Lisa F
is a very wise woman
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2000
- Messages
- 11,129
There is precious little information about New Year's on DCL on these boards so we will be posting a full trip report later, but here are some highlights:
Stateroom: We stayed in our first "inside" stateroom, cat 11. We have had at cat 8 twice and a cat 6 once before so I was a little nervous about whether I'd be disappointed. We LOVED our room. I enjoyed the verandah but honestly for the price difference vs. a cat 11, I don't think I enjoyed it THAT much more. Our stateroom was 6003 (we love it at the front of the ship where most of our time is spent anyway) and it was one of the "sideways" cat 11's and honestly it felt much more spacious than our previous cat 6 and cat 8's because of the layout. It was just DH and I and we had no problem with the single bath, but the bath is probably about the size as the toilet/sink stall of the split bath except with a tub where the wall would be. It's not a larger bath by any means but it was fine for us.
Special stuff DCL did for NYE: The NYE celebration was AWESOME and we felt totally SPOILED on this cruise. We got some goodies in the stateroom such as a LE 2000 lithograph (it's really cool, I have a pic of it and will post it later) on NYE and then on NYD we were given a small tray of chocolates with a chocolate ship that said "Happy New Year" imprinted on a piece of white chocolate. By the third night we were a little disappointed that the only goody was a thank you from our Palo server (just kidding, I can honestly say that everything on this cruise exceeded our expectations, which is pretty hard to do given how high our expectations are based on previous DCL experiences!)
I will save more details about the NYE celebration itself for the trip report with pictures, but they did pass out free champagne for everyone to toast, plus streamers to throw and it was SO much fun counting down with the ship. From 12-1AM on NYE they had a seafood buffet (and we were actually hungry by then!) that was awesome, and sounds like the same thing they had on the wonder (already peeled jumbo shrimp, sushi, those yummy split crab legs, conch fritters, plus a dessert station, it was basically a full meal that they offered, it was in Parrot Cay). Pretty much the same items were on the seafood buffet for lunch the next day. Additionally, Palo had lobster tails as one of their specials (while we are on food) which I don't remember them ever having on my "off season" cruises. In fact, this cruise seemed to have twice as much food as before, and we thought there was a lot of food BEFORE!
The dress: Everyone always seems to be really concerned about what everyone else is wearing so I figured I'd comment. DH looked gorgeous in his tux, but that's not what you all wanted to know. Most people dressed VERY well on this cruise. There were lots of tuxedos on NYE and one gentleman even wore a top hat and tails! (He won our personal "best dressed" contest). I didn't see anyone who didn't make at least an effort at cleaning up and wearing a buttondown shirt and slacks but I would say 90% of the men wore either a suit or a tuxedo, with at least 1/3 of those in a tux. Many men wore their tuxedo on subsequent evenings as well (dh had brought a sportcoat, slacks and tie so he wore that for Palo and Triton). Most of the women wore evening dresses as well, though I didn't see any over the top gowns (except for the princesses fo course). Overall I was surprised and pleased that everyone got into the spirit of NYE and REALLY dressed to the nines, it was awesome to see (I don't normally really care what other people wear but it was still nice to see everyone all dressed up).
The weather: We got lucky as the weather was AMAZING. Everyone kept saying how bad the weather had been through much of december, so we felt VERY lucky. Castaway Cay was amazing as usual and I just wanted to HIGHLY recommend the Seahorse Snorkel Excursion. It was the highlight of our trip! (more details forthcoming in trip report). We have gone on cruises 3 years in a row this time of year (last two years was the cruise right AFTER the holiday cruise) and this was definately the best weather yet.
Our overall assessment was that it was WORTH the extra cost of traveling on a holiday. The christmas decorations were still up, DCL left us feeling even MORE spoiled than usual and we booked the 3 day for NYE next year (can't swing a 7 day vacation timewise, boohoo
), we had THAT GOOD a time on this cruise.
We booked it fairly last minute (in august) after realizing that we could do a 4 day cruise for about 30 points more than our holiday weekend 1 bedroom at the BWV was going to cost, so we went for it and we are glad that we did after hearing people gripe about how packed the parks were. The ship was, of course, full but it never felt overcrowded, it just felt festive and wonderful with lots of smiling faces everywhere!
Like I said about 8 times, I'll be posting a full trip report as soon as I get a round tuit (anyone have an extra to send me?) with lots more details but I wanted to post those highlights.
