Meryll83's SBP/Citrico's/Morocco TR - And they lived happily ever after...

[meryll83]

We passed a couple of pesky mice on our way downstairs:

I tell you what, the cruise is great if you want characters, they're everywhere! Sometimes you just have to be prepared to queue for a while though...

In the lounge, we collected our wrist bands which confirmed our excursion, stickers confirming which DCL guide we would be following (we had Timon), and randomly admired a lamp.
I've just noticed it's not even our name on the wristband where it says 'Guest' - weird!

Soon we were making our way off the ship, following our guide through the market to where we would board a small boat to take us to the island on which our sea lions could be found:

The dolphins seemed to be more popular:

But as we'd been to Discovery Cove before, we were keen to try something new.
Here we are with our little fella:

Okay, I'm sorry - I've failed!!
That took me so much longer to type up than I thought it would, so I'm going to have to leave you there in suspense
I'll try and finish Nassau, Castaway Cay and our final day before our hols next week, but I don't think I can promise I'll be able to now. I'm such a let down!

 

[Lorelei528]

Meryll-
Well! Isn't this perfect timing on your part! I have read and re-read Claire's TR on DCL, now I can read your's while I'm just 14 days away from boarding the Wonder on our 1st cruise!!

I can't wait to read more and see more pics!! I like how your drink matches your bathing suit (togs) or whatever you guys call them!

See you in 11 days!!!! I haven't really started packing yet either! Also, just gathering some stuff, this Friday and Sunday I'll get the majority of it done as I'm just too tired to think after work!

Hurry back with more TR!

 

[figmentfan814]

I'm pretty sure I've lost all but the odd reader now, but I need closure for myself on this Trip Report because....

today we're single digit dancing!!

If I don't finish this TR before we go to WDW again, I don't think I ever will - so I'm committed to completing it - TONIGHT! (I hope)

Stay tuned for all those Wonder-ful final days with the Disney Cruise Line....

You haven't lost me, I am on my way out to teach tonight though, so I won't be able to read your full updates until tomorrow. Don't worry it took me over a year to finish mine too How cool to be heading back to Disney soon, we're going again in March for our anniversary. Looking forward to reading more tomorrow.

 

[Chilly]

You better finish your report Ms Meryll!

OMG DH has the same t-shirt as Simon, the blue one he was wearing when you boarded the ship.

See you in 10 days!

 

[shippedtosea]

yay! i'm glad you started the cruise....I want to go on one SO badly...so this made me super jealous!

 

[ChocoKat]

Yay cruise pics!
I never did a proper report from that very same cruise, can you believe it?
We had a ton of fun though, we didn't do any excursions this time, just ran around Nassau until we couldn't take it anymore, did all the shopping stops and even found DH's new wedding ring.

It was fun. I only go to meet one other DIS cruise person during the life jacket drill. We also had late seating so that would explain why we never bumped into each other at all

DH and I are now trying really hard not to book a trip on the Dream, We have done the Magic and the Wonder, but we first have a trip to Japan we REALLY need to take. After that we are game for going on the Dream and Fantasy

The sea lion encounter looks like a ton of fun, can't wait for more pics!

 

[Chilly]

I'm waiting

 

[meryll83]

Meryll-
Well! Isn't this perfect timing on your part! I have read and re-read Claire's TR on DCL, now I can read your's while I'm just 14 days away from boarding the Wonder on our 1st cruise!!

I can't wait to read more and see more pics!! I like how your drink matches your bathing suit (togs) or whatever you guys call them!

See you in 11 days!!!! I haven't really started packing yet either! Also, just gathering some stuff, this Friday and Sunday I'll get the majority of it done as I'm just too tired to think after work!

Hurry back with more TR!

Glad I could be of service!

Colour co-ordinated cocktails - I never even realised 'til you pointed it out!

You haven't lost me, I am on my way out to teach tonight though, so I won't be able to read your full updates until tomorrow. Don't worry it took me over a year to finish mine too How cool to be heading back to Disney soon, we're going again in March for our anniversary. Looking forward to reading more tomorrow.

