My First Cruise--Wonder April 6-9th

[Jennifer48]

This was the first cruise for both myself and my DBF, Dan.

Day 1-Thursday April 6, 2006

Even though I had Wednesday off, I was still running around at the last minute getting things together Wednesday night. Dan was at my house at this point so we had to fill out some paperwork for the cruise. Of course we couldn't start that until I finished watching "Lost" at 10pm. I was in bed around 11pm but I didn't get much sleep I was "too excited to sleep."

I woke up by my annoying alarm at 3:45am. Yes, that is less than 4 hours of sleep I got and there was a very long day ahead. I hit snooze and woke back up at 4. I went into my brother's room to wake up Dan and we were off to shower and get ready.

We left for Manchester Airport by 5am and were parked and luggage checked by 6:15am. Non-stop to Orlando here we go! The first form of transportation for the day is the car.

The Salem, NH High School Chorus were on our flight. Its 6am and they were all happy. I'm not a morning person so I was not. Fortunately, they were well behaved on the flight so that made me happy . What didn't make me happy was the fact that I took out my iPod (all loaded with fun Disney songs) and the battery was DEAD! I charged it all day the day before I thought for sure that this was going to be a foreshadowing of the trip between this and the fact that Dan's ears hurt while in flight due to his head cold. Mode of transportation 2 for the day, the plane.

We arrived on time in MCO and we were off to find the Disney terminal. What a smooth process Disney has. I had all my forms ready and we boarded the DCL bus, mode of transportation 3 for the day. Since our luggage was labeled, we weren't going to see it until it got delivered to our stateroom. The DCL bus was full and we were the last to board so Dan and I didn't get to sit together There were 2 seats left and some man was upset because I made him move his kids bags so I could sit there. Well guess what mister, thats for my butt! Your bags go above the seats! This was a bummer because I wanted to be with him the first time we saw the ship. We got to watch this fun "pre-show" type movie during the ride. First sight of the ship! AMAZING! Its just as beautiful as the DVD!

We pulled into the DCL terminal and I couldn't believe the size of the ship! I mean, I know its a cruise liner but I've never seen one up close. And to think, I am going to be spending the next few days on it! We were into the terminal by 12 noon and we had a #7 boarding pass so we took this time to call our family and let them know we arrived safely. Mickey and Minnie both came out, one at a time, to take pics with the kids in front of the replica Magic and it seemed like 5 minutes later, they started boarding group #1. #7 was called and in we walked through the Mickey ears!

They took our picture before we boarded. Now, I was on less than 4 hours of sleep and just got off a 2.5 hour plane ride, there was no way I was keeping that photo! Next thing I know, we hear “Welcome Aboard Jen and Dan!” We made it! We were on the ship! That is the mode of transportation #4 for the day.

We head up to deck 9, Beach Blanket Buffet.

They informed us beforehand that you could either eat there or at Parrot Cay on deck 3. Not sure if this is new or not. From what I read on the DISboards, they would only mention BBB. We wanted to be out in the sun. We took our food out to the deck.

Beautiful day! Dan ordered the first drink of the day which was a Bahama Mama. This is his favorite drink anyways so of course he had to get one! Except, he didn’t realize that they gave him the souvenier cup and he threw it away! Oops! First $3 down the tubes.

We had quite a bit of time before the sail-away party so we decided to tour the ship. This was a great time to do it because a lot of people hadn’t boarded yet so I got a lot of good peopleless shots!

We ended up in front of Parrot Cay when there were 2 cast members there asking if people wanted to order bottled water for their stateroom. Since Dan and I drink a lot of water we figured this was a good idea. We ended up ordering half a case and it was a great deal. They dropped it off in our stateroom later that evening.

At approx 1:30 we decided to see if our stateroom was ready, green light, we are in! We had a cat 11 inside stateroom.

It was kinda small and I was really, really worried about feeling claustrophobic and I was already worried about feeling seasick so my tummy was doing loops.

