Sept 19th,2004 revisited.....

[EEYOREFAN1969]

So, come on guys and tell me about your cruises!!!! I am still waiting! Pictures!!!

 

[taeja71]

Be afraid, very afraid. The trip report you are about to read may have typos, grammer problems, and memory problems. Also, what happens on the ship stays on the ship applies as well. Enjoy.

We got in to FL on time. We left our house late as usual, but dh did his best to get us to our first stop before it was too late. It took us two more night stop before we made it to our destination. Orlando FL. This is when our vacation really started. We unloaded our luggage at the Wyndam hotel and I told dh that I still hadn't gotten my manicure or pedicure yet. So, I asked the front desk where I could get my nails done. The reservationist behind the desk said, "across the street". Now, she didn't say which street and she said there was only one. Seeing the looming clouds I started to book it towards the salon. I walked in and wham it was for African AMericans. I have no racial prejudices, but it was not what I was expecting. My best friend is black I went to hs which had predominately black/hispanic/ islander/ asian decents. I was just surprised. Guess I've been in Indiana too long. Anyway, the ladies were great, but since I walked in and it takes a while to do hair extentions and braids I had to wait quite a while. DH said he would've walked out, but I was not going to pay bucco bucks on the ship and I wasn't going to cut into my ship time. So, I patiently waited and met some great ladies. A lady from London was explaining how when she slept in their rental her dh took four different tolls trying to find the airport. They even had GPS in the vehicle. I was laughing, but knew that my dh's was going to be picking up his mom soon from the airport. Just under my breath I said, I hope he'll be able to find it (the airport). Dh had the kids and I was enjoying being by myself. I had my cell phone so he'd call and say, are you still waiting? And of course, I'd say yes and get back when I could. Time warp. The lady did a great job on my nails, I felt so pretty walking out. I got a french tip look since I didn't want to be limited to one color. By the time I was done dh and the kids picked up grandma and made it back to the hotel safe and sound. I saw the most interesting rainbow walking back. It looked like it was hidden between two sets of clouds. So, pretty. Oh, did I tell you at this point I was realizing how out of shape I was? Just walking I was glad to get myself from point A to point B. We went out to dinner at Sizzler. Now, Sizzler might not be exciting to you, but for us it was a treat. We don't have any Sizzlers around us in INdiana and I can't remember the last time we went there while visiting in Calif. So, dinner was fabulous! That's the end to Saturday.

 

[taeja71]

Sunday we all woke up early. It was tough forcing myself to go to sleep the night before and I was more than ready to go in the morning. We didn't have breakfast we headed straight for the DCL terminal. Ya, I felt like I was starving the kids by not having breakfast, but we munched on munchies- heck we were on vacation. All the rules change while on vacation....right? Any way, we'd get all excited if we'd spot Steelers stuff or see the DCL buses headed the opposite direction. We were all getting pumped up. I kept asking dh do you know which way to go to get to the DCL terminal? And he said, we'll find out. I got very excited when I spotted the first digtal overhead sign telling us which terminal and exit to take. That wasn't there in 2004 and this just set my mind at ease knowing we'd get to the right ship. I had our new Canon camera ready. It has rapid shoot so I tested it as we were getting closer to the terminal. I should share the kids couldn't believe we were driving on an island. They were in awe about that. The ship was in view and the kids started screaming, there it is, there it is! I started getting teary eyed, b/c I could feel like a kid myself and do what I wanted when I wanted. We parked and got a souvenir for the van, the parking stub. We carried our luggage across the street and who should I see, my first DISer cruise thread friend Vicki (purplern) and her dd. She spotted me first and I had to get my head out of the fog to say hello. WE exchanged quick introductions and then we gladly handed our luggage off to a porter. Saw, Vicki again since she was waiting for her dh to park and said we'd see eachother upstairs. Getting through security was a breeze. Finalizing our paperwork...confusing.

