socababy
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2010
- Messages
- 1,255
I have to start by saying that I cannot believe this wonderful cruise has come and gone so quickly!! I remember hearing the rumors that DCL was going to have a Hawaiian cruise leaving from my backyard. For those that don’t know, my Dh passed away just over 3 ½ years ago and I have been raising our kids (who are now 9, 7 and 4) all on my own. To say I have needed a vacation is a gross understatement! I booked this cruise without even asking my in-laws if they’d watch the kids knowing in the back of my mind that they would say yes. They have been wanting me to take some time for me but I’m sure they were not thinking 15 nights!! My in-laws are great and of course they said yes. My original plan was to go on my own if no one could join me. Of course going alone means I will have to pay close to the price of 2 people. So I asked my good friend Sarah if she’d like to join me on this cruise if she could get help with her 3 kids and if her DH would okay it! Things fell into place and we were very excited for April 29th to get here!
Sarah’s Dh arrived at my house around 12:30 and Sarah was a mess!! Eyes all swollen and nose running from the tears she had been crying. Her kids are the same ages as mine and she was sad to be leaving them. I, on the other hand, gave my kids a big kiss and hug and said I’ll call them soon and email often. I then sprinted to the car…like I said, I was desperate for a vacation!! I new my kids were in good hands with grandma and grandpa. As I get to the car, I realize Sarah’s Dh is still loading the car…I guess that happens when you have to organize 10 pieces of luggage, 7 of them being mine. In my defense, most of my bags were duffle bags so that they could collapse and be put into the larger luggage and 2 of them had FE gifts, candy for the candy exchange and Secert Mickey stuff inside.
It just takes us about 40 minutes to get to the port, Sarah continuing to cry along the way. LOL We pull up to the port at about 2 and there is no one there. Sarah cries a few more tears and her Dh says if she doesn’t get on the ship, he will be going in her place! Finally we head towards check in and breeze right through since most everyone had boarded already. We had about 30 people in front of us waiting to board which moved quickly. Thanks goodness, since the alcohol in my carry on was heavy!!
When we board, we go immediately to Cadillac Lounge so that I can say thank you to the concierge host Tawanda. He was our host on the April 8 cruise and he told me he would try and get me a brunch and high tea reservation for this cruise even though we were not concierge since I was unable to book them online. He emailed me Saturday night and said he was able to get them so I went to thank him. He then invited us in to have a drink. I cannot say enough nice things about Tawanda. Truly one of the nicest men I have ever met! We hung out there for a little bit and Pierre showed up. He is head of Food and Beverage and I had gotten to know him a few weeks prior. We would always run into him around the ship and my dd was so taken back each time he would say her name. I think she would wonder how he knew her name. LOL Another very sweet guy!
We left the lounge around 3 to head towards the Promenade Lounge to pick up our wonderful lanyards that DISers Eric and Jason so kindly made for everyone. We then went to our room, 7108, to finally unload our heavy carry ons. Our room was aft and I thought in a great location. So easy to run up to deck 9 to grab a drink (or ice to make skinny margaritas in the room!!)
As we head down to the muster drill, we see Salomie, our server from last Nov, and ask if we got her again this time just like we requested. We were ecstatic to find our that yes, she and Jorge would be our servers for the next 15 nights. I cannot say enough good words about these two….LOVE them! As we line up for the muster drill, it is very apparent that we are amongst the youngest adults on the cruise! The muster drill was quick and painless and after we head to the spa to check out the rainforest room. I knew they only had limited tickets for the duration of the cruise so I wanted to see if it was something we would use. I can’t find the spa paper with the price but I know that I thought it was a little too much seeing that we weren’t sure how often we would use it. So we opted to use day passes if we decided to use it (which in the end, we never used it!) We turned in our ticket for the raffle and headed up to deck 10 for the sail away party.
We actually stood a distance back from the Goofy pool because the only space left near the Goofy pool was in the shade and we wanted to stand in the sun. The breeze was a little cool. We could still see the jumbo tron. CMs handed out big plastic mickey hands with the sail date so that we could wave goodbye to everyone as we set sail. Sarah was now in better spirits and we gave each other a huge hug as reality set in that we were going on a 15 night cruise to Hawaii!!!!
