Two WDW Pros take their first Magical Cruise in the Western Caribbean

[tggrrstarr]

Hello! Welcome to my first Cruise trip report!

We just got back (a few weeks ago) from our very first cruise on the Magic. Being Disney fanatics, of course we had to choose the Disney Cruise Line! My husband has wanted to do a cruise for forever it seems, so I finally let him talk me into it!
We chose the Western Caribbean January 21st – 28th.

Let me introduce ourselves. I am Kelli (35) and my husband is Mic also known as Mickey or even Michael (39). We’re from a suburb just outside of Cleveland, Ohio.

I was lucky enough to marry a man who is just as much a Disney Fanatic as I am. While I frequent these boards pretty often, Mic is really much more of a lurker. I think he has like 6 posts, lol! He is Obi-mic by the way. (Not that you’ll ever see him!!!!)

It was about this time last year that we decided to do this cruise, so I started researching. I wanted to be as prepared as I possibly could. I read trip reports, made lists of questions and searched for answers and especially studied as many navigators as I could find. Some things I was very ready for, like re-booking. But any time I brought it up to Mic, he shot me down. So I made sure I was ready, just in case he changed his mind….(more on that later!)

One thing I was not ready for was Mic. When we go to WDW, we are always exactly on the same page, not so much here. It seemed the entire cruise we had completely opposite interests. But we’ll get to that too.

We have been to WDW 5 times since we got married in 2005 so it was finally time to try something new! But, I told him numerous times during our planning of this cruise that I could not be this close to WDW and not be there. So at first it was fly in two days early and stay for two nights. Then I tried, begged, cried and bribed my way to one day at Magic Kingdom. It didn’t work. I knew it was only a matter of time and the right phrasing before I got my way, and I finally figured it out.

My Birthday!! I told him that the one day park tickets could be my birthday present (January 4th). Silence. He looks at me and says, I can’t say no to that. (Imagine his reluctance, lol).

Where did we stay? The proposed location changed multiple times during the planning stage but in the end we went to the place I’d wanted to stay at for our honeymoon but didn’t due to it being all booked up. Port Orleans French Quarter.

Now when I say the location changed a lot, it really did, to the point that I didn’t book the hotel til about 45 days before. Part indecision, part not sure how much money I wanted to spend. But the right pin code came along and there we were!

Oh, and our airfare was paid for by my father in law with his airline miles as our Christmas present!! First Class, too!

Ready to go?

 

[tggrrstarr]

2 days at WDW
Arrival Day
Magic Kingdom part 1
Magic Kingdom part 2

Our Cruise!
Day 1- Embarkation, part 1
Embarkation, part 2
Day 1- Dinner
Day 2- Key West
Day 2- Part 2
Day 3- Sea Day
Day 3- Palo
Day 4- Grand Cayman
Day 4- Lumiere's
Day 5- Cozumel pt 1
Day 5- Cozumel pt 2
Day 5- Cozumel pt 3

 

[tggrrstarr]

My brother in law drove us bright and early to the airport Thursday morning. We thought we left our house with plenty of time to get to the airport but it turned out it was just enough time. Ten minutes later and we would have been rushing to our gate. This is our third year in a row flying the same airline, same flight and time but this time the airport seemed much busier at this time in the morning.

We were geeked to be flying first class and knew that meant we could go through the first class security line. Which was almost as busy as the regular one. Oops!

We made it through and decided to get me breakfast even though it would be included on the flight. We found a place right near our gate and I got a small pastry to hold me over and a diet coke. Bonine was making me thirsty. Just as I finished eating Continental started announcing our flight. Five minutes later First Class was able to board.

A quick note about my motion sickness medicine. I get extremely nauseous flying and in the car. I had a patch for the cruise, but was taking Bonine for the flight. Bonine usually does the trick. I’ve taken it before and not had any issues with drowsiness. But this time I messed it up. I took it the night before instead of 2 hours before and it did me in. I was so drowsy. I slept through most of the flight.

But I was awake for breakfast:

Before I knew it we were circling Orlando and landing 20 minutes early. And President Obama did not in any way hold up our travel in Orlando!! (He was traveling to MK at just about the same time we were landing and on our way on Magical Express.)

We were first in line at ME for French Quarter and on the bus within 10 minutes. The bus sat for another 10 minutes then we were on our way! Oh, and the bus was empty. Only three families besides us. First stop was Old Key West then Saratoga Springs. Next stop French Quarter!

