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!
This time I got the Caribbean-style Conch Chowder with sherry, sweet peppers, onions, tomatoes, thyme, and garnished with diced potatoes and crispy bacon bits.
Dad got the Mr Smee’s Bib Lettuce Salad With Bibb Lettuce, Baby Greens, Chicory, Tomatoes, Toasted Pine Nuts, and Raspberry Vinaigrette.
Claire’s main course arrived then as well. You guessed it. Chicken strips.
Our main dishes arrived next. I am not a big fan of the pirate menu for the most part. I did enjoy everything I had, but I felt that the options that I would like were limited, which makes me get the same thing every time now that I have found things I like. That being said, one of my favorite dishes now on the whole cruise is the Treasure-of-the-Seas Grilled Shrimp and Seared Scallops served on strings of pasta and fresh creamy tomato sauce. I discovered this on the Magic, which was my first pirate night menu I have had on DCL. (The 3 night cruises, which I took last on the Dream does not offer a pirate menu). This dish is just really good and I could go for a helping of it right now.
I am pretty sure Gail got this dish. Jack Sparrow’s Barbecue Marinated Beef Short Ribs Rubbed beef short ribs with tamarind-barbecue sauce served with onion red bliss mashed potatoes and plantain chip.
The meal was delicious. We also enjoyed the changing pirate scenes.
I think Rob is the one who discovered that the pictures kept changing. I thought that was a nice touch here.
The desserts offered on this menu just don’t do much for me. I was so stuffed from eating so much (and I had vowed tonight I would try to eat lighter…..yeah right) that I thought I would skip dessert. Abby was getting tired of being there and I offered to take her for a walk so Gail and Rob could enjoy the dinner. Rob quickly said he would take her. I told him it would be no problem as I was skipping dessert, but I knew he didn’t want to burden anyone. But I seriously didn’t mind. He did leave with Abby though and I ended up ordering a Mickey Bar. After all it’s just ice cream and it will slide right into all the holes left in my stomach ….right?
Benjamin also came over and did a trick for the kids.
Alexis was always trying to figure out how he did what he did and she would try it over and over and see if she could get it. I did get this one figured out and I shared the secret with Claire.
Claire also made the same choice as I and went with the Mickey bar.
We enjoyed the meal and waited for the drink bills to come once again ……and once again they just didn’t appear.
A side note..... See Abby's cute pirate outfit? It matches her parents ...but was not bought with theirs. They actually bought theirs several years ago for a halloween party. Abby's dress is from Claire. I had bought this about 5 years ago anticipating my 40th b-day. I wanted to sail on the Wonder that year and bought the dress for pirate night for Claire. Well Skip chickened out and we never did sail the wonder and ended up going to WDW that year. And it was still a fabulous trip. Claire wore the dress for Halloween though and made an excellent pirate. I am glad the dress finally has made it to a Disney ship for a pirate party!
But we know the ways of the pirates and we were going to win the challenge he had set forth.
We won our ship back and had such a fun time doing so.
Claire and I needed a few pirate pictures together.
We then headed back to Geoff and Aunt Mary’s room to find the rest of them.
Geoff was still dressed, which was good, as we wanted to go get some pictures taken all together.
Abby was obsessed with the parrot.
Rob had changed to shorts and tee and Gail made him get dressed back up again.
A look at the bunk beds in their room.
We all then headed off to the atrium for pictures.
The photographers were wrapping up for the night, but we convinced them to do a couple of quick shots. You could tell though they were not excited to do so. I asked for magic shots with the kids and they told me they are no longer an option. I have since found out that she was lying and that kind of irks me a bit.
It was extremely crowded when we got out on deck. Massive amounts of people. We weaved around and went up to the next deck, the family following along, but somewhere along the line we lost them. I had Claire and Alexis with me. We just stopped near a pole and made that our spot. There was just no way to be able to see very good with amount of people there.
The little show started and this EXTREMELY tall guy comes and stands right in front of the girls. I couldn’t even see around him. He was abnormally tall and it was so annoying. The pole we were against had a railing around it and I propped the girls up in a sitting position on it to try to get them a better view. I couldn’t really take pictures because I was holding them in place and plus Mr. Tall was in the way.
I did get one of shot of Captain Jack coming down.
It was then time for fireworks. I am still trying to perfect those kinds of shots, but this was not a time that was happening. It was too crowded and I was getting bumped. Basically none of them turned out nice, but these are the best of the bunch, even though they are nothing like I would hope for.
