After enjoying our first day at WDW (on the 23rd), I turned on the TV to see the weather forecast for the following day. I was shocked to see that Jeanne had made a loop and was now heading toward Florida.
I knew that our cruise would be affected because landfall was predicted for Sunday, the day we were to leave Port Canaveral. It really frightened me.
The next morning I visited the DCL desk at our resort (Port Orleans Riverside). The rep there greeted me by saying, "I have wonderful news for you! You are going to get 40% back on the cost of your cruise!"
With those words I knew what the bad news was. That our cruise was being cut by a day -- I asked her that and she said yes, that would be true.
I remembered reading on the boards here that when the 9/4 cruise was shortened by a day, they received 40% back, $100 per stateroom credit and 25% off their next cruise. So I asked her about those things and she said we would just be getting the 40%. We were to report to the lobby on Monday morning and the Disney buses would take us to port. She was not sure if it would be Canaveral or Everglades.
Well, we managed to enjoy the following days at WDW as the weather was great both Friday and Saturday. The parks were basically empty and we did a lot in a few days. No lines!
On Sunday we visited Epcot and they were closing early (7PM). It was also starting to cloud up and getting windy. We went back to the resort and stocked up on some salads, water, etc. because we were going to be locked into our room for the whole day of the hurricane.
Basically, it was not as bad as we feared -- we were in our rooms watching movies all day Sunday -- very windy and rainy out, but not as scary as I had anticipated.
On Monday morning, there was a knock on the door at 8 AM. The belllman was there to take our luggage. We were surprised to see him that early -- he asked if we had not seen the note on the doors (no, we had been asleep!).
We had it all packed though and he took our bags away. We then got dressed and went to the food court, ate, walked around and reported to the lobby at 1 PM as we had been told.
Everyone stood in the lobby, packed in, hot and sweaty for over an hour. Finally at 2:30 the bus showed up.
We were told it would be a three hour ride to Port Everglades. It was more like four hours. The driver played the same cartoon (very loudly) over and over about 5 times until someone asked him to turn it off.
It was about 7 pm by the time we boarded. We were all hot and tired and the experience of boarding was rather anti-climactic. I had so anticipated the calling of our family name and the greeting, but this didn't happen. I was even afraid I would cry upon boarding, but the magic and excitement wasn't there.
We went to our staterooms and our bags were already in the hallway. We dragged them in and unpacked just a bit.
I was concerned about missing the fun sailaway party that I had heard so much about so I phoned guest services and learned that we had missed it. It had been at 4:30 or so. And we hadn't even left port yet so I don't know how there could have been a sailaway party -- ????
We had a few minutes to register my son and daughter for the Oceaneer's Lab. We were all very very hungry and although we had dinner seating at 8:30, we went to Beach Blanket Buffet and had a snack. I thought the food on the buffet was great! I had the shrimp and some cheese and salami -- not alot, just enough to get me to dinner.
We heard the announcement that the safety drill would begin in a half hour. Our dinner was to be at 8:30 so we dressed up and then put our life jackets on over our dressy clothes. Not fun....we were still hot and sweaty and had no time for showers.
Then we went to Animator's Palate for dinner. We had Erik as our waiter and Cheryl, the assistant waiter. They were both nice and polite, but I didn't feel the extra touches that I had experienced on the Big Red Boat many years ago. On that cruise, our waiter had cut up my dd's pasta nightly and always anticipated our coffee after dinner.
Erik made me feel very rushed and I didn't feel like he was very attentive. I was impressed that he knew all of our names and was able to tell my two eldest daughters apart. Even people who have known them for years have trouble with that.
We loved AP and thought the food was very good. I had the grilled steak, as did the kids. We loved the dining room and the changing of the colors. Our table was against the wall behind a serving station so we weren't able to see the whole view that well, and couldn't see the screen at all.
After dinner, we saw that there were STILL people boarding.
After dinner there was another late showing of Hercules, the Muse-Ical so we went to see it. During the show, we felt the boat finally leaving port. Oh well, so much for experiencing the ship leaving port!
We loved the show, it was funny and entertaining. We had second row seats and the theater seemed very empty.
