May 13.2006 Eastern

[Verandah Man]

Well I'm already looking into the next cruise for next year. First step for me is the passports in which I will get ASAP! Hey Teri...we haven't heard from you yet...LOL...my daughter must be worn out.

Go Larry Go!!!

 

[mommom&poppop0304]

Go Larry Go!!!

Got that right Andy....GO GO GOOOOOOOOO!!!!! LOL

 

[TSirgey]

We had the most amazing time!!! Our next cruise is booked for 12/8/07-Eastern. That was our first cruise and we are completely hooked! I heard the lights for the holidays are amazing and I'm glad we booked for that time.

None of us were effected by seasickness, although my stomach felt weird one day which attribute to all the rich food.

We did three excursions that I would recommend to anyone. The Golden Eagle Catamaran took us to the best snorkeling adventure and the beach was beautiful.

I would only recommend the Doubloon Snorkeling Adventure to those who do not get seasick. We were fine, but some of our fellow passengers did not fare well on the boat ride. The pirate theme was great and all the kids (adults too) got tattoos at the end. We saw the most amazing sea turtules and coral reefs. Just spectacular.

The Manta Ray adventure was great too.

I am sorry I did not get to meet all of you. We did not get to Grills Friday night until very late and I did not see any large parties.

Thanks to all of you for your recommendations and advise. We were able to get the most out of our cruise (especially for us first timers).

I do have to say that once you go Verandah, you can never go back. It was awesome to drink our coffee outside in the morning and stare at the crystal clear water. Oh, I wish I was going back tomorrow!!!

 

[DrCavin]

Well back to reality We got home last night & back to normal schedule today, school & work - YUCK....

We were at MK on Sunday, nice balmy 95... Was not as bad as I had imagined when I heard how hot it was going to be...

Was great to meet most of the group, amazing once you meet someone how often you run into them while on-board.

No future cruise booked for us, not sure when we will do another. Earliest will be 2008, Med-Cruise is not in the budget

 

[Verandah Man]

No future cruise booked for us, not sure when we will do another. Earliest will be 2008, Med-Cruise is not in the budget

Same here Steve, we are looking at Spring 2008 or Summer 2008 as our next 7 day cruise. We will have a lot going on between now and then with Angelina's junior and senior years of high school. It was great meeting your wonderful family, and running into you all over the ship!!!

 

[TSirgey]

Med-Cruise is not in the budget

I asked for a quote just for fun and almost fainted!!

 

[jodifla]

Well back to reality We got home last night & back to normal schedule today, school & work - YUCK....

We were at MK on Sunday, nice balmy 95... Was not as bad as I had imagined when I heard how hot it was going to be...

Was great to meet most of the group, amazing once you meet someone how often you run into them while on-board.

No future cruise booked for us, not sure when we will do another. Earliest will be 2008, Med-Cruise is not in the budget

Yes, real life is certainly lacking in amenities! Where's my balcony overlooking the ocean? My waiter service at dinner? The cooks to make all that great food? Someone to pick up these rooms, which are still a mess, strewn with luggage?

We booked for the Western on Dec. 1, 2007 in the same room. We may push it to 2008, we'll see.

After we got off the ship, we headed over to the Beach Club Villas to enjoy the pool. We went to the MK too on Saturday, but bailed right after lunch, as it was really heating up. We got there early enough to go on the Grand Prix cars three times though. DS, 4, was in heaven! He was talking about them again this morning. The whole time we were on the shuttle to get our car to go home from the airport, he was talking about Mickey Mouse. He was not at all happy that the vacation ended.

 

[Hanover]

It sure didn't take long to get used to the good life on the Magic! I miss having my bed turned down with chocolate waiting and the boys guessing what our towel animal would be. For giggles I made a pathetic looking snake for DH but he wasn't impressed. DS5 and DS8 asked for cereal, pancakes, bacon, eggs and toast for breakfast yesterday and I told them unless they found an elevator in the house with a deck 9 button it wasn't going to happen. They've also been expecting dessert with each meal.

Every single one of my nails that grew out over the last week has now broken with having to actually clean and get back to real life. DS9 has 4 baseball games this week and DS5 has 3. Tonight is our one relaxing night of the week.