Next we had our manditory lifeboat drill. This took no more than 15-20 minutes and we were back in our room putting our lifevests away.

We headed up to deck 10 to enjoy the sun and scope out a good spot for the sail-away party. Thanks to the Passporter, deck 10 was perfect. We didn’t want to get in the way on deck 9 with all the kids.

As we noticed the ship starting to leave, we got up from our prime seats and watched the dock start to pass by. To our surprise, dolphins were swimming next to us! So beautiful! Dan said that is supposed to be good luck, I’ll take it! So far, I’m ok. I think me being nervous and lack of sleep is what made me feel sick. As we are standing there, I see a gentleman with a Scotland soccer jersey on. Could that be Mr. ScottishWee from the DISboards?? What the heck, I’ll go ask. I tap the woman on the shoulder next to the man.

“Deborah?”
“Yes” she replied.
“Its me, Jennifer48 from the DISboards.” Her face lit up. YEY! My first DISboard meet! I told her it was a good thing her husband wore that jersey or else we might not have met! We talked for a bit then we split and headed down to our room. The luggage had arrived! We unpacked and hung up our dress clothes before they were wrinkled too bad and we check out our 1st Navigator to see what is in store for the night.

Since we had the 2nd dinner seating, we had time to watch our first stage show “Hercules the Muse-ical” in the WD Theater. I was a little apprehensive about seeing it because it didn’t get rave reviews here but both Dan and I loved it especially the corney jokes.

After the show, we went back to the room to change for dinner. Animators Palate was 1st on our seating rotation and I was stoked because I couldn’t wait to experience it. Our table 32 was near the side wall.

We were there before our table mates. Our assistant server Kim came by to get our drink order. She is from Holland and remembered our Coke order every night! Our table mates followed. Now I have to say, we lucked out. We were blessed to have the nicest family sitting with us. Dad, Mom (Tina) and daughter Lauren from Georgia. This girl would come to be our entertainment every night. She was just so damn cute!

For my appetizer, I ordered the duck and goat cheese flatbread and Caesar salad.

For my entrée I had roasted chicken breast.

Dan had the stuffed tomato (I made him try something new and he loved it!)

and for his entrée, he had the steak au jus.

At this point, we could feel the vibrations from the engines very well. I start to worry again and I even took some ginger gum just in case. For dessert, I didn’t feel well so I passed. Dan ordered the NY style cheesecake.

What did they end up bringing me for dessert?

Birthday cake! My birthday is in 2 days, not tonight. Oh well, a little early. So I ate some of the cake and took the rest back to the room along with the “Its My Birthday” button. They did sing but it wasn’t so loud that the whole place could hear. The cake didn’t end up fitting in the fridge so I ate some more and stuck the rest on the table. Our towel animal for the night was a dog.

How fun! We were in bed by 12am. Yes, I made it that far with on 4 hours of sleep!

Coming up....Day 2 Nassau, Bahamas

 

[Kimberly815]

Great report! Sounds like you moved on quickly from the somewhat rocky start into a what looks like a great trip! I wish I had been there with you!

 

[tlynk]

I love your trip report along with the pictures. Thank you.

 

[spencersmom]

I love all the pictures you added! Nice touch! Thanks so much for sharing-keep them coming! Ginny

 

[goscudder]

I loved reading your report...can't wait for the rest of it!!

 

[scottishwee35]

Hi Jennifer

Read your story - superb. Yes, it was good to met you both.

And saw picture of sailaway party as we were in the picture back lol

I promise I will put in my story soon.

Scottishwee35

 

[WDWLVR]

Great report and loved the pictures. can't wait to read the rest!

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

Great report! I like how you're trying all these new things, and how fun to meet your first DISers before you even set sail.

 

[Jennifer48]

Hi Jennifer

Read your story - superb. Yes, it was good to met you both.

And saw picture of sailaway party as we were in the picture back lol

I promise I will put in my story soon.

