Trip Report The lets take things a little slower this time trip report

Hello everyone. Long time trip report reader, 1st time trip report writer here. I'm hoping that anyone that decides to read along to this report doesn't find themselves bored to death or hoping for a long sleep when you're done.
Well, lets get down to business. The story is about 4(Me-DH, DW, DS, and DS) adventurous souls that decided to take a trip to the most magical place on earth. But before we do that we'll try something else first. Follow along and you see what that is. :)

We arrive at the airport anxious and excited to get the vacation going. We stop to pick up a few snacks and wait to board our flight. Next stop Charlotte en route to Orlando.


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1st leg of the flight lasts about 45 minutes and is extremely uneventful. We arrive in Charlotte and decide to grab a bite to eat. Now when I say we decide to grab a bite to eat I mean my wife and I eat and our boys play video games. :)

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After lunch we head over to our gate for 2nd leg of trip. Next stop Orlando, Fl.
 
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mrdrift

Well-Known Member
Loving the report and very happy that you were able to make through the first night in rough seas. You have a beautiful family that seems to be having the time of their lives on the ship. Will be following closely since the cruise is my next item on the bucket list.
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Following along! I've been reading lots of TRs about cruises lately. It really makes me want to try one. Looks like you had a great time.
 

bow0303

Active Member
Original Poster
We did the same tour and had the same reaction. Nice enough one time, but no need to repeat it. Next time we go, we plan to just stay on the ship and ride the Aquaduck.

Hope your seasickness subsided!

We plan on staying on the ship the next time. Seasickness did subside due to calmer seas and medicine. Only problem is that after the shows, we went back to cabin and layed down and wouldn't get up. We missed the pirate party and fireworks because we couldn't stay awake. :(
 

bow0303

Active Member
Original Poster
Loving the report and very happy that you were able to make through the first night in rough seas. You have a beautiful family that seems to be having the time of their lives on the ship. Will be following closely since the cruise is my next item on the bucket list.


Thanks for reading along. We had a ball and looking forward to doing it again. We loved the parks but now the cruise is our new favorite. :)
 

bow0303

Active Member
Original Poster
Following along! I've been reading lots of TRs about cruises lately. It really makes me want to try one. Looks like you had a great time.


You should try it. Think you'll really like it. Service in most cases is so much better than the parks. We did have a great time.
 
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bow0303

Active Member
Original Poster
I have misplaced my notes, so skipping around a little. I know that we went to lunch @ Cabanas. I remember running into our assistant server working the dessert counter. As we were finishing lunch(cabanas was closing very soon) she gets our attention and calls us over. She gives an entire tray of desserts. Yeah. She remembered some of our sweet preferences. It was extremely nice of her. She was wonderful the entire cruise and felt lucky to have been assigned to her. Cant quite remember what we did between lunch and dinner. Fairly certain we did the Midship detective agency. I will say that while there is a lot of walking its a lot of fun. So its dinner time so we head down to Animators Palate. We were all excited to try this restaurant. We were lucky enough to eat there two nights in a row. Here are a couple pics. I wanted to take food pics. I did get some but not as many as I would have liked. :)

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Does anyone see a hidden mickey?
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Dinner was really good. We said good bye to our wait staff and left the restaurant. We weren't sure what we were going to do but the boys wanted to go back to the oceaneers lab. We dropped them off and exploring we went.
 
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DisSplash

Well-Known Member
I had that same pork chop dish! But somehow I missed out on that seafood dish ... I would have preferred that! Don't get me wrong, the pork was good, but I do not have seafood eaters in this house so anytime I get a chance to order seafood out, I do it! I did have a lot of seafood on our cruise, but I just don't know how I missed that scallop dish!

I agree about the service onboard. Everyone was excellent, friendly and super attentive!
 

bow0303

Active Member
Original Poster
I had that same pork chop dish! But somehow I missed out on that seafood dish ... I would have preferred that! Don't get me wrong, the pork was good, but I do not have seafood eaters in this house so anytime I get a chance to order seafood out, I do it! I did have a lot of seafood on our cruise, but I just don't know how I missed that scallop dish!

I agree about the service onboard. Everyone was excellent, friendly and super attentive!

I'm not a huge seafood fan so was very happy with the porkchop. It was very good and eat it again. My wife really liked her fish dish. I wish I had taken pics of the menu's so I could recall exactly what it was we ordered but I will make sure I do next time.

