DisneyZell
Likes Adventures on the High Seas
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2004
- Messages
- 1,102
Welcome back to today's edition of "this is a day of my life", or in reality the way I've been writing "this is a few hours in one day of my life sorry you have to sit through another long winded rendition of what happened".
The lifeboat drill was painful but relatively short. I had this really great spot leaning up against some metal box welded to the side of the Wonder. It was as comfortable as I was going to get when we had to start doing the Wonder Shuffle. All these people kept showing up late...and of course we had to move over to make room for them so the doorway could remain clear. Shuffle a few steps left. Wait...shuffle a few steps more. Wait...shuffle a few steps more. It was almost as fun as dancing...and believe me, I don't like dancing!
One thing I can say for this trip for the first time in the various trips I have taken...at least everyone came on time. The last trip I think we stood around for 10 minutes waiting for someone to come and do the drill. I felt this was very rude. None of us want to be out there doing that...but to make us stand around and wait just ticked me off. Whew...sorry for the blatant display of anger, I realize this is a family show, so hopefully your kids are not scarred for life.
One other wandering-off-topic thought for you all. One of the things they tell you at the lifeboat drill is not to sit on the stairs because they need to remain open in case of emergency so that people can get through. This, to me, is similar to making sure that your carry-on luggage is all the way under the seat on front of you on a flight. Let me ask you this question...if you were sitting on the stairs of the Wonder (or the Magic...wait...or the Dream for that matter...well...or any cruise ship...well this could go on forever so I'll stop), and there were emergency sirens...what would you do? Sit there and be in the way...or perhaps get up and either go to a lifeboat or to your stateroom? Yeah...exactly. So then the same with the airplane. If, upon takeoff you have your carry-on luggage at your feet and not under the seat...and something happened could you 1. push it under the seat, 2. step over it to get out (I mean there are usually only three seats...not that difficult...you could just step on the seats themselves to get out if you had to), or 3. just step on your baggage to get out. I mean, seriously, some of the rules our government comes up to "keep us safe" clearly believe we are sheep who have no idea what we are doing. Excuse me while I go graze in the buffet. But I digress.
Before I go on I did forget to describe what you can do with the Concierge service if you have a Concierge room. Fist you get a snack in your room each day of the cruise. Here was Day 1:
A basket of fruit
The snack thing is pretty cool...you know...on the Wonder (Magic, Dream, every other cruise ship), it's pretty hard to get food...so it's good that they provide extra for you. (what, you guys suddenly can't handle sarcasm???)
They also gave us a dozen or so assorted cans of soda and water. Naturally I had no idea if I had to pay for these...so I had to call to ask. I was just picturing slugging down a can of diet coke...and then on my bill the last day $85 for it. That was cool, but they never re-stocked that. it was a onetime thing. So while it was a nice touch...again, deck 9 I can get all the soda I want.
the one really cool perk (in my opinion, and although we only used it twice was getting a DVD. They had a large list of DVD's to choose from...you could pick one out and then would bring it and a couple of bags of popcorn. This worked out great a couple of times. By the way, the Concierge who was working with us mostly was Thomas.
So I guess this is as good a time as any to give you my general thoughts on upgrading and using the Concierge Service. First the service itself...I wouldn't pay a dime for it...mainly because we are pretty self-sufficient, and because we upgraded. If you paid for the service I can see it being helpful because they would get you the seating you want as well as Palo and any of your excursions. But as we did this all ourselves that didn't help us at all.
One of the rumors we heard was that they could get you tours of things not normally offered. This turned out to not be the case. While they could get you tickets for the tours available without any problem, we tried a couple of times to get special stuff. We tried a bridge tour...no go...we could watch it on tv. another thing DW wanted to do was a behind the scenes tour of the theater. Again I asked about that. I was told that the Platinum Castaway Club members were the only ones who could do that. Frankly that made me kind of mad...if they offer the tour...and given the amount of money we spent I think that should be something that concierge guests should be able to do. I get the bridge...that's a safety issue I suppose...but if they do other tours they should be offered. So clearly that portion was a bust.
the snack, as I mentioned...was good, but as I could walk up one deck and pretty much get anything I wanted...that was nice but I wouldn't pay for it.
