2012 – Disney Vacation and Cruise

As the first day of our vacation began, Kendra went to school and I went to work. At 1:45, I called the school to let Kendra leave early so she could get home and make sure she was ready to go. My bags were already waiting in the entry. At 2:00 I left work with Chigo shortly behind me. We loaded our stuff into his trunk and headed for the airport.

We arrived at the airport around 2:20 for our 4:00 flight and breezed through security. Kendra worked on her homework while we waited for our plane, but as I repeatedly told her – I was officially on vacation. I sat back and relaxed while listening to my audiobook.

Our flight was uneventful, though the time change confused Kendra and I was too lazy to think through it. I was on vacation. Once in the airport in Chicago we had over a 2 hour layover and I had a craving for some Chicago Deep-Dish pizza. We ran across a stand that precooked Uno pizza and I passed on that. The only other pizza place we could find was another stand that at least baked the Uno pizza fresh. It was disgusting. It was all I could do to eat it. I was supremely disappointed. What I really wanted was some Giordarno’s, but there’s none of that tasty goodness in the airport.

We headed to our gate and got some seats. It wasn’t crowded, but there were very few seats. Many people had to stand once departure time came closer. When we were about to board I ran and got us some yummy frozen yogurt with fresh strawberries. It’s the first time that I’ve had frozen yogurt actually taste like good quality yogurt. It was awesome.

The flight was completely booked with a long standby list, but we managed to get our seats and have room in the overhead bins for our carryon luggage.

Once we arrived in Orlando, we went downstairs to call for the shuttle and see where to wait. We were the first ones on the shuttle, but others arrived shortly after.  Off to the Quality Inn we went. We were the first off the shuttle, but our bags were buried under others. I went inside to go ahead and check in and Kendra got the bags and tipped the driver 2 $2 bills. I had purchased the trip through Travelocity and it was prepaid, so check in was fast.

I was not impressed with the room. I know we only paid $60 for the night, but the bedspreads were stained and there were both dead and live bugs in the bathroom. I definitely won’t go there again. We cleaned up and crashed for the night.

The next morning we slept in a little and headed down for breakfast. The shuttle for the airport left at 10:00, so we ate around 9:15. Kendra was excited to see the waffle maker. I wasn’t feeling well so I got oatmeal which didn’t taste right. So I got a waffle as well. At 10:00 we were off to the airport.

There was a VERY long line at the Alamo station, but eventually we got our paperwork through. I paid $175 for an economy car. We took our paperwork over to the car pickup and were told to get a compact car.  I spotted a Hyundai Elantra and got excited, but Kendra pointed out that we were in the compact area, not the economy. We walked and asked directions and were sent to the other end of the parking lot. There we were told that there were no economy cars, that we needed to get a compact car. Excited I rushed back to the Elantra. We put our stuff in the trunk and hopped in the car. It smelled like smoke. Not bad, but noticeable. I decided we’d deal with it and I took pictures of the car with my phone. Then off we went.

Kendra navigated. The plan was to find a Super Wal-mart to get the things we needed, then find a liquor store for the small travel bottles of tequila for our fish extender gifts for the people we had planned to travel with. Kendra navigated well and after shopping for things we couldn’t carry in our carry ons like sunscreen, hairspray, and bottled water, we headed to our Walt Disney World Resort.

When we arrived at the Pop Century Resort in WDW, we checked in and got all the maps and such that we needed. I had already done the online check-in and requested a room in the 80’s.

Everything went smoothly and we headed to our room. Our room was clear at the back corner on the 4^th floor. That wasn’t too fun, but we got everything unloaded.

After a little unpacking, we were starved and had planned to go to the Old Key West Resort for lunch and a tour.

We had lunch at Olivia’s and since Kendra had on her Birthday pin she was given upon check-in, she was offered a free dessert. Since we were having a very late lunch and had dinner reservations at 5pm, we declined it. Lunch for me was a Cuban pork sandwich and fries and Kendra had an Angus Burger, fries and a smoothie.

After eating we headed to the front desk and they located someone to give us a tour of the property and a 1 BR suite.  I have to say that they’ve done a great job. The property does of the feel of Key West. Kendra and I both loved it.

After the tour, we headed to the Polynesian Resort to park for our dinner reservations, but it was only 3pm. We took the Monorail over to the Grand Floridian. As we passed over the property we noticed that there was some newly cleared land. Once at the front desk, we asked about getting a tour. The desk sent us to the Concierge desk. They sent us back to the main desk. It seemed that they were 100% booked and couldn’t show us a room. They also couldn’t spare anyone to show us the property. They did give us a good map and told us that the cleared land was for a new DVC (Disney Vacation Club – Disney’s timeshare) portion of the Grand Floridian. We looked around a bit and headed for the dock.

Once on the dock, we decided to ride the boat for a bit. There is boat transportation between the Grand Floridian, the Polynesian, and Magic Kingdom. We rode it fully around and back over to the Polynesian again. It was incredibly relaxing and I’m so glad we did it.

Once at the Polynesian, we had some time to kill and looked around the shops, including the beautiful art shop on the ground floor. Kendra found some jewelry that she wanted in the regular shop.

Around 4:30 we went upstairs to the second floor where Ohana is located.

The check-in stand was empty and only one person was waiting. I left Kendra in line and went to the bar for a drink. I had the Pina-Colava. It was insanely sweet. I got in line in Kendra’s place so she could shop some more and we waited for dinner. Around 4:45 someone came to the stand. They asked if anyone had reservations and moved us to the other side of the ropes. It seems some people try to get in without a reservation. Crazy people. Just after 5:00 we were taken back to our table. I had requested a table by the window and we weren’t disappointed.

