Western Trip Report for Feb.23 - Mar.1 With pics!!

[hjensen]

Well, this is my second trip report ever, so I am sure it will not be as entertaining as some of the others that I have read and I have never tried posting pics before ...I might not be too entertainingg but I will try to be as informative as I can be, and hopefully I will be able to figure out how to post pics!

First of all I would like to apologize to my fellow DISers who were on the cruise with me. We did not make it to the first DIS meet so I was not able to meet any of you! Again...I'm sorry!

The cast consists of myself, Holli
DH Mark
DS Josh (19)
DS's friend Brett (19)
DS Jacob (5)

We started our adventure very early in the morning on Feb. 21. We decided to leave 2 days early this time. MUCH more relaxing and will do that from now on. Our flight left at 6:30 am so that put us in the airport by 4:30 am Needless to say I didn't get too much sleep the night before.

The flight and everything went smoothly. we stopped at Budget for the rental and were on our way to the Country Inn and Suites. We stayed in a Kids Suite. I know that the 19 yo's were not thrilled with the kids suite but then again they were not paying the bill!! We have no complaints whatsoever and will stay there again! The staff and rooms were wonderful.

Saturday arrived and I know we decided to things differently than most DISers. I know most of you have the men drop you off at port and then return the car rental and take their shuttle back. That is what we did on our first cruise but this time we all went to the car rental and took their shuttle to the port all together. I personally liked this way much better. We were all together and it just worked out nicer for us.

Check in was a breeze. Even though bonehead me forgot to print the online registration!! We were Concierge so we headed to our roped off area and sat and waited.

Well I think I posted the pics ok!! Josh and Brett helped out with Jake and kept him entertained which was very nice and helpful to me!!

It wasn't long and we were boarding that wonderful ship again for the second time!! There is no feeling like it in the world!!! I was near tears when they welcomed the Jensen Family over the microphone!! We were escorted to the Concierge meet in Sessions where we met the Concierge Team Jonathan and Richard. We only had some minor reservation changes and we were on our way to discover the ship.None of us were hungry so we skipped lunch. It wasn't long and we were able to see our room!

The last time we sailed we were in a Cat.3 (8048) and it was nice...but I now see why the midship Cat. 3's are so coveted!! This time we were in a midship Cat. 3!! Stateroom 8534 and it was wonderful!!

We had no complaints about this room at all!!! I know people have said that it is noisy in the morning and it was, but I will deal with a little noise to be able to have a room like this!! It was gorgeous! Our room steward was Geronimo and he took care of our every need!

Well this is all I have time for right now but I will follow up with more pics and more about the ports of call soon!! Thanks for reading!!!!

 

[misslissa]

The room looks so beautiful and shiny!

DH and I originally booked this sail date but had to reschedule so I look forward to reading your report.

 

[hjensen]

Well DS is keeping himself busy right now so hopefully I can write a bit more! Well,in the thread title I did forget to mention that this was a Western cruise!(sorry)

Hi Melissa! I do remember you from the Cruise Meet thread! Sorry that you couldn't make it on this one!

After checking out the room it was almost time for the Safety Drill. It went fast and was pretty painless!!

And of course after that it was time for the sail away party!!! It was cloudy and looked like rain but we were on our cruise so NO rain was allowed! The sail away party was awesome!But it was VERY windy! We headed up to Deck 10 to watch the festivities!! I had to keep apologizing to the man next to us becuz the streamers they had handed out to my son kept whipping in his face and in his drink. But I did not have the heart to tell my son that he had to put his down!

After the party we headed back to the room and it wasn't very long and our luggage arrived! I had shipped a box ahead of time and that arrived too! I found the magnets and decorated the door! I would like to take the time to thank everyone who shares their magnet ideas with all the DISers!! There is no way I could have come up those designs on my own!

We didn't have any problems with the magnets until Pirate Day! I did personalize and put our room number on almost all of them, except the silver Mickey Pirate in the middle of the door. There was no way I could do that without ruining it. So of course someone took it! I was pretty mad. I don't think people realize all the time, work, and $$ that goes into making these magnets! Well I wrote a note and left it on the door where the magnet had been I said "Thanks to whomever stole my magnet! That was really classy of you!" Well later on in the day it was back on the door with a note stating it was Pirate Pete...ha ha. Well I wasn't amused but happy to have my magnet back, so that one stayed on the inside of the door from then on! I left another note thanking Pirate Pete.