We walked into the lobby and saw:

A large part of the atrium and walkway between the food court and gift shop was blocked off by green fencing. Outside you could see vehicles crossing the sidewalk constantly and hear some of the construction. This is only the start. By the end of our WDW portion we will have seen more refurbishment than I’ve ever seen in one trip. Wow. Who is running this place right now? What happened to the occasional refurb here and there? They are even selling a shirt in the gift shop that says This area is being Refurbished for your Future Enjoyment. Hilarious, but its way too much. Ok Rant over!

We were checked in very quickly and were on our way to our room.

Mic and I both agreed, this place was perfect for our two night stay. Quiet, beautiful and exactly what we needed.

Lunch! Looking at the choices in the food court, we weren’t too impressed. Neither of us really likes spicy food, and the selection here wasn’t really for us. I went with chicken nuggets and he got a double bacon cheeseburger.

After lunch we went back to the room to drop some stuff off and we were on our way to the boat dock to Downtown Disney.

Another reason we were relieved to be staying at French Quarter was the boat to DTD, the bus stop at the Marketplace was being refurbed and we had no desire to go to the West Side to catch the bus to and fro. Just way too much walking! (more refurbs )

As many times as we’ve been to Downtown Disney, I have never known that there was a boat dock behind Rainforest Café! Which was being refurbed. (Rainforest) So we were off to all the usual shops, stopping along the way to get our free chocolate sample at Ghiradelli’s.

Stopped to get this picture to text to my mom, we both love Lady and the Tramp

And for fun

We found Little Miss Match, a new shop since last January. Oh My Socks!!! I almost went into shock at this store. I was in money saving mode though for the cruise, so I did not get any of the vast assortment of socks. Mic was in shock at that.

At this point, I needed to go in search of some bandaids. The brand new sandals I had bought (and tried to break in before the trip) were digging into the tops of my feet. I had brought moleskin, but didn’t think I’d need it for an hour or two of light walking. Wrong!

Good to know, the first cast member I asked pulled out a little baggy of bandaids and gave me some. Unfortunately it was too late, the damage had been done and I would be using bandaids and moleskin for the rest of the trip with all my shoes. (matter of fact, I still have some scars into mid February)

So after finding Mic his polo, we made our last stop at DTD, Goofy’s Candy Company! We got Mic his ritual Glacier, we mixed strawberry and grape. This was the first time we’ve gotten strawberry, my favorite flavor yet!

I planned on getting a caramel apple, and after staring at the choices for five minutes, I chose this one:

Just as the woman was about to cut it, I changed my mind! I instead went with one covered in pecans, milk , white and dark chocolate. Sorry, no pics. I could tell Mic and the girls behind the counter were half amused, half aggravated with me! Oh well.

Back to the room, we skipped dinner (I had a caramel apple) and we were in bed early for our next day at the Magic Kingdom!

 

[tggrrstarr]

So what’s the best way to start our only day at Magic Kingdom? Get into the park before it opens to take pictures! We were lucky enough to get a 8:15am reservation at Crystal Palace just one month before our trip!

I always plan plenty of time for travel just in case, so we arrived a little early. We walked around a bit to take some pictures. Mic had gotten his Nikon for his birthday this past August, so this was our first trip with it. I also had a brand new iPhone, and the camera on that is as amazing as I heard. Much better than my small Kodak, and they are the same megapixel.

Some pics we took:

Finally, at 7:45 am we made our way to the growing line near the gate. Five minutes later we were moving. I was a little surprised at the lack of confirmation for reservations, they pretty much let everyone through. No list checking at all.

Some early semi-empty Main Street pics:

I’m sure you notice the Main Street Bakery Refurb

And then we were at Crystal Palace, about 10 minutes early (which is what I wanted!). We were given a buzzer and it went off two minutes later.

Last time we did 1900 Park Fare for breakfast before park opening, the characters were sooo slow. We missed the ones we really wanted because we had to get to the park. Not the case this time! Every time we got up to get some food, a character was on its way to our table. We knocked out Pooh, Eeyore and Piglet in less than 10 minutes.

I got a cheesy potato casserole, corn beef hash,bacon and Breakfast Lasagna, basically strawberry banana bread pudding. OMG.

And a birthday surprise!

