JenLynn
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2004
- Messages
- 716
May 1 8 Magic Trip Report: Day 2
Eastern Itinerary
JenLynn (Me) - 31
Joe (DH) - 34
Teddy (DS) - 6
Madalyn (DD) - 4 (almost 5)
We also traveled with 2 other families:
Terri (DW), Chris (DH) and Jordan (DD)
Kristi (DW), Eric (DH) and Bradley (DS) and Adam (DS)
And a few Day 1 tid-bits I forgot to mention:
· We bought the soda package for both DH and myself, along with the mugs. We each got a sticker to put onto our cards. Looking back we should probably only have gotten 1 soda package. The children mainly drank juice and lemonade from the beverage station next to the Mickey pool and DH drank beer. Sodas were included with the sit-down meals. I would say that I got my moneys worth out of the soda program, but DH did not and that brings me to the next point .
· DH got the beer mug package. The mug was $10. This allowed you to get refills for the usual $3.74 but you get 22ounces instead of the usual 16ounces. The one hitch in this is that in the dinner restaurants, our assistant server only brought 16-ounce refills for the beer mugs. (Two years ago on the Wonder, our assistant server got the 22-ounce refills).
· The Excellent Speech after dinner the first night, our server asked us how our meal was and I responded Excellent (because I knew they wanted/needed excellent ratings on the end-of cruise surveys). He smiled and laughed and said, You got it! Then proceeded to tell us that he and the assistant server wanted to ensure that our dining experience was excellent so if there was anything that could be done to improve the experience to please let him know. It was short and polite and reasonable. (I know others have heard much more invasive, annoying excellence speeches).
Now onto Day 2:
This morning we had our character breakfast in Parrot Cay restaurant. We met Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Chip and Dale. Each character came to each table for a quick photograph (and I mean quick!). Each character had a photographer with him/her and the photographers told us the characters were not signing autographs during breakfast. Lots of fun music and songs and Chip and Dale did the hand-jive and there was some Chef-Mickey-ish napkin waving. DH enjoyed his lox and bagels. I enjoyed my ham and cheese omelet. The children each got the kids breakfast plate with chocolate pancakes, Mickey waffles, Canadian bacon, etc. Overall, Id give this meal a B because the food was good and the music and songs were fun and seeing the characters is always great but the character visits were extremely brief and the photographers were not always polite as they told the children where and how to pose for the pictures (I think they just have to rush through the breakfast to get the characters to each table before the meal is over).
Lunch was at the Topsiders buffet again. Todays theme was an Italian buffet. I enjoyed the food a great deal, in particular the tortellini salad, the potatoes, and the veal marsala. We sat outside and enjoyed the view off the back of the boat while we ate. The breeze kept everything quite comfortable.
The children went to the Oceaneers Lab for Detective School and Joe and I went up to deck 10 overlooking the Quiet Cove (adult) pool. Although most of the lounge chairs around the pool were taken, there were plenty of chairs available on deck 10 overlooking the pool. We snagged a few and I laid out to read while sunning myself. It was then that our wonderful treasure, Kadir the bar server, came by and greeted us with another chorus of Ole, Ole he brought us more drinks and Joe and Kadir coordinated walkie-talkie channels so we could contact Kadir whenever we needed more to drink. How cool is that?
The one problem was that it was very windy up on deck there. And that kept the air feeling cooler so you didnt realize just how much sun you were getting. Luckily we didnt get a sunburn, but it was very deceiving.
I had reservations for High Tea at Palo at 3:30 with Kristi and Terri so I got myself showered and changed and left Joe to worry about when to get the children from the kids club and what to do with them. Kristi, Terri and I went to Palo for tea and it was nice scones (yummy), éclairs (very yummy), parfait, finger sandwiches, and tea. Terri didnt want hot tea, so they brought her an iced tea. I ordered the Indian Chai tea and it was very good. A relaxing quiet way to spend the afternoon. I enjoyed it but dont feel the need to do it again on our next cruise.
Then we got ready for dinner. Tonight was formal night. DH wore a tux and was one of the maybe 10% of men who were wearing tuxedos. My daughter wore her Easter dress from last year and my son wore a set that I got for a great price at e-bay (black pants, white dress shirt, black tie, gray baseball diamond patterned vest the whole set was $15!). There were a variety of backgrounds available in the atrium where you could get portraits taken. The lines moved much slower than I expected them to, but I wanted a portrait of us all dressed up.
