pdarrah
It's nice to know you are real, too
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2004
- Messages
- 1,968
This is a VERY LONG report - I typed it all in Word and spell checked it and am now going to break it into 5 sections and post it here.
We traveled as a family of 3: Me, DH and DS5. We are from the Chicago area.
Friday, October 22nd: Planes, cars and gators.
We decided when we chose to go on a cruise that we wanted to fly in the day before it sailed. Living near Chicago, we know way too much about travel delays! Since we used the last of our frequent flyer miles for this trip, we had to take whatever flights were available. This means we had a 6:55am flight out of Chicago and needed to leave home at 4:30am. Although we had attempted packing most of our clothes the weekend before, the last minute stuff took a lot longer than we expected. Our son got about 9 hours of sleep, but I only had 5 hours and my DH only had 3! We had planned to bring 2 suitcases, 1 garment bag and 1 carry-on. By the time we were done, we had added a duffle bag for the snorkel equipment and my sons kid size rolling bag as a carry-on (Yes, Mommy I promise to pull it myself if you let me bring it Ha!) Thankfully, everything except the duffle has wheels and they can all piggy-back with each other.
The advantage to our early morning flight was that we arrived in Orlando at 10:30am. We rented a car 1-way from Orlando to Cape Canaveral this gave us flexibility on Friday to do whatever we wanted and was MUCH cheaper than Disney transfers. Our full size Taurus cost us just over $40 for the 1-day rental from Budget.
We had arranged to meet my uncle for a couple of hours (he lives an hour or so from Orlando). Since none of us had ever been to Gatorland, we decided to meet there. By 11:45am we were heading in to see the gators! Gatorland is a pretty low-key attraction and was actually quite good for our purposes. The grown-ups wandered around chatting and DS5 ran around looking at gators and feeding them hotdogs. After a couple of hours, we headed out. We stopped and picked up a couple of bottles of wine and then drove over to Cape Canaveral. It was an easy drive and we were there before 4:00pm. Shirley at The Perfect Gift had agreed to let me send a box there (more about this later) so we stopped by to pick it up. She is just as nice and helpful in person as she is on line! Then we checked into the Radison, dropped off the luggage and DH took the rental car over to Budget. While he was gone, DS and I explored the hotel (actually, since DS was leading all we explored was the pool area.) DH was back really soon it is only a short walk back from Budget and we went to the small Greek, family restaurant that is next door to the Radison. The food was quite good and the service was very friendly. When we returned to the Radison, DS really wanted to swim so we took him over and let him play in the kids wading pool. Soon it started raining, so we went back to the room. After a little re-organizing of the luggage (so our day-bag for the cruise would have the right stuff) we all got to sleep early. It was really nice being there and getting a solid night sleep before the cruise.
Saturday, October 23rd We set sail!
Finally, its cruise day! We got up early enough to go back to the family restaurant from the evening before and have a nice breakfast. Then we went back to the Radison and dragged our bags up to the front lobby. We had signed up for the 10:00am shuttle in June and when we checked in Friday night, they told us to be there 15 minutes early. Right at 9:45am we arrived in front of the hotel and discovered that they had 2 LARGE wedding parties that were also scheduled for the 10:00am shuttle. Although we were first on their list (having signed up before anyone else), they didnt actually get us on a shuttle until 10:30am. This wasnt the end of the world or anything, but it was a little annoying. Thankfully, DS5 was well rested, well fed and in a good mood. He waited very patiently and was so well behaved that some of the others that were waiting with us made a point of telling him how good he was being. For some reason, this type of compliment seems to mean more to him from strangers than from mommy and daddy!