We had the 6:00 dining time. I did prefer having the earlier seating this time. We had the 8:00 last time we sailed. Our rotation was LAPLAPL. Our Sever was Conrad from Jamaica and I can not remember how to spell the Asst. Servers name...but they were wonderful! We did miss 2 nights at dinner. One was Formal night, becuz we really do not like dressing up. And we wanted to play Bingo one night and of course that coincided with our dinner! Since we were in a Cat. 3...on Formal night we just opted to order that dinner in our room! The older boys were MIA for most of the dinners too, but they were off doing their own thing! Even though we missed dinners we still tipped them for the nights we were gone and for the boys who were never there and we still tipped them extra! (sorry...didnt want to get flamed!) As always the food was awesome! I know that I read a thread before we left stating the the food had seemed to improve. I agree with the DISer. The food just seemed alittle bit better this time around!

More to come......

 

[Kay1]

This is great! Do you have any pictures of the bedroom, Holli? (Or anyone else?)

 

[hjensen]

These are the only 2 pictures I have. One is a picture of the cabinet door where the tv is and the other pretty much shows the bedroom. Thats all I have though! Hope it helps you out!!

 

[Kay1]

Wow! Thanks, Holli. No wonder the suites sell out so quickly. Very lovely.

 

[hjensen]

Hi again! DS is in bed for the night, so I have a chance to write some more!!

Well after waving goodbye to everyone...we were on our way!!!

Our first stop was Key West. We really had no plans for this port. When we stopped there in 2006 we really weren't too thrilled with this stop. And really debated whether we should get off the ship this time or not. Well we did. We did some walking around,walked to Margaritaville and then back to the ship. Well needless to say we still aren't thrilled with this port and if we do a Western again we will just stay on the ship.

I did sneak out of AP at dinner time and did snap some gorgeous sunset pictures!

Here are some pics I took at AP

I know now that I should have wrote things down becuz now I can not remember what we did!! We really are not night life people so knowing us we were in our room by 10 and in bed!!

The next day we made our way to the matinee of the Golden Mickeys!And just like our first cruise we were not disappointed!

I guess I should tell you that the weather was absolutely beautiful for the whole week! I know there was a couple of nights where it was really windy and we had some bigger waves towards the end of the week. Not real big...8-13 ft.But for the first half of the week, it actually looked like we were sailing on a lake and not an ocean! Here are 2 pictures taken on different days.

I will write more tomorrow on the Caymans!!

 

[strega7]

I am really enjoying your report and am very interest because we booked this cruise for around the same time last year. Nice to hear the weather was nice. You'll have to let me know how cold the water is. Also, your pictures of the show are beautiful, what type of camera are you using? Marci

 

[hjensen]

Hi Marci. Well we are not big water people...so...the only water temps I can tell you about is at Castaway Cay. The water was a little cool but once you got used to it,it was fine. The camera I use is a Fuji Finepix S6000fd. Its kind of bulky to carry around but I'll suffer with that becuz of the nice pics it takes!!

 

[FIREFIGHTERMICKEY]

Our western cruise is just around the bend! We cant wait!

 

[dlf246]

whoops a post meant for the 3/1-8 Magic, not the one disembarking.... edited sorry.

 

[pop5]

I want to hear the engine answer also!!

 

[hjensen]

Well I really don't know or did not hear about any engine problems. We didn't leave any ports early. But I was surprised at how I felt with the 13 ft. waves. In 2006 we had 20 ft waves and it didn't seem that bad and this time it seemed worse. So...the stabilizer problems would make sense to me.

 

[anty30]

LOVE your pictures. They are beautiful.

 

[hjensen]

I know I said that the next installment would be the Caymans but obviously the next stop is Cozumel. (sorry) We didn't do a whole lot in this port either. I know... I know...we're boring! We couldn't decide if we should leave Jacob in the club while we went or take him with. Well after seeing Senor Frogs and Carlos and Charlies I wish we would have left him in the club!

I'm pretty sure that it was a Carnival ship docked next to us in Cozumel but I'm not sure which one. It was really neat to see the reflection of our smoke stacks in their windows as we pulled in next to them!!

