Hello fellow and future travelers! Below you will find my trip report – it is lengthy and detailed, so if you just want an overview you’ll want to skip this report entirely. The players are: myself (April), DH (Dave), my dad (Mark), his girlfriend (Sue), and our friends Jenn & Nick. Our sailing began Saturday, October 17, 2009, but I’ll begin this with our trip down.
October 16th, 2009
Hooray – we’re finally leaving for vacation! Dave, Jenn, Nick & myself live in CT, so we flew to Orlando from Hartford on Southwest. I always fly Southwest if it’s possible – they tend to be less expensive, on-time, and provide friendly service. Unfortunately for us it was how-big-a-jerk-can-I-be-day for our fellow passengers. Never have I encountered such an assortment of rude people! There were adults jumping in their seats playing patty-cake. There were people hanging out in the aisles ignoring the seat belt signs. There was a woman behind us with a toddler who was both a kicker & a loud babbler, PLUS the woman let the kid stand on the seat unbuckled for landing. Truly unbelievable. To add insult to injury the flight had to fight a headwind all the way, so it took about 40 minutes longer than usual. But finally we and our luggage all arrived, and my dad picked us up from the airport (he and Sue live in Kissimmee). On the way back to his house we stopped at the liquor store to stock up for the trip, and grabbed some dinner to go from Tijuana Flats (btw, very tasty and reasonably priced). After dinner we chatted for awhile and were all in bed by 11pm to get a good night’s rest before tomorrow.
October 17th, 2009
As luck would have it, Sue, Jenn & I all woke up at 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep, so we ended up drinking coffee on the lanai for the rest of the night. We are SO going to crash by the end of the day! We headed over to the port around 9:30am, and arrived to discover that the construction has changed the parking/entry layout around a bit. If you are used to how it looked before, it’s a bit confusing now, but it looks like it will be great when it’s finished. We got onboard a little after noon, made some last minute reservations, grabbed some lunch in Parrot Cay, and then headed to our respective rooms. Jenn & Nick and Mark & Sue are all in cat 9 midship on deck 2. Dave & I are in a cat 5 (upgraded from a cat 7 GTY) on deck 7 just off the aft elevator lobby. If I forget to mention it later, you can smell whatever is being served at Topsiders as soon as you open the door from our room, which isn’t a bad thing.
At 3pm the ladies & I headed to the Promenade Lounge to have a cocktail with our Dismeet group, and stayed there until the lifeboat drill. My conclusion on the lifeboat drill was that group N stood for either not-gonna-make-it or not-able-to-follow-directions. Almost all of them were late, and several had to be redirected to the right station multiple times. Thank heavens I was in P! After that I headed to my favorite spot on the ship, Cove Café, only to discover that they had removed the computers and I could no longer check my email there each morning – eek! At least the coffee is still good, and btw the dining room coffee has dramatically improved. Also as an fyi, if you have any smokers in your party, or if you are a die-hard non-smoker and want to avoid those areas, the current rule is that you can smoke starboard on decks 4, 9 & 10, except for the area near the Mickey Pool. Anyway, this was the first look I got at the Quiet Cove improvements since the last dry dock and it came out lovely. The new lounge chairs are much improved, and they have some loveseat seating next to Cove Café that was quite nice as well. For some extra pixie dust, the Wonder had just returned from its own dry dock, and as the Magic left they had a Battle of the Horns that was amazing to witness. I’m sure if you search you tube you can find it, since I saw a few people videotaping it.