Once we were on the shuttle, we headed off to the port. There were several others on the shuttle that were sailing on other cruises. As we pulled up to the port, everyone commented on how much prettier the Magic was than their ships
. One gentleman was complaining to his wife why cant we go on that one? We dropped everyone else off first and then went to the parking lot for the Magic. There is a large white tent where they take the luggage. We hadnt figured out how to attach the luggage tag to our box (the one we picked up from Shirley) and the baggage guy suggested we take it over to the drop-off area at the terminal where they would have some tape. We walked across to the terminal and DH took it over to the baggage guys. While he was away, we had our first encounter with DIS folks from our meet thread we ran into the Disney Dudettes (One, Two and Three). This was particularly fun since I had found out right before leaving home that DudetteOne and I have a mutual friend so I was able to surprise her with that information! DH came back after getting rid of the box and we headed into the terminal. The security guys insisted that their scanners would not fog film (even 800 speed) and that it ALL must go through. Hopefully, that is true
I havent developed the underwater cameras yet 
They stop you at the top of the escalator to check that your docs are filled out. Since we had done that, we just needed to stop and pull out the pages that we needed, then we could get in line and check in. The terminal wasnt really crowded yet (we heard later that they didnt open the parking lot to cars until after 10:30am) so there wasnt any wait and we were quickly finished. We got into the boarding line and left DH there to hold our place while DS and I explored I think it was about 11:00am. On our way out to look at the Magic, we ran into some more DIS folks. DS was impressed with the size of the ship and also liked looking at the model in the middle of the terminal. Then he settled down to watch cartoons. Back in the line, DH was chatting with the folks in front of us and discovered that one of them was a lurker on our DIS meet thread. The time passed quickly and just before noon, they began boarding the ship.
We did stop and let them take our embarkation photo it was OK, but we didnt much like the background. When we boarded, they announced our name (we hyphenated for the occasion since DH and I have different last names) and a crew member offered to help direct us. She pointed us on our way to Rockin Bar D and we got into line for Palo reservations. (I am sorry to say this was the only time we were in Rockin Bar D, we just didnt have enough time to do everything.) Since we were among the first hundred or so on board, we had no trouble getting our choice for dinner day and time. We then moved on to the second line and made arrangements for tea for 4 (2 DIS friends live less than 10 miles from us and we had agreed to have tea together if we could arrange it we also linked our reservations for dining.) I also tried to get a second dinner at Palo for all 4 of us they put us on the wait list, but it did not work out.
After Palo reservations, we stopped by guest services and got a tea with wendy (free) ticket for DS5 and a wine tasting ticket ($12) for DH. Then we were done with the work and we went up to Topsiders to have lunch. It was such a lovely, sunny day that we wanted to be outside. We were fortunate and found a table in the shade at the aft of the ship. Lunch was delicious and as we were finishing, Pluto came by and DS5 gave him a big hug and we got a photo. (After 5.5 years of going to DisneyWorld, DS finally realized that the characters arent real L He felt a leg inside there when he hugged Pluto! It didnt seem to upset him too much, so maybe he already had suspicions ). After lunch, we went and signed up DS for the kid club he had been looking forward to this for months! By the time we finished it was 1:30, so we went to check out our room Deck 2, Category 9 (outside stateroom), Rm 2548.
I had arranged with Shirley at The Perfect Gift to send a gift to my DH and DS. DH knew about the stuff for DS, but he didnt know some of it would be for him. He celebrated his 38th birthday on board, so I sent him a birthday balloon, some diet coke (to have in the room), candy and a beach towel. DS got beach toys and candy. They both enjoyed the surprise. DS wanted to swim after that, so we put him in his suit and headed up to the Mickey pool. It wasnt empty, but it wasnt too crowded either. DS loved the slide and went up the stairs and down the slide at least 6 times. DH bought a sail-away drink and relaxed. I just tried to keep an eye on DS and try to grasp the idea that we were actually there and finally going on this cruise!
Around 3:00pm, we went back to our room (about ½ our bags had arrived) and got DS dried off and ready for the safety drill. I was concerned that it might scare him (he might start worrying that the ship would sink or something), but he seemed to enjoy it. Our muster station was at the Walt Disney Theater, so it was comfortable and air-conditioned. As soon as the drill was over, we hurried back to the room, dropped off the vests and headed right up to deck 10 for our DIS meet and the sail-away party. I had made nametags for everyone on our thread (60 total including all the kids) and about 50 showed up for the meet. We had a great time and DS made friends with one of the girls (Ill just call her C. since I dont want to use names in case her parents would dislike it.) who is 6 years old. My DS seems to always make friends with older women J! We stayed up on deck 10 for quite a while watching the ship sail out and chatting with many of the DISers we had just met.