The other not-so-good portion (sorry for the downer here folks...don't worry, I'll be back to happy stuff soon) was when we ordered a all-hands-on-deck cheese platter. At one point I had ordered something directly through room service and was told by Thomas that we should do stuff like that through him. So I ordered the all-hands platter about an hour before we needed to head down to dinner. He told me they were busy, but that we would be at the head of the line. it never arrived. We ended up calling him back and telling him forget it.
Now, I'm not a snob (I'm not! I'm not! I'm not!), but again you pay extra for this extra service and we can't even get a plate of cheese in an hour...that says a lot for the extra service, doesn't it?
So you get the idea...if I was paying $1,700 (ok, $1,680) extra just for concierge service there is no way on this earth that it would be worth it. In fact all-in-all it was disappointing and we will talk about tips at the end of the report.
On the room side...the Room *definitely* made it worth the $1,700 (or $1,680 for DW
) So if you look at it from an overall perspective it is worth it, and any little thing you get from the Concierge Service (and there were two more things that you will see later in the trip report) are just extras. If you think of it that way it is very cool. If you come in expecting the moon as far as service goes you will be disappointed.
okey dokey...sorry about that trip down depression lane. On to bigger and somewhat better stuff.
After the drill it was time to head to the Adventures Away party. Again we have done this 4 times and I've done it all from standing around on deck 9, to dancing away on deck 9, to what we did this time which was watch from Deck 10. The parties have definitely scaled back from the first couple of times we cruised. Not sure if that is because of guest feedback or what. But I actually do think that the party lasted a nice amount of time, so I'm not really complaining. There was dancing, they handed out some sparkly thingy's (do you sense a descriptive theme here???) for the kids to shake...there was dancing, music and of course the ship blowing it's horn. And speaking of blowing it, I missed it with my video camera because I turned it off instead of on. *sigh*. If you haven't cruised before you need to hit the party because it is fun. If you have...in my opinion it's a skip able item, just call my the pooper of the party!
Pictures:
DS12 (right) and DS8 (left) hang out waiting for the party to start
Our cruise on the big screen
DNS13, DS12, DS8 and DND11 at the party
The Adventures Away logo
Hard to see, but this is all the kids on the big screen. That was cool.
After the party it was time to go back to the room and get ready. As I posted in answer to a question we typically like to get somewhat dressed up (ie. no shorts or jeans). Luckily we had our stuff (we have had other cruises where we did have to go in what we had on because we didn't have luggage), so we went back and changed. We had the 5:45 seating and our first night was in Parrot Cay.
Can someone explain why "Cay" is pronounced "Key" instead of "cay"?? This is something I know, and pronounce correctly...but DS8 actually asked that question on this trip...and I can't tell you why. If I had to bet I'd say it was someone on the DIS boards who just decided it would be fun to pronounce something different....just to screw people up. I'm just sayin'.
And off we went off to dinner. On our three previous cruises we have had a mixed bag of servers and assistant servers. The first cruise was not memorable at all...so frankly I don't know how they were. Our second cruise we had a team, Adrienne and Alonzo who were fantastic. Adrienne was so funny and he could do great magic tricks. He definitely made the cruise more magical for us. On our third, the Christmas cruise we had the worst team ever...they just sucked. no personality...no recommendations...clearly ready to get off the ship. No matter how we tried we didn't really get to know him. I think the server's name was Toby. It was awful...and we had decided that never again would we allow that to happen as we would speak with the head server immediately if we didn't get a good feeling.
Yes I'm high maintenance. Actually that's not true. Ask DW, pretty much all you have to do is keep a steady stream of diet coke in my glass and I'm a happy camper, even if the food takes longer. Really...that's it! DW, help me out here.
Luckily we scored big-time on this cruise. Our servers name was Terry who was from England. He was a big soft spoken, and it took a few days for him to warm up, but warm up he did. While he did not do a ton of magic tricks, he was very organized, his recommendations were typically spot on, and once he learned to be open with us it was fun to hear about the things that went on with the crew. He clearly really enjoyed working for DCL, and being a server and it showed. We were so happy with him.
