Trip Report Our First Disney Cruise...it was "Magic"al!!

Well we are all settled back in at home, routines are in order - back to work; back to school and thank goodness for pictures on my phone that I can look at to reminisce about the wonderful trip we had (remember when you had to rush to the photo booth at your local Walgreens with your 15 rolls of film to be processed so you could finally see your pictures only to realize half on the roll weren't even good)! Our trip was amazing! From start to finish, I wouldn't change a thing and feel so blessed we were given this opportunity by my husband's parents to go on this trip.

I'm still getting my notes and pictures in order, but wanted to get this TR started to force me to do this! I've been reading so many great TR's over the last couple weeks (and trying to get to those I haven't read yet!) and wanted to join in the fun too

So for those who didn't see my very brief PTR, my husband's parents took the entire family (13 of us) on the cruise to celebrate their upcoming 50th wedding anniversary. We were on the Disney Magic from February 26th through March 3rd. We ported out of Miami and our stops were Grand Cayman and of course, Castaway Cay (which I think if we would have docked the ship there the entire five days I would have been okay with that).

I won't bring in the extended family too much as I'm not sure if they want pictures of themselves floating around on wdwmagic, so you will most likely see me (Chris), my husband (Brian) and our 14 year old daughter (Emily)!

I will get to our first day soon, but I will leave you with this photo (disclaimer - I am NOT a photographer and all of my pictures were taken on my phone, but it's the thought that counts!). Couldn't you just look at this view all day long (sorry about a shirtless Brian...but hey we were on vacation...in the sun)

 

[MySmallWorldof4]

It was I would love to try to replicate it!

That was a super unusual dessert. I have never seen anything like that. That hotel will be on my list if we ever end up in Miami for a cruise someday. That view from your window was amazing. I would have also have loved to just stare out that window and watch the cruise ships..

I love your trip report! I cannot wait to keep reading. I am so curious about the Magic.

 

[gdisneyfans]

OK I have to chime in on this one
Dad's should get to sleep anytime they want to
Just because the rest of you people do not have the skill to fall asleep no matter:
1)how bright it is
2)what time of day it is
3) and where we are at the time

does not give you the right to be jealous of us !!!!

Max

But we as spouses also reserve the right to make fun of you any time then if you think you can just nap whenever you would like! But I must admit, Brian is an expert at #s 1, 2 and 3

That view and those treats are to die for
Great hotel choice!!

Max

Thanks! We lucked out. My brother-in-law works for the hotel's parent company so we got a great deal on the rooms. And the treats were to die for!

I like the car choice
Does she plan on going to med school???

Max

Ha, yeah right! She just likes to have those teenage dreams ya know!

 

[amjt660]

Brian's got skills
I sometimes struggle with #1 (brightness) but 2 and 3 are no issue

We have never done a family cruise. T and I did one in the early nighties on a very old / smaller boat (think 800 passenger capacity) and she did not do well at all
I tell her that bigger modern ships are better but the idea of throwing all that money away to drink ginger ale and eat saltine crackers is too much of a risk.

On top of that S takes after her mom so that puts 50% of Max's crew at risk of leaning of the railing and feeding the fish.

Max

 

[gdisneyfans]

Everything sounds so wonderful so far. Your excitement is evident reading your report. It makes me want to go on a cruise!

Thank you - it was so much fun and I get so excited just typing about it! I highly recommend that you do

That elevator hand may have done it for me. I want to go! So fun so far.

Isn't that the best?! Thanks for reading

So excited to read the rest of your report! We're thinking of doing this same cruise next winter. We did a 3 night on the dream in 2015 and we're so ready to do another disney cruise.

Thank you! I hope you do it! The five night was a great start for us...but now I want more! And I'm with you - we are ready to do another one too!

That was a super unusual dessert. I have never seen anything like that. That hotel will be on my list if we ever end up in Miami for a cruise someday. That view from your window was amazing. I would have also have loved to just stare out that window and watch the cruise ships..