When we finally headed back down to our room, the rest of the luggage had arrived and we were able to unpack and change into our clothes for the evening. DS wanted to go to the club as soon as it opened, so we ordered chicken tenders from room service for him. I know it sounds crazy to rave about chicken tenders, but they were fantastic probably the best weve ever had. The club opened at 7:00pm, so we had him there right then. His friend, C was in line in front of us, so they both happily left their parents and went on in.
The first evening had very rough seas. I had caught a quick news report at the hotel Friday night where they said it wouldnt be a good weekend for the fishermen, but the surfers would be really happy. For some reason, that hadnt really clicked with me until we were underway and the ship was really rocking! I have never been motion sick, but I was feeling it that night. DH and I both took Bonine and just rested for a while before heading to dinner at 8:30pm. I was able to eat and by the end of dinner was feeling pretty good. DH was a little green and only ate some of his food. We had the PLAPLAP rotation, so we dined that first evening at Parrot Cay. All of our meals were enjoyable and our server Plamen (from Bulgaria) and assistant server Fernando (from Chile) were very good. They provided excellent service without being too intrusive. The DIS friends that we dined with were a lot of fun and most evenings we werent leaving the dining room until 10:15 or 10:30pm because we were having so much fun! Since we spread our meals out for so long, I never felt overfull and didnt mind eating late. We chose late seating because we didnt want to feel rushed to get to early seating. Also, we usually eat around 6:30pm or 7:00pm central time which would be 7:30 or 8:00 eastern time. Lastly, we didnt expect our DS to eat with us and he didnt (he only came to one dinner and he left before desert.) and we thought late seating might be a little quieter and have fewer kids. I dont know if that is the case or not, but there werent too many kids near us and the dining room wasnt as noisy as I had expected. We could have been through dinner quicker. If we had tried we could probably have finished by 9:30 or 9:45, but we enjoyed taking our time and talking with our friends. I think that is another advantage of late seating, we wouldnt have been able to do that if they needed us out to set up for the next seating.
Since DH was still feeling green from the high seas, we picked up DS5 from the kid club and headed back to the room after dinner. I finished the last bit of unpacking, read Sundays personal navigator and just puttered around for a while.
-------------
Continued as Part 2
Pamela
We traveled as a family of 3: Me, DH and DS5. We are from the Chicago area.
Friday, October 22nd: Planes, cars and gators.
We decided when we chose to go on a cruise that we wanted to fly in the day before it sailed. Living near Chicago, we know way too much about travel delays! Since we used the last of our frequent flyer miles for this trip, we had to take whatever flights were available. This means we had a 6:55am flight out of Chicago and needed to leave home at 4:30am. Although we had attempted packing most of our clothes the weekend before, the last minute stuff took a lot longer than we expected. Our son got about 9 hours of sleep, but I only had 5 hours and my DH only had 3! We had planned to bring 2 suitcases, 1 garment bag and 1 carry-on. By the time we were done, we had added a duffle bag for the snorkel equipment and my sons kid size rolling bag as a carry-on (Yes, Mommy I promise to pull it myself if you let me bring it Ha!) Thankfully, everything except the duffle has wheels and they can all piggy-back with each other.
The advantage to our early morning flight was that we arrived in Orlando at 10:30am. We rented a car 1-way from Orlando to Cape Canaveral this gave us flexibility on Friday to do whatever we wanted and was MUCH cheaper than Disney transfers. Our full size Taurus cost us just over $40 for the 1-day rental from Budget.
We had arranged to meet my uncle for a couple of hours (he lives an hour or so from Orlando). Since none of us had ever been to Gatorland, we decided to meet there. By 11:45am we were heading in to see the gators! Gatorland is a pretty low-key attraction and was actually quite good for our purposes. The grown-ups wandered around chatting and DS5 ran around looking at gators and feeding them hotdogs. After a couple of hours, we headed out. We stopped and picked up a couple of bottles of wine and then drove over to Cape Canaveral. It was an easy drive and we were there before 4:00pm. Shirley at The Perfect Gift had agreed to let me send a box there (more about this later) so we stopped by to pick it up. She is just as nice and helpful in person as she is on line! Then we checked into the Radison, dropped off the luggage and DH took the rental car over to Budget. While he was gone, DS and I explored the hotel (actually, since DS was leading all we explored was the pool area.) DH was back really soon it is only a short walk back from Budget and we went to the small Greek, family restaurant that is next door to the Radison. The food was quite good and the service was very friendly. When we returned to the Radison, DS really wanted to swim so we took him over and let him play in the kids wading pool. Soon it started raining, so we went back to the room. After a little re-organizing of the luggage (so our day-bag for the cruise would have the right stuff) we all got to sleep early. It was really nice being there and getting a solid night sleep before the cruise.