Lisa
Stateroom: We stayed in our first "inside" stateroom, cat 11. We have had at cat 8 twice and a cat 6 once before so I was a little nervous about whether I'd be disappointed. We LOVED our room. I enjoyed the verandah but honestly for the price difference vs. a cat 11, I don't think I enjoyed it THAT much more. Our stateroom was 6003 (we love it at the front of the ship where most of our time is spent anyway) and it was one of the "sideways" cat 11's and honestly it felt much more spacious than our previous cat 6 and cat 8's because of the layout. It was just DH and I and we had no problem with the single bath, but the bath is probably about the size as the toilet/sink stall of the split bath except with a tub where the wall would be. It's not a larger bath by any means but it was fine for us.
Special stuff DCL did for NYE: The NYE celebration was AWESOME and we felt totally SPOILED on this cruise. We got some goodies in the stateroom such as a LE 2000 lithograph (it's really cool, I have a pic of it and will post it later) on NYE and then on NYD we were given a small tray of chocolates with a chocolate ship that said "Happy New Year" imprinted on a piece of white chocolate. By the third night we were a little disappointed that the only goody was a thank you from our Palo server (just kidding, I can honestly say that everything on this cruise exceeded our expectations, which is pretty hard to do given how high our expectations are based on previous DCL experiences!)
I will save more details about the NYE celebration itself for the trip report with pictures, but they did pass out free champagne for everyone to toast, plus streamers to throw and it was SO much fun counting down with the ship. From 12-1AM on NYE they had a seafood buffet (and we were actually hungry by then!) that was awesome, and sounds like the same thing they had on the wonder (already peeled jumbo shrimp, sushi, those yummy split crab legs, conch fritters, plus a dessert station, it was basically a full meal that they offered, it was in Parrot Cay). Pretty much the same items were on the seafood buffet for lunch the next day. Additionally, Palo had lobster tails as one of their specials (while we are on food) which I don't remember them ever having on my "off season" cruises. In fact, this cruise seemed to have twice as much food as before, and we thought there was a lot of food BEFORE!
The dress: Everyone always seems to be really concerned about what everyone else is wearing so I figured I'd comment. DH looked gorgeous in his tux, but that's not what you all wanted to know. Most people dressed VERY well on this cruise. There were lots of tuxedos on NYE and one gentleman even wore a top hat and tails! (He won our personal "best dressed" contest). I didn't see anyone who didn't make at least an effort at cleaning up and wearing a buttondown shirt and slacks but I would say 90% of the men wore either a suit or a tuxedo, with at least 1/3 of those in a tux. Many men wore their tuxedo on subsequent evenings as well (dh had brought a sportcoat, slacks and tie so he wore that for Palo and Triton). Most of the women wore evening dresses as well, though I didn't see any over the top gowns (except for the princesses fo course). Overall I was surprised and pleased that everyone got into the spirit of NYE and REALLY dressed to the nines, it was awesome to see (I don't normally really care what other people wear but it was still nice to see everyone all dressed up).
The weather: We got lucky as the weather was AMAZING. Everyone kept saying how bad the weather had been through much of december, so we felt VERY lucky. Castaway Cay was amazing as usual and I just wanted to HIGHLY recommend the Seahorse Snorkel Excursion. It was the highlight of our trip! (more details forthcoming in trip report). We have gone on cruises 3 years in a row this time of year (last two years was the cruise right AFTER the holiday cruise) and this was definately the best weather yet.
Our overall assessment was that it was WORTH the extra cost of traveling on a holiday. The christmas decorations were still up, DCL left us feeling even MORE spoiled than usual and we booked the 3 day for NYE next year (can't swing a 7 day vacation timewise, boohoo
), we had THAT GOOD a time on this cruise. We booked it fairly last minute (in august) after realizing that we could do a 4 day cruise for about 30 points more than our holiday weekend 1 bedroom at the BWV was going to cost, so we went for it and we are glad that we did after hearing people gripe about how packed the parks were. The ship was, of course, full but it never felt overcrowded, it just felt festive and wonderful with lots of smiling faces everywhere!
Like I said about 8 times, I'll be posting a full trip report as soon as I get a round tuit (anyone have an extra to send me?) with lots more details but I wanted to post those highlights.
Lisa
Some of us girls went up too and did a Shania Twain song. I can't wait to go on another cruise! I booked one for 2005.
