Trip Report Our 2nd Anniversary DREAMy Boardwalk Adventure (Sept. 2015) COMPLETED

We have arrived home from our wonderful Disney vacation, and are ready to start our trip report! I say "our" because my husband has recently joined the forum as MRhappyplace, so he will add contributions (and corrections) as we go along.

We are Amber (age 36) and David (age 45). Our 2nd Anniversary was on August 31, and we honeymooned at Disney in October 2013, so it had been almost 2 years since our last trip. This is us:





Our trip began on Saturday, September 12th. I had to go to work for a few hours to train some staff, and while I was gone, DH took care of packing up the car, getting everything set up for our kitties, and cleaned out the fridge. All that fun stuff. I came home at around noon, and we did all the last-minute things and then we headed out for a couple of stops. We ultimately got on the real road (aka highway-driving from around 45 miles northeast of Atlanta) at around 2:15. Not too shabby.

We weren't heading into the bubble until the following day, Sunday. We added on a hotel stay in Bay Lake, Florida for this Saturday night, so that we could get to the World fairly early, and much less tired on Sunday. After a stop at Chick-fil-a for dinner around 5pm in Perry, GA, we got to the Country Inn & Suites at around 8pm. We were given Room 306, so were quite confused when we stepped off the elevator to this sign:



??? Turns out our room was just behind the elevator. Not a bad room at all, we would stay here again. We went to Steak n' Shake for dinner, then contemplated taking a dip in the indoor pool at the hotel, but there were three older women in there, singing at the top of their lungs, having a good ole time. We didn't feel it necessary to join them Went to bed.

Sunday, September 13th:
The continental breakfast was so-so the next morning, but we did have a bit, and were on our way.

We hit a bit of rain, and the skies were all gloomy as at 11:15, we saw in the distance, then passed under the Walt Disney World sign-no amount of rain was gonna bring me down; I did my slap-the-hubby's arm-squeal-clap-bounce thing in the passenger seat!





We pulled into the Boardwalk at 11:25!


Just a little teaser for tonight-will continue more tomorrow evening. Thanks for joining our thread!

 

[Mrhappyplace]

How amazing is that Mickey sunset! Great eye. And, okay, I really want that Mermaid art piece in my house!!!
Can't wait to here about all the wonderful dinners.

It was remarkable to me we had spent a good portion of the last few days looking for and at the Mickey shape and I walk out to the veranda and the sunset was in a perfect Mickey shape, but only for 2 seconds. Like DW said you can kinda make it out in the pic but I admit it isn't perfect.

 

[myhappyplace]

The Dream dressed up fro Halloween makes my heart all melty! I love the decorations! The jack-o-lantern porthole is tooooooo freaking cute! I loved those little chocolates they left on your bed! Thank you for bringing back some heart warming and yummy memories! Hope you had a wonderful cruise... l can't wait to see more!

I loved the Halloween decorations too! I saved all of the chocolates until I got home...should've put them on my pillow each day....

Wow what an amazing report! Thanks for sharing it and absolutely following along! Your pictures have such a great quality! Thanks for posting some POFQ pictures... we will be there from Friday next week

Glad you are enjoying! You will have such a great time, I really liked the look of POFQ.

I'd kinda forgotten that excitement of catching your first look out a window and realizing the ship is moving. That's fun. Did you guys get to see the space center or rocket towers on the other side of the boat before departure?

We didnt, no...though we did look!

How amazing is that Mickey sunset! Great eye. And, okay, I really want that Mermaid art piece in my house!!!
Can't wait to here about all the wonderful dinners.

I know, isn't the mermaid art pretry?

Thanks all for reading! More coming up!!

 

[myhappyplace]

I'm gonna get to dinner, but first I'm gonna show you yet another detail picture of the chandelier. Every. Freaking. Time. We. Passed. It's irresistable!!



On to dinner....tonight we are at Animator's Palette! Love these chairs...a taller version would look so cute at a bar!


We were


Our servers were Suka and I Gede- both from Indonesia, and both amazing!!









We sat near a wall, if you look on the left side, that would become the screen for what Crush appeared. DH really liked the decor in here, he is very partial to Pixar.


I LOVED this bubble bread basket!!


As dinner progresses, the lighting changed so that we felt we were underwater, with shades of blue. Crush also started appearing, as did the school of fish in Nemo that create shapes.



Duuuuuude. Crush interacted with various people in our section. For a minute, we thought he had selected DH, and he started to answer, but turns out it was someone at the table next to us.