I love your trip report! I cannot wait to keep reading. I am so curious about the Magic.

It was so unusual. When they brought it out, I think we all looked like what the heck is that? But Oh. My. Gosh. It was so so good! I was actually talking last night with my sister-in-law (on my side of the family) about it and we were trying to figure out how to recreate it I think we're going to try it soon! We did a lot of staring out the window. I totally forgot to include this picture at that point in my trip report, but this was us as long as we possibly could look!

Thank you for following! Another day coming up soon!

 

[gdisneyfans]

Brian's got skills
I sometimes struggle with #1 (brightness) but 2 and 3 are no issue

We have never done a family cruise. T and I did one in the early nighties on a very old / smaller boat (think 800 passenger capacity) and she did not do well at all
I tell her that bigger modern ships are better but the idea of throwing all that money away to drink ginger ale and eat saltine crackers is too much of a risk.

On top of that S takes after her mom so that puts 50% of Max's crew at risk of leaning of the railing and feeding the fish.

Max

He is a master napper. If it's too bright, he just puts a pillow over his head!

Yeah, I get that. If she gets too sick, it definitely is not fun at all. I mean the rooms are nice and all, but you don't want to spend your whole vacation in them either. But the bands did help Brian and Emily and one of my sister-in-laws wore a patch and she did good too. Hope you can give it another try some time!

Well their railings are pretty high

 

[gdisneyfans]

Monday, February 27th

Day at Sea

We woke up about 7:30 and of course went right out on the balcony to see the gorgeous sun coming up over the water. The view was breathtaking. It was so surreal being there. We really were just enjoying the moment and not thinking of anything other than being together on the cruise.
Cuba!

Zoomed into Cuba!

Brian and I wanted some coffee so we went up to the coffee/soda area on Deck 9 and grabbed a cup of coffee. And then did this

Oh my, I wish every morning I could do this! But before too long, we were all getting hungry for breakfast, so we headed up to Cabana's for the breakfast buffet.

See we did take the stairs quite often

Disney touches!

Cabana's wasn't as packed as it was the day before during lunch so we had no problems getting a table. The buffet is just huge with pretty much anything you could think of for breakfast. But here's my lovely plate The omelet was a veggie omelet and was really, really good. The grilled tomatoes were. The Mickey waffle was just okay. It was kind of soggy, but oh well. It was Mickey!

Our view while dining

After breakfast we decided we may as well get our suits on and grab some chairs. We decided to go on Deck 10 right above the family pool so we could see Funnel Vision and also be close enough to the pool and of course the bar…and ice cream!

 

[MotherofaPrincessLover]

It's so nice being able to take the stairs on the ship. Last cruise we had a stroller with us and it was so annoying taking the elevators the whole time. Hopefully next cruise we'll be able to get by most of the time with no stroller.

 

[gdisneyfans]

No one was up there quite yet since it was early, so we grabbed a bunch of chairs since there were so many of us. We lounged around and I went and walked a bunch of laps on Deck 10 to try to get a little bit of exercise!

Front of the ship

After my laps, it was nearing 10:00 and the slide was about to open so Brian and Emily went and got in line to go down.

They said it was a blast! We sat and enjoyed the beautiful weather, the gorgeous scenery and enjoyed each other’s company. In between movies they had Disney trivia on the screen, so that was fun to try to guess the correct answer. By now it was certainly nearing 5:00 somewhere so we tried the drink of the day.

It was pretty good. I don't think more than one a day is necessary as they are a little too sweet, but I like to at least try it!

 

[gdisneyfans]

Before too long it was lunch time already…the afternoon was going by a little too fast! We just had some lunch up on the Deck while sitting in the sun. I had a salad first, nothing too exciting. Brian had a burger and fries. I'd show you his picture but he'd probably run me over with his truck Just kidding. He wouldn't do that to me - who would pay all the bills? But after my salad I had PIZZA! MMMMMMMM Their pizza is so good.

