Our amazing 7-night eastern cruise - 9/26/09

[SpoonfulofSugar]

Yeah! Another adventure!

 

[Mojodisney]

Glad you had a good time. Enjoying reading your TR. DD7 did not like Flubber. I like to tease her about it. We loved the sea days on our 7 day Eastern. Loved the beaches too on our port days, but sea days are so relaxing, especially on the verandah. Glad the Big enjoyed the cruise!

 

[papertraveller]

Did you seriously wait until just after midnight of the first day you could make the Palo and other bookings?
I thought getting up at the crack of dawn to get WDW ADRs was bad, but this could test me!

 

[Crystal_27]

Glad you enjoyed brunch! I think it's better than dinner, even though the dinner is fabulous!

It's really a close call - Dobi was also our server for dinner and she was just the most amazing server I've ever had in my life. She made the Palo experience for us, although, of course, the food was also awesome!!

Yeah! Another adventure!

Glad you had a good time. Enjoying reading your TR. DD7 did not like Flubber. I like to tease her about it.

What was worse about the Flubber is that the CMs at the Club told her that it bounced if refrigerated, so The Big ended up throwing the cold Flubber against every surface of our stateroom in order to test the bouncing theory.

Did you seriously wait until just after midnight of the first day you could make the Palo and other bookings?
I thought getting up at the crack of dawn to get WDW ADRs was bad, but this could test me!

Oh, yeah, it's that bad. AND, I get so worked up about this stuff and it drives DH crazy. BUT, I will tell you that everyone that I knew that wasn't able to get the Palo brunch, dinner or the tea online at the 90th day (or 75th day) had their choice of times once we actually boarded the ship.

 

[papertraveller]

Well that's a relief ... this will be our first cruise, and our booking day falls right in the Christmas holidays, so heaven knows what we'll be up to!
I see you're a BLT homeowner - we joined DVD this past summer, and have booked our week for August. Can't wait!

 

[natale1980]

I really want to go on another 7 day cruise next!! We went back in 2005 and would LOVE to be on the Magic again. I'm hoping that there will be discounts like 'kids sail fee' now that the Dream is making reservations.
Reading about your 7 night is really making me feel like we have alot to pound into our 4 night cruise.

-nat

 

[nenner1]

Hi Crystal,
I'm really enjoying your report...we were originally going to cruise on the 9/26 but we did end up changing our dates a couple of times, so it is interesting reading what could've been!

Loking forward to more!!
Jen

 

[Crystal_27]

The Big was so excited about having Tea with Alice, but I wasn’t really that impressed. First off, although we showed up at Preludes about 10 minutes before the start, we were unable to find a table seating more than 2 people, so poor DH had to sit by himself. THEN, although the show itself was cute, they served apple juice instead of tea, and, given that there were also chocolate chip cookies offered to accompany the apple juice, the result was a cloyingly sweet disaster. GAK.

I’m glad we did it because The Big thought it was cute, but it’s definitely not something I’m going to make a priority for our next cruise. After Tea, we headed back to the room to take a quick nap before dinner (ahhhhhh, the joys of vacation).

Dinner tonight was at Animator’s Palate and, after reviewing the pitiful offerings on the kid’s menu, we asked our server if The Big could order off of the adults’ menu. Of course, we were given the green light. So, we all ordered the beef wellington and found it to be very tasty. For dessert, Leo (our server) brought The Big out one of everything on the menu, so we all got to indulge *big time* in sweet treats. Oh, and as to The Big’s non-formal dress, she ended not being under dressed at all fit in beautifully with the other diners. Another crisis averted – LOL.

After dinner, we booked it up to the theater so we could get decent seats for The Golden Mickeys. I just love how the theater area is decorated for the occasion.

We ended up getting decent seats and, although the results were just okay (and, despite the fact that I had to keep dodging a big head in front of us), here are a couple of pictures from the show.

After dinner, we ran into our DIS buds “A” and her DH, and the guys decided to try and find some nightlife, while “A” and I opted to stay in and watch the kiddos. So, I invited “A” and her kiddos to our stateroom with the diabolical plan of trying to rid myself of some of the great amounts of candy we still had left over from MNSSHP. The kiddos got the idea immediately and, within a matter of minutes, had dumped all of the candy out on the bed and were happily munching away and chatting like they had been friends for years. It was very cute.

Anyway, after eating all they could handle, and since we were all getting tired, we decided to call it a night. Interesting to note, though, DH came in only a few minutes after 10:00 p.m., claiming that, although Disney tops the charts on almost anything, the bars were devoid of people and fun.

That's it for now - next installment will be our second sea day. Thanks for reading!

 

[Crystal_27]

I see you're a BLT homeowner - we joined DVD this past summer, and have booked our week for August. Can't wait!

Oh, yeah, and welcome home to you too!! We joined in March and loved BLT!!! I'm definitely looking forward to many many years of great vacations.

Reading about your 7 night is really making me feel like we have alot to pound into our 4 night cruise.

-nat

Yeah, I know what you mean. We booked a 5 nighter on the Dream and I'm hoping that it will be long enough to make it a true vacation.

Hi Crystal,
I'm really enjoying your report...we were originally going to cruise on the 9/26 but we did end up changing our dates a couple of times, so it is interesting reading what could've been!

Loking forward to more!!
Jen

Awwwww, well, I hope that you had as great a time on your cruise as we did on ours.

 

[goofieslonglostsis]

Wow, they really did a rotten job with the seating arrangements. Come on, only 2 seaters left with bigger parties still coming in and having reservations? Sjeez.

But ehm, is it just me or were you guys like sleeping a lot during the cruise? Sounds like somebody either needs a new bed at home or some more time to themselves.

