- Joined
- Jan 7, 2005
- Messages
- 704
Background
Our party consisted of myself (39); my domestic partner, whom I shall refer to for simplicity's sake as DW (36); her daughter, DD4; and our son, DS1. We went back-and-forth many times before finally booking the cruise, balancing such factors as the rare convenience of an LA departure (we live 45 minutes from San Pedro) with the high cost of the cruise and the young age of our son. Once I got my tax refund and United Cruising for Miiles TA gave us $2500 to cash out all of our miles, the scale tipped toward taking the
cruise. It was my first one ever and DW's first Disney cruise.
Cruising with a baby
I have read many threads in which the wisdom of cruising with a baby has been debated. Having now completed the experience, I can cast my vote: Don't do it! While overall we had a good trip, each day felt like five, and the immediate experience tended to vary in an extreme fashion, from feeling like we were on a floating torture chamber (when DS wouldn't stop crying) to being in a state of bliss (in the spa, at Palo, and while on some of our shore excursions). I haven't been so sleep-deprived since DS's birth. He isn't the greatest sleeper to start with, true, but for the first four nights, he was waking up three times during the night, and it was sometimes hard for me to fall back asleep. One morning he decided to wake up at five, and believe me, that was a difficult day, since there was only one time the entire week when both children's naps coincided. We were hardly the only family to share this frustration. Scenes of children having meltdowns or less extreme problematic behaviors began in earnest on Thursday and by Friday was already at epidemic proportions. In short, it is an active and tiring week for both children and parents alike.
Dinners were particularly difficult. DS seemed to have a distinct animosity towards Lumiere's; our first night there, he began crying and stopped immediately upon exiting the restaurant. Every time I tried to bring him back inside, the scene repeated itself. Why not put him in Flounder's at dinnertime you ask? We did try that once, and the footage they shot of the nursery on the promotional DVD was obviously not filmed at 7:30. When we picked him up at that time once after dining without him, the scene at Flounder's was not pretty; virtually every baby was crying, and the CMs were holding one in each arm in an unsuccessful attempt to quiet them. To make
matters worse, there was a painfully long delay to bring him to us, while DW and I had to watch helplessly while he continued to howl inside the nursery. When I asked about it afterwards, the CM acknowledged that mornings are a much better time to use the nursery, and our two morning experiences there went very smoothly.
Room service was not a desirable option, since the cabin was so small for our family of four, even though it was category five (#7064), that we tried to spend as little time in there as possible. I am pretty sure that the previous trip report posters who have described their pleasure with the spaciousness of their cabins did not have to share them with two small children; the crib alone took up half of the "living room" area. The two kids barely had any room to play, which turned out to be a disappointment, since I had been hoping that choosing a larger room would have meant that we would have been able to enjoy it more often.
While I'm on the subject of the cabin, and at the risk of nit-picking, how is it that the competition offers large and comfortable beds with plasma televisions (or so I've read), while Disney provides relatively austere furnishings? Until I remembered the tip to ask for a feather pillow, I had a couple of really uncomfortable nights, and while I am only 5'9", my feet extended beyond the mattress, which was a first for me. Finally, with Disney's extensive film library, how can they justify showing only about a total of six animated features (that's not much of an exaggeration) on the two channels dedicated to them? It seemed like every time we turned on the TV, one of those two channels was blank (movies start every two hours, and
Disney movies are short), and the other was showing either "Peter Pan," "The Jungle Book," "Pinnochio," "The Little Mermaid," "Lilo and Stitch," or "Toy Story II." Given my resignation to having to watch a large number of Disney movies that week, I had been hoping for at least a few rare classics or more variety.
Entertainment
Let me begin on a positive note: "Twice Charmed" lives up to all its hype(except, perhaps, for the one poster who wrote that it alone was worth the price of his cruise!). Of the three shows, it is the only one that really can be described as Broadway caliber. Technically, it is just amazing what they do with the space limitations. Creatively, the storyline held my interest, and the songs were catchy. "Disney Dreams," for reasons unknown to me, gets the bulk of the accolades, but make sure you don't miss "Twice Charmed." I'm still kicking myself for forgetting to watch it a second time on TV later that night.
