Grumbo
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2003
- Messages
- 1,886
OK this is not anything I put to paper, but just what my feeble, aged memory can remember of the 11 or 12 days...
We left our home in "balmy weather" which means it wasn't snowing and was around 2 or 3 degs C. We had packed earlier in the day and left home around 4:30 pm and drove down to Toronto to pick up friends. Now I was one guy driving down with 5 females (3 women and my 11 year old daughter and a 12 year old friend) so I knew that one word from me and everyone would do exactly what THEY wanted. We were on the road by 7:00 pm and crossed into the U.S. at Niagara Falls. As I am a British citizen I had to go through a check getting a Visa for my passport which killed a half an hour. After this though it was clear sailing. I drove to Pittsburgh where we switched drivers. We switched about every couple of hours after this and we pretty well drove straight through, except for pit stops and breakfast and gas stops until we got to Hilton Head in South Carolina where we stopped for the first night. We got in mid afternoon and a couple of the ladies started a tradition that would continue for the entire vacation, and went shopping, while the kids and one of the ladies and I stayed at the motel going for a swim, and taking part in that high energy sport, mini putt golf. We then went out for supper and came back to the room. I was very tired and was asleep by 9:00 pm while the others... Yeah you know..Went shopping.
We were actually right beside the DVC Hilton Head Resort and really wanted to go over and look at it but I was so tired on our arrival, and then we hit the road early so never had the chance. We drove down to Port Canaveral arriving at Ron Jon's Caribe Resort. They sure don't want you to find this place as it is very poorly signposted but let me tell you it is a fantastic resort. Two large bedrooms, beautiful walk in closet that is probably a suite if you went to a hotel in Tokyo, jacuzzi whirlpool in the ensuite master bedroom, washer dryer, dishwasher, and all the appliances as well as a huge balcony overlooking what is like a water park that has a huge water slide, lazy river and large pool along with a water playground for little ones. There are 3 huge hot tubs and as this place is only about 2 months old it is pristine. The kids didn't want to go on the ship when they saw the water world. They would have been very happy to have just stayed there
Anyway we had a great time and decided to go to Grills for supper. We left it a bit too late though, even though we called to put our name in, and it was over an 1 1/2 hour wait to get a table once we got there. It is definitely an adult place at night, and extremely LOUD, but it was a great experience and the two young girls had a blast. The food was good and the hair in the one lady's hamburger seemed to be cooked to perfection (She never told us about it until we left as she figured it would probably spoil our meal. Heck gonna take alot more than that to bother me ).
Anyway back to the resort and really tired after all the driving so off to bed and (Oh yeah forgot we went shopping at Ron Jons). I was up early so I went out at 7 am. As I was leaving Ron Jons a large cruise ship was returning to port (neat to see). I had to take a peek and saw the Magic was docked and waiting for us. I drove over to Target (Closed) and then to WalMart and picked up some bagels, doughnuts and a case of bottled water. On the way back I stopped at Dunkin Donuts (Closest I could find to Tim Hortons
) and then drove by the Perfect Gift and was unsure if I should stop in but decided what the heck as the van was parked out front. Norm was just walking outside and I said Hi and walked into the store. He followed me in (Guess he wondered why someone was going into their florist store at 7:55 am) and I met Shirley. Introduced myself and we had a a sit down in the back of the store and yakked for a bit. Both Norm and Shirley are lovely folks and I'm glad I decided to stop.
We had a leisurely breakfast and we washed a couple of loads of clothing and repacked so that we could leave unessentials in the van and take just what we required on the cruise.
We made it over to the docks by about 10 am and was really surprised at the length of the line for vehicles dropping of people and luggage. Everything was unloaded and I was pleasantly surprised that for the 7 day you park directly beside the terminal as opposed to the 3 and 4 day cruises which is across the road. The lot seemed rather small for such a large cruise but I guess most folks come by bus, limo or rental car. My crew were already inside by the time I got back to the terminal and the line was slow moving but heck you're going on a Disney Cruise so who cares.
I got checked in quickly but I had a $100 obc from All Season's Travel as well as $800 that I had deposited over the previous months on my onboard account. The clerk initially could find NO credits, then found $200 and finally $400. She told me to check with Guest Services inside once aboard.
We wandered around and mingled. Lineups don't seem bad or a hardship when you're going to be pampered and treated for the next week. Around noon the line started to move and we all got onboard quickly. I like the new backdrop for the embarking photo. Quite nice.