Scottishwee35

Deborah,
I do see your husband in the sail-away picture! How funny!

 

[jns]

Great report
looking forward to reading more and seeeing lots of photos

 

[Jennifer48]

Day 2—Friday April 7, 2006....Nassau, Bahamas

The biggest problem with having an inside stateroom is not having a window so its difficult to keep track of time. We set the TV as our alarm to wake us up around 8am but we didn't end up getting out of bed until about 9. We were stuck watching "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" for like the 5th time already. That movie is so great! We were ready to start our first day out of the country around 10am. Let me tell you something, I am 5’10” and I have a lot of thick hair. Taking a shower in there was a project! Only hit my elbows on the walls at least twice every time I took a shower.

We were off the ship around 10am and there were already 2 other cruise ships docked as well.
We walked up through the Marketplace to get out into the shopping district.

I was warned about the shops in Nassau. We didn’t plan on spending much time there. We browsed a few of the jewelry stores but I felt like I was a shoplifter the way the employees followed you around. So we were in and out pretty quickly. All I really wanted was some postcards to add to my collection. I read about the Pirate Museum so we headed up that way and we perused through their gift shop hoping to find something good for pirate night.

We were quite disappointed and didn’t end up going into the museum. Plus, Dan had come down with a head cold so he wasn’t really in the mood and neither was I. I did get to put Dan into the torcher device outside though.

I'm sure he'll love that I put that in here. Heehee.

We headed back in the direction of the dock when I saw the store sign for Del Sol. Tina, our table mate, had told me about this place the night before so we wanted to check it out. Its pretty cool. They have T-shirts, totes, hats and others that have an image printed on it in black and white. When it is placed in the sun, the colors appear. We ended up buying a few T-shirts and we got a free tote bag and 2 rings. I planned on giving one of the rings to Lauren at dinner.

We were getting hungry since we hadn’t eaten breakfast so we made our way back to the ship. You have to pass the hair braiding station in order to do so. This one woman asked if I wanted my hair braided. I actually wanted to so I stopped to talk to her. $1 per braid. But I was hungry so I said I’d be back after lunch because I also wanted to wash the gel out of my hair before I got it braided. She said ok and to come find her. Her name was Margaret. I said ok and that I’d look for her in her yellow shirt. Well, she apparently didn't like my answer.
“No, we all have yellow shirts. Ask for Margaret. Margaret.”
I said ok and started to walk away as she proceeded to yell Margaret until I was out of ear shot. She’s probably still yelling it because, needless to say, I didn’t go back.

We ate lunch at Pluto’s. Its so great to eat and drink whenever you want and not have to pay for it!

As Rachael Ray would say, "yumm-o!"

It was quite hot out so we decided to lounge by the pool. Adult only pool that is. We started off sitting by the side of the pool but I wanted to lay down so we went up to deck 10 to get a lounge chair since they were all being “saved” on deck 9 (even though there was a nice sign that asked people not to do so). Man this was perfect. Laying in the sun and being lazy, just what a vacation was all about!

We both fell asleep at one point and I woke first. I woke Dan up because it looked like he was getting a little pink and I wanted him to put some more sunscreen on. (He hates sunscreen and I’m a pale redhead who needs at least SPF 45. What a nice match we are!) Only 2 times did a little girl get kicked out of the ADULTS ONLY hot tub. Her dad (I assume) was in there. I hate ignorant people who don’t think the rules apply to them

It was getting late so we headed to shower and change into our dinner attire for the “Golden Mickeys” show. The red carpet and paparazzi were out as we entered the theater. This show was cute but too many rules-do-not-apply-to-me people were taking flash photography.

We had some time to kill before our dinner so we decided to check out Route 66.

We hadn't been down there yet.
Dan caught me gazing out the porthole.

We headed outside to watch the stars. I caught him doing some gazing as well.

Dan and I are sunset people. Of course we aren't sunrise people because we can never get out of bed early enough! But this was the ONLY sunset that we caught mostly because the sunset was just around the same time as our dinner so we missed it most nights.