The appetizers were yummy, but we didn’t eat many of them. Soon the meat and side veggies came out and most of it was delicious. The chicken and the shrimp were my favorites, and I don’t really like shrimp that much.

Eventually we had what we had been waiting for. DESSERT! I would almost pay the $35 cost of Ohana just to get the dessert. They serve a sweet Coconut Pineapple bread (I think) with dinner and for dessert, it becomes a delicious, hot, custardy bread pudding served with ice cream and bananas foster caramel sauce. It is beyond delicious.

Our server had seen Kendra’s birthday pin and brought her a cute little cupcake with Mickey candy pieces.

I was completely stuffed once we were done and ready to head to the room.

We headed back to the room to unpack and organize and make sure we were ready for our day in the parks the next day. While going through things, we noticed that Tangled was playing in the pool at 8pm. When we got back to the room at 6:00 we decided to take a nap before the movie. At 7:45 my alarm went off and neither Kendra nor I were remotely interested in getting up to see the movie. We slept through the night.

After 12 hours of sleep we got up at 6am to shower and get ready for the parks. I had forgotten to bring our Touring plan, but I did have it organized online so I accessed it on our phone and labeled the map that way.  We ate a quick breakfast so that we could catch the 7:30 first bus to Hollywood Studios. Kendra grabbed a cinnamon roll and some fruit while I sat down and had a waffle with strawberries.

I wasn’t feeling well and breakfast didn’t help. I got sick and had to spend a lot of time in the bathroom. Unfortunately, there was no phone service there and Kendra got pretty worked up. We did still make our bus and I took some medicine so I could function.

We arrived at Hollywood Studios and made it through security and were at the gates by 8:00. We scouted out a gate and each of us sat down to wait.

I listened to my audiobook again and Kendra either listened to music or an audiobook. At 8:45, they let us through the gates. Our plan took us down a side street and over to Star Tours and the Muppet 3d experience. There were no lines and nobody stopped us. Strange. We picked up a FastPass to use later at Star Tours and went to the Muppet Show. There were only about 10 of us in the theatre, but it was interesting. It was on the list because we didn’t do it in 2012. Same for Star Tours.

After the Muppets, I had to stop at the restroom again. Then we went to the Toy Story ride. This time the line was about 40 minutes, thoroughly worth it. And since we were rushed through the line the last time we rode Toy Story, it was fun to wait in the line and look at everything. It’s so much fun, although Kendra beat me this year.

After that it was back to the bathroom and then we headed over to get in line for the Rockin’ Roller Coaster. On the way, we realized that the first showing of Beauty and the Beast was about to start, so we went in there and managed to get pretty decent seats. The B&TB show was one of the things Kendra enjoyed most from our last trip in 2010.

The show let out around 11:15 or so and we decided to head over to the Sci-Fi Dine In Theatre for lunch.

The Sci-Fi Dine In Theatre was another one of Kendra’s favorite experiences from 2010 and we had reservations. We were seated around 11:40 – they started seating at 11:30. Our reservation was for noon. We were seated in the front right car – the view wasn’t the best. And as a party of 2, once again we were placed in a car with a group of 4. We had the two back seats. Kendra had a burger, fries and a shake, and I had grilled chicken, fries and a shake. It was the best I could do to calm my stomach. I didn’t eat very many fries.

After lunch we stopped by the shop next door where we were stranded in the rain in 2012. They’ve changed it a little – added tables and chairs and selling more kitchen stuff than books. But the beautiful floors were still there and the people were very friendly. We chatted about our upcoming cruise.

When we left the shop we headed to Star Tours to use our FastPass. When we got the FastPass it said that we could return between 9:30 and 10:30. We clearly missed that window, but in 2010 they had only looked at the start time. If you came after your window you could still ride. It seems they are cracking down on this starting in March 2012. The nice guy did let us go ahead and ride it, but warned us. Stored away for future knowledge.

After Star Tours the only thing left that we wanted to do was the Rockin’ Roller Coaster. We got in the single rider line and made it through in about a half hour. The ride was still awesome.

We then headed for the exit. I wanted to go back to our room because I didn’t feel well, but Kendra argued that if we did we might not come back. So by 2:00 we were in Epcot.

I was feeling okay but not well. We headed for Test Track and did the single rider line. We walked to the France Pavilion so I could buy my perfume. The Givenchy I bought in 2010 was running out and I needed more.  We shopped and walked around taking pictures and headed back towards the front of the park.

On our way through the UK, we were hoping to see the players but they were between performances. We stopped at the Rose and Crown stand to get a bottled water. A lovely English girl took our order and I asked her about her name tag. Her accent said England, but her name tag said Chris from Orlando. It turned out she had lost her name tag and was borrowing someone else’s.

Next on the list was the Captain EO show that we didn’t see in 2010. Right outside the building was a delicious-smelling pretzel stand. Kendra got a cinnamon pretzel and a bottled water of her own. We sat inside in a little hallway enjoying the pretzel, cold waters, and air conditioning. We then went inside for the Captain EO show. It was 25 years old and starring Michael Jackson. It wasn’t too bad if you keep in mind when it was filmed. Outside Captain EO we stopped in a shop and I bought Kendra a Goofy Barnstormer fan / light-up toy / candy thingy. She bought some tiny figurines.

We then headed for Soarin. The wait was 90 minutes and it took every bit of the advertised time. The wait was miserable. First, they really needed some benches along that wait. Second the interactive screens didn’t seem to work. It was worse on some than others. And when we finally got in we were all the way on the left side. But Kendra loves the ride. I think it’s okay. Not worth a 90 minute wait.