We went up to deck 7 for our room 7120 (one of the secret balcony rooms) and spoke to the cm and asked if we could just drop off our bags and we'd be gone. They agreed and we "dumped the stuff" on top of the desk so as to not impede anything and were out of there. This was our first cabin with a balcony and it was GREAT!!
I had decided to get the Romance Escape at Sea package and as such had all the Palo and spa reservations done. It was a surprise for my wife and she had been bugging me all the way in to decide who was going to which lineup and what days we wanted to try for reservations. When we dropped the bags off the REAS gift pack was on the bed and I told her then it was all looked after so we could go up for lunch and relax. She was very happy and I'm glad I'd done it.
After having read the reports on here and also having spoken with Natdenco on here about her daughter Gemma who is a server on the Magic I had considered requesting her as a server. We had a fairly good server on the Wonder but our assistant server Joanne from Canada had been very poor. I went into Sessions and spoke with Nick who was looking after the requests. He said "anything was possible" but that I may have to give up the early sitting. As the rest of the group really wanted early sitting I asked him to do what he could and I left it with him.
I went up to Guest Services re the Onboard Credit. The cm found I had $200 and then said no there is $400. She asked if I had my receipts for the onboard credits I had put on and told her it had been done by credit card so it was on my Mastercard bill but Disney had never sent me anything. She said they would look into it and get back to me later. I knew I'd paid it so was going to eventually get it so said I'd wait til later and they could leave me voice mail.
We did the "Rae Shrimpfest" in Topsiders and wandered the decks and sat up by the pools while the kids went down the Mickey Slide and relaxed in the sun. During the afternoon we made it down to the room which had been completed. There was a Memory box from All Seasons there along with the REAS gift pack, our Castaway club towel and pins.
We went to the Deck Party on Deck 9 and it was fun. The ship is so smooth pulling away you just don't realize it is moving. We moved up to Deck 10 and waved to folks at Grills and the Jetty and could see Ron Jons Caribe Resort from the deck. We moved out into the ocean and it was time to head back to our room to get dressed for supper.
We were on PLAPLAP rotation and found our table OK. It turned out the 6 of us were by ourselves and didn't share it with anyone else. It was nice but would have been OK with sharing with others.
Our assistant server was Baiyok from Thailand. She was a very pleasant and nice lady and very attentive. She had apparently worked on the Wonder for a number of contracts in the bar and had been home looking after her father but then came back as an assistant server. She was really good with the kids.
When our server made her appearance we had actually got Gemma as our server!! It was her first day back after being off since before Christmas. Poor girl got stuck with our table Gemma is so upbeat and quite obviously enjoys people that it was a joy having her as our server and she helped to make an enjoyable holiday that much better.
The whole day was wonderful and went to the show afterwards and then a relatively early night. What a great trip.
I received a call from Donna who also does the rebooking of your cruises on the ship. She straightened out the Onboard Credit. She admitted the computer screens and programme shows $200 but you have to scroll over to see the number of units so it shows $200 and further over showed 4 units. As for the $100 from All Seasons she was able to fax/email and speak with them from the ship on Monday and it was all straightened out. We met Donna throughout the ship and she is a definite asset to DCL. She is interested, concerned and conscientious. Now I had already booked for next March with All Seasons in November. The rate I got from All Seasons was better than what I could book now onboard even with the 10% discount and $200 obc. Donna looked that up for me. However we are going to cancel that cruise IF DCL does an August repositioning cruise over to the East Coast from the West in the summer of 2005. I kept bugging and teasing Donna about letting me know if it was going to happen. I promised it would be our little secret She wouldn't spill the beans but said IF it happened I could use the 10% discount and the $200 onboard credit on THAT cruise, so I booked a second cruise so I have the option to switch it if need be. It will be interesting to see. I switched this immediately over to All Seasons and got an additional credit from them. Hopefully in May we'll find out for sure.
As part of the REAS we had the Spa Taster on our second day and I'm not what you would call into the spa/massage things but it was really good. My wife and I truly enjoyed it and the spa staff (contrary to other reports I've read on here) were friendly and helpful. Yep they tried to sell us treatments and products but I listened and declined and they were fine with that.