After that we all left to change for dinner – cruise casual for this evening, with the Lumiere’s rotational menu. Our dining rotation is LAPPLAP and we have late seating, which is currently 8:15pm for everybody. We met outside the Walt Disney Theater for the All Aboard show at 6pm, except for my husband. In an effort to stave off seasickness, and because he thinks he’s seen them enough times, Dave has decided to skip the main evening shows. Yes, he is a big fuddy duddy, but to be fair he had no trouble with motion this time and he usually does. The show included variety acts by John Charles (very entertaining) and Alfred & Seymour (ten minutes of my life I’d like back). John Charles does musical comedy, where he makes up his own funny lyrics to well-known songs, and also does some great impersonations. Alfred & Seymour basically bounce around the stage and act generally obnoxious and/or inept. Seriously, it was painful to watch. The rest of the show tells the story of a little boy who wants to be a ship captain when he grows up. It’s cute, and used to tie-in well with the final show, which is a whole other story that I’ll tell later. After All Aboard I went to Mickey Mania in Studio Sea, and was delighted to discover that they now have Moscato d’asti on the menu, which is one of my preferred choices of white wine. Dinner was excellent – my husband took pictures of everything we ate at each meal, but to simplify I’ll just say that the food across the board was better than I remember it being on previous sailings, with very few exceptions. The exceptions would be that they destroyed the mango & papaya soup recipe, and there is no more peanut butter pie at Animator’s Palate. Our server was Toto, our assistant server was Joe, and our head server was Cedomir, all of whom did a great job. In any case, due to my ridiculously early wake-up I couldn’t make it through dessert and missed the crème brulee, one of my all-time favorites. Off to bed, Zzzzzzz.
October 18th, 2009
Did I mention my love of Cove Café? Well, in light of that Jenn & I decided it would be easiest to meet up there each morning for coffee whenever we each woke up, so that’s where my day started. I debated grabbing a bran muffin from the food case but we have brunch in Palo at 10:30 and I like to be hungry for that. I tried to request Thom for Palo, who we had on a previous sailing in regular dining, but he left the day before to go home to Czech, so we settled for his brother, Jakub (also very nice and a good server). By the time we finished brunch we were just docking in Key West – hooray! Unfortunately it’s a bit overcast, and it’s not particularly warm. BUT it’s not raining and that’s really all I’m concerned about. My whole party, except for my husband, will be wandering Duval St for the day. Dave will be attempting to Snuba, which is a hybrid of snorkeling and scuba. It turned out that he really liked it, and that despite the cool weather the water temperature was still quite warm. He took a ton of pictures, since photography is his hobby and he bought a special underwater for the trip, which all came out great. We wandered a bit before settling on a place we think was called Fat Tuesday, which has seven thousand varieties of frozen drinks. I tried the Suicide, which has basically a drop of each of them, and tastes like fruit punch. We moved on to Sloppy Joe’s for a bit, at which point Jenn & Nick left us to shop. My dad, Sue & I continued on Duval St, next visiting Irish Kevin’s. Then it’s all a bit hazy for awhile, but I ordered the house drink, which was green and came in a souvenier cup. Irish Kevin’s is one of the coolest bars I’ve visited, and if you’re ever in the area, GO THERE. It’s just fun. After Irish Kevin’s I decided it was time to try the famous Key Lime Pie of Key West. My intent was to hit a place called the Blond Giraffe, but due to my slightly inebriated state I stopped at a different Key Lime Pie shop a couple doors down. I unfortunately lost the business card they gave me, but methinks it was the Key Lime Pie Outlet on Greene St. After tasting both I’m going to go out and say that the KLPO was better than Blond Giraffe, and the KLPO whipped cream was dramatically better. We popped our heads in to the original Sloppy Jo’s, but didn’t linger. It’s interesting, though – there is a tree growing in the middle of the bar. After that we visited a “locals” place called the Green Parrot (I think – again, it’s all a bit hazy). Once we left Sue & I decided to shop and my dad decided to head back to the ship, and this is where it all went horribly awry. Sue needed to use the ladies room, so we stopped at a restaurant/bar called Kathy’s. While I waited for Sue I noticed that they offered $4 Key Lime Margaritas for a happy hour special, and lo & behold it was happy hour! We each had one – honestly, just the one – and when we stood up again we were shnockered. Totally tanked. Are those speed bumps in the sidewalk or is that just the way I walk? We did make it back to the ship. We did not stop to shop. Fortunately we were skipping the agony of Alfred & Seymour, so we had plenty of time before dinner. I hit Who Wants To Be A Mousketeer, which I really liked, and then enjoyed Animator’s Palate, except for the absence of my peanut butter pie.
Stay tuned for more later!