As a side note...when talking with one of the cruise staff we were told that the crew food was not very good. In fact she said that the crew call it the "Disney diet" when they are on the ship...they all end up losing a ton of weight. Kinda funny...and of course kinda sad. I don't know about you guys, but I am interested in hearing what the life is like for the crew. I would think it would be a VERY hard life...and I often wonder why they do it. But I digress.
Our assistant server was Maggie. She is from Scotland. She was also a fun personality. Very bubbly and friendly and did a good job with the drinks. She learned pretty quickly that I needed my "diet coke fix" as she called it. She was also cute (uh oh..DW, you didn't read that), which didn't hurt.
One of the most entertaining moments on the ship came at Maggie's expense. On day 2 we did brunch at Palo. While we were there we found out that Maggie's boyfriend Phillipe worked the pasta station. DNH came up with the idea to play with Maggie a bit. So the next night our neighbors were running late, Maggie and Terry knew we went to Palo and asked about it so I had to steal my neighbors idea. While looking directly at Maggie I talked about this very rude person who was apparently responsible for the pasta...I said the pasta wasn't very good and he actually came out and was really rude to us. I was surprised something like that could happen. She continued to pour water...but her face was starting to turn red. Terry kept glancing over at her because clearly he knew who we were talking about, and then I said "his name was phillip...or phillipe...something like that". Finally I spilled the beans and we all had a good laugh. Poor Maggie was absolutely bright red, but she got a laugh out of it as well.
We came to find out over time that Maggie and Terry had been friends before they were paired together. And also that normally they don't pair people from the same country (and England and Scotland are both considered UK), but for some reason they did in this case. it turned out fantastic for us!
The other character that helped make our cruise great was our head server, Witt. I know at least one other trip report where Witt was the head server and helped make their cruise great. On all previous cruises our Head Server never made an appearance until tip night...where of course they wanted their tip. Now, a lot of folks on here have said that if you never saw your head server it was because everything was going great. I bought into that as I can see the logic...if everything is going smoothly you shouldn't need to see your head server. But Witt was something altogether different and unfortunately for all future head servers he will be our measuring stick. He came by the first night to check on things...he was constantly around all of his tables, helping to clear dishes, checking on us...and I mean constantly...you didn't just see him once a night...we saw him several times. He played several practical jokes on our table mates at various times and even a magic trick. Very cool. We also seemed to constantly see him around the ship and he always came up to say hello and make sure everything was good. to be frank...he could do a much better job as a concierge than our real one did!
Yes, I have fallen in love with our server team. *sigh*...just don't tell DW. This will be just between you guys and I.
As far as food goes, the food in the dining room I found very, very good except for one night where it was just ok. However I had overeaten during the day so it could be that. As I said, Terry's suggestions were typically the best and by the end of the cruise I was not even looking at the menu. One night he recommended one dessert (I think it was a sundae) and DNW asked about something else. Terry's reaction? "it's disgusting, but I'll bring it for you if you want". we all had a good laugh (he was, of course, joking). He did bring it and it wasn't as good as his suggestion.
************TIP*****************
you guessed it...listen to your servers. Unlike a restaurant where sometimes the "specials" are just what they had extra of from the night before, the servers have been around these menus for months...and since they don't change much they are well aware of what is popular and good...and what is not. Unless they suggest something that you absolutely despise it will make your trip that much more enjoyable if you go with what they suggest. Frankly even if you aren't sure...try it. If you don't like it they will quickly bring you something else. But you might find that you do like it.
Also be open and honest with your servers...joke around with them...make them a part of the family. the quicker you do this the more fun you will have. While a bad server team will not ruin your cruise...a great server team will make your cruise fantastic. so if you are open and honest with your team and they aren't responding...talk to your head waiter that first night and get switched. do NOT wait! We've done it and here is the result...
I'd much rather be happy.
Pictures!
DS12, DNS13 and DS8 hanging in the Cay
There's my baby-cakes and DNW
DNH on the left and the rather good looking guy on the right is, of course, me.
Given that we have been on most cruises we knew there were some shows we would not be going to. I didn't really want to go to the All Aboard Show...but remembered that typically we get a comedian on that show who may be entertaining. the rest of the show I've seen 3 times before...and could do without. it's cute...but very stale at this point IMHO (In My Honest Opinion). The entertainer was Bronkar Lee who was a beat boxer, juggler and somewhat of a comedian. Beat Boxing is very cool to me...and very entertaining. He was really a delight and the things he could do with his voice were amazing. I'm sure I could give him a run for his money if I hadn't decided to have kids. I blame them.