We played Bingo the first afternoon. My daughter and I won $195 and the other young girl and lady in our group won $215. That truly was a great start to the day. We went into Lumieres briefly as we had dinner reservations at Palo at 6:30. We said hi to Gemma and our crew and then headed off for a beautiful supper. We had Ellie as our server. She was very good and the food was fantastic. I had the fillet and my wife the seafood. I tried the chococate souffle and although good it wasn't quite as good as I had anticipated. Perhaps the build up here had made me expect too much The ambience and meal was great and we thoroughly enjoyed our meal.
We did as many of the activities as we could on ship. The 11 year old and 12 year old registered in the Oceaneers Club but weren't really interested. There was so much to do outside of it and they found the majority of the kids were younger so we didn't push them to stay.
We saw the Golden Mickeys for the first time and it was fantastic. The two girls were all dressed up and got interviewed by "Rona" on the red carpet which was broadcast on the large screens in the theatre. The kids loved it.
Gemma had been working the door at Topsiders for the breakfast and said her mum and dad, who were on the cruise were inside. I had mentioned to Gemma I had spoken with her mum on this board and it turned out Gemma's dad and I do the same work in Canada and the U.K. so I was hoping to meet them. She searched for them and I ended up yakking for a half hour about everything. They are a very nice couple and it was obvious to see where Gemma got her personality and friendliness from. From her mum obviously! (Only kidding Dave )
We did the high tea at Palo the second sea day also. I was somewhat disappointed in the limited (6 quarter sandwiches) between 4 people, the water for the tea was luke warm, and the sweets being given first. It seemed to be very rushed at 30 minutes but hey it was something different and glad I did it once.
St Maarten for us was a chance to go shopping and look around Phillipsburg. Now I have to admit had we looked around the island it may have been better but St. Maarten to me was one big shopping mall by the docks. we met Gemma's mum and dad in town while walking around. They were meeting up with Gemma and Deepak who I met on the water taxi while going back to the ship. I'd like to try an excursion next time. However to my wife and her friend in our group St. Maarten and its shopping was Nirvana We bought our loud shirts and bags with tropical motifs and a gold chain. I lasted a few hours and then headed back to the ship to read a book, lay in the sun and relax. Life don't get much better
The Tropicalifragilisticexpialidocious night was great. It looked like we cleaned the marketplace out of all the loud/tacky shirts in St Maarten We loved it.
We had the early St Thomas morning ahead. Now we had booked our own sailboat excursion with Jester Sailings and were disappointed to find out that we were going to tender. This was going to slow us down in getting off the ship but not much we could do about it. We got up early as everyone had to clear U.S. Immigration. Now for us as Non U.S. residents we had to go to Rocking D's Bar. The Immigration officials were late getting onboard and this really screwed up a LOT of people. For us it wasn't as bad as there were a very small proportion of Non U.S. residents as compared the American Residents. The U.S. residents had to go to the Walt Disney Theatre and I went over after searching for my wife who went straight to the tender boats rather than going to the Buena Vista Theatre. My God it was like a zoo in the Walt Disney Theatre. I heard horror stories afterwards about people not getting off for hours. In the Rocking D Bar we had one woman who looked and sounded just like Ursula and she unloaded on a poor CM because of the delay. She ranted about the food and how she worked in a nursing home and the fish and chips were better there. (I think she should have just stayed there). I'll give the CM credit. He just took it and didn't tell her to go somewhere. I saw this woman numerous times and she had a scowl that could have curdled milk at 60 paces. The tender system was poor. The staff working it didn't have enough people there to do it properly. I felt sorry for them but we were off the ship by 8:50 am and made it to our sailboat day by 9:10 am.
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY IT WAS. The weather started a bit overcast and was windy but got better and better the whole day. Jester is a 38' sloop that takes up to 6 passengers at a time. We motored over from the Radisson hotel. All your food and drinks are included. Captain Jim has Jester Juice and will make you any fancy drink (alcohol or virgin), beer, soda or juices and has all kinds of snacking food for the kids and adults alike. Jim is a great resource for information about the Virgin Islands and the trip over was wonderful. When we arrived he anchored at Honeymoon Bay in about 10' of water. He has all the snorkel gear, tubes, floats and frisbees etc you would ever want. The water is beautiful turquoise and the beach pure white. We swam and played on the beach and laid on the front of the boat catching some rays. There are fish to look at and the kids went exploring getting some coconuts. Other larger catamarans with tons of people showed up later but we had are small group and was great. Jim bbq'd chicken with pasta salad and corn on the cob. After the swimming and sailing it was awesome. He blew the conch shell to let us know dinner was ready. We now knew how the people from the "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" feel We went back in for some more swimming and exploring and headed back in the early afternoon. This is one of the drawbacks imho of the Disney Magic's stay in St. Thomas. Last tender leaves at 4:30 pm as it is on a close timetable to be able to make it back to Castaway Cay. Even an extra hour would make it better for excursions.
