Dreams Do Come True - An October Honeymoon Trip Report

Well, I’m back from my honeymoon! We had such an amazing time. We got back just two weeks ago. I wish the honeymoon could have lasted longer than a week but I guess we had to go back to reality at some point, right? Now that I am back and have gone through the wedding gifts, unpacked and more importantly, uploaded all of my pictures, I figured it was time to start my trip report.

A Little Introduction
This report includes Ashley (me) and my now husband, eek Wes. We got engaged at the Boardwalk Resort back on our December 2010 trip and I managed to work out a honeymoon trip on the Disney Dream and then a 3 night stay at the Beach Club Resort. I always said I either wanted to be engaged, married or honeymoon in Disney World and I was able to accomplish 2 out of 3. That ain't too bad, if I do say so myself.

Saturday October 22nd – Wedding Day
We got engaged back in December and it seemed like our wedding day was so far away. Well before we knew it, our wedding day was here and we were getting married! 10 months of talking to our venue coordinator, meetings with the florist, food tastings, trips to Michael's for wedding supplies, making seating charts and escort cards...It had all come to an end. Finally our wedding day was here and all the planning would pay off. And pay off it did. Our wedding was absolutely wonderful! I kept telling Wes that I wanted to spend the majority of the reception on the dance floor and I am happy to report that I was a dancing machine! :lol: I think I danced from about 9pm until midnight (with occasional trips back to my table to take a swig of my drink, of course). It was such a great night and everyone we talked to said that it was the best wedding they had ever been to! I would say that is a pretty successful party!

I don't have my professional pictures back yet but here is a couple that my cousin took from the reception.

Sunday October 23rd - Honeymoon Here We Come!
It was an early start to the honeymoon with the alarm going off around 7am the morning after our wedding. Our reception wasn't over until midnight the night before and then there were goodbyes to family and friends and we didn't get home until around 1:30am. So that 7am wake up time was a little harder than usual. I kept reminding myself that I could sleep on the plane and by the pool on the Disney Dream to make waking up a little easier. We left our house around 7:45am and were sitting at our gate in RDU by 8:10. I love being so close to the airport! Our flight was uneventful. We left and arrived on time thanks to the wonderful crew of Southwest airlines. We arrived at MCO and made our way to DME to check for our cruise.

This was our first cruise ever so we weren't exactly sure what to do. The cast members directed us to the DME counter to check in. I didn't realize that you checked in for the cruise at the airport but I thought that was a great idea. We received our room keys, our bus boarding pass and then got in line to board our bus. Luckily we didn't have to wait very long and we left the airport to make our way to Port Canaveral.

As you can tell, Wes was super excited

I was delighted that the bus ride was just under an hour. We pulled up to Port Canaveral and all I can say is Wow. The ship was huge! We made our way through the terminal and boarded the ship rather quickly, since we had already checked in at the airport. It was funny when we first boarded the ship and the cast member asked me for the family name. It was the first time I got to use my new last name! It sounded very weird but it was really exciting too. As soon as we walked into the main atrium of the ship I was blown away. That chandelier is amazing.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

We were pretty hungry at this point since it was almost 1 so we decided that instead of checking out the ship, we would go up to Deck 11 and eat at Cabanas. We walked past the kiddie pools and I was immediately stunned by the amount of screaming children. We had just boarded the ship. How were there already screaming children?! I hoped that we would find a way to avoid the screaming children for the rest of the cruise. Once we made our way through the screams, we found Cabanas and started our search for a table. The place was pretty packed but we were able to find a nice table outside on deck. Wes stayed at the table with our bags while I went to see what food choices they had to offer. I am not a big buffet person so I wasn't too thrilled. I was able to find some things that I enjoyed.

