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)

 

[gdisneyfans]

After breakfast we went up to Deck 10 to grab some pictures of Castaway Cay from the other side of the ship.

Then it was time to head to Fathom's Lounge to pick up our bibs for the race. Stopped in the atrium area again to grab a few more pictures!

 

[gdisneyfans]

Fathoms Lounge....I love the lights in here. I wish we would have had more time to enjoy the adult lounges Next time!

Ready to race!

Then hung around until it was time for the group to disembark. It was a lot easier this time as we just walked right off the ship vs. tendering!

We had a little hike to get to where the 5k started and we were one of the first people off the ship. We had a little bit of a wait as there were a lot of people doing the 5k and it took a while for everyone to arrive. But soon enough the race started and off we went!

A few pictures of the "race" route:

The little Disney touches!

 

[gdisneyfans]

Finishing up the race - it was getting HOT!

Trams! Could I hitch a ride

On the home stretch!

We made it! We made our way over to the family beach where the rest of the family was.

We found the rest of the family. They had a nice big group of lounge chairs all saved for us. We decided a bloody Mary was in order after the race

Look how red my face is! I said it before...it was HOT!

Then one of my sister-in-laws and myself went back to the ship - I needed to freshen up after the 5k. We decided we would take the tram back to the ship vs. walking since we had just done plenty of that!

 

[gdisneyfans]

On our way to the trams, we ran into these guys. Loved their beachwear

Heels and all at the beach!

Our ride back to the ship.

And we're back!

We were on and off the ship pretty quickly and took the tram back to the family beach to join the rest of the group.

 

[gdisneyfans]

We were all getting pretty hungry so went and grabbed some lunch - they had a BBQ going on and it was delicious! They had plenty of offerings, including burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, tomato salad, coleslaw, chips, buffalo chicken sandwiches, fish, ribs and baked beans. We grabbed a plate and went and found a table in the shade and were able to watch Mickey and Pluto’s dance party with all of the little kids. Quite entertaining!

My plate

They even had an ice cream machine on the island so we had a cone for dessert. Yum!

We strolled back to our area grabbing a few more pictures along the way.

We relaxed for a while in some shade under the umbrellas. The kids all played in the water. Emily even snorkeled for the first time and loved it. It was paradise.

I then walked around a bit to take a few more pictures of the area we were in.

Interesting tree.

Palm trees

After my little walk I sat on my lounge chair and took this picture...

The sand was so soft and as I was sitting there, I was telling myself to remember this feeling every time I looked at this picture. The feeling of pure happiness being with the two most favorite people in my entire life. And I've looked at this picture plenty of times since we've been back and I actually can feel the softness of the sand and the feelings I had that day Again, paradise

 

[gdisneyfans]

Then we decided to go for a walk along the beach. Emily want to go check out the water slide so we made our way towards the slide.

Then we saw these two dudes....looked like they were ready to rumble

 

[gdisneyfans]

We stopped at Heads Up Bar and sat in some shade and enjoyed a couple of drinks.

Konk Kooler

We just hung out in the shade for a while just visiting. Emily went on the slide with her cousins.

We decided to grab a beer for the "road"...they have glass bottled Corona, but they pour them in these plastic bottled instead!

Then we made our way back to our lounge chairs to relax for the rest of the afternoon. We needed to be back on the ship by 4:30, so we wanted to take advantage of being on the island as long as possible!

I took a few more pictures before we left.

 

[gdisneyfans]

Eventually though, we had to get back to ship so we started for the trams, stopping at the gift shop and it seemed as though everyone found a little something to buy. We then caught the tram back to the boat.

Castaway Cay was a definite highlight of the trip!

 

[MotherofaPrincessLover]

It's going to be so sad not visiting Castaway Cay on our next cruise.

 

[gdisneyfans]

Once back in our room, we found this on our bed....NO!!!!!

We'll put that away until later

We had plenty of time to get ready for dinner and the show so Brian and I went up to the bar on Deck 9 and grabbed a beer and a couple of slices of pizza for Emily (look familiar).

We also wanted to order room service one more time and since we hadn't had enough to eat this week we ordered the All Hands on Deck platter

Some chicken tenders

And some wings

We ate our snacks while getting ready for our final dinner on the ship. Before we went to the show, we stopped at Brian's sister's room and had a glass of champagne to celebrate the wonderful trip we had.

The show tonight was Dreams.

"Enjoy a touching story about a little girl named Anne Marie who can't seem to find it in her heart to believe. The story begins one night as Anne Marie, almost asleep, is visited by several beloved Disney Characters. Each recounts a tale, complete with rousing renditions of treasured songs." It was excellent - I think my favorite show of the week.

After we exited the theater, we ran into our Cruise Director, Clayton and asked if we could have our picture taken with him

He was so great.