Saturday, October 23rd We set sail!
Finally, its cruise day! We got up early enough to go back to the family restaurant from the evening before and have a nice breakfast. Then we went back to the Radison and dragged our bags up to the front lobby. We had signed up for the 10:00am shuttle in June and when we checked in Friday night, they told us to be there 15 minutes early. Right at 9:45am we arrived in front of the hotel and discovered that they had 2 LARGE wedding parties that were also scheduled for the 10:00am shuttle. Although we were first on their list (having signed up before anyone else), they didnt actually get us on a shuttle until 10:30am. This wasnt the end of the world or anything, but it was a little annoying. Thankfully, DS5 was well rested, well fed and in a good mood. He waited very patiently and was so well behaved that some of the others that were waiting with us made a point of telling him how good he was being. For some reason, this type of compliment seems to mean more to him from strangers than from mommy and daddy!
Once we were on the shuttle, we headed off to the port. There were several others on the shuttle that were sailing on other cruises. As we pulled up to the port, everyone commented on how much prettier the Magic was than their ships
. One gentleman was complaining to his wife why cant we go on that one? We dropped everyone else off first and then went to the parking lot for the Magic. There is a large white tent where they take the luggage. We hadnt figured out how to attach the luggage tag to our box (the one we picked up from Shirley) and the baggage guy suggested we take it over to the drop-off area at the terminal where they would have some tape. We walked across to the terminal and DH took it over to the baggage guys. While he was away, we had our first encounter with DIS folks from our meet thread we ran into the Disney Dudettes (One, Two and Three). This was particularly fun since I had found out right before leaving home that DudetteOne and I have a mutual friend so I was able to surprise her with that information! DH came back after getting rid of the box and we headed into the terminal. The security guys insisted that their scanners would not fog film (even 800 speed) and that it ALL must go through. Hopefully, that is true
I havent developed the underwater cameras yet They stop you at the top of the escalator to check that your docs are filled out. Since we had done that, we just needed to stop and pull out the pages that we needed, then we could get in line and check in. The terminal wasnt really crowded yet (we heard later that they didnt open the parking lot to cars until after 10:30am) so there wasnt any wait and we were quickly finished. We got into the boarding line and left DH there to hold our place while DS and I explored I think it was about 11:00am. On our way out to look at the Magic, we ran into some more DIS folks. DS was impressed with the size of the ship and also liked looking at the model in the middle of the terminal. Then he settled down to watch cartoons. Back in the line, DH was chatting with the folks in front of us and discovered that one of them was a lurker on our DIS meet thread. The time passed quickly and just before noon, they began boarding the ship.We did stop and let them take our embarkation photo it was OK, but we didnt much like the background. When we boarded, they announced our name (we hyphenated for the occasion since DH and I have different last names) and a crew member offered to help direct us. She pointed us on our way to Rockin Bar D and we got into line for Palo reservations. (I am sorry to say this was the only time we were in Rockin Bar D, we just didnt have enough time to do everything.) Since we were among the first hundred or so on board, we had no trouble getting our choice for dinner day and time. We then moved on to the second line and made arrangements for tea for 4 (2 DIS friends live less than 10 miles from us and we had agreed to have tea together if we could arrange it we also linked our reservations for dining.) I also tried to get a second dinner at Palo for all 4 of us they put us on the wait list, but it did not work out.
