Return of the DisAddict Shubman goes back to sea!

[anetnmike]

hooray! I was wondering when you'd be back! hope your computers are on the mend soon! I can't wait to hear the rest of the story!

 

[coasterfiend]

Was hoping you'd have a chance to post some more tales of your trip before we embarked on ours . . .
Maybe I'll try to post a TR when we return - I know it won't be nearly as enjoyable reading as your's have been!!!
Hope all is well with you

 

[ashman]

I have become one of THOSE TR authors. You know the one that gets you hooked, drawn in and excited, and then leave you hanging. My computers did crash, by the time they got back up an going, the TR was off my radar screen as I don't spend a lot of time on DIS with no cruise on the horizon (just TOO DARN DEPRESSING!). Well as the more astute of you can tell by looking at the new sparkly ticker in my signature line, I am doing a double dip on the Dream in June. Someone on the cruise meets thread mentioned how much they loved my first trip report. Saying this reminded me that I never finished the second!

So with that in mind, I will attempt to finish the thing now! Now you may be asking why in the world would somebody finish a trip report for a cruise that happened over 18 months ago. Well the answer is simple isn't it? I am one sick puppy and the only cure is DCL!

 

[ashman]

The parking lot opened a little before 10. Before you can say Jimeny Cricket, we are unloaded and through security with the car parked. We score a number 3 for a boarding pass. The girls are giddy as we go up the escalator and ecstatic as they get to the top and see it all decked out for Christmas! I was pretty sure it would be but I didn't say anything to them in case it wasn't. Here are some shots:
A Cool wreath:

A Mickey Hand:

and a REALLY tall tree:

Check in is a snap and beyond easy as we did the online stuff before hand and there were only like 10 families in the terminal at the time. The girls get a pre-boarding shot taken with Mickey:

Before you know it, the open up ship, the girls are literally running ahead of us. I make them stop so I can get a shot of them on the gangway:

If you look in the background you can see a cast member waving in the picture! I loved this! The do the announcement, the girls tell the guy it is my wife's birthday and they give an extra celebration for that!

Whew! Enough for now, I gotta run but I promise not to be so derelict in the posting of the next chapter!

 

[Tink rules]

Welcome Back!!! (I guess this means I have to go and finish my report too!! )

 

[BlueBayou]

Glad you are back! This is a great trip report so far!

 

[ashman]

Sooo our family along with grandma and grandpa get on the ship nice and early. Be the savvy Dis/DCL veterans, we take our newbie family friends up to BeachBlanket where we hit the buffet!

We finish up lunch then we head out to the pool deck. You may have remember from the pre-trip portion that we were warned to bring a jacket. It was still a little nippy when we left. It was a tad nippy on the ship as you can tell from this shot of my MIL:

So of course seeing all of this led my very straightforward and rational minded children to state, "Hey it is a little chilly, maybe we should take a pass on the pool right now."

YEAH RIGHT Wild horses using electric eels for ropes would not be able to my girls out of the water. They were going in and no one is stopping them. The girls are hitting the pool and slide like they are going close it off for good the moment we set sail. While they are doing this the one thing that could make this a better trip happens, COUSINS!

My BIL and his family got to the ship. They flew in the night before and stayed in Orlando this night before. They got a bit later start than we did. FIL and I stayed with the girls while my wife and MIL meet them just as they are getting announced. My youngest niece barrels into my wife's arms, "They just said our names for everyone!" They go off to eat, by now the staterooms are ready. My girls change clothes so they can show off, "their ship!"

 

[JDBlair]

So excited to stumble upon another ASHMAN TR!!!!

 

[ashman]

We head to the kid's clubs and check them out. This is new for us because we never made it to the club on our first cruise. We got there just as they were closing down for the drill and never made it back. This time we are there and the kids are having a blast playing:

The check out the bathrooms of the club area, declare them to be super cute and decide to get a picture taken:

Before too long it is time to get ready for the lifeboat drill. I try to recreate the magic of the original shub shot:

I think we all can agree that the original was better. I tried to talk my wife into retaking it, she wasn't having it. I tried to reason that my friends on the Dis would expect the shot, she responded with the infamous quote from Toy Story, "You are one sad strange little man." So off to the deck for the safety muster do you think we were looking into the sun?

