jodifla
WDW lover since 1972
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2002
- Messages
- 11,605
Hi all. Here's the start of my trip report. It's long, and in installments! Let me know if you have any questions as I go...
Day 1, Friday. We flew from DTW to MCO on Spirit Airlines on one of their nifty new planes. We got a great RT rate of $136. Plane was on time. DH said that getting the car was a bit tricky...he did not see the signs for the rental cars until he'd done some hunting. We are Preferred Members at Avis, but the setup at MCO isn't as nice as in Boston, where we normally rent from. We drove to OKW for our first night, since we're DVC members. Had a fantastic dinner at Olivia's, which I think is quite underrated. Their steak salads were terrific! Our room was in great shape, so we had a comfortable night.
Day 2, Saturday. Somehow, DH is under the mistaken impression we're going to spend several hours at OKW then drive to the port at the last minute. I told him with fires closing down roads, that wouldn't be a good idea! I called 511, and punched in the numbers for the Beachline Expressway traffic report. My jaw dropped when they said it would take almost 4 hours to get from I-4 to 1-95!!!! It should be less than 45 minutes. There was some accident between I-4 and the airport, apparently. I was very grateful we had a map so we could formulate Plan B. We had a fast breakfast at Olivia's, and stopped for beer and wine to put in a roll-aboard suitcase at the Winn-Dixie just north of Goodings. Then we headed for the 417, which is a GREAT FIND. We cut around all the nonsense on I-4 and the Beachline. We were making great time, until we got 7 miles from the port. Then their was roadwork on the bridge, and it took 40 minutes to go those last 7 miles. It was excruciating. And a good reminder of why you leave yourself enough time to get to the port.
Finally, at the port: We got there a little before 2. DH dropped off DS and me and the luggage. There was no wait in the Castaway Cay line, and all would have been perfect, except DH had never signed his passport! So I couldn't get his KTTW card. DS was so excited he was leaping all over the terminal. I signed in DS for the kids club, and we got on the boat just after 2 when DH showed up to sign his passport. We were able to drop our bags at the room, 6094, and head to Topsiders for lunch. I went to the DIS boards meet at 3 p.m., and met a bunch of great folks, including Verandah Man and his family, Dr. Cavin, Cali-Mouse, Hanover, Ragdoll, and others. All great folks, and it was a nice way to kick off the cruise. I looked down in the middle of a conversation, though, to see DS, 4, kicking off his clothes so he could get in the Mickey Pool! I decided it was time to get DH from finishing up his lunch and have him get DS to the pool for the Mickey Police arrested us for nudity before the boat even sailed away!
The safety drill went quickly and smoothly. DS isn't a huge fan of the sailaway party, so we went back to the room for a bit and watched from our verandah. We had the LAP first seating dinner rotation, so our time was 6 p.m. I would not want to eat any earlier! Our servers were Vlado and Soumi, (sp?) and they were a good team who worked hard to make sure we had what we wanted. We sat with a nice family from Virginia, so we were lucky to have compatible and interesting tablemates. I will say, and DH concurs, that the food was GREATLY improved over our sailing in Sept. 2004. By the middle of the week I was taking Vlado's suggestions, and he really steered me right. I mainly ate the fish courses at dinner, and found them very well prepared.
We went to the kids' club after dinner to look around, and found it to be kind of zoo-like. It's really hectic in their the first few nights....then we looked around the boat some more. We decided to call it a night at headed to the stateroom. DS was exhausted. Luckily, with our verandah, we could sit out side and have a drink (in addition to the wine and beer, we brought the travel bar....) and enjoy the moon-lit waters.
Day 3, Sunday. This is a sea day, and Mother's Day, so we took our time getting up. DS played in the stateroom, so we order room service coffee and juice and pastries. This is to be a routine the whole trip. We ordered lots of room service! (The first morning, DH was appalled! He didn't realize that it's included in the price of the cruise...he's thinking of our few room service breakfasts at Disney!)
We headed to Lumiere's around 11 for a sit-down brunch, which was really nice. They had a big cake in the front decorated for Mother's Day. DH and DS explore the ship while I went to the DVC meeting. Lots of DVCers onboard the ship, and they give out great gifts, so it's fun to go to. After that, we all changed and headed to the jam-packed Mickey pool... for about the next 4 hours. Where do kids get their energy? DH and I spent the time by the pool side, with drinks, watching him play and soaking up the sun. We also took turns exploring the adult side of the ship, which was always quiet and often underused, it seemed.
Then it was time to get ready for the formal dinner. DS did not complain when I put him in his nice clothes, and DH looked great in his rented white dinner jacked. Unfortunately, DS wanted to leave dinner about an hour in...that's when the lights go down in Animator's Palate. Something about that made him VERY nervous, and he begged to leave. I don't think we even got dessert that night! We ended up taking him to the kids club and headed down for a drink in Sessions. The funny thing was, about 10 minutes after we got there, one couple got paged to pick up their kids from the club, then 10 minutes later, the couple next to us got paged, then 10 minutes later, we got paged! Lots of unhappy campers that night! So we got DS, took him back to the room, and enjoyed our verandah.