Doesn't this look like the plate of a 25 year old on her honeymoon? :lol:

I have to say, the BBQ sauce on the ship was delicious. I need to see if I can get a big bottle of the stuff somewhere because it is great. I think Bojangles might serve the same BBQ sauce. Enough of the random BBQ tangent and back on track...While Wes went to get his food I called my Mom to check in. My parents were watching my dog, Daisy, so I wanted to make sure they got her from the boarding place okay and I wanted to hear what everyone thought about the wedding. That was one sad thing about leaving the morning after the wedding was that I didn't get to hang out more with my out of town family members. I think if I could do it again I would have tried to get a later flight but we had a cruise ship to get to that was leaving with or without us and I preferred with us so early morning flight it was. We finished our meal and waited a little bit longer at our table discussing our wedding until it was 1:30 and our room would be ready. We made our way down to Deck 9 where our room was and I was happy to see that our room wasn't too far from the stairs. We were in room 9168 which is about as Aft as you can get. I kept saying how our room was on the absolute aft of the ship except instead of aft I used another three letter 'A' word. I'm so clever. :lol:

Our room was amazing. I had always heard how small the rooms were on cruises but I thought our room was really spacious. And there was so much storage space. We had a great verandah, too. Unfortunately we didn’t use it that much but it was nice to have.

I loved the pillow and the throw at the bottom of the bed. So cute.

Wes was getting tired of me taking pictures of the room and decided to watch some TV.

After taking a good amount of pictures of the room, we checked out our personal navigator to see what was on the schedule for the day. The personal navigator was fantastic! I was shocked at just how much was scheduled each day. There was literally something going on for every age group at every hour of the day. I think it would be pretty hard to get bored on that ship.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

We decided to take a look around the ship and then hit up the pool for a much-needed nap. We just wandered around taking in the sights.

The interactive art was AMAZING!

We then stumbled upon the Midship Detective Agency. Looks like our journey around the ship would be guided by our new case of finding some stolen paintings.

The quest to find clues about the missing paintings took us all over the ship. While we were looking for stolen paintings, I took some pictures of the great artwork on the ship.

 

[SyracuseOrange]

Loving it so far. Can't wait to see more pics of the Dream!

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

Once we got up to Deck 11, we decided to stop looking for the stolen paintings and find the adult only area of the ship.

Cue heavenly sound effects…we found the adult only pool!

It was amazing how once you were in the adult only section of the ship you couldn’t hear the screaming children on the other side of the funnel. It was like all the chaos from the other side of the ship were a million miles away. We laid out by the pool for a little bit and then it was time for our safety drill on Deck 4.

Immediately following our safety drill with Group M and our cast member Pierre-Luc, we went back up to Deck 12 to get a good spot for the Sailing Away Celebration.

After the party was over we made our way over to Currents to grab some drinks before heading back to our room to get ready to see the Golden Mickeys. We both had to shower and get dressed but it turned out that we didn’t have as much time as we thought we did. The first showing was at 6:15 and we were running out the door at 6:05. I wasn’t sure how crowded this first show would be and I really didn’t want to miss it. Luckily we made it to the theater with about 5 minutes to spare and there were plenty of seats left. Wes went to go get some popcorn from the concession stand and he made it back to our seats just as our cruise director Rachel was starting her announcements.

I enjoyed the show but I wasn’t blown away. I guess I had high expectations of the show and I only liked it instead of loved it. Once the show was over we realized that we had time to go back to our room to finish getting ready before our 8:15 dinner seating. So back to the room we went. When we arrived in our room, this little guy was waiting for us.

The DVC poster was so cute. Spoiler alert…we got another great DVC poster the next night and I took both home with plans of framing them. You gotta love free art! It was 8 o’clock so we decided to make our way to dinner but not before a quick picture of us first.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

Tonight we were eating at Animator’s Palate. We arrived a little too early for dinner and there was a line out the door. With this being our first day on the ship, I just wasn’t sure how long it would take us to get places and I wasn’t sure what the procedure was for anything. We learned this first night that we really didn’t need to leave the room until about 2 minutes before our scheduled dinnertime.

We were seated at table 40 with two other couples. I really dislike talking to new people so I knew that dinners were going to be a challenge for me. It’s not that I don’t like new people but it’s hard for me to strike up a conversation with complete strangers and have that conversation last through an entire meal.

