If You See It: Eat It! Via Panama to Disneyland - Completed and Link to New Trip Report 2/24

[Flossbolna]

Your drink looked yummy! And I was wondering why the lifeboat was flowered until you explained!

It was yummy!

And I did explain about the lifeboat because when I got the pictures ready I just looked at this one in confusion and at first could not figure out what it was...

Wonderful photos! Our tradition though we've only been on one cruise is to grab drinks then pizza and relax by the pool upon embarkation. It was the perfect way for us to begin the cruise so m thinking we'll do it the same way next time. My crew will always choose outside vs inside if the temp allows.

The drinks look delicious and I agree, they are not expensive. I found them generous with the alcohol too.

I didn't realize you were on the same cruise with Corinna, too fun!

I think everyone has a different way of what is perfect for them - and ship pizza would definitely NOT be it for us! We were not a fan of the pizza at all, but I have noticed that you seem to enjoy it very much! But that's the great thing in variety as everyone enjoys something different!

Both of our drinks were very nice and strong! I never had a drink where I felt it was too weak on the ship.

Great embarkation day! It is so different to what it is like in Port Canaveral, and we have only gotten onto the ships there. Should be interesting in Barcelone in 5 weeks.

Love to see the inside room. We had not planned on cruising more than once, so went all out the first time around and had a veranda. Well, 13 cruises later we always talk about getting another stateroom, but then end up with one of the higher decks and a balcony again.
But your room looks quite roomy. I am so afraid of it being dark with having no windows. Did you mind having no windows at all?

Drink of the day! Yeah, nothing more relaxing, isn't there? I get myself quite a few of those over the course of a cruise.

Magdalene, I had to when you said that you liked the beach bag and that the silver one was the one you liked best. I love mine too and for me the black one was the one I liked best.

More please!!!!!!!!!!

Miami is a great port, but I think Barcelone must be pretty, too!

I know Michael and I would not be the ones to make good use of the veranda. We love to be in the pools when outside. And when I get up while he is sleeping in, I enjoy moving around the ship, get breakfast, a drink, etc. So I would not be going in and out of the room to then sit on the veranda. Deck 4 is perfect for morning sea views! I really enjoy being part of the ship life and seeing what is happening around me (like meeting Pluto wandering by or so).

I really liked the inside stateroom. It did not feel small at all. I even liked the way it is set up with the bed at the end better for feeling roomy. I also did not think it was dark in any way. We just put on the bridge view channel to see what was going on outside weather wise.

Oh, I think the black one looks rather fancy, too! Not so sure about the golden one. If they keep those bags long enough we might end up with a yellow one though as Michael is now Gold! And I can't see him wanting to have a golden beach bag - they are a bit girly...

 

[Flossbolna]

It was great to finally see a picture of you since this is the first TR of yours that I have followed! Nice to meet you!

Maybe I shoudl have put a picture of me in the introduction, but I totally did not think about it.

I love a DOTD to start a cruise, but if I don't like it, they are certainly priced fairly well that another one will do.

I really like it that those drinks are fairly priced. From a European perspective I am always amazed how expensive wine is in comparison. Fruity drinks are always more expensive here than a glass of wine.

I have never had an inside stateroom and am also concerned that I would go stir crazy, but I've heard that many folks sleep really well in the complete darkness. I'm still not sure, but like to hear other people's takes on it. We always have to leave a light on in our house or hotel rooms. Often we leave the curtains open so the sunlight can make it's way in.

I usually sleep with the curtains open as I love to wake up in a room with light. Michael does not. So I know if I share a room with him, it will be dark anyway. But I was concerned about the darkness in the inside stateroom as well. However, it really was not an issue at all. Maybe because waking up knowing there are exciting things outside made me want to be active immediately anyway? I slept very well in the inside stateroom!

It's always nice when the luggage shows up sooner rather than later. I like to get unpacked and then be done with it. I've never seen a ticket with so many dining options that they list them out by night. Thanks for showing that, normally they just read something like PTTAPTA, or ATPTPA or something cryptic like that. I can see with 15 nights you would really need to know which restaurant which night and not just have some abbreviation.

I thought only the KTTW had the cryptic AAPTAPT thing going? I wonder whether I still have my ticket from last cruise. But they certainly filled nearly all available space on the ticket!

