mbhoxsie
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2002
- Messages
- 801
We just got back from using our points for a four day DCL cruise and I figured I'd give a short trip report..
We left Michigan on June 29th (by car) with the intention of reaching Port Caneveral a day early... (Always better to arrive for a cruise a day early, than a day late..
) To get from Michigan to Florida, we took our "alternative" route of going down I-77 to I-95.
For Night #1, we stopped at the Holiday Inn Express at Moorseville, NC.. (Very nice hotel.)
By Night #2, it was obvious we were going to make it to Port Caneveral that night, and we booked two nights at the Best Western at Cocoa Beach. Having never stayed in Cocoa Beach before, I was pleasantly suprised by the hotel. The rates were reasonable ($89/night).. The pools were nice.. The hotel was right on the ocean and had ocean access. The one thing I will mention is that Ron Jon's is building a timeshare / resort in Cocoa Beach, and the Sales reps were everywhere. They offered us a free overnight stay and a full day's pass to their waterpark if we wanted to take the tour, but we declined... Not because they were pushy or anything, only just because we had never stayed in the area and wanted to explore a bit. One other thing I will mention.. For those of you that drive to Port Caneveral to cruise, a lot of the hotels in Cocoa Beach offer "Park & Cruise" packages where they will allow you to park your car at the hotel, and then they will shuttle you over to the Cruise terminal. Best Western's Park & Cruise package costed us $8/person x 4 people. If we would have driven to the Cruise Terminal, we'd have spent $15/day x 5 days for parking... Needless to say, we saved $30 or so.
Disney Cruise
The cruise was awesome, though not as relaxing as I remembered it from 10 years ago..
I don't think it had as much to do with the cruise as it had to do with all of the activities my kids were doing.. We did the 4 day Disney Wonder Cruise. DS9 loved the Oceanear's Lab, and never wanted to leave... The same can be said about DD7 and the Oceanear's Club.
The day at Nassau was much improved over our last experience 10 years ago. DCL has a professional shopper on the boat who teaches you how to shop in Nassau. DW went to the seminar she had on the first day and got all of the coupons, and a map of stores to hit.. This made our experience much more pleasant. (On a side note, if you are going to make a LARGE purchase (like Jewelry) in Nassau, the DCL shopper will accompany you to the store and will help use her buying power to get you the best negotiated deal.)
Castaway Cay was awesome... Many more activities than I remembered from last time. We basically hung out and snorkled all day and swam. For those of waiting for the "Villas at Castaway Cay", I did talk with several DVC guides on this, and I guess the main holdup is the bugs on the Island at night. From what they were describing, the mosquitos are horrific. 
This is also one of the reasons why the cruise ships leave Castaway Cay by 5:00pm or so.
We were lucky enough to be on the boat for July 4th. Fireworks shot off from the boat that night.. (I guess DCL is the only Cruise Line that can use fireworks.) They also had a special "Americana Dinner" menu that night...
Our day at sea was good, though DW and I took advantage of the time to try get our suitcases ready to disembark.
The shows on the boat are: "The Golden Mickey's", "Toy Story: The Musical", and "Disney Dreams". On our cruise, they showed Toy Story 3 in 3D on the third night.
Our servers were awesome... They'd do origami or magic tricks for the kids during every meal, always had great recomendations.
The only slightly negative thing that happened is that one of our duffle bags ripped when the porters were moving it into the terminal. I don't blame DCL as we probabily overloaded the bag. DCL rememedied the situation though before talking with us though and provided us with a new piece of hard luggage to replace it.. Not too bad..
All Star Movies
We drove from Cocoa Beach to Orlando to check in at All Star Movies... (Drive was about 90 mins.) DW had booked a stay at ASMov on cash since we pretty much blew all of our points on the cruise. We got four nights at ASMov, 1 day park passes for four, and the Dining Plan for a fairly reasonable rate. (We'd never gotten the meal plan before as we always cook and eat out of our villa. Since we didn't have that as an option this trip, we gave the Meal Plan a try. I will say that the Meal Plan gives you way more food than you will eat, and the rates were good when compared to what we would have paid normally.)
