What a trip. First of all, I want to thank all of you for the advice we got here in advance of our trip. I am going to try to reciprocate with my report. Hopefully it will be full of little hints for future cruisers.
DW stressed quite a bit beforehand about packing, because she is one who likes to bring everything and I like to go "minimalist." But somehow we managed to get the stuff for us, DD7 and DS3 into just four pieces, including our day bag. Quite a feat. We flew in from Calif. on Friday, so we tried to get everyone's stuff for Saturday into the day bag. That way on our Fri nite hotel night, we wouldn't even have to open the "big bags."
We took the Disney Magical Express from the airport to the Carribbean Beach Resort at WDW, and it was awesome. The bus was just a bus, but the bagge handling service was great. I literally didn't see my bags from the time I checked them at San Francisco till they were in our hotel room at WDW. Only issue was it takes 2-4 hours to get your bags, so ours didn't arrive til Midnight. Not a big deal, since we were still up (on west coast time.)
When we checked in at the hotel, we got our Keys to the world for the cruise. I called the cruise desk at the hotel and asked what else we could do to check in, and the person said nothing, just show up for the bus. That was wrong. She could have taken our documents (Bahamas form, credit card signature, etc.) Fortunately, when we got to the terminal, I asked someone if we really had to stand in that long checkin line since we already had our KTTWs. They said no, just go to the supervisor's desk and they'll take the forms.
Upon getting on the ship, I was ready for the Magic to begin, but it was really a nightmare at first. This was mostly because of our kids, not the ship. They were overwhelmed. DW had gone to make a Palo reservation, but the kids didn't want to wait for her back in the room. They wanted to go swimming, to go see the Oceaneer Club, to go get something to eat, to do a million things at once. It was the start of a day and a half full of arguing between us and them.
I think the combination of jet lag, humidity, unfamiliarity with the environment and general brattiness made our kids very high-maintenance the first few days. I was almost crying with how much arguing we were doing. I couldn't believe how this wonderful vacation was being ruined.
NYE was a particular nightmare. Because of various unplanned events, we ended up leaving DD7 in the Oceaneer Club for about 6 hours. She was not very happy and we got paged saying she had cried so hard she was hyperventilating. Meanwhile, DD3 (who has been potty trained for 6 months) peed his pants twice in his first night at the OC, including right as we were walking into to dinner. While the rest of the ship was celebrating the New Year, we were back in the room with two grumpy kids at 10 pm.
Fortunately, it got better. They adjusted to the surroundings, realized that the Oceaneer Club was more fun that eating dinner with us, that there are more fun things to do than just go to the pool and watch TV and that when we say they need to get dressed to make the show on time, we mean it.
By the end of the week, everyone agreed that it was a good vacation, and we should definitely go again, although probably not till DS3 is 6.
Since I'm sure no one is interested in a day-by-day description of everythign we did, I'm going to just hit a few of the observations I made onboard.
* The Oceaneer Club was great, probably the thing that impressed me more than anything else on board. I had feared that it was just a room and the kids stay in that room playing. But they have all sorts of scheduled activities for the kids all day long, including stuff that takes them elsewhere in the ship. They also do a great job of keeping the kids "sealed" so they can't get in and out without someone logging it. I got to see one funny scene. I happened to be following a group of the 3-4s down from dinner at the topsider buffer back to the OC. There was a line of about 10 kids with a counselor in front, one in the middle and one in the back. The one in the back had a spray bottle of disinfectant, and she was spraying every surface the kids touched on the way. The little "graduation" ceremony was also cute.
* DS3 has a peanut allergy, and they handled it very well. No worries whatsoever on that front.
* We got on the ship rather late (2ish), but had no trouble getting a reservation at Palo for 6 pm on Wednesday. I think no one wants to go there on Pirate night or something. There were plenty of empty tables around us. I had been prepared to be disappointed by Palo simply because I didn't think it could be as good as the hype, but I was wrong. It was fabulous. Our waiter kept bringing us all these "surprises" and everything was delicious. Well worth it.
* The Pirate party was a little disappointing. It was nothing more than music blaring wth characters dancing on stage. The fireworks display was so short that my daughter actually missed the whole thing while she was in the bathroom. I guess you can't expect 4th of July fireworks on a ship.
* The topsider buffets were great, especially the lunches. The seafood buffet was Thursday (an at sea day). If you like seafood, don't miss it. They didn't advertise in the navigator which day would be seafood, so be sure to ask someone. I thought the topsider breakfasts were also good.