"Disney Dreams" and "Golden Mickeys," on the other hand, were both disappointments. Where "Twice Charmed" had an original storyline and songs, the other two shows were almost identical in message (don't give up on your dreams), formula (a series of familiar Disney songs staged in the service of a contrived plot), and special effects (pyrotechnics, star-filled backdrop, big set pieces, etc.). "Twice Charmed," on the other hand, wowed with some real surprises.
Food
So much has been written about the quality of the food, and when I was reading these reports, it was hard to understand how people could have such extremely polarized opinions about the same meals. In my experience, Animator's Palate seemed extremely under-appreciated, Lumiere's was overrated, and Parrot Cay, for whatever reasons, was home to some of our most disappointing food experiences. However, only the first three nights
featured the regular menus at these dining rooms, as each restaurant presented the same menu at all the themed dinners on the last four nights (Pirates, Prince and Princess, Captain's Gala, and Til We Meet Again).
Here are a few food tips/suggestions:
1. Avoid the cold soups. I tried the chilled mango soup at Parrot Cay that many people have raved about, and I think I figured out the recipe: take a creamsicle bar, leave it out until it melts, and I'm pretty sure you've got their "mango" soup. One night they offered a chilled vegetable consumme, and I fed a little to DS, who screamed so loudly you would think he was being painfully poisoned, and after I tasted it, I guess he was. On the other hand, the hot soups, especially the butternut squash, were mostly great.
2. Go to brunch (or dinner) at Palo on Friday They seem to set aside the best ingredients for this restaurant; while the cantaloupe was pretty hard and under-ripe elsewhere, at Palo, it just melted in your mouth. And, yes, the stollen bread with jam and rich whipped cream is as good as everyone described. I also loved the ergonomic glasses. The best thing about going on Friday, though, is that it is almost impossible to find anything edible on the leftover menu in the regular dining rooms that night. It's just too bad that they don't have booths there, to give it some intimacy. While the food
is unbeatable, the layout strangely resembles California Pizza Kitchen. As DW pointed out, the tables are so close to each other that it is almost as if you are having your meal with your neighbors.
3. When you have dinner at Parrot Cay, wander over to the buffet area-it's where they place all the desserts, so you can give them the once-over before choosing. It also explained how quickly they arrived after being ordered!
Character Interactions
It was really nice before and after dinner to get some pictures with the characters, and the characters did make the trip fun. At the same time, the fact that they virtually seemed like Shutters staff members made these experiences somewhat disappointing. We have Disneyland APs and often go to character meals, where a large part of the fun is the interaction beyond just capturing a picture. At Ariel's Grotto, for example, DD has enjoyed Max
sitting down and reading with her, and Captain Mickey has been indulgent of DS's newfound fascination with him. The only similar interaction on the Magic occurred at the end, when Dopey spontaneously lay down on the floor and played with DS and DD. The ultimate shocker to me was the character breakfast. Even while I was warned from previous posts of the brevity of the character interactions, I was amazed at the mad pace of this event. While
there are obviously more people on the Magic than at a Disneyland restaurant at any point in time, clearly the demand for character interactions outpaced the supply, and this imbalance could be fairly easily remedied by simply increasing the number of characters.
In Brief
1. Climate control. We did have the same problem with our stateroom as others have previously reported regarding the extremely cold temperatures. For the first few nights, in spite of repeated calls to Guest Services and informing our cabin attendant, it never got warmer than 69F. Leaving the door open at night wasn't an option, unfortunately, due to our virtually chain-smoking neighbors. Many of the other spaces, though, on the ship were
even colder. The Walt Disney Theatre, in particular, was extremely chilly, and I share other posters' complaints about the coldness of the restaurants.
