July 19th Cruisers ~ What did you love about your cruise?

[DisneyCruiseluvr]

Since we've been back from our July 19th Western cruise, I've been wondering what my fellow cruisers thought about their cruise. Did you enjoy the DCL shows, the new menu at Palos, the food in general, the deck party, the onboard activities, the excursions or all of the above????

My favorite evening was spent with my husband at Palos. We <b>LOVED</b> our dinner!!! Kristoff was our server and he was excellent. The food was out of this world!!! We enjoyed every bite and had a lot of fun as well.

The food in general was also <b>excellent</b>. I looked forward to <b>every</b> meal! We tried using the stairs instead of the elevator a lot, which helped in preventing some major weight gain on my part (I'm small, but I can put away some food!).

We also enjoyed seeing all of our castmember friends that we've made through the years onboard the Disney Magic. This was our fourth DCL cruise and we enjoy treating our castmember friends like "celebrities". We'd be like, "<b>LOOK!</b> There's so-and-so!!!" and we'd be so excited to greet our special friends. Who needs celebrities on the cruise when you are around such an awesome staff of people, who are each truly magical in their own, unique way.

We enjoyed each port of call, but our day at Castaway Cay is always our favorite. That place is "paradise" to us and we're so glad DCL saves the best for last!

Our favorite "tip" this year (besides the over-the-door-shoe organizers, Downy Wrinkle Releaser and our travel alarm clock) was the bottle of dishwashing liquid for taking stains out and doing laundry. I didn't have to spend any time in the laundry room because we washed whatever we needed to recycle by hand and then hung it in the bathroom or on the verandah chairs to dry. This enabled me to spend more time with my family during our days at sea.

Please share your favorite tips and/or cruise highlights. I enjoyed meeting many of you at the DIS meet and I hope everyone had a magical vacation.

 

[lancerguys]

Linda,

first of all, my mother says hi and that she had a great time getting to know you. she looks forward to staying in touch. I have some good news and some bad news. the good news is we booked the August 7th,2004 cruise. unfortunately, we are pretty sure school starts for us the 9th. so we probably won't make it. but we are banking that it would start the 16th, which it might. but as soon as I found out, I will definitely let you know. I think the entire cruise was great!! We all loved it. I have to say, the only thing I didnt like was C'est Magique (sp??). I didnt think it was up to disney standards. but everything else was great. I can sure pack the food in too, even though I'm pretty skinny. but as always, the food was fantastic. I enjoyed meeting all the kids from all over. and I really had a good time meeting all the different crew members from all over and making special relationships with them. overall, it was one of the best vacations of my life. talk to you soon!!!

 

[DisneyCruiseluvr]

Hey Kraig!

Hope it works out that schools starts a bit later for you in August of 2004. The new DCL Eastern itinerary sounds like fun.

Keep us posted!

 

[lancerguys]

Hey Linda,

Bad news..... ...unfortunately we won't be able to make the cruise. Turns out that we have to have a certain number of weeks between Labor Day and Christmas. So there is a 60% chance that school starts the 9th for us. So, that means that we most likely will not be on the cruise. I am so upset . We were all looking forward to cruising again. Oh well, I guess we will either have to wait until another year or hope that school starts later. I'm so upset!
kraig

 

[DisneyCruiseluvr]

Where there's a will .... there's a way! Time goes by very quickly and I'm sure you all will be back on the Magic before you know it.

 

[beaniema323]

We enjoyed everything about the cruise (with the exception of our "picture problems!). The people, the food, the accomodations, the food, the ports, the food (are you seeing a pattern here?) were all great.

It was especially wonderful to see that our kids had such a great time. We were actually planning on booking a 3 or 4 day next October for our 20th anniversary, but have decided to wait until Summer 2005 and take the girls again.

It was great meeting you and your family. You "veterans" were alot of help to us "newbies".

I, too, thought that Castaway Cay was the best. It was just too short. We definitely need 2 days there!

It seems as though most of the teens are keeping in touch, maybe the rest of us can too.

Looking forward to our next Cruise!

 

[lancerguys]

I sure hope so Linda!!! Maybe if I bribe the principal with gifts from the ship she will make an exception !!

