Make Sure You Get My Shake in the Pic *~* A Lavenous SWDAS Trip Report *~*3/4/17*~*

[franandaj]

I think I've lurked on some of your reports in the past, and I read all the way through it so far until I realized that you're on the Western route and I'm trying to research Eastern Cruises, but it's so entertaining, I'm still signing up! I am looking forward to hearing more about the Fantasy!

Omigosh! I just noticed that both your daughters are wearing the BB8 dresses! I have that too and I love it! In fact I have two of them for when I stain and ruin the first one. I also have R2D2 dresses, and a Dalek dress as well!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

I think I've lurked on some of your reports in the past, and I read all the way through it so far until I realized that you're on the Western route and I'm trying to research Eastern Cruises, but it's so entertaining, I'm still signing up! I am looking forward to hearing more about the Fantasy!

Omigosh! I just noticed that both your daughters are wearing the BB8 dresses! I have that too and I love it! In fact I have two of them for when I stain and ruin the first one. I also have R2D2 dresses, and a Dalek dress as well!

Hi and thanks for joining in! I have read and love your trip reports

I absolutely love the fact that you have two of the BB8 dresses! I never thought of that but it's a GREAT idea to have a spare! They are the cutest ever! We all love BB8 and the girls enjoyed wearing the dresses with their BB8 ears and glow necklaces! You have a great collection of dresses!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

*~* Walking Against The Wind *~*
​

The next morning I woke up at 7:30am and jumped in the shower before I woke the girls up for their 9am reservation at Goofy's Sports for the simulator. This was something that they had never done before but I thought it might be fun for them to do as Andy and I had a 10am reservation for Palo Brunch. We walked up a flight of stairs to deck 11 to make our way to Goofy's and as soon as we tried to open the doors I realized that it was windy out. INSANELY WINDY. I honestly don't think I have ever experienced wind like that before. I could barely see anything as my hair was whipping all over the place and my dress was flying up and we had to climb the stairs up to deck 12 for Goofy's. In my mind I pictured being swept up like in the Wizard of Oz but we arrived at the simulator laughing the whole way at the ridiculousness of the situation.

There is a cool sliding door where as soon as we arrived they opened the door and let the girls into the room. I waved to them and told them to have fun and blew back towards the room to get ready for our first time at Palo Brunch.

They were playing Finding Nemo on Funnelvision and there were some extremely motivated cruisers participating in an exercise class on the pool deck. Pretty cool stuff!

I had been looking forward to Palo Brunch literally for months. I had read so many great reviews and seen so many amazing pictures and was excited to try it. It did NOT disappoint!

Our invitation:

Andy was not thrilled about bringing "dress" clothes on vacation however he managed to survive! See?

Luca was our server at Palo and he was fantastic, we really enjoyed our meal and he made it wonderful. He walked us through the buffet area and described all of the different items that were available.

I chose crab, shrimp, a scallop, strawberries, cheese, mushrooms and bread with butter. There were soooo many wonderful items to choose from.

Besides the buffet there are hot items you can order from your server. We tried several of these as well. Andy started off with the eggs benedict:

We also ordered a spicy sausage pizza to share. They have several types of pizza that you can choose from. I like a little spice to my food but I do not like HOT food. My first bite I got quite a few of the little red pepper flakes and it was too hot for me. But the pizza was so good that I made sure I picked off the extra flakes and I ate the rest

Next we managed to try the chicken parm with risotto. This was DELISH!!! oh. my. goodness. I could really go for some of this right now.

They also had pancakes (which I don't like anyways) and as we talked about the menu items with Luca we talked about how you don't go to Italy to try the pancakes. He highly recommended the lasagna and who were we to say no? This was so incredibly delicious. I DREAMED about this lasagna and was prepared to order it on our cruise we just got back from and it was NOT ON THE MENU!!! The horror!

I'm not sure how or why but a filet also showed up at the table. I COULD NOT eat this! Not one bite. I cut it up and moved it around on the plate. I felt bad but I just couldn't do it.

Despite everything we just ate there was no way I was passing up THIS:

Here's what we had:

Palo Brunch at $30/person is ahhhhhhhhhhhhmazing. I should mention that it also comes with a choice of a mimosa or I believe champagne. There were no words for how much food we ate but it was so worth it. I will try to book it every cruise!

Once we finished our meal it was time to go pick up the girls at the room and head to the Frozen meet and greet

 

[franandaj]

I'm so glad that Palo on the Fantasy seems to have the same items as the Wonder. We always do Palo brunch, twice on a week long cruise! I would love some of that chicken Parm about now!