Such cute plates

When we arrived at our table, there was one other couple there. Shortly after arriving another couple showed up. These two were quite the interesting couple. It would only be us three couples tonight, as our fourth couple was dining at Palo. Our server Branko came over to our table to ask if anyone had any food allergies when the dude from the interesting couple responded with “If you put any nuts in my mouth, I will die”. Yikes. Needless to say our server was not very amused and had to ask again, “No, seriously, I need to know what you are allergic to”. :ROFLOL: It was quite the first impression.

For dinner, I decided to get an appetizer and a soup. For my appetizer, I got the black truffle pasta purseittes. It was very tasty. Wes went with the baked potato and cheddar cheese soup and I got the same one. The soup was also very tasty.

I didn’t choose so well for my dinner option as I did with the appetizer and soup. I got the arugula leaves and grilled vegetable salad, which was supposed to have beef tenderloin strips on it. Well tell me if this looks like there is any beef tenderloin on this salad.

Yea, there were two small strips hidden under some of the salad. Not my best choice for a dinner option but I had just had a great appetizer and soup and I knew we would have dessert so I didn’t bother getting something else. Wes made a much better choice with getting the beef tenderloin.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

I loved how the screens in the room switched to showing animation sketches.

For dessert I got the sweet temptations trio of desserts and Wes went with the chocolate brownie cheesecake. My dessert was much better than my entrée.

Overall I would say that it was a pretty good dinner. If I had made a better entrée selection I would have said this was my favorite meal on the cruise. After dinner we decided to go see Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in the Buena Vista Theater. The movie wasn’t starting until 10:30 so we had a little time to kill after dinner. First we went and checked out some of the shops. I saw a bunch of things that I wanted to get but I decided to wait until the end of the cruise until I bought anything. After killing a little time in the shops we wandered around the ship.

We found our way to the ice cream station and I got myself a soda for the movie.

The movie was really not good at all. I love the Pirates movies and I had heard back things about this 4th installment but I still had a little hope that it would be better. Luckily we didn’t have to pay to see the movie so it wasn’t a total waste. The movie was over around 1am so we made our way back to the room to get some sleep.

Up next: a rainy day in Nassau and a trip to the spa

 

[HopLow]

Yay! Congrats!!! You guys look so happy in your wedding pictures and of course, your dress is GORGEOUS!! Lucky you, to get both your engagement and honeymoon at WDW!

We were seated at table 40 with two other couples. I really dislike talking to new people so I knew that dinners were going to be a challenge for me. It’s not that I don’t like new people but it’s hard for me to strike up a conversation with complete strangers and have that conversation last through an entire meal.

This is what would annoy me about the whole cruise thing. I love that there's so much to do and that you get to see different places, but what if your dinner buddies are weird? I feel the same way about small talk with people you're forced to be with. I suppose you could politely ignore each other and focus on your husband, but that seems a little awkward being in such close proximity and having multiple meals like that.

Anyway, great start and I can't wait to read the rest! :wave:

 

[HollyBelle]

Ashley!!! Hooray - I've been waiting for your report. I'm so glad to hear that you were able to enjoy your own wedding, and that you danced the night away. You look stunning in your dress, and Wes is looking rather handsome himself! :animwink: Congratulations!!!

On to the Dream... so I noticed you said you liked the verandah, but didn't use it much. Would you book a verandah again? Also, I totally get what you mean about sitting down to dinner with total strangers. Just as an FYI for any future cruises you might take, you can request a two top when you arrive. And while they can't guarantee that you'll get it, it worked for us with no problems. After hearing about the screaming kids, I was glad to see you quickly found the adult pool! Cue the angels, is right!

And if I may make one small request... could we see some pro wedding pictures when you get them back?! Pretty please!!

 

[Ariel484]

Congratulations Ashley! Love the report so far (and love your dresses - both wedding and on the first night of the cruise!).