All Star Movies was ok, though we grew to appreciate DVC more.
When checking into ASMov, we were told that our room was downgraded from a preferred view to a standard view. No one could tell us why. When we asked the CM at Check-In for a credit on the difference, we were told we had to contact the Walt Disney World Travel Company. When we did that, they weren't aware of the downgrade. To date, no one has been able to tell us what our account will be credited and both the resort and the Travel company are pointing fingers at each other.
All of the All Star Resorts were pushed to capacity with tour groups full of Brazilian teenagers. (Thousands of them, no exageration) These kids were fairly well behaved, but it did pose logistical challenges when trying to use the resort's ammentities... For instance, the pool was always crowded with teenagers, the buses were always packed to capacity as the groups moved around. Probabily the most obnoxious thing I saw was when one of the tour coordinator was at a Fast Pass Kiosk at Splash Mountain running through about 75 tickets. I asked him if he would let me get my meager four Fast passes, but he either didn't understand me or ignored me. The rest of the stay, we ended up resort hopping to get away from them... For instance, one day we ate at Olivia's and swam in the OKW pool... Another day, we ate at Chef Mickey's and took a tour of BLT.
Coming back home, we came home along I75 and made a stop in Alpharetta, GA. DD7 wanted to shop at the American Girl doll store. We stayed in the Hyatt Place in Alpharetta, which was very nice.
DVC Info I learned
During the Cruise and during our stay I talked with several DVC guides, and here is some info I learned..
1) No Castaway Cay Villas anytime soon due to bugs... (See above)
2) Au Lanini (Hawaii) went on pre-sale on 7/1. ($114 / point)
3) New point charts are out for DCL and the Disney Dream sailings. Points on the dream are much cheaper than on the Magic and Wonder. (Haven't verified this yet.)
4) For those that don't know.. BLT has a Members only lounge on its roof where you can view the MK fireworks. You have to be staying at the resort though to use that lounge. We got a tour of it and it was very nice.
5) VGC is almost sold out. (No points in our use year.)
6) Points for the Phase I DVC resorts are running at $80/pt.. DW and I picked up another add-on while there..
We left Michigan on June 29th (by car) with the intention of reaching Port Caneveral a day early... (Always better to arrive for a cruise a day early, than a day late..
) To get from Michigan to Florida, we took our "alternative" route of going down I-77 to I-95. For Night #1, we stopped at the Holiday Inn Express at Moorseville, NC.. (Very nice hotel.)
By Night #2, it was obvious we were going to make it to Port Caneveral that night, and we booked two nights at the Best Western at Cocoa Beach. Having never stayed in Cocoa Beach before, I was pleasantly suprised by the hotel. The rates were reasonable ($89/night).. The pools were nice.. The hotel was right on the ocean and had ocean access. The one thing I will mention is that Ron Jon's is building a timeshare / resort in Cocoa Beach, and the Sales reps were everywhere. They offered us a free overnight stay and a full day's pass to their waterpark if we wanted to take the tour, but we declined... Not because they were pushy or anything, only just because we had never stayed in the area and wanted to explore a bit. One other thing I will mention.. For those of you that drive to Port Caneveral to cruise, a lot of the hotels in Cocoa Beach offer "Park & Cruise" packages where they will allow you to park your car at the hotel, and then they will shuttle you over to the Cruise terminal. Best Western's Park & Cruise package costed us $8/person x 4 people. If we would have driven to the Cruise Terminal, we'd have spent $15/day x 5 days for parking... Needless to say, we saved $30 or so.
Disney Cruise
The cruise was awesome, though not as relaxing as I remembered it from 10 years ago..
I don't think it had as much to do with the cruise as it had to do with all of the activities my kids were doing.. We did the 4 day Disney Wonder Cruise. DS9 loved the Oceanear's Lab, and never wanted to leave... The same can be said about DD7 and the Oceanear's Club. The day at Nassau was much improved over our last experience 10 years ago. DCL has a professional shopper on the boat who teaches you how to shop in Nassau. DW went to the seminar she had on the first day and got all of the coupons, and a map of stores to hit.. This made our experience much more pleasant. (On a side note, if you are going to make a LARGE purchase (like Jewelry) in Nassau, the DCL shopper will accompany you to the store and will help use her buying power to get you the best negotiated deal.)
