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!

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

Your pictures of the ship are AWESOME!! I will love to be walking around the ship in September saying "Oh I saw that in Jen's photo!!!"

The flamingo parade is hysterical. Poor Ab just didn't want anything to do with them did she? Too funny.

 

[jenseib]

I hope it helps you navigate the ship a bit better.
Abby is such a character

 

[Bethany M]

Don't leave us hanging!

 

[jenseib]

Don't leave us hanging!

I know. I am so sorry. I have a bunch written up, but I have been so busy and then a good friends mother died as well, so life hasn't been to normal lately.
I will start posting now!

 

[jenseib]

I continued taking pictures of the Fort area.





I kept switching cameras, so I am not sure if these are in exact order. It was really neat and I was so tempted to go inside. But I knew everyone else would be waiting on me.



I just love the views!











Another fantastic view.



We all got back on the bus then and soon we were headed into town.

 

[jenseib]

I tried to take pictures as we drove, but they aren’t the greatest from a bus with tinted windows.





At times we would see beautiful houses and other times we basically saw holes in the ground. My family did NOT like Nassau at all. They thought it was dirty and falling apart. I have to agree with both, but also recently seeing some other ports just about 6 weeks prior, I didn’t really think it was all that much worse than the other ports civilian areas. And we have to remember that a hurricane had come through just a week or 2 prior.

 

[jenseib]

As we drove along, our bus driver did point out things and tell us what certain places were or represented.









Some of us look a little tired.

 

[jenseib]

Or perhaps bored?



We then approached Fort Fincastle.

 

[jenseib]

As we drove around it, our driver asked if we would like to stop and take a look …and yes I did …but everyone else shouted no! UGH! I didn’t say anything, but I really did want to check this place out, more so than Ft. Charlotte. Oh Well, maybe next time.

Not far from there is the Queens Stairs.



This was made for the Fort so they could escape in an invasion. I actually think I read or heard that it never was actually used in that matter though.

We did stop here and some of us took a look around.

I wasn’t about to head down the steps …..because then you had to climb back up!



There was a man sitting there telling tidbits about the stairs, but he was there to make money. He wanted a tip. We didn’t stick around too long and then headed back to the bus and off back towards the port.





When we got dropped off, that is when we learned that our driver was brand new. He did such a great job and I never would’ve known it if we hadn’t been told. We all gave him a tip and headed on our way.



After we got done with our tour, we all made our way back to the ship via the customs House.





I was on the hunt for a magnet. They have a few shops there, but nothing was grabbing my attention. I decided I wanted to stay in port a bit and look around at some shops. I had not had an opportunity to do so on our last cruise here, so today I wanted to take a look around. No one else wanted, to, including Claire, so she headed off with the family and I went off on my own.

I browsed a few shops and found a magnet and also found a sun dress for Claire that was really cute. She has not worn it yet, so I sure hope it still fits for this upcoming summer.

I kind of just hung back and took pictures. I liked this horse and carriage.



See the guy walking behind the carriage? Well he liked me! UGH. I kind of got nervous as he came right over as he saw me take the picture and started talking. Let’s just say, he was CREEPY! He was missing the majority of his teeth yet he thought he was some sort of prize. He came over and told me how beautiful I was and how he would never let me walk around by myself if he was my husband. ICK>>>> Get away from me! Finally he did leave. Thank goodness. I made sure to stay in plain view of other people and right near an entrance to a shop.

 

[jenseib]

After he went on his way, I took a few more pictures.



And I made my way back to the customs house, being sure to walk the long way around where that guy was standing.





I had to take a few pictures of the Dream in port. It’s one of those things you can never have enough pictures of.











A look back at the customs house.

 

[jenseib]

A look up at the Aqua Duck.







Isn’t she just “dreamy”?





And back on the ship I went.

 

[jenseib]

While I had been shopping in Nassau and talking with Mr. Creepy, the rest of the family made their way back to the ship.









Rob later told me that the girls took off with Aunt Mary and they were on a mission to get back to the rooms and change and go swimming. I guess at one point, Claire panicked because she didn’t have her swimsuit, but Alexis, the wise, pointed out she was wearing her lanyard and it had her room key in it, so she would be able to get her suit. Yay, crisis averted!

Rob, Gail, Geoff and Abby had taken it slower to get back on the ship and when they got to the atrium there was a mass meet and greet going on and they stopped off to get many pictures.







Abby is all about the princesses, so they stopped and waited in line.



Evidently they didn’t have the ships photographers out, because there were no pictures of this meet on our CD. I do have Geoff’s pictures though.



Abby seems a little unsure with her meet with Cinderella.

 

[jenseib]

Getting a bit friendlier with Tiana.



She was more comfortable with Belle, now getting into meet and greet mode.





I didn’t ask Gail how this worked, but it almost looked like they had to wait in a separate line for each princess. I know in the past, they had one line for all of them and that worked really well for us.













Princess Minnie was upstairs.

 

[jenseib]

Oops, I was wrong; there was a photographer with Minnie.

And Jude even found them and got in a few.

And they found Daisy as well.

 

[jenseib]

Abby was very happy and now on a Princess high.





Geoff headed back to his room then and this was his view.



I think Geoff then joined everyone at the pool for a while.
Once I got back on the ship, I also headed back to my room. I am not sure when I found Claire, but I am thinking she returned after they had a swim and a few rides on the Aqua duck. I know at some point Claire did ride it again with Geoff.