More to come...
Day 1, Friday. We flew from DTW to MCO on Spirit Airlines on one of their nifty new planes. We got a great RT rate of $136. Plane was on time. DH said that getting the car was a bit tricky...he did not see the signs for the rental cars until he'd done some hunting. We are Preferred Members at Avis, but the setup at MCO isn't as nice as in Boston, where we normally rent from. We drove to OKW for our first night, since we're DVC members. Had a fantastic dinner at Olivia's, which I think is quite underrated. Their steak salads were terrific! Our room was in great shape, so we had a comfortable night.
Day 2, Saturday. Somehow, DH is under the mistaken impression we're going to spend several hours at OKW then drive to the port at the last minute. I told him with fires closing down roads, that wouldn't be a good idea! I called 511, and punched in the numbers for the Beachline Expressway traffic report. My jaw dropped when they said it would take almost 4 hours to get from I-4 to 1-95!!!! It should be less than 45 minutes. There was some accident between I-4 and the airport, apparently. I was very grateful we had a map so we could formulate Plan B. We had a fast breakfast at Olivia's, and stopped for beer and wine to put in a roll-aboard suitcase at the Winn-Dixie just north of Goodings. Then we headed for the 417, which is a GREAT FIND. We cut around all the nonsense on I-4 and the Beachline. We were making great time, until we got 7 miles from the port. Then their was roadwork on the bridge, and it took 40 minutes to go those last 7 miles. It was excruciating. And a good reminder of why you leave yourself enough time to get to the port.
Finally, at the port: We got there a little before 2. DH dropped off DS and me and the luggage. There was no wait in the Castaway Cay line, and all would have been perfect, except DH had never signed his passport! So I couldn't get his KTTW card. DS was so excited he was leaping all over the terminal. I signed in DS for the kids club, and we got on the boat just after 2 when DH showed up to sign his passport. We were able to drop our bags at the room, 6094, and head to Topsiders for lunch. I went to the DIS boards meet at 3 p.m., and met a bunch of great folks, including Verandah Man and his family, Dr. Cavin, Cali-Mouse, Hanover, Ragdoll, and others. All great folks, and it was a nice way to kick off the cruise. I looked down in the middle of a conversation, though, to see DS, 4, kicking off his clothes so he could get in the Mickey Pool! I decided it was time to get DH from finishing up his lunch and have him get DS to the pool for the Mickey Police arrested us for nudity before the boat even sailed away!
The safety drill went quickly and smoothly. DS isn't a huge fan of the sailaway party, so we went back to the room for a bit and watched from our verandah. We had the LAP first seating dinner rotation, so our time was 6 p.m. I would not want to eat any earlier! Our servers were Vlado and Soumi, (sp?) and they were a good team who worked hard to make sure we had what we wanted. We sat with a nice family from Virginia, so we were lucky to have compatible and interesting tablemates. I will say, and DH concurs, that the food was GREATLY improved over our sailing in Sept. 2004. By the middle of the week I was taking Vlado's suggestions, and he really steered me right. I mainly ate the fish courses at dinner, and found them very well prepared.
We went to the kids' club after dinner to look around, and found it to be kind of zoo-like. It's really hectic in their the first few nights....then we looked around the boat some more. We decided to call it a night at headed to the stateroom. DS was exhausted. Luckily, with our verandah, we could sit out side and have a drink (in addition to the wine and beer, we brought the travel bar....) and enjoy the moon-lit waters.
Day 3, Sunday. This is a sea day, and Mother's Day, so we took our time getting up. DS played in the stateroom, so we order room service coffee and juice and pastries. This is to be a routine the whole trip. We ordered lots of room service! (The first morning, DH was appalled! He didn't realize that it's included in the price of the cruise...he's thinking of our few room service breakfasts at Disney!)
We headed to Lumiere's around 11 for a sit-down brunch, which was really nice. They had a big cake in the front decorated for Mother's Day. DH and DS explore the ship while I went to the DVC meeting. Lots of DVCers onboard the ship, and they give out great gifts, so it's fun to go to. After that, we all changed and headed to the jam-packed Mickey pool... for about the next 4 hours. Where do kids get their energy? DH and I spent the time by the pool side, with drinks, watching him play and soaking up the sun. We also took turns exploring the adult side of the ship, which was always quiet and often underused, it seemed.
Then it was time to get ready for the formal dinner. DS did not complain when I put him in his nice clothes, and DH looked great in his rented white dinner jacked. Unfortunately, DS wanted to leave dinner about an hour in...that's when the lights go down in Animator's Palate. Something about that made him VERY nervous, and he begged to leave. I don't think we even got dessert that night! We ended up taking him to the kids club and headed down for a drink in Sessions. The funny thing was, about 10 minutes after we got there, one couple got paged to pick up their kids from the club, then 10 minutes later, the couple next to us got paged, then 10 minutes later, we got paged! Lots of unhappy campers that night! So we got DS, took him back to the room, and enjoyed our verandah.
More to come...
