Today its back to the real world for me after our April 8 15 sailing on the Disney Magic to the Western Caribbean. Im still suffering from vacation hangover, so please excuse the typos.
This was our first cruise ever, so I was a little nervous that all the details would come together, but for the most part, they did. I have two dds ages 3 and 5 and we traveled in a large family party of 11.
We arrived on Friday at around 4:00 and were staying at the MCO Hyatt. This, for us, was a great choice. With two little ones who had been traveling all day it was soooo nice to be able to walk right to our hotel room, being as it was actually in the airport terminal. We were able to check in quickly, and get the kids happy at the pool within 30 minutes. We even ate dinner at the pool, and were all in bed early so we could meet the DCL cruise rep the next morning.
We were some of the first people in the lobby Sat a.m. and were on the first bus to the cruise terminal. My mom is confined to a wheelchair and the bus transport was our first test on how accessible DCL really is. Im pleased to say she got on the bus without a hitch and the staff was extremely patient and friendly.
Mom being in a wheelchair came in handy as it allowed us to be one of the first groups on the boat. My SIL and I ran around making ressies while our husbands took mom and the kids up to the Topsiders buffet. Thanks to the tips here, all the kids had their suits and were in the Mickey Pool lickedy split! The ressies process was good, although why you have to run all over the freakin ship instead of having this in one centralized area makes no sense to me. But whatever, it was painless and we got everything we wanted.
I think Ill divide the rest of the report into categories:
Ports of Call
Key West - I have been here several times before so we didnt even get off the ship.
Grand Cayman Tendering here was a bit of a PITA. We got to the BVT around 9:00 (I think??!!) and were sitting in the theater for more than 45 minutes. Finally they admitted that the tender boat broke down and we had to wait for another. Ugh. But the island - Wow! What a place. We didnt book anything, just planned to wing it and this worked out really well for us. We grabbed a cab at the dock and said, take us to a nice beach, and he took us to the Marriott section of 7-Mile-Beach, which was perfect. Snorkel equip and chairs available for rent, an open-air beach restaurant right there, and very quiet. We had most of the beach to ourselves. We made arrangements with the driver to pick us up and take us back to the ship when he dropped us off and that worked out perfectly.
Cozumel This was my moms trip off the boat (she is in a wheelchair but can walk with support for short distances). The tendering process was surprisingly easy and mom got tons of help from the staff and crew. Mom wanted to shop and we decided to stick together as a family and shop with her. Probably not a good plan. Everyone wanted to stop in different places and we spent half our time waiting outside on shop or another for other members in our group to come up. Not to mention that my girls hated it and asked every 10 minutes when we could go back to the boat! So at noon, I took the girls and my mom back to the boat and the rest of the party went on a DCL snorkeling and kayak shore excursion to Ulta beach. My dh said the hurricane damage to the reef was devastating,
Castaway Cay so great! I had no problem finding chairs, people were generous and sensible about sharing hammocks, and the beach wheelchairs were great. Wish we had more time there!
Dining First comment I have to say here is that the 5:30 dining is really horrible. Way too early and hard to enjoy the afternoon with worrying about getting back and getting ready for dinner. I know this is rude, but we stopped arriving on time and came closer to 6:00 after the first two nights. We asked the head waiter if that was OK and he said fine, but please try and be there as soon as we could.
Our servers were Trifonio and Paula. Nice, good service. They remembered all of our little kinks and we enjoyed their company.
I thought the food was good, but not great, except for Palo *YUM*. I agree with others who have called it bland.
We ate in Animators Palette three times and it was OK, but I guess I had higher expectations on the whole black and white to color deal. Plus the LCD panels near our table were broken and never lit up, not one single time. The kids kept wanting ours to turn on too!
My fave dining room was Lumeires and we actually ate breakfast there a number of times as well.
Cabin we had room 6122. Great room, good location. Connected to my brothers room next door in 6120 which was very convenient!
Shows Etc. The only show I saw was Disney Dreams on the Day at Sea in the afternoon. I was a little annoyed at how crappy their accessible seating is. Very last row back corner of the theater. Come on Disney, you can do better than that. Show was great. My dd loved it!
Kids Club My girls liked the kids club, but always preferred to be with us. So they didnt go there a whole lot. They went for Palos dinner and brunch and for the afternoon of our first at sea day. Other than that, we pretty much hung as a family. The staff at the club were great with them and I felt very comfortable leaving them there. I think theyll enjoy it more when they are a little older and less shy.
Ship Facilities Loved the Mickey pool. Never got a chair though! LOL! Well, thats not true. Since our dinner was sooooooooooo early, we went to the pool after dinner several times for an evening swim and 7:00 p.m. is a great time to get a seat! I never went to the goofy pool and loved Serenity Bay. Very calm, very relaxing. We did go to the spa for the Ladies Night special. Very nice, but I shouldnt have gone before dinner! I was zonked and all greasy for dinner!
Overall We really really really enjoyed it and would LOVE to go again. Mom paid for this one and Im not sure another is in our budget anytime real soon but I hope so, because it was truly an outstanding vacation.
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