KC's Western POST trip report 4/19-4/26

[King Charming]

Subtitle: How much does a cruise cost AFTER you buy your tickets???

I finally lost the rocking feeling I experienced all day Saturday. It was an amusing going away present from DCL that constantly reminded me of the most excellent time I just experienced.

For those who are follow-up readers of my PRE TR, you'll remember that money was a big issue with me. In order to realistically budget for this trip, you really have to know the numbers. What I would like this to become (in addition to bragging about what a great trip it was) is a reference guide for how much stuff costs, both on and off ship. Advice for tipping, when to have cash in your pocket, and info like telling your server/cashier your stateroom number as you hand them your KTTW card so they won't have to ask (it's a security thing in case someone gets their hands on your card and tries to charge with it )

I took plenty of notes so I would remember to share my observations/opinions, so again you should expect a large volume of long windedness .

When you read things here that you have heard before, it is because these things really do make life easier on board. A great example is the over the door shoe holder/organizer. Upon moving in to much smaller quarters than we are usually all used to, the small amount of available counter space quickly disappears. Rather than digging through 3 or 4 layers of junk and cussing the whole time, your daily stuff is right there. By putting the most common/useful/needed items here your life WILL be better .

As accurate as I'll try and be, policy, menus, and prices do change, so please expect to find out minor variations for yourself. For our cruise it was a brand new menu on Monday night, a change to the smoking policy, and updated liquid carry-on rules that took effect in the past 30 days.

Hypermommy will be posting photos of everything from the food to Hell itself once she sorts through all of them. We took about a thousand pics, but Kodak gets zip! Gotta love digital . I'm sure she will throw her two cents worth in also, thereby tripling your reading value .

I'd like to space this out over the next few weeks to give everybody a chance to get in on this. Please feel free to add, clarify, or otherwise correct me. We can start with the travel to Orlando or/then the port, then cover each day of the cruise, the travel home, and final reflections.

So let me unpack, sort through my notes (I'm sure they are here somewhere) and I'll start on it. If I'm a little slow (again), go ahead and start without me; I'll be along as soon as the tram comes by...

 

[purplepeg]

I'm so excited I can't wait to start reading say hi to hypermommy for me. I missed her kicking my butt about not getting my updates posted.(she hasn't missed anything)

 

[Hypermommy]

You certainly don't mean that you haven't posted anything while I'm gone do you? I'll be checking out your TR next but, of course, I had to get to KCs first. I'll be adding here where I think relevant (whether it is or not will be up to the reader to decide) but I'll also be doing my own TR. Mine will be concentrating mostly on my feelings and what we did. I leave the money to KC to figure out since he's so good at it. I'm just really good at spending it... just ask him... he'll tell you that it's true.

Now if I could just quit swaying. this is too funny

 

[hayanyujah847]

I'm excited to hear how your trip went~!!!

Welcome home to both of you~!!

 

[RLccweems]

Welcome home.....I can't wait to hear all about your trip!

 

[imheather]

I can't wait because I love to plan as far as money AND we will be leaving Saturday on the Western. Go Hurry and unpack!


Heather

 

[King Charming]

I'm still not ready to start, but thought about the 4 most important items. The first set is the stuff you need to invest in and bring along. The first is a watch for everybody. After you leave your stateroom, finding a clock is a real challenge. Bring your own and save the effort. Bring a camera and/or a video camera. With so many great backgrounds both on and off the ship, it is worth buying a new one (digital please). Light weight ones that can hang from a lanyard or pocket sized are best. The over the door shoe holder/organizer saved my sanity and worked as well as promised; bring two or three. Finally, bring your own stash, be it wine, beer, soda, or drugs - the legal kinds of course. The wine packages I saw listed prices of $179 and up. I'm sure the mark-up was at least 100%. Although I didn't finish all the beers I brought and therefore didn't try to buy any, I'm sure you can again save half by bringing as much as you can carry. It is a Coke ship and I drink alot of Pepsi. If you gotta have a Dr. Pepper (or another Pepsi) every day, bring your own. All liquids must now be brought aboard in your carry-on luggage, which will limit your options. Whatever your appetites, bring it along! The room in your luggage be needed at the end for new stuff bought, so this works well. Nobody goes snooping around in your bags either coming or going, and tipping the porters 2 bucks a bag helps keep everything moving quite nicely. If there is an X-ray machine it was well hidden, and I saw no sign of a K-9 presence anywhere at the port. In fact I was only stopped once by a security guard for being in an area I shouldn't have been, and he left me alone when I said I was just killing time before the ship left.
Now here are the 4 things you bring a small amount of and replace with stuff bought on board or in the ports. Liquor tops the list. The bottles you buy on the ship stay with THEM until the end of the cruise, but the savings make it worth it. Until then, go into the ports and bring a bottle or two back. The prices of rum and tequila were cheaper than here at home and seemed inline with what I would have expected. Next is cigarettes. Cartons of the most popular 8 or 10 brands were available on the ship for 16 bucks! The only 100's were B&H. If you smoke an off brand and are unwill to change, move this item to the first list as prices by the pack ranged from 5 bucks in KW to $3.75US in Hell. Cigars are available everywhere. Dominican and Cuban stoogies can be bought at all the ports. Although not as cheap as I expected, if you hunt around you can find acceptable prices. I paid a low of $12US to a high of $28US for Cubans in GC. There were others available at both higher and lower prices. Final item is shirts. The DCL polo and T-shirts and port of call T-shirts that you WILL be buying might as well get worn right away; why waste valuably suitcase room bringing another shirt? Anyone care to add to the list?