I have never seen the lasagna there before, it sounds delicious! The filet looks like the Veal Saltimbocca which is on the menu.

No matter how full you are, there is no way you can skip those desserts!

 

[WestFamily]

OMG!!!! The pictures from Palo. There is almost nothing I want more than the brunch again. Next October can't come soon enough.

Thank you for sharing your adventure!

 

[accio]

Hi Kristen,

I'm enjoying your post-cruise report so far, keep up the great work

(As a side note, my pre-school nephew got sick on our Disney Wonder cruise in 2015. Poor guy, not a fun trip for him, but we're hoping that he'll have a better time on the Magic cruise next March.)

 

[Cheerio]

Reading

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

I'm so glad that Palo on the Fantasy seems to have the same items as the Wonder. We always do Palo brunch, twice on a week long cruise! I would love some of that chicken Parm about now!

I have never seen the lasagna there before, it sounds delicious! The filet looks like the Veal Saltimbocca which is on the menu.

No matter how full you are, there is no way you can skip those desserts!

I'm still holding out hope that the lasagna will be on the Fantasy when we have brunch in November it was definitely my favorite! It was not on the Dream a few weeks ago but maybe we will get lucky on the Fantasy again. The deserts - OMG!!! SOOOOO good! I shoveled in quite a few - I was determined to "struggle" through

OMG!!!! The pictures from Palo. There is almost nothing I want more than the brunch again. Next October can't come soon enough.

Thank you for sharing your adventure!

Our November booking window opened up Sunday and at 12:01am the first thing I did was book our Palo brunch - I had nightmares that there wouldn't be any availability

Hi Kristen,

I'm enjoying your post-cruise report so far, keep up the great work

(As a side note, my pre-school nephew got sick on our Disney Wonder cruise in 2015. Poor guy, not a fun trip for him, but we're hoping that he'll have a better time on the Magic cruise next March.)

Thanks for reading along! I'm sorry your nephew got sick, poor little guy - that would break my heart seeing one of the little ones not feeling well during such a magical trip! I bet he will have an amazing time in March!

Reading

Thank you for reading along! Makes me happy to know people are reading my report!

 

[franandaj]

I'm still holding out hope that the lasagna will be on the Fantasy when we have brunch in November it was definitely my favorite! It was not on the Dream a few weeks ago but maybe we will get lucky on the Fantasy again.

Let me know! We're on our first Fantasy Cruise in February. I heard today that they are changing the "ordered" items at Palo and removing our favorite, the Strawberry soup.

 

[starousse]

Love the Palo brunch. Yours looked amazing.

 

[Aluvendale]

Joining in to follow along. We are booked for our very first DCL cruise and it's the SWDAS on Jan 28, 2017! So excited!!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

Let me know! We're on our first Fantasy Cruise in February. I heard today that they are changing the "ordered" items at Palo and removing our favorite, the Strawberry soup.

I definitely will let you know! I can't believe they are removing the strawberry soup I'll be sure to take tons of pics and write up a review - we are booked for the 2nd sea day on our cruise

Love the Palo brunch. Yours looked amazing.

It truly was amazing! It was my favorite meal of the trip - soooo good!

Joining in to follow along. We are booked for our very first DCL cruise and it's the SWDAS on Jan 28, 2017! So excited!!

Thanks for joining! You will have a wonderful time! We loved SWDAS so much!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

*~* Navigators Sunday February 7th 2016 *~*
​

I am going to add the navigators in for each day in case anyone would like to take a look at them. I honestly LOVE looking at the navigators they are a great little souvenir from the trip and while we are on board it is so helpful to plan out the activities you don't want to miss. Speaking of navigators - has anyone tried out the Disney Cruise Line app while on board? It's nice to be able to review activities and add them to your plans as well as the capability of messaging others in your group on their phones without having to worry about the wave phones. We used it quite a bit on our most recent 3 day cruise on the Dream and I plan on using it a lot more from here on out now that I've given it a try!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

*~* Next stop....Arendelle *~*​

We had tickets for both the Frozen and the Princess meet and greets to attend next. This is much more convenient to arrange now that you have the capability to book this before you cruise online in the "fun on board" activities section. I would highly recommend you do so if you would like to attend as there is a limited number of tickets and it's nice to get several princesses all at once rather than having to track them down individually. Our first stop was to Animators Palate to see Anna and Elsa. They transform the restaurant into Arendelle so it is really blue in there which looks super pretty but makes it a little bit hard to get nice pictures with Anna and Elsa. I really loved the snow scenes in all the screens though.