We sailed back to St Thomas under sail. It was windy and the swells were large. It was a hoot. The kids were hanging on for dear life and screaming and laughing. I got some great photos of this. One of our group found it a bit much but was able to keep her lunch down
We got back to the Radisson and got a cab back to the dock. The traffic is horrendous when all the cruise ships are in town and it took nearly an hour through the terrible traffic. If we had been docked it would have been easier and quicker but we had lots of time so no big deal
We got the 4:00 pm tender and had a shower and changed for supper. (God you seem to do nothing but eat on these cruises )
I'm beginning to realize that I got much more sun on the sailboat than I had imagined. I lost my ball cap from the wind on the boat and my sparse hair was no match for the Caribbean sun. (Let me tell you that I found out in 5 days when my scalp started to "peel" from the sunburn it was like I had terminal dandruff).
I love the sea days. We saw Hildago, Miracle, played Bingo, met some of the performers from the different shows at a behind the scenes presentation, saw the movie on the dry dock of the Magic as well as its construction, did the Bridge tour, midnight dessert buffets and umpteen other things I can't even remember but know there were as many things I wanted to do that I didn't have time to do so will try next year.
The day at Castaway Cay was wonderful. Some of our group went parasailing and were extrememly happy with the experience. We did some snorkeling, swimming, sunning and shopping. I have never made it over to the adult beach yet and didn't this time. Maybe next time Baiyok was serving and cleaning up on the island and we had a chance to talk with her. The staff are so friendly and make the holiday that much better.
We were worried that we'd not be able to dock at Castaway Cay due to the wind but we did and were happy for it.
We had our last dinner with Gemma and Baiyok and had the Small World show. We were so lucky to have had such good servers for our trip. They both worked very hard and I hope they realize that they ARE appreciated. You think of them more as friends than as a waiter. We will always have fond memories of both of them.
We hurried back to our rooms, packed to get our bags out for the morning. We went to the show and wandered the decks. We were all tired and were in bed by 10 pm. I however set a wake up call for 12:30 am. There had been an announcement about a NASA spaceship launch for 12:40 am and we would be approximately 100 miles from Cape Canaveral and the night was clear we'd be able to see it. I couldn't miss this! With Mickey yelling in my ear about lots to do, I stumbled out of bed and went up to Deck 10 forward and waited. Sure enough right on cue you could see an orange glow in the distance and then what looked like a glowing cigarette ash move across the sky and over to the right of the ship. I had seen a Space Shuttle go over WDW one year but that was in the daytime. This was a great treat to see.
I went back to bed and up early for the departure for Immigration. We arrived at 5:50 am and got everything done quickly and then back to the room. We stood on the balcony when I started to see movement just below the water. Then dolphins started rolling out of the water. We all stood on our balcony watching the aquatic show. What a great ending for the holiday.
We went down to have breakfast with Baiyok and Gemma. They were their usual smiling happy selves. Its gotta be hard with those early days, late nights and knowing it all starts with a new bunch of people in a few hours
We said our goodbyes, hugs and looked around a bit more. We made it off the ship and were in our van on the road to Orlando by 8:30 am.
I won't go too much into the Orlando WDW part. We had a great time and went to a Tampa Bay Lightning game on the Saturday night. Yeah hockey!! What a great facility and wonderful people. What we paid for 6 people to go to this game in Tampa wouldn't have bought two comparable tickets to go to an NHL game in Toronto.
The drive home was uneventful. I have to get the van checked later as it seems that it pulls to the left or right anytime it passes a factory outlet, Sams Club or Costco!!!
Due to the wonderful U.S. Throughways we lost 3 of 4 hubcaps but otherwise a wonderful holiday.
Anyway thats a condensed version of our cruise
Cheers,
Grumbo
I've added some of our photos....