 

[DisneyCruiseluvr]

<b>beaniema323</b>,

We really enjoyed getting to know you all too! The more the merrier I always say!!! We had a great time hanging out with you and the Heckers. Went by too fast, didn't it?

I especially got a kick out of our teen kids hanging out w/eachother. They became good friends and I'm sure they'll be keeping in touch via emails and ims.

Take care and I hope we'll get to cruise with you all again sometime!

 

[December99]

Hello guys - we just got home on Sunday after a few trips along the way home.

Here is what I thought -

The over-the-door-shoe hanger WAS AWESOME!!!!! And our room host kept filling parts of it for us!!!! Elmer was our host and he was great.

The food I did not find out to be excellent except for the Beef Tenderloin I had at the Palo brunch. It melted in your mouth!!!! I am a very picky eater and I'm guessing I lost weight (for once in my life) while on board - but then gained it back on our travels AFTER the cruise LOL For picky eaters - don't look forward to the food, seriously.

I thought our wait staff was great. They were very down to earth with us and were joking and also talked serious with us. Rishi and Annie-Marie were just great! And we met an AWESOME family that were our tablemates - HELLO JIM, HELEN AND ANTHONY!!!! (Hopefully they will become DISers or at least lurk). They were just very awesome and fun and nice people.

Even though we didn't have a whole lot of time (because it started sprinkling and it was a cool sprinkle) it was cool to meet the people that gathered at the mini-DIS meet. Lancerguys was there (although I didn't get to say hi he did meet my dh and then later met my dd), disneycruiseluvr was there - great to meet you, Bobbie and her family (we actually met them at the terminal), The Farley family (I'm sorry but I am having a hard time with DIS names), and I think there was another family there but I don't remember their DIS names. It is ALWAYS great to meet DISers.....

The drinks were great! I'm not much of a drinker but I couldn't resist a Bahama Mama once a night (well almost every night).

We were very please with the excursions. At Key West we went on our own and thank goodness because that was a HOT day and we were able to get back on board when we wanted. At Grand Cayman we did the Semi-Sub and Snorkel and that was great. At Cozumel we did the Tulum Ruins (with about 200 other people from the ship) and we were extremely pleased with the organization of the excursion that Disney put forth. If you ever decide to do Tulum, make sure you book it through Disney! And the family was very pleased with their activities at Castaway Cay - dd did the Wild Side with the teens and said she had a great time and dh did just the package with the bike, snorkel and float. I sat on the beach and rotated between the shade and sun (got a great spot by a tree) and got fried. I'm not much of a beach person so the hour and a half I had was enough for me. Then dd and I parasailed and OMG.....DO IF YOU EVER THINK ABOUT DOING IT!!!!! The boat operators were awesome, the people with us were awesome and it was just great. Would I do it again? I don't know but if anyone remembers, I was so skeptical about it before we left and after we booked it. As I was in the air I was still skeptical and scared to death but I did it!

I am not a pool person so sitting by the pool wasn't my thing but I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of pool chairs that were open during the day as well as tables and chairs that were open on Deck 9. I could always find a chair open anywhere. And I didn't see many chair hogs. I don't know if it had anything to do with how warm it was and people just didn't want to be out or what.

Another thing I was disappointed in but I could see how hard this would be to do - the lack of activities on port days. If you didn't want to go ashore or you were only ashore a short time and came back to the ship - there wasn't a whole lot to do. Go see a movie, take a nap, do some laundry - that was about it. We did notice the pools were very uncrowded on these days so a pool day, if that's what you liked would have been good too.

I didn't get one book touched (I had three to read) and didn't open any of my magazines so I guess that means I had a good time. Which I did!

 

[richym1]

Debkay and our family had a GREAT cruise! It was great meeting everyone. The best part about the cruise was the FOOD and the weather! The food seemed better than I ever had on past cruises. We did Palos for Brunch and Dinner, both were wonderful experiences.
Carlos and Charlies in Cozumel was awesome! The conga line of shots was a blast!
Stingray City was very cool. My mother-in-law got a huge hickey on her arm and wanted to get out! LOL! It turned into a big bruise. The kids were a bit creeped out after that. We were swarmed by those flapping, slippery monsters several minutes after we got into the water. Must have been my handful of squid....
Castaway Cay......what can I say? It's like heaven.