Mom and dad are okay, kids left their sunglasses in the room HA HA! um I mean, geez kids that's too bad, it will be over soon! And sure enough, it was, on to the sail away party!

 

[starrzone]

Yay, you're back! I love your writing style, and reading about your wonderful family. Reports like yours make me want to do a Disney cruise more and more!

 

[Jennifer48]

So glad you are back to finish!

 

[ashman]

Yay, you're back! I love your writing style, and reading about your wonderful family. Reports like yours make me want to do a Disney cruise more and more!

Thank you, I know reading trip reports did the very same thing for me! Good and dangerous at the same time!

So glad you are back to finish!

Thanks! I know I got so much help from so many others, like you, I just had to come back!

 

[ashman]

Okay the drill is over and it is time to party! I have been on several cruise lines and no one does a sail away party as well as DCL. A large part of it is Disney but I think a large part of it are the people who cruise Disney. It almost seems like on other lines people are either too cool are not drunk enough yet to get into it. Not a problem as you can see here:

Last cruise we couldn't sniff deck nine, this time we got up close to the show deck and had a blast! At least I think we had a blast, you tell me, does this kid look like she was having a good time?

Needless to say my girl is just a little happy to be back on the Wonder. We danced and boogied and took the obligatory "Dad I want on your shoulders" shot":

I'll be honest with you, I think my days of doing this are numbered, Sweet Child in the shot here is 8 at the time. She will be 11 by our next cruise, I gotta start working out if I am going to be able to pull this off again!

We get to dinner and our waiter (I remember he was from Jamaica I think his name was Lamont, I probably would have know for sure if I had taken notes or done this while the trip was fresh but THAT would make sense and we can't have Ashman making sense now can we?) is wowing us right from the start. We had the APL rotation (same as last time). My girls made him and the bus boy a card to give at the start to thank them for the work would be doing along with some candy. My girls impressed the waiter by not only ordering off the adult menu but eating the whole thing! The waiter had their meat cut before we could even try to do it. That sounds like a little thing but to a parent who usually eats lukewarm food when going out it is a HUGE plus! After dinner Lamont (that is what I am calling him now like or leave it! ) does a magic trick for the girls:

We wrap up dessert and then it is time to celebrate the birthday of my dear sweet bride! This shot was taken by my father in law:

If notice in the lower right hand corner you will see yours truly capturing the moment for all eternity here is the shot:

MAN did I marry one AWESOME looking woman! How cool to have your actual birthday on the ship. Disney does this right. I mentioned it to Lamont at the beginning of the meal, he said, "Of course man, I know, we got it all taken care of!" and they did. If you have never had the celebration cake, you gotta fake something and get one on your next cruise! It is a really good cake, my wife LOVES birthday cake and so she was one happy lady!

The show that night was Toy Story. It was good, the kids loved it, the looks on my nieces faces were priceless. I liked Hercules better but it was still a great show and a great way to end our first day!

Tune in for the report from Nassau were we swim with the fishes and sadly tell of the death of a dear friend.

 

[ashman]

Day two of our cruise has us looking forward to going to Blue Lagoon. On our first cruise we did the ship's excursion for the Dolphin Encounter (see post#102 of my first trip report if you want a recap). We really enjoyed it. That said we saw the Dolphin Swim and that looked MUCH better. At the time my youngest, Mini Me, was too young to do it. This time around she would be old enough. So we decided to go off reservation and book our own excursion! We had a fairly tight window and so we were going to have to leave the ship as soon as it cleared customs. While we were waiting, there was a princess gathering in the Atrium, so of course why not go see some of the famous ladies of Disney!

The girls with Cindy:

The girls with Snow:

The girls with Belle:

We even got to see a few we didn't last time like Alice:

Wendy and Hook!