October 16th, 2009
Hooray – we’re finally leaving for vacation! Dave, Jenn, Nick & myself live in CT, so we flew to Orlando from Hartford on Southwest. I always fly Southwest if it’s possible – they tend to be less expensive, on-time, and provide friendly service. Unfortunately for us it was how-big-a-jerk-can-I-be-day for our fellow passengers. Never have I encountered such an assortment of rude people! There were adults jumping in their seats playing patty-cake. There were people hanging out in the aisles ignoring the seat belt signs. There was a woman behind us with a toddler who was both a kicker & a loud babbler, PLUS the woman let the kid stand on the seat unbuckled for landing. Truly unbelievable. To add insult to injury the flight had to fight a headwind all the way, so it took about 40 minutes longer than usual. But finally we and our luggage all arrived, and my dad picked us up from the airport (he and Sue live in Kissimmee). On the way back to his house we stopped at the liquor store to stock up for the trip, and grabbed some dinner to go from Tijuana Flats (btw, very tasty and reasonably priced). After dinner we chatted for awhile and were all in bed by 11pm to get a good night’s rest before tomorrow.
October 17th, 2009
As luck would have it, Sue, Jenn & I all woke up at 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep, so we ended up drinking coffee on the lanai for the rest of the night. We are SO going to crash by the end of the day! We headed over to the port around 9:30am, and arrived to discover that the construction has changed the parking/entry layout around a bit. If you are used to how it looked before, it’s a bit confusing now, but it looks like it will be great when it’s finished. We got onboard a little after noon, made some last minute reservations, grabbed some lunch in Parrot Cay, and then headed to our respective rooms. Jenn & Nick and Mark & Sue are all in cat 9 midship on deck 2. Dave & I are in a cat 5 (upgraded from a cat 7 GTY) on deck 7 just off the aft elevator lobby. If I forget to mention it later, you can smell whatever is being served at Topsiders as soon as you open the door from our room, which isn’t a bad thing.
At 3pm the ladies & I headed to the Promenade Lounge to have a cocktail with our Dismeet group, and stayed there until the lifeboat drill. My conclusion on the lifeboat drill was that group N stood for either not-gonna-make-it or not-able-to-follow-directions. Almost all of them were late, and several had to be redirected to the right station multiple times. Thank heavens I was in P! After that I headed to my favorite spot on the ship, Cove Café, only to discover that they had removed the computers and I could no longer check my email there each morning – eek! At least the coffee is still good, and btw the dining room coffee has dramatically improved. Also as an fyi, if you have any smokers in your party, or if you are a die-hard non-smoker and want to avoid those areas, the current rule is that you can smoke starboard on decks 4, 9 & 10, except for the area near the Mickey Pool. Anyway, this was the first look I got at the Quiet Cove improvements since the last dry dock and it came out lovely. The new lounge chairs are much improved, and they have some loveseat seating next to Cove Café that was quite nice as well. For some extra pixie dust, the Wonder had just returned from its own dry dock, and as the Magic left they had a Battle of the Horns that was amazing to witness. I’m sure if you search you tube you can find it, since I saw a few people videotaping it.
After that we all left to change for dinner – cruise casual for this evening, with the Lumiere’s rotational menu. Our dining rotation is LAPPLAP and we have late seating, which is currently 8:15pm for everybody. We met outside the Walt Disney Theater for the All Aboard show at 6pm, except for my husband. In an effort to stave off seasickness, and because he thinks he’s seen them enough times, Dave has decided to skip the main evening shows. Yes, he is a big fuddy duddy, but to be fair he had no trouble with motion this time and he usually does. The show included variety acts by John Charles (very entertaining) and Alfred & Seymour (ten minutes of my life I’d like back). John Charles does musical comedy, where he makes up his own funny lyrics to well-known songs, and also does some great impersonations. Alfred & Seymour basically bounce around the stage and act generally obnoxious and/or inept. Seriously, it was painful to watch. The rest of the show tells the story of a little boy who wants to be a ship captain when he grows up. It’s cute, and used to tie-in well with the final show, which is a whole other story that I’ll tell later. After All Aboard I went to Mickey Mania in Studio Sea, and was delighted to discover that they now have Moscato d’asti on the menu, which is one of my preferred choices of white wine. Dinner was excellent – my husband took pictures of everything we ate at each meal, but to simplify I’ll just say that the food across the board was better than I remember it being on previous sailings, with very few exceptions. The exceptions would be that they destroyed the mango & papaya soup recipe, and there is no more peanut butter pie at Animator’s Palate. Our server was Toto, our assistant server was Joe, and our head server was Cedomir, all of whom did a great job. In any case, due to my ridiculously early wake-up I couldn’t make it through dessert and missed the crème brulee, one of my all-time favorites. Off to bed, Zzzzzzz.
