OUR OHANA's Back-to-back cruises w/ pics, navs, menus ** UPDATED Food pics **10/19

[mrsmg]

[SIZE="2"[/SIZE][/FONT][quote="OurOhana, post: 33591594"]To help me (and hopefully others) navigate this trip report a little better, I’ll update the index on this first post as I move along. I’m also doing this more by topic, than by day though I'm trying to do it in some order. But I’m sure I’ll forget something and want to add it later. Because of things I'll likely add late, and since I have a lot of photos for some things, some topics may have more than one post number.

INDEX
**Back-to-Back process and thoughts (Page 3, Post 35)
**Door magnets (Page 2, Post 22)
**Embarkation (Page 1, Posts 5 and 13)
**Kids' Club thoughts and pics (Page 2, Post 17)
**Navigators (Page 3, Posts 32 and 36)
**Parrott Cay Embarkation lunch (Page 1, Post 14; and Page 2, Post 16)
**Swimming Pools (Page 2, Post 29)
**T-shirts (Page 2, Post 21)



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Aloha

On Thursday, we’ll be on the DCL for back-to-back cruises – and we can’t wait. I thought I’d get the report started ahead of time.

OurOhana:
Me

DH

DD(4)

DG (My mom, but more important - DD’s grandma)

First cruise: We went on the Magic Jan. 31-6, and loved it!!!

Second/third cruise: We received the $99 bounce-back offer per person when we booked for our first cruise. So we decided to go on our 3-night cruise (which is the bounce-back deal) and add a 4-night cruise. We leave Sept. 17 and then take the second cruise Sept. 20.

We decided pretty soon after returning from our first Disney cruise that we needed to return. While the economy has been rough, the bounce back offer was huge for us. But the thought of three days just didn’t seem long enough – so we added the other cruise.

Then DH thought – why not bring my mom. Yes, my DH wanted to bring his mother-in-law along. We’re going to be staying in a category 4, but it’s going to be a bit tight in the room (it’s the same category we stayed in the last time.)

So our daughter still doesn’t know about the cruise. We have used our office to pack our bags – and tried to do everything while she was in the bath or sleeping (yes, I encouraged really, really long baths so I could sneak into her room to get her clothes out.) She’s been wondering where her favorite shoes disappeared to. I’ve blamed it on her messy room.

While DD will be ecstatic when she learns about the cruise- which hopefully won’t happen until Thursday morning – she’s going to be beside herself when she learns grandma is coming. This is a child who was pretty sure for a long time that Cinderella’s godmother was actually Cinderella’s grandmother. It might have something to do with the fact that DD’s grandma gives her everything she wants – I’m just guessing.

So now with DD, who is always entertaining, and my mom, who doesn’t mean to be entertaining but can’t help herself, we’re set for our next big adventure.

We're pretty well packed. After reading the disboards, we purchased some packing cubes from ebags. They helped us save some space. So far, I like them. We've purchases all of our fish extender gifts (we're doing the fish extender exchange on our second cruise - it seemed easier on a four-night.) And we'll be meeting up with the couple and their daughter who we ate with on our January cruise. We met them on that cruise, and became friends. It was nice that we could arrange another cruise together so our daughters, the same age, could see each other again.

I’m hoping we get tons of pictures this time around, we even have an underwater camera now, which has worked well when we went to the pool.

Thanks for reading.

By the way, if anyone has questions ahead of time about cruising, DCL or the Wonder - please let me know. We can try to find the answers while we're on the ship, if possible![/QUOTE]

I have always wanted to do back to back cruises. My question is, do they allow you to keep the same room for both cruises and do you have to leave the ship while they "tidy up" for the next cruise?

 

[OurOhana]

Sounds like you had a wonderful trip!! Thanks for sharing your trip report with us!

We were on the Wonder when my DD was 3 and had a bad experience with Oceaneers. No interaction with my DD from the CM's...and they even "lost" her at one point. I went to pick her up one evening and they could not find her. They kept saying "Oh, I think I know who you are talking about." We kept looking everywhere.....my heart was beating so fast and I was begining to cry....finally after about 15 minutes they found her asleep behind the TV set in the first room!! We never brought her back after that and she didn't want to go back either. Since then we have been on Princess and RCCL and she loves their clubs. I think it was the fact that there were so many kids and not enough CM's to engage the children.

