...I'm texting my dis friends as I ride the escalator up...
And there they are in their awesome t-shirts! I finally meet Rebekah & Donna (and Sean & even though he is sitting to the side pretending not to know us, Art). We chat. My husband patiently stands there. And stands there. and stands there. We also go check in, there is NO wait & the waiting area seems much less crowded than it did last year (7 day Eastern). They upgraded, but due to my motion sickness I decided not to because seeing the water only makes my nausea worse (and it was pretty bad last year despite having the scopolamine patch on). As Rebekah said it may have been my only chance to be able to afford it but I just can't risk it. At this point I put on the scopalmine patch (hearing horror stories of the prior 4 day cruise) and they start to board.
My new friends are in earlier boarding groups & quickly get on board, we have time to wait in the fairly short line & see my favorite mouse. Then our group number is up (9) and we quickly get into the gangway & get our photo taken and get on board! Woo hoo, we are here!!! We head to lunch, at Parrot Cay they are sending everyone up to Beach blanket buffet (I think that's what it's called) and eat. Line for the buffet is slow moving (we are on the left side, but the right line), get our food, grab a seat & eat. DH was being a bit antisocial so we didn't join our dis friends outside. That made me sad but I guess I have to go home with him in 3 days so I have to keep him happy!
After lunch (it's still a bit earlier than they say the rooms are ready) we head to our room anyways and I seem to recall our luggage was even there already. Room 6087, prefect for the 2 of us. Maybe the best part of all was the note indicating that they had refunded our fuel surcharge and we each had a $25 credit (even better since we paid for the cruise with DVC points)! We had our
Castaway club gift waiting for us (red/black bag with water bottles & treats) too.
We then explored a bit, included a tour of the spa (DH though he might want a service) and entered the drawing for free stuff. We didn't end up taking advantage of the spa, but they had some good prices had you booked for that day - keep this in mind when planning your trip! Next time we will skip the send off party (seen it twice now) and do the spa instead. They also had some specials for the day in Nassau but since we didn't know what exactly we were doing the next day we didn't want to plan anything (tip- next time we will skip Nassau or come back very early and do the spa if we didn't do it the day before).
I'm probably missing some stuff but I think next we went to the DVC member presentation. Free stuff (hats, reusable bag, alcoholic drinks, cookies) and they gave away a bunch of stuff (i won a backpack type bag) included $200 credit. After 30 mins there it was time for the dis meet up, DH decided he wanted to go to the spa to see if we won anything there so I went to the meet up alone.
It was like Christmas, only better. I could hear the Angels singing. Then I heard Rebekah and clearly the angels were gone (tee hee, love you). There were so many amazing people there, I was just sad I hardly got to spend anytime because I promised DH I'd get back to the DVC thing on the off chance we won the money (it was good because I took Lori & her husband back with me because they to are DVC members; this way they got their free stuff too). In fact there were some people I barely got to meet and barely meet any of the kids (we had some awfully cute kids in the group!). So many wearing their great shirts that Jen made!
After finishing up at the DVC thing (we didn't win the money - here is another tip, last cruise I feel for the "but I might win because my odds are pretty good" mindset and we attended all things just for that - this was the last time I would allow DH to have that mindset. Yeah, you might win but the chances are better that you won't so decide what your time is worth. It would have been MUCH better to stay at the meet and spend more time with these awesome people!
Then it was time to head back to the room for the drill. Yeah. By this point I'd realized that people were already stealing my door magnets (and others) and i found the door they were on (this happened MANY times throughout the cruise and they always ended up on the same door - I finally knocked on that door and said something to the women inside - I think it maybe was her teens doing it?).
Unpacked next and went to the sail away party. It was good but same as last time and I will probably skip it next time. Spent some time watching the ship leave, very interesting to see the Coast Guard boat along side escorting us out, with a REALLY big gun mounted on the front of it. Then decided to skip the show (we love Golden Mickeys but saw it last year) and hit the adult pool. TIP - if you are prone to motion sickness don't go in the pool when the boat is rocking, it way magnified the rocking and made me feel lousy. Adult pool was very nice with nice lounge chairs.
Ohh, all along I was putting rum in my mug I had brought along and filling it with diet coke at the soda fountain. Worked very well. DH tried to use his castaway water bottle for this but the metal with the cold drink was too cold to hold - Tip bring plastic mug!
Also, I had brought along a shoe holder (purchased at the dollar section of Target) for the back of the bathroom door. Definitely recommend this as there is very little counter space and it gave me somewhere to put all my stuff (makeup, jewelry, sun screen) and keep it organized and out of the way.
After the pool we got ready for dinner and went and played Bingo (OK, maybe I'd let DH sucker me into the we might win mindset once more but there was this purse I really wanted to buy so I had to be nice and I spent my money on a purse, he on Bingo). Not many people playing, we had a nice table in the back, bought a drink. Didn't win. When we left we got some wine glasses, went back to the room to fill them with the magnum of wine we had brought along) and went to dinner.
Dinner was at Tritons, late (8:15) seating. We were smart from last year and didn't rush to get there right at 8"15, we arrived about 5 mins later and got right in, no wait. Meet our servers and some of out table companions (a couple about our age and a mom and daughter). I had the fish for dinner, it was pretty good although not the best I've had. After dessert they brought everyone in our group a large individual cake (it was the daughter's 30th that day, my bday was a few weeks prior and the other couple's anniversary). It was good but after a 3 course dinner we were so full we brought it back to our room to save for a later day.
Then we headed to the cove cafe lounge for scotch tasting (not on the navigator), well worth the $10 we paid. Very intimate, tried 5 different scotch/whisky/whiskey and got a good education; also love the Cove lounge! They certainly didn't have this on the Magic last year! We then had a drink there, walked around the ship for a bit and went to bed. I should note that it was a bit rocky, but other than the time in the pool it was tolerable.
Now, off to dream (well, I guess we Wonder on this ship) about tomorrow in Nassau...
Keep up with the great tips.
Maybe it was Lorelei and Ben heehe