*Sigh* I took a lot of deep breaths while the guy was tearing out sheets, making us fill out and sign others. I thought to myself, this is the same guy we got two years ago. I'd get easily distracted by looking for people I thought I'd recognize or look at the floor to admire it. The terminal at this point wasn't very full. It was 11ish and we made good time by not stopping for food. We went to the CC member line and walked right up. WE got lanyards for all of us and two pins. The kids were excited about getting cards of their own and esp. the oldest dd b/c she got charging privies. We then went to check in the kids for the Oceaneer club. There was a small line, but I didn't mind, I was that much closer to being on the ship. Kids checked in and we headed towards the ship model. **side note** I didn't tell dh about all the meets and activites I had scheduled with my DIS group. I casually mentioned lets go over by the t.v.'s (that's where meet #1 was). So, the kids watched the cartoons in mute and I started looking out for familiar faces. It seemed like I didn't find any one, they found me. Some one yelled out my name and she started talking to me. I just looked at her like, I should know you right? I think it was Lisa (LCTsMom). Was that her name? Mickey came out and youngest dd wanted to see Mickey so we got in line and I met another set of DISers. I should mention, we had card #4. I wasn't sure if that was good or bad and I asked one of the workers who happened to be from Indiana if the loud speaker system was working. She resassured me and said yes. I don't understand the roped off part in front of the Mickey ears. There were two people in it and the rest of the space was just...well... wasted space. Why not open up the other chairs and couches to more people not in the other special club?

Before we knew it it was time to board. They started rattling off numbers and away we were walking through the Mickey ears.*tears of joy*

I bought the matching Disney outfits from Disney Shopping for the kids, me, and Grandma. DH's arrived and it was a tent. He wasn't too keen o.k., he didn't want to wear a matching shirt. Party pooer, he did wear his ESPN hawiian shirt so I give him credit for that. Our boarding picture looks really nice. I'll have to post it some day. We were announced and I got shivers. I told dh I had to stop by the consierge (?) desk. I dropped off my pillowcases to be signed and then we were off to find food. PC was full (partially b/c I had to do what I had to do), but BBB was fine. My MIL is the best. She really a golden nugget. We finished eating and walked around a little bit talking about what we wanted to do. We got hear the spa and was offered a tour. We just kind of looked at each other shrugged our shoulders and said, why not. The kids got to see the spa too. We walked near the treadmills that looked over the bridge and I was glad b/c that was the whole reason I wanted to do the bridge tour was to see the bridge. WEll, on our little spa tour I got one thing I wanted to do done already. Cool We adults signed up for our spa adventures. DH did the hot rock message, MIL did the probes, and I signed up for the seaweed message. More about that later. By that time it was time to go to our rooms. We just got off the elevator and the ropes were just being taken off. The kids started running (in the opposite direction) and we managed to get them going the right way. We got MIL and dd the birthday DCL package and when mom opened the door she was overwhelmed. Such simple decorations really got her. I told her it was dh's idea and so brownie points for him. We had connecting rooms w/ split baths and that was great! We never kept our doors shut b/c any one of us were going back and forth. I had my mag door signs and things to hang up so I spent some time decorating our rooms some more. I didn't print out any thing b/c our printer was having issues right before we left. So, thankfully the calendars I bought were perfect! I put magnets behind them and decorated every thing that was magnetic. WE met our stateroom steward Ed and I asked him if I could decorate the blank spaces beside our doors and I just got a look. I laughed and said, o.k. . The kids got sucked into a movie and we adults started unpacking what we could. We slowly started getting our luggage and by the time it all arrived I was very glad b/c I was tired of unpacking, I wanted to get out on deck!

 

[taeja71]

The kids and I got our swimsuits on. They were dying to get in the pool and try out the slide. All the kiddoes could do the slide so you can imagine the excitement. Mom's excitement when we got to the pool was when I saw how many kids were in the pool...already! Since we, me and the kids were in the pool I knew there was no way I could get to my next meet during the sail away. All well, there will be more meets. The kids were having a blast swimming and I kept pointing out showing them we were moving, they didn't care in the least. At one point we were on the stairwell to the slide and I got to see us sailing out the break. I'm sure the sail away party was great and I was very happy having a crazy time with the kids. At one point, a cast member was in the pool getting the kids and parents to dance. That was a funny site. Well, it was time to get ready for dinner. We just cleaned up real quick since we had early/ first dining. I didn't tell dh that we had our rotations hooked up with the other DISers. I'm sure he caught on to my doings as the trip went along. Our first meal was in PC. It was interesting seeing the carrib. decor mixed with Ariel. We walked in and Ohh surprise there's my friends over there. We sat down and I started chit chatting right away. Our server came over and I had to decided what to eat. He told us his recommendations and I went off the menu. Mistake #1- I didn't listen to my server. I got my meal, ate two bite, and asked for what he recommended the marbelized something or other. From that point on I told my server, just give me whatever, I trust you. I'm not even going to be looking at the menu any more. One less thing for me to think about while being on vacation right? Right! So, it was night time, what did we do? we walked around the ship some more oh, we went to the Oceaneer club. We dropped off the kids and I think we went back to our cabin to do some more unpacking. We got the kids and then went to sleep.

