Cast: Myself (30-something), dh (40), ds (14): This was our third DCL trip: second on the Magic.
Day Prior, Embarkation, Day One:
This trip seemed to be a trip of good timings. I say that because right from the start we were blessed with great weather, good health, and near misses. First off, we left a day early and flew into Orlando on the Friday prior to sailing. Our flights that day took us from Denver to Minneapolis/St. Paul and then on to Orlando. Beautiful weather and arrived into Orlando 15 minutes early. The following day, there were two snow travel advisories for airports: Denver International and Minneapolis/St. Paul. Talk about good timing!
Arriving in Orlando was a breeze; we were staying at the airport Hyatt and simply had to go collect our luggage and go up to check in. They put us on the 10th floor, which in and of itself wasnt bad, however, there is one thing that should be mentioned here: the ceiling outside these rooms is the atrium of the airport and is therefore made of a kind of metal. Metal reverberates sound. That atrium acts as a noise funnel and all the announcements, talking, airport noise, etc., is reverberated back into the rooms along that floor. Needless to say, we did not sleep much that night. The room was comfortable, clean, and it was so nice to get up in the morning and put our luggage outside the door and have it arrive at the ship much later in the day. (we hoped)
We had elected to go Disney all the way this trip since I booked the room at 60 days out and airfares were astronomical. Of course, doing it this way also included Disney transfers and early on Saturday we were down in the lobby to get our transfer reservations. We got on the first bus out of there and departed the Hyatt about 10:00 am. This was another instance of right time, right place as our son ended up sitting by a teen boy and they were able to hang together for the trip. They have a video of the fun you are about to have showing for the entire trip. It is of note here that this video is outdated and they were still calling the teen area the Common Grounds and the sports bar the ESPN Zone. You would think with a company like Disney, they could at least update their promotional material in a more timely fashion. Ah well, I was about to get back on the Magic, what did I care what they were calling the various areas? We arrived at the Port about 11 am and were whisked through security and walked right up to the desk to check in. We were given a warning about it being flu season (hello, we are from Colorado major flu epidemic going on here) and if we had felt ill within the last 72 hours to consider a land based vacation. Sorry Disney, we are all healthy and ready to cruise! We also got a signature sheet that allowed Disney to use our photos, video etc. as they were having a film crew on board and were filming a new special for the Travel Channel.
There were Christmas decorations throughout the terminal and a huge display for the Haunted Mansion since they were Prem-earing it at sea for us. We wandered around for a bit and then noticed the push towards the Mickey Ears. They were already boarding! We were probably about 15th in line and we were on board, through the buffet, and sitting aft enjoying shrimp and orange mango soup by 12:15!
Small digression here: our embarkation photos were done differently this time. Disney had these huge backdrops and they would grab a family and put you through poses in front of these hideous backdrops before you could board the ship! Let me tell you, I didnt buy the picture simply because the backdrop was awful! What ever happened to the cute little Mickey sign that says Magic and the date of sailing?
Ok, another small digression: By about 1:15 or so we noticed the poor CM that was announcing people on board was getting a bit tired. Instead of announcing the family name and where they were from, she was simply saying: Please welcome the Smith family aboard the Disney Magic. I would suppose after about 1,000 names, Id get tired too and shorten it.
We did not plan on dining at Palo, enjoying the spa, and did not have small children, so were spared the dreaded ressie rush. We just ate at the buffet, went to check out the new areas and headed to our room about 1:30 to check it out.
Our room: we had snagged one of the reclassified cat 7 rooms: 6134. It is aft and on the port side (back and left for you landlubbers). It resembles all other cat 6 or 7 rooms with the split bath and all, but the veranda is different than either a cat 6 or a cat 7. I loved it! It is enclosed on one side which means that the neighbors to the left of us were pretty much non-existent (except for a peculiar sweetish odor that drifted from that cabin occasionally, if you know what I mean?). Other than that it was open and had the plexi-glass railing. We spent a lot of time out there.
