March 7th, 2009 MAGICal Western Caribbean Adventure

[Lil' Grumpy]

so thats what sponze~bob looks like, outside the water?

..oh, where his square-pants....shrinkage?

[ we did the western....in 05, & it was a great cruise...too. ]

thanks for reminding me.

 

[NikkiLovesWDW!]

Excellent updates! I'm nervous about Key West because I want to just walk around but I'm afraid I won't be able to find anything!! I'm really good with directions but if I don't know what there is to see or where to find it, I get very anxious that I'm missing something!! I think the GPS tour sounds like a good idea for someone like me! Was that offered through DCL or something you found on your own?

 

[dvc4life]

Oh, I agree about Key West being a favorite stop! When we were on our cruise last October we were not going to Key West but since we couldn't go to Grand Cayman because of the high winds, they took us to Key West! And we had the best time just walking around on our own! I can't wait to go back. Next to Castaway Cay, it was our favorite stop!

Your TR is great! So, what's next?

 

[7cotedwarfs]

Hello Everyone From Magic Cruise March 7, 2009

Did not know you are still posting after the trip. Im very excited to be reading your adventures of the cruise. Your thoughts and photos are EXCELLENT.

My husband and I had the most terrific and memorable time we had experienced in a long time. We met wonderful people and had fun times getting to know you.

To Mike & your parents, the knowledge you have of the workings of Disney and hints on cruising were extremely helpfull, considering I got off to a very rocky start.

I will look for more of your TR. Its great memories to read.

Hope you and your family are keeping well
Keep Writing,

Best Wishes
Michelle & Mike Cote
A.K.A. 7cotedwarfs


P.S. my 7 yr old watched me post this and wanted to add the smiles
Thats why they are so random

 

[LindaBabe]

You're doing a great job! It's fun seeing familiar things through your eyes

Nikki, trust me - you don't need a GPS with commercials for the major attractions in Key West. A simple free map is available on line or in most tourist spots ie everywhere.

 

[SplashMountainManiac]

Hey everyone, I got my first exam out of the way and the next post is almost finished, sorry it has been taking so long but this exam schedule is psychotic. Thank you all so much for reading.

Nikki, I will second Linda, walking around with a map will accomplish the same thing as a GPS tour, and is free. You can see the ship from almost all of downtown, so it is impossible to get lost. The free OldTownTrolley tour maps will highlight all the points of interest. I would not recommend the GPS tour.

7cotedwarfs, it was so nice meeting you onboard and I am glad you found the TR. It was such a great cruise and a great group of DISers.

 

[disneyfaninaz]

Hey, no problem. We're all patient here! Not!

No seriously, go get your exams finished and good luck!

 

[SplashMountainManiac]

So I finally finished exams and I am back home for the summer. YAY! And the trip report continues.

It wasn’t long until dinner so we grabbed some quick food from Deck 9, and then I strolled around taking pictures.

I hung out with WDWKevin on deck 10, absorbing as much knowledge about DCL as I could. After a while enjoying the beautiful Key West sunshine, I headed downstairs to get ready for dinner. Tonight was dinner in my favorite dining room, Parrot Cay. We met up with our neighbors at the restaurant, and Richard had our drinks ready in about five seconds. From our table, we were lucky enough to have a view of the sunset out the window.

About half way through dinner the thrusters fired as we set sail from Key West. We were almost vibrated out of our seats. I had never been in a dining room while sailing away, those thrusters are really powerful. I ran outside to catch a last view of Key West. It was really interesting to see how long the channel out of Key West was, the navigational buoys extend a really long ways out of the port, they also look really cool at night.

Dinner was excellent as always. I had both the fritters and the baked crab Martinique for appetizers, the cream of sweet onion soup, and the mixed grill.

We again experienced Sammy’s incredible service, at dessert time. We had asked if it was possible to have Lumiere’s crème brule since we would be missing Lumiere’s for Palo. A few minutes later, Sammy dropped off three of them, and gave us two more to take back to the room. I love cruising so much. Ricky Kalmon’s hypnosis show was tonight. This was one of the funniest and most unique cruise shows I have ever seen. I loved every minute of it. Whether or not it is real, he does a great job and it is hilarious. Disney did a great job of booking entertainment on this cruise. After the show I headed down to Diversions for the second college club social at 10. We all headed over to Rockin’ Bar D to get seats for Rich Purpura’s show at 10:30. It was another great show. We had never seen Rich before, but loved every minute of his show. After the show was the One Hit Wonder dance party. This is one of the newer dance parties and it was really fun. The party starts with some of the performers dancing and then the cruise staff takes over. Once again, the girls dragged us up to dance. I was impressed that Soul Drive provided most of the music; I loved having live music onboard. For everyone over 21 there were free shots if you were the first one to name the one hit wonder being played. Once the party was done Soul Drive handed the music off to DJ Dan and we went up to Deck 9 to grab some drinks. We returned to Rockin’ Bar D to find that we had the whole place almost entirely to ourselves. It was pretty cool being able to choose all the music in our own club, lol.

