Trip Report Our First Disney Cruise...it was "Magic"al!!

Well we are all settled back in at home, routines are in order - back to work; back to school and thank goodness for pictures on my phone that I can look at to reminisce about the wonderful trip we had (remember when you had to rush to the photo booth at your local Walgreens with your 15 rolls of film to be processed so you could finally see your pictures only to realize half on the roll weren't even good)! Our trip was amazing! From start to finish, I wouldn't change a thing and feel so blessed we were given this opportunity by my husband's parents to go on this trip.

I'm still getting my notes and pictures in order, but wanted to get this TR started to force me to do this! I've been reading so many great TR's over the last couple weeks (and trying to get to those I haven't read yet!) and wanted to join in the fun too

So for those who didn't see my very brief PTR, my husband's parents took the entire family (13 of us) on the cruise to celebrate their upcoming 50th wedding anniversary. We were on the Disney Magic from February 26th through March 3rd. We ported out of Miami and our stops were Grand Cayman and of course, Castaway Cay (which I think if we would have docked the ship there the entire five days I would have been okay with that).

I won't bring in the extended family too much as I'm not sure if they want pictures of themselves floating around on wdwmagic, so you will most likely see me (Chris), my husband (Brian) and our 14 year old daughter (Emily)!

I will get to our first day soon, but I will leave you with this photo (disclaimer - I am NOT a photographer and all of my pictures were taken on my phone, but it's the thought that counts!). Couldn't you just look at this view all day long (sorry about a shirtless Brian...but hey we were on vacation...in the sun)

 

[Tuvalu]

Sorry, I cannot figure out how to reply to multiple posts...you can tell by my number of posts in being on here for four years that I don't know what the heck I'm doing

If you want to respond to multiple posts in one post, click +Quote (rather than Reply) at the bottom of each post you want to reply to. When you are finished, click Insert Quotes... (bottom left). It will ask "Do you want to quote these messages?" Answer yes and they will all appear in the same post. Then you can manually add space between each quoted post to reply individually.

 

[gdisneyfans]

We got off the plane in Chicago and had about a 2 and a half hour layover, so had plenty of time to mosey around the airport. No one had had breakfast yet, so we went looking for food. Emily and I each had a bagel and Brian had the wonderfully nutritious McDonalds. Oh well, we're on vacation. No pictures of that lovely breakfast, but you're really not missing anything!
What to do next while we wait? The kids went walking around looking through the shops in the airport (I can't imagine why they didn't find anything to buy!) so what should we do? Let's go to the bar!

So we asked the bartender if we could have a beer chaser with our bloody Mary. He said "you must be from Wisconsin - only people from Wisconsin order beer chasers". Is that true?! Here I thought the two went hand in hand
We finished our drinks and then just relaxed and waited....

She looks thrilled, doesn't she?!
Our ride to Miami:

Of course they had to de-ice this thing too. But this time we got to watch before we boarded...we have always been on the plane while they've had to do this

After that it was time to board - yay - finally!

 

[gdisneyfans]

Well, that's it for today - thanks again to anyone choosing to read this I will try to do another update early next week as we are headed off to the Mall of America for a nice long weekend Going to try out their new Soarin' type ride, Flying over America....I wonder if it will compare to Disney?

 

[gdisneyfans]

If you want to respond to multiple posts in one post, click +Quote (rather than Reply) at the bottom of each post you want to reply to. When you are finished, click Insert Quotes... (bottom left). It will ask "Do you want to quote these messages?" Answer yes and they will all appear in the same post. Then you can manually add space between each quoted post to reply individually.

THANK YOU!

 

[MotherofaPrincessLover]

Well, that's it for today - thanks again to anyone choosing to read this I will try to do another update early next week as we are headed off to the Mall of America for a nice long weekend Going to try out their new Soarin' type ride, Flying over America....I wonder if it will compare to Disney?

Where is that ride at?

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Well, that's it for today - thanks again to anyone choosing to read this I will try to do another update early next week as we are headed off to the Mall of America for a nice long weekend Going to try out their new Soarin' type ride, Flying over America....I wonder if it will compare to Disney?

I live about an hour and 15 minutes east of the Mall of America, so we go there fairly often. I just took my niece to the Mall about a month ago and we did the Sea Life Aquarium and Flying Over America package and the Aquarium was really fun. The Flying Over America ride was comparable to Soarin', there were some parts I liked better than Disney's but both are good rides. However at $16 for one person to ride, it was a little much, so the aquarium and ride package was a decent deal. At the Mall of America's version the seats are one thing I thought were better, they are a little more comfortable.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Where is that ride at?