My next Disney Vacay is a cruise out of Miami, so this whole sailing process is exciting. I really enjoyed Corinna's description of Chankanaab (though I still have to comment on her TR) and may consider that for our Cozumel excursion. I will love to hear what you do for yours. This time around my partner Fran is much more mobile and is even cleared for water excursions, so we have quite a few options other than the last time we visited Cozumel where we were quite limited.

It will be some time until I get to Cozumel... This time we just went to the beach. Last time we did the Fury Catameran which was really great! If you do have some mobility issues that would be a great excursion as you just need to walk to the catameran that is docked on the same dock as the Wonder and then after the snorkeling out to the beach. But it really is not a lot of walking at all! I wrote about it in last year's TR:
http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=48822181&postcount=198
http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=48851300&postcount=207

Yes, that would be wonderful! What we did see though, was the Dream in Hamburg before they brought her over to Port Canaveral for the first time. That was the coolest but weirdest sight, the Dream docked at one of the Blohm & Voss docks at the port of Hamburg, with snow all around !

That sounds fantastic! Those Blohm&Voss docks are always impressive, but with a Disney ship...

Okay, that seems to be the difference between your neighborhood and mine (I didn't watch that game either but just heard the reactions from outside): lots of cheering at Germany's goals, but only deathly SILENCE when Ghana scored !

There is a "Kneipe" (bar) just opposite of me and they were not cheering for Ghana, but shouting in fear, anger and frustration...

Last year we still had all 14 letters on the card because they didn't repeat in exactly the same order - they hardly fit on the card! !

I would have preferred that! But it was definitely easier for us as you alway just had to remember where you were yesterday to figure out where you had to go today.

Oh no, I hope they managed to get you a table for two after all. We have now requested tables for two twice - the first time I never checked up on it and it still worked, and the second time we went to Dining Changes after embarking only to check, and the cast member chuckled and said "Well, it almost worked. They put you on a laarge table, with 6 other people!". He was able to get us a table for two immediately, though, no waiting for a later message. So I really hoped this worked out for you in the end!!

There will be more about the table situation to come! We would have preferred a really large table to what we had, a table of four with one other couple. At least with a larger table you can talk to different people, or just let the others carry the conversation for a while.

Oh, I loved sailing out of Miami ... and I loved the Outlook Cafe, too! I guess I really truly will have to do another Panama Canal cruise sometime. Oh, and I also really like your dress, by the way!

Thanks for the comment on the dress! It is from last years visit to the outlet mall. It is from Tommy Bahama which is a brand that does that beachy kind of fashion.

Those drinks look lovely. I did not manage to have a single Drink of the Day this time round. I was too busy with all the tastings.

What a shame that your cabin was a little rough around the edges.

Corinna

We only signed up for one tasting and I think that was perfect for us. And it gave me lots of opportunity to indulge in drinks of the days!

The cabin was unfortunate and there will be more to talk about...

 

[Flossbolna]

You didn't even try it out for fun?

We really should have... But no, we did not. I guess I was thinking that there was no point in getting the sheets dirty, but then I would hope that they do change out the sheets anyway before the next guest comes in?

I would love to do this! (Alaska is the only state I have not visited)

Everything I have heard about Alaskan cruises sounds fabulous! Cynthia's report on her Alaska cruise was actually one of the reasons why I started a real interest in DCL.

You definitely made out better this time around!

I always feel a little sadness when the secret is out. I remember eating at Le Cellier years ago before it became so popular, and thinking it was one of the best-kept secrets at WDW. Not anymore!

That's the problem with secrets: In the age of the internet is far too easy for them to become well know. And the the best-kept secret at WDW is certainly something else.... (pssst, don't tell anyone, it is the Disney Vacation Club!)

I hope you tried out the slide too!

I felt far too big for that slide... Did not want to get stuck!!

 

[Flossbolna]

I admit that I had to look for the guitar guy quite hard .

Yes, he is very far off in the distance!

Hooray, you are sailing

Love the latest update. I have some similar concerns to yours, particularly whether I will find it difficult to be confined to the ship for such long periods of time (we don't stop at Key West or Castaway Cay so even more sea days for us). I will be interested to see how you fared.

Your Sea Breeze looks lovely - since DH and I will be sailing sans kids in May, I am looking forward to the opportunity to enjoy the Drink of the Day more than on previous cruises.