Our head server was good but our asst server was great. Server just didn't have the same outgoing personality that our asst server had and and that's why she stands out to us. We had different servers when we went to breakfast in Royal Palace that we very good as well. The only other castmember we can in contact on a regular basis was the manager of the oceaneers lab and we really liked her. But all in all we didn't have a bad experience with any castmember.
 

bow0303

Active Member
Original Poster
We decided to head back to bingo then to see a show. Tonight was Villians tonight. We head to D lounge, purchase our ticket and get ready to play. Again the castmembers are really funny and make the games really enjoyable. We get close a few times but don't win. Its now time to get the boys and head to the show. We told them how much fun the previous show was and they were excited to go. Villians tonight was good but not as good as the Golden Mickey's IMO. After the show we play a little more Midship Detective Agency before heading to bed. We get to the cabin and guess what is waiting on us?

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The towel animals are nice touches. Its fun to wonder what animal you'll see each night. After ordering more Mickey Bars and chocolate chip cookies we head to bed and get ready for the next day and Castaway Cay. I will say at this point the seas were much more calm and the ship was not rocking nearly as much as it had been the night before. I must say I was very happy about that. ;)
 
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bow0303

Active Member
Original Poster
Today is the day we get to visit Castaway Cay. We awake and after getting dressed we eat breakfast at Cabanas and get ready to disembark the ship. We were looking forward to this part of the cruise and excited to head to the beach.
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We find out lounge chairs and head to the water.
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Not sure what I was expecting but the water was very salty. I remember the water being a little more chilly than it thought it would be but too bad. The beach at this point was a little crowded. People had taken some beach chairs down to the water and sat down right at the waters edge. We did the same and as me and the boys swam, my wife was able to be close by. We had a good time. One thing we did decide we wanted to do on our next cruise was to book one of the cabanas. They appear to have a part of the family beach set aside for them which would leave more space but they also appear to offer benefits like water floats, etc. I have read that they book up fast and really hoping that the concierge and platinum and gold members don't book them all. After playing in water the boys wanted to try the waterslides at Pelican Plunge.
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They enjoyed it but the swim out to the barge was pretty long. My oldest can swim but my youngest can not. He climbed on my back and I swam with him to the barge. I have always been a good swimmer but age is catching up to me. :) I was tired once we finally got there. LOL. We only did the slide once and headed back to the beach. My wife was finishing a little nap so we decided to explore a little.
 

bow0303

Active Member
Original Poster
We come across some races. What kind of races you ask? Well....crab races of course. LOL.

Our crab came in 2nd place.
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We next find the sports/play area. We shoot some hoops, play a little ping pong and fooseball. Fooseball is my sons new favorite and for the remainder of the trip he searches out all the fooseball tables he can find and insists that we play. :). We've been gone for awhile and decide to head back to our spot and see if my wife has finished her nap. We get back after a short walk and she is awake. We're all a little hungry and decide its time for lunch. We head over to Cookies 2. There wasn't as much of a selection as I thought it would be but the food was good. We decide to head back to the sports/play area so my son can show my wife the.....yep you guessed it. The Fooseball tables. We played two on two and had a good time. It was time to head back to the ship but on the way we stop to get some cold beverages at the Conched Out Bar. We sat at a nearby table and indulged while listening to live music.
 

FlaggNL

Well-Known Member
Great report! Love the Vulcano desert in Rainforest! Never had it but I am for sure we will go just for THAT desert to Rainforest. Maybe in WDW but for sure on our next DLP trip :)

Love the pics of your boys with the Remy hat :) When you find time to check my DLP TR you find a similar picture :)

Keep on posting :)
 

mrdrift

Well-Known Member
Great report on Castaway Cay, The pictures turned out nice. So from what I can read you are saying it is best to rent a Cabana while there on the island? Sounds like there is little of everything for the family to have a great time. Thanks for sharing, will be following.
 

bow0303

Active Member
Original Poster
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I've been really busy lately but lets keep this train rolling. After finishing our drinks and listening to a little more music we head back to the ship. Once on board we decided to head to the top deck to get some shots of Castaway Cay. I realized that I left the camera in the cabin and by the time it got it and returned to deck 13 we started to set sail. Didn't get the shots I wanted but still like these.


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After playing a little more foosball we wanted to ride the aquaduck again so we got in line. We enjoyed it again. Overall it was a nice ride but was hoping/expecting a little more WOW. It was pirate night so we decided to head back to the room to relax a little and then get ready for dinner. Our restaurant for the night was Animator's Palate. We enjoyed lasts night food so we were looking forward to it again. We were also looking forward to dressing up a little. By no means did we go all out but had purchased some bandanas and eye patches and some lightup swords for the boys. We received Disney bandanas the night before so we wore those instead.

Pictures before dinner. :)

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One of the things I really wanted to do was to take a lot of pictures of the food and I didn't get nearly as much as I wanted. I did get one from tonights dinner. :)
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bow0303

Active Member
Original Poster
After dinner we headed to the pirate deck party. We had a good time with the music and video. We really liked the cast member's uniforms too. It made everything more festive. :)

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