2. Pools. Yes, the pools are crowded, but what surprised me is how warm they were. You hope to be able to cool off in a pool, but the combination of the hot temperature and people packed in the Goofy pool, it just wasn't a pleasant experience. DD, of course, loved it and was oblivious to these complaints.
3. Deck parties. To our family, the deck parties were extremely overrated. We initially left the Pirates party after an interminable warm-up; imagine 15 minutes of "Top deck, give me an argh! Lower deck, give me an argh!," etc. We went back to the room and went back up again later, when the characters made their appearances. After that, though, it was back to shouting out the chorus of "Taking Care of Business" and so on. We left before the fireworks, if there were any that night, because the display would have had to have been even bigger than the one currently at Disneyland to justify staying any longer at the party. And the sail away party was basically just all the cliched celebration songs. Next time, we'll just
watch from the verandah unless the kids are dying to dance.
4. Spa. This was as glorious and relaxing an experience as has been
described numerous times already in other trip reports. The only thing I would add is how heavenly the shower heads in the locker rooms are. I only wished I could have taken a 15 minute shower, but we had to liberate the children.
I suppose we all had a better time than this trip report might indicate. Our jellyfish-free day on Stone Island, for example, was a wonderful highlight of the week, and it was a treat to enjoy so many sumptuous dishes in a relatively short amount of time. I tried marlin, escargot, and tilapia for the first time and enjoyed all three. However, I was sufficiently exhausted, sleep-deprived, and grumpy by the end of the week that there was nothing in the world I wanted to do more than to lay down in our bed at home and sleep all day, leaving the air-conditioning mercifully off. On Friday, there was another, excusably cranky and demanding passenger next to me at Guest Services, carrying a crying baby in a wrap, who was upset that she would have to get off the ship and board again for the second week of her back-to-back cruise. Imagining the thought of having to spend another week right then on the Magic, I could only think of Ursula; that woman, to me, was a poor, unfortunate soul.
Our party consisted of myself (39); my domestic partner, whom I shall refer to for simplicity's sake as DW (36); her daughter, DD4; and our son, DS1. We went back-and-forth many times before finally booking the cruise, balancing such factors as the rare convenience of an LA departure (we live 45 minutes from San Pedro) with the high cost of the cruise and the young age of our son. Once I got my tax refund and United Cruising for Miiles TA gave us $2500 to cash out all of our miles, the scale tipped toward taking the
cruise. It was my first one ever and DW's first Disney cruise.
Cruising with a baby
I have read many threads in which the wisdom of cruising with a baby has been debated. Having now completed the experience, I can cast my vote: Don't do it! While overall we had a good trip, each day felt like five, and the immediate experience tended to vary in an extreme fashion, from feeling like we were on a floating torture chamber (when DS wouldn't stop crying) to being in a state of bliss (in the spa, at Palo, and while on some of our shore excursions). I haven't been so sleep-deprived since DS's birth. He isn't the greatest sleeper to start with, true, but for the first four nights, he was waking up three times during the night, and it was sometimes hard for me to fall back asleep. One morning he decided to wake up at five, and believe me, that was a difficult day, since there was only one time the entire week when both children's naps coincided. We were hardly the only family to share this frustration. Scenes of children having meltdowns or less extreme problematic behaviors began in earnest on Thursday and by Friday was already at epidemic proportions. In short, it is an active and tiring week for both children and parents alike.
Dinners were particularly difficult. DS seemed to have a distinct animosity towards Lumiere's; our first night there, he began crying and stopped immediately upon exiting the restaurant. Every time I tried to bring him back inside, the scene repeated itself. Why not put him in Flounder's at dinnertime you ask? We did try that once, and the footage they shot of the nursery on the promotional DVD was obviously not filmed at 7:30. When we picked him up at that time once after dining without him, the scene at Flounder's was not pretty; virtually every baby was crying, and the CMs were holding one in each arm in an unsuccessful attempt to quiet them. To make
matters worse, there was a painfully long delay to bring him to us, while DW and I had to watch helplessly while he continued to howl inside the nursery. When I asked about it afterwards, the CM acknowledged that mornings are a much better time to use the nursery, and our two morning experiences there went very smoothly.