I don't think you have more sea days than us, our cruise was actually one day longer than yours is going to be and that was the day in Key West. Personally, I would have preferred for the first day on board being a sea day.

I have to say that once we were in that long stretch of sea days after Cartagena, it really did not matter to me anymore, it was just wonderful. I did not miss going on land at all. There was far too much fun going on! I would not have minded even more sea days!

I can't even imagine your excitement level of setting sail on a 15 day cruise.

Yes, thinking back makes me want to book another long cruise...

Those DOTD look delicious! I'm with Michael, I am not big on grapefruit so I would probably go with his choice.

That's odd they had the pull-down bed in the room. Maybe the hostess was just on auto-pilot and forgot to look at who was in the room.

I have always liked Inside staterooms. I sleep great; you never know when you wake up what time it is!

That picture of Goofy and Pluto is just precious! How sweet!

That Captain's Mai Tai was great! I meant to get it myself later in the cruise, but never got around to it...

The stateroom host seemed a bit overwhelmed with things. There is more to come in that story, too.

I am so pleased how well the picture turned out! I noticed that the characters are really good at posing for pictures, not just with people, but also on their own. I guess that's part of their profession.

One of the great things on this cruise was definitely how many characters we saw just wandering around the ship.

 

[Flossbolna]

Hi everyone! Just wanted to say sorry that a new update will be some time. I would love to work on it, but the real work is really busy right now and I don't see when I will get around to posting the next update...

But I have a fun story for all my German and Austrian readers: On Tuesday I came across a woman in my neighbourhood here in Nuremberg who was wearing a t-shirt from the May 2010 Disney Cruise Line Transatlantic cruise. I was so surprised and meant to ask her whether she was on that cruise. Of course I was too shy and then she had walked past me and I felt stupid rushing after her. But it seems that there are more German DCL cruisers than we think!!

(And if by any chance one of the lurkers here fits that description of having walked through Nuremberg in a DCL shirt on Tuesday, please send me a PM here on the boards! )

 

[Kleese]

Hiit's been awhile I hope y'all are well. I can't wait to catch up on all the good things you both been doing.

 

[mom4fun]

I'm considering this cruise for 2015. How much was the cruise for your inside cabin.

 

[Kirbo]

I'm in!

We're taking this cruise next year and can't wait. Love reading reports like yours with tons of pictures and info. Thank you.

Someone asked about being in an inside room. We stayed in an inside room (a 10C on deck one) for 21 days last year on the Magic. It was my husband and me and our two kids who were almost nine at the time. We had the split bath. It was wonderful. It didn't feel cave-like or depressing. The room is the same size in all the 10s through 5s. One of the things we loved was how quiet it was on deck 1. Plus, with so long on the boat (we did the EBTA and the first Med) we knew there was a risk of major weight gain, so we vowed to never use the elevators. We all did great with our weights. I did notice that there was never a wait for the elevators down there, so anyone on the first or second decks should be able to easily get a ride up.

Can't wait for you to have time for a new post . Take your time. No pressure. Well, not much

 

[GoofyFan1515]

Trying to get all caught up. Sorry I haven’t been around much but work and life are just crazy right now. This new work assignment I’m on is even more time intensive than the one I told you about that originated near you.

Thanks for all the specifics about check in and boarding when you arrive for the cruise. I’m sure when the day comes that I take a Disney Cruise I will feel the very same anxiety you did the first time not knowing what to expect. Of course, being Disney, they make it as painless as possible, but that doesn’t totally take that “unknown” element out of it.

Too funny about the long “12 minute” delay waiting for your boarding group to be called. It seems like any time we have to wait like that it always seems much longer than it actually is. You got some great shots of the Wonder. I can almost hear it calling my name. Your food at PC looked really good, especially for buffet.

Looks like you had a really good stateroom, and for getting an upgrade. Of course now it appears I have more to get caught up on since you say you rewrote the update on room categories. Why do I feel that I might be the reason you went back and did that???

You got an awful lot done in the short amount of time between when you boarded and the ship finally sailed. I really like your new “tradition” of getting that drink to start off your trip! I am somewhat of a fan of grapefruit and grapefruit juice, but I’m still a little undecided about having it in my adult beverage. Of course, it probably isn’t a whole lot different from ordering the standard Screwdriver once they added the cranberry juice, so it might be worth a try, especially when it is the drink special.