Tsirgey, thanks for letting us know about the excursions.
We are booked for the 12/1/2007 Western, but may switch to an Eastern again if we can't do Castaway Cay twice. We did the Dolphin Excursion in Anguilla and the 5 Star snorkel and beach day. We had a good time at both.
I'm glad we did the dolphin one, but I wouldn't do it again. It was overpriced for the same exact interaction we did for much less at the Blue Lagoon in Nassau and Chakanaab in Cozumel. The boat ride over and back was also a wrenching experience I would not like to repeat. Once we were in the water at the dolphin excursion, they made everyone swim to the other side of the dolphin area and many of the kids that were there couldn't do it without a lot of help. One poor boy screamed the entire time. I'm not sure how deep it was, but we spent a lot of time treading water during the half hour interaction.

The 5 Star beach and snorkel trip was really great. One of the prettiest places I've ever been. My only complaint was it was way too short of an excursion...an hour and a half there with an hour each way of travel.

DS9 and DH did the banana boats at CC and loved them. DS9 and I did parasailing for the first time ever at CC and really loved it. I'm hoping the pictures we took of CC from the air and the Magic turn out well.

We snorkeled at CC and found some underwater plaques, ship and nautical pieces, and Mickey. I photographed those and hope they come out well enough to see what they were. It was hard to look through such a small eye piece in the camera through a diving mask.

Andy, when you asked for your same servers for your 5/13 cruise that you had on a previous one, did you do that before you boarded or after?
We had Vlado from Croatia and Soumi from India and really liked them alot.

It's going to be a tough 18 months waiting for our next trip on the Magic. DH is trying to talk me into a 3 day on the Wonder minus the boys in December, but I'm not so sure I'd enjoy it without them there to share in it.

Our surprise (the cruise) to the boys went off great at the port. We had ds9 open up his last birthday present, which was our tickets to cruise. He was absolutely stunned and kept asking if we were telling the truth. He was so happy he didn't have to go back to school that Monday! DH video taped him opening up the tickets and us entering the Magic and being welcomed but accidentally taped over it later that day. He did manage to tape the boys getting interviewed at the Golden Mickeys and didn't tape over that one.


DS9 really lucked out with returning to very little make up work. He only has 9 days left of school and it's mostly review so his teacher went light on the make up work. She is giving him to the end of the year to get it done. He has less to make up now than he did for 2 days worth of work he missed on a trip to WDW in January!

I can't believe it was so hot in Florida and on the cruise with the breezy weather we've had here. We are back to long pants, long sleeves and jackets with a chance of getting into the 70's this weekend.

 

[Verandah Man]

Andy, when you asked for your same servers for your 5/13 cruise that you had on a previous one, did you do that before you boarded or after?

We didn't know Roberto was on the ship until we boarded on Saturday, once we found out, we went straight to Rockin' Bar D and made the request to have him as our server. You can call DCL and request a server before your next cruise, but I would suggest as soon as you get on the ship to check and see if your request was granted.

 

[DrCavin]

Came home from work & had to mow the yard & cook dinner.. WTH, where is Triffano & Chanda (our server/assit)?

We did get the luggage unpacked last night, while trying to watch 24 - Missed most of it Did see Jack floating away in the cargo ship

The man who fell overboard on the RCL ship lived about 20 minutes from us, found out yesterday driving home that he lived in our area. Makes you wonder why other cruise lines are having these problems, I did notice that it looked like you could walk pretty far out onto the bow of the RCL ship. I was actually surprised how far out they allowed guests to walk.

 

[mommom&poppop0304]

I would like to say it was nice in meeting the people my wife and I met. We wish you all the best and happy sailing on your next cruise. Our next cruise will be in the near future and my own wife won't even know till last minute..LOL...I have my reasons folks!!!... LOL ...Take care all and Bless you all!!!

 

[Cali-Mouse]

Hello Everyone...

What a great cruise! Thank you to all of you for your tips & tricks for us DCL first timers. I will say, the best one...dropping off the t-shirts at Guest Services for autographs. Each signature was original, my kids love them.

A quick small world story...on Tuesday while sitting at the kids pool, my wife and I were talking to a man (Eric) about the cruise, kids etc., and tried to get our two shy daughters to play. On Wednesday night, at the Pirate party I saw Eric. I noticed his shirt matched one worn by a little boy & a dress by a little girl. I asked him if they were twins..he replied "triplets, my other son is over there". He was DIS Board "Huey, Duey & Luey" husband! AND their dinner table was just two tables away from us during dinner! Very nice people...too bad they live all the way in NJ!

They were the only people, besides Hazel (she was everywhere Andy) that I saw on a regular basis!