Room service was not a desirable option, since the cabin was so small for our family of four, even though it was category five (#7064), that we tried to spend as little time in there as possible. I am pretty sure that the previous trip report posters who have described their pleasure with the spaciousness of their cabins did not have to share them with two small children; the crib alone took up half of the "living room" area. The two kids barely had any room to play, which turned out to be a disappointment, since I had been hoping that choosing a larger room would have meant that we would have been able to enjoy it more often.
While I'm on the subject of the cabin, and at the risk of nit-picking, how is it that the competition offers large and comfortable beds with plasma televisions (or so I've read), while Disney provides relatively austere furnishings? Until I remembered the tip to ask for a feather pillow, I had a couple of really uncomfortable nights, and while I am only 5'9", my feet extended beyond the mattress, which was a first for me. Finally, with Disney's extensive film library, how can they justify showing only about a total of six animated features (that's not much of an exaggeration) on the two channels dedicated to them? It seemed like every time we turned on the TV, one of those two channels was blank (movies start every two hours, and
Disney movies are short), and the other was showing either "Peter Pan," "The Jungle Book," "Pinnochio," "The Little Mermaid," "Lilo and Stitch," or "Toy Story II." Given my resignation to having to watch a large number of Disney movies that week, I had been hoping for at least a few rare classics or more variety.
Entertainment
Let me begin on a positive note: "Twice Charmed" lives up to all its hype(except, perhaps, for the one poster who wrote that it alone was worth the price of his cruise!). Of the three shows, it is the only one that really can be described as Broadway caliber. Technically, it is just amazing what they do with the space limitations. Creatively, the storyline held my interest, and the songs were catchy. "Disney Dreams," for reasons unknown to me, gets the bulk of the accolades, but make sure you don't miss "Twice Charmed." I'm still kicking myself for forgetting to watch it a second time on TV later that night.
"Disney Dreams" and "Golden Mickeys," on the other hand, were both disappointments. Where "Twice Charmed" had an original storyline and songs, the other two shows were almost identical in message (don't give up on your dreams), formula (a series of familiar Disney songs staged in the service of a contrived plot), and special effects (pyrotechnics, star-filled backdrop, big set pieces, etc.). "Twice Charmed," on the other hand, wowed with some real surprises.
Food
So much has been written about the quality of the food, and when I was reading these reports, it was hard to understand how people could have such extremely polarized opinions about the same meals. In my experience, Animator's Palate seemed extremely under-appreciated, Lumiere's was overrated, and Parrot Cay, for whatever reasons, was home to some of our most disappointing food experiences. However, only the first three nights
featured the regular menus at these dining rooms, as each restaurant presented the same menu at all the themed dinners on the last four nights (Pirates, Prince and Princess, Captain's Gala, and Til We Meet Again).
Here are a few food tips/suggestions:
1. Avoid the cold soups. I tried the chilled mango soup at Parrot Cay that many people have raved about, and I think I figured out the recipe: take a creamsicle bar, leave it out until it melts, and I'm pretty sure you've got their "mango" soup. One night they offered a chilled vegetable consumme, and I fed a little to DS, who screamed so loudly you would think he was being painfully poisoned, and after I tasted it, I guess he was. On the other hand, the hot soups, especially the butternut squash, were mostly great.