I'm just like you...lots of difficulties when it comes to making smalltalk with strangers. :lol: :lookaroun I hope it worked out for you! Can't wait to read more!

 

[plaz10]

Congrats on the wedding! You and your hubby both look quite good in wedding attire.

I love the idea of a Disney cruise honeymoon followed (or preceded by) a few days at Disney. Let's see if I can get my fiance to bite!
(I also had the rule of engaged, married, honeymooned in Disney...I've got one down...knowing I won't get married there so I've only got one to go!) :lol:

Love your pics of the dream. And the dream food. Brownie cheesecake? Yes please! Can't wait to read more!

 

[Kristia]

We were seated at table 40 with two other couples. I really dislike talking to new people so I knew that dinners were going to be a challenge for me. It’s not that I don’t like new people but it’s hard for me to strike up a conversation with complete strangers and have that conversation last through an entire meal.

It seems like most of us feel this way! We go on our first cruise in April on the Disney Magic and this is what I am most worried about. We will probably try to see if we can get a table for 2 when we arrive. It is just so awkward! I wish more cruise ships would have two tops!

Loving your trip report! Can't wait to see more of the Dream!

 

[sam_disney]

Loving this trip report!! The cruise looks amazing! can't wait to see and read more!!

P.S you looked beautiful in your wedding dress!! x

 

[PartOfYourWorld]

Congrats to you and Wes!!! You looked beautiful in your wedding dress!!!!!

Can't wait to hear a alot more about your adventures on the dream!!!

 

[diddy_mouse]

Congratulations! :sohappy:

Your wedding dress is very, very pretty and you have quite the dashing husband.

I know exactly how you felt when it came to leaving for the honeymoon the next day. My husband and I did pretty much the exact same thing. :lol:

Such a great start to your report...look forward to more!

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

Loving it so far. Can't wait to see more pics of the Dream!

your post snuck in there! thanks so much. lots more pictures to come!

Yay! Congrats!!! You guys look so happy in your wedding pictures and of course, your dress is GORGEOUS!! Lucky you, to get both your engagement and honeymoon at WDW!

This is what would annoy me about the whole cruise thing. I love that there's so much to do and that you get to see different places, but what if your dinner buddies are weird? I feel the same way about small talk with people you're forced to be with. I suppose you could politely ignore each other and focus on your husband, but that seems a little awkward being in such close proximity and having multiple meals like that.

Anyway, great start and I can't wait to read the rest!

thank you so much! we were very happy. everything came together so well for the wedding. i was super excited to get both the engagement and honeymoon in wdw! i wasn't sure i would be able to make it work but i did!

yea, i wasn't too thrilled about the dinner setup but it wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. our table mates were very nice but i would rather sit with people i know.

Ashley!!! Hooray - I've been waiting for your report. I'm so glad to hear that you were able to enjoy your own wedding, and that you danced the night away. You look stunning in your dress, and Wes is looking rather handsome himself! :animwink: Congratulations!!!

On to the Dream... so I noticed you said you liked the verandah, but didn't use it much. Would you book a verandah again? Also, I totally get what you mean about sitting down to dinner with total strangers. Just as an FYI for any future cruises you might take, you can request a two top when you arrive. And while they can't guarantee that you'll get it, it worked for us with no problems. After hearing about the screaming kids, I was glad to see you quickly found the adult pool! Cue the angels, is right!

And if I may make one small request... could we see some pro wedding pictures when you get them back?! Pretty please!!

thank you so much! we had such an amazing time at our wedding. i liked the verandah but i am not sure that it was worth the money. since we didn't pay for our cruise (wes' parents paid for it with their dvc points) i am not sure how much extra it cost to have the verandah. i think it is kind of like paying extra for a nice view at a disney resort. we weren't in our room enough to really enjoy it, but i did like having it. if i were paying for it, i might have a different opinion. :lol: i knew from reading one of your trip reports that we could request a table to ourselves but Wes thought it would be fun to sit with other people. :veryconfu next time we do a disney cruise (which i hope is 2013) we want to go with a group of people but if we go with just the two of us again, then i think we will request our own table.

and exciting news...i got a couple of professional pictures as a sneak peak of what's to come! yay! i will post them below.