Pretty soon it was time to head down for the safety drill. Usually this process is painless and over quickly. This time however, I would rather have teeth pulled! It was in Animators Palate and was so disorganized, not to mention that I had to sit sandwiched in between a crabby toddler and a young woman with a very bad attitude! The Cms were calling out cabin numbers and no one could hear them. The announcement was made explaining everything and then we were told the drill was over. They never did call our cabin number! We could have very easily skipped it. (Note: I dont usually advocate this, but, I had had enough of the screaming toddler and her doting grandparents and the young woman who told a CM off because she wanted to take her life vest off.)
We had late seating dining so we went to the first show. The Welcome Aboard Variety show. What can I say? Rich Purpura and Gary Delena were a hoot and I never laughed so hard! We loved this show. One note to the side here is this: While we were sitting in the Walt theatre waiting for the show to start, three people sat down in the row in front of us. They were getting quite comfy when a "lady" (and I use that term loosely) barged into the aisle and asked them quite nastily I suppose you are going to sit here? They of course, responded to the affirmative, sending that lady off in a huff. When the three turned around we kind of joked with them a bit and had a good laugh. The interesting part to this little tale is that, when we went into dinner, who should be our tablemates for the week? No, not the crabby lady or the screaming toddler (thank you God), but the three people in the theatre we had joked with! They were twin sisters and their male roommate. Kind of a Threes Company scenario I think. They were from Phoenix, and since we are from Denver, we kind of had geography in common. We ended up having a great time with them all week and even spent time with them waiting for flights on the last day. (more on that later)
Our servers were Putu from Granada and Dobrinka from Bulgaria. They were nice enough, but spent more time trying to talk us into excellent ratings on the comment card. This was highly irritating as we are on the first night of the cruise, how in the world do I know if they are going to merit excellent or not? By the way, they really didnt merit an excellent rating for the week. They were nice, they were efficient, but they were not excellent. (more on that later)
Stay tuned for the next installment of: Thanksgiving with Mickey and the gang!
Lisa
Day Prior, Embarkation, Day One:
This trip seemed to be a trip of good timings. I say that because right from the start we were blessed with great weather, good health, and near misses. First off, we left a day early and flew into Orlando on the Friday prior to sailing. Our flights that day took us from Denver to Minneapolis/St. Paul and then on to Orlando. Beautiful weather and arrived into Orlando 15 minutes early. The following day, there were two snow travel advisories for airports: Denver International and Minneapolis/St. Paul. Talk about good timing!
Arriving in Orlando was a breeze; we were staying at the airport Hyatt and simply had to go collect our luggage and go up to check in. They put us on the 10th floor, which in and of itself wasnt bad, however, there is one thing that should be mentioned here: the ceiling outside these rooms is the atrium of the airport and is therefore made of a kind of metal. Metal reverberates sound. That atrium acts as a noise funnel and all the announcements, talking, airport noise, etc., is reverberated back into the rooms along that floor. Needless to say, we did not sleep much that night. The room was comfortable, clean, and it was so nice to get up in the morning and put our luggage outside the door and have it arrive at the ship much later in the day. (we hoped)
We had elected to go Disney all the way this trip since I booked the room at 60 days out and airfares were astronomical. Of course, doing it this way also included Disney transfers and early on Saturday we were down in the lobby to get our transfer reservations. We got on the first bus out of there and departed the Hyatt about 10:00 am. This was another instance of right time, right place as our son ended up sitting by a teen boy and they were able to hang together for the trip. They have a video of the fun you are about to have showing for the entire trip. It is of note here that this video is outdated and they were still calling the teen area the Common Grounds and the sports bar the ESPN Zone. You would think with a company like Disney, they could at least update their promotional material in a more timely fashion. Ah well, I was about to get back on the Magic, what did I care what they were calling the various areas? We arrived at the Port about 11 am and were whisked through security and walked right up to the desk to check in. We were given a warning about it being flu season (hello, we are from Colorado major flu epidemic going on here) and if we had felt ill within the last 72 hours to consider a land based vacation. Sorry Disney, we are all healthy and ready to cruise! We also got a signature sheet that allowed Disney to use our photos, video etc. as they were having a film crew on board and were filming a new special for the Travel Channel.