*Tries to grab that pizza slice through the computer screen...

We pretty much just lounged all afternoon in the sun. I mean, why leave this view??

Just look at that blue sky!

We met Jermain who was one of the servers. He was awesome! He was so funny and struck up a fun conversation. He became "our waiter" (I put in quotes because if he came by us and one of his co-workers was waiting on us or trying to wait on us he threatened to throw them overboard) He was a hoot!

We bought a new cooler!

It came in handy to keep beer, I mean waters cold! One thing I didn't like on the Magic was the size of the family pool. At most times you couldn't fit another body, big or small in that pool!

I spy Mickey! Too bad he didn't cove over to our side of the Deck

The afternoon was coming to a close and almost time for dinner, but we had to have a margarita first!

But we had to head back to the room at some point! We had a show to get to and then of course dinner with Mo and Santiago!

 

[gdisneyfans]

It's so nice being able to take the stairs on the ship. Last cruise we had a stroller with us and it was so annoying taking the elevators the whole time. Hopefully next cruise we'll be able to get by most of the time with no stroller.

I could see how that was handy! But yeah, we tried to take the stairs as much as possible. It was pretty difficult at times after dinner, but we did it!

 

[gdisneyfans]

After we were ready, we had plenty of time before the show so we stopped in Grandma and Grandpa’s room. We had ordered room service to their room so we could enjoy some snacks before the show. We had ordered three of the All Hands on Deck platter, an order of chicken tenders and some hot wings (all 13 of us were going to cram in there room for the snacks!).

But we didn't plan enough time to enjoy the snacks before the show, so we saved them for after! The show tonight was Twice Charmed. "What if Cinderella never got a chance to slip on the glass slipper, leaving those nasty stepsisters with another chance to get their claws into Prince Charming? This production answers the question."

It was good! I wouldn’t say it was the best show we saw that week, but it was good nonetheless. They really do have a lot of great talent on the Magic. The show was about an hour, so we still had plenty of time before dinner so we all went back to Grandma and Grandpa’s room and had finished the snacks we had ordered earlier and had a glass of champagne

Dinner tonight was at Lumiere's

I must have skipped the Appetizer because I don't have a picture and I don't recall eating anything listed on the menu Must have had too much cheese. But I did have bread!

And then I had the French Onion Soup

Geez you'd think I'd have enough food by now. Nope!!

 

[gdisneyfans]

I had the salmon. It was good, but I know I didn't finish that thing.

But I of course had dessert. Grand Marnier Souffle. Best three words together in the English Language! Oh my goodness this was so darn good. And I ate every bit of it! I probably would have licked the bowl clean too if we weren't with Brian's whole family

After waddling out of Lumiere's we walked out into the lobby area and saw Goofy with hardly a line, so of course we had to get a picture!

So cute. Loved that he was in a tuxedo! After dinner, we had a long day in the fresh air and sunshine (and plenty to drink) so we decided to call it a night, so we headed back to our room to find this guy!

How are we at the end of day three already! We are having so much fun.

 

[gdisneyfans]

I had Clayton as a cruise director on one of my cruises too!

Oh my goodness, small world! He is awesome!!! I have a picture of the three of us and him that I'll post later on in the trip

 

[amjt660]

Sounds like a great relaxing day at sea with great food to boot!

Max

 

[gdisneyfans]

Tuesday, February 28th

Porting in Grand Cayman and Pirate Night!

We actually set an alarm for 7:15 this morning as we had an excursion in Grand Cayman - Sting Ray City and Swim with the Dolphins at Dolphin Cove! We needed to be in the D Lounge by 8:30 to get registered, but we woke up prior to the alarm going off. We woke up to this gorgeous view:

We have arrived at Grand Cayman too - not sure what time we arrived, but we were here when we woke up!

We got ready for our day off the ship and then we went up to Cabana's and had a little breakfast. My plate

Then we headed over to the D Lounge where we were meeting for the excursion. But first took a couple of pictures of the lobby area near the lounge.