AFter the show we walked around the ship for awhile and enjoyed some time on the deck watching the water far below. It was a great feeling. I felt like I was finally able to relax for the first time all day. DH had already been complaining about the rush rush rush since we had boarded.
We found out that Castaway Cay would not be happening and that our itinerary would be Nassau and then a day at sea. I was sad about CC, but happy that we would still be going to Nassau because I had booked the Stingray/Blackbeards Cove excursion while still at home and my kids were very excited about that. I knew that swimming with the stingrays would help to ease the sadness about missing CC.
I had been told that our excursion tickets would be in our stateroom when we arrived, but they were not. I was a bit concerned and called guest services and they told me to stop at the excursion desk, which I did. There was no one else there. The man behind the counter told me that he wasn't "open" yet and to come back later.
When I did (it was a matter of minutes), he told me that the stingray excursion had been canceled. I was now really devastated. There were only two beach excursions available. Atlantis and Blue Lagoon. We had been to Blue Lagoon before, but since Atlantis was so expensive, I decided it would be the better option.
We were told to meet at Wavebands Lounge at 9:15 am for the excursion. When I told dh he freaked out, saying he was already exhausted and wanted to sleep in. But I knew this would be our only "beach day" and we had to do it. How can you go to the tropics without getting to the beach and enjoying the beautiful water!!??
We went back to our staterooms then (deck one). My kids were so hyped about the room service so we ordered a few things. We ordered the cheese tray, some chicken tenders and my dd ordered a hot dog, my son ordered a mickey bar. We waited about a half hour for our order and the hot dog and mickey bar were both missing.
So we called back and about 15 minutes later the hot dog and mickey bar arrived. I was *shocked* at the hot dog -- the bun was absolutely rock hard, I kid you not - it was disgustingly stale. It was horrible. There was no way that whomever prepared it could have missed this. The hot dog itself was barely lukewarm and was a sickly shade of grey. My dd took one look and said "I'm not eating that!" Yecch, how awful.
After all of that, I think we all fell asleep immediately. We had connecting rooms with my 3 dds in one room and my dh, myself and our ds in the other.
(to be continued)
I knew that our cruise would be affected because landfall was predicted for Sunday, the day we were to leave Port Canaveral. It really frightened me.
The next morning I visited the DCL desk at our resort (Port Orleans Riverside). The rep there greeted me by saying, "I have wonderful news for you! You are going to get 40% back on the cost of your cruise!"
With those words I knew what the bad news was. That our cruise was being cut by a day -- I asked her that and she said yes, that would be true.
I remembered reading on the boards here that when the 9/4 cruise was shortened by a day, they received 40% back, $100 per stateroom credit and 25% off their next cruise. So I asked her about those things and she said we would just be getting the 40%. We were to report to the lobby on Monday morning and the Disney buses would take us to port. She was not sure if it would be Canaveral or Everglades.
Well, we managed to enjoy the following days at WDW as the weather was great both Friday and Saturday. The parks were basically empty and we did a lot in a few days. No lines!
On Sunday we visited Epcot and they were closing early (7PM). It was also starting to cloud up and getting windy. We went back to the resort and stocked up on some salads, water, etc. because we were going to be locked into our room for the whole day of the hurricane.
Basically, it was not as bad as we feared -- we were in our rooms watching movies all day Sunday -- very windy and rainy out, but not as scary as I had anticipated.
On Monday morning, there was a knock on the door at 8 AM. The belllman was there to take our luggage. We were surprised to see him that early -- he asked if we had not seen the note on the doors (no, we had been asleep!).
We had it all packed though and he took our bags away. We then got dressed and went to the food court, ate, walked around and reported to the lobby at 1 PM as we had been told.
Everyone stood in the lobby, packed in, hot and sweaty for over an hour. Finally at 2:30 the bus showed up.
We were told it would be a three hour ride to Port Everglades. It was more like four hours. The driver played the same cartoon (very loudly) over and over about 5 times until someone asked him to turn it off.