After Palo reservations, we stopped by guest services and got a tea with wendy (free) ticket for DS5 and a wine tasting ticket ($12) for DH. Then we were done with the work and we went up to Topsiders to have lunch. It was such a lovely, sunny day that we wanted to be outside. We were fortunate and found a table in the shade at the aft of the ship. Lunch was delicious and as we were finishing, Pluto came by and DS5 gave him a big hug and we got a photo. (After 5.5 years of going to DisneyWorld, DS finally realized that the characters arent real L He felt a leg inside there when he hugged Pluto! It didnt seem to upset him too much, so maybe he already had suspicions ). After lunch, we went and signed up DS for the kid club he had been looking forward to this for months! By the time we finished it was 1:30, so we went to check out our room Deck 2, Category 9 (outside stateroom), Rm 2548.
I had arranged with Shirley at The Perfect Gift to send a gift to my DH and DS. DH knew about the stuff for DS, but he didnt know some of it would be for him. He celebrated his 38th birthday on board, so I sent him a birthday balloon, some diet coke (to have in the room), candy and a beach towel. DS got beach toys and candy. They both enjoyed the surprise. DS wanted to swim after that, so we put him in his suit and headed up to the Mickey pool. It wasnt empty, but it wasnt too crowded either. DS loved the slide and went up the stairs and down the slide at least 6 times. DH bought a sail-away drink and relaxed. I just tried to keep an eye on DS and try to grasp the idea that we were actually there and finally going on this cruise!
Around 3:00pm, we went back to our room (about ½ our bags had arrived) and got DS dried off and ready for the safety drill. I was concerned that it might scare him (he might start worrying that the ship would sink or something), but he seemed to enjoy it. Our muster station was at the Walt Disney Theater, so it was comfortable and air-conditioned. As soon as the drill was over, we hurried back to the room, dropped off the vests and headed right up to deck 10 for our DIS meet and the sail-away party. I had made nametags for everyone on our thread (60 total including all the kids) and about 50 showed up for the meet. We had a great time and DS made friends with one of the girls (Ill just call her C. since I dont want to use names in case her parents would dislike it.) who is 6 years old. My DS seems to always make friends with older women J! We stayed up on deck 10 for quite a while watching the ship sail out and chatting with many of the DISers we had just met.
When we finally headed back down to our room, the rest of the luggage had arrived and we were able to unpack and change into our clothes for the evening. DS wanted to go to the club as soon as it opened, so we ordered chicken tenders from room service for him. I know it sounds crazy to rave about chicken tenders, but they were fantastic probably the best weve ever had. The club opened at 7:00pm, so we had him there right then. His friend, C was in line in front of us, so they both happily left their parents and went on in.
The first evening had very rough seas. I had caught a quick news report at the hotel Friday night where they said it wouldnt be a good weekend for the fishermen, but the surfers would be really happy. For some reason, that hadnt really clicked with me until we were underway and the ship was really rocking! I have never been motion sick, but I was feeling it that night. DH and I both took Bonine and just rested for a while before heading to dinner at 8:30pm. I was able to eat and by the end of dinner was feeling pretty good. DH was a little green and only ate some of his food. We had the PLAPLAP rotation, so we dined that first evening at Parrot Cay. All of our meals were enjoyable and our server Plamen (from Bulgaria) and assistant server Fernando (from Chile) were very good. They provided excellent service without being too intrusive. The DIS friends that we dined with were a lot of fun and most evenings we werent leaving the dining room until 10:15 or 10:30pm because we were having so much fun! Since we spread our meals out for so long, I never felt overfull and didnt mind eating late. We chose late seating because we didnt want to feel rushed to get to early seating. Also, we usually eat around 6:30pm or 7:00pm central time which would be 7:30 or 8:00 eastern time. Lastly, we didnt expect our DS to eat with us and he didnt (he only came to one dinner and he left before desert.) and we thought late seating might be a little quieter and have fewer kids. I dont know if that is the case or not, but there werent too many kids near us and the dining room wasnt as noisy as I had expected. We could have been through dinner quicker. If we had tried we could probably have finished by 9:30 or 9:45, but we enjoyed taking our time and talking with our friends. I think that is another advantage of late seating, we wouldnt have been able to do that if they needed us out to set up for the next seating.
Since DH was still feeling green from the high seas, we picked up DS5 from the kid club and headed back to the room after dinner. I finished the last bit of unpacking, read Sundays personal navigator and just puttered around for a while.
-------------
Continued as Part 2
Pamela
