October 15, 2005

tubaman

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 25, 2005
I'm finally going to write a TR for my October Eastern Caribbean DCL Cruise.


Warning: This TR is very random and all over the place. Just try to follow along. I would like to appologize in advance for grammatical and spelling errors.​


Day 1: The first day.
Where to start...I guess I'll just start with with waking up, not that I got much sleep, I was so excited!!!

After waking up, on Oct. 15, the day of the cruise, I finished packing and loaded my stuff in the car. When then drove to Yeager airport, where everybody knows your name. Seriously, if your flight is ready, they'll use the intercom to call you to the gate, instead of yelling across the room.

I was suprised about the fact that our flight was full. I figured we would be like the only people going to Atlanta at like 6 AM. We weren't however. While sitting in the terminal, or small room with old chairs, I turned to my sister and said "Imagine being on 'Lost' with these people." We both were laughing pretty hard. My mom asked "What are you to laughing about?" I just said I'll tell you later, and she thought it was pretty funny. Most the people couldn't have survived five minutes to say the least. They were a mostly elderly croud.

Once we got on the plane, we prepared for take off. The pilot then said "Well, visibility is about 600 ft. this morning so were are going to go for the shortest take off posible." I just thought that was funny so it added to the TR.

Anyways, we got up in the air and while flying over Charelston, it was just absoulutly amazing. A city covered in fog with all the lights on is beautiful. It just looked so cool. I was going to take a picture, but i wasn't sure if that was allowed to do that so I didn't. I regret that decision.

Once we got to Atlanta, the pilot said "I'd like to welcome everyone to Atlanta 5 minutes ahead of schedule." He put emphases on the "ahead of schedule." We were proud of our pilot. LOL. Keep in mind that the sun was just now coming up, and I was like thinking to myself "Holy crap, it's early."

After making a mad dash across the airport, we discovered that they were already checking in our flight like half an hour early. So we made a quick dash to the restroom, and got onboard. The in-flight movie was some stupid thing about basketball, boring unless its about WVU basketball. So my sister and I cheated out the airline and used our own headphones, even though that isn't illegal, as far as I know. We listend to our iPod's and the radio on the plane, which if I didn't have my headphones with me, almost would have been worth $2.00. They actually had some good stations on there. I was suprised.

I should probably hurry up this TR a bit, but I'm not going to.

We got to Orlando, on time, not "ahead of schedule," I liked the other pilot better. So we got on that cool tram thing in the airport and went to the DCL thingy. Well, aparently the ship wasn't ready yet, this was the first cruise after the drydock. So we got to experience the Orlando airport at its finest. With a bunch of crying kids wanting to see the mouse They took us to a convention room in that hotel in the airport, and put a movie, The Incredibles, on a big projector. They also had light snacks and drinks. The irony of the light snacks and drinks was that it was the exact same thing on the plane, granola bars, which none of us, myself, grandmother, mom, dad, and sister, were big fans of. So we went and go Micky D's instead. It held us over until we got to get on the bus to the ship.

By this point, we are excited. And then, we get a visual on the ship. So I took aim, and fired, I mean got more excited. I'm still in San Andreas (the most violent, and badly tasteful video game ever.) mode from going to a friend's party. LOL.

Well we waited some more in the DCL terminal, and went thourgh a bunch of security. Luckily, it was nice and cool in the terminal. It felt good and I got to watch old Disney, nautical themed cartoons, which really kept me and the crying kids entertained. LOL. My mom, the queen of organization and planning went and got all of our stuff in order so we could get on the boat. And we did. As we entered the ship, they asked me our families name, since I was in front of everyone else, I told them our name and we borded the ship. They really make you feel welcome.

Then we asked for directions to our stateroom, and we got them. The suspense is building eh?

As we entered the room, my mother and farther were suprised by the size of the room. It was bigger than they expected. They had gone on a cruise 20 years ago, and my grandmother went on a very nice Celeberty Cruise a couple years ago. I knew like exactly what the room would be like, because I do my research.

The room was great, along with our cabin cleaner person, Albert. I think he wen't out of his way to make our stay great. But that's what Disney does. Back to the trip report. The room was great, along with the view, well once we got out of the harbor. All we could see while in the harbor was an old ship yard, with rusty boats, and some military base, with a submarine docked in it. It was kinda cool, because you don't see a submarine everday. My dad and I enjoyed that, cause the had the thing blocked off with a gate, so we wondered what they were hiding. It was cool for guys who read Tom Clancy books (my dad), and people who watch Discovery and History channel 24/7(me).