Ron Jons Caribe Resort - Panoramic view of the Water Park from our balcony -
St Maarten Harbour -
St Thomas Sailing with some big waves so HANG ON! -
Mickey Pool at night -
Gemma our server celebrating we'd finished eating and were moving away from the table -
A sunset from our balcony on Day 3 -
Bigger isn't always better that is obvious in this photo in St. Maarten -
Now THIS is what a fantastic Seafood dish looks like onboard -
The Magic marooned on the rocks in St. Maarten -
We left our home in "balmy weather" which means it wasn't snowing and was around 2 or 3 degs C. We had packed earlier in the day and left home around 4:30 pm and drove down to Toronto to pick up friends. Now I was one guy driving down with 5 females (3 women and my 11 year old daughter and a 12 year old friend) so I knew that one word from me and everyone would do exactly what THEY wanted. We were on the road by 7:00 pm and crossed into the U.S. at Niagara Falls. As I am a British citizen I had to go through a check getting a Visa for my passport which killed a half an hour. After this though it was clear sailing. I drove to Pittsburgh where we switched drivers. We switched about every couple of hours after this and we pretty well drove straight through, except for pit stops and breakfast and gas stops until we got to Hilton Head in South Carolina where we stopped for the first night. We got in mid afternoon and a couple of the ladies started a tradition that would continue for the entire vacation, and went shopping, while the kids and one of the ladies and I stayed at the motel going for a swim, and taking part in that high energy sport, mini putt golf. We then went out for supper and came back to the room. I was very tired and was asleep by 9:00 pm while the others... Yeah you know..Went shopping.
We were actually right beside the DVC Hilton Head Resort and really wanted to go over and look at it but I was so tired on our arrival, and then we hit the road early so never had the chance. We drove down to Port Canaveral arriving at Ron Jon's Caribe Resort. They sure don't want you to find this place as it is very poorly signposted but let me tell you it is a fantastic resort. Two large bedrooms, beautiful walk in closet that is probably a suite if you went to a hotel in Tokyo, jacuzzi whirlpool in the ensuite master bedroom, washer dryer, dishwasher, and all the appliances as well as a huge balcony overlooking what is like a water park that has a huge water slide, lazy river and large pool along with a water playground for little ones. There are 3 huge hot tubs and as this place is only about 2 months old it is pristine. The kids didn't want to go on the ship when they saw the water world. They would have been very happy to have just stayed there
Anyway we had a great time and decided to go to Grills for supper. We left it a bit too late though, even though we called to put our name in, and it was over an 1 1/2 hour wait to get a table once we got there. It is definitely an adult place at night, and extremely LOUD, but it was a great experience and the two young girls had a blast. The food was good and the hair in the one lady's hamburger seemed to be cooked to perfection (She never told us about it until we left as she figured it would probably spoil our meal. Heck gonna take alot more than that to bother me
).Anyway back to the resort and really tired after all the driving so off to bed and (Oh yeah forgot we went shopping at Ron Jons). I was up early so I went out at 7 am. As I was leaving Ron Jons a large cruise ship was returning to port (neat to see). I had to take a peek and saw the Magic was docked and waiting for us. I drove over to Target (Closed) and then to WalMart and picked up some bagels, doughnuts and a case of bottled water. On the way back I stopped at Dunkin Donuts (Closest I could find to Tim Hortons
) and then drove by the Perfect Gift and was unsure if I should stop in but decided what the heck as the van was parked out front. Norm was just walking outside and I said Hi and walked into the store. He followed me in (Guess he wondered why someone was going into their florist store at 7:55 am) and I met Shirley. Introduced myself and we had a a sit down in the back of the store and yakked for a bit. Both Norm and Shirley are lovely folks and I'm glad I decided to stop.We had a leisurely breakfast and we washed a couple of loads of clothing and repacked so that we could leave unessentials in the van and take just what we required on the cruise.
We made it over to the docks by about 10 am and was really surprised at the length of the line for vehicles dropping of people and luggage. Everything was unloaded and I was pleasantly surprised that for the 7 day you park directly beside the terminal as opposed to the 3 and 4 day cruises which is across the road. The lot seemed rather small for such a large cruise but I guess most folks come by bus, limo or rental car. My crew were already inside by the time I got back to the terminal and the line was slow moving but heck you're going on a Disney Cruise so who cares.
I got checked in quickly but I had a $100 obc from All Season's Travel as well as $800 that I had deposited over the previous months on my onboard account. The clerk initially could find NO credits, then found $200 and finally $400. She told me to check with Guest Services inside once aboard.
We wandered around and mingled. Lineups don't seem bad or a hardship when you're going to be pampered and treated for the next week. Around noon the line started to move and we all got onboard quickly. I like the new backdrop for the embarking photo. Quite nice.