Dinner tonight was Parrot Cay and it was Pirate Night . Since we didn’t bring any pirate attire or find anything fun in Nassau, we just wore our regular dining clothes. One of the speciality drinks for the night was the Banana Caribe. Dan loves banana so he had to get this. He liked it so much he had two! For my appetizer I had the Mango Soup.

Yeah I didn’t like the sound of it either but Chat (I guess I forgot to mention him earlier. He’s from Thailand and was great!) had described to me that it was basically vanilla ice cream melted down with mango in it. I like ice cream and I like mango so I decided to try it out. It was yummy! Dan got a fruit salad and that was delish too.

For our entrees, I had the prime rib and Dan had the BBQ ribs.

Man do they make good food on this cruise! Everything just made your mouth water! Now, on the first night, Lauren told us that she took advantage of the free ice cream and had about 14 bowls of chocolate ice cream with mini marshmallows. She ordered it again tonight for dessert and so I decided to try some too. It was actually quite good!

Dan had the brownie sundae.

Chat and Kim wanted Lauren to limbo with them. After hesitation, she did and we cheered her on.

After dinner we quickly went back to our room because I wanted to put some pants on (I’m not much of a skirt person) and then we headed up to deck 10 for the Pirates in the Caribbean party. Since we had the 2nd dinner seating, we didn’t get out until a little after 10 so the party had begun without us! Once we made it up to deck 10, there wasn’t much space to stand. We had a small viewing hole between people to see the stage. That was good enough for us.

This was a fun party that lasted quite a long time! We stayed on deck 10 to watch the fireworks (which btw, do you know Disney is the ONLY cruise line allowed to shoot off fireworks? Its true, our cruise director Jacqui told us the night before). Anywho, after the fireworks a lot of people left so we headed down to deck 9. The dessert buffet!

We totally forgot about this. By the time we saw it, a lot of the food was already gone. That didn’t matter much because we were way to stuffed from dinner. The cast members that put on these deck shows are so great. I love the way they interact with the kids and adults as well. I love to dance. Its so much fun. Dan doesn’t enjoy it as much as me so he just stood there and watched. I didn’t mind. As long as he was having fun and he did.

Around 12am, we headed back to the room. As I walk in I almost walked right into our towel animal!

This monkey was hanging from our closet with my sunglasses on. So funny. We also had another towel creation.

Leaning Towel of Pisa! Special for the new Mediterranean cruises coming up. Those look fantastic. I think they are a little to much mullah for my wallet but a girl can always dream!

I head into the bathroom to take out my contacts for the night. I come out and I see that Dan has the camera on me. I, being the ham I am, start to make goofy faces. Not a minute later did I realize that the reason why Dan had the camera on me was because he had decorated our room for my birthday and I didn’t even realize it!

He is so sweet. I told him that I didn’t want him to do anything or buy me anything for my birthday since he was coming on this cruise with me and that was enough of a birthday present so he just decorated the room. Can we all say “awwwww.” 

Due up, day 3 MY BIRTHDAY at Castaway Cay!!

 

[oybolshoi]

Glad to see you made it to your first Disney Cruise and that all appears to be going well so far!!!

Really enjoying your trip report with all the embedded pictures...some day I will have to figure out how to do that.

Did you enjoy this trip so much that you've signed up for a 7-night?

Brenda

PS. Goblet of Fire cannot be watched enough times!!

 

[Jennifer48]

Glad to see you made it to your first Disney Cruise and that all appears to be going well so far!!!

Really enjoying your trip report with all the embedded pictures...some day I will have to figure out how to do that.

Did you enjoy this trip so much that you've signed up for a 7-night?

Brenda

PS. Goblet of Fire cannot be watched enough times!!

Brenda, I'm so glad that you are reading my trip report! You were my inspiration! Everytime I passed by the Cove Cafe I thought of you!