Annnnd now the food!!

DH'S appetizer-Black Truffle Pasta Purseittes in Champagne Sauce


My app- Tomato Tart with Glazed Goat Cheese & Shaved Radishes


I also got Serrano Ham, Manchego Cheese, and Olive Tapanade


I also got one of featured drinks-blueberrytini


My main dish- Pennete Bolognese


DH's main dish- Ginger Teriyaki Dusted Angus Beef Tenderloin


And a sneak peek...the dessert menu...what would we choose??

 

[Mom@disney]

Oh wow! My mouth is watering! And yay for dessert...my favourite part of the meal

 

[myhappyplace]

Oh wow! My mouth is watering! And yay for dessert...my favourite part of the meal

We really enjoyed all of our choices here! My favorite would be my desseert, though!

 

[Mrhappyplace]

Oh wow! My mouth is watering! And yay for dessert...my favourite part of the meal

That was a great meal. I almost wish I had ordered seconds.

I was slightly disappointed that the main thing I had heard about Animator's Palette (that the restaurant & staff go from black & white at the start of the meal to being colored by the end) was on the older DCL ships and not on the Dream. That sounds like something that would be cool to experience. Still a great meal & restaurant.

 

[myhappyplace]

This was the best dessert I had on the cruise, and that is saying something!!
Crunch Walnut Cake


Sweet Temptation (White Chocolate Fudge Cheesecake, Lemon Raspberry Tart, and Chilled Mango Mousse)


We also ordered a single order of the white cheesecake. Talk about eyes bigger than our stomachs!! And THEN, I Gede and Suka brought us out a cake for our anniversary!





Then Suka showed off his oragami skills, and made me a rose-




On the way out, I took these shots of the entrance area










A wonderful dinner!! We headed back to the room for bed. Somewhere close to 4am, I rolled over and was aware of DH up and leaving the room...where was he going???

 

[Mom@disney]

Those desserts look so so yummy! I think I might have to get over my fear of water just to have those desserts lol.

 

[fractal]

great food pics!

Love the pictures of the chandelier.

 

[Mrhappyplace]

Somewhere close to 4am, I rolled over and was aware of DH up and leaving the room...where was he going???

Where was I going? I honestly had no idea,, all I knew was I was wide awake and needed to get out of the stateroom so I grabbed the camera and went to explore. DW and I had a brief conversation before I left the stateroom, I told her I was going to explore the ship some more and take pictures. But before I get to the pictures I feel I should explain, I tend to only sleep about 4 or 5 hours at a time, at home or at least on land I will usually get on the computer and waste a hour or two and then go back to sleep for a couple of hours but here I decided I needed to leave the stateroom.

First I looked around on our deck the 6th, didn't seem to be anything except hallways of staterooms so I made my way down a level and went to the overlook of the atrium.



I then walked around the 5th deck some, past the kids clubs and found stateroom 5148 & 1/2



Then I went back to the atrium I knew DW had taken a bunch of pics of the chandelier already and I didn't want to repeat that but felt I could capture some nice shots anyway. I found the piano made a wonderful reflective surface!





Before I had left the room DW's only request was to get pictures of the stacks all lit up so I figured I'd make my way to the pool deck.



The pools were all netted up.



Despite having been outside for a couple of minutes already the lens started to fog up on me.



But it quickly cleared up.









There was a couple of crew members powerwashing the decks and the water made for some nice reflection shots of the lit up Mickey emblem.







More to come!

 

[DRD]

I missed this when we were there last year. What's the deal?

Love this picture....looks like Nemo is photobombing you.

 

[Mom@disney]

Great photos!

 

[sheriffwoody]

Awesome photos!

 

[Cetta]

still enjoying your trip report! I don't think I will ever go on a cruise...my husband is not a social person (hard to get him to even go to family gatherings) and I cannot imagine him sitting at a dinner table with strangers. He won't even go on rides by himself that force him to sit next to strangers. He threw a fit one year at Universal because they split us up on The Simpsons ride. I don't think I could ever get tired of looking at the photos of the chandelier!

 

[myhappyplace]

Those desserts look so so yummy! I think I might have to get over my fear of water just to have those desserts lol.

Those desserts are totally worth the risk!

great food pics!

Love the pictures of the chandelier.

Thank you X 2!!

 

[Mrhappyplace]

I missed this when we were there last year. What's the deal?
Love this picture....looks like Nemo is photobombing you.