That’s a real bummer about getting stuck at a table for four when you requested to be seated alone. Hopefully Disney made some happen and fixed that for you, and you were also able to get your request as Josip for your Head Server.

Those sandwiches at Goofy’s Galley looked very tempting, and what an interesting fact about the ship making so much fresh water from the sea water! I got a reuseable insulated cup when they were on sale also. I bet you can’t guess which one was my choice………

And BTW, I am really hoping to never read a Magdalene TR update that answers the question whether you can remain calm enough to do all of those tasks during an actual ship’s emergency!

 

[Poolrat]

Trying to catch up myself around here. Glad you made it on board. I agree starting your official vacation with the DOTD and having it be a good one just starts you off right.

Love all the pictures of the stateroom and the ship.

Sounds like we are going to in for quite a trip for 15 days.

 

[lovealldisney]

Hi Magdalene,

I'm here! Love all the updates so far! Ok how did you like Moe's? We have one here sort of close by. I don't mind it not my favorite for Mexican though. The hotel in Miami was interesting. Now the bathroom was really designed weird. Your drink looked very yummy and you look lovely in your sundress! Looking forward to the rest of the trip!

 

[eandesmom]

First, let’s start this trip report with about the who, why, how and what.

Who:

Magdalene (that’s me) and my boyfriend Michael. I live in Germany and Michael lives in Florida. Yes, it’s not the best, but that’s the way life is and we are just making the best out of the times we can spend together. Like this cruise.

Ok, I know I am very late to the party but it is nice to see the "B" word officially being used...as I don't seem to recall seeing it in print before

On our cruise last year (see trip report From the Sea to the World) we booked a dummy booking because after my first short cruise, I was just in love with that kind of vacation. Looking at the brochure we saw the Panama Canal cruise and just thought it sounded amazing. We did not think the price was amazing though. So we decided to take our chances and hope for a good rate to come up and then use our dummy booking for something else. We actually ended up moving it to the Westbound Transatlantic cruise in September 2014 thinking that if we won’t get on a cruise in May, that would be nice, too. However, in order to keep our options open, I was sitting at my computer at lunch time on October 17 as that was when the booking for the VGC would open up for us DVC owners who don’t own there. I was excited when I was able to book a studio for 7 nights starting May 17! So with this booked, we kind of started to think that either we are going to cruise to Disneyland, or we will have a pure California vacation with one week at Disneyland. We would have loved that option, too.

For the Panama Canal cruise, the date until which you can cancel without penalty was 120 days before sail date. This is important as after that date Disney often offers special rates that are discounted. They are so called "restricted rates", also known as IGT, OGT and VGT - or grouped together as *GT. The GT part stands for guaranteed, I for inside, O for ocean view and V for veranda. So with these rates, you are not assigned a specific stateroom, but are only guaranteed to get a stateroom within the class that you booked (so an inside if you booked IGT), but you can also be upgraded to a higher class. The stateroom number is usually assigned within 10 days of your sail date. This allows Disney to fill up the ship, but offer other people more different stateroom categories.

I was watching the website constantly to see if any deals would come out. And the they finally posted an OGT rate – which was much higher than last years *GT rates! No IGT, nor VGT. We did not like the price at all… And were rather disappointed. However, I noticed something else: The lowest price for an inside stateroom had gone down and I realised that they had opened up the 11C category again. That had been sold out for a long time already and I also noticed that they would not let you choose a stateroom, your stateroom would be assigned by Disney in the category you booked or higher (called GTY, not to be confused with the *GT rates…; GTY stands for guaranteed). So, our thinking was that if you book 11C GTY, which is the lowest category offered on the ship and it only has a few staterooms, chances for a better stateroom are quite high! And if we moved our rebooked cruise to that, we would get the 10% rebooking discount as well as 200$ stateroom credit. With that the price started to look quite good. So that’s what we did. In our case it actually worked more or less the same as an IGT rate. We were guaranteed a stateroom on the ship that could be any category. Of course, if had booked a higher category of inside cabin, for example a 10B which is slightly larger and has a split bathroom, then we would not get anything below 10B. There are two differences in our case though: If you have an IGT rate, you can no longer change to a Florida resident discount (and those are often even better than those *GT rates) and a GTY room is usually assigned further out. I think we got our stateroom number about 50 days before the cruise.