It was almost time for the lifeboat drill so we put on our best vest and headed outside. Some of you will notice that I made a Titanic refrence in the last sentence. I'll admit, the drill was interesting, because you wonder, "What if..." Yea.

After the drill, we went to deck 9, to meet up with our good friends and former preacher family. It was great to see them, since we hadn't seen them in a few months. They are really good friend's of ours. And my partner in comedy/crime, my good friend Shaffer. We hung out with them for a while and caught up on what's going on.

I then went to discover everything aboard and familerize my self with it. I found the secret Deck 7 aft veranda which is wonderful, and never croweded. I found my mom and showed her it, which she had read about it, and we both were very pleased with our find. My grandmother came out and we took some pictures along with watching the clouds make some interesting shapes. My personal favorite was the tugboat shaped cloud. It was very neat looking. My other favorite cloud we saw looked like Jeanie from Aladin. It was fun.

It was about time for dinner so we headed in and got ready for dinner. We accidently got put on the wrong rotation, which we were some what upset about but it wasn't that bad. We got put on Animators Palot, Parrot Cay, Lumiere's, Animators, Parrot, Lumiere's, and Animators. Our table was 21, which wasn't that great. In Animators Palot, the first night, there was a sewer gas smell. It eventualy went away, but, still. The show was good, yet not my favorite. After dinner, we just explored.

Day 2: A day at sea
Now for the first full day at sea. The night before, we had planned out our breakfast menu, and put it on the door. It came right on time, and I enjoyed my 100% Columbian Coffee. It was good. We sat on the veranda and enjoyed everything.

What to do now, we have a whole ship to explore? And that's what we did. I did some reading for school (some, not a lot), among other things. It was a wonderful day at sea to get to know the Disney Magic. We decided to go to the matinee show instead of going to the regular one, it gave us time to do other things, and since tonight was formal night, we had more time to get ready, this workred out better. The show, although I can't remember its name, was wonderful. For future refrence, I enjoyed all the shows, but my favorite was The Golden Mickey's.

Dinner was good, and our servers were okay. I prefered our assistant server (Ionella) to our actual server (Evan) because she was nicer than he was. I really enjoyed formal night because I got to wear my favorite suit, and my dad and I got a picture of us in our sunglasses. We look like secret service agents. It was fun.

Day 3: Another day at sea.
Now for day three...similar to the first day, but I did go to the teen club to see what it was like and to meet up with my friend. I really didn't talk to many people at the club, they weren't my kind of people. So yea. Dinner was at Lumiere's and it was great. I really enjoyed it, and I tried snail for the first time. It actually was good, but that's enough snail for me. Also during the night, we passed by one of the islands that we would later stop at, St. Thomas. It was kinda weird because you couldn't see much, except for the lights on the island. But the crew managed to steer clear of it and we avoided sinking. LOL.

Later this evening, there was a pool party for the teens only, which I had my heart set on attending. I was rather dissapointed because there was too much structure. I thought we would just be swimming and hanging out. They had a planned out "H20 Splashdown" for the entire evening. I got out of the pool and went over to sit in the hot tub. Eventtually I just got feed up with what all the other teens were talking about and left. My friend, Shaffer, stayed for the entire party, and said it lasted about 15 minutes longer, and ended in a water fight. Keep in mind that the stuff that I made me leave, happend after the crew members left and the party was over. That was the main reason why I didn't return to the teen club, the people, and too much structure and planning. Disney had every minute planned out. I considered cancelling the "Wild Side" excursion because I knew that mostly the same teens would be participating. I didn't cancel however because I knew I would have people I knew there.