Then we head into the Lounge:

And we register and wait....and wait...and wait! It took forever for them to tell us our tender had arrived to take us over to the island (there is no docking in Grand Cayman due to the coral reefs). So we are finally on our way!

We tendered over to Grand Cayman only to stand in another line! We waited for a bit in that line, but thankfully it was in the shade and near the restrooms! Finally we were guided to our buses to where they would take this rather large group to Dolphin Cove. The drive seemed to go pretty quick, but I’m guessing it was about a 15 minute drive to Dolphin Cove.

 

[gdisneyfans]

I didn't take a lot of pictures at the Dolphin Cove building - too excited for the excursion I guess, but here's the building from their website!

First up was Sting Ray City. We all boarded a double-decker boat that was going to take us out to the sandbar where the sting rays are found. The boat ride was a half hour there and a half hour back. We were up on the top deck with no shade, so it was quite hot up there! But there was a nice breeze so that helped not to feel so scorched. The view from the boat:

Brian and Emily got off the boat to swim with the sting rays, but I didn’t have any desire to do that! I took pictures of them instead. It was quite entertaining watching everyone with the sting rays!

The employees on the boat we were on would grab a large sting ray and hold it for people to take pictures with, so that was neat.

Gorgeous view:

 

[gdisneyfans]

Also, one of the staff members started throwing out cut up squid to feed to the sting rays, so people were having fun with that too. Brian fed quite a few pieces to them.

We probably were there about 45 minutes. We headed back to Dolphin Cove as it was time to swim with the dolphins! This was something that I was excited for but also a little nervous for as well! I don’t like salt water and these are creatures that live in the wild so that’s what made me a little nervous. We received our life vests and then had a quick orientation on what to expect and how to hold our hands and feet when interacting with the dolphins. I didn't get to take any pictures because you couldn't have any cameras, not even waterproof ones along.

Then it was time! We walked over to our area of the lagoon where we would be interacting with them. There were about 15 of us in our group and we just stood in a line and took turns with the dolphin. We were situated in the far right docking area in the picture below (from Dolphin Cove's website):

And these two photos from their website show some of the interactions we had with the dolphins:

First the dolphin gave us a kiss on the cheek then gave us a kiss on the lips. The dolphin feels rubbery!! I wasn’t sure what they felt like, but it’s more of a hard rubber. After our smooches we went out in the lagoon two at a time with the boogie boards and the trainer sent the dolphin out to us one at a time to push us back to our standing spot while we were holding the board. It was so cool!!! I was nervous at first but they are so well trained and it went so smooth. Brian's parents were there to observe so they did try to get a couple of pictures of us, but you could only zoom in so much But here's Emily and I waiting for the dolphin to come get us!

I know you can't see the dolphin here, but she/he was pushing me back to our spot on the dock:

Oh my goodness, that was the coolest experience ever!!! I couldn't believe the strength they had to just push you by your feet! Next interaction was we put our heads next to the dolphin’s head and the trainer did some sort of signal and the dolphin started smiling – it was so cute! The final interaction was we swam out to the lagoon again in pairs and the dolphin pulled us back to our standing spot by us holding onto their fins (just like the picture above). Oh my goodness, that was so amazing. They are really gentle creatures.

Unfortunately our nephew who was doing the excursion with us got stung by a jellyfish when he was waiting his turn to be pulled in by the dolphin’s fins He yelled ouch, but we didn’t understand what he was saying. He did get pulled back by the dolphin but when he got back he said he got stung by something. Sure enough the trainer told him it was most likely a jelly fish. Yuck! I’m so glad I didn’t know they were out there swimming before I went out there….I may have chickened out and not did the swims! One of the guides took him up to the main building to get him something to put on the sting to help relieve the pain. Poor thing This was the end of our interaction and I must say it was absolutely amazing (well with the exception of the jelly fish)!! I’m so glad we did it.