It is in the Nickelodean Universe area of the Mall, kind of near where the Hard Rock Cafe is. Good ride, but a little pricey.

 

[MotherofaPrincessLover]

It is in the Nickelodean Universe area of the Mall, kind of near where the Hard Rock Cafe is. Good ride, but a little pricey.

I didn't even know about this but I said something about it to my husband and he apparently knew all about it. Might have to check it out at some point. How was the wait for it?

 

[ScarletBegonias]

I'm in! Can't wait to read more!

 

[texans_loyal]

can't wait to read the rest!
Enjoy!

 

[gdisneyfans]

I live about an hour and 15 minutes east of the Mall of America, so we go there fairly often. I just took my niece to the Mall about a month ago and we did the Sea Life Aquarium and Flying Over America package and the Aquarium was really fun. The Flying Over America ride was comparable to Soarin', there were some parts I liked better than Disney's but both are good rides. However at $16 for one person to ride, it was a little much, so the aquarium and ride package was a decent deal. At the Mall of America's version the seats are one thing I thought were better, they are a little more comfortable.

I'm with you - the $16 charge was but we ended up combining it with the Nickelodeon Universe wrist bands so we were able to ride it once. I actually loved it but we are also huge Soarin' lovers too! But there were many great parts of Flying Over America. They had great scents, the misting that you get was very prominent and yes, the seats are a little more comfortable! I would love to do it again in the future.

 

[gdisneyfans]

I didn't even know about this but I said something about it to my husband and he apparently knew all about it. Might have to check it out at some point. How was the wait for it?

We usually get to the MOA about twice a year, so we've been anxiously waiting for the ride to open. It was great! We all really enjoyed it and it felt like the ride was quite a bit longer than Soarin'. Same set up though, so you actually do feel like you're walking into Soarin' when you board. I would highly recommend it! We went on a Sunday afternoon during Spring Break and the wait wasn't too bad. I'm guessing maybe 20 minutes from walking into the line until we finished the ride - and they only have one theater. Not bad.

 

[gdisneyfans]

I'm in! Can't wait to read more!

Thank you! Working on another update today

can't wait to read the rest!
Enjoy!

Thank you!

 

[gdisneyfans]

Saturday, February 25th cont.
I left off and we had just boarded our flight to Miami. We took off without any trouble and were in the air in no time.
United has an app that you can download before taking off that allows you to watch TV shows or movies while in the air by being connected to their wifi, so that was a treat! I watched an episode of Big Bang and Emily started watching Beauty and the Beast. I was about to watch another episode of Big Bang, but decided to share watching BatB with Emily (This is terrible, but can you believe we just watched BatB about two weeks before we left for the cruise It is now our favorite movie all of a sudden though)
Emily got tired of watching the movie like this

So we made a make-shift TV stand for us so she didn't have to hold her phone

I love you Beast
Brian decided to get some rest....hey, Sleeping Beauty, didn't you get enough sleep last night

At some point mid-flight we hit some very rough turbulence…strong enough that the captain even told the flight attendants to take their jump seats! Yikes – I’ve never been on a flight with turbulence bad enough for the flight attendants to take a seat. But it didn’t last too long – maybe 10 minutes and then we were pretty smooth after that.
We did see what looked to be a couple pretty big fires out our window?

Soon BatB was finished, so we started watching Finding Dory, but I wasn’t getting into the movie all that well, so decided to start another episode of Big Bang. But before too long, the flight attendant came on and told us to put our electronics away as we were going to be in Miami soon.

Getting closer....

Almost there!

We made it! Finally
We landed without issue and headed for the baggage claim area to pick up our checked luggage. It was quite a trek down to the baggage claim area and of course it takes forever (well it seems forever anyway because we just wanted to get on our way!) for the luggage to start coming out. But once it started coming out, all of our bags came out very quickly. We got outside into the glorious warm, sunny weather! We were able to get two taxi vans to transport us to the Intercontinental, and made our way to the hotel in just a few minutes. I think it was about 15 minutes and we were there!

Ahhh, look at those beautiful palm trees (okay, maybe not THE most beautiful, but we did just come from snow and ice and 17 degree weather, so I will take what I can get for my first glance)!