I'm sorry to hear about that. I hope you talked to management while you were on the cruise, or wrote to someone when you got off. While I think DCL is good for kids in a larger group setting, they definitely don't seem to be a lot about smaller ratios. That being said, I did see the counselors interact with my child and others a lot while I was in there. But I've heard stories similar to yours and LC30's quite a bit.

[SIZE="2"[/SIZE]

I have always wanted to do back to back cruises. My question is, do they allow you to keep the same room for both cruises and do you have to leave the ship while they "tidy up" for the next cruise?

Hi there. We were able to keep the same room. At least, that's how we arranged it. I don't know that you could do that for sure if you're in in a gty room or whatever they call them where they guarantee you a type of room, but not a specific one. For us, it was perfect since we didn't have to pack up in between.

We did leave the ship for about an hour. They escorted us off, and then we just had to wait for everyone to be cleared and they checked us back in and let us on right away. We were off between about 9:30 and 10:30. We saw people arriving for the next cruise and starting to check in.

Hope that helps. And thank you for reading!

 

[OurOhana]

I didn't get copies of any of the breakfast or lunches, but I did remember a few pictures (not a lot for these, unfortunately.)

First up, the sit down breakfast in Triton's: (In general, I love my carbs, but I can't say the pancakes or waffles were all that great. The omlets were pretty good. I had a couple on this trip.)

And then I did remember to get one of the last Parrot Cay brunches. It was similar to when we embarked, but something different. The biggest change was they had sushi. I thought it was pretty good.

Next up: Dinner menus and pics

 

[OurOhana]

Our servers on the Wonder were really great. Witt, the head server, was fantastic. We even wrote a long note to Disney the last night to comment on how much he went out of his way for us.

Because we missed two of the dinners on the first cruise, he was worried that we weren't happy with the food. Our memory from our first DCL cruise was that the food wasn't great, but we remembered we thought the beef meals were pretty good, and we knew we could ask for no sauces or double entrees if we wanted.

Witt offered to get us anything from any of the menus if we weren't happy with a menu. So there are times we didn't have much on the menu. I'll explain as I post.

I apologize ahead of time that I forgot to get pictures that night of the entrees. Not sure what I was thinking, other than about eating I did a bit better other nights

I got the shrimp appetizer (and as you can see,) the shrimp were a decent size. The sauce was maybe mayo-based. They also served that sauce on the buffets, or something pretty similar.

DH got the mushroom tart. He thought it was OK

My mom and I got the onion soup

I ordered the lamb, and asked for the lobster mac and cheese for my mom and I to share. Both meals were good.

DH got the lamb and tenderloin. My mom also got the tenderloin. DH didn't like the sauce on the beef, but no complaints from my mom.

I know we got dessert, but when I asked at the guest services desk for copies of the menus, they forgot to give us the dessert menus. No big deal, they were great about making us copies in the first place. But now I don't remember what we ate. I remembered thinking it was pretty good.


Overall, it was a good meal and the service was great.

 

[OurOhana]

And here's the next night. Now, on this night, the entrees really didn't sound great to us. Witt, our server, got us ribeyes from the Parrot Cay dining room. Again, I can't say enough how nice he was.

My mom and I got the tart, very good

DH got the risotto:

Mom and I tried the squash soup, but it wasn't great

DH asked for just a salad with blue cheese dressing, which they were happy to provide

We all got steaks from the Parrot Cay menu (This is one without the sauce, which is what DH wanted. I got sauce on mine.) It was a good tasting steak.

DESSERT
When it came to dessert time, our server, Savio from India, went above and beyond. Every night he brought out extra desserts for us to try. We never asked for any of them. But I'm glad he did, because some of those were great and i wouldn't have thought to try them.

Since I wasn't sure what I'd like, if any of them, I decided to go safe and just ask for some chocolate ice cream with chocolate sauce. My mom had asked for ice cream the night before, and had asked for nuts that night.

Without even being asked for nuts this night, he ran to another restaurant to get some

DH asked Savio to pick something for him, so Savio brought him the apple crumble, which was really really good. (And I'm not even much into those.) The apples were firm, not mushy at all.

They also gave us the trio desserts, strawberry sable, cranberry orange cheesecake and chocolate cake

Our DD had come with us to dinner that night. (We had to drag her there most nights for at least a little bit to eat. She would rather be in the club. So after she had her dinner, DH took her to the club after she was done. When Savio realized she was gone, he brought us a little something to take back to the room for her later (So sweet and thoughful.)

 

[TotallyAngelic]

The food looks delicious! I really like the little sampler of desserts so you can try all three! The apple crumble looks particularly yummy!

