Was Live Now Great Memories from the DVC Member Cruise

[zulaya]

cobbler...are those prices quoted per adult?

 

[cobbler]

Yes per adult.

 

[MarkRG]

Well, it's been a few weeks now since the cruise, and I'm finally caught up enough to put together a final photo montage, some of these are out of order some. The only two pics not in this are the group and pirate night photo as I still need to scan them. I'll add them in after.

To go all the way back one of the new things for us was seeing the newer DCL buses, they've changed them up since the last time we sailed:

This is one of those nice touches they added just for this cruise, the wall you see with Walt & Mickey normally has a tile mural of just Walt alone, that has an entire story of its own.

And, yes the Dis group had a gift exchance going, always a nice surprise to see new stuff in the fish extender:

Now... As Mary said, this is the *only* thing I still have an objection to, holding back letting us go to Castaway Cay on the first day so they can have a captive audience for their sales pitch. Want a captive audience? Hold it on the sea day. Normal disembark is 9am, we were docked even before that, but go ashore didn't happen until 10:30, not cool. I didn't go to the 'show' and nor will I going forward, even with being the big winner of it last year. Mary did and said it wasn't bad.

Now, one thing I like ot do, maybe not so much for Mary is the jetski Eco tour. It's a very fun ride out to a sandbar you learn a little about the area, then another fun ride back. This'll give you an idea of how far out we go:

Now, on to some of the special presentations. They brought a host, Tim O'Day who is something of a Disney scholar in his own right, to run all the panel discussions.

First up was Virginia Davis, who was, as a little girl, in a number of pre-Mickey shorts called the Alice films. She was filmed live action in front of a plain white backdrop, then they'd go frame by fram and animate the rest of the scene around her, the prelude to what we now know as green screen. She was a total hoot and had fun stories of Walt & co to share.

Also at this discussion is Dave Smith, and the leader of the Legends progam, Jeff Hoffman.

Now as for the incentives, one was buy 250 points and you get a Cat 6 cabin for two on the 2008 member cruise. Bruce and Nancy added on and here they are showing it.

Now, personally for us any dcl cruise, one of the do not misses is Palo, preferably for brunch or high tea, here's dessert at brunch:

The next panel was with X Atencio and Alice Davis, X did Animation for Fantasia and work for the rides Pirates and Haunted Mansion among other things. Alice is the main person behind the costuming of most of the figures in the Disney theme park rides, like Small World and Pirates. Here's one of the Small World kids she has done:

And, here's a pic of the actual Legends trophy, the camera doesn't do it justice, it really looks like burnished bronze:

And the two guests themselves, this was kind of a melancholy interview as this one really brought home that we are going to be losing these creative geniuses in the near future:

Now we returned to our room that afternoon to a really cool souvenir, a reproduction of the Life magazine article about the day WDW opened:

And even at dinner, a really cool chocolate treat, that image is printed right on the chocolate:

Now one thing I hadn't covered too well, There is a great amount of DVC theming going on from the DCL crew side of things, like this:

That evening, another pin and the reminder of the photo shoot tomorrow:

Now here's one of the people who really brings these events to life for us on the cruise, Matt(on the right) who is really in charge of organizing the events from the DCL side of things, and really does a great job:

Now, one of the new things on the island is they added a bike path about halfway down the airstrip towards the adult beach. On that path is a tower you can climb to get a great view of the entire island:

Mary mentioned this, on the last night's dinner they had these cool dessert accents:

Now on the last night, we had the Disney Beauties as our entertainment. Already talked about them, here they are, from l-r, Eden Espinosa, Andrea McArdle, Sarah Litzsinger:

And in our cabin for the last night, two pins and two throws, the throws having that Legends Walt/Mickey image I've shown you before:

And, for the final, nice touch, even leaving they had custom things to send us on our way:

 

[MarkRG]

Now, we didn't go straight home. We took a meandering ride up the east coast, stopping for a night at Hilton Head, a night just past Charlotte, so we could do a little bit of Nascar fan stuff then stopped to visit my cousin, who was the ring bearer at our wedding, is now married and he and his wife just had their first baby. Not exactly the most direct route from PC to Chicago.

Since this was a DVC cruise a little more DVC if you don't mind my indulgence.

So we arrive at Hilton Head.

It's a very nice place, I do think the age bracket and frame of mind at Hilton Head in general is something a bit outside our personal norm. More older yuppie crowd than us, if I was going to try to explain it. The accomodations are great, the rooms are spacious and remind us more of OKW than anywhere. We were only there for the evening so it was check in, unpack, check out the resort amenities and go look for dinner. The beach house is very nice with a large pool and good access to the ocean. If the weather had been better we might have gotten more out of it.

Dinner was a short walk to the Kingfisher at the end of the entrance drive. Nice place, good food, and they currently have a limited menu discount special for the first hour of opening if you're interested.

Now as I said we drove across from Charlotte to Nashville, on I-40. I have to include at least one picture. It was a beautiful easy ride thru the Great Smoky Mountains. It winds, but not in a nervous way like say, I-24 over the mountains between Nashville and Chatanooga.

And so ends our report, barring the two group pics, hope you enjoyed it