GTY can be a great way to go! We had wonderful luck with our GTY booking back in 2011 for Alaska.

I had an kind of interesting seat neighbour. He was French and only spoke very little English. But before out plane took off, he was very busy with his mobile phone and kept talking excitedly to the people behind us who were travelling with him. He then turned to me and asked me whether I spoke French. After me answering that I spoke very little, he proceeded to tell me half in English, half in French that he owned a horse that was just in its first race ever and got third place. He was very excited about it. I was quite fascinated as I had never know anyone who owns racing horses. I guess I thought that people who own racing horses would have enough money to not have to fly economy across the pond though…

He probably doesn't have enough $ to fly first class because he puts it all into that horse!

After the brief stop to hand in my customs declaration, I made it into the arrival hall to meet Michael! It was wonderful to see him again!!

Our first stop was to go and get some dinner first. We knew that there was nothing really convenient in walking distance of the hotel and we thought it would make sense to get dinner out of the way first

Michael and I had already decided where we wanted to go before I arrived. Michael regularly has lunch at Moe’s: This is a restaurant that sells burritos. They have a special on Mondays for their burritos. Since Mondays at Moe’s are kind of a tradition for Michael, and I have heard so much about them, I really wanted to go to Moe’s. And my arrival day was on Monday. So Moe’s it was.

Michael warned me that those burritos were very large, so we decided to share one. We got them filled with all kind of stuff that you could pick and choose. And then they split it for us and served it on two different trays with chips.

there is no way Jeff would have shared that. That sounds perfect after a long flight and a long long wait at customs.

I am going to do a combined update since we did not do a lot of special things during these days. We just enjoyed hanging out, spending time at the pool and the beach, having breakfast at Starbucks (where I fell in love with the cinnamon coffee cake and the Valencia Orange Refresher, both not available here in Germany…), meeting friends of Michael etc.

We also repeated one event from last year: a visit to Sawgrass Mills Outlet Mall. It is the largest outlet mall in the US and really quite impressive. One reason to go there is that they have a Disney outlet that is actually run by the Parks and Resort division of the Walt Disney Company. So they have a lot of WDW and some DL and even DCL stuff there. On my last cruise I had thought about getting a pin that was for 15 years of DCL, but then did not like the design. Michael ended up buying one though and once we had gotten off the ship, we found out that it is actually a pin with two sides and I really loved the other side! But then I had no way of buying that pin anymore. So, you can imagine how thrilled I was to find it at the outlet there!! Michael was much less thrilled than me of course as he had paid full price…

This is the pin with front and back (you can turn around the round part in the middle):

And this is the reason why the pin mattered so much for me:

My collection of park anniversary pins from parks that I visited during their “anniversary year”. Yes, I think getting a Disneyland 60th anniversary pin is a good reason to plan a trip there for next year!!!

The W Hotel in Fort Lauderdale was a very elegant place, had kind of a night club feel about it (I guess that’s what the chain goes for), but I found it still warm and welcoming.

This is a picture of the lobby seating area (also serves as a bar in the evenings):

And some outside seating outside that area with a view of the beach and the ocean:

If you want to get to the pool from the lobby, you go up these stairs:

Yes, that’s through the pool. This is the view looking back once you are on the pool deck:

W sign in front of the hotel:

View of the hotel from street:

And close up of the tower where our room was located (somewhere in the blue section in the middle):

And finally a few pictures of your room:

The bathroom set up was strange to say the least. The view you see there was directly from the hallway. Originally there would have been no door at all, but they now added a curtain to create a visual barrier from the bathroom area to the hallway in the room. To the left is the toilet, just separated by a frosted glass door through which you still could see quite a bit. And to the right is the very large shower. As you can see the side towards the sink is all glass. But if you look to the other side of the shower, you might be able to see that this is glass as well. On the other side of the glass wall is the first of the two beds. They did have shutters there that you could close to have privacy in the shower, but it seemed that those were added later as well. I really do not understand that concept of bringing all bathroom business into the middle of the room. While some people might enjoy putting on a show in the shower, I can think of many situations of people sharing a hotel room where it would not be welcomed at all. Or what if housekeeping enters the room while you are getting under the shower??? Anyway, our room had the additional curtain and the shutters, so we were fine. But who in the hell designs stuff like that?