 

[Kim1964]

Final item is shirts. The DCL polo and T-shirts and port of call T-shirts that you WILL be buying might as well get worn right away; why waste valuably suitcase room bringing another shirt? Anyone care to add to the list?

This is great advice! We're taking our first ever cruise next year (the western Caribbean) and it's taken me more than 20 years of marriage to convince DH to do it....I'll be stocking up on all the cruiseline gear for sure!

I can't wait to read your report!

 

[King Charming]

So I bought this neat little pad & pen set to write notes about everything I experienced. I thought this would be a good way of remembering things worth writting about. You get to be the judge as to whether I wasted 3 bucks on it. Having suffered from CRS for many years, it was the only way I was going to recall the little things that will help others to prepare for a cruise, or to help Castaway Club members re-live the experience. The very first entry was "Don't lose the pad!". I was able to keep up with my stuff, the kids not so well (more about that latter). The original plan was to leave around 10am, right after I returned from dropping off the two dogs at the kennel. The dogs got dropped off early enough, along with a weeks worth of treats for all the dogs there. Unfortunately, Hypermommy had to work till noon. This was the only time in the next 8 days that something came up causing us to alter our plans. I used the time to buy DS 12 and myself another pair of sneakers. I wanted a second nice pair in case mine got wet, and eating machine # 2 is just hard on clothes and always seems to need a pair. After spending 55 bucks we had matching pairs of black cons. The mini-van received 60 dollars worth of gas and the tire pressure was checked. Since I had already entered vacation mode, we stopped at one of our favorite oriental restaurants after DW got off work. I decided that since we will be eating good food all week for free, this would be my last chance to waste money this way. Thirty Washingtons later I began to wonder why I thought the spreadsheet I used to track expenses was so important if I was going to blow money this easily. We had a very good lunch anyway, eaten slowly as if already on island time, then hit the highway around 2pm. A new game, not played in over a year, sprang into being. The "Is that packed?" game was played by all for the first hour or so as we each listed things most dear to us.
I had forgotten about the tolls on the turnpike and highway over to Cocoa Beach. There are still no toll roads within 100 miles of Tallahassee, but Florida makes up for that in the southern half of the state. It was only 3 or 4 dollars (each way), but a rude reminder that there would be expenses I never thought of. From my door to the hotel was approx. 310 miles, covered in 270 minutes. Not a single traffic cop, highway patrolman, or slow-down the entire trip. I should hope everybody's trip down was so uneventful.

 

[nzdisneymom]

I had forgotten about the tolls on the turnpike and highway over to Cocoa Beach. There are still no toll roads within 100 miles of Tallahassee, but Florida makes up for that in the southern half of the state. It was only 3 or 4 dollars (each way), but a rude reminder that there would be expenses I never thought of. From my door to the hotel was approx. 310 miles, covered in 270 minutes. Not a single traffic cop, highway patrolman, or slow-down the entire trip. I should hope everybody's trip down was so uneventful.

That's why we often go via Jax even if the GPS wants us to go the turnpike... comes out about the same. Can't wait to read more.

 

[purplepeg]

Good start so far. Can't wait to read more.

 

[TotallyAngelic]

A brilliant start - I have been so looking forward to this!

 

[VacationKicks]

Can't wait to read all about your cruise!

 

[Hypermommy]

Hey there, hi there, ho there all....

I thought about doing my own trip report. I was going to write it all out and make it nice and coherent like King Charming's. But then I realized you guys probably know me better than that and know that I'm just a stream of consciousness girl. So I figured I'd tag on to his TR. Hope nobody minds. Most especially KC

So where are we? Oh yes, the day before debarkation. As KC mentioned in his pre-trippie we planned to head down on Friday becauase two flat tires on the way to the port on the morning of would be just a rotten thing to have happen. Earlier in the week my boss asked why we were heading down on Friday and I answered with the truth. When will I learn? So he asked if I could work Friday. I told him I could work until about lunchtime. I was very much hopeful that KC and the boys could go fishing on the pier because I knew they'd all enjoy that. Can't blame bossman either... it's not like he wanted to ask me to work but we had an installation that we had to do the following week and I had to get the code right before I left. He did come into my office, shut the door and handed me an envelope thanking me for "plussing" it (yes, I've taught him the term) and for all my hard work. Let's just say the contents of the envelope were more than generous. And yes, I even told KC about the cash.

So we stopped at the local restaurant to begin our trip. See what a wonderful lunch we had?