At that point it was maybe 5:00 or 5:30. We were hungry, but didn’t have anything else to do before Illuminations. Kendra has never seen Illuminations at Epcot, so I wanted to experience that with her. However, we didn’t want to sit and wait for 4 hours. We discussed it and decided to go out to dinner then head back to the room.

On the way out of Epcot we decided to do the ride in the giant ball again. Sponsored by Siemens. Hehehe. It’s just as funny 2 years later.

After that we got a bus to our resort and hopped in the car. I was excited about going for pizza at Giordarno’s. Since I knew there was a location on Orlo Bronson Highway, we headed there and had a very slow, very good pizza.

My neck was killing me and I was about to look for a masseuse but Kendra begged me to just go back to the room. We did. I took a shower and then she rubbed my neck for me before bed.

We woke at a normal time at Pop Century, excited that this was the day we would be boarding our cruise! We got everything packed, organized and loaded in the car. We drove over to the main building and checked out and had breakfast. I was feeling well, so I had scrambled eggs, sausage and French toast sticks. Before I was halfway through my breakfast I got sick and got to spend some more time in the bathroom.  Kendra went into the shop on property and bought the 2012 t-shirt she had been eyeing. When we met at the car, I decided that we’d buy a tote bag in the shop instead of stopping somewhere. Kendra said the lady at the register was trying to sell her a Disney tote for $15 with purchase. I sent her back in for it. We did some repacking and off we drove with Kendra navigating.

I had googled Port Canaveral Parking and Kendra’s phone had the same directions as my printed map. Off we went. We followed the directions and were taken to a business called “Port Canaveral Parking”, not the parking structure at Port Canaveral. We rerouted and between our unfortunate side trip and more traffic than Google had expected, we arrived and were parked at 11:15. Our check-in time was 11:00. We parked on Level 3 as I had read online. We walked across the walkway with our stuff and were 2^nd in line for security. We passed through that quickly and headed to the giant room where official check-in was located. We were again 2^nd in line and got checked in quickly. By the time we walked across the room, they were calling our boarding group 4. We walked straight on and skipped the line for pictures. We were quickly announced onto the ship as “Stephenie and Kendra” and told “Welcome Home”.

The first thing we wanted to do on the ship was get rid of our carryon luggage. Unfortunately we couldn’t find anyone to help us. I couldn’t even get a steward in the hallway to come get my bags and drop the outside our room. So we left them on level 7 by the stairs. They were over in the corner and not in the way for anyone, and I strapped them all to the railing. We then headed to the Aquaduck up on level 11.

We put our stuff down and stripped down to swimsuits and got in line behind a few people. It turns out that we arrived at the line at 11:50 and the Aquaduck opened at noon. We were the 6^th people to ride it. It was AWESOME! It was a little warm and I can imagine that it might get pretty stuffy in the heat of the summer, but in March it felt great. For those that don’t know, the Aquaduck is the world’s only water coaster on a cruise ship. It even goes off the side of the ship so that it is actually over the water. There are double tubes but Kendra and I each rode alone.

After riding the Aquaduck, the line was getting too long to ride it again. I think there was a 20 minute wait.  We headed to the adult pool area to check it out. The bar was pretty cool and I ordered the drink special of the day.  We started getting hungry and found Flo’s. We both got hot dogs and fries and water. I got about halfway through my food before my tummy attacked and I found a nice bathroom on Level 3.

After a while, Kendra went exploring on her own and we agreed to meet  on the 7^th level to get into our room at 1:30.

We took our things into our room and unpacked. I had sent a package ahead that contained our Fish Extender, our Fish Extender Gifts, and our waterproof cameras. The package wasn’t there yet, but I wasn’t concerned. They would keep arriving until 5:30 that night.

Our room is the smallest, cheapest room on the ship. But it suited our needs. The Disney Dream inside staterooms have something called the Magic Porthole. This is basically a TV above the bed that is framed to look like a porthole. The TV shows the view outside the ship as viewed by a camera. The wall behind my bed faced Forward on the ship. So our view was out the front of the ship. The best thing about the Magic Porthole is that you get visits from Disney cartoon characters occasionally.

The room had a queen bed, a sofa bed, and a bunk that pulled out of the ceiling above the sofa. It also had 2 closets, a safe, and a desk with drawers and a refrigerator. It was so well organized that we didn’t have any trouble getting everything unpacked and organized. We placed our dirty laundry trashbags in the bottom of the closet, our underwear in drawers, and hung all of our clothes. Our makeup and toiletries went in the bathroom and hair styling stuff stayed by the desk.

We had a 3pm DIS meet in the D Lounge. DIS stands for the Disney Discussion Boards that I had joined. I had found a group of people that wanted to do things together and trade Fish Extender (FE) gifts. We were all meeting at 3pm. There were buttons, t-shirts, and a Mini-Navigator. We took a group picture and Max (Goofy’s son) came by for the photo.

We then headed back to our room for the scheduled 4pm lifeboat drill. I checked the evacuation route on the back of our door. It told us to go to level 5 and into the Buenavista Theatre. Once we got down to level 5, we were sent further down to level 4 into a room that was standing room only. There were way too many people in the room. I’m sure it was over capacity. It also got hot and stuffy quickly.

After the lifeboat drill we headed to Ellen and Tom’s room for the sail-away party. Their stateroom #7688 was AWESOME! They had been issued a handicap room that was huge and had the biggest balcony on the ship. We all went out there and chatted until we left port.

We were even able to see ourselves on the webcam. As soon as we started pulling out, Kendra headed to our room to shower and do her hair. She was going to an 18-21 year-olds ice breaker party later and wanted to look cute. I stuck around until we were out of port and went to get ready for dinner.