We did have a lovely view however:

We spent some time at the beach, which really is quite lovely here. And having it directly across the hotel was nice.

But you might see from the way the palm trees look like and the waves, it was very windy. Unfortunately the wind kept blowing for all the three days I had there. And while the waves were fun for a short time, all the wind made for a less comfortable beach experience, so after the first afternoon at the beach, we did not get back there.

I have mixed feelings about the W. They are lovely. In a very contemporary modern way, which is the look they are going for. I'm not sure I'm quite hip enough for them though and goodness, that bathroom set up was odd. I could see it in NYC where space is at such a premium but it seems unnecessary in Miami. I'd also feel a little odd about folks walking up to the pool deck seeing me underwater! Guess you can stick to parts of the pool not near those stairs. Bummer about the wind though. Spectacular views.

Just when we were starting to get out stuff together at the beach we noticed a guy kind of walking sideways through the water where it was about waist deep for him. He had one arm stretched out high with a fist and looked a bit crazy. Then we noticed two lifeguards watching him and then one of them went into the water and tried to talk to him, but it seemed that he did not respond. Then we saw the police arrive and the paramedics. In the end four lifeguards went into the water to carry him out. He did not fight against them, but they literally had to carry him holding on to his arms and legs. This happened just where we had stationed ourselves, about 20 meters away from us maybe. They then carried him to the sidewalk where the paramedics took over. I wish we would have been able to find out what happened.

Oh my goodness, hope he was ok

Once we were done with checking in, I expected that boarding group 5 (us!) would be called soon. I had read that usually there is not a long delay between the different boarding groups. But that did not seem the case. I was surprised how crowded the terminal building was, there were people everywhere! We managed to get the first day Navigator from a cast member and tried to position us close to the entrance. It seemed to take a lot of time, but according to the time on my pictures, there is only 12 minutes between the check in desk picture and the next one:

12 minutes can seem very long in times like that!

Our first stop was lunch. There are two options for lunch on embarkation day: Beach Blanket Buffet which is on deck 9 and is the general buffet restaurant, and Parrot Cay which is on deck 3 and turns into one of three main restaurants in the evening. The difference is that while BBB is totally self service, for PC you get seated at a table and drinks are served by the servers. You just go and get your food yourself. I prefer that much more! That’s why we are at PC on our last cruise as well as on this one.

Heading over to PC we noticed that there was quite a different crowd on this cruise than on the last one. First of all we immediately started to notice the absence of children. Instead there were many largish (6 or more) groups of adults that obviously belonged together. Some of them were wearing matching t-shirts even. We also noticed that those people knew their way around the ship much better than the crowd we sailed with on the Wonder last year. There was a line of people wanting to eat at PC. Last time it was 2/4 empty.

After some confusion because the guy in front of us was checking in alone, but needed a table for a group of 8, we were told that there was no table for two, but we could share a table. We agreed to that and were lead to a table for 6, which already had one couple sitting there. We were lead to the other end of the table, so it really was not like sharing a table. They kept to themselves and were gone rather quickly, too.

I have a feeling our cruise will have a similar demographic, a LOT of folks on it are doing it after the TA.

We were surprised to see the bunk bed down as we did not need that!

That is plain odd in a room that has 2 adults!

The brown book with Donald on the cover is kind of the general information about the ship (like the folder you would find in most hotel rooms). It also contains the room service menu (room service is included in your cruise fare) Much later in the cruise we realised that this was already the book for the Alaskan cruises, it had a lumberjack Donald on the cover and all kind of info on Alaska in it. Made us want to go and book an Alaskan cruise…

You should!!!!!!!!!!

The bag was the gift for all silver Castaway Club members. Inside the bag was a magnetic white board that you could attach to your stateroom door – some people had it outside, we actually put it on the connecting door that was in our room, so it was kind of on the wall of our room. With it came a pen to write on the white board that had a magnet on its cap, so that it could be placed next to the white board. And we also got a highlighter called “Navilighter” for the Navigators. I liked the gift much better than what Michael had gotten on our last cruise, which was a backpack, cheesy crackers (that were awful) and a key chain. This year’s items seemed much more practical. You could tell that the beach bag was very popular as it seemed that half the ship took them with them to the pool and on excursions. I would have been scared of not being able to find mine again in the sea of identical bags. Oh and the gold members got yellow bags, the platinum members got black bags. I really liked the grey one the best!