* We saw three of the shows. The opening night, the Cinderella one and the Dreams one. I thought all were pretty good, but the Cinderella was my favorite. The Dreams one was just a contrived way to put a bunch of songs from different Disney movies into one show.
* One of the things we regret is not bringing two-way radios. We had read some on the board who said they didn't use them or they didn't work very well, but we really could have used them. We especially had a problem at Castaway Cay. My wife had been sick, so she stayed on the ship to see the doctor while me and the kids went to the beach. I had my cell phone to call her and see what the doctor said, but it didn't work. Even though I was getting a signal, it said I couldn't make a call. I was so frustrated that I had packed up the kids to get back on the ship to check on DW when we saw he walking toward us at the tram stop.
* Castaway Cay was great, and we didn't even see that much of it. The water was very comfortable (I was afraid it would be too cold). The floaties were great. The snorkelign area was great. Cookies BBQ was great. Best of all, though, there was tons of shade, with umbrellas and trees. I do wish I had brought some of those swim shoes because the sand was full of shells that were a little rough on my bare feet. I must be a wimp, because no one else seemed to mind. I'd like to see more of the stuff, including the adult beach, next time.
* We used the ship laundry service a few times and it was quite economical. It was cheaper than what you normally pay at a hotel. I think it came out to less than $2 per garment. We also did some laundry at the self-service. You have to get in early or late to get a machine, and you'll start a brawl if you leave finished clothes in a washer or dryer more than a few minutes.
* The Nautilus glass-bottom boat tour on Grand Cayman was nice. The boat was air conditioned and we really saw a lot of fish and cool shipwrecks. It was also short, great for little kids with short attention spans.
* The weather was just about perfect, better than I expected for this time of year. It was in the mid 80s during the day everywhere, and we got only a few drops of rain at night on Thursday.
* DW and I did the surial bath at the spa. In case you don't know what that is, they lock you in a room with a sauna and shower and various creams and lotions. Then you're on your own for an hour. When we booked the appointment, it said it was for 50 minutes, but when we got there the guy told us we had 1:20. We were done after 50 minutes, though. Only so much you can do in there (wink, wink).
Well, that's all I can think of for now. Gotta go to bed. I'll add to this later if anythign else comes to mind.
DW stressed quite a bit beforehand about packing, because she is one who likes to bring everything and I like to go "minimalist." But somehow we managed to get the stuff for us, DD7 and DS3 into just four pieces, including our day bag. Quite a feat. We flew in from Calif. on Friday, so we tried to get everyone's stuff for Saturday into the day bag. That way on our Fri nite hotel night, we wouldn't even have to open the "big bags."
We took the Disney Magical Express from the airport to the Carribbean Beach Resort at WDW, and it was awesome. The bus was just a bus, but the bagge handling service was great. I literally didn't see my bags from the time I checked them at San Francisco till they were in our hotel room at WDW. Only issue was it takes 2-4 hours to get your bags, so ours didn't arrive til Midnight. Not a big deal, since we were still up (on west coast time.)
When we checked in at the hotel, we got our Keys to the world for the cruise. I called the cruise desk at the hotel and asked what else we could do to check in, and the person said nothing, just show up for the bus. That was wrong. She could have taken our documents (Bahamas form, credit card signature, etc.) Fortunately, when we got to the terminal, I asked someone if we really had to stand in that long checkin line since we already had our KTTWs. They said no, just go to the supervisor's desk and they'll take the forms.
Upon getting on the ship, I was ready for the Magic to begin, but it was really a nightmare at first. This was mostly because of our kids, not the ship. They were overwhelmed. DW had gone to make a Palo reservation, but the kids didn't want to wait for her back in the room. They wanted to go swimming, to go see the Oceaneer Club, to go get something to eat, to do a million things at once. It was the start of a day and a half full of arguing between us and them.
I think the combination of jet lag, humidity, unfamiliarity with the environment and general brattiness made our kids very high-maintenance the first few days. I was almost crying with how much arguing we were doing. I couldn't believe how this wonderful vacation was being ruined.
NYE was a particular nightmare. Because of various unplanned events, we ended up leaving DD7 in the Oceaneer Club for about 6 hours. She was not very happy and we got paged saying she had cried so hard she was hyperventilating. Meanwhile, DD3 (who has been potty trained for 6 months) peed his pants twice in his first night at the OC, including right as we were walking into to dinner. While the rest of the ship was celebrating the New Year, we were back in the room with two grumpy kids at 10 pm.