Our first dinner rotation was at the Royal Palace. Kendra and I dressed up a little more than most others. We were seated at table 80 – a table for 13. 13 of the DIS group had signed up for dinner seating together and it was a ton of fun. They were a fun group. A lot of them are DVC (timeshare) members and Castaway Cay members (past cruisers). We felt a little bit like a 5^th wheel, but were quickly absorbed into the group. Dinner lasted for 2 hours – from 5:45 – 7:45. And it would be that long every night. But every night there were 5 courses. Bread, appetizers, soup/salad, main dish, dessert.

At one point during dinner, Kendra commented “the boot is moving” as she was getting dizzy from the motion of the boat. We never got seasick, though I don’t know if it was because the boat was fairly steady or that we had taken Bonine Motion Sickness medicine. We started taking it 2 days before we sailed and took it every morning.  The only problem that we had was a slight disorientation and dizziness like we were slightly drunk.

When dinner was done we got a couple of pictures taken under my favorite chandelier in the Royal Palace.

And for the record in this one Kendra was in heels and I was in flats. Just sayin…

After dinner we headed to the forward of the ship to the Walt Disney Theatre to watch The Golden Mickeys.

We got to see the guy in charge of entertainment and activities. We were then introduced to the captain. At this point I turned to Kendra and asked, “Who’s steering the ship?” We then met the head engineer, the steering officer, and more. Again I asked Kendra, “Who’s steering the ship?” They addressed it later by telling us there is more than one captain. The show was entertaining and supposed to be like you were at a live Disney Awards ceremony. At the end there was a confetti blast that showered the crowd with Golden Mickeys.

After the show I went back to the room, hoping our package had arrived, but it had not. Our steward came to check on us and we requested that he pull down the bunk bed for Kendra and asked about the package.

He said he would check on it. I relaxed in the room while Kendra went off to the Club 18-21 icebreaker. She came back quickly and said there was nobody there. And she was a few minutes late. She then went for a jog around deck 4 while I went to sleep.

We had planned to join some of the other DIS people for the sunrise club – meeting on Deck 11 at 6:30am. We didn’t make it. I still wasn’t feeling well and took some more medicine.  We went up to Cabana’s for breakfast around 8:00 where I had some soothing Oatmeal and toast. Kendra had waffles.  After breakfast I sent Kendra to one of the shops to look for waterproof cameras since our package still had not arrived. I went up to the top deck to enjoy the view of the ship docking in Nassau.

We went back to our room to get our tickets and get ready to meet for our shore excursion. Kendra said that the shops were closed. They have to be closed when we’re docked. Bahamian rules.  We went to meet with our tour group and asked one of the cast members if we would be able to buy waterproof cameras there. While in the room waiting, Kendra decided to go back up to the room to grab some sunscreen.

I’m so glad she went back up to our room. Our package had just been delivered at around 8:45am. She ripped open the package and grabbed a disposable camera. We really needed it for snorkeling.

We were given wristbands for our excursions and once everyone was settles, we headed from the D Lounge to Level 1 Midship to disembark from the ship. As we went by the atrium, we noticed that there were a lot of princesses set up downstairs for pictures.

We then headed outside where they had us wait on the pier until the entire group was off the ship.

From there, they walked us to the buses where they separated us by the excursion we were taking. We were the only ones doing the Snorkel the Ruins tour (Atlantis Snorkel the Ruins & Aquaventure). We got on the bus. Then it filled up after with people doing a dolphin thing.

On the drive over the bridge to Paradise Island, there was a lull in the tour guide’s speech when a solitary voice came from the back of the bus, “Im in the Bahamas. I’ll call you back next week.” We all laughed.

Once we arrived at the resort, we were given maps and told where to meet the bus. For the 6^th time we were told the bus ran from 1:30 – 5:30 every half hour. We arrived at 9:15 or so.

The guide VERY slowly walked us over to the area. It was a total sales pitch to get people to come back. I do admit that there were some nice pieces of sculpture in there.

And the views were certainly lovely.

We asked a couple of times about our tour at noon. Eventually, she walked us over to the dolphin thing. We were finally released at 10:15. We went over to the giant waterpark.

By then I had blisters on both feet and was generally miserable. The lockers were about as far away as possible. We finally dumped our stuff and jumped into the rapids river. (Not just a lazy river)

The rapids were fun. There was a wave section that was awesome. And there was a side section that took you up to a cool slide in your tube.

After one time around, we got our stuff and went to get lunch. Lunch was included in the cost of the excursion, so we grabbed a hot dog, fries, and a drink. The dog was fat and juicy and the fries were delicious. There was a little bird hopping around looking cute.

We got to the snorkel station at 11:40 for our noon tour. We were sent inside to the desk to check in and wait.

Someone finally came to get us at noon and took us outside for our wetsuits. We were in an area to the side and put our wetsuits on there, but as we were doing so, someone brought a tour group right through there!

Our snorkel guides were great – attractive and funny. They did a great job preparing us and guiding us. The snorkel was great. The water was calm (not like the ocean) and there was a ton of sea life to see.

The ruin themselves were pretty cool as well.

My only complaint about the actual snorkeling experience is that the areas where you get in/out should be safer. They are very uneven and very slippery.

After snorkeling, we headed to the casino. We had been told repeatedly by Disney that Alantis was a cashless resort. I went to the window with my credit card and was told I needed cash and sent to the ATM. I haven’t used and ATM in 20 years. I don’t even know my PIN. I tried twice to get money and the machine “timed out” both times. Once as a checking withdrawal and once as a cash advance. Kendra and I scraped together about $50 from our wallets. We started at a nickel slot machine. We stuck in $10 and played for a little bit, but it wasn’t much fun.

The glass art was beautiful, though. Next, Kendra wanted to try roulette.