I am excited for that bag, it is really cute!

I was a bit scared, but it had kind of a comfortable cave like feeling to it.

Oh my. I'm not sure cave like is ideal fora 2 week cruise

Our first stop was at Studio Sea, which is a place where they have certain shows. On the first day it was the place to go if you had any wishes regarding dining. Like a reservation for Palo or changes to your rotation. The reason why we went there was that we had requested a table for just the two of us. Disney Cruise Line actually does not have any table for two, but you can still request to be seated on your own. So, that’s what we requested. Since we don’t see each other for large chunks of time, we really wanted to be able to chat just between the two of us during dinner and not have to make small talk with others, however nice they might be. So, we wanted to check whether our request had been granted. Besides a table for two, we had also requested our head server from our last cruise, Josip from Croatia. We thought he was really excellent and had enjoyed chatting with him. We had noticed that he was very attentive as to how the servers in his section were doing their job. Besides checking on whether we had gotten a table just for the two of us, we also wanted to request our Palo server from the last cruise, Sasha, also from Croatia. At Studio Sea we found out that Sasha was on vacation, he had just left the ship two weeks ago. And we found out that we were placed at a table for four with one other couple. We were not happy with that. They told us that they were seeing what they could do for us and might leave a message on our phone and otherwise speak to our head server that evening.

I really really hope that gets fixed!

I decided that I wanted the drink of the day. It was called Sea Breeze and was something with grapefruit juice and cranberry juice (and vodka?). The good thing about the drink of the day is how cheap it is. It’s just under 5 $. To me that’s a great price. And they were rather generous with the alcohol in them usually. Michael does not like grapefruit juice, so he went for a standard drink from the pool bar drinks menu and got the Captain’s Mai Tai. It was very good!

I forgot they are actually less $$. Jeff has often complained that they seemed weak but it probably depends on the actual drink. I need to keep that in mind.

Michael headed to the adult pool which was already very busy. Another thing that was different from our previous cruise when the adult pool never got very busy on the first day. I headed up to deck 10 and was waiting for the ship to start. I watched all the other ships in port leaving. And was texting a little bit with family in Germany who were sitting in front of their computers and watching the Miami port webcam and were complaining why the ship was not leaving at 5pm (11pm for them) as I had told them. Of course it really wasn’t my fault, but I felt guilty that they were up late and did not see anything happening.

At least it's a nice big pool deck with 2 hot tubs. So much better than how they set up the Dream. We did not care for that at all and it was always crazy crowded.

Ok. I think I am caught up! And you look lovely in your dress, I remember when you bought it!

 

[glennbo123]

Great detail in your write-up Magdalene, as usual! I'm enjoying it all.

 

[TillyMarigold]

Whee! Signing on. I've missed your TRs! (I've been away from the DIS for a few years, my last couple trips were to Disneyland also.) Was just looking over my old dining report and decided to see what you're up to. (Wow, that sounds stalker-y. I'm not. I swear.)

 

[englishrose47]

Just chimimg in, have been so busy I am behind on all my threads including my own. I leave Thursday for Williamsburg Va, No day off before , and I am nowhere near ready !!!I am in need of a break even if it is a working vacation !!!

 

[brookelizabeth]

Why, hello there!! It's been ages since I have been around, I had forgotten how much I enjoy a good TR! Love all the detail you have included too!

Looking forward to more when life slows down for you a bit! Also, a big CONGRATS to Germany on the World Cup!!!

 

[gilchrest94]

Did you get a photo package?

 

[englishrose47]

Just checking in !!!

 

[Flossbolna]

Just checking in !!!

Hi there! Hope to be back with updates by the middle of August, once I finished writing something big for work. It is in its end stages, but if you spend the whole day writing something that feels like a doctoral thesis (it's not!!) I just lack any writing energy. But I am so much looking forward to coming back to it soon!

 

[englishrose47]

I am drained with the extra work at my full time job and a drastic staff shortage at my second , today I am working 14 hours alone Thank goodness I am off tomorrow !!