Fortunately, it got better. They adjusted to the surroundings, realized that the Oceaneer Club was more fun that eating dinner with us, that there are more fun things to do than just go to the pool and watch TV and that when we say they need to get dressed to make the show on time, we mean it.
By the end of the week, everyone agreed that it was a good vacation, and we should definitely go again, although probably not till DS3 is 6.
Since I'm sure no one is interested in a day-by-day description of everythign we did, I'm going to just hit a few of the observations I made onboard.
* The Oceaneer Club was great, probably the thing that impressed me more than anything else on board. I had feared that it was just a room and the kids stay in that room playing. But they have all sorts of scheduled activities for the kids all day long, including stuff that takes them elsewhere in the ship. They also do a great job of keeping the kids "sealed" so they can't get in and out without someone logging it. I got to see one funny scene. I happened to be following a group of the 3-4s down from dinner at the topsider buffer back to the OC. There was a line of about 10 kids with a counselor in front, one in the middle and one in the back. The one in the back had a spray bottle of disinfectant, and she was spraying every surface the kids touched on the way. The little "graduation" ceremony was also cute.
* DS3 has a peanut allergy, and they handled it very well. No worries whatsoever on that front.
* We got on the ship rather late (2ish), but had no trouble getting a reservation at Palo for 6 pm on Wednesday. I think no one wants to go there on Pirate night or something. There were plenty of empty tables around us. I had been prepared to be disappointed by Palo simply because I didn't think it could be as good as the hype, but I was wrong. It was fabulous. Our waiter kept bringing us all these "surprises" and everything was delicious. Well worth it.
* The Pirate party was a little disappointing. It was nothing more than music blaring wth characters dancing on stage. The fireworks display was so short that my daughter actually missed the whole thing while she was in the bathroom. I guess you can't expect 4th of July fireworks on a ship.
* The topsider buffets were great, especially the lunches. The seafood buffet was Thursday (an at sea day). If you like seafood, don't miss it. They didn't advertise in the navigator which day would be seafood, so be sure to ask someone. I thought the topsider breakfasts were also good.
* We saw three of the shows. The opening night, the Cinderella one and the Dreams one. I thought all were pretty good, but the Cinderella was my favorite. The Dreams one was just a contrived way to put a bunch of songs from different Disney movies into one show.
* One of the things we regret is not bringing two-way radios. We had read some on the board who said they didn't use them or they didn't work very well, but we really could have used them. We especially had a problem at Castaway Cay. My wife had been sick, so she stayed on the ship to see the doctor while me and the kids went to the beach. I had my cell phone to call her and see what the doctor said, but it didn't work. Even though I was getting a signal, it said I couldn't make a call. I was so frustrated that I had packed up the kids to get back on the ship to check on DW when we saw he walking toward us at the tram stop.
* Castaway Cay was great, and we didn't even see that much of it. The water was very comfortable (I was afraid it would be too cold). The floaties were great. The snorkelign area was great. Cookies BBQ was great. Best of all, though, there was tons of shade, with umbrellas and trees. I do wish I had brought some of those swim shoes because the sand was full of shells that were a little rough on my bare feet. I must be a wimp, because no one else seemed to mind. I'd like to see more of the stuff, including the adult beach, next time.
* We used the ship laundry service a few times and it was quite economical. It was cheaper than what you normally pay at a hotel. I think it came out to less than $2 per garment. We also did some laundry at the self-service. You have to get in early or late to get a machine, and you'll start a brawl if you leave finished clothes in a washer or dryer more than a few minutes.
* The Nautilus glass-bottom boat tour on Grand Cayman was nice. The boat was air conditioned and we really saw a lot of fish and cool shipwrecks. It was also short, great for little kids with short attention spans.
* The weather was just about perfect, better than I expected for this time of year. It was in the mid 80s during the day everywhere, and we got only a few drops of rain at night on Thursday.
* DW and I did the surial bath at the spa. In case you don't know what that is, they lock you in a room with a sauna and shower and various creams and lotions. Then you're on your own for an hour. When we booked the appointment, it said it was for 50 minutes, but when we got there the guy told us we had 1:20. We were done after 50 minutes, though. Only so much you can do in there (wink, wink).
Well, that's all I can think of for now. Gotta go to bed. I'll add to this later if anythign else comes to mind.
)