Mic got his usual- scrambled eggs, mickey waffles, sausage and bacon. Sorry, these pics seem to have disappeared.

I was also excited about the make your own omelet station here, I was very disappointed. It was more of an egg crepe with filling inside. That is not an omelet.
Our server was very nice with only one slight thing, she went off with our check and payment and was gone quite a bit longer than it should have taken. Normally not a big deal, but at 8:58am when I’m antsy to get into the park it’s a bit of an annoyance.

Next up- Everthing is NOT Satisfactual!

 

[tggrrstarr]

We got out of Crystal Palace a few minutes after nine and we were off to our first stop- Peter Pan! (and a FP, just in case for later)

We love to knock out Fantasyland first thing so we don’t have to come back later for stroller parking. We got through Small World and Pooh super fast and decided to skip Snow White. Right about then our FP time opened up we were on our way to Space Mountain for our Fastpass. We stuck around for Buzz Lightyear, my score was dreadful.

On to my second favorite ride, Haunted Mansion, with a few pics on the way

Love the new interactive cemetery que!!!

Now by this point, we were way ahead of the schedule I had made and I was eager to be on our way to Splash Mountain. The weather was perfect, almost too warm. 81 degrees in January is extremely rare in my experience. Splash is my favorite ride and I was so happy when I heard it wouldn’t be refurbed this January as it usually is. And of course, we had missed it last year.

I was so focused on getting my FP and then hopping immediately onto the ride that I didn’t notice that it was closed. There were cast members at the entrance apologizing that it was experiencing some problems and they were working on fixing it.

Not happy, but I figured it was only 10:30, it would be fixed in no time. So we made our way to Pirates and got our FP for Jungle Cruise. At pirates we found Mic his t-shirt for pirate night- the Periodic table of Pirates! Classic Mic! Oh, and we got this pic:

Leaving Jungle Cruise, I checked my Undercover Tourist App and it now showed Splash to be open! So I dragged Mic back only to find out it was still closed. Oh, and when it came to wait times apps, I found the Undercover Tourist one to be the closest to being accurate.
Now, to cut this very long (and tragic) part of the story short, I dragged Mic back to Splash Mountain no less than six more times throughout the day. Finally at about 4:30pm, we had done everything we wanted to do- except Splash, and after asking another cast member, figured it was not meant to be. So we left.
We later found out from a fellow cruiser that Splash Mountain reopened right around 5pm. Needless to say I wasn’t too happy!

But back to our day, we were ready to sit down so we made our way to Hall of Presidents. Mic is a huge history buff, so this is always a must do. Funny, we didn’t try this one until our 3rd trip. Next up was our Jungle Cruise FP and then we were ready for lunch.

Since we were planning on eating dinner at Cosmic Ray’s, we found ourselves at Pecos Bills. Which was being refurbished. The line to get in the restaurant was super long, but I think it was just because of the confusion on how to get inside. Once in, I did a quick scan of the registers and found every one with a pretty long line except the one on the very end. There was only one person in that line. Jackpot!! I jumped into that line and tried to ignore any evil looks from any inexperienced newbies.

Mic and I both got burgers and fries, sorry no pictures. We both agreed this was one our worst fast food experiences ever at WDW. Blah. Interesting though, this was the first time I’ve seen cast members checking to make sure you had food before letting you into the seating area. (Heard reports of it, but never actually seen it before). It took awhile, but just as we were about to give up we found a seat.

After lunch (and of course checking Splash again) we did Philharmagic, Space Mountain, Carousel of Progress, Monsters Inc and TTA. Before leaving Tomorrowland we stopped at Auntie Gravities for our customary smoothie.
We stopped to take a few pictures of the castle. Which was being refurbed.

At this point(4 pm), we started making our way to the wait times sign at the end of Main Street. This is where we saw the cast member I mentioned earlier.

We decided to leave, but first there were a few shops on Main Street I had to stop in. Mainly this one:

Even though I was still in money save mode, I found quite a few things I wanted. My usual way of dealing with this is to take a picture of the item and the barcode so I can always order it later if I need to. The one item that really caught my attention was this:

I commented to Mic how much I really wanted this and would be ordering it for sure after our trip. I then resumed my search around the store. I didn’t notice right away that Mic wasn’t with me, I turned around at one point to search for him and saw him talking to a cast member at the register. Hmmm…
(When we got back to the room he presented the bracelet to me! It was so sweet of him to get that for me!!)

