congratulate you on your seemingly serene and very positive attitude. I only wish I could exhibit such grace were I to experience similar "surprises". (But I know I wouldn't so I hope it doesn't happen!!).

 

[delo4]

I wouldn't avoid all of deck 2. We have stayed on deck two 5 or 6 times before and we never had a problem. We usually stay mid-ship but I would avoid the last 5 or so rooms all the way aft. We could hear the noise get louder about 5 rooms away. I thought it was interesting that the room directly across the hall from us was occupied by castmembers, not paying guests. I guess the noise would be the reason.

There is definately more storage in the split bathrooms than the one bathroom. We have always stayed in category 9 rooms and usually love our location. I guess one in 10 cruises isn't too bad.

 

[O2BONDCL]

hi!
this is delo4's daughter #2
one thing that I loved would be walking around the ship. If you love behind the scenes tours, definitly take the walking, i think it's the art of entertaining, you start in palo and then they take you down the ship from there, do the stage production tour, my dad went on that and thought it was very cool to see how they put on the shows, and definitly do the kitchen tour! that was neat to walk through and see just how clean it really is (have no fear!) I took an hour or two one sea day and just walked around the ship every deck and looking at the details...this may sound boring to you (my whole family ) but i absolutly loved it. I would also recommend if you have been on several, to stay onboard during port days because there aren't alot of people onboard, and you get a chance to have the ship to yourself
We also did the Tea at Sea, my mother, sister and I didn't really enjoy it, we aren't huge tea drinkers, but my grandmother enjoyed it and it was fun to do with all the girls (the boys weren't invited )
The Pirate party and the Sail Away party are a must in my opinion. It was really funny because at the Pirate party it rained for all of 5 minutes..that was the only time it rained, go figure!
I agree with everything my mom said, I will post more if I think of more!

 

[delo4]

Oceangirl - thanks for the kind remarks although I must confess that there were some rough moments that first day. I kinda called it the ghetto room the whole first day. I must also confess that I kinda had a meltdown at 1:00 in the morning when I thought we might have to stay in this room because the ship was full. Alot of scenarios were running through my head. I thought maybe we could sleep on those deck 4 chairs or the lounge chairs outside the Cove cafe. We also could have split up and stayed in my parents or my daughter's room. Thank goodness the inside room was available!

I quickly realized that my family was all together on vacation and we weren't working, cooking or cleaning, so how bad could it be?

 

[Babs417]

Thanks you werevery helpful

 

[disneymom7851]

Stayed on Deck 2 in Feb, mid ship room 2047 and it was inside, split bathroom and wonderful. Must have just been the speed and the aft room. I will be staying in an aft room on Deck 7 next week, hope it won't be noisy also

 

[MagicMe]

Enjoyed your trip report! Don't think I could have been so patient with the noise. Especially at 1AM!! Glad you were able to move and enjoy the rest of the trip! BTW - love thos Deck 4 comfy chairs!!! Never found them on my first cruise and read about them on the DIS. We hit those chairs every night before heading back to our rooms!!!!

 

[delo4]

Disneymom - I dont think you will have a problem. When we moved to deck 5 it was also an aft room and it was very quiet. I think it was just really noisy on deck 2 because it was the very last room and close to the engine/propeller. The cast members told us it is sometimes hard for them to sleep when they get home because it is too quiet. Our room steward guessed that our room was deck 2 aft when we were moving. He said they get alot of complaints from guests about that room. He also told us he sleeps with ear plugs. They offered them to us at Guest Services, but I don't think even ear plugs would have helped.

 

[disneymom7851]

Thanks for info Delo

My daughter who is a cast member has a room on Deck 2 but she is at the very far end of bow and she doesn't have noise but lots of rocking as she is so near the very front of ship.

I am really getting excited as we leave in 3 days