The character interactions, especially the talkies (you know the ones that allowed to talk) are one of the greatest parts of the Disney Cruise. I have never felt like my kids were rushed, the CM's make it feel like we are the only ones on the ship. In fact one time I was trying to move the girls on to make way for the next kid and the "handler" person told me, "Calm down dad, it's okay" That is awesome to me. We got many of the same shots before but it was a nice touch to get them with the Christmas decorations. We didn't have time to linger though, we had to get going! We have a date with a dolphin!

 

[ashman]

Okay so I have been reading my old report and looking at my pictures as I have been working this report and it has really struck me just how quickly time flies and kids grow up. Take a look at this shot of Sweet Child from our first cruise:

and from the cruise in this trip report:

The angle is a little off but she got so much older so quickly! Maybe it is just because I recently saw Toy Story 3 (those of you who have, the scene at the end, I'm not saying more for those who haven't except it is a gut wrencher) but I am just really struck about how quickly my time with these precious young ladies is passing, so if you will excuse me, I am going to go tickle them. The trip report will resume shortly.

 

[JDBlair]

The angle is a little off but she got so much older so quickly! Maybe it is just because I recently saw Toy Story 3 (those of you who have, the scene at the end, I'm not saying more for those who haven't except it is a gut wrencher) but I am just really struck about how quickly my time with these precious young ladies is passing, so if you will excuse me, I am going to go tickle them. The trip report will resume shortly.

Saw Toy Story on Father's Day. Cried my eyes out. Even DS (16) shed some tears. GREAT movie!!!

 

[Tink rules]

LOVE watching the girls grow up!!!

 

[miztigg]

yeah another ashman report!!!!!

 

[BlueBayou]

Great trip report. Thanks for sharing.

 

[ashman]

We have done the meet and great with the princesses and are now waiting for the ship to clear. We are chomping at the bit to get off as we have a pretty narrow window to get to Blue Lagoon shuttle area just near the Atlantis. Our plan is to dash of the ship and get a taxi ASAP. So we are primed like a family of racehorses ready to take off at the sound of the bell, AND THEY'RE OFF, this family is in the zone, ready to rock and get down to business. OOH look how they blew off that hairbraider! MAN did you see how they blew through the Straw Market? ZOOM look how quickly they land a cab! They get to the shuttle spot with 15 minutes to spare, only to learn that the shuttle is going to be 30 minutes late!

What can I say, it's the islands mon, and it is their shuttle mon, so no worries mon!

So we chill out and wait. The shuttle arrives in due time and we are off to the Blue Lagoon! One of the nice things about this cruise is we are DCL vets therefore making us Castaway Club Members, which means we got a Member gift. This cruise it was a very nice beach bag that we still use on a regular basis and two water blue bottles with Castaway Club written on the side. Sadly the bottle opened on us on the ride to the Lagoon and got on our camera. So we have no pictures for the rest of our cruise. My Father-in-Law gave me copies of his shots but of course they weren't on this excursion with us so no pics.

We get to the location and they let us suit up in Wet suits, they give the education spiel and my girls impress the lecturer by being able to name the five characteristics of mammals (gotta love classical education! there is fun little song to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb) We get in the water, and you get to do everything that you do with the encounter and then some! You swim out to the middle and the dolphin, swims behind you and jumps over you! VERY COOL! At the end of the excursion, you lay out flat on your belly, two dolphins get behind you and push you like 100 yards with their noses, WHAT A RUSH! This was a great excursion! If you like doing the dolphin thing, go on your own and do the swim not the encounter, it was worth every penny!

We board the shuttle and head out, as we do the next shuttle is coming in, on it is the rest of our family coming to do the encounter! We wave to them and head back to the ship. The kids play in the pools for a bit and my wife and I relax, pretty soon, it is time to get ready for dinner and PIRATE NIGHT! Here is shot of the missus and me getting ready:

A Pirate Family with a Pirate Mouse:

At dinner I decide to become a Pirate Walrus:

The show that night is Golden Mickeys, great as always. Mini Me falls asleep during it AGAIN! (She did the same last cruise too!) She wakes up in time for the Pirate party and we hit the sack after Mickey saves the day! Great day, great fun!