After the show we headed back to our room...long day. The room was turned down for the night...in the living room was a pull down murphy bed:
This is where DS12 slept the first night
And the couch became a bed:
DS8 slept here
and of course we got a towel animal...which for some reason ended up on my head.
Not sure how that got there.
In our FE (Fish Extender) we got a nice keepsake folder for all of our stuff from IndianaPrincess. It was cool. This will be the last time I'll tell you what we got each night 'cause there is no way I'll remember it all
Time for bed. OOOH, that reminds me:
**************TIP*************
Bring a clock from home. DCL does *not* provide a clock you can see at night. Why? No idea. They just don't. I know the DIS boards has a big list of things to bring..this is one not to forget. Ours has a sound machine which we use at home...so it was nice to have that on the cruise as well.
the bed was comfortable...but small (as I mentioned earlier). the room was beautiful with all the teak wood everywhere...very, very nice....until...wait for it...duh-duh-duh...the squeaking.
someone asked about the noise from the deck above...as I said the running kid noise was there somewhat...but it wasn't awful. However that first night the wood squeaked so loud it basically kept us all awake the whole night. Very annoying. Made more so by me being a light sleeper. For whatever reason I'm very aware of noise, and at home I'm used to those noises either being DW getting out of bed or our kids walking in...so every time it squeaked I had to look up. this became painful. Even with the sound machine turned up it didn't help. this sucked. There is just no other way to put it...it sucked. Is it enough to turn me off about the room? no way...and we did get used to it as the cruise went on...and it wasn't as bad when the ship wasn't flying through the ocean. But it sucked. did I mention that it sucked?
There we go...I finally made it through day number 1. pretty sad that it took me this long to get there. the next days will be shorter. Maybe. Hopefully. You just never know. Depends on where I go with it!
Thanks for sticking with me...again hope the keyboard marks on your forehead go away very soon.
Next up: Day 2 - Day at sea and Palo for Brunch!
Thanks everyone!
DZ
The lifeboat drill was painful but relatively short. I had this really great spot leaning up against some metal box welded to the side of the Wonder. It was as comfortable as I was going to get when we had to start doing the Wonder Shuffle. All these people kept showing up late...and of course we had to move over to make room for them so the doorway could remain clear. Shuffle a few steps left. Wait...shuffle a few steps more. Wait...shuffle a few steps more. It was almost as fun as dancing...and believe me, I don't like dancing!
One thing I can say for this trip for the first time in the various trips I have taken...at least everyone came on time. The last trip I think we stood around for 10 minutes waiting for someone to come and do the drill. I felt this was very rude. None of us want to be out there doing that...but to make us stand around and wait just ticked me off. Whew...sorry for the blatant display of anger, I realize this is a family show, so hopefully your kids are not scarred for life.
One other wandering-off-topic thought for you all. One of the things they tell you at the lifeboat drill is not to sit on the stairs because they need to remain open in case of emergency so that people can get through. This, to me, is similar to making sure that your carry-on luggage is all the way under the seat on front of you on a flight. Let me ask you this question...if you were sitting on the stairs of the Wonder (or the Magic...wait...or the Dream for that matter...well...or any cruise ship...well this could go on forever so I'll stop), and there were emergency sirens...what would you do? Sit there and be in the way...or perhaps get up and either go to a lifeboat or to your stateroom? Yeah...exactly. So then the same with the airplane. If, upon takeoff you have your carry-on luggage at your feet and not under the seat...and something happened could you 1. push it under the seat, 2. step over it to get out (I mean there are usually only three seats...not that difficult...you could just step on the seats themselves to get out if you had to), or 3. just step on your baggage to get out. I mean, seriously, some of the rules our government comes up to "keep us safe" clearly believe we are sheep who have no idea what we are doing. Excuse me while I go graze in the buffet.