She did pretty well there. When we left the table, she was up about $30. We walked around a little and she played a dollar slot machine. That didn’t last long. My feet were starting to bleed where my sandal straps were rubbing. Kendra wanted to play roulette one more time at a different table. She played one $10 round and lost.

We went to the window to cash in her chips and she couldn’t find them. When she walked back to the roulette table she remembered putting them in the cup holder. They had been stolen. All her winnings had been stolen. So sad, angry, frustrated Kendra and I went back to the ship.

Along the way we took a few pictures under the Bahamas sign and with Kendra in front of the ship.

We then headed back to the room to shower the salt off – the “ruins” were saltwater ruins.  After our shower, we opened our package. Kendra got out the magnets and decorated the door.

I got out the fish extender gifts and Kendra and I worked together to get the packages ready floor by floor. We did the top floors first then delivered them into rooms that were also decorated with magnets and Fish Extenders like ours.

In between delivering gifts and getting ready for dinner we also did a couple of loads of laundry in the facilities on our floor. That was the biggest pain on our entire trip. It even trumps the late package.

We got all the Fish Extender gifts delivered and got ready for dinner.

Dinner that night was at Animator’s Palate which is probably the most fun of the dinner rotations. The chairs look like little Mickey costumes and the room has screens everywhere.

There were even these great little paint can table numbers.

The screens become interactive throughout dinner with a Nemo theme. It was great. We were with the “It’s All Gary’s Fault” DIS group and Crush came by to talk to Gary because he’d heard about him. “Oh, you’re THAT Gary!” It was awesome.

The food was strange and we went a little off-menu.

Dessert was delicious!

Also since this was the fun dinner night, we celebrated a few birthdays. Kendra was turning 18, and a couple of other people were having birthdays.

After dinner we stopped to take pictures of the sunset.

We then went upstairs to change and watch The Muppets. While waiting for the show to start, we met a nice lady and her 30 year-old daughter from Chicago. The conversation started when she asked if we were sisters? Cousins?

We went to bed right after the show. We were tired.

Castaway Cay is Disney’s private island. We had 2 visits scheduled there. While there, we plan to parasail. (Woo hoo! Another item off the Bucket List!)

We woke early. Kendra was exhausted and I wasn’t feeling well. Kendra had planned to run the 5k that met on the ship and ran around the island. That was a giant fail. We decided to relax and sleep in then head to the island for our 11:00 parasail. We got up in the 8:00 hour sometime and packed our tote bag for the island then headed to Cabana’s for breakfast. We sat outside on the patio at Cabana’s and enjoyed the beautiful view with our food.

We then decided to join the Midship Detective Agency.

On level 5 Midship is a kiosk. You go there to sign up and get your equipment. You need a casebook and a badge. Kendra and I started with the Case of the Missing Artwork. This activity can be done at your leisure and is like a scavenger hunt of sorts. Once you’ve joined the detective agency and accepted a case, you’ll be briefed on the case and how to work the equipment. Throughout the ship are 13 pieces of interactive artwork. If you stand in front of them on the circle on the floor, the paintings will “see” you and a video will play before they go back to the same or a different still. If you walk up to the paintings with your detective badge, the painting will “see” your badge and either give you a clue or you’ll have to do something to interact with the painting before getting your clue.

It’s a great way to learn your way around the ship and to see all of the cool interactive artwork. It took us about an hour to complete the case, and that’s with us moving along very efficiently. For example, rather than run from one end of the ship to the other to complete a floor, we chose to do all of the aft paintings first and just go down the stairs. We then did the midship paintings going up the stairs, then we visited the Aft paintings going back down the stairs. It was fun.

We also walked around the clubs so I could get a look at them. They were pretty cool and we stopped to check out the NCAA tournament bracket.

I had been told that the bathrooms on the ship were awesome and I checked out another one by the clubs.

Around 10:00, the Aquaduck opened and we headed for that. The Aquaduck is the first cruise ship water coaster. It’s a huge water raft ride that consists of a giant tube with rushing water that goes around, off the ship, the the length of the ship and back. There are a couple of dips. It’s AWESOME! There were just a few people in line and we went down on a double float together. While on the ride I spotted a good place to take pictures and had Kendra go through it again.

It took longer that time and I got a good shot of her. By the time we finished both runs it was 10:30 so we headed off the ship.

Getting off the ship was easy. We just swiped our cards across the reader and headed off.

Castaway Cay is an entire island owned by Disney. There are 3 sections of the island. The first is Scuttle’s Cove where all of the children’s program things are. The second is Pelican Point for older kids. There are lots of sports things there like basketball, sand volleyball and more. There’s also a cool waterslide in the bay. The third section is Serenity Bay. It’s the adults-only beach. There is a tram system running around the island nonstop.

Once we were off the ship, we got our towels and checked into Marge’s Barges for our parasailing excursion. Since we had a little time, we headed to the post office to pick up some post cards. Unfortunately, there were no good ones in there. Just 4 really bad ones for the desperate, I guess. We headed back to the waiting area and reapplied our sunscreen until we were gathered up to head out. We were separated into different boats such that there were 10 of us on the boat. We were also supposed to parasail with our group on the second stop at Castaway Cay but I didn’t trust that the weather would be good when I booked it so I had planned this first trip just in case. Since the weather was beautiful and the seas were calm, we were heading out. At this point I thought, “Great! Maybe I should cancel the next one…”.

Once on the boat we raced out a little past the ship and stopped. Kendra and I were first.

Since Kendra’s about a half inch taller than me, I was placed in the front and Kendra was strapped in behind me. Another passenger took pictures of us while we were up.

I took some shots from the air with the waterproof camera as well.