I honestly have no idea, it has something to do with Muppets for sure. I thought since it is near the kids clubs maybe a animatronic used the door or something but it is nearest the older kids clubs not the younger ones.

You know I actually didn't even notice Nemo until I posted it here, all these pics show up here much bigger then they do when I look at them on my laptop.

Great photos!

Thanks!

Awesome photos!

Thanks!

still enjoying your trip report! I don't think I will ever go on a cruise...my husband is not a social person (hard to get him to even go to family gatherings) and I cannot imagine him sitting at a dinner table with strangers. He won't even go on rides by himself that force him to sit next to strangers. He threw a fit one year at Universal because they split us up on The Simpsons ride. I don't think I could ever get tired of looking at the photos of the chandelier!

The way I see it you have a couple of options. You can leave your husband behind and go on a cruise with a friend or family member, you can go on a cruise with your husband and request to be seated by yourselves (such request are allowed to be made but there is no guarantee they will be able to accommodate it) or you can eat at the buffet or room service. The food at the restaurants is much better though so I don't recommend option 3.

But also I'm not a social person either, though I try to be when on vacation, and DW has to force me to go to family gatherings and other events too.

 

[Mrhappyplace]

Continuing on....

I went to the forward section of the ship and found the adults only pool closed as well.





Looked into the bar but there was no bartender to be found.









It was pretty windy, windy enough that I figured I'd head back into the ship. Calling up a elevator I got one of the two with a window and took a few pics during the ride in case DW didn't get a chance to ride on it during the cruise.





I couldn't resist taking one shot of the chandelier.



Or using the piano's reflective surface up close to capture the full chandelier instead of just a portion of it.









I decided to leave the gorgeous atrium and explore some more....

 

[lostpro9het]

I missed this when we were there last year. What's the deal?

I honestly have no idea, it has something to do with Muppets for sure. I thought since it is near the kids clubs maybe a animatronic used the door or something but it is nearest the older kids clubs not the younger ones.

It's Pepe the Prawn's room! I'll cover it soon in my TR if I can ever finish grading these midterms...

 

[Mrhappyplace]

Walking past the Royal Palace restaurant I noticed the door was open so I figured I'd peek in. There was a crew member vacuuming and I figured if I wasn't allowed to be in there he would say something to me but he never did so I walked the entire restaurant taking pictures of all the art on the walls figuring that we would not see all of it when we ate here on night 3 of the cruise. I won't post all of the pics here though just a few.









Off the main dining room of Royal Palace was two smaller dining rooms I had already been in one and went into the other. I snapped shots of the pieces of art on the walls and after I took the last one I looked down on the floor and found a crew member laying on the floor, he seemed surprised that I was there and I sorta gave him a "don't worry about it I'm not gonna tell on you" smile and left the Royal Palace.

There are character sketches on the bulkhead between Royal Palace and Animators Palette, I had earlier teased DW that before the cruise was over she would take pictures of all of them but despite having walked down this hallway two or three times already she hadn't taken a picture of any of them. So I took pictures of all of them myself, again I'll just post a couple and not all of them.








I started to walk into Animators Palette when I was politely asked by a crew member (who had been cleaning the hallways) can I help you. I sorta said sheepishly that I just wanted to take some pictures and he smiled and said go right ahead. While it was true I wanted to take some pictures I was somewhat hoping I'd find some of that delicious food we ate earlier but none was to be found. as DW said earlier I love the Pixar movies (well most of them the two Cars movies don't do much for me) so I really wanted to look at all the things on the wall in here but I didn't take pictures of all of it like I did in Royal Palace but here are a few of the decorative pieces and the empty restaurant itself.











I assume this is where they have meet and greets with Anna & Elsa







Wall-E is my absolute favorite movie of the past couple of decades shockingly I only watched it for the first time about a year ago. I resisted the urge to grab this Wall-E figure, er I mean check to make sure it was secure on that shelf.



I love the the reflection of the light fixtures in the big screen resemble Mickey's pants, I don't think it was designed to be like that just happened to happen at the spot I was standing in when I took the picture.

 

[Mom@disney]

These picture ps you have are amazing! I love the non interrupted shots of everything. It's great how much more you see without all the people in the way. Thanks for waking up so early and capturing these images and then sharing it all with us.
My hubby is also a huge WallE fan...he has a 4 foot tall 3-D cardboard WallE sitting in our garage that he cannot part with. He snagged it from a retail store when they were about to throw it out.