We went up to deck 7 for our room 7120 (one of the secret balcony rooms) and spoke to the cm and asked if we could just drop off our bags and we'd be gone. They agreed and we "dumped the stuff" on top of the desk so as to not impede anything and were out of there. This was our first cabin with a balcony and it was GREAT!!
I had decided to get the Romance Escape at Sea package and as such had all the Palo and spa reservations done. It was a surprise for my wife and she had been bugging me all the way in to decide who was going to which lineup and what days we wanted to try for reservations. When we dropped the bags off the REAS gift pack was on the bed and I told her then it was all looked after so we could go up for lunch and relax. She was very happy and I'm glad I'd done it.
After having read the reports on here and also having spoken with Natdenco on here about her daughter Gemma who is a server on the Magic I had considered requesting her as a server. We had a fairly good server on the Wonder but our assistant server Joanne from Canada had been very poor. I went into Sessions and spoke with Nick who was looking after the requests. He said "anything was possible" but that I may have to give up the early sitting. As the rest of the group really wanted early sitting I asked him to do what he could and I left it with him.
I went up to Guest Services re the Onboard Credit. The cm found I had $200 and then said no there is $400. She asked if I had my receipts for the onboard credits I had put on and told her it had been done by credit card so it was on my Mastercard bill but Disney had never sent me anything. She said they would look into it and get back to me later. I knew I'd paid it so was going to eventually get it so said I'd wait til later and they could leave me voice mail.
We did the "Rae Shrimpfest" in Topsiders and wandered the decks and sat up by the pools while the kids went down the Mickey Slide and relaxed in the sun. During the afternoon we made it down to the room which had been completed. There was a Memory box from All Seasons there along with the REAS gift pack, our Castaway club towel and pins.
We went to the Deck Party on Deck 9 and it was fun. The ship is so smooth pulling away you just don't realize it is moving. We moved up to Deck 10 and waved to folks at Grills and the Jetty and could see Ron Jons Caribe Resort from the deck. We moved out into the ocean and it was time to head back to our room to get dressed for supper.
We were on PLAPLAP rotation and found our table OK. It turned out the 6 of us were by ourselves and didn't share it with anyone else. It was nice but would have been OK with sharing with others.
Our assistant server was Baiyok from Thailand. She was a very pleasant and nice lady and very attentive. She had apparently worked on the Wonder for a number of contracts in the bar and had been home looking after her father but then came back as an assistant server. She was really good with the kids.
When our server made her appearance we had actually got Gemma as our server!! It was her first day back after being off since before Christmas. Poor girl got stuck with our table
Gemma is so upbeat and quite obviously enjoys people that it was a joy having her as our server and she helped to make an enjoyable holiday that much better. The whole day was wonderful and went to the show afterwards and then a relatively early night. What a great trip.
I received a call from Donna who also does the rebooking of your cruises on the ship. She straightened out the Onboard Credit. She admitted the computer screens and programme shows $200 but you have to scroll over to see the number of units so it shows $200 and further over showed 4 units. As for the $100 from All Seasons she was able to fax/email and speak with them from the ship on Monday and it was all straightened out. We met Donna throughout the ship and she is a definite asset to DCL. She is interested, concerned and conscientious. Now I had already booked for next March with All Seasons in November. The rate I got from All Seasons was better than what I could book now onboard even with the 10% discount and $200 obc. Donna looked that up for me. However we are going to cancel that cruise IF DCL does an August repositioning cruise over to the East Coast from the West in the summer of 2005. I kept bugging and teasing Donna about letting me know if it was going to happen. I promised it would be our little secret
She wouldn't spill the beans but said IF it happened I could use the 10% discount and the $200 onboard credit on THAT cruise, so I booked a second cruise so I have the option to switch it if need be. It will be interesting to see. I switched this immediately over to All Seasons and got an additional credit from them. Hopefully in May we'll find out for sure.As part of the REAS we had the Spa Taster on our second day and I'm not what you would call into the spa/massage things but it was really good. My wife and I truly enjoyed it and the spa staff (contrary to other reports I've read on here) were friendly and helpful. Yep they tried to sell us treatments and products but I listened and declined and they were fine with that.