Parasailing was wonderful. The water, the island, and the ship were so beautiful. The weather was great. It was so peaceful. I LOVED IT! Kendra liked it a lot, though she was a little scared because she didn’t sit properly in the straps. At that point I decided that we were definitely doing it again in 2 days, and on every vacation thereafter. Once we came down we got a great boat ride bouncing around on the ocean with the ocean spraying up on us occasionally. Bonus fun!

After parasailing, we had planned to shop before heading to the beach. The tram that goes from the ship area to the other areas just goes to the 2 family areas. You have to get off at the second area (Pelican Point) and wait for the other tram to Serenity Bay. While waiting we went to “Buy The Seashore” to look for souvenirs. We did find some good post cards there and Kendra bought an engraved leather bracelet. Next we went to “Bahamian Retail” where I bought my usual Christmas ornament and Kendra bought a cool necklace and a gift for her best friend.

While in Pelican Point, we decided to have lunch at “Cookies Too”. (There’s a Cookies in Scuttle’s Cove) It was supposed to be like a big barbeque. I had chicken and Kendra had a burger and fries. There was some delicious fruit – especially the pineapple. We had an ice cream cone for dessert. They had soft serve in blueberry, strawberry, blueberry/strawberry swirl, vanilla, chocolate, and vanilla/chocolate swirl. The blueberry/strawberry cone was my happy choice.

Then we waited for the shuttle to go to Serenity Bay.

We headed across the sand, which made me pretty miserable. I have super-tender feet and there were sharp little pieces of shell everywhere that creeped into my sandals.

We found a couple of chairs and an empty hammock and I got out the tickets for the floats we had reserved. Kendra went and got those. We decided to lay on our hammock and chairs and get some sun before getting in the ocean.

There was a slight breeze and we tanned until we got too hot. We then realized that we had put our stuff down next to Christine and Stew – fellow DIS cruisers. That was cool!

The floats we had rented were blue and flat and slick with a little pillow. (I should have taken a picture. Sorry.) We took those out the to ocean and got in. The water was cool but not cold. It felt really shocking but good on our hot skin. The water was very calm. While laying on your float you could look down and watch the fish swim by as if you were snorkeling. It was that calm and clear. The water was beautiful, the weather was beautiful and we were in paradise! Kendra mentioned that Castaway Cay was her favorite part of the vacation. After a while, Kendra’s back was starting to sunburn and the sand hurt me just as much with my shoes off. Crazy sharp shell pieces everywhere! We went to get some ice cream, but they closed at 2:00 and we’d just missed it. We decided to head back to the ship.

As we went by Scuttle’s cove, we decided to stop and see if there was a hair braiding station. We’d seen kids everywhere with their hair braided. To get there, we had to walk by Cookie’s where the ice cream station was still up. Score! We got more ice cream and Kendra got her hair wrapped.

That’s one little section behind the ear that’s wrapped like a friendship bracelet and has a few beads on the end. After that, we stopped at “She Sells Sea Shells And Everything Else” to see what they had, assuming it would be the same as “Buy the Seashore”. Nope. This one was MUCH bigger and had a bigger selection. I bought myself an insulated cup with the birds from Nemo and “Mine Mine Mine” written on it. It made me smile. I also picked up more sunscreen and the aloe that I had forgotten to get on shore. Kendra bought a cute Castaway Cay t-shirt. We came back to the ship and took showers before dinner. I also went down to the rebooking station.

If you book another Disney cruise while on your Disney cruise, you get a 10% discount and a reduced deposit. I chatted with the lady for a bit and got prices for a few different cruises. She told me that if you have a laptop with you (which we did) you can get online for free to check the Disney cruise website. I went back upstairs and tried to do that. It didn’t work so well. It was insanely slow and kept timing out. I finally put the laptop down and looked at the book for cruises I was interested in to go back to the agent. Kendra wanted to come with me so we went down to the agent again and got some prices.

• 2012 New Years 6-night was $2193, but it did go to Key West, which I really wanted to do again
• 2013 January 8-night Western Caribbean that went to Key West and Cozumel, among others, was $1931
• 2013 January 4-night Bahamas back on the Dream to the same ports was $1212
• 2013 May West Coast Reposition from LA to Vancouver spending 2 days in San Francisco sounded fun, and others in our group were doing this. It was $1727
• 2013 May Alaska cruise was $2450

These were all the cruises I found interesting. Some of them were too expensive to consider. Especially the west coast ones. Airfare there would be more than just to Orlando. Kendra and I talked and what we REALLY want to do is do the 12-night Mediterranean cruise. But that trip will cost around $15,000. I’m tentatively planning that for 2015. So this next cruise needed to be as cheap as possible. So we booked the January 6 4-night cruise back on the Dream since we loved it so much. We’re going to fly down, stay in a cheap hotel that transfers us to the port, then fly home. No visit to Disney World this time. We’ll do Disneyland in Paris in 2015! When we’re on the ship in January, we’ll book a dummy cruise for the end of the year. Then when the 2015 cruises are announced in September 2013, we’ll move our booking to that cruise and pay the deposit. That way we get to keep our 10% discount and smaller deposit. If for some reason Disney doesn’t do a Mediterranean cruise in 2015, we’ll go to Hawaii instead. My other big goal. Then we’ll plan the Mediterranean for 3-4 years down the road. With that all taken care of, we got ready for dinner.

Dinner on the third night of our cruise was at Animator’s Palate, and the Pirate Menu was scheduled. I had read online that the pirate menu was supposed to be on the first dinner repeat night, which would have been our day at sea. I had also heard that if you were going to do one night at Remy/Palo, make it the Pirate night because the food wasn’t very good. So we had a reservation for Palo on what I thought was Pirate night. When I found out it was a day earlier, I called and moved our reservation. Fortunately, there was availability at the same time. So I called someone in our dinner group to let them know and Kendra and I were off to Palo for dinner. Palo is the Italian restaurant on the ship. It costs $20 a person to eat there and is for adults only.

