Deemarch
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2003
- Messages
- 1,413
I promised myself that I'd actually do a trip report this time. It was our first Disney Cruise (4th cruise, other lines were Celebrity, Royal Caribbean & Norwegian) and it was, by far, the best!
We flew in to Orlando airport from Newark, NJ, the day before the cruise. That airport is a dream!! By the time we got to the luggage carousel, our bags were there and we were in our Budget rental car and on the Bee Line in 30 minutes!! We stayed at the Radisson "Resort at the Port". It was okay, got a good price of $118 +tax on the internet, but it's not Disney...Room-nice, resort property-nice, service-YUCK!! DH and I decided that we should have flown down on the same day as the cruise 'cause all we wanted to do was get on the ship! Guess I would have felt differently if our flight was delayed. We did eat at Grill's Seafood on the water, in sight of the cruise terminal and the food was very, very good!
Day 1 of the cruise - After reading of others that skipped breakfast and waited to eat onboard, we opted to get a quick bite at McDonald's (I can't remember the last time I ate there) and then dropped off our rental car. This was all within 1/2 mile of the hotel. Took Budget's shuttle to the ship...There was no waiting at all, unlike the lobby full of families waiting at the Radisson for their shuttle. We got to the terminal around 11:30 and walked right in to the first counter, there were no lines. We got handed our group number to board, #6. They began to call #'s just about noon and the time from #1 to #6 was about 20 to 30 minutes. Once onboard, we chose to eat at Beach Blanket Buffet, even though they were directing us to Parrot Cay. At 1pm we went to Wave Bands to make our reservations for Palo, because I wanted to wait to see what our dining rotation was so that we didn't miss any restaurants. No problem getting a reservation and not much more than a 5 minute wait in line. One thing that I would do differently next time, we ate in Palo the same night as the Pirate Party and missed all of the fun. Oh well. At 1:30 we went to our cabin, oohed and ahhed at the size, checked out the bed for comfort
and heard the bags being delivered outside the door. Got the first bag, unpacked and just as we finished that one, the next one was there. At 3pm we had a mini Disboard meet on deck 7 aft. What a great little area! Then back to the cabin for lifejackets and the drill. We hit the little bar area that they had set up near the stairs for our sailaway drinks and headed upstairs to deck 10. By the way, I loved the way they had the drinks setup...Lots of drinks made, all without alcohol, for the kids, and they'd add shots of rum or whatever, for the adults. Then we checked out the ship. Dinner was at 6pm in Parrot Cay and our tablemates were all quiet for the first 15 minutes or so, then we found out that they were all on their first cruise, ever, and all DVC members, like us. That was the end of quiet!!
We skipped the show the first night, the comedian/magician, and went to the Caddilac Bar to listen to the jazz piano player, Dan Vass. We met him on another cruiseline 2 years ago and we had a great time talking during his breaks and free time that he had during the day. Oh, and I discovered martinis!! All kinds of martinis!!!
To be continued.
We flew in to Orlando airport from Newark, NJ, the day before the cruise. That airport is a dream!! By the time we got to the luggage carousel, our bags were there and we were in our Budget rental car and on the Bee Line in 30 minutes!! We stayed at the Radisson "Resort at the Port". It was okay, got a good price of $118 +tax on the internet, but it's not Disney...Room-nice, resort property-nice, service-YUCK!! DH and I decided that we should have flown down on the same day as the cruise 'cause all we wanted to do was get on the ship! Guess I would have felt differently if our flight was delayed. We did eat at Grill's Seafood on the water, in sight of the cruise terminal and the food was very, very good!
Day 1 of the cruise - After reading of others that skipped breakfast and waited to eat onboard, we opted to get a quick bite at McDonald's (I can't remember the last time I ate there) and then dropped off our rental car. This was all within 1/2 mile of the hotel. Took Budget's shuttle to the ship...There was no waiting at all, unlike the lobby full of families waiting at the Radisson for their shuttle. We got to the terminal around 11:30 and walked right in to the first counter, there were no lines. We got handed our group number to board, #6. They began to call #'s just about noon and the time from #1 to #6 was about 20 to 30 minutes. Once onboard, we chose to eat at Beach Blanket Buffet, even though they were directing us to Parrot Cay. At 1pm we went to Wave Bands to make our reservations for Palo, because I wanted to wait to see what our dining rotation was so that we didn't miss any restaurants. No problem getting a reservation and not much more than a 5 minute wait in line. One thing that I would do differently next time, we ate in Palo the same night as the Pirate Party and missed all of the fun. Oh well. At 1:30 we went to our cabin, oohed and ahhed at the size, checked out the bed for comfort
and heard the bags being delivered outside the door. Got the first bag, unpacked and just as we finished that one, the next one was there. At 3pm we had a mini Disboard meet on deck 7 aft. What a great little area! Then back to the cabin for lifejackets and the drill. We hit the little bar area that they had set up near the stairs for our sailaway drinks and headed upstairs to deck 10. By the way, I loved the way they had the drinks setup...Lots of drinks made, all without alcohol, for the kids, and they'd add shots of rum or whatever, for the adults. Then we checked out the ship. Dinner was at 6pm in Parrot Cay and our tablemates were all quiet for the first 15 minutes or so, then we found out that they were all on their first cruise, ever, and all DVC members, like us. That was the end of quiet!!We skipped the show the first night, the comedian/magician, and went to the Caddilac Bar to listen to the jazz piano player, Dan Vass. We met him on another cruiseline 2 years ago and we had a great time talking during his breaks and free time that he had during the day. Oh, and I discovered martinis!! All kinds of martinis!!!
To be continued.
!!!