 

[taeja71]

This was spa day so we slept kind of late around 9am and I was itching to get out. We all got up had room service for breakfast, got dressed, and was ready to start our day. All us adults had different times to be at the spa. I had to meet the gals at 11 in the Cafe Cove to put together our pirate goody bags. We took the kids to their clubs and we kinda went our seperate ways for a while. I had a great cove meet. We moms complied a list of goodies to get our kids (the ones who signed up) and we exchanged trinkets, necklaces, rings, candy, temp. tattoos, flags, pencils., all our bags were heavy by the time we were done. We didn't know if the cove was supposed to be a quiet place but with about 8 ladies in it it was quiet no more. We were just too excited. Some others knew about the exchanged and came by to say hello. It was so nice to put faces to usernames. Vicki's dh was our photog. he would snap picutres and enjoy our madness.

After dropping off my pirate bags in our cabin it was time for me to get to the spa. I had my seaweed massage by a Swedish gal who was engaged to a New Zelander. I prefer talking to the staff members about themselves since they have to stay so foucsed on the guest. I kept saying, do you mind me asking....and then ask. The shower was awesome! I was covered in seaweed gunk remember? so, I got to use this amazing shower and really cool smelling soaps. By the time I got back to our cabin it was time to get ready for Palo. At that point I was in go go go mode. MIL was to go with us so she and dh were already getting ready. We got up there and encountered serveral DISers. At the entry as we were waiting to be seated and near our table. We sat next to a DISer couple (zweind ?) Erica, her dh, and their friends. Their frind Steve was working on his 7th helping of desert. I told our server I didn't care what I got, but I eneded up getting the lamb since we don't get lamb every day in Indiana. Since we've been on the ship once before its tough not comparing any parts of a meal or show to the last time we were here. I kept telling dh to hush. Well, the ship photo. came by as we were all stuffed. We smiled, but our photo looks like we were well stuffed. At the time our meal was done we got paged. DK wants to be picked up. I went to round them up. I saw oldest dd typing on the screen Mom- M bore. Poor thing. We all went to our cabins and called it a night.

 

[taeja71]

I'm not getting off the ship! Not going to do it! Nope and you can't make me.

MIL was pretty easy going and this was one thing she wanted to do. It was cloudy out as it had been raining earlier that morning. It what it is in an inside cabin we had no clue what the outside weather was like. I'd call the front desk quite often asking for a window report. MIL proceeded to go into town and the rest of of stayed onboard. We sent the kids to their clubs and dh and I met Vicki at the Goofy spa since she and I decided we were not going to disbark. The night before dh entered our names at the Internet cafe for free internet. We had no hopes of winning. Who won? ME! free internet! Vicki and I strolled down to the Internet cafe after a while at the whirlpool. We logged on to our thread and LCTsMom's son paid to have access to. The whole time during the trip we'd banter back and forth about talking to eachother more on the thread than in person. LOL By the time 4pm rolled around we went our seperate ways and said, well, I'll see you at dinner!

We were able to get two of the kids to the clubs and one stayed with dh. We had one child with us (this is going to get fuzzy). This dinner was in Tritons. Dinner was great as always thanks to my server. By the time we picked up the other two they were miserable. They didn't realize we could be paged and I'm not real sure they knew they could tell some one to come and get us. They were done with the clubs.