Congratulations Ashley! Love the report so far (and love your dresses - both wedding and on the first night of the cruise!).

I'm just like you...lots of difficulties when it comes to making smalltalk with strangers. :lol: I hope it worked out for you! Can't wait to read more!

thanks!! yea, talking to strangers is not my cup of tea. i am happy to report it actually wasn't as bad as i was expecting.

Congrats on the wedding! You and your hubby both look quite good in wedding attire.

I love the idea of a Disney cruise honeymoon followed (or preceded by) a few days at Disney. Let's see if I can get my fiance to bite!
(I also had the rule of engaged, married, honeymooned in Disney...I've got one down...knowing I won't get married there so I've only got one to go!) :lol:

Love your pics of the dream. And the dream food. Brownie cheesecake? Yes please! Can't wait to read more!

thank you very much! we cleaned up pretty nice, didn't we?! :lol: good luck with getting your fiance on board with the disney cruise and stay in wdw! we had such an amazing time. and congrats on your engagement in wdw!!

It seems like most of us feel this way! We go on our first cruise in April on the Disney Magic and this is what I am most worried about. We will probably try to see if we can get a table for 2 when we arrive. It is just so awkward! I wish more cruise ships would have two tops!

Loving your trip report! Can't wait to see more of the Dream!

i was really worried about the dining situation but really, it wasn't that bad. sometimes it was a little awkward trying to make conversation but it was never too awkward that i felt uncomfortable.

thanks. more pictures of the dream coming up!

Loving this trip report!! The cruise looks amazing! can't wait to see and read more!!

P.S you looked beautiful in your wedding dress!! x

thank you! i am glad you are enjoying the report. the cruise was really great.

Congrats to you and Wes!!! You looked beautiful in your wedding dress!!!!!

Can't wait to hear a alot more about your adventures on the dream!!!

thank you! we had a great time on the dream. i think i might be a cruise person now.

Congratulations!

Your wedding dress is very, very pretty and you have quite the dashing husband.

I know exactly how you felt when it came to leaving for the honeymoon the next day. My husband and I did pretty much the exact same thing. :lol:

Such a great start to your report...look forward to more!

aww thank you so much! he is dashing, isn't he?! :lol: yea, leaving the very next day was hard but it all worked out. i am glad you are enjoying the report. more report coming up!

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

quick break from the trip report to post a sneak peak of some professional wedding photos from our photographer. we had a great photographer that Wes used to work with so he gave us a great deal. enjoy!

i can't wait to get the rest of the pictures and see our video! having this sneak peak of pictures is great but it is also such a tease because now i want to see all the pictures! :lol:

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

Monday October 24th – Rainy Day in Nassau

This morning we woke up with the room vibrating really badly. As I mentioned before, we were at the absolute aft of the ship, so this first morning when we were docking our room was vibrating like crazy. It was very loud and for some reason the doors to our bathroom and shower area were making noises. I woke up to shut them and luckily some of the noise stopped.

We weren’t getting off the ship today so we were able to enjoy sleeping in. The night before we decided to get room service for breakfast and we selected the time slot of 9:30 to 10 to optimize the amount of time we could sleep. Well, there was a knock at our door at 9:28. Bummer. I was hoping they would be there closer to 10 so we could continue to sleep. Oh well. I guess it was good to get up and get going. Our food arrived and we noticed that everything I ordered was missing. What was funny is I ordered toast, which didn’t arrive, but they brought the jams to go along with the toast. Anyway, it was a quick call to room service and the toast and croissant arrived.

We watched the classic cartoons channel while we ate and then got ready to hit up the adult only pool. By the way, I absolutely loved the classic cartoons channel. We watched this channel many times on our trip. Even though we slept in, we were up by the adult only pool by 10:30. You gotta love this view.