Our dinner tonight was at Parrot Cay and while I like the restaurant a lot, it did seem to clash with everyone in their finery. And I have to say that I found our table to be in a rather dimly lit corner that I was not too fond of. The menu was the Parrot Cay rotation menu. I had the Hot Crab Newberg appetizer (as did most of my table-mates and I have to give this an A+ .. I would have liked to have had 2-3 orders of this over pasta and that would have been an amazing dinner!), the grilled rib eye steak (pretty good, the stuffed potato was pretty yummy), and the lemon meringue pie (delicious.. but more of a tart than a pie). Also, this is the night my daughter did not order dessert. When our server brought out the rest of the desserts he had a special covered plate for her . Maddie, did you order nothing? he asked her. She told him she hadnt ordered anything. He lifted the cover off the plate to show her the plate with chocolate writing that said Nothing. She was amazed! That was a magical moment for her.
After dinner we went to see The Golden Mickeys show. The children each got a smoothie to drink while we waited for the show to start. The show was wonderful! A variety of songs and skits and scenes from some of the different Disney movies adorable red carpet interviews before the show began a cute sub-storyline about Ensign Benson. A very nice time! I would recommend going to see this show!
After dinner we went back to the cabin to change into more comfortable clothes (my dress was beaded and my daughter sat on my lap for a good portion of the show and pressed all of those beads into me . Ouch!). The kids then went to the kids club to watch movies and fall asleep. DH and I went to Rockin Bar D to see the ventriloquist from the Welcome Aboard show (Lynn Trefzger). She was hilarious! Lots of audience-participation very funny.
After the show I got the children from the club and put them to bed. DH stayed out at Rockin Bar D to hang out and drink a few more beers (he had to make sure he got his moneys worth out of that beer mug!)
Coming in Day 3: Palo brunch, dining at Lumieres, Hercules the Muse-ical
Eastern Itinerary
JenLynn (Me) - 31
Joe (DH) - 34
Teddy (DS) - 6
Madalyn (DD) - 4 (almost 5)
We also traveled with 2 other families:
Terri (DW), Chris (DH) and Jordan (DD)
Kristi (DW), Eric (DH) and Bradley (DS) and Adam (DS)
And a few Day 1 tid-bits I forgot to mention:
· We bought the soda package for both DH and myself, along with the mugs. We each got a sticker to put onto our cards. Looking back we should probably only have gotten 1 soda package. The children mainly drank juice and lemonade from the beverage station next to the Mickey pool and DH drank beer. Sodas were included with the sit-down meals. I would say that I got my moneys worth out of the soda program, but DH did not and that brings me to the next point .
· DH got the beer mug package. The mug was $10. This allowed you to get refills for the usual $3.74 but you get 22ounces instead of the usual 16ounces. The one hitch in this is that in the dinner restaurants, our assistant server only brought 16-ounce refills for the beer mugs. (Two years ago on the Wonder, our assistant server got the 22-ounce refills).
· The Excellent Speech after dinner the first night, our server asked us how our meal was and I responded Excellent (because I knew they wanted/needed excellent ratings on the end-of cruise surveys). He smiled and laughed and said, You got it! Then proceeded to tell us that he and the assistant server wanted to ensure that our dining experience was excellent so if there was anything that could be done to improve the experience to please let him know. It was short and polite and reasonable. (I know others have heard much more invasive, annoying excellence speeches).
Now onto Day 2:
This morning we had our character breakfast in Parrot Cay restaurant. We met Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Chip and Dale. Each character came to each table for a quick photograph (and I mean quick!). Each character had a photographer with him/her and the photographers told us the characters were not signing autographs during breakfast. Lots of fun music and songs and Chip and Dale did the hand-jive and there was some Chef-Mickey-ish napkin waving. DH enjoyed his lox and bagels. I enjoyed my ham and cheese omelet. The children each got the kids breakfast plate with chocolate pancakes, Mickey waffles, Canadian bacon, etc. Overall, Id give this meal a B because the food was good and the music and songs were fun and seeing the characters is always great but the character visits were extremely brief and the photographers were not always polite as they told the children where and how to pose for the pictures (I think they just have to rush through the breakfast to get the characters to each table before the meal is over).