No plans here for another cruise...2008 at the earliest. We are actually hopeing to fulfill one of my childhood "wish trips" in 2007 and make it to New York during Christmas or around Thanksgiving. I'd love to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

Michael

 

[Verandah Man]

besides Hazel (she was everywhere Andy) that I saw on a regular basis!

Yea, that's my "little hay hay" as we call her, she is "always" on the go!!!

 

[huey duey & luey]

hi everyone
we had a great time also. I am having such a tough time catching up this week. My kids are sleeping late. I think they are still tired At least we missed all the rain in NJ last week. It was nice to meet some of you. Luckily, my kids wee easy to spot
Mike remember if you come to NY you have an invite for dinner
Hanover sorry we didn't get to talk more, that last night in the Atrium was crazy
Kerri hope your trip back was good
We are scheduled for WDw next March, my husband keeps saying he would rather cruise, so I am not sure what we will do.
Take Care
Tara

 

[nutz4dzny]

Hello everyone!

Glad to read that a good time was had by all!

Hanover - It was so nice to meet you. I only wish I could have met more DIS people. But we are going again!

Our first choice was the May 5th Western but our son wants to go and he doesn't think he will be out of school by then so we booked for his Spring break which is March 10th 2007 on the Western.

We had a blast for our first cruise and believe me, without these boards, I would not have done half the stuff I did! Thanks to everyone for their help and advice.

Best things we did,

1. Palo's for Mother's Day Brunch and Monday night Dinner for our 22nd Anniversary.

2. Massage's at the Villa's

3. Romance Package was very nice!

4. The other special packages I ordered to be there before we entered our stateroom. Flowers were gorgous and lasted the whole trip. Robes from the Romance pacage were worth it. Champagne was Fairy Tale Curvee, the wine at Palo's we opted for another bottle of Fairy Tale Curvee. We also has a tray of chocolate covered strawberries and petit fores which were wonderful and a fruit platter to die for and a cheese tray. WOW! It was beautiful. I do have pictures and will give you the web site. We also had a Romantic turn down service and a champagne breakfast in bed that was so much food it could have fed 6 people! We aslo ordered several bottles of wine and 2 cases of bottled water. Everything went. On the Romance package we got a free 8 x 10 photo and a brushed silver photo frame. I gave the frame to our steward who was a women and she was so happy to get it. Also the robes and frame came in a Mickey wire rectangular box that I gave to her and the vas that the exoxtic flowers came in was a Shaped Mickey head made of wicker that I gave her also. We got our stateroom number for our next trip and it is the same room so hopefully she will be there, She was great! Although we are waitlisted for a suite. Don't know if it will come through. We can always hope!

5. Castaway Cay! LOVED it! We id the Stingray excursion and Parasailing and Banana Boats and we snorkeled and had a great barbacue at Cookies. Our only complaint.....not enough time there!

6. We did a private excursion on St. John's that was a scuba trip for the guys and us girls went along on the boat to snorkle. They took us 73 miles out into the Carribean and we went to Johnny Depp's private island. That was a highlight. The guys went scuba for an hour under water and then they wanted to take them on to another site but us girls were tired so we opted to go back to shore. We were at Red Hook at the American Yacht Harbor and we ate at Molly Malone's. Good place.

7. Pirate night - What fun! Deck 10 to the right of the Dumbotron. Fantastic seats thanks to my sister! Fireworks went off right behind us!

8. Room service! Gotta love it!

9. Anquilla Dolphin excursion. We had the best Dolphin and trainer. I think a lot depends on that. We bought the CD and it is precious. We also bought the pictures but we did get a good discount. We just told the lady it was too much and we only had this much between us and would she take it? She hesitated and then said yes! Our first deal!

10. Everything else! We did enjoy getting dressed up for Formal night and semi-formal and Palo's. It was nice to see so many others dressed up also!

Here is a link to my pictures. I did not get a chance to do captions. The small boat you see us on is our private excursion on St. John's and the island shot is where we went on Jonny Depps Island. It was beautiful. We had to swim there and I did not have a waterproof camera so I only got shots from a distance.

Warning: LOTS of Pictures! View at your own risk!

share.dell.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8Bct3DRw2Zshc

 

[Verandah Man]

Here is a link that will take you to my cruise photos:
http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=12839850&postcount=269

 

[nutz4dzny]

Verandah Man - Loved your pictures! Thanks for sharing.