Hope you find time to catch up Vanessa - I never realised it would take me quite so long to write up a Trip Report. True, I've been slightly less that dedicated...
March will be here before you know it, think it's only 100 days 'til Christmas now!

You better finish your report Ms Meryll!

OMG DH has the same t-shirt as Simon, the blue one he was wearing when you boarded the ship.

See you in 10 days!

Yes m'am!
I'm going to try and do a little more right now.

Ooh we'd better warn the boys so they don't have a wardrobe clash on our first day, haha!

yay! i'm glad you started the cruise....I want to go on one SO badly...so this made me super jealous!

I'm sure you'll get to experience it some day!

Yay cruise pics!
I never did a proper report from that very same cruise, can you believe it?
We had a ton of fun though, we didn't do any excursions this time, just ran around Nassau until we couldn't take it anymore, did all the shopping stops and even found DH's new wedding ring.

It was fun. I only go to meet one other DIS cruise person during the life jacket drill. We also had late seating so that would explain why we never bumped into each other at all

DH and I are now trying really hard not to book a trip on the Dream, We have done the Magic and the Wonder, but we first have a trip to Japan we REALLY need to take. After that we are game for going on the Dream and Fantasy

The sea lion encounter looks like a ton of fun, can't wait for more pics!

The Dream does look cool - the entertainment chappy, Christian, showed us some pictures of it on the big screen one night before one of the shows, were you there then?

I think we might have spotted some DISers delivering FE gifts down the other end of a corridor one time, but I was too scared to shout in case I was wrong!

I'm waiting

Okay okay! Sheesh...

 

[meryll83]

Unfortunately I can't remember the name of our sea lion, but I know one fact we were told - he'd played Andre in the film of the same name.

We weren't allowed to take pictures down near the sea lions, hence we had to buy the ones we'd posed for, but I did get a shot of the sea lion encounter area:

There was a nice beach area on the island we were allowed to use for free, so we had a mooch on over there for a while, but as we're not really lie-on-a-beach-all-day people, we didn't stay long and soon headed back to the boat.

Our boat made a stop near the Atlantis on the way back, we quickly ummed and ahhed about getting off, but hadn't managed to make the decision before we were off again.
This is definitely a place we'd like to visit if we ever do the cruise again.

We had lunch today at the Beach Blanket Buffet - may stand out favourite was the pecan pie, it was scrummy!!
We deliberated about getting a taxi over to the Atlantis, but decided we didn't have that much time before we'd be setting sail, so we went down throught the market again and had a look at some of the shops. We found the Hard Rock Cafe - we'd been thinking about eating here to add it to our "list", but given we had free food onboard, there wasn't any point. We did have a little look around the shop though, before heading back to the ship.

Back on board we got ourselves ready for dinner and headed along the art auction gallery to pass the time.
There were a couple of paintings I really liked, the Peter Pan one was my favourite. (I even appear to be stroking it!) We just assumed they'd be megabucks though, so although we contemplated trying to buy one, we gave up before we started really!

Dinner tonight was at Parrot Cay - no food pictures, but I do have one of all the gang at our table:

I think I had a kind of Caribbean chicken type dish, but I can't remember without looking at a menu, and even then I'm not sure I'd know! For some reason the cruise food just wasn't that memorable for me!
We said goodbye to everyone, as we would be eating at Palo tomorrow, our last night, so we wouldn't be sitting with everyone again.

Tonight's show was Toy Story The Musical.
This was a lot of fun, some classic songs, some new with some great costumes. I had Sid's song stuck in my head forever after the show! "I'm the Van Gogh of Violence, I'm the Da Vinci of Distruction" - love it!

There was a late showing of Nightmare in Christmas 3D at the cinema - and I was wearing my Jack Skellington t-shirt in honour, so we went along to that for a while, but about half way through we were just so tired we had to sneak out!

Back to the stateroom after another busy day, with another little friend waiting for us...

 

[meryll83]

We'd been looking forward to today for some time - Disney's private island! And we had some excursionary treats in store for us - water floats, snorkels, bikes and parasailing!

First things first, we were going to grab ourselves some sun loungers to call ours for the day.
Off the ship...