Lunch was at the Topsiders buffet again. Todays theme was an Italian buffet. I enjoyed the food a great deal, in particular the tortellini salad, the potatoes, and the veal marsala. We sat outside and enjoyed the view off the back of the boat while we ate. The breeze kept everything quite comfortable.
The children went to the Oceaneers Lab for Detective School and Joe and I went up to deck 10 overlooking the Quiet Cove (adult) pool. Although most of the lounge chairs around the pool were taken, there were plenty of chairs available on deck 10 overlooking the pool. We snagged a few and I laid out to read while sunning myself. It was then that our wonderful treasure, Kadir the bar server, came by and greeted us with another chorus of Ole, Ole he brought us more drinks and Joe and Kadir coordinated walkie-talkie channels so we could contact Kadir whenever we needed more to drink. How cool is that?
The one problem was that it was very windy up on deck there. And that kept the air feeling cooler so you didnt realize just how much sun you were getting. Luckily we didnt get a sunburn, but it was very deceiving.
I had reservations for High Tea at Palo at 3:30 with Kristi and Terri so I got myself showered and changed and left Joe to worry about when to get the children from the kids club and what to do with them. Kristi, Terri and I went to Palo for tea and it was nice scones (yummy), éclairs (very yummy), parfait, finger sandwiches, and tea. Terri didnt want hot tea, so they brought her an iced tea. I ordered the Indian Chai tea and it was very good. A relaxing quiet way to spend the afternoon. I enjoyed it but dont feel the need to do it again on our next cruise.
Then we got ready for dinner. Tonight was formal night. DH wore a tux and was one of the maybe 10% of men who were wearing tuxedos. My daughter wore her Easter dress from last year and my son wore a set that I got for a great price at e-bay (black pants, white dress shirt, black tie, gray baseball diamond patterned vest the whole set was $15!). There were a variety of backgrounds available in the atrium where you could get portraits taken. The lines moved much slower than I expected them to, but I wanted a portrait of us all dressed up.
Our dinner tonight was at Parrot Cay and while I like the restaurant a lot, it did seem to clash with everyone in their finery. And I have to say that I found our table to be in a rather dimly lit corner that I was not too fond of. The menu was the Parrot Cay rotation menu. I had the Hot Crab Newberg appetizer (as did most of my table-mates and I have to give this an A+ .. I would have liked to have had 2-3 orders of this over pasta and that would have been an amazing dinner!), the grilled rib eye steak (pretty good, the stuffed potato was pretty yummy), and the lemon meringue pie (delicious.. but more of a tart than a pie). Also, this is the night my daughter did not order dessert. When our server brought out the rest of the desserts he had a special covered plate for her . Maddie, did you order nothing? he asked her. She told him she hadnt ordered anything. He lifted the cover off the plate to show her the plate with chocolate writing that said Nothing. She was amazed! That was a magical moment for her.
After dinner we went to see The Golden Mickeys show. The children each got a smoothie to drink while we waited for the show to start. The show was wonderful! A variety of songs and skits and scenes from some of the different Disney movies adorable red carpet interviews before the show began a cute sub-storyline about Ensign Benson. A very nice time! I would recommend going to see this show!
After dinner we went back to the cabin to change into more comfortable clothes (my dress was beaded and my daughter sat on my lap for a good portion of the show and pressed all of those beads into me . Ouch!). The kids then went to the kids club to watch movies and fall asleep. DH and I went to Rockin Bar D to see the ventriloquist from the Welcome Aboard show (Lynn Trefzger). She was hilarious! Lots of audience-participation very funny.
After the show I got the children from the club and put them to bed. DH stayed out at Rockin Bar D to hang out and drink a few more beers (he had to make sure he got his moneys worth out of that beer mug!)
Coming in Day 3: Palo brunch, dining at Lumieres, Hercules the Muse-ical
, DH ordered "nothing" for dessert at least two nights and Nothing happened 
. He never read these boards so he wasn't disapointed about that, I've not mentioned it to him......... I did have a great table location and it sounds as though you were tucked away in a corner. I think the less desirable locations should have the best servers to make up for it. Can't wait for the rest 
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