After the fireworks we didn’t move too fast to leave. It was pretty much impossible to do so. I decided to take pictures of the Aquaduck then.
The dance party had begun so we moved over by the railing and watched a bit of it.
I did a little dancing in my spot …you know because I am cool like that …..but the girls told me I was bad and I needed to stop. Oh well.
We didn’t find any family members, but it appears Gail did take Abby to see Tinkerbell.
We then left and worked our way to the pirate buffet in Cabanas. We weren’t really hungry, but I wanted to check it out. We did get a few dessert items and both girls barely even ate a bite of it.
After we ate a bit, I ran back up to the buffet to take a few pictures.
They had a lot of fruit carved. It was so neat ….BUT there was a family with some kids and they took the musk melons off to eat!!! (cantaloupe to you city folk) Yep. The kids each took a melon off the display and put it on a plate. I was shocked that the parents didn’t say anything, but they just laughed wondering how the kids were going to eat all that. How could they not know this was just a display? Alexis and Claire were thoroughly disgusted by this too and kept talking about it …loudly and they were just 2 tables away, but I didn’t stop them.
While I was taking pictures, a CM came over and wanted to guide me around to take more. He pointed out these and they were something carved, but I can’t remember what now. It might’ve been done out of chocolate? But that doesn’t sound right to me right now.
Alexis was now worried where her family was and wanted to leave. This was also code that she is tired. Claire didn’t use code with me, she plain out told me she needed to go to bed. So we finished up our desserts, well they decided one bite was enough …and headed back to give Alexis back to her family. I think we knocked on Mary and Geoff’s door as to not wake Abby, but if I remember right, she was the one answering the door. LOL
We headed to bed ourselves. It had been a long and very fun day. I don’t think we stayed up too much later. I think we flicked the TV on for a short while and then went out.
We had been to yet another port today! Same country, same bed, but new destination and I laid my head down on the pillow as we floated away from the Bahamas. Oh the Places We Go!
I had seen Diser JohnPA right below our room that morning. What a coincidence to be so close! Oh the People We See!
Today was our day at sea. So of course you sleep in right? NOT me! I think I was up before 6. I just have too much to do to worry about sleep. I got dressed in my lounging around shorts and tee and went for a walk.
This was a good time to get some shots of Cabanas fairly empty.
The time at the different Disney parks throughout the world.
Heading out of Cabanas to the pool deck and drink station area.
It would be sacrilegious to pass by the sign and not take a picture.
Signs of life out at sea. I believe it was a Carnival ship.
I was making my way towards the adult area.
I actually sat up there for a while. There is a lady I had met on the ship in this area before and she was there again, so we chatted a bit. She was from Jersey and this was Jersey week, but because of the hurricane, many people from Jersey either postponed their cruises, or extended them. She came with her 2 kids, but her husband stayed home. He is an insurance agent, so he was very busy. On top of that, their business was pretty much destroyed. Now, on top of all that, Jersey was going to get some other storm in the next day. Luckily she wasn’t heading straight back, but many people on this cruise were from Jersey and I heard many worried about things at home. So we chatted a bit and it was nice to make a new friend and talk a bit about different things.
After a bit, we both left and I could see a tad bit of an island off in the distance.
I had a mission. Vicki had asked me the other day if I had ever been to deck 14. No I have not. Well she has. She asked a CM where it was and he took her for a tour. Now I cannot be outdone by a first timer, right? So I went in search of it. I knew it was very small and in a funnel, but it actually took me a few tries to get the right elevator to go up to 14.
Finally I found the elevator and went up to deck 14.
Now what is on 14 you may ask? Not much. The broadcast center is up there and the Outlook Lounge. I have heard of the Outlook, but basically very limited info. I am not sure if/when it is open, but it sounds like not often, and not many people even know to go there. I have heard some people like it because it is like their own personal bar/lounge to hang out in. I have also heard sometimes things like parties and receptions are held here.
I was now getting my first look of it.
And this would be why it is called Outlook.
This was a nice little area and I can see how some people would like coming here. Maybe in the future I’ll need to see if I can find it open.
I headed out then and across the hall is the Radio Studio.
And I found the bathrooms and made a quick stop there.
This HUGE picture was hanging in the stairway.
And I believe I took the stairs down and found the Edge.
This picture is in the elevator shaft.