Now we were ready to leave. While we were waiting for our bus, we saw an older gentleman wandering around who asked us where the bus stop to Pop Century was. We let him know it was on the other side and he would have to walk back around. He did not look happy. A few minutes later we saw him trying to climb the rail between dividing the road. Not a good idea. Thankfully it looked like he gave up after his second attempt. There’s a reason why that fence is there!

Back at French Quarter Mic and I were discussing what to do for dinner since we obviously weren’t eating at Cosmic Ray’s. I said I really didn’t want any pizza or chicken nuggets again since we’d be eating a bunch on the ship. (wrong!!)
We were thinking about walking over to Port Orleans Riverside when a cast member told us that there was a make your own pasta station there. Sold!
The walk was amazing, very quiet and peaceful. I don’t think we passed a single person or boat.

We got to the food court and realized we had forgotten our refillable mug. Oh well, we could afford a drink!
I absolutely loved the pasta station! They had a list of choices at the counter, so I went with Chicken, Penne pasta and alfredo sauce. For my add ins I chose spinach, mushrooms, pancetta and peas.

Mic chose Chicken, Penne Pasta and Marinara sauce. No add ins. (Have I mentioned he’s a very picky eater? )

These were amazing. And huge! Neither one of us could finish it.
The walk back was just as nice, and on our way back to our room we found Tangled playing in the area just outside our room. We sat down to watch the 2nd half of it. Back in the room we started to pack up our stuff and get organized for morning. Then to bed, big day tomorrow!

Up next: Embarkation Day!

 

[bluejasmine]

Great Start!!! Love the bracelet cant wait to read more!!

 

[ProudMommyof2]

Great start! Bummer about Splash!

 

[KristiMc]

Good start to your trip! We were on the Magic this past March and we are 98 days away from another trip on her out of NYC in June - I can't wait!

 

[tggrrstarr]

Great Start!!! Love the bracelet cant wait to read more!!

Thanks! I was trying so hard to save money for the cruise and was so happy when he surprised me with it!

Great start! Bummer about Splash!

Thanks for following along! I was so upset, I think it took me 3 days to recover, lol.

Good start to your trip! We were on the Magic this past March and we are 98 days away from another trip on her out of NYC in June - I can't wait!

Hey Kristi! Nice to see you again! I read your report last spring and I remember chatting with you on the BL thread last year. I am so excited for you, the NY sailing sounds so cool, are you going to do another report?

 

[lorimay]

Excited to read your report!

We were also on that cruise, had a wonderful time.

I have to tell you, your morning shots are gorgeous.
That is my absolutely favorite time of day in disney.
THank you for sharing them.
Makes me long to be there.....

Lori

 

[tggrrstarr]

We had originally wanted to travel from FQ by town car, but found out the low advertised rates by Happy Limo were for a minimum of four people. So we went with DCL transportation. I was hesitant to do this because all the trip reports I read stated you wanted to get on ship as early as possible to do everything available. With Disney transport, you get there much later. Oh well.

I stopped by the food court for some breakfast- beignets

Bell Services came by about 9:30am to pick up our bags, not ready!! Oops. I told him to give us 10 minutes and we’d be good. He said no problem.

We had a meeting time at French Quarter of 11:30am, 11:45am on bus. The wait between check out and boarding time seemed so long! (For me; DH took the time to take pictures all over the resort).

Bored now…

Finally we were on board the bus, I think we left just after noon. There seemed to be one family the DCL rep couldn’t find. The bus was sitting out front right on time at 11:45 am. I would have loaded everyone on and then waited for the late comers, but hey, what can you do? One thing I loved was that our checked luggage was picked up right from our room first thing that morning. Awesome!

Just over an hour later, we were arriving at Port Canaveral. A few pics from the bus:

We were first off the bus and made it very quick through security, then up the escalator to guest services. We walked right up to the counter and were checked in faster than I could believe. We were given a boarding pass and sent directly to the boarding line, the pass was just for formalities I guess. There were four lines for ship check in, we went directly to the one on the left and were immediately next. There were two families in front of us for our Embarkation photo then we were walking through the doors to the Atrium and being announced! It all went so fast, it’s almost a blur. From reading reviews, I thought this process was so much more involved, but I guess if you are doing it early with everyone else, it would be. Only thing is I didn’t get any pictures.