There were Christmas decorations throughout the terminal and a huge display for the Haunted Mansion since they were Prem-earing it at sea for us. We wandered around for a bit and then noticed the push towards the Mickey Ears. They were already boarding! We were probably about 15th in line and we were on board, through the buffet, and sitting aft enjoying shrimp and orange mango soup by 12:15!
Small digression here: our embarkation photos were done differently this time. Disney had these huge backdrops and they would grab a family and put you through poses in front of these hideous backdrops before you could board the ship! Let me tell you, I didnt buy the picture simply because the backdrop was awful! What ever happened to the cute little Mickey sign that says Magic and the date of sailing?
Ok, another small digression: By about 1:15 or so we noticed the poor CM that was announcing people on board was getting a bit tired. Instead of announcing the family name and where they were from, she was simply saying: Please welcome the Smith family aboard the Disney Magic. I would suppose after about 1,000 names, Id get tired too and shorten it.
We did not plan on dining at Palo, enjoying the spa, and did not have small children, so were spared the dreaded ressie rush. We just ate at the buffet, went to check out the new areas and headed to our room about 1:30 to check it out.
Our room: we had snagged one of the reclassified cat 7 rooms: 6134. It is aft and on the port side (back and left for you landlubbers). It resembles all other cat 6 or 7 rooms with the split bath and all, but the veranda is different than either a cat 6 or a cat 7. I loved it! It is enclosed on one side which means that the neighbors to the left of us were pretty much non-existent (except for a peculiar sweetish odor that drifted from that cabin occasionally, if you know what I mean?). Other than that it was open and had the plexi-glass railing. We spent a lot of time out there.
Pretty soon it was time to head down for the safety drill. Usually this process is painless and over quickly. This time however, I would rather have teeth pulled! It was in Animators Palate and was so disorganized, not to mention that I had to sit sandwiched in between a crabby toddler and a young woman with a very bad attitude! The Cms were calling out cabin numbers and no one could hear them. The announcement was made explaining everything and then we were told the drill was over. They never did call our cabin number! We could have very easily skipped it. (Note: I dont usually advocate this, but, I had had enough of the screaming toddler and her doting grandparents and the young woman who told a CM off because she wanted to take her life vest off.)
We had late seating dining so we went to the first show. The Welcome Aboard Variety show. What can I say? Rich Purpura and Gary Delena were a hoot and I never laughed so hard! We loved this show. One note to the side here is this: While we were sitting in the Walt theatre waiting for the show to start, three people sat down in the row in front of us. They were getting quite comfy when a "lady" (and I use that term loosely) barged into the aisle and asked them quite nastily I suppose you are going to sit here? They of course, responded to the affirmative, sending that lady off in a huff. When the three turned around we kind of joked with them a bit and had a good laugh. The interesting part to this little tale is that, when we went into dinner, who should be our tablemates for the week? No, not the crabby lady or the screaming toddler (thank you God), but the three people in the theatre we had joked with! They were twin sisters and their male roommate. Kind of a Threes Company scenario I think. They were from Phoenix, and since we are from Denver, we kind of had geography in common. We ended up having a great time with them all week and even spent time with them waiting for flights on the last day. (more on that later)
Our servers were Putu from Granada and Dobrinka from Bulgaria. They were nice enough, but spent more time trying to talk us into excellent ratings on the comment card. This was highly irritating as we are on the first night of the cruise, how in the world do I know if they are going to merit excellent or not? By the way, they really didnt merit an excellent rating for the week. They were nice, they were efficient, but they were not excellent. (more on that later)
Stay tuned for the next installment of: Thanksgiving with Mickey and the gang!
Lisa