Day 4: St. Marteen/St. Martin (Depending on what side of the island your on.)
At around 6 something AM, my mother came in to wake me up and tell me that we are coming in to port. So I came out to watch the Pilot Boat pull up beside our ship. It was interesting watching all the reactions on other peoples faces, while leaning out off there veranda, when they relize someone is getting off the little boat and on to the Magic. Everyone was like "Is someone getting on to our boat? What are they doing?" It was fun. I had to get ready to go on my excursion. I, along with a couple members of our friends onboard, were taking the Loterie Farm Eco Hike and Tour, while the rest of the group was going on the Butterfly Farm Tour. I left for my excursion, and the other people left for theirs. I found it rather funny that the bus I rode to my excursion was shorter than the rest. My friend Shaffer and I had a good laugh about that. It was funny because when we got there, the owner of the farm/tour guide said to the driver many times to not park in the grass. What did our driver do, he parked in the grass. The tour was great and I learned on vacation. I really enjoyed the tour guide and the food they served after the tour was GREAT! I highly recomend this excursion. Everyone else said the butterfly farm was enjoyable and they got some shopping done. My dad got the fake Rolex's he always wanted. The watches were actually nice watches, they just don't keep time. We had a good laugh about that, too. I think this evening was the Pirates in the Caribbean night, and that was a lot of fun. It, in my opinion was the best deck party of them all. After the party, they played POTC on the new big screen. My grandmother had never seen it before and stayed up until the movie was over, and loved it. I went to bed about half way through because I was tired and needed sleep.

Day 5: St. Thomas
This was a fun day. We had to get up a lot earlier than normal becuse we had to go through customs since St. Thomas is a U.S. island. Too early. Although we did get to go to a buffet breakfast and that was good. So we departed for our excursion. All of my family was taking the St. John Barefoot Catamaran and Snorkel or something. I don't remember the exact name, and I really don't feel like going to get the book and look. Our captain, sounded Austrailan, but he was actually from Boston, and had sailed around the world on a boat he built, and was planning to sell it soon to build a new boat. He really told us a lot about the area. We got to see one of Babara Strisand's(sp?) houses, along with the house of the guy who owns White Castle, which was my personal favorite. The house actually looked like a giant White Castle. All though we didn't see any, he also said that if we saw something that looked like a submarine, and heard strang singing, then it was a whale. This scared my sister because she has a whale phobia. Free Willie ruined it for her , its true. Later on this evening we saw the show, and had dinner. If I remember correctly, this is also the day that my sister and I went swimming. The pool was actually not too bad, and the hot tub was warmer than I expected. I would have liked to gone swimming more, but I really didn't want to put up with other people. They should have just had a Jake only swimming party , but it wasn't on the schedule.

Day 6: Another day at sea
By now, you are finnaly realizing that the cruise is almost over. You only have one full day left, which most of will be spent on Castaway Cay. I woke up a little later than normal, so it was about lunch time. My sister had decided to use stair instead of the elevators to get exersise. So for lunch, she walked up the stairs to get free food from up on deck 9, and I took advantage of the free room service. She beat room service by about 10 seconds. But I didn't have to move to get the same food she got. I enjoyed that burger. My sister is looking over my shoulder right now. Anyways, nothing really exciting happend that day, except a almost deadly game of shuffle board with my firend Shaffer. Aparently our game made other people leave the area. It's not like we were hitting the puck thingy as hard as we could.

Day 7: Castaway Cay
Today is probably the best day you will have on your cruise. It just depends how fun you make it. I had the Wild Side scheduled for today. So I met all the people who were doing it at The Stack (the teen club) and we went to breakfast, and after a heated political debate with some other teens in the group, we then departed the ship and went over to our first activity, which was getting a bike to go around the island on. I don't know how many people there was on this teen only excursion, but we took a lot of bikes, and all the adult helmets. Some people didn't even get helmets, and the one I got was broken. I don't know how that happend but it did. When then biked quite a way to the other side of Castaway Cay, to go kayaking. It was the highlight of this excurision. Myself and Shaffer could paddle faster backwards then going forward (I'm strange). So we splashed water around and tipped the boat over a couple times, not over the fire coral though. We then biked over to the snorkeling area and really didn't get to snorkel that much, which dispointed me. By the time everybody got back, we were late for the barbeque lunch at cookies, which was delicious!!! After that excursion, I had to get over to the banana boat place. This excursion was fun, and my dad did a mid-air flip when he bounced off the boat, but that is an entirely different story. Unfortunetly, it was now time to get back on the boat. We went to dinner and saw the "Bon Voyage" show. Our trip was almost over, noooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It would have lasted longer but, I left my time machine at home.

Final Day: Departure
You have to wake up early and finish packing. And the boat is already in Port Canveral before you get there. Departure was smooth, and it didn't take long at all. We then got on the disney bus, and headed for the airport. The vacation is over, its time to go home. Darn.

Review:
This was the best vacation ever. I recomend it very highly. Any questions? :)
 

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