October 18th, 2009
Did I mention my love of Cove Café? Well, in light of that Jenn & I decided it would be easiest to meet up there each morning for coffee whenever we each woke up, so that’s where my day started. I debated grabbing a bran muffin from the food case but we have brunch in Palo at 10:30 and I like to be hungry for that. I tried to request Thom for Palo, who we had on a previous sailing in regular dining, but he left the day before to go home to Czech, so we settled for his brother, Jakub (also very nice and a good server). By the time we finished brunch we were just docking in Key West – hooray! Unfortunately it’s a bit overcast, and it’s not particularly warm. BUT it’s not raining and that’s really all I’m concerned about. My whole party, except for my husband, will be wandering Duval St for the day. Dave will be attempting to Snuba, which is a hybrid of snorkeling and scuba. It turned out that he really liked it, and that despite the cool weather the water temperature was still quite warm. He took a ton of pictures, since photography is his hobby and he bought a special underwater for the trip, which all came out great. We wandered a bit before settling on a place we think was called Fat Tuesday, which has seven thousand varieties of frozen drinks. I tried the Suicide, which has basically a drop of each of them, and tastes like fruit punch. We moved on to Sloppy Joe’s for a bit, at which point Jenn & Nick left us to shop. My dad, Sue & I continued on Duval St, next visiting Irish Kevin’s. Then it’s all a bit hazy for awhile, but I ordered the house drink, which was green and came in a souvenier cup. Irish Kevin’s is one of the coolest bars I’ve visited, and if you’re ever in the area, GO THERE. It’s just fun. After Irish Kevin’s I decided it was time to try the famous Key Lime Pie of Key West. My intent was to hit a place called the Blond Giraffe, but due to my slightly inebriated state I stopped at a different Key Lime Pie shop a couple doors down. I unfortunately lost the business card they gave me, but methinks it was the Key Lime Pie Outlet on Greene St. After tasting both I’m going to go out and say that the KLPO was better than Blond Giraffe, and the KLPO whipped cream was dramatically better. We popped our heads in to the original Sloppy Jo’s, but didn’t linger. It’s interesting, though – there is a tree growing in the middle of the bar. After that we visited a “locals” place called the Green Parrot (I think – again, it’s all a bit hazy). Once we left Sue & I decided to shop and my dad decided to head back to the ship, and this is where it all went horribly awry. Sue needed to use the ladies room, so we stopped at a restaurant/bar called Kathy’s. While I waited for Sue I noticed that they offered $4 Key Lime Margaritas for a happy hour special, and lo & behold it was happy hour! We each had one – honestly, just the one – and when we stood up again we were shnockered. Totally tanked. Are those speed bumps in the sidewalk or is that just the way I walk? We did make it back to the ship. We did not stop to shop. Fortunately we were skipping the agony of Alfred & Seymour, so we had plenty of time before dinner. I hit Who Wants To Be A Mousketeer, which I really liked, and then enjoyed Animator’s Palate, except for the absence of my peanut butter pie.
Stay tuned for more later!
The first drink I tried was called an apple martini, but was essentially green water. Lest anyone think I was being picky, I had three different people try it and they all agreed. The pink fruity drink was much better, but I had to hunt down a server to get one since I was on deck 4 just past one of the photo spots and they were ignoring me entirely. The side by the DVC/future cruise desks on deck 4 got service, just not the opposite side. Then we met up for the Golden Mickeys, which are still excellent. I got a little misty at the end when I realized I would never see them again, since they’ll be replaced by my EBTA in April 2010. Dinner was the Golden Mickey’s menu in Parrot Cay. After dinner we popped in to see Midtown play in the Promenade Lounge. My father was completely enamored with them – just loved Sharon’s (the lead singer) voice, so I had to stop and see what all the fuss what about. And she did have a truly lovely voice, and wonderful stage presence. Between engaging the kids on the dance floor, and interacting with the passersby, you could tell that this was a couple who genuinely enjoyed performing. 