Dinner tonight was in Parrot Cay. The longest cruise I have done is the 7 nighter so it was funny to see all the letters for the rotation on our Key To The World Card! We were sat at table 54, just the 2 of us. Geffrey, the head server, came by a couple times asking us if we wanted to join another table but we opted to stay where we were. There were quite a few tables open, definitely not a packed dining room. I guess this is a good time to tell everyone that I will have no pictures of food at all! LOL I’ll try to remember the nights that I had something fantastic. Overall, I was happy about the food. My experience is that it is the desserts that could have some improvement. It was so fun to see Salomie and Jorge again. We looked forward to seeing them every night! It was also fun having Bonieface (a server we have had twice before) on the same rotation. He would come by each night and see I we needed anything. Another fantastic Disney employee.
After dinner, we headed back to the room to finish unpacking and to decorate our door. We had to ask for more hangers but overall, I felt we had enough room for everything. The duffle bags were a great idea as they folded up nicely in my large piece of luggage and then everything slid underneath the bed. At about 8:15, we head to the Walt Disney Theatre to see the show “Let The Magic Begin.” To my surprise, there was plenty of seating still available, even towards the front. The show was fine and they had some Tahati performers doing some Hawaiian dances. It was nice to watch for a few minutes but Hawaiian dances sometimes seem to drag on and I was hoping that this wasn’t going to be the case all week. I’m sure some enjoy it more than I do! After the show, we just walk around until just before 9:45 when we made our way to Wavebands, our home almost every night of the cruise. We were beyond excited to see SpeakerBox back on the Wonder! We saw them last November and they are an awesome, very talented band. Adam, the electric guitarist, isn’t bad to look at either! They were not on my April 8 cruise so we were very happy to see them on this cruise. We hung out in Wavebands until midnight when we decided we better go to sleep since we had spa appts in the morning. Sarah had also taken some bonine because the ship was rocking and she was feeling sleepy. As I do on every cruise, I opened the balcony door and we fell asleep listening to the beautiful sounds of the Pacific Ocean. Of course before going to bed, we put out our room service request for coffee to be delivered to the room in the morning!
As you may have noticed, I have not posted any pics yet! That is because I haven’t taken any yet and did not take any until day 3. I have to say it was quite nice not lugging the camera with me since I do it quite a bit when I have the kids with me! One pic I wish I would have taken was the awesome watermelon carvings they had in the atrium that listed all of our ports of call. That was pretty cool looking!
Sarah’s Dh arrived at my house around 12:30 and Sarah was a mess!! Eyes all swollen and nose running from the tears she had been crying. Her kids are the same ages as mine and she was sad to be leaving them. I, on the other hand, gave my kids a big kiss and hug and said I’ll call them soon and email often. I then sprinted to the car…like I said, I was desperate for a vacation!! I new my kids were in good hands with grandma and grandpa. As I get to the car, I realize Sarah’s Dh is still loading the car…I guess that happens when you have to organize 10 pieces of luggage, 7 of them being mine. In my defense, most of my bags were duffle bags so that they could collapse and be put into the larger luggage and 2 of them had FE gifts, candy for the candy exchange and Secert Mickey stuff inside.
It just takes us about 40 minutes to get to the port, Sarah continuing to cry along the way. LOL We pull up to the port at about 2 and there is no one there. Sarah cries a few more tears and her Dh says if she doesn’t get on the ship, he will be going in her place! Finally we head towards check in and breeze right through since most everyone had boarded already. We had about 30 people in front of us waiting to board which moved quickly. Thanks goodness, since the alcohol in my carry on was heavy!!
When we board, we go immediately to Cadillac Lounge so that I can say thank you to the concierge host Tawanda. He was our host on the April 8 cruise and he told me he would try and get me a brunch and high tea reservation for this cruise even though we were not concierge since I was unable to book them online. He emailed me Saturday night and said he was able to get them so I went to thank him. He then invited us in to have a drink. I cannot say enough nice things about Tawanda. Truly one of the nicest men I have ever met! We hung out there for a little bit and Pierre showed up. He is head of Food and Beverage and I had gotten to know him a few weeks prior. We would always run into him around the ship and my dd was so taken back each time he would say her name. I think she would wonder how he knew her name. LOL Another very sweet guy!