And we were greeted by this little beauty - The Flying Dutchman:

We stayed at the family beach most of the day, as this was where all the action was going on.
We went to pick up all our equipment first, a float each, snorkels and flippers, cycling would come later.

We'd booked an early parasailing slot - to get the horror over with! - but we passed a certain Mr Mouse on the way, so had to stop for a picture!

Sadly, we didn't think to ask anyone to get any pictures of us throughout the parasailing experience, but I got some of the others on our boat:

Parasailing was a lot of fun! We went in a tandem together and it was so peaceful up in the air! We'd elected to go first so we didn't get scared by watching other people first (honestly it's really not scary at all, we just had first time nerves!!) and the guys on the boat had mentioned something about dunking you in the water on the way back in. I didn't realise they were serious!
You could specify before you went up whether you just wanted wet legs or a big old dunking, but because we hadn't taken them seriously we'd not said which option we wanted!
They were pretty kind to us actually, only intending to give us wet legs really, but because I lifted my legs up to avoid the water, they ended up giving me a lovely wet bum instead!

We saw another boat across the way with a second group of parasailers:

Thrills over, we headed back to the beach. It was amazing how many character we bumped into along the way!

 

[meryll83]

Time for a snorkel now, and off we went to find that underwater Mickey! I hadn't realised it was quite so hot, and ended up getting slightly sunburned on my back from all that time spent face down in the water! I had a lovely tan line across my back from the strap holding my body float on!

We had lunch at Cookies BBQ, which was pretty good. We both had a burger and kept some crisps for later on. The ice cream here was great - unlimited from a machine with strawberry and cookie dough flavours, beats vanilla any day!

After lunch we spent a little time resting on the beach and floating around lazily. However, us being us, we soon decided it was time to redeem our bike hire.

The cycle routes were very peaceful and took you to some scenic areas, including a lookout tower.

We also visited the games area and played a little swingball, volleyball, table-tennis, pool and basketball!

We did also pay a quick visit to Serenity Bay, the adults only beach - however this was much too quiet for us, so we grabbed a drink from the eatery there and headed back to the family beach.

We decided to take advantage of a little pool time on the ship whilst people were still making the most of their last couple of hours at Castaway Cay, so we returned all our hire equipment and headed back onboard.
Even the kids pool was quiet...

...but I had my mind on the hot tub, whilst Simon got arty with the camera!

Nightmare 3D was showing again this afternoon, so we were able to catch up on what we'd missed the previous night, before going to dinner...

 

[meryll83]

Palo was the best food we had onboard (except perhaps that pecan pie!) and guess what? - we actually took some pictures of the food this time, hurrah!
Here I am, looking a little tired from our busy day - obviously hungry if I'm considering eating a plateful of butter!

We dashed off at the end of our meal (Simon actually brought the lemon shots with us!) as there was another Disney quiz we wanted to take part in. Unfortunately we missed the first few questions, and they weren't repeating any, so no prize for us this time - I would've know the anwers as well darnit!

Tonight's show was my favourite by far, and I can't even remember what it was called, I think maybe Disney Dreams? The set was great and the story revolved around a little girl who gets the Peter Pan treatment, and on their travels they come across a whole host of Disney characters. I know some people miss the onboard shows, but I'd definitely recommend this one, even if you miss the others.

I may have gotten slightly mixed up with what happened which night here, but there was a Pirates IN the Caribbean party one of these nights, so for arguments sake, we'll pretend it was tonight!
It was Halloween night anyway, so I think it could have been...

There was a ton of delicious looking food around, but we were so stuffed I don't even think we had any, and that is NOT like me!

There was lots of music, dancing and general chaos, plus some cute Halloween costumes!

And the Napoleon Dynamite gang!

And the only cruise ship with fireworks!!

There was a candy trick or treat trail around the ship for the kids, and the characters were dressed up in Halloween costumes.