I took a few pictures from our verandah when I got back.











Oh look! They are building my new house!



I think our original set sail time was for about 4:30 PM, but we found out we were going to have an extended stay in Nassau till midnight (I think). When we had been getting ready to go on our port adventure that afternoon, the crew was doing some sort of safety drill. We saw them all over the ship in life jackets and announcements were made to them off and on. I guess because of this, they earned extra time in port.

Before we knew it, it was time for dinner.
We got ourselves dressed and headed to the dining room.

 

[jenseib]

Alexis is ready as well.



Gail and Abby did not arrive with the rest of the family. If I remember right, Abby had fallen asleep and she was waking her up for dinner, plus she didn’t want her awake all night, and let’s just say she wasn’t pleasant. So Gail hung back to get her ready.

I took a quick picture of the girls dressed in their Alice in Wonderland outfits. Abby would be dressed as Alice, but sadly I never got a picture of her in it as she was not too sweet at the time and this was the only picture I got of Claire and Alexis and they both changed immediately after dinner.

We all sat down and bread was waiting for us.





I got my favorite drink, the Princess Delight, Passion Fruit Juice, Mango Puree. It does not have alcohol and it’s so yummy.





Gail had arrived with Abby now and she was not in a good mood at all. You can kind of see a little bit of the blue of her dress in this picture. No one was going to make her happy at this point.



Food was ordered and soon the appetizers arrived.

This was Claire’s. Honeydew Melon Boat - with strawberries. We got it more because it said strawberries, as she is not a fan of honeydew, but it was lacking in the strawberry department.



I got the Iced Lobster and Jumbo Shrimp~ White and green asparagus, micro greens, and lemon-dill dressing with horseradish cream.



Rob got some sort of fruity drink.

 

[jenseib]

This was actually the night where he got like 3 or 4 different drinks and when Gail went over her bill a day or 2 later she swore it was wrong and I told her yes indeed, he really did get that many drinks with dinner that night. LOL!

I next had the Escargots Gratines ~ Herb-marinated snails with finely chopped mushrooms, topped with garlic butter and breadstick.



And then the Belle's French Onion Soup with gruyere cheese crouton.



I was happy with all of them. Very tasty.

I think this is Rob’s salad. At this point, Abby was just not feeling in the mood for a dining room dinner and Gail left with her. We talked to Benjamin about having her food sent up to the room and he really didn’t want to do this. He acted like it was impossible, but I knew it wasn’t as we had done this a few times just a few weeks ago on the Magic with some table mates who had not been feeling well a couple of nights.

Rob basically told him to bring it out and he would deliver it to the room, so as things came out, Rob would take them up to the room.



Claire’s meal came quickly. Beef Tenderloin Medallion - topped with large shrimp.



And Alexis’ meal, Mickey's Mac n Cheese.



The beautiful light fixture.



Our entrées arrived.
I had some sort of steak, but I am not seeing it on the online menu.



The girls got Mickey bars once again.





Again, because the food came out early, they were done fast and getting jumpy. They weren’t bad, but they didn’t want to sit. I think Rob took them out to the atrium a bit and then came back for dessert.

It soon was dessert time and I believe I got two. One was the Peanut Butter Mousse
Dark chocolate infused with peanut butter, chiffon cake, and whipped cream. (I think)

 

[jenseib]

And the other is one of my favorites. I find this one better than the one served at Palo.
Grand Marnier Souffle, Infused with fresh orange zest and served with creme Anglaise.





Dinner was very good and I felt bad that Gail couldn’t enjoy it with us. I did suggest Gail taking Abby to the kids clubs during dinner and just feeding her before, but she never did. I think she felt bad about doing that, but if she could eat in peace, it might’ve been a better option for her, for both really.

We did get a few pictures while at dinner from the ships photographer as well.

Tonight’s show was Villain’s Tonight. I didn’t want to see it. It’s my least favorite show and I have seen it twice now. I’ll wait and see it again at another time when perhaps Skip is along. Claire however did want to see it, so I was going to send her with whoever went to it.
That plan changed at dinner though, as Aunt Mary suggested a few fun things like mini golf and Karaoke. Claire informed me that she would NOT be hanging with me tonight and I was also NOT allowed to be with her while she was playing with Aunt Mary. Ok, I am not going to cry about a little free time.
After dinner, she and Alexis headed off with Aunt Mary and I went on my own way. I guess they stopped in our room as when I next saw Claire she was changed out of her Mad Hatter dress.

After dinner I went on a nice walk around the ship all by myself.

 

[jenseib]

I love Deck 4.











I found where you go to get to the Vibe ……Don’t ask me, because I’ll never remember in a million years.







A look at Nassau at night.

 

[jenseib]

I headed back to the room for a bit. I don’t remember if I changed my clothes or got a sweatshirt …or both.
We had this guy waiting for us tonight.



I wandered around a bit more and look who I ran into.



They were playing a mean game of putt putt and I was told immediately that I was not allowed to join them or stay. I am so loved.

I ignored Claire and talked with them for a bit. I think Alexis was off with Geoff somewhere? I love this picture. It looks like Abby has some magical powers holding up that golf club.



As I talked with them, I took a few more pictures of Nassau at night.