Trip Report Oh, the Places We go, The People We See

Welcome to my newest Trip Report. For those who don’t know me, I am Jen.

That’s my Daughter Claire with me.



We just got back from an amazing vacation with several family members.

We traveled Nov. 1st thru the 15th, 2012. We rested our headed at 6 different places on this trip, and though it wasn’t always easy to keep moving from place to place, I am happy to have tried some new resorts out and stayed at some familiar ones as well.



This trip came about over a year ago. My Mom’s cousin Vicki wanted to take a trip with her and my Aunt Mary. Her Daughter Katie also wanted to come along.

After some talking and planning it became a group of 16 traveling. I was elected ring leader since I have quite a bit of Disney experience.

Plans were made, some were changed, and some were a little slower at making decisions than others.

My husband Skip is what is known in the Disney groups as a resistor and he decided NOT to come along. He was not so happy about the amount of time I was going to be gone.



The dates for the cruise were set first, Nov 4 through the 8th on the Disney Dream. We all planned to arrive a day early and stay at the Residence Inn near the port. Soon I decided that I must add a few Disney days, and so did everyone else eventually. I thin decide…heck lets add some more, and Claire and I ended up staying 3 more days after the rest left.

Then after doing some research and with a heads up from my good Dis-friend Carey, I was alerted to the fact that the last Halloween party was on Nov. 2nd. How could I pass that chance up? So Claire and I decided to fly in a day earlier than everyone else to hit that party. Claire and I also decided to fly out of Columbus. My family lives near the Toledo, OH area, and the best direct flights are out of Detroit. My youngest sister, who was not going on the cruise, lives in Columbus, and I was able to get a decent priced direct flight from there, so Claire and I drove down Nov. 1 and spent the night before our early flight.



Plans were finally all set in stone and we just had to wait for our time to arrive. Not an easy task, but we all managed.



Let me introduce you to the crew. This is a picture of a picture. My sister has the CD with the actual digital copy, but hasn’t yet loaded it to the computer, so I had to go with this for now till I can get a copy.

In the back row, left to right, we have my parents, Joe and Paula, next to them is my Uncle Geoff. Next to Geoff is cousin Vicki and her son in law Thad. Next to Thad is Pete, Vicki’s husband and then me. Aunt Mary is on the end, she is married to Uncle Geoff and my Mother’s sister.

Down towards the front, left to right, is my nieces Alexis and Abby with their parents Rob and Gail. Gail is my sister. Front and center is Claire. Behind Claire are Jude, and Katie. Katie is married to Thad and is Pete and Vicki’s Daughter. And then we have baby Luke in the stroller. He is only about 9 months old and what a cutie he is.



This trip had the usual ups and downs that most every family will have, but I have to admit things went much smoother than I planned. We never felt the need to kill each other for the most part. LOL

We had several cruise newbies and several Disney World newbies as well.



Please join me in reliving a very magical trip with all the places we traveled and all the people we met along the way!

 

[jenseib]

I next headed up to the sports deck.



The putt putt course is just too cute!





A quick look at the ping pong table.



I learned about the sports simulators while touring the Dream in Aug. of 2011. I think they are pretty popular.



Back to more putt putt.







A look off the back of the ship.

 

[jenseib]

I Love this clock!



Foosball!



An artsy look at the Aquaduck!





I then headed back to the room to get ready for the day. Some of the family had started to stir. Dad was really enjoying the balcony as well. I think he really loved this trip. I know he did as he had friends ask if he would ever do it again and he said in a heartbeat!

 

[jenseib]

I just love watching us pull into port.











There were birds all over the place, but they seemed to be attracted to one area of the ship. I am not sure if someone was eating over there or if someone had thrown food, but the birds were going crazy!









CRAZY BIRDS!!!!!

 

[jenseib]

I must’ve popped into the room a minute as I have this picture next. I guess I wanted to be sure to get a picture of our room picture.

And while I was going picture crazy with us pulling into port, Geoff was as well down in their rooms.













We all got ourselves dressed and ready and were going to have breakfast at Enchanted Garden. No one had to be anywhere early. Pete, Vicki, and Jude originally had a port adventure for this morning, but after the hurricane came through, it had been canceled, so they changed their plans and booked the same one we were all going on, which wasn’t till this afternoon.