Towards the end of the night, we had an explore of the sports bar, followed by the piano bar, where we had some smooth showtunes being played. I sampled a cocktail in each - our server in the piano bar managed to drop my chocolately creation on the floor, but luckily it was still in the cocktail shaker, so he got away without making a mess!
As I recall there were some snacks available in the sports bar, I think chicken wings and the like, but once again, we were just too full to take advantage!

Another action-packed day and it was back to the stateroom, tomorrow we would be flying home...

 

[meryll83]

On our final day in Florida, we were waved off from the ship with this hopeful sounding sign:

...and had a quiet bus journey back to Pop Century - I think everyone was tired from the night before!
Hopefully we'll get to have another Disney cruise experience one day, it was a lot of fun.

We were able to tell my parents all about the cruise as we picked up our cases, and all got a taxi to DTD to go to the Virgin check-in.
We then went our separate ways at DTD so we could all get any last minute souveneirs and spend our last few hours with any must-dos.

Simon and I seem to have developed a last day tradition - in 2005 we went to the cinema at DTD and saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2007 The Heartbreak Kid, this time we would see Couples Retreat.

After this we did some final bits of shopping at World of Disney, and before we knew it, it was time to get our transfer bus. We'd arranged to get on the DTD bus rather than Pop, and met back up with my parents for the journey to the airport.

Simon and I both had a travel sickness pill for the way back (going back I always feel ill even though I'm fine going!), so were knocked out for most of the flight home! The flight attendant said she'd never had such easy customers!

Coming home is always the worst, so I won't dwell on it -we'd all had an amazing time, and we were looking forward to catching up with everyone at our at-home reception in a couple of weeks time...



Phew! I'm done! I'm never doing that again! - Next time you can just have photos!

Sorry the details were a bit sketchy towards the end - I don't know if my dad has prepared any more of his restaurant reviews from his side, as I know there are a few gaps still there.

 

[ChocoKat]

LOL I rarely do any trip reporting, if ever because I have terrible memory, so I can appreciate all the effort you put into this one.

Yes! We saw the pics Christian showed of the Dream, since we had late breakfast on the day we were leaving we actually sat down for a while at the reservations desk and checked the deck plans, etc. We were sooo close to making a booking, but we knew we would have the wedding right along it and we didn't want to push our budget. DH actually offered me to go on the Dream right after the VR, he tempts he so!

Looks like a wonderful cruise, so happy you guys had a wonderful time! We were busy running around going to the adult costume party and stuff that last night I think. Palo was so good on the Wonder, we liked it better than the Magic, we had the best server ever, we thought she was trying to kill us with kindness though, she brought us so many entrees! we barely made it out alive

 

[mamaboogie]

Hurray! Well, done for finishing! It was great to hear the details of the Disney cruise - Simon and I always say 'One day!'.

The photos were beautiful - I especially loved the sea lion ones!

So, you're all set for the next trip now! Bon voyage!

xx

 

[Chilly]

Yeah you finished. I was the same, couldn't remember the details of the last few days.

See ya on Sunday

 

[rachy]

Well done for finishing!

Might bump into you in Disney! x

 

[Lorelei528]

YAY!!! Great report Meryll!! I'm still doing mine! I keep forgetting to upload the pics!! Now I'll have this new TR to write! Eesh.

See you in 6 days!!

 

[shippedtosea]

great report! i'm sad its over. hopefully there will be a new one for your next trip! hope you guys have a blast! still very jealous! Give Katie a big hug for me.

 

[figmentfan814]

It was so much fun looking through your photos of the cruise. I took the same one with my parents in 2003 after graduating from college and it brought back a lot of fond memories. I parasailed on Castaway Cay too and absolutely loved it. A few years later I did it again at the Contemporary Resort. The experience in the Bahamas is a lot smoother because there is so much more open space for the boat. In the lake, we were going in circles, so you go up and down a lot I really loved it both times though!

You have some really delicious photos and I agree, there is way more food than you can sample on the cruises. It looks like overall you had a lovely time on your honeymoon.

I'm so sad to see the end of the trip. I remember watching your plans unfold just as I was finishing up mine. Its amazing how quickly time has flown by since that time.

Any more shots to share from the at-home reception?

I hope you're enjoying your current trip, of course you might be back already