Crystal_27
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2007
- Messages
- 3,215
Chapter 1 - The Prelude
Hello, cruise DISers!! This is my fourth trip report in as many trips (although perhaps my food report doesn't count as a *true* trip report...), and hopefully, I'm starting to get the hang of it (although I'm still as long-winded as ever - LOL). I absolutely love reliving my trips through pictures and words, so, for those of you reading, hopefully, you'll be informed and entertained by what I have to say and the pictures I will be sharing with you.
If you've read my past reports, you'll know that DH and I sorta have this arrangement worked out whereby we switch off every other year with a cruise, doing the parks in the off year. So, because we did the parks trip in September, 2008, 2009 was to be our cruise year. However, in the year and a half leading up to the cruise, I somehow finagled a parks trip in March, 2009 too.
This cruise was to be filled with many, many "firsts" for us. It was our first time on the Magic, our first time on a 7-night itinerary, our first (and, sadly, last) trip pulling our 5-year old DD (who hereafter will be known as "The Big") out of school, our first trip as DVC members, our first cruise where we where wholeheartedly participated in DIS activities (Fish Extenders, Secret Mickeys, meets, etc.), and our first time staying at our DVC home - Bay Lake Tower.
Given that we had this trip booked for a year and a half, we had a lot of time to research the activities and excursions that we wanted to do. We decided to do the jetskis at Castaway Cay, an ATV excursion (non-Disney) at St. Maarten, and the Butterfly Farm at St. Thomas, as well as doing Palo brunch, Palo high tea, Palo dinner, and the Tea with Alice with The Big. The Eastern itinerary also has three sea days built in, so we knew that we would also have a lot of time to generally relax aboard the ship. We also attended MNSSHP on September 25th, so my trip report will also include pictures from the party.
Since we were Castaway Club members, we booked the Palo brunch and dinner at the 90 day mark, but were unable to get the Palo high tea reserved through the online system. Being the uber-planner that I am, this failure to score a high tea reservation hit me pretty hard, but I was hopeful that we'd be able to secure a reservation once on board, and I tried not to stress too much about it in the months leading up to the cruise. We also were able to get the Disney excursions booked, and, when one of the DISers on our cruise meets thread found out about the ATV excursion at St. Maarten, we all scrambled to book the first time slot so we could have a big DIS ride. Sadly, the guy who initially found the ATV excursion got bumped from the first timeslot, but I hear that they ended up getting a fabulous ride too.
I guess that takes us through the preliminaries, right up through the week before the cruise. Since DH and I have come to expect some sort of crazy drama right before our Disney trips, my next update will tell you all about the nightmare week we experienced before our cruise.
To all who are joining me so far, thank you very much!
Hello, cruise DISers!! This is my fourth trip report in as many trips (although perhaps my food report doesn't count as a *true* trip report...), and hopefully, I'm starting to get the hang of it (although I'm still as long-winded as ever - LOL). I absolutely love reliving my trips through pictures and words, so, for those of you reading, hopefully, you'll be informed and entertained by what I have to say and the pictures I will be sharing with you.
If you've read my past reports, you'll know that DH and I sorta have this arrangement worked out whereby we switch off every other year with a cruise, doing the parks in the off year. So, because we did the parks trip in September, 2008, 2009 was to be our cruise year. However, in the year and a half leading up to the cruise, I somehow finagled a parks trip in March, 2009 too.
This cruise was to be filled with many, many "firsts" for us. It was our first time on the Magic, our first time on a 7-night itinerary, our first (and, sadly, last) trip pulling our 5-year old DD (who hereafter will be known as "The Big") out of school, our first trip as DVC members, our first cruise where we where wholeheartedly participated in DIS activities (Fish Extenders, Secret Mickeys, meets, etc.), and our first time staying at our DVC home - Bay Lake Tower.
Given that we had this trip booked for a year and a half, we had a lot of time to research the activities and excursions that we wanted to do. We decided to do the jetskis at Castaway Cay, an ATV excursion (non-Disney) at St. Maarten, and the Butterfly Farm at St. Thomas, as well as doing Palo brunch, Palo high tea, Palo dinner, and the Tea with Alice with The Big. The Eastern itinerary also has three sea days built in, so we knew that we would also have a lot of time to generally relax aboard the ship. We also attended MNSSHP on September 25th, so my trip report will also include pictures from the party.
Since we were Castaway Club members, we booked the Palo brunch and dinner at the 90 day mark, but were unable to get the Palo high tea reserved through the online system. Being the uber-planner that I am, this failure to score a high tea reservation hit me pretty hard, but I was hopeful that we'd be able to secure a reservation once on board, and I tried not to stress too much about it in the months leading up to the cruise. We also were able to get the Disney excursions booked, and, when one of the DISers on our cruise meets thread found out about the ATV excursion at St. Maarten, we all scrambled to book the first time slot so we could have a big DIS ride. Sadly, the guy who initially found the ATV excursion got bumped from the first timeslot, but I hear that they ended up getting a fabulous ride too.
I guess that takes us through the preliminaries, right up through the week before the cruise. Since DH and I have come to expect some sort of crazy drama right before our Disney trips, my next update will tell you all about the nightmare week we experienced before our cruise.
To all who are joining me so far, thank you very much!
to The DIS!!! It's a shame that you couldn't have found us a little bit before the cruise - - we had a fun little group. I bet watching the storm at CC was awesome on the verandah. Not to give any spoilers about my TR, but can I just tell you that we only spent about 2 hours total on our verandah during our entire trip? I told DH that for our next cruise, we're going to book an inside stateroom (for a fraction of the cost) and see how we fare. If we hate it, we can always go back to the verandah, but it's such a waste for us because we just don't use it (although we have good intentions to every time). Also, thanks for jumping on board my TR - - the more the merrier! 
On a side note, the friends that surprised us on the cruise booked in August at a cat 11, and they were bumped to a cat 5! WOW, talk about luck. You never know when you'll get some pixie dust spread your way!!! We love our verandah!!! We didn't spend "tons" of time out there, but we had our coffee and chocolate croissants every morning, and wine every night. So for me it was worth it!!! 