I believe we were the last people to arrive for our session so there was a small line up. They have tables and chairs set up to make a little queue area to keep it organized which you can see in the picture below. There was maybe 4 families ahead of us.

It was so pretty in there I'm going to include several more pics of Arendelle I hope you don't mind all of the pics!

I love this one! The paintbrush is so cool in this light!

Soon it was Piper and Zoe's turn to meet Anna and Elsa. They did a great job interacting with the girls and we enjoyed our trip to Arendelle!

On our way to the Princess gathering we went into one of the shops. Zoe bought herself a Star Wars Alex & Ani - she spent quite a while debating which one to get. Andy and Zoe also picked out Star Wars vinylmation and Piper chose a Pixar one.

After our shopping break, we had to get going to the Princess gathering. While we were in line waiting our turn we were behind a great couple of young men who were there for the gathering. They were having a wonderful time taking pics with the princesses! There was a woman behind me in line who kept making comments about "why would a grown man want to take pictures with a princess." She was super rude and annoying! And um helloooooo, because it's awesome and fun?!?!?! Our first princess was Tiana and after the girls took a picture with her I was overjoyed when Andy, without being prompted by me, went up and got his picture taken with Tiana who he declared the most beautiful princess of them all! I was secretly hoping "Mrs. Annoying" behind me saw Andy jumping in the pic! And I must agree - Tiana was stunning! I love that movie and "Almost There" is one of my favorite Disney songs!

We were also able to meet the beautiful Belle in her yellow gown.

Next up was my absolute favorite princess and Disney movie of all time - Ariel! She was outstanding! She was so much fun and she was so excited she was jumping around, waving and twirling. I really wish I captured it better or on video. Couldn't have loved her more!

The final princess was Cinderella! She's in the perfect spot right next to the grand staircase.

All in all, the Princess Gathering and Frozen Meet & Greet were both great!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

*~* Take My Breath Away *~*​

It was just before 2:00pm when the girls mentioned they were hungry for lunch. I hadn't eaten in approximately 1.75 hours so what was a girl to do but hit up Cabanas buffet before it closed? Zoe and Piper both had chicken tenders and fries and I somehow managed to eat a few more shrimp with cocktail sauce. The sun started coming out about this time so we decided it would be a great time take a little relaxation break up on the deck to watch some Funnelvision. We headed to the top deck where they were playing one of Andy's favorite movies "Up". It was definitely a bit chilly but we needed a little time out after running around all morning.

This is one of our favorite spots to hang out when we are not in the adults only area. Usually if we lose each other we know to check around here. It's got a good view of the screen, the ocean, and also the Aquaduck. Win win!

You can see the water better in this pic - I like being close to the water so I can glance out over the ocean while i'm sitting there. These were our 2 chairs with my Dumbo bag and Zoe's cover up on them.

Zoe was ready to take in a little sun

And I decided it was 5:00 somewhere! The Drink of the Day was Paradise Punch and it was mmmmm mmmm good!

I had promised Piper I would go on the Aquaduck with her so I asked Zoe to take a few pictures of us when we went by if she could. Here are a few of Zoe's pics!

She caught us just before we entered the tunnel

And then when we reappeared!

Hi Zoe! She did a GREAT job!

The water in the Aquaduck was FREEZING!!!! I'm sure it didn't help that it was also chilly outside but when we first started going and the water blasted me in the back and SOAKED me to the core I am not kidding when I say it took my breath away! I have ridden this before and THIS was crazy cold. But it was SO much fun and Piper was so excited that I was going with her that it was worth every second of freezing to death lol.

Andy had left around 3:20 to go pick up the limited edition pins we had gotten wristbands for. Since he was able to get 2 of each if he wanted we didn't need to go with him. I let the girls relax and warm up in the hot tub for a bit before we left the pool deck to go and get ready for the evening while watching Aladdin on movies on demand. It was the day Andy had been looking forward to for quite a while. Superbowl Sunday! It was also Formal Night so we had planned to split up and I would take the girls to Formal Night while Andy watched football on Funnelvision. Stay tuned for another update hopefully this weekend and possibly tonight after Zoe's soccer game!

 

[tmarie]

Enjoying your report! We love the same spot by the pool too....perfect spot to view the ocean and the pool area.

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

Enjoying your report! We love the same spot by the pool too....perfect spot to view the ocean and the pool area.