We did not end up rebooking. I know, I know, big mistake some might say, but this cruise took a lot out of our budgets because we then headed over to the Polynesian for 3 nights. I will DEFINATELY be going on a 7-night. Hopefully next year sometime. Do you have one booked yet?

Thanks again for reading everyone!

 

[Kimberly815]

BRING ON THE BIRTHDAY!!!

(P.S. I wanna take a cruise!)

(P.P.S. Goblet of fire is awesome, and should be watched continually. )

 

[oybolshoi]

Brenda, I'm so glad that you are reading my trip report! You were my inspiration! Everytime I passed by the Cove Cafe I thought of you!

We did not end up rebooking. I know, I know, big mistake some might say, but this cruise took a lot out of our budgets because we then headed over to the Polynesian for 3 nights. I will DEFINATELY be going on a 7-night. Hopefully next year sometime. Do you have one booked yet?

Thanks again for reading everyone!

Jennifer,
I'm flattered that you even remembered my trip report, but to be an inspiration??? It's too much...I think I need a mochaccino!!

Please tell me that you went into the Cove Cafe and tried something at least once..and hopefully it lived up to its billing.

We have not rescheduled another cruise - I really wanted to do the 10-night Med. but it was just too much for us to swallow. I keep saying that we want to try other places but the longer I'm away from the Magic the more I miss planning another cruise!!

Keep up the daily installments here - I can't wait to hear about your birthday on CC (and your boyfriend was very sweet to decorate the cabin for you!).

B.

PS. Harry Potter is a god!

PPS. I will have two trip reports this year...one for a brief getaway to Universal next month to celebrate our anniversary and one for a 10-night visit to WDW in October. Now that one should be good, even if it is on land...food & wine festival at Epcot = lots of opportunity for excess + my parents tag along = 1/2 disapproval mixed with 1/4 amusement and 1/4 "I wish I were young again" envy on their parts. Oh yeah, good times they are a comin'!!

 

[Jennifer48]

Jennifer,
I'm flattered that you even remembered my trip report, but to be an inspiration??? It's too much...I think I need a mochaccino!!

Please tell me that you went into the Cove Cafe and tried something at least once..and hopefully it lived up to its billing.

We have not rescheduled another cruise - I really wanted to do the 10-night Med. but it was just too much for us to swallow. I keep saying that we want to try other places but the longer I'm away from the Magic the more I miss planning another cruise!!

Keep up the daily installments here - I can't wait to hear about your birthday on CC (and your boyfriend was very sweet to decorate the cabin for you!).

B.

PS. Harry Potter is a god!

PPS. I will have two trip reports this year...one for a brief getaway to Universal next month to celebrate our anniversary and one for a 10-night visit to WDW in October. Now that one should be good, even if it is on land...food & wine festival at Epcot = lots of opportunity for excess + my parents tag along = 1/2 disapproval mixed with 1/4 amusement and 1/4 "I wish I were young again" envy on their parts. Oh yeah, good times they are a comin'!!

Bad news, be warned, we did not go to Cove Cafe. Gasp! We aren't much of coffee drinkers so it never really appealed to us. I'm sure we should have gone in to see what else they had but we were loving the soda station

Next installment hopefully soon. I love reliving my cruise through this trip report!

P.S. Chamber of Secrets was on this weekend and I watched it twice!!

P.P.S I can't wait to hear how that trip goes in October! I went to F&WF last October and it was a lot of fun. Not nearly enough wine drinking though!

 

[AshAlytwins]

OMG...isn't the Mango soup the best....so enjoying your report!!!!

 

[Jillpie]

Loving your report Jennifer!!! Please, your Castaway cay day report, we need our fix!!!!! Thanks.

 

[jns]

Yes Please
waiting hard on yor birthday report

 

[Jennifer48]

Its coming, its coming! Thank you everyone for reading my trip report. My first one for my first cruise, I'm breaking all kinds of virgin-status now!