We were a few minutes early for our reservation and waited in Meridian – the bar on the Aft (back) of the ship. It was a quiet, beautiful bar with a great ocean view and patios on each side. We once again ran into Christine and Stew there and chatted with them for a few until we were called to dinner. As we walked into the restaurant we were greeted by a beautiful chandelier made of blown glass made to look like pasta.

There were the colors of the Italian flag painted on the wall on either side.

We were taken to a lovely table next to a window so we had a nice ocean view.

For a pre-appetizer, we were brought  bread and a cheese/meat platter.

It was all delicious, but Kendra LOVED the garlic pita bread.

I had a Portebella Mushroom appetizer.

For dinner I had the Sea Bass and Kendra had Lobster Marscapone (Italian cream cheese) ravioli.

For dessert, we had ordered the chocolate souffle.

It was the best thing we had to eat on the entire trip. It was a fresh, hot chocolate souffle that the server cracked and poured cream and chocolate inside. It was served with a dish of vanilla gelato that we were to place inside. We kept it on the side, but I did take bites together as the souffle was scalding hot. It was worth the $20 by itself! We also ordered a couple of other desserts, but they paled in comparison.

After dinner I had to run to the restroom and found this little beauty by Palo.

After Palo we were going to watch John Carter, but I was sick from all of the rich foods. (It was so worth it!) I relaxed in the room and Kendra got her pirate on to head up to the festivities.

Around 10:30 I still wasn’t feeling well but didn’t want to miss the fireworks at sea. We were told that Disney is the only cruise line permitted to shoot off fireworks at sea. I headed to the Forward of the ship to the 13th floor where I knew there were some nice comfy chairs. Fortunately, there were a couple of seats and we got in them. A few minutes later a crowd started forming around the railing. The Fantasy was coming by! The Disney Fantasy is the newest ship in the DCL (Disney Cruise Line) family. It had its first sailing out of New York and this 3-night Bahamas cruise was full of travel agents and marketing people. Paying customers would have the Inaugural Cruise the following week. We had heard that we were going to meet them on our At-Sea day, so this was a pleasant surprise.

The Fantasy came around behind us and around to Starboard (right side of the ship) where it cruised beside us as the Pirate Party got started. The captain came over the intercom and announced that This is the first time these two sister ships had been together and the two captains had compared future sailings and it was not scheduled to happen again. We were making history! We had an awesome fireworks display and a cool pirate show on the Deck 11 stage.

Then the Fantasy shot off their fireworks!

2 fireworks shows that night! It was amazing. Once the Fantasy started sailing away – they were scheduled to be at Castaway Cay the next day, Kendra and I headed back to our room to get some sleep. It was around midnight.

Our steward had come by and left us another towel animal and set up Kendra’s bunk bed.

(More details and pictures to come!)

Since we were up so late the night before we slept in a little bit. During the Day At Sea, everyone is on the ship and looking for things to do. We knew not to even try to get on the Aquaduck. Kendra woke pretty sunburned from the day before. I slathered some aloe on her and we headed up to Cabana’s again for breakfast. We ate outside again to enjoy the sun and air, but it was pretty windy. At some point we heard that we would be going by Castaway Cay to have a horn war with the Fantasy. More about that later.

I had my regular oatmeal because it’s easy on my tummy. Note the fun glass that I had bought on Castaway Cay. Mine! Mine! Mine!

After breakfast, we relaxed a bit and at 10:30 headed down to the 687 club (the sports bar) to play 100 Movie Trivia. The host would act out a movie quote and we had to guess the actor’s name and the movie title. We did okay but didn’t win the cool keychain. Right after that we went up to see the Disney Fantasy Cruise ship for the second time as we cruised by Castaway Cay. The captain made a detailed announcement explaining what an unprecedented event this was. The Fantasy is the newest ship in the DCL fleet and is the sister ship to the Dream. We would be meeting them three times on our cruise and the two ships are never scheduled to meet again. So if you ever see a picture of the 2 ships together, we’re in it!

One of the great things about the two ships meeting is the opportunity to have a “Horn Battle” with a sister ship that has the same type of horns as us. Have a listen:

After the Fantasy was going out of sight, I got the pleasure of visiting another bathroom on the 11th deck.

We grabbed some lunch at Flo’s again. I had pizza. It wasn’t very impressive.

We went back to our room and watched On Demand Disney movies and took a nap before dinner.

Dinner that night was at the Enchanted Garden.

With all the troubles I’d been having with my stomach, I was out of medicine and the med center had weird hours. I tried to send Kendra down to the 1st deck to get meds for me, but I had to go down personally. That took far too long. They held my food for me. Kendra said she was tired of all the “fancy food” and ordered off the kids menu.

I had a salad and scallops for dinner.

Kendra ordered dessert off the kids menu – a cheesecake with blackberry sauce.

I got the strawberry shortcake off the kids menu. It was great.

Right after dinner we raced to Meridian with Christine and Stew to see the Disney Fantasy for the third time. Here’s a video of our ship, the Dream as viewed from the Fantasy. It’s pretty cool.

We sat and chatted with them for a bit and they asked us if we’d like to join them in their cabana the next day. I had looked at the cabanas, but not only were they sold out when I would have booked one, they are $400 for one day. We did the Atlantis Excursion instead. We said we would ABSOLUTELY join them the next day. They told us to swing by their cabin later and the wristbands would be in their Fish Extender.