We played Bingo the first afternoon. My daughter and I won $195 and the other young girl and lady in our group won $215. That truly was a great start to the day. We went into Lumieres briefly as we had dinner reservations at Palo at 6:30. We said hi to Gemma and our crew and then headed off for a beautiful supper. We had Ellie as our server. She was very good and the food was fantastic. I had the fillet and my wife the seafood. I tried the chococate souffle and although good it wasn't quite as good as I had anticipated. Perhaps the build up here had made me expect too much
The ambience and meal was great and we thoroughly enjoyed our meal.We did as many of the activities as we could on ship. The 11 year old and 12 year old registered in the Oceaneers Club but weren't really interested. There was so much to do outside of it and they found the majority of the kids were younger so we didn't push them to stay.
We saw the Golden Mickeys for the first time and it was fantastic. The two girls were all dressed up and got interviewed by "Rona" on the red carpet which was broadcast on the large screens in the theatre. The kids loved it.
Gemma had been working the door at Topsiders for the breakfast and said her mum and dad, who were on the cruise were inside. I had mentioned to Gemma I had spoken with her mum on this board and it turned out Gemma's dad and I do the same work in Canada and the U.K. so I was hoping to meet them. She searched for them and I ended up yakking for a half hour about everything. They are a very nice couple and it was obvious to see where Gemma got her personality and friendliness from. From her mum obviously! (Only kidding Dave
)We did the high tea at Palo the second sea day also. I was somewhat disappointed in the limited (6 quarter sandwiches) between 4 people, the water for the tea was luke warm, and the sweets being given first. It seemed to be very rushed at 30 minutes but hey it was something different and glad I did it once.
St Maarten for us was a chance to go shopping and look around Phillipsburg. Now I have to admit had we looked around the island it may have been better but St. Maarten to me was one big shopping mall by the docks. we met Gemma's mum and dad in town while walking around. They were meeting up with Gemma and Deepak who I met on the water taxi while going back to the ship. I'd like to try an excursion next time. However to my wife and her friend in our group St. Maarten and its shopping was Nirvana
We bought our loud shirts and bags with tropical motifs and a gold chain. I lasted a few hours and then headed back to the ship to read a book, lay in the sun and relax. Life don't get much better The Tropicalifragilisticexpialidocious night was great. It looked like we cleaned the marketplace out of all the loud/tacky shirts in St Maarten
We loved it.We had the early St Thomas morning ahead. Now we had booked our own sailboat excursion with Jester Sailings and were disappointed to find out that we were going to tender. This was going to slow us down in getting off the ship but not much we could do about it. We got up early as everyone had to clear U.S. Immigration. Now for us as Non U.S. residents we had to go to Rocking D's Bar. The Immigration officials were late getting onboard and this really screwed up a LOT of people. For us it wasn't as bad as there were a very small proportion of Non U.S. residents as compared the American Residents. The U.S. residents had to go to the Walt Disney Theatre and I went over after searching for my wife who went straight to the tender boats rather than going to the Buena Vista Theatre. My God it was like a zoo in the Walt Disney Theatre. I heard horror stories afterwards about people not getting off for hours. In the Rocking D Bar we had one woman who looked and sounded just like Ursula and she unloaded on a poor CM because of the delay. She ranted about the food and how she worked in a nursing home and the fish and chips were better there. (I think she should have just stayed there). I'll give the CM credit. He just took it and didn't tell her to go somewhere. I saw this woman numerous times and she had a scowl that could have curdled milk at 60 paces. The tender system was poor. The staff working it didn't have enough people there to do it properly. I felt sorry for them but we were off the ship by 8:50 am and made it to our sailboat day by 9:10 am.
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY IT WAS. The weather started a bit overcast and was windy but got better and better the whole day. Jester is a 38' sloop that takes up to 6 passengers at a time. We motored over from the Radisson hotel. All your food and drinks are included. Captain Jim has Jester Juice and will make you any fancy drink (alcohol or virgin), beer, soda or juices and has all kinds of snacking food for the kids and adults alike. Jim is a great resource for information about the Virgin Islands and the trip over was wonderful. When we arrived he anchored at Honeymoon Bay in about 10' of water. He has all the snorkel gear, tubes, floats and frisbees etc you would ever want. The water is beautiful turquoise and the beach pure white. We swam and played on the beach and laid on the front of the boat catching some rays. There are fish to look at and the kids went exploring getting some coconuts. Other larger catamarans with tons of people showed up later but we had are small group and was great. Jim bbq'd chicken with pasta salad and corn on the cob. After the swimming and sailing it was awesome. He blew the conch shell to let us know dinner was ready. We now knew how the people from the "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" feel
We went back in for some more swimming and exploring and headed back in the early afternoon. This is one of the drawbacks imho of the Disney Magic's stay in St. Thomas. Last tender leaves at 4:30 pm as it is on a close timetable to be able to make it back to Castaway Cay. Even an extra hour would make it better for excursions. We sailed back to St Thomas under sail. It was windy and the swells were large. It was a hoot. The kids were hanging on for dear life and screaming and laughing. I got some great photos of this. One of our group found it a bit much but was able to keep her lunch down
We got back to the Radisson and got a cab back to the dock. The traffic is horrendous when all the cruise ships are in town and it took nearly an hour through the terrible traffic. If we had been docked it would have been easier and quicker but we had lots of time so no big deal
We got the 4:00 pm tender and had a shower and changed for supper. (God you seem to do nothing but eat on these cruises
)I'm beginning to realize that I got much more sun on the sailboat than I had imagined. I lost my ball cap from the wind on the boat and my sparse hair was no match for the Caribbean sun. (Let me tell you that I found out in 5 days when my scalp started to "peel" from the sunburn it was like I had terminal dandruff).