As we were walking back to the main building, we saw this thing

After we got back to the main building, we grabbed all of our belongings from our locker and stopped in the gift shop to try to look at all of the pictures that were taken at Sting Ray City and the Dolphin Swim. The place was packed and I asked one of the workers what the cost was for the pictures. $35 for one picture, $130 for the CD. Yikes that’s too steep!! We took plenty of our own pictures, so we chose not to buy anything. But of course, now that we're back home, I'm kind of wishing we would have bought the CD

 

[gdisneyfans]

Some photos of our way back to the port area.

It's amazing how it goes to this type of view to this type of view!

Grand Cayman is so pretty.

While we were at our excursion some of the family went to the beach at one of the hotels in Grand Cayman due to our youngest niece being too young to do any of the excursions. So after our excursion was done, some of the group wanted to join them at the beach, but Brian and I felt we would rather do a bit of shopping in town and then just head back to the boat and sit on the deck. Emily wanted to go to the beach with the rest of the group, so she got dropped off with the rest of the family and Brian and I and his parents went back to the port.

Oh hey Disney Magic!

I like this one too:

Well, of course, things didn’t go as we had planned…In order for Emily to get back on the ship, she needed her room card and of course it was in Brian’s wallet! We had a little bit of a freak out because we were trying to figure out how we were going to get in touch with them to let them know that we had Emily’s card and we would have to meet up with them to get them the card. Thankfully one of our brother-in-laws had his phone turned on so we called him and told him what had happened, and that we would just stay on the island and wait for them to come back and board the ship with them. Not a big deal. They were planning on heading back around 3:30 and it was 2:00 already so Brian's parents went back to the ship and Brian and I were going to find some lunch and then hit some of the shops in the area.

 

[gdisneyfans]

There was a cute little local bar right in the port area and we decided to go grab a drink and then decide where to go for lunch.

Could I have zoomed any closer to us

We each had a Sol

We noticed they served food right at the bar, so we decided to catch lunch there. We split some conch fritters and Brian had chicken tenders and fries and I had a grilled Mahi Mahi sandwich with homemade tortilla chips and salsa. Very good! Sorry, no pictures. I think we were both so hungry since we hadn't had anything to eat since 7:30 that morning!

We paid the bill and decided to go walk through some shops. We left the port area and looked around a bit, but where we were, there weren’t a lot of shops, just a lot of jewelry shops. We did go into a cigar shop to see them make cigars, but didn’t buy anything. We went back into the port area and just strolled through the few shops they had but still had about 30 minutes before the rest of the group was coming back. Didn’t find anything that we had to buy so decided to grab one more beer before they returned.

We went with a Caybrew Light which was a local beer and it was very good!

Before too long, we got a text saying they were heading back to the port so we met them at the security line to be sure Emily got through. Emily picked out a long-sleeved t-shirt that says Cayman Islands on it, so that was the extent of our souvenirs from the Island! We went through the security area to show our room keys and then boarded a tender back to the ship.

It's so big when you're up so close!!

 

[gdisneyfans]

In no time we were back onboard and decided it was still early enough before we had to get ready for dinner to head up to our spot on Deck 10. The staff as usual were very accommodating. They had put all of the lounge chairs back but they brought some back out for us so we could sit and enjoy our drink. Jermain was there again today and was as awesome as usual! Actually there were three guys that we all really grew fond of – Jermain, Melroy and Kumara. They were so attentive and were always there to get us anything we needed. Amazing.

Played a little trivia (sorry for the grainy picture!):

But eventually we had to leave the deck and head back to shower and get ready for the show and dinner. So good-bye for now Grand Cayman!

Tonight was Pirate Night so we wanted to be sure we didn’t miss anything! But first, we wanted to catch the show which was Justino Zoppe who was a magician. He was excellent!

We enjoyed the show and now it was time to meet up with the rest of the group for Pirate Night! Grandma and Grandpa saved some seats on Deck 9 at a table for us for prime viewing, it was great!