 

[taeja71]

CC day was gloomy to begin with. I called to ask about the window report and was told light rain to sprinkles and cloudy. By the time we disbarked it was beautiful! We walked by Pluto as the kids didn't want to stop and pose. We caught the tram and walked all the way to the end of the family beach. It was perfect! I hope more people don't catch on this far location. Way to far to go people, too far from the ship and food. Any way, there were lots of shells and little crabs. We had to watch our steps. We shuffled our way to a set of lounges and chairs. I walked over to the lifeguard and asked, are there any sealice out there? Dh got attacked bad last time and the intense heat didn't help either. Me and the kids got pinched but not attacked. Any who, we knew it was safe to enter the waters. We'd just heard about Steve Erwin and still wern't sure if we wanted to do the Stingray encounter. We saw the first group and it looked like fun so dh, me, and oldest dd signed up. We got to meet Big Mama and we also met the most fantastic sandcastle builder. Oldest dd didn't want to be in the water after the feeding was over so she decided to stay on the beach while dh and I snorkled w/ the sting rays. I can't remember his name, but he uses the discarded toys at CC to make awesome sandcatles. My two littler ones came over to build with him. They were having a blast. Alas, it was time to go.

 

[taeja71]

We had dinner scheduled at T again only it was pirate night. The look on our faces and bodies looked like we were in the Carrb alright. Bright red. I kept telling myself it would go away. I packed a costume I bought on Ebay and wore my black sandals and put red bows on top. I was pirate glam! We walked into dinner looking like bake lobster pirates and those not dressed wern't sure if we were staff or not. Dinner was o.k., but I opted not to have desert. What did I get? A plate that said nothing in chocolate. That was sweet, my MIL thought it was hilarious.

We had our pirate goodie bags and the servers loved all of our get ups. We had extras and who knew when another pirate night would come so I got to hand out the extras. That was a lot of fun. I'm so glad we were in Tritons on Pirate night. That was fun. Two of my kids were really tired, but I was determined not to miss the fireworks. MIL, the youngest dd, and I headed out to get a spot for the pirate celebration. It was cramped as we were right in front by the ropes, but it was so much fun! I didn't know Mickey reeled down from the OTHER side of the smoke stack! That was awesome. I still had extra pirate goody stuff to hand out so I passed out even more stuff. We gals headed back to our rooms and dh wanted to have some alone time. We went out and walked around the ship So, ends our time at CC as we were already at sea at this point.

 

[taeja71]

All our kids were determined not to go back to the clubs. This was brunch day and dh and we had plans. We begged, but the kids didn't budge. Grandma offered to take them to see Cars and do other activities. She was hoping to do bingo, but she ditched her plans. Thanks mom! We had a light room service before going back to Palo. Boy is that room bright in the day time! We had another beautiful sunny day and I could not believe the food. We got seated right by Vicki and her dh. We started talking and I asked if we could come sit with them. They were just finishing up, but they found more food and we talked about the Steelers as we started our rounds around the tables. I loved brunch! I loved all the items offered and the variety of Italian food was delicious. I think we went in the pool met up with the kids and they all went in the pool and Grandma went to recover. I should say, by this time Grandma was getting some pretty bad back pain. She'd get pinched and she just couldn't function well. I felt bad for the woman, but she was determined to not let her back pain interfer with her vacation.

Dinner this time was in AP. We got dressed and I was still stuffed from brunch. *sigh* Alas, I looked at my plate and had to sample that night's cuisine. I had told our head server about it being my MIL and dd's b-days the first night. I was thinking maybe she'd forgotten. Well, out comes the cake and some extra servers to sing to both of them. MIL was surprised...again. *sniff sniff* More brownie points. That night was the last night we'd be together for a long time me and my DISer friends. We laughed and talked about crusing together again. Vicki had brought along Flat Tim. Flat tim was a picture of her oldest ds who's in his 20s. He didn't want to do a Disney cruise and opted to stay home. We posted about what could we do since he decided not to go? That's how Flat Tim got created. Vicki printed out one had Flat Tims picture taken at the terminal, flat tim got taken to the pool, Flat Tim I think even went to CC. And now, flat Tim was with us at dinner. It was so funny! I had my flat Tim in a sheet protector. I put a sign saying, write flat Tim a message on my stateroom door. Alice (in Wonderland) wrote, I'll have a drink for you. Ohters signed their names, one said, some hot girls from AL missed you. I gave Vicki my Flat Tim's messages and she just died laughing. We all hugged as we knew we'd all be in a rush the next morning. Leaving the dinner table was a hard thing to do.