Thanks! It is a great spot! Love when it's available!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

*~* Captain's Reception *~*​

Andy, Zoe and Piper spent some time on the verandah. Tonight was the Captain's Reception which features music, cocktails, and an opportunity for a photo with the Captain. It is held twice during the evening - at 5 & 7:30pm. Our Captain this voyage was Captain Thord. Andy would not be joining us as he was opting for the Superbowl.

Andy took a photo of the three of us before we went our separate ways. Zoe and Piper had brought Star Wars dresses from Her Universe to wear this evening. Zoe was a little unhappy because they were a little too big and she didn't feel they were "fancy" enough. We will stick with more formal dresses going forward but I thought they were perfect for the Star Wars Day at Sea cruise.

The Fine Whines were playing - I enjoy listening to them and it lends to a wonderful atmosphere.

They offer apple juice as the non alcoholic beverage and I believe I had a mimosa or something similar to that.

After enjoying our drinks we got in line to meet Captain Thord and take a picture with him.

We spent a few minutes sitting in the portholes looking out at the ocean.

They have formal photo opportunities set up in several locations throughout the evening as well. One of them is on the staircase.

We chose the cruise ship background:

Unfortunately these photos turned out blurry but you can get an idea of the drinks that were being served at the reception

There are officers available to chat with as well - it's a really nice start to Formal Night

Up next - dinner @ Royal Court!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

*~* Make Sure You Get My Shake in the Pic *~*​

Zoe, Piper and I got seated at Royal Court for dinner along with our table mates. I don't think I mentioned previously that we were seated with 4 other people - 2 women and their 2 daughters who were around our girl's ages. This was the first time we had experienced being seated with table mates but we enjoyed their company. I think normally because we travel in a larger group we have been seated only with our party.

I started off with the french onion soup. It isn't the best french onion soup I've ever had but it is pretty good.

Next I had pasta which I believe had seafood on the top - I didn't take good notes so I can't remember if this was crab or lobster possibly? I do recall not being a huge fan of this but it was OK.

Alvin had all of the girls stumped with magic tricks so they were working together on trying to figure one of them out here

After dinner it was time for this scrumptious desert combo - I definitely couldn't decide between the creme brulee and the souffle so I went with both. SOOOO good! It worked out that I hadn't eaten much of my dinner so I had room for this!

Alvin came around to poke a hole in the top of the souffles and pour the creme over.

After we wrapped up dinner with more magic tricks and laughs, it was time to get a picture with Mariya and Alvin.

This is when the title of this trip report happened! Alvin started dancing and singing "shake shake shake, shake shake shake"

My photos progressively got blurrier as I couldn't stop laughing! He had me take another pic and yelled out "Make sure you get my shake in the pic!!!" That was not easy to do when I was dying laughing and they were all shaking around lol! I tried my best to get your shake in the pic Alvin!

I honestly can't say enough good things about our team! It was only night two of our cruise but it was like we were all old friends! Laughing, telling jokes, singing and dancing. The girls were having the times of their lives and THIS is the reason we will cruise Disney time and time again.

We decided we should go check in with Andy so we headed up to the pool deck and found him in a chair in front of Funnelvision. It was pretty chilly up on deck. Andy was convinced there would be all kinds of Superbowl festivities on deck but honestly there was not really anything at all other than at Flo's you could get wings and a few other food items. There was an ice sculpture of a football and I believe that was about it for the decorations.

Andy also had a bucket of Corona's that he got when he thought he was ordering *a* beer but apparently he wasn't paying attention to what he was ordering because a bucket showed up!

We decided to leave Andy to his bucket of beers and we went back to the room to get changed and go watch our favorite show of the cruise - Aladdin! Love that show!

Conrad had already made our room up so we were greeted by this towel animal, the navigator and our sleepy chocolates.

Apparently Piper decided to make a face at me as I was taking a few pics of the mostly empty theater while we were waiting for the show.

The girls ran out to the concession stand to get these BB8 cups. They are really cute and Zoe still uses hers all the time!

When Aladdin was over we were the first in line at 9:45 for Minnie in her formal wear. This costume is adorable and I'm glad we were able to get this picture!

We roamed around the Gallery picking out all of the artwork we would like next:

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

*~* Continued *~*​

The food specials at Flo's were Bratwurst, pulled pork, and pizza with chicken wings.

We picked up some pizza and chicken wings with ranch to share and headed back to the room to watch Zoe's favorite Disney movie - Tangled!

We needed to get some sleep as we had a fun day ahead at Cozumel! Stay tuned for our trip to Mr. Sancho's