But I digress.Before I go on I did forget to describe what you can do with the Concierge service if you have a Concierge room. Fist you get a snack in your room each day of the cruise. Here was Day 1:
A basket of fruit
The snack thing is pretty cool...you know...on the Wonder (Magic, Dream, every other cruise ship), it's pretty hard to get food...so it's good that they provide extra for you. (what, you guys suddenly can't handle sarcasm???)
They also gave us a dozen or so assorted cans of soda and water. Naturally I had no idea if I had to pay for these...so I had to call to ask. I was just picturing slugging down a can of diet coke...and then on my bill the last day $85 for it. That was cool, but they never re-stocked that. it was a onetime thing. So while it was a nice touch...again, deck 9 I can get all the soda I want.
the one really cool perk (in my opinion, and although we only used it twice was getting a DVD. They had a large list of DVD's to choose from...you could pick one out and then would bring it and a couple of bags of popcorn. This worked out great a couple of times. By the way, the Concierge who was working with us mostly was Thomas.
So I guess this is as good a time as any to give you my general thoughts on upgrading and using the Concierge Service. First the service itself...I wouldn't pay a dime for it...mainly because we are pretty self-sufficient, and because we upgraded. If you paid for the service I can see it being helpful because they would get you the seating you want as well as Palo and any of your excursions. But as we did this all ourselves that didn't help us at all.
One of the rumors we heard was that they could get you tours of things not normally offered. This turned out to not be the case. While they could get you tickets for the tours available without any problem, we tried a couple of times to get special stuff. We tried a bridge tour...no go...we could watch it on tv. another thing DW wanted to do was a behind the scenes tour of the theater. Again I asked about that. I was told that the Platinum Castaway Club members were the only ones who could do that. Frankly that made me kind of mad...if they offer the tour...and given the amount of money we spent I think that should be something that concierge guests should be able to do. I get the bridge...that's a safety issue I suppose...but if they do other tours they should be offered. So clearly that portion was a bust.
the snack, as I mentioned...was good, but as I could walk up one deck and pretty much get anything I wanted...that was nice but I wouldn't pay for it.
The other not-so-good portion (sorry for the downer here folks...don't worry, I'll be back to happy stuff soon) was when we ordered a all-hands-on-deck cheese platter. At one point I had ordered something directly through room service and was told by Thomas that we should do stuff like that through him. So I ordered the all-hands platter about an hour before we needed to head down to dinner. He told me they were busy, but that we would be at the head of the line. it never arrived. We ended up calling him back and telling him forget it.
Now, I'm not a snob (I'm not! I'm not! I'm not!), but again you pay extra for this extra service and we can't even get a plate of cheese in an hour...that says a lot for the extra service, doesn't it?
So you get the idea...if I was paying $1,700 (ok, $1,680) extra just for concierge service there is no way on this earth that it would be worth it. In fact all-in-all it was disappointing and we will talk about tips at the end of the report.
On the room side...the Room *definitely* made it worth the $1,700 (or $1,680 for DW
) So if you look at it from an overall perspective it is worth it, and any little thing you get from the Concierge Service (and there were two more things that you will see later in the trip report) are just extras. If you think of it that way it is very cool. If you come in expecting the moon as far as service goes you will be disappointed.okey dokey...sorry about that trip down depression lane.
On to bigger and somewhat better stuff.After the drill it was time to head to the Adventures Away party. Again we have done this 4 times and I've done it all from standing around on deck 9, to dancing away on deck 9, to what we did this time which was watch from Deck 10. The parties have definitely scaled back from the first couple of times we cruised. Not sure if that is because of guest feedback or what. But I actually do think that the party lasted a nice amount of time, so I'm not really complaining. There was dancing, they handed out some sparkly thingy's (do you sense a descriptive theme here???) for the kids to shake...there was dancing, music and of course the ship blowing it's horn. And speaking of blowing it, I missed it with my video camera because I turned it off instead of on. *sigh*. If you haven't cruised before you need to hit the party because it is fun. If you have...in my opinion it's a skip able item, just call my the pooper of the party!
Pictures:
DS12 (right) and DS8 (left) hang out waiting for the party to start
Our cruise on the big screen
DNS13, DS12, DS8 and DND11 at the party
The Adventures Away logo
Hard to see, but this is all the kids on the big screen. That was cool.