We left the lounge around 3 to head towards the Promenade Lounge to pick up our wonderful lanyards that DISers Eric and Jason so kindly made for everyone. We then went to our room, 7108, to finally unload our heavy carry ons. Our room was aft and I thought in a great location. So easy to run up to deck 9 to grab a drink (or ice to make skinny margaritas in the room!!)
As we head down to the muster drill, we see Salomie, our server from last Nov, and ask if we got her again this time just like we requested. We were ecstatic to find our that yes, she and Jorge would be our servers for the next 15 nights. I cannot say enough good words about these two….LOVE them! As we line up for the muster drill, it is very apparent that we are amongst the youngest adults on the cruise! The muster drill was quick and painless and after we head to the spa to check out the rainforest room. I knew they only had limited tickets for the duration of the cruise so I wanted to see if it was something we would use. I can’t find the spa paper with the price but I know that I thought it was a little too much seeing that we weren’t sure how often we would use it. So we opted to use day passes if we decided to use it (which in the end, we never used it!) We turned in our ticket for the raffle and headed up to deck 10 for the sail away party.
We actually stood a distance back from the Goofy pool because the only space left near the Goofy pool was in the shade and we wanted to stand in the sun. The breeze was a little cool. We could still see the jumbo tron. CMs handed out big plastic mickey hands with the sail date so that we could wave goodbye to everyone as we set sail. Sarah was now in better spirits and we gave each other a huge hug as reality set in that we were going on a 15 night cruise to Hawaii!!!!
Dinner tonight was in Parrot Cay. The longest cruise I have done is the 7 nighter so it was funny to see all the letters for the rotation on our Key To The World Card! We were sat at table 54, just the 2 of us. Geffrey, the head server, came by a couple times asking us if we wanted to join another table but we opted to stay where we were. There were quite a few tables open, definitely not a packed dining room. I guess this is a good time to tell everyone that I will have no pictures of food at all! LOL I’ll try to remember the nights that I had something fantastic. Overall, I was happy about the food. My experience is that it is the desserts that could have some improvement. It was so fun to see Salomie and Jorge again. We looked forward to seeing them every night! It was also fun having Bonieface (a server we have had twice before) on the same rotation. He would come by each night and see I we needed anything. Another fantastic Disney employee.
After dinner, we headed back to the room to finish unpacking and to decorate our door. We had to ask for more hangers but overall, I felt we had enough room for everything. The duffle bags were a great idea as they folded up nicely in my large piece of luggage and then everything slid underneath the bed. At about 8:15, we head to the Walt Disney Theatre to see the show “Let The Magic Begin.” To my surprise, there was plenty of seating still available, even towards the front. The show was fine and they had some Tahati performers doing some Hawaiian dances. It was nice to watch for a few minutes but Hawaiian dances sometimes seem to drag on and I was hoping that this wasn’t going to be the case all week. I’m sure some enjoy it more than I do! After the show, we just walk around until just before 9:45 when we made our way to Wavebands, our home almost every night of the cruise. We were beyond excited to see SpeakerBox back on the Wonder! We saw them last November and they are an awesome, very talented band. Adam, the electric guitarist, isn’t bad to look at either! They were not on my April 8 cruise so we were very happy to see them on this cruise. We hung out in Wavebands until midnight when we decided we better go to sleep since we had spa appts in the morning. Sarah had also taken some bonine because the ship was rocking and she was feeling sleepy. As I do on every cruise, I opened the balcony door and we fell asleep listening to the beautiful sounds of the Pacific Ocean. Of course before going to bed, we put out our room service request for coffee to be delivered to the room in the morning!
As you may have noticed, I have not posted any pics yet! That is because I haven’t taken any yet and did not take any until day 3. I have to say it was quite nice not lugging the camera with me since I do it quite a bit when I have the kids with me! One pic I wish I would have taken was the awesome watermelon carvings they had in the atrium that listed all of our ports of call. That was pretty cool looking!
We're thinking of booking the Oct. Hawaii cruise while we're onboard the Magic next month.