 

[gdisneyfans]

We arrived at the Intercontinental where Brian's other sister and her family were waiting for us (they live in Chicago so they were on a different flight than the rest of the group). Oh my goodness, what a hotel! It was gorgeous. We gathered in the lobby while we were getting checked in

Loved the lobby area. Afterwards we made our way up to our rooms on the 26th floor! I don't think we've ever stayed in a hotel that had anything more than a 4th floor. We opened our door and walked into our room and this was our view

I could have sat and looked out the window for hours! We also had these lovelies waiting for us upon check-in

Such a nice treat to have while getting settled into our room! But we didn't want to stay in the room too long. The weather was gorgeous and we still had some time before we had our dinner reservation, so we headed down to the pool so the kids could swim for a bit. The pool area was very nice. It was actually on the 8th floor of the hotel, but outside. They had a nice bar area so we had a couple of beers and enjoy the gorgeous weather! Sorry, no pictures...must have been too interested in my surroundings
After our relaxation, we went up to the room to get ready for our dinner!

 

[gdisneyfans]

We had a reservation in the hotel's restaurant, Toro Toro. They put us in a private dining area since there were so many of us. The
room was very trendy. I tried to capture a few pictures but it was quite dark inside. I know they're not the greatest, but here you go!

Emily and I hanging out at dinner:

The food was so good! We had plenty of appetizers – shrimp cocktail, deep-fried shrimp, caprese salad and cheese bread with a fresh tomato puree. The dinner consisted of a variety of meats – steak, lamb, sausage, chicken and shrimp, truffle fries, an asparagus/broccoli blend and mushrooms. No good pictures of the food because it was so dark, but this is how they serve the meat to you!

One big skewer and then he puts it all on a plate to pass around...interesting! Our supper clubs around here certainly do not do this But the best was yet to come...dessert! We were celebrating Grandpa’s birthday that night, so for dessert we were treated to something called “La Bomba” which is a bowl that was made out of chocolate that was filled with fresh berries, dulce de leche, strawberry ice cream, cream cheese mousse and almond cookie crumbs. Before they present this beautiful bowl, they put down a plastic mat that looks like an oversized place mat.

Then you take the bowl, hold it up and then drop it down onto the plastic mat and it shatters with everything inside

Then they pour caramel, vanilla and berry sauce over the top of all of the “pieces” and then you devour it! Oh my goodness it was soooo good.

I should have just had this for dinner all to myself it was that good. And I don't typically eat dessert I've never had anything so good.

 

[gdisneyfans]

Okay let's finish up this day and get us on that darn ship!
We were stuffed full but still wanted to get outside into the warm fresh air before turning in. So we wandered outside to see what we could see in the dark! Emily found her first car

An actual beautiful palm tree

The outside of the hotel was quite interesting after dark. There are silhouettes of people dancing. Not sure if you can see it, but I'll only bore you with one photo It was entertaining to watch for about two minutes...

Lovely pose of Emily doing?? She must be pumping up the jam since we're on vacation!

We just strolled along the water - I notice I didn't take any other pictures after this - ha! But there really wasn't much to see in the dark anyway. By then it was about 8:30 p.m. and we were exhausted WHAT?? We are in Miami....on a Saturday night....with South Beach right down the road! Oh well, we had been up so early and we knew we had a big, fun day ahead of us so we decided to call it a night.

Next up - a great morning in Miami and Disney Magic here we come!

 

[texans_loyal]

La Bomba looks amazing

 

[gdisneyfans]

La Bomba looks amazing

It was I would love to try to replicate it!

 

[gdisneyfans]

Sunday, February 26th - Disney Magic here we come!

We were up bright and early again (for our standards!)…probably about 7:15. Brian whispered that the Disney Magic was in port, so we jumped out of bed to take a look. We see you Disney Magic….we’ll be making our way over to you just as soon as we can!

We gathered with part of our group for some coffee and were all just gazing out the window staring at the ship. We were all so excited that in just a few hours that's where we'd be! We had plenty of time in the morning before we could board the ship - we were told we could board at 1:30, so we came up with a little plan on what to do before we could board. But first we went and had breakfast in the hotel lounge. They had some pretty nice offerings, they had fruit, bagels, bread for toast, yogurt, hard boiled eggs, meats and cheeses, scrambled eggs, bacon and plenty of different juices.

Breakfast was great and we had a nice view of Miami while eating

But we were itching to get outside in the nice warm weather, so we put on our walking shoes and headed over to the Bayside Markeplace, which was an outdoor strip mall type area with some souvenir type shops as well as some shops you'd see in your local mall. The walk was about 10 minutes and if you look at the picture right above, its right past the row of palm trees to the right. The round building right above those line of tree is Hard Rock Cafe and the Marketplace is to the left of Hard Rock. Some shots along the walk to Bayside:

An interesting looking tree!