Castaway Cay was awesome...
Many more activities than I remembered from last time. We basically hung out and snorkled all day and swam. For those of waiting for the "Villas at Castaway Cay", I did talk with several DVC guides on this, and I guess the main holdup is the bugs on the Island at night. From what they were describing, the mosquitos are horrific. This is also one of the reasons why the cruise ships leave Castaway Cay by 5:00pm or so.We were lucky enough to be on the boat for July 4th. Fireworks shot off from the boat that night.. (I guess DCL is the only Cruise Line that can use fireworks.) They also had a special "Americana Dinner" menu that night...
Our day at sea was good, though DW and I took advantage of the time to try get our suitcases ready to disembark.
The shows on the boat are: "The Golden Mickey's", "Toy Story: The Musical", and "Disney Dreams". On our cruise, they showed Toy Story 3 in 3D on the third night.
Our servers were awesome... They'd do origami or magic tricks for the kids during every meal, always had great recomendations.
The only slightly negative thing that happened is that one of our duffle bags ripped when the porters were moving it into the terminal. I don't blame DCL as we probabily overloaded the bag. DCL rememedied the situation though before talking with us though and provided us with a new piece of hard luggage to replace it.. Not too bad..
All Star Movies
We drove from Cocoa Beach to Orlando to check in at All Star Movies... (Drive was about 90 mins.) DW had booked a stay at ASMov on cash since we pretty much blew all of our points on the cruise. We got four nights at ASMov, 1 day park passes for four, and the Dining Plan for a fairly reasonable rate. (We'd never gotten the meal plan before as we always cook and eat out of our villa. Since we didn't have that as an option this trip, we gave the Meal Plan a try. I will say that the Meal Plan gives you way more food than you will eat, and the rates were good when compared to what we would have paid normally.)
All Star Movies was ok, though we grew to appreciate DVC more.
When checking into ASMov, we were told that our room was downgraded from a preferred view to a standard view. No one could tell us why. When we asked the CM at Check-In for a credit on the difference, we were told we had to contact the Walt Disney World Travel Company. When we did that, they weren't aware of the downgrade. To date, no one has been able to tell us what our account will be credited and both the resort and the Travel company are pointing fingers at each other.
All of the All Star Resorts were pushed to capacity with tour groups full of Brazilian teenagers. (Thousands of them, no exageration) These kids were fairly well behaved, but it did pose logistical challenges when trying to use the resort's ammentities... For instance, the pool was always crowded with teenagers, the buses were always packed to capacity as the groups moved around. Probabily the most obnoxious thing I saw was when one of the tour coordinator was at a Fast Pass Kiosk at Splash Mountain running through about 75 tickets. I asked him if he would let me get my meager four Fast passes, but he either didn't understand me or ignored me. The rest of the stay, we ended up resort hopping to get away from them... For instance, one day we ate at Olivia's and swam in the OKW pool... Another day, we ate at Chef Mickey's and took a tour of BLT.
Coming back home, we came home along I75 and made a stop in Alpharetta, GA. DD7 wanted to shop at the American Girl doll store. We stayed in the Hyatt Place in Alpharetta, which was very nice.
DVC Info I learned
During the Cruise and during our stay I talked with several DVC guides, and here is some info I learned..
1) No Castaway Cay Villas anytime soon due to bugs... (See above)
2) Au Lanini (Hawaii) went on pre-sale on 7/1. ($114 / point)
3) New point charts are out for DCL and the Disney Dream sailings. Points on the dream are much cheaper than on the Magic and Wonder. (Haven't verified this yet.)
4) For those that don't know.. BLT has a Members only lounge on its roof where you can view the MK fireworks. You have to be staying at the resort though to use that lounge. We got a tour of it and it was very nice.
5) VGC is almost sold out. (No points in our use year.)
6) Points for the Phase I DVC resorts are running at $80/pt.. DW and I picked up another add-on while there..