I think I wouldn’t mind doing it this way in the future, it would be nice to get on the ship early and get to do stuff, but fighting all the crowds would be crazy. Plus we love how we pretty much never saw our luggage, Disney picked it up from the airport, dropped it in our room at FQ, picked it back up, dropped it off in our cabin and then picked it up from the cabin at the end and sent it directly to Continental.

A cast member told us our lunch choices were Parrot Cay or Topsiders & our room would be ready in about five minutes (it was 1:25pm). I looked at my DH and had a moment of indecision, at first I thought we would go to our room, but I was hungry and Parrot Cay was right there, so lunch it was! I had heard reviews that this is the way to go for Embarkation lunch, and it definitely was! The restaurant wasn’t even half full, and we were out of there in no time.

We had a bit of confusion finding our room, you can’t get to deck one rooms from the aft elevators. (This would continue until about Wednesday, lol!)


More coming up!

 

[KristiMc]

Hey Kristi! Nice to see you again! I read your report last spring and I remember chatting with you on the BL thread last year. I am so excited for you, the NY sailing sounds so cool, are you going to do another report?

I knew your username looked familiar but I couldn't remember from where. I am going to do a trip report. It was such a nice way to remember the cruise. We are very excited about this cruise. 8 nights, 4 at-sea days which I love and a day at WDW! What more could I want.

I have not done the Western before, looking forward to reading the rest.

 

[tggrrstarr]

Finally in our room about 2:15, we had just enough time to take some pics, set our stuff down and realize there was a ship tour we wanted to do at 2:30 pm. Where was my Navigator? I had completely forgotten to grab one. (Luckily I had looked up this info pre-cruise! I knew we’d be on a time crunch.)

I opened the door and saw our luggage, so we brought that in and met the cabin across the way who were also going to the tour. The whole group of us went off together to the meeting place (getting lost a bit-MY FAULT!) and on to the tour.

It wasn’t quite what I expected, I thought it would be more of a behind the scenes tour and less of a “here is where this is” tour. We checked out five minutes early to go to our Dis meet at 3:00 in Diversions.

We said hello to some of the families and chatted for a bit, but we were the only no kids family, so we decided to go back to our room to get settled and unpacked a bit before heading over to our Safety Drill. A few people stood out as being super friendly, I am just sorry we didn’t really see them much beyond that initial meeting besides passing by in the hall and smiling.

Back in our room, we took some pics and decorated the door:

We were one of the first to arrive at the Safety drill and shared a few laughs between our safety leader (Kurtis, I think?) and the people around us. This cast member was fantastic and hilarious, and my husband kept teasing him that with him in charge we’d be in trouble!

The drill was over in no time and we were off to deck 10 to the sail away party. First Impression: Loud and fun to do once, but we don’t really need to do this again. Next cruise I think we will chill at the adult pool! But we did get one of these:

Now it was finally time to relax in our room for a bit before getting ready for the show and dinner.
We made it to the theater about a half hour early for really great seats, this was another learning point- no need to do this again, unless we want pictures! First, it takes forever to get back out after. Second, seats in the back were just as good plus allow for a quick exit! But. We did get a couple great pictures:
Buckets and Boards

Skit

The show was the welcome aboard skit (didn’t love it) and a sampling of two acts coming up later in the cruise. The first was Buckets and Boards, much funnier than I expected! We ended up seeing their adult show later. The second was Illusionist Jason Bishop. Spectacular. Very much enjoyed his performance. I am friends with a “magician”, and these tricks were miles above. More on that later.

Dinner in Animator's Palate is up next! (I reached my photo limit!)

 

[tggrrstarr]

Tonight’s dinner was scheduled at 8:15pm in Animator’s Palate. I was super excited to see “the show”, and even more excited that it was on our first night.

Now most people seem to hate the idea of sharing a table with strangers, but this is something that appeals to me. I love meeting new people. This is why I was so excited to join a Dis Meet for our cruise, but that was super disappointing to me. Don’t get me wrong, everyone was very nice, but it was more of a say hi passing by nice than try to meet new friends thing.
But on to dinner. Our table mates were fantastic! Two great couples that we ended up running into all over the ship the entire cruise! There was Kim and Joel from Maine, and Andrea and Valeria from Italy.