I love the sea days. We saw Hildago, Miracle, played Bingo, met some of the performers from the different shows at a behind the scenes presentation, saw the movie on the dry dock of the Magic as well as its construction, did the Bridge tour, midnight dessert buffets and umpteen other things I can't even remember but know there were as many things I wanted to do that I didn't have time to do so will try next year.
The day at Castaway Cay was wonderful. Some of our group went parasailing and were extrememly happy with the experience. We did some snorkeling, swimming, sunning and shopping. I have never made it over to the adult beach yet and didn't this time. Maybe next time
Baiyok was serving and cleaning up on the island and we had a chance to talk with her. The staff are so friendly and make the holiday that much better.We were worried that we'd not be able to dock at Castaway Cay due to the wind but we did and were happy for it.
We had our last dinner with Gemma and Baiyok and had the Small World show. We were so lucky to have had such good servers for our trip. They both worked very hard and I hope they realize that they ARE appreciated. You think of them more as friends than as a waiter. We will always have fond memories of both of them.
We hurried back to our rooms, packed to get our bags out for the morning. We went to the show and wandered the decks. We were all tired and were in bed by 10 pm. I however set a wake up call for 12:30 am. There had been an announcement about a NASA spaceship launch for 12:40 am and we would be approximately 100 miles from Cape Canaveral and the night was clear we'd be able to see it. I couldn't miss this! With Mickey yelling in my ear about lots to do, I stumbled out of bed and went up to Deck 10 forward and waited. Sure enough right on cue you could see an orange glow in the distance and then what looked like a glowing cigarette ash move across the sky and over to the right of the ship. I had seen a Space Shuttle go over WDW one year but that was in the daytime. This was a great treat to see.
I went back to bed and up early for the departure for Immigration. We arrived at 5:50 am and got everything done quickly and then back to the room. We stood on the balcony when I started to see movement just below the water. Then dolphins started rolling out of the water. We all stood on our balcony watching the aquatic show. What a great ending for the holiday.
We went down to have breakfast with Baiyok and Gemma. They were their usual smiling happy selves. Its gotta be hard with those early days, late nights and knowing it all starts with a new bunch of people in a few hours
We said our goodbyes, hugs and looked around a bit more. We made it off the ship and were in our van on the road to Orlando by 8:30 am.
I won't go too much into the Orlando WDW part. We had a great time and went to a Tampa Bay Lightning game on the Saturday night. Yeah hockey!! What a great facility and wonderful people. What we paid for 6 people to go to this game in Tampa wouldn't have bought two comparable tickets to go to an NHL game in Toronto.
The drive home was uneventful. I have to get the van checked later as it seems that it pulls to the left or right anytime it passes a factory outlet, Sams Club or Costco!!!
Due to the wonderful U.S. Throughways we lost 3 of 4 hubcaps but otherwise a wonderful holiday.
Anyway thats a condensed version of our cruise
Cheers,
Grumbo
I've added some of our photos....
Ron Jons Caribe Resort - Panoramic view of the Water Park from our balcony -
St Maarten Harbour -
St Thomas Sailing with some big waves so HANG ON!
- Mickey Pool at night -
Gemma our server celebrating we'd finished eating and were moving away from the table
- A sunset from our balcony on Day 3 -
Bigger isn't always better that is obvious in this photo in St. Maarten -
Now THIS is what a fantastic Seafood dish looks like onboard -
The Magic marooned on the rocks in St. Maarten -