Poor A, sending her back to the stateroom with 2 sugar rush bouncing young ones. Diabolical indeed.

 

[Crystal_27]

But ehm, is it just me or were you guys like sleeping a lot during the cruise? Sounds like somebody either needs a new bed at home or some more time to themselves.

LOL - you got that right, Hon. We actually did better this time, but we love napping on vacation - - it's such a guilty pleasure.

 

[goofieslonglostsis]

LOL - you got that right, Hon. We actually did better this time, but we love napping on vacation - - it's such a guilty pleasure.

You need to pack up and move overhere, I guess. Enough paid days off to do both WDW, DCL AND stay a week at home to sleep all you want.

 

[praisehisname]

The Golden Mickeys is my favorite show on the cruise! You got some good shots!

 

[Crystal_27]

We woke to another perfect day. By this time, I was in full vacation mode, and the worries of the world were slipping off my shoulders. Today was really a free day in that we didn’t have anything planned at all (although DH and I did want to try and see an adult’s only demonstration about dessert making). With that in mind, we asked The Big how she felt about going to the Club, and she was all for it (it was volcano day, afterall). Since it was our character breakfast, we headed to Parrot Cay for some good eats with Mickey and the Gang.

Now, we don’t expect a lot from the characters at meals – we’ve done enough character meals to understand that they have a lot of other families to see and not a lot of time to do it in. So, with that in mind, the breakfast met our expectations, although the food portions were a bit skimpy. The napkin hats were very fun, though.

After breakfast, we dropped The Big off, and made our way to Preludes well before the dessert demonstration, given that we wanted a front seat table this time. For dessert, we got the pleasure of seeing the Chef at Animator’s Palate demonstrate how to make chocolate mousse. We had had this particular offering at Lumiere’s in our dessert trio, so I was definitely not complaining about getting to sample it again. Our mousse was paired with a white wine, and, after the Chef was done with his portion, the wine person (he had a title, but I can’t for the life of me remember it) talked to us about the intricacies of wine. I’ve always kind of “poo-pooed” the “art” of wine tasting, but, obviously, that was due to ignorance on my part, because I actually learned a lot. AND, for what it’s worth, although I don’t normally like wine, it did pair very well with the chocolate mousse we were eating.

Having had my horizons officially broadened for the day, we decided to rescue The Big for lunch and hang out at the pool, but not before being entertained along the way.

I wish I had more to report, but it was just a lazy sort of day, and the type of relaxing, perfect day that any cruise-goer should hope for. It was hot, though, and, after a couple of hours, we decided to try and get in an afternoon nap to escape the heat.

Dinner tonight was at Parrot Cay and, like the night before, we had no problems ordering for The Big off of the adult menu (it was rib eyes for all of us tonight). Again, we had another fabulous dinner, with Leo doting on The Big and ordering us all more desserts than we could possibly handle.

The show was Twice Charmed, which was a first for all of us this cruise. And, wouldn’t you know it, I had the best seat in the house but, because of all the difficulty I had in taking pictures the night before, I had decided to leave my camera in the room. Go figure. So, I apologize for not getting any pictures from my fabulous seat. However, as to the show, since we own all three of the Cinderella movies, Twice Charmed felt very familiar to us in that it took much of its storyline from Cinderella III. It was great.

After the show, we just went back to our room, ordered cookies, cheese, and fruit from room service, and just hung out. Another perfect ending to a great day.

Up next: ATVs in St. Maarten.

 

[Crystal_27]

You need to pack up and move overhere, I guess. Enough paid days off to do both WDW, DCL AND stay a week at home to sleep all you want.

*That* I could definitely deal with, although my part time schedule is pretty darn close to perfect.

The Golden Mickeys is my favorite show on the cruise! You got some good shots!

Awww, thank you.

 

[BigDogHU75]

Great updates. I really enjoyed the pictures from the Golden Mickeys. Maybe on my next cruise I will be able to enjoy some more grown-up stuff like the dessert demo.

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Another great installment! I hope to do the dessert demonstration on our next cruise as we didn't get to do anything like that on our last cruise - we just seemed to busy and too rushed all the time to attend anything for some reason - do you have to book this in advance or just turn up on the day?

 

[goofieslonglostsis]

See, this is why I love reports and especially those with many great pics like yours. Eventhough you told us some, I had a totally different picture of the demonstrations. Don't know what exactly, but the photos had me thinking 'wow, that looks way more professional than I thought'.

Regret missing it, although I did love just lazing about on deck reading and the Imagineer talk I did instead.

 

[Crystal_27]

Great updates. I really enjoyed the pictures from the Golden Mickeys. Maybe on my next cruise I will be able to enjoy some more grown-up stuff like the dessert demo.

Yeah, that's what we said after our last cruise, that during our next cruise we would do more adult stuff. It was fun doing the adult stuff, but just hanging out at the pool was just as good.

do you have to book this in advance or just turn up on the day?

Nope - we just showed up on the day and got right in.

See, this is why I love reports and especially those with many great pics like yours. Eventhough you told us some, I had a totally different picture of the demonstrations. Don't know what exactly, but the photos had me thinking 'wow, that looks way more professional than I thought'.

Regret missing it, although I did love just lazing about on deck reading and the Imagineer talk I did instead.

Yeah, it was very cool for sure, although I wish we had taken the time to do the Imagineer talk too - that sounded great!! I guess there's always next time...

 

[goofieslonglostsis]

Yeah, it was very cool for sure, although I wish we had taken the time to do the Imagineer talk too - that sounded great!! I guess there's always next time...

Oh boohoo, poor you. Did you end up booking the Dreams, by the way?