I’m sure in the midst of getting dressed and ready, we probably ventured down the hall to the others rooms to see if all was ready. Eventually we all did make it down to Enchanted Garden.

 

[jenseib]

I took a couple of quick shots of the buffet as I walked by. This was my first time eating here for a meal other than dinner. I think other family members ate here a couple more times throughout the trip.







We got a table off to the side in an area all to ourselves. I guess they know we can be kind of loud.



This next picture cracks me up. Dad is putting his napkin on his head ….always the life of the party! And there isn’t even a grandchild near him to show it off to. Abby has such a cute little look on her face, Alexis is about to fall asleep, and Claire is grabbing the spoon, which for some reason she is mesmerized by.





Jude looks scared at my picture taking …and see, Claire has that spoon.





I am not sure if she is looking at herself or what? LOL



The ceiling above us was so pretty.

 

[me_stitch]

great trip report, love all the pictures

 

[jenseib]

great trip report, love all the pictures

Thanks!

 

[jenseib]

After we all got settled in at our table and made some drink orders, we headed up to get some plates of food.







A light fixture on the wall.



We had a nice breakfast and discussed the day’s plans. After breakfast, I was going to take Alexis and Claire to play the Detective Agency game. And then drop them off at the kids clubs for a while. I think Gail’s plan to was to take Abby there as well for a bit.

We headed to go get our card set up and ran into the Princess meet and greet and it was a bit crazy.



The girls got their instructions and learned how to play the game (though Claire has played this before).



While they were learning how to play, I peeked into the Podcast groups head quarters to see if anyone famous was in there. ……Ok, I really was looking for Richard Sherman, who was on our cruise, but I never did see him.





On to the fun!



The girls took turns at each picture to make it fair.

 

[jenseib]

While playing, I spotted this Mickey and had some fun with him.

I can’t remember if we finished off the mission or not, but I know the plan was to take them to the kids club by a certain time, so I did. I am thinking we got close to done, and maybe someone else finished the mission with them at a later time.

 

[jenseib]

Time to get washed up.





I said good bye and went off on my way.

After leaving the girls, I headed up to the top of the ship and relaxed and took in the view.

 

[jenseib]

The lighthouse is one of those things that I tend to take a lot of pictures of.





I saw Gail and Rob come up …alone. It seemed so weird to see the 2 of them without a child. They were married for several years before Alexis arrived and it was the norm to see just the 2 of them back then. Now it seemed strange. I let them walk around together and have their romantic moment. (if that’s what it was ! LOL).







Originally I had planned to go to Atlantis to the aquarium on this day. But I changed my mind and decided that it could wait for another time. If Skip ever does sail with us, I would like to do it with him. Years ago (actually about 10), we sailed NCL and this was one of the things we did while in Nassau. He really enjoyed it and we have talked of doing it again in the future.









I decided to go scope out the area where we would be meeting for the excursion later on. I believe we were meeting in the District Lounge. I think I might’ve stopped and gotten an ice-cream cone on my way down too. It was time for a morning snack!

 

[jenseib]

This is 687.





Here is the District Lounge.





I toured the District a bit more and looked in on what I think is the prettiest of the places, Pink.

 

[jenseib]

I headed back up top. I do believe I found Gail and Rob then and we chatted a bit.





Helloooooooo up there!

 

[jenseib]

Another lighthouse shot.



At some point in time, I think Rob left us. I don’t remember why or where he went, but after a bit Gail and I decided to go pick up the girls and get them some lunch before we headed off to meet for our port Adventure.

We arrived at the kids club and asked for our girls and Rob showed up with them. He said he was able to sign out his 2, but they wouldn’t let him sign out Claire. I had never thought about giving Rob permission. I had Mom and Gail listed, but not Rob. Abby had a princess dress on and the cast member told her she had to go take it off and he went to help her and she pushed him. Ok, it’s not funny at all, but it was hysterical. She was NOT about to leave if she couldn’t take the dress with her. Rob wasn’t too happy and tried and she pushed him away too. She got a lecture and with some effort, the dress was taken off.
In the meantime I had lifted my camera to take a picture, as it was so cute and funny and I got a lecture as well ….from one of the cast members. I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of kids in the clubs. I was standing outside and our kids were still inside, even though right at the gate. I said it was my child and nieces and was still told no, it wasn’t allowed. Now I had done so earlier without a blink of an eye by any cast member and I had taken pictures inside the actual club on my last Dream cruise, so I don’t know if the rules have changed, or some CM’s are stricter with policies over others, but needless to say, I didn’t get a shot of Abby pouting. And the CM did get a big giant eye roll!