2. Go to brunch (or dinner) at Palo on Friday They seem to set aside the best ingredients for this restaurant; while the cantaloupe was pretty hard and under-ripe elsewhere, at Palo, it just melted in your mouth. And, yes, the stollen bread with jam and rich whipped cream is as good as everyone described. I also loved the ergonomic glasses. The best thing about going on Friday, though, is that it is almost impossible to find anything edible on the leftover menu in the regular dining rooms that night. It's just too bad that they don't have booths there, to give it some intimacy. While the food
is unbeatable, the layout strangely resembles California Pizza Kitchen. As DW pointed out, the tables are so close to each other that it is almost as if you are having your meal with your neighbors.
3. When you have dinner at Parrot Cay, wander over to the buffet area-it's where they place all the desserts, so you can give them the once-over before choosing. It also explained how quickly they arrived after being ordered!
Character Interactions
It was really nice before and after dinner to get some pictures with the characters, and the characters did make the trip fun. At the same time, the fact that they virtually seemed like Shutters staff members made these experiences somewhat disappointing. We have Disneyland APs and often go to character meals, where a large part of the fun is the interaction beyond just capturing a picture. At Ariel's Grotto, for example, DD has enjoyed Max
sitting down and reading with her, and Captain Mickey has been indulgent of DS's newfound fascination with him. The only similar interaction on the Magic occurred at the end, when Dopey spontaneously lay down on the floor and played with DS and DD. The ultimate shocker to me was the character breakfast. Even while I was warned from previous posts of the brevity of the character interactions, I was amazed at the mad pace of this event. While
there are obviously more people on the Magic than at a Disneyland restaurant at any point in time, clearly the demand for character interactions outpaced the supply, and this imbalance could be fairly easily remedied by simply increasing the number of characters.
In Brief
1. Climate control. We did have the same problem with our stateroom as others have previously reported regarding the extremely cold temperatures. For the first few nights, in spite of repeated calls to Guest Services and informing our cabin attendant, it never got warmer than 69F. Leaving the door open at night wasn't an option, unfortunately, due to our virtually chain-smoking neighbors. Many of the other spaces, though, on the ship were
even colder. The Walt Disney Theatre, in particular, was extremely chilly, and I share other posters' complaints about the coldness of the restaurants.
2. Pools. Yes, the pools are crowded, but what surprised me is how warm they were. You hope to be able to cool off in a pool, but the combination of the hot temperature and people packed in the Goofy pool, it just wasn't a pleasant experience. DD, of course, loved it and was oblivious to these complaints.
3. Deck parties. To our family, the deck parties were extremely overrated. We initially left the Pirates party after an interminable warm-up; imagine 15 minutes of "Top deck, give me an argh! Lower deck, give me an argh!," etc. We went back to the room and went back up again later, when the characters made their appearances. After that, though, it was back to shouting out the chorus of "Taking Care of Business" and so on. We left before the fireworks, if there were any that night, because the display would have had to have been even bigger than the one currently at Disneyland to justify staying any longer at the party. And the sail away party was basically just all the cliched celebration songs. Next time, we'll just
watch from the verandah unless the kids are dying to dance.
4. Spa. This was as glorious and relaxing an experience as has been
described numerous times already in other trip reports. The only thing I would add is how heavenly the shower heads in the locker rooms are. I only wished I could have taken a 15 minute shower, but we had to liberate the children.
I suppose we all had a better time than this trip report might indicate. Our jellyfish-free day on Stone Island, for example, was a wonderful highlight of the week, and it was a treat to enjoy so many sumptuous dishes in a relatively short amount of time. I tried marlin, escargot, and tilapia for the first time and enjoyed all three. However, I was sufficiently exhausted, sleep-deprived, and grumpy by the end of the week that there was nothing in the world I wanted to do more than to lay down in our bed at home and sleep all day, leaving the air-conditioning mercifully off. On Friday, there was another, excusably cranky and demanding passenger next to me at Guest Services, carrying a crying baby in a wrap, who was upset that she would have to get off the ship and board again for the second week of her back-to-back cruise. Imagining the thought of having to spend another week right then on the Magic, I could only think of Ursula; that woman, to me, was a poor, unfortunate soul.
!