We went to our room to finish packing. We'd started packing that afternoon so we wouldn't have to rush that night. I'm glad we didn't. We were packed up and dh wanted to go back to Wavebands for 60's night. We went and the room was very empty. We heared laughter and went into the Pub. There was the skit. If I wern't on the Ship. This is what I'd be doing- Some thing like that. It is not G rated. Its more like PG-13 1/2. It was so funny though. So, we watched the rest of it. We missed a couple parts and headed to Wavebands. It wasn't too crowded, but dh and I still had fun. There were some more mature people there, but we all had a fun time dancing together. Have you ever seen an Asian version of the Beatles? Well, I did that night. It was funny, but very cool. There was limbo and guess who didn't have to bend very low to get under? Me. I liked that part of being short. It was getting late and the room was virtually empty again by the time dh and I decided to leave. One more walk around the ship and we went to bed.

 

[taeja71]

Well, this is it. The last day. We got ready for breakfast and this lady did not want to leave the ship. I was in a grumpy mood. We made it to breakfast and it took forever for the kids to decide what to eat since the menu choices were so limited. They were so grumpy too. First seating at dinner meant first seating at breakfast too. We ate what we could and then had to go. We said goodbye again to those DISers who chose to dine that morning and to our servers we handed over our green backs. We walked our of AP and off the ship we went.

I love going through customs with DCL and getting my luggage. It was soooo easy. I've heard stories about debarking other cruise lines and I don't know if I want to take another cruise line ever. Any way, it was depressing leaving the ship, but knowing we'd be at MK and Epcot the next day helped me to cope.


I forgot to type in about 80's night the second night. That was a lot of fun. There's a cruise trip thread by Ker-Bear and she's got our 80's night photo in it. 80's night is what made my dh want to go to 60's night later.

Our servers were nice. They weren't supper attentive (all over us), but they weren't invisible either. They tried to warm up to my kids, but they just didn't enjoy them as much as they could have.

One thing I've never seen on a tip list of things to pack, Visine. My eyes were so blood shot by the third night. My kids couldn't believe it and I think my friends were too nice to say any thing. They were bad esp. in the lovely yellow flourecent lighting.

I love the split bathrooms and connecting stateroom. That made a big difference with the kids being older. There was virtually no waiting. I don't know if I could handle a port hole room or a verandah cabin. The seas were very calm, but visually, I couldn't look out any window for very long.

The first night I put out the DIS tag magnet. That was a lot of fun. I did get to see it signed the last night at the final character celebration.

We did see Dreams. The kids were getting antsy, but once they saw their favorite character, they were zoned in.

We did some of the pictures and character signings. The kids just weren't too into that. When we were in line for the variety of character signings the Mad Hatter was last. I told him it was my youngest dd's b-day and he really hammed it up. He said, Ohhh, its your birthday? How old are you? Well, its my birthday too, well my unbirthday really. He was awesome.

My poor son. There still not of activites or characters for the male species on the ship. He still kinda felt left out. I told him at the parks we'd make it up to him.




I kept wishing we had our dining linked from the 2004 cruise. I think I posted this a while back and DZNE it never came up.

 

[taeja71]

The installment of MK and EPcot will have to come later. I'm zapped creatively. I've been typing with a migraine and one of my eyes hurt. I hope you enjoy the tidbits above. I am no trip report writer. To the best of my knowledge I have the events in order. If ever add any thing, I'll put it in a different color so you don't have to re read any thing.

It has been fun writing about our vacation. Thanks Cyndi for encouraging it. Of course, when you get home you'll have to write about your girls only adventure.

 

[EEYOREFAN1969]

T, that was great! It sounds like you guys had a great time. I will definately give a review (complete with pictures) when I get back. 12 more days..............

 

[EEYOREFAN1969]

8 more days........... 8 more days............ until my cruise!

 

[taeja71]

8 more days........... 8 more days............ until my cruise!

 

[EEYOREFAN1969]

bump bump bump bump

 

[EEYOREFAN1969]

Day after tomorow and I am off on my weekend cruise! I'll try to post tomorrow. Have a great weekend if I don't get a chance to post!

 

[taeja71]

Day after tomorow and I am off on my weekend cruise! I'll try to post tomorrow. Have a great weekend if I don't get a chance to post!

Okay!

 

[taeja71]

Cyndi has set sail Have a great time!

 

[EEYOREFAN1969]

I'm back and will be working on my trip review. Be back soon!

 

[taeja71]

I'm back and will be working on my trip review. Be back soon!

welcome home! Can't wait to read your report. link it for me will ya?