It was about 7 pm by the time we boarded. We were all hot and tired and the experience of boarding was rather anti-climactic. I had so anticipated the calling of our family name and the greeting, but this didn't happen. I was even afraid I would cry upon boarding, but the magic and excitement wasn't there.
We went to our staterooms and our bags were already in the hallway. We dragged them in and unpacked just a bit.
I was concerned about missing the fun sailaway party that I had heard so much about so I phoned guest services and learned that we had missed it. It had been at 4:30 or so. And we hadn't even left port yet so I don't know how there could have been a sailaway party -- ????
We had a few minutes to register my son and daughter for the Oceaneer's Lab. We were all very very hungry and although we had dinner seating at 8:30, we went to Beach Blanket Buffet and had a snack. I thought the food on the buffet was great! I had the shrimp and some cheese and salami -- not alot, just enough to get me to dinner.
We heard the announcement that the safety drill would begin in a half hour. Our dinner was to be at 8:30 so we dressed up and then put our life jackets on over our dressy clothes. Not fun....we were still hot and sweaty and had no time for showers.
Then we went to Animator's Palate for dinner. We had Erik as our waiter and Cheryl, the assistant waiter. They were both nice and polite, but I didn't feel the extra touches that I had experienced on the Big Red Boat many years ago. On that cruise, our waiter had cut up my dd's pasta nightly and always anticipated our coffee after dinner.
Erik made me feel very rushed and I didn't feel like he was very attentive. I was impressed that he knew all of our names and was able to tell my two eldest daughters apart. Even people who have known them for years have trouble with that.
We loved AP and thought the food was very good. I had the grilled steak, as did the kids. We loved the dining room and the changing of the colors. Our table was against the wall behind a serving station so we weren't able to see the whole view that well, and couldn't see the screen at all.
After dinner, we saw that there were STILL people boarding.
After dinner there was another late showing of Hercules, the Muse-Ical so we went to see it. During the show, we felt the boat finally leaving port. Oh well, so much for experiencing the ship leaving port!
We loved the show, it was funny and entertaining. We had second row seats and the theater seemed very empty.
AFter the show we walked around the ship for awhile and enjoyed some time on the deck watching the water far below. It was a great feeling. I felt like I was finally able to relax for the first time all day. DH had already been complaining about the rush rush rush since we had boarded.
We found out that Castaway Cay would not be happening and that our itinerary would be Nassau and then a day at sea. I was sad about CC, but happy that we would still be going to Nassau because I had booked the Stingray/Blackbeards Cove excursion while still at home and my kids were very excited about that. I knew that swimming with the stingrays would help to ease the sadness about missing CC.
I had been told that our excursion tickets would be in our stateroom when we arrived, but they were not. I was a bit concerned and called guest services and they told me to stop at the excursion desk, which I did. There was no one else there. The man behind the counter told me that he wasn't "open" yet and to come back later.
When I did (it was a matter of minutes), he told me that the stingray excursion had been canceled. I was now really devastated. There were only two beach excursions available. Atlantis and Blue Lagoon. We had been to Blue Lagoon before, but since Atlantis was so expensive, I decided it would be the better option.
We were told to meet at Wavebands Lounge at 9:15 am for the excursion. When I told dh he freaked out, saying he was already exhausted and wanted to sleep in. But I knew this would be our only "beach day" and we had to do it. How can you go to the tropics without getting to the beach and enjoying the beautiful water!!??
We went back to our staterooms then (deck one). My kids were so hyped about the room service so we ordered a few things. We ordered the cheese tray, some chicken tenders and my dd ordered a hot dog, my son ordered a mickey bar. We waited about a half hour for our order and the hot dog and mickey bar were both missing.
So we called back and about 15 minutes later the hot dog and mickey bar arrived. I was *shocked* at the hot dog -- the bun was absolutely rock hard, I kid you not - it was disgustingly stale. It was horrible. There was no way that whomever prepared it could have missed this. The hot dog itself was barely lukewarm and was a sickly shade of grey. My dd took one look and said "I'm not eating that!" Yecch, how awful.
After all of that, I think we all fell asleep immediately. We had connecting rooms with my 3 dds in one room and my dh, myself and our ds in the other.
(to be continued)