Here is a picture of my older son taken from our verandah...

And then some pictures taken outside of Senor Frogs. It killed me not to be able to go in. I know that we could have but I know that my son would not have wanted to stay as long as I would have liked!!

After a few hours we were really tired of having everyone yell at us to come into their store so we headed back to the ship! The ship was still pretty empty so we were able to take Jake swimming and have a photo taken with Pluto!

We put Jake in the club for a little while and looked forward to Pirate Night!! I was not feeling well after dinner that night and had to lie down. So I missed out on all the fun!! I will post some pics tomorrow. I have some of us from that night but not many. We didn't go all out with costumes but we still had fun!!

 

[hjensen]

Well I sure wish that I had more pictures to post of Pirate Night!! I think I ate something at supper that did not agree with me! DH and DS went to watch the show but DH did not want to take the camera with him. So here are the only pics that I have!

I could not resist posting this picture! We laugh every time we look at it! I caught my son right in the middle of his "Aaaargh!"

I will try to write about the Caymans and post more pics tomorrow!!!

 

[hjensen]

Well I sure did get my days mixed up didn't I???? Oh well.... Caymans came before Cozumel!! My bad!!

Ok...so...on to the Caymans!! We reserved the Island Tour through Disney. I know I could do it cheaper on our own, but I guess I like the comfort level of knowing that if something goes wrong the ship will wait for us.

The tendering in was fine. They are doing things different than the last time we sailed. The last time we just went down and boarded the Tender on our own. This time you had to report to the Walt Disney Theater and wait. You then proceeded to the Tenders in groups.

We Tendered in a little early so we could do some shopping. Here are some pics of us by the fountain.

After some shopping it was time to catch the bus for the tour. I think Disneys set up of all the excursions could use a little work. It seems like all the Excursions meeting spot was set up in this one small area. It was crammed with people! It was easy to tell that people didn't exactly know what was going. (us included) I think different excursions need different meeting spots. Oh well....

We got on the bus and started our tour. To begin with we got a tour of all the wonderful condos and houses. And told of the many celebrities that reside or own there. The bus driver let us ask any questions that we had and he was very knowledgeable about the Island. Our first stop was Hell. I can see why nobody like s it. Very Boring...but got pics.

After Hell it was time for the Turtle Farm. We all enjoyed the Turtle Farm!! I didn't get the chance to hold a turtle because I was taking the pitures but here is some of my DH and DS.

After the tour we decided we were all pretty much tired and decided to tender back to the ship.

Here is what was greeting us as we arrived back at the ship!!

Ok...so I know I have it right now( )...the next day is an at sea day! I will post some pics of Disney Dreams next time!!

 

[RLccweems]

I just love the pirate pic of your son at the dinner table! He's a cutie pie!

 

[karibritt01]

I am really enjoying your pics! We are taking this cruise in Oct, and I get excited seeing everything. Your turtle farm pics are making me reconsider that as an option!

 

[hjensen]

Its Thursday and I can't believe how fast the week has gone. We booked Palo Brunch for this day. This was our first time to Palo and we were not disappointed! Although we almost did not make it! Before we left home I had 3 pair of Khaki dress pants on a hanger. 2 were mine and one pair was my husbands. I decided I did not need 2 pair and took one pair off...guess whose pair I took off?? Yep...my husbands! It was 10:30 and we had 11:00 ressies at Palo! I was near tears! But 2 thumbs up for Richard on the Concierge team. He found my husband a pair of black dress pants (and black shoes since all we brought were brown shoes!) So all was well!! I did not bring my camera to Palo.(sorry) I wanted to enjoy the quiet time with DH and not worry about pics! But everything was amazing!

After Palo we went straight to Diversions to catch the last DVC meeting. We did not join but I know we will regret it!

We picked Jake up from the club after that and decided to shop at some of the stores. He wanted to bring back a little something for the kids in his class and for his teacher.

We enjoyed our lobster dinner that night!! Delicious!! After dinner we got Jakes pic taken with Goofy and the it was onto Disney Dreams!!

What an awesome show!! After that we decided to call it a night. We knew tomorrow was Castaway Cay!! (and we knew we would have to start packing )