 

[disneyfaninaz]

Mike,

Another great detailed update! Great sunset photos. I have yet to see a Key West sunset.

Hope your exams went well and you have a great summer!

 

[SplashMountainManiac]

I woke up this morning around 9 to a beautiful sunny day at sea. Days at sea are always my favorite; I love just being out at sea surrounded by nothing but ocean.

We headed upstairs to breakfast at Topsider’s. They put on such a great breakfast buffet; the fresh fruit, chocolate iced donuts, and omelets make a great morning meal.

You may be asking why I am up this early. That is a good question. For some reason, I have never been able to sleep in on a cruise. There is just too much stuff to do. I spent an hour or so on deck taking some pictures and enjoying the sunshine.

I had an arcade card left over from the year before so I spent some credits in Quartermasters. At 11 I met my parents in Rockin’ Bar D for the Castaway Clubhouse. Katrina had told me that there was a cruise staffer Ponz who could remember 100’s of names per cruise. I had the opportunity to meet him, and he never forgot my name for the rest of the cruise. We stocked up on Mickey rice krispie bars and grabbed some cookies. After all, I hadn’t eaten in an hour. We watched the usual videos and then they did the clock giveaway. We had already won twice so we weren’t too concerned about winning. They were using both Rockin’ Bar D and Diversions. Sadly, no one in Diversions won a clock, but Clayton (the Assistant Cruise Director) was giving a hilarious commentary from Diversions. It was interesting to see in the videos that they still had Tom McAlpin speaking as president even though he was no longer in that position. On the way out I snagged Brent for a photo,

he overheard that I was interested in one day being in his position, and said he looked forward to talking with me, but he had to run up to the bridge for the noon announcement. I left my parents and went up to deck 10 to hear the horn sound; you have got to love it.

There was a college club lunch in Parrot Cay at 12:15 so I headed down to Parrot Cay and met up with Ally, Sean, Elizabeth, and Adam outside the restaurant. A few moments later Katrina showed up and we went inside to a table that had been prepared by Michelle, another member of the cruise staff. As we were sitting down I heard someone behind my shout “MIKE.” It turned out that Willy was our server, I was so excited to be able to talk with him some more and he took extra special care of us. There was an incredible Italian buffet including design your own pasta bar and an ice cream bar. We also got to talk to Katrina and Michelle some more; the cruise staff on the Magic is awesome. There was an interesting bit of news we learned about a possible movie PremEAR, but that will be discussed later. After lunch we all went off to hang out and headed up to deck 9.

 

[my3m]

especially from 19 year old like you. I just like/love meeting/knowing responsible teens like you. It always makes me more hopeful that I could raise my kids to be LIKE YOU . My teens are 16 & 14 + a 21 month old baby and my teens still want to spend time with us, hopefully it won't change.....
Can't wait for more.

 

[DMMarla07860]

lovin' the report so far, great read makes me remember my cruise, funny thing is I was on the two weeks before your cruise, in the college club. And I see you are going on the Disney Magic March 6th, 2010. I am as well so we will have to talk join the cruise meets thread for that if you want.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2138841

 

[TammyNC]

Really enjoying your TR so far, can't wait to read the rest. Love all the details too.

We are booked on the March 6th, 2010, 7 night Magic western and it will be our first trip, we are all so excited.

 

[wdwjan]

It's SO great that you got to know Brent. What an amazing guy! Who knows?--you may be working with him some day! (Or, as you say, have his job!)

Jan

 

[my3m]

Please>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

[NCjenn]

I am LOVING your trip report! The pictures are so great! I've booked my family of 4 on our first cruise...the 7 night western sailing October 17th. Reading this and seeing the pictures is getting me so excited about our own trip!!

Jennifer

 

[daveyc150]

Really enjoying this, can't wait for my Western in September!!!!

 

[Tink-RN]

Great TR! Can not wait to hear more! We are going n Western on Aug.22!

 

[SplashMountainManiac]

I have been very slow writing, getting used to working 40 hour weeks during the summer, lol. The next segment is almost ready to go. Thank you all for reading.

 

[LindaBabe]

Looking forward to it - you're doing a great job!