We got the girls a light lunch and really they weren’t too hungry, but we made them each take at least a bite of a few things. And cookies do count as part of lunch!

I got adventurous and tried sushi.



Let’s just say …yuck, gross, and never again! It was just nasty. I don’t know if you are supposed to eat the black thing around the edge, but I did, and blahhhhh! The rice was no better either. Dry and sticky and not tasty at all. Maybe this is not the best spot to try it, but it will be a long time before I decide to give it a try again.

This is the overhang at Cabanas. I thought it was cute.



A shot of the dessert choices.



When we finished up, we headed down towards the District Lounge and Claire and I made a pit stop in the fancy round bathrooms.







The family was all waiting and we went and checked in.



The girl in blue was some person who did arrangements for the excursions, or something like that. Today she was going to be joining us on ours.

We got a few instructions and then were led off the ship. Our excursion today was to the Ardastra Gardens and City Tour.

We had to walk down several flights of stairs to exit the ship and we all joked with Dad about it. He had been anti stairs this whole trip and of course we had to get a couple of digs about whether he was going to make it or not.

 

[jenseib]

Once we exited the ship, we had to wait a few minutes before we proceeded on.



You know me ….I started taking pictures.



On my last trip to Nassau, I had lost my memory card sometime during the trip and the pictures on that card were mostly from this day. So I needed to make up for lost time now.






You could clearly see the damage that Sandy had done the week before. Many of the plants were brown and had a burned out look.



Taking care of the garbage problem. Amazing how much is dumped off after less than 24 hours of ship time.



As we were standing there, a girl walks by and says “Hello Jennifer” all excitedly. I looked and had absolutely no clue who she was and I looked puzzled and asked who she was. “It’s me, Rasheeta, one of your servers”! I said hello and really thought it was nice she recognized me, but I instantly felt bad too, as Gail and I had just recently been discussing her poor service.
Like I said, she was REALLY nice, but just not a good server. I did notice if I asked for something, it got done, but if Gail asked, it seemed to get ignored. LOL



We were on the move now. Walking towards the area to find our busdrivers.

 

[jenseib]

It was so sad to see the plant life so burned out.











Some of the family was a little slower.

 

[jenseib]

We were directed to the buses. They had a couple of them waiting for us.



Some of us lagged behind a bit before heading to the bus and took a few more pictures.

We passed by the certified Hair braiders. Now really, how do we know they are certified? LOL.



We got on our bus, which was like a big van. 2 seats on one side and 1 on the other. Since we had such a big group, we took up the majority of our bus. We also got the Disney CM in our bus as well. I can’t for the life of me remember her name nor our bus drivers name, but both were very nice.

We learned that our bus driver had a secret and it would be shared with us at the end of the tour. Now I know I am going to forget to mention it later, so I will spill the beans now.
This was our drivers first day on the job. He had recently retired from another occupation completely different than this one and we were his first bus load. I will tell you when we found that out, I was STUNNED! He did an amazing job and was very knowledgeable too. He did a FANTASTIC job!

Off we went. We drove around the city a bit on our way to Ardastra Gardens. He pointed out a few places, and honestly, I don’t remember any of the details anymore.



The famous sign I see in so many other Trip Reports. I just had to get my own version.

 

[jenseib]

This is a Government Building. I can’t think of the official name right now, but I have seen it a few times.









There was damage throughout the city too. Some from the hurricane and some from storms of the past.

 

[jenseib]

We then arrived at Ardastra Gardens. Our bus driver did tell us that they were not in the best shape right now because of the hurricane. Most of the flowers had blown off during the storm, and though it would still be nice, it wasn’t at its full glory right now.

 

[jenseib]

Right as we walked in we saw the Lemurs, or as Claire calls them , the “King Julians”. They were a huge hit for her and we ended up going back to look at them after a bit.







And this was one of the main reasons I picked this excursion.



Parrots! Ok, they might be technically called Macaws, but they will always be parrots to me.