And now our servers. Our Server was Toto and his assistant server was Adrian. These guys were AMAZING! So friendly, fast and really fun, too. Toto told us this was his last trip on the Magic and he will be moving to the Fantasy. I hope we see him again!

Toto gave us all menus, each one had a different character on it, and it seemed as if he had given each of us a favorite character!

Now, if you’ve ever read either of my WDW dining reviews, you’d know that Mic is a picky eater. Very picky. So picky, that it became a laughing point throughout the cruise with our table mates.

So while we were looking over our menus, I asked him what appetizer looked good. He said none. I asked him about the soup and salad, and he said he didn’t want that either.

So I asked him to order the Sesame-flavored Rock Shrimp and Caramelized Onion Cheesecake so I could try it.

I ordered the Wild Mushroom Risotto and Porcini Twist

I love risotto, so this was amazing. The cheesecake was very strange. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it either. It was hard to get used to the flavor of an appetizer with the texture of a desert. Mic of course tried neither one! I also forgot to take my pictures until it was almost gone. Oops.
I ordered soup, Baked Potato and Cheddar Cheese Soup with bacon bits and chives. Yummy!

For our entrees we both got the Asian Marinated Beef Tenderloin on wasabi mashed potatoes with bok choy and a tamarind-barbecue reduction.

OMG. So very good. And as you can see, we both like our meat rare. Perfect first meal.

Before the cruise, we had looked over the menus and discussed that he would probably get icecream for desert all the time. It was partially a joke, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if that was what happened.
For Desert, I look over at Mic and ask him, “Ice Cream?” and he said yep!
Ice-Cream Sundae Chocolate and Strawberry Ice Cream, with Date and Walnut Cake

I got Double-Fudge Chocolate Cake With Caramel-Orange Chocolate Sauce

I was intrigued by the combination of orange and caramel and I wasn’t disappointed. The orange was perfect.
All of a sudden, Toto come over and puts a plate of this in front of me

It was Strawberry Sable with passion fruit cream. It was unexpected but a very nice surprise. I liked everything but the cookie part of it.

Now, if you read our earlier post from WDW, you’ll remember that we caught the 2nd half of Tangled at French Quarter the night before. Tangled in 3d was playing in the Buena Vista Theater at 10pm, so we hurried out of dinner and watched the beginning of the movie. Talk about watching a movie backwards!
We got back to our room and found our first FE’s!

And this:

And of course we found our bed turned down for sleep. Everything looked great, but we had yet to actually see our stateroom host. Maybe tomorrow.

Bonus picture from earlier in the day: Empty Adult Pool

 

[KristiMc]

Kelli - Did you guys hang out in Sessions at all? I am wondering if my favorite bartender Nur is still on the Magic? He thought that he might be heading to the Fantasy.

 

[HermanTriplets+1]

Thanks for doing a MAGICALtrip report!
Do you have any photos of your FE? I caught a glimpse of it in your door picture and it looks like a ?duct tape? FE?!! Would love to see how you decorated it!

 

[tggrrstarr]

Thanks! Yep, it is indeed a duck tape FE. Three weeks before my cruise i was out of money to spend on FE stuff and still without an FE. Someone posted their duck tape FE and instructions, so I went to Michaels and got supplies. Here you go!

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I got aqua, white and pirate tape and one sheet of aqua duck tape paper. I put the paper through my cricut for the names and bandanas. The Mickey heads are white vinyl. And the structure is paper grocery bags.

 

[Linda67]

Really enjoying your updates
Looks like you had a great first day
I really want to do one of the ship tours but based on what you said about the one on embarkation day, I will probably wait to do one later in the cruise as perhaps they cover more of the details and design of the ship
Looking forward to reading more

 

[HermanTriplets+1]

Thanks! Yep, it is indeed a duck tape FE. Three weeks before my cruise i was out of money to spend on FE stuff and still without an FE. Someone posted their duck tape FE and instructions, so I went to Michaels and got supplies. Here you go!

[/URL]

I got aqua, white and pirate tape and one sheet of aqua duck tape paper. I put the paper through my cricut for the names and bandanas. The Mickey heads are white vinyl. And the structure is paper grocery bags.

VERY NICE!!
I'm in process making one now. The "tabs" on top for hanging are a great idea!
I love the pirate Duck Tape - maybe next FE!

 

[KristiMc]

I love your FE - how cute. I didn't know that duct tape came in different colors.