Don’t you love that Wes was reading a book called Hitman on our honeymoon?! :lol: I am happy to report that I made it home alive.

We laid out on Deck 12 for a little while before ordering our first drink of the day. Wes was nice enough to go get me a pina colada. What a wonderful husband!

After finishing my drink, I saw that the Aquaduck didn’t have too long of a line so we made our way over to have our first ride of the trip. Once we completed the outside stairs, I couldn’t believe that there were more inside the funnel. Waiting in line for the Aquaduck was the first time this trip that I felt like it was a Disney trip. I really enjoyed our ride on the Aquaduck. It was really cool to go around the ship and I loved the parts going through the clear tubes and being able to see out. The only thing I didn’t like about the Aquaduck was that there always seemed to be a line for it and I just couldn’t justify waiting in line for it when there were so many other things going on on the ship.

We went back to our seats in the adult only area to dry off before heading down to Cabanas for lunch.

I needed Wes to stop for a quick photo opp before lunch.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

When we got to Cabanas, I just couldn’t find anything that I wanted to eat. This was my sad little plate.

So sad. :lol: We also decided to be adventurous and try the sushi. I was really worried about trying sushi on a cruise ship but it was actually the best part of my lunch.

After lunch, the putt putt course was calling my name! Now it was just a matter of finding it. I was still directionally challenged at this point of the trip but we found the putt putt course without too many problems.

Woo hoo! Hole in one!

I was able to pull out a victory by beating Wes by one point! After my glorious win, we made our way back to the adult pool area. Wes decided it was time for his drink and I decided it was time for a nap.

While I was taking my nap it started to drizzle. It wasn’t too bad so we continued sitting in our seats. Then the drizzle got a little harder but I figured, hey, I’ll just cover myself with a towel and continue napping. It was a really good nap. At this point Wes decided to move himself under the covered area right outside Senses spa. I stayed put enjoying nap when it started to downpour. I quickly grabbed my belongings and ran to join Wes.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

We sat there for a little bit and thought that maybe we could wait it out. The rain did die down a little bit so we thought, now would be a good idea to get in the pool. Bad decision. It started raining harder while we were in the pool and now we were stranded in the pool with no towels. Oh man. We left the pool shortly after that and went back to our spot under cover. We tried to dry off a little bit before I decided that I wanted a second lunch. Off to Flo’s Café we went! :slurp:

Why didn’t we go to Flo’s Café sooner?! It was delicious!

After our second lunch, it was still raining and the Buena Vista Theater was playing Real Steel at 3 so we decided that was a pretty good choice for a rainy day. It would appear that a lot of other people were thinking the same thing. The theater was a lot more crowded than the night before. Surprisingly, we really enjoyed the movie. We weren’t expecting too much since it was basically about Rock Em Sock Em Robots but it was actually really good. The little boy in the film was just great. And you gotta love Hugh Jackman (two sides…:lol: love SNL)

And I love the seats in the theater. So cute.

After the movie we had a little time to kill before our couple’s massage so we decided to solve our case from the Midship Detective Agency. It turns out that Jafar was the one who stole all the paintings but luckily we caught him just in time.

We made our way to Sense Spa and checked in. Wes and I have never had a massage so we were looking forward to this part of our trip. The massages were really good but also slightly weird. The room was just so silent and the whole time I was laying there I kept thinking, are the two masseuses silently communicating to each other about us? :lol: It’s stupid to think things like that but it was just so silent. Anyway, we really did enjoy the couple’s massage. It was a nice treat for the honeymoon that we probably won’t get to do too often.

We went back to our room after the massages to shower and get ready for dinner. Unfortunately, because of the couple’s massage we weren’t able to go to the show that night. Luckily the show was on the TV so we were able to watch part of it in our room while we got ready for dinner. Tonight we were eating at the Enchanted Garden.

Unfortunately I forgot to write down what we had to eat this night so I will have to go off of memory. For appetizers, I had some tortellini with lobster sauce and Wes had the asparagus and crab soup. Both were pretty tasty but nothing super special.