After the party it was time to go back to the room and get ready. As I posted in answer to a question we typically like to get somewhat dressed up (ie. no shorts or jeans). Luckily we had our stuff (we have had other cruises where we did have to go in what we had on because we didn't have luggage), so we went back and changed. We had the 5:45 seating and our first night was in Parrot Cay.
Can someone explain why "Cay" is pronounced "Key" instead of "cay"?? This is something I know, and pronounce correctly...but DS8 actually asked that question on this trip...and I can't tell you why. If I had to bet I'd say it was someone on the DIS boards who just decided it would be fun to pronounce something different....just to screw people up. I'm just sayin'.
And off we went off to dinner. On our three previous cruises we have had a mixed bag of servers and assistant servers. The first cruise was not memorable at all...so frankly I don't know how they were. Our second cruise we had a team, Adrienne and Alonzo who were fantastic. Adrienne was so funny and he could do great magic tricks. He definitely made the cruise more magical for us. On our third, the Christmas cruise we had the worst team ever...they just sucked. no personality...no recommendations...clearly ready to get off the ship. No matter how we tried we didn't really get to know him. I think the server's name was Toby. It was awful...and we had decided that never again would we allow that to happen as we would speak with the head server immediately if we didn't get a good feeling.
Yes I'm high maintenance. Actually that's not true. Ask DW, pretty much all you have to do is keep a steady stream of diet coke in my glass and I'm a happy camper, even if the food takes longer. Really...that's it! DW, help me out here.
Luckily we scored big-time on this cruise. Our servers name was Terry who was from England. He was a big soft spoken, and it took a few days for him to warm up, but warm up he did. While he did not do a ton of magic tricks, he was very organized, his recommendations were typically spot on, and once he learned to be open with us it was fun to hear about the things that went on with the crew. He clearly really enjoyed working for DCL, and being a server and it showed. We were so happy with him.
As a side note...when talking with one of the cruise staff we were told that the crew food was not very good. In fact she said that the crew call it the "Disney diet" when they are on the ship...they all end up losing a ton of weight. Kinda funny...and of course kinda sad. I don't know about you guys, but I am interested in hearing what the life is like for the crew. I would think it would be a VERY hard life...and I often wonder why they do it. But I digress.
Our assistant server was Maggie. She is from Scotland. She was also a fun personality. Very bubbly and friendly and did a good job with the drinks. She learned pretty quickly that I needed my "diet coke fix" as she called it. She was also cute (uh oh..DW, you didn't read that), which didn't hurt.
One of the most entertaining moments on the ship came at Maggie's expense. On day 2 we did brunch at Palo. While we were there we found out that Maggie's boyfriend Phillipe worked the pasta station. DNH came up with the idea to play with Maggie a bit. So the next night our neighbors were running late, Maggie and Terry knew we went to Palo and asked about it so I had to steal my neighbors idea. While looking directly at Maggie I talked about this very rude person who was apparently responsible for the pasta...I said the pasta wasn't very good and he actually came out and was really rude to us. I was surprised something like that could happen. She continued to pour water...but her face was starting to turn red. Terry kept glancing over at her because clearly he knew who we were talking about, and then I said "his name was phillip...or phillipe...something like that". Finally I spilled the beans and we all had a good laugh. Poor Maggie was absolutely bright red, but she got a laugh out of it as well.
We came to find out over time that Maggie and Terry had been friends before they were paired together. And also that normally they don't pair people from the same country (and England and Scotland are both considered UK), but for some reason they did in this case. it turned out fantastic for us!
The other character that helped make our cruise great was our head server, Witt. I know at least one other trip report where Witt was the head server and helped make their cruise great. On all previous cruises our Head Server never made an appearance until tip night...where of course they wanted their tip. Now, a lot of folks on here have said that if you never saw your head server it was because everything was going great. I bought into that as I can see the logic...if everything is going smoothly you shouldn't need to see your head server. But Witt was something altogether different and unfortunately for all future head servers he will be our measuring stick. He came by the first night to check on things...he was constantly around all of his tables, helping to clear dishes, checking on us...and I mean constantly...you didn't just see him once a night...we saw him several times. He played several practical jokes on our table mates at various times and even a magic trick. Very cool. We also seemed to constantly see him around the ship and he always came up to say hello and make sure everything was good. to be frank...he could do a much better job as a concierge than our real one did!