Then it was off to the Resort at the Port. This place is very pretty. Here's some pics I took of it.

DS12 and DS14 enjoying the pool

The pool itself (actually taken Sat AM and they hadn't turned on the waterfall yet)

The garden and pond outside our hotel room door

I was very happy with this hotel and would highly recommend it to anyone. The rooms were clean and spacious. The pool was nice and big and there was a tiki bar right next to the pool. All in all, it was a wonderful start to our first day. My only disappointment was that I had told everyone at the office that as soon as I got to the hotel I was going to go to the bar and get some drink with an umbrella in it (yes, it was that kind of week). They didn't have umbrellas :-( but they did have great bahama mamas!

 

[amy2girls]

Great trip report so far you guys! I'm glade you are doing a combo... makes for a funny read! Where did you stay on Friday?
Welcome home!

 

[CRSNDSNY]

Great TR! Can't wait for more! Love the details.

 

[Hypermommy]

Great trip report so far you guys! I'm glade you are doing a combo... makes for a funny read! Where did you stay on Friday?
Welcome home!

Ooops... see how stream of consciousness I am. It's officially the Radisson (sp?) but it's the Radisson Resort at the Port so I just got used to calling it that. I guess it would help to have the actual name, huh?

 

[King Charming]

Several factors figured into where we stayed. At $110 w/tax pre-paid online, it was way more than I have ever spent on a room. I did plenty of checking around and found many fine hotels that charge less. I went with this one because of the free shuttle to the port, closeness to the port, cool swimming pool, and free parking for the week that we were gone. I'm sure that walking across the street from the official cruise parking lot to the terminal saves time, but I wasn't willing to pay for the expediency.

They gave us a great room location; first floor, 20 paces to the nearest road (for super easy load/unloading), and 30 paces to the swimming pool. It was just as well that the bar was on the other side of the pool as I still had plans and didn't want to start drinking yet.

After unloading what we would need for the night into the room, and setting the kids up at the pool & DW at the Tiki bar, I set out to do some exploring. I'm one of those strange ones that has to know the lay of the land so to speak before he can relax because you never know when an escape route will be needed. If you are not from the area and get caught where you should not be, remember this line: "I'm lost, could you please tell me how to get to...". It works every time and allows the other person the opportunity to "help" you. They politely send you on your way and don't think twice about your real motives. Anyway, off I go in the van to check out the strip after a careful walk around the hotel/convention center grounds. After going from one end to the other I decided that the sub shop around the corner would be the best idea for dinner. DS 14 tagged along after polling the others as to what they would like. It turned out to be the perfect amount of food as everyone wolfed down their foot longs and declared themselves stuffed. Twenty five bucks well spent on dinner (less than I budgeted )

 

[Hypermommy]

Oh, yeah... less than you budgeted for dinner. But you made up for that later in the evening, didn't you darling? No problem.... I know where you're coming home and you know I'm the best thing that ever happened to you

Yes, he deposited me at the Tiki Bar. At first I was concerned about the kids swimming without supervision (and I didn't know how long I would count as supervising). But then he reminded me that the pool was a bit more than 4 feet deep and if they got in any trouble they could just stand up. That realized, I went to the bar and relaxed. After the week I'd had at work believe you me I was ready for some vacation time. I spent most of the evening relaxing, enjoying a drink or two, and listening to the great guitar player they had out by the pool. I'd check on the kids every now and again and sure enough they were fine. Roughhousing after I'd told them not to, mind you , but just fine. I struck up a conversation with the gentleman next to me becuase I could tell he had either a British or Australian accent. He was mock-insulted and asked me just which part of Canada I was from. Fair enough. I asked him to please have pity on this poor dumb American and he told me he was from England. I asked him if I could buy a pound note off of him if he had any. I just love foreign currency and like to add to my collection now and again. He told me they didn't do pound notes anymore and all he had in his wallet was a ten pounder (which would have cost me $20... more than I want to pay for the hobby). But he went to his room and brought back six different coins. They were so cool looking! I think my favorite is the one where each portion of the UK has their own back to the coin. Like Scotland would be represented by a particular backing and Ireland by another... kind of like quarters in the US.

Anyway.... as you can see I had a wonderfully relaxing evening and was well ready to begin my vacation. KC came back with the food and we all ate and were very happy. The kids and I stayed in the room while he decided to go out again. Very interesting union we have here, KC and me.... I'm such an early bird and he can be quite the night owl. But you'll hear more about that later I'm sure.

 

[purplepeg]

Ooops... see how stream of consciousness I am. It's officially the Radisson (sp?) but it's the Radisson Resort at the Port so I just got used to calling it that. I guess it would help to have the actual name, huh?

That made me laugh. It's funny how you forget the little details you swore you wouldn't but your brain is so saturated with everything it's a little overwhelming

I'm impressed, pictures already posted. Are you guys fighting over computer time to get this posted?
I'm glad you had your priorities straight bevvie then are children drowning Actually I'm slightly jealous, I still physically have to be in the water with mine. Keep up the good work. This is going to be so fun with both of you writing