 

[OurOhana]

The food looks delicious! I really like the little sampler of desserts so you can try all three! The apple crumble looks particularly yummy!

It really was pretty tasty. And I agree, the sampler made it really easy to try a few things without getting stuffed. (Of course, it didn't help that we ate all of the other desserts too )

 

[OurOhana]

Sorry for the delayed update. Things have been a bit busy at work. But I'm back, and updating. Hope to finish the report soon.

Asaparagus soup - I really liked it

Chicken appetizer - Really tasty

West Indies Romaine Salad - DH had it, but he can't remember his thoughts (which means it wasn't bad)

Our favorite ribeye

And the desserts (again a great variety from our server)

 

[OurOhana]

I think this was the conch chowder (but it wasn't great for us)

This was the potstickers. They were kind of bready. Not great.

The salad was nice (fresh, as usual)

We love our dressings:

My mom got the mahi mahi, which she liked

DH got the ribeye as usual, no sauce

And I had the sirloin of beef, which was really good

And desserts:

 

[OurOhana]

We really had the best dining crew. As we've noted, they went above and beyond. I'd highly recommend them to anyone.

At the top of the list is head server Witt from Thailand. His favorite line was "if you have any problems call 1-800-Witt." We never had a problem. He was great.

Savio was the server. He's from India

And Veronica was the assistant server. She's from Brazil.

We had Witt for both cruises, but Savio and Veronica were new for the second cruise. We had only been in the dining room one night for the 3-night cruise, so we didn't get to know the servers there well. Mark was the server, and he was nice. I can't remember the name of the assistant server, but she had little to no personality. (We had her for a breakfast)

We were really happy with our dining staff and the room server. They were all great, and in addition to nice comments on the card, we also wrote a letter.

 

[CRSNDSNY]

Great report! Just found it and love the details!

We will be surprising out kids this December with a cruise - they are 2 and 4. How did your daughter react when she realized for certain that it was a Disney Cruise surprise?

 

[OurOhana]

We will be surprising out kids this December with a cruise - they are 2 and 4. How did your daughter react when she realized for certain that it was a Disney Cruise surprise?

That's so cool. You all will have so much fun.

This is going to sound horrible when I say this, but I don't think our daughter understands just how cool it all is. Don't get me wrong - she LOVES it. I just think she thinks it's something we could do anytime we want. We were in Cocoa Beach last weekend and saw both the Magic and Wonder. She asked if we could go on the "Mickey Boat," and we said we didn't have tickets. She asked if we could get tickets next time so we could go on again. Oh, if only it was that simple (or the tickets were that cheap)

 

[CRSNDSNY]

Ha ha! Yes, I think it is hard for them to understand.

In trying to get my son potty trained, we tell him that if he goes on potty he can go on Mickey Boat. So he'll say, "pee potty! Mickey Boat!" No luck, though.
Our daughter asks nearly every single day if we could LIVE on Mickey Boat. She is seriously as obsessed with Disney Cruise Line as I am....possibly even worse. So I think she will have some understanding when she finally sees the ship at the Port.

Luckily we are getting in on Friday night and then driving down to the Sheraton at Port Canaveral. I don't think they'll see the ship from there and possible be sleeping during our drive. We're going to tell them we're going to the beach or something. Then the next morning when we are driving to the Port we'll let them see it for themselves. I think there is going to be a lot of screaming in our car at that point!

 

[Melcatfish]

That's so cool. You all will have so much fun.

This is going to sound horrible when I say this, but I don't think our daughter understands just how cool it all is. Don't get me wrong - she LOVES it. I just think she thinks it's something we could do anytime we want. We were in Cocoa Beach last weekend and saw both the Magic and Wonder. She asked if we could go on the "Mickey Boat," and we said we didn't have tickets. She asked if we could get tickets next time so we could go on again. Oh, if only it was that simple (or the tickets were that cheap)

My daughter is the same. She is 4 and we are booked for July 30th 8 night Magic cruise. We went last summer on a revised Eastern that became a western and she LOVED it but at that age she doesn't quite get that it is EXPENSIVE and we can't just go on Mickeys Boat anytime we like. The other day she found 27p that must have fallen out of our pockets in her bedroom (that is around 40 cents in US money) and she gave it to me and asked if NOW do we have enough pennies to go back on Mickeys Special Boat?!

I am loving your trip report and photos, I find reading trip reports and living vicariously through other peoples trips is the best way to pass time between cruises!

Mel
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