Yes, I have fallen in love with our server team. *sigh*...just don't tell DW. This will be just between you guys and I.
As far as food goes, the food in the dining room I found very, very good except for one night where it was just ok. However I had overeaten during the day so it could be that. As I said, Terry's suggestions were typically the best and by the end of the cruise I was not even looking at the menu. One night he recommended one dessert (I think it was a sundae) and DNW asked about something else. Terry's reaction? "it's disgusting, but I'll bring it for you if you want". we all had a good laugh (he was, of course, joking). He did bring it and it wasn't as good as his suggestion.
************TIP*****************
you guessed it...listen to your servers. Unlike a restaurant where sometimes the "specials" are just what they had extra of from the night before, the servers have been around these menus for months...and since they don't change much they are well aware of what is popular and good...and what is not. Unless they suggest something that you absolutely despise it will make your trip that much more enjoyable if you go with what they suggest. Frankly even if you aren't sure...try it. If you don't like it they will quickly bring you something else. But you might find that you do like it.
Also be open and honest with your servers...joke around with them...make them a part of the family. the quicker you do this the more fun you will have. While a bad server team will not ruin your cruise...a great server team will make your cruise fantastic. so if you are open and honest with your team and they aren't responding...talk to your head waiter that first night and get switched. do NOT wait! We've done it and here is the result...
I'd much rather be happy.
Pictures!
DS12, DNS13 and DS8 hanging in the Cay
There's my baby-cakes and DNW
DNH on the left and the rather good looking guy on the right is, of course, me.
Given that we have been on most cruises we knew there were some shows we would not be going to. I didn't really want to go to the All Aboard Show...but remembered that typically we get a comedian on that show who may be entertaining. the rest of the show I've seen 3 times before...and could do without. it's cute...but very stale at this point IMHO (In My Honest Opinion). The entertainer was Bronkar Lee who was a beat boxer, juggler and somewhat of a comedian. Beat Boxing is very cool to me...and very entertaining. He was really a delight and the things he could do with his voice were amazing. I'm sure I could give him a run for his money if I hadn't decided to have kids. I blame them.
After the show we headed back to our room...long day. The room was turned down for the night...in the living room was a pull down murphy bed:
This is where DS12 slept the first night
And the couch became a bed:
DS8 slept here
and of course we got a towel animal...which for some reason ended up on my head.
Not sure how that got there.
In our FE (Fish Extender
) we got a nice keepsake folder for all of our stuff from IndianaPrincess. It was cool. This will be the last time I'll tell you what we got each night 'cause there is no way I'll remember it all Time for bed. OOOH, that reminds me:
**************TIP*************
Bring a clock from home. DCL does *not* provide a clock you can see at night. Why? No idea. They just don't. I know the DIS boards has a big list of things to bring..this is one not to forget. Ours has a sound machine which we use at home...so it was nice to have that on the cruise as well.
the bed was comfortable...but small (as I mentioned earlier). the room was beautiful with all the teak wood everywhere...very, very nice....until...wait for it...duh-duh-duh...the squeaking.
someone asked about the noise from the deck above...as I said the running kid noise was there somewhat...but it wasn't awful. However that first night the wood squeaked so loud it basically kept us all awake the whole night. Very annoying. Made more so by me being a light sleeper. For whatever reason I'm very aware of noise, and at home I'm used to those noises either being DW getting out of bed or our kids walking in...so every time it squeaked I had to look up. this became painful. Even with the sound machine turned up it didn't help. this sucked. There is just no other way to put it...it sucked. Is it enough to turn me off about the room? no way...and we did get used to it as the cruise went on...and it wasn't as bad when the ship wasn't flying through the ocean. But it sucked.
did I mention that it sucked?There we go...I finally made it through day number 1. pretty sad that it took me this long to get there. the next days will be shorter. Maybe. Hopefully. You just never know. Depends on where I go with it!
Thanks for sticking with me...again hope the keyboard marks on your forehead go away very soon.
Next up: Day 2 - Day at sea and Palo for Brunch!
Thanks everyone!
DZ