After that, Kendra went to watch the Villians show in the Walt Disney Theatre while I was stuck in the room not feeling well again. After she got back from the show we went to the D Lounge to join the Family Dream Quest. It was sort of “Let’s Make A Deal” where you got a point for having whatever he asked for. For example, a Mom clucking like a chicken. That was me, head bob and all. A boy wearing girls’ shoes. No boys, so no points for us. And so on. The last one was to bring up the oldest person in your party. That was me again. We had a dance-off. I was one of 3 women that won with my smashing can-can. Our prize? We got to be backup dancers for the “Rock Stars with Guitars” show coming up next. Yep, there’s video.

After that, I stopped off to get a report of our spending to find out we were a little under budget I was off to bed.

Day 8 is actually the second day at Castaway Cay. This is the beauty of the 5-night cruise.

I watched us come up on Castaway Cay from the room out of our magic porthole.

We then had breakfast with a view.

Kendra had her favorite breakfast. Mickey Waffles. They make her happy.

During the first Castaway Cay day we had planned to stay on the ship a bit and take advantage of the fact that most people got off early. On this second day we planned to get off the ship s soon as possible and get out there enjoying the beach. All Ashore was at 8:30 and we were at the forward exit at 8:15. Unfortunately, it was VERY windy out and it took a while to get the ship docked, so we had to wait until just before 9am to get off the ship and they had already canceled all of the parasail trips for the day. I was sad that we didn’t get to parasail again, but so glad that we had also booked the parasailing two days before so that we didn’t miss the opportunity.

While waiting to disembark we decided to run up and shop. We had forgotten that the shops were closed. Instead we went over to the Walt Disney Theatre, which had one door open. Kendra took the opportunity to hop on stage and sing some Little Mermaid.

After leaving the ship we headed straight to Serenity Bay to the Cabana. We had our Gary bands and our cabana wristbands – tanlines waiting to happen. When we got over to the cabana check-in there was a lovely golf cart waiting to take us to the Cabana 19. Once he opened the door and let us in, we were greeted with inside seating for 5 plus a bench. There was a refrigerator stocked with soda, bottled water, fruit, and wet washcloths. There was a closet with a safe. There were two stacks of towels. Outside on the deck was more seating and sunscreen. Off to the side was a stack of floats and tubes and a hammock. Then it was a stone’s throw to the water with some public chairs.

We reapplied our sunscreen and headed to the chairs to get some sun. This was especially true after Kendra got so burned before.

We laid there for a while until around 11:30 when we knew the lunch shack was open. We asked Stew if he wanted to go and he said not yet. So Kendra, Christine, and I got ready to head over to the shack. Just before we left we noticed that Captain Jack Sparrow was coming down the beach.

After getting pictures we headed to lunch. It’s still like a smaller version of Cookies and Cookies Too. There are some cast members grilling out steaks, burgers, jerk chicken and more. For sides there was potato salad and such. Then, as is the norm, there was soft serve ice cream and I had strawberry banana. After lunch, we crashed in chairs on the beach again until Kendra finally talked me into taking our floats out to the crashing waves. On our first day at Castaway Cay the water was almost completely calm. This time it was some serious work to get those floats out a little and they were constantly heading back to the shore. I even got beached once and had to get off my float and head back out. We stayed out in the water and visited with the people from our group that was in another cabana until my face was burning.

When we went back to the cabana to put on sunscreen and decided to swing over and get ice cream before the shack closed. After that we headed over to Gary’s cabana to visit with everyone. At 3:30, we headed to Scuttle’s Cove to the DJ station to do the Sing Along with Gary. We grabbed a couple of smoothies from the bar – the strawberry mango was AWESOME. Then we all did the sing along to Margaritaville with one small change. Instead of “It’s my own darned fault”, we sang “It’s all Gary’s Fault”. It was a pile of fun.

After the sing-along we headed back to the ship to get on the Aquaduck. The line was a little too long for us, so we went to the room to wash off the sand and salt. At 4:30, we went to the Disney Vacation Club Presentation, then had to rush straight to dinner without changing. This was the first night we didn’t dress up for dinner. We actually went in shorts.

This dinner was our last dinner and was in the Royal Palace dining room again. We handed out our tips to each of the waiters and had our last desserts on the ship. We also said goodbye to our group.

After dinner I settled our account and went shopping for me – I bought some cute DCL earrings that were prominently displayed in the Whitecaps shop. Since we needed to pack and were concerned about having to check a bag at the airport, we skipped the Disney’s Believe show at the Walt Disney Theatre. We watched it in the room on the TV while packing so we didn’t completely miss it, but we weren’t too concerned about seeing it in person. We’d heard it wasn’t that good. It was okay. We felt a lot better after getting all packed up. I watched some TV while Kendra went for a walk on the ship. We went to bed a little early because we had an early morning the next day.

This night the steward left us a ninja bunny.

On Day 9 we had to leave this awesome ship that has been our home for the last 5 nights.

We got up early enough to head down to our big breakfast in the Royal Palace, but I wasn’t feeling well again. So we slept in a little and took all of our luggage with us to breakfast at Cabana’s.

We relaxed and ate until we got the call that Express Checkout people could leave. That is people that don’t have any checked luggage. That’s us. We had made it off the ship, through customs, and to our car in the parking garage in about 5 minutes. It was amazingly fast.

From there, we paid the $90 for parking and headed to the airport. We stopped once a few exits from the airport and filled up the car then took it to the airport to return it.

Our flight home was uneventful and we got picked up from the airport by Chigo on time with no trouble.

After we got home we headed out to Firehouse Subs and Orange Leaf to complete our vacation before coming home and unpacking.

Toby was very happy to be home as well.