This is the little shop called Whozits and Whatzits. Up to this point I have never seen it open. I really wondered what its purpose was. It was on the pool deck, and sold a lot of pool type things, but honestly, on the Dream, you are in port a lot, which means you can’t have this open till out at sea and the evenings are not the best time to sell pool type items. I will let you in on a secret, it was open later this day…the sea day!
I returned to the room to get ready for my brunch today with my parents. Claire was still snoozing, so I set off to deliver the rest of our Fish Extender gifts. Claire, Alexis, and I had done some earlier in the cruise and I needed to get the rest out. I must say getting them is fun, delivering, not so much. I was all over the ship. At one point I walked past a CM and he said Hi Jennifer and I said hi back and then turned around. How did he know my name? I asked him and he said yes he knew it but didn’t know why he did. And then he complemented me on my hair. Now cast members had been complementing me on my hair the whole cruise. I know it’s not really normal, and my mother hates it, but I like it and that’s all that counts. But it was funny at how many people stopped to talk to me and tell me how much they liked it. I then wondered if my name got spread around that way? LOL
In the meantime, other family members were waking up too. This is what Geoff saw out his room.
They all headed up for breakfast.
A Carnival ship nearby.
Don’t jump Jude!!!!
Somewhere along the line, I met up with Gail. She told me then that the Whozit and Whatzit store was actually open and they had swimwear clearancing out, but limited sizes. She thought they had Claire’s size. Well we HAVE to check that out.
We did find some great deals. We got her a princess tankini top, bottom and swim shorts for like $15 total. That’s cheap in Disney pricing!
I believe while we were shopping, we ran into Gail and the girls again. I believe Alexis left with us. We had a little time to kill before brunch and then Claire was going off with them for a while. We saw Daisy out, so we stopped for a picture. While we waited I took one of the 2 of them. I only had my point and shoot with me and they aren’t the best.
Soon it was our turn.
Alexis didn’t have her autograph book with her and was a little worried, but I told her Daisy would be OK with that.
We then headed back to our room. Claire was going to change into her new swimsuit and head off with Gail and family.
I have to tell you these girls were just so spoiled this trip. We kept finding extra gifts in the fish extenders. Mom had put a few things in there and Aunt Mary had put in a set of pins for each girl. They were in heaven. Aunt Mary also bought each girl a Disney cruise sweatshirt and sweatpants. She was worried about sizes, so Claire tried hers on. I found out later that while we were gone, Aunt Mary brought the girls back to our room and fished Claire’s out of the packed suitcases to try them on Alexis, as she had bought the next size up for her and they were too big. I think they always thing because Alexis is just over 10 months older than Claire that she is bigger, but in reality they are pretty much the same size now, and it actually looks like Claire might pass her if she keeps growing at the rate she has been.
We headed down to Gail’s room to leave the girls with her and look what I found. Alexis is a GENIUS!!!!!! She figured that by putting the privacy sign in the key spot to activate the lights it would work. I was so impressed.
I had brought a stack of used gift cards to put in mine so I wouldn’t have to keep putting my KTTW in there. It’s just a pain to put in and out. I pull the used gift card out enough to deactivate when we all leave, but many times I came back to find the card had been taken from the room host. It irked me a bit, but oh well, what are you going to do? I knew they wouldn’t take this sign though.
We said our good byes and went back to meet up with Mom and Dad. I had scheduled a brunch at Palo for the 3 of us, my treat. I had done dinner at Palo on the Magic and I wasn’t super impressed and it will be a long time before I do dinner again, if ever. It just wasn’t enough of a wow for me to spend the extra money. However, I had heard from many people that brunch was better, and I was willing to give it a try. I actually had booked this BEFORE I booked the dinner on the Magic and already had told my parents, so there was no backing out now.
We arrived a little early. Our reservation was for 12:30. We were told to wait in the Meridian Lounge and we barely had a seat and were called to go in to our table.
I love the light fixture.
We had a nice table right next to a window.
Marco from Italy was our server. That was easy to remember because Geoff had a college roommate in NYC whose name was Marco and he was from Italy as well. Geoff still goes and visits him every so often.
Marco explained how things worked and then took us on a tour of the buffet and also told us we could order pizzas and specialty main courses as well.
I love strawberries dipped in white chocolate. After many years of picking strawberries growing up (my Dad farmed strawberries) I don’t have a huge desire for them at all, but in chocolate is a whole other story!