 

[gdisneyfans]

After the show we had to get back to the room and get all of our check-in luggage packed up They were picking all luggage up at 10:15 and didn’t want to miss getting ours picked up, especially since once they took them, we didn’t see them again until we landed Friday night in Madison. That was really nice not to have to worry about luggage after we disembarked the ship!

Bags were packed and placed out our door, so we headed down to Deck 3 again for dinner at Carioca’s.

I don't want to see this

First up, bread! It was really good. It was a wheat bread with a sun-dried tomato paste.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to share this lovely family picture, but what the heck - it's pretty funny! It looks like we are ready for Pirate Night all over again with goatees and black under our eyes

It was the lighting!

For the appetizer I had the Porcini Sacchetti

For the Soup I had the White Cheddar and Broccolini. It was good, but nothing that you can't get anywhere else that offers cheddar broccoli soup.

And for the main entree I had the Beef Wellington. It was good, but not my favorite.

 

[gdisneyfans]

Dessert! I don't have a picture of the menu? Not sure why, but here's the first plate we got (maybe it was the same offerings for everyone?)

What the heck is that thing on the left I have no clue and do not remember!

I remember that I didn't care for them - too sweet. But then we were also treated to Baked Alaska - that was quite good, but I think I only had two or three bites.

Emily, Mo and Santiago

Dinner was wonderful as usual and it was hard to believe we just had our final dinner on this wonderful vacation! Mo and Santiago said they would see us the next morning for breakfast. We didn’t want to call it a night yet, so we headed up to Deck 9 as Emily wanted to get some ice cream.

We got outside and couldn’t believe it….it was raining! We were so lucky this entire trip with the weather. And it couldn’t have rained at a better time…almost like the skies were crying because we had to leave the next morning! But we still enjoyed our time on the deck.

Emily got her ice cream from:

After the ice cream, we went down to the shops one last time. I wanted to get Brian a t-shirt and there was a long-sleeved shirt that I wanted, so we purchased those. But it was getting close to 11:00 at this point and we knew we had to be up bright and early as our breakfast time was 8:15 the next morning.

 

[MySmallWorldof4]

Sorry for the like bombardment, but I finally just caught up

 

[MySmallWorldof4]

One thing I didn't like on the Magic was the size of the family pool. At most times you couldn't fit another body, big or small in that pool!

That was our biggest complaint when we were on the Dream. The pool area and deck around it were just so crowded. The only time we really enjoyed it was when the ship docked in Nassau. Everyone else got off leaving us and just a few others around the pool and slide areas.

. We had ordered room service to their room so we could enjoy some snacks before the show.

That was s great idea. We never utilized room service.

 

[MySmallWorldof4]

Also, one of the staff members started throwing out cut up squid to feed to the sting rays, so people were having fun with that too. Brian fed quite a few pieces to them.

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We probably were there about 45 minutes. We headed back to Dolphin Cove as it was time to swim with the dolphins! This was something that I was excited for but also a little nervous for as well! I don’t like salt water and these are creatures that live in the wild so that’s what made me a little nervous. We received our life vests and then had a quick orientation on what to expect and how to hold our hands and feet when interacting with the dolphins. I didn't get to take any pictures because you couldn't have any cameras, not even waterproof ones along.

Then it was time! We walked over to our area of the lagoon where we would be interacting with them. There were about 15 of us in our group and we just stood in a line and took turns with the dolphin. We were situated in the far right docking area in the picture below (from Dolphin Cove's website):

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And these two photos from their website show some of the interactions we had with the dolphins:

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First the dolphin gave us a kiss on the cheek then gave us a kiss on the lips. The dolphin feels rubbery!! I wasn’t sure what they felt like, but it’s more of a hard rubber. After our smooches we went out in the lagoon two at a time with the boogie boards and the trainer sent the dolphin out to us one at a time to push us back to our standing spot while we were holding the board. It was so cool!!! I was nervous at first but they are so well trained and it went so smooth. Brian's parents were there to observe so they did try to get a couple of pictures of us, but you could only zoom in so much But here's Emily and I waiting for the dolphin to come get us!

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I know you can't see the dolphin here, but she/he was pushing me back to our spot on the dock:

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Oh my goodness, that was the coolest experience ever!!! I couldn't believe the strength they had to just push you by your feet! Next interaction was we put our heads next to the dolphin’s head and the trainer did some sort of signal and the dolphin started smiling – it was so cute! The final interaction was we swam out to the lagoon again in pairs and the dolphin pulled us back to our standing spot by us holding onto their fins (just like the picture above). Oh my goodness, that was so amazing. They are really gentle creatures.

Unfortunately our nephew who was doing the excursion with us got stung by a jellyfish when he was waiting his turn to be pulled in by the dolphin’s fins He yelled ouch, but we didn’t understand what he was saying. He did get pulled back by the dolphin but when he got back he said he got stung by something. Sure enough the trainer told him it was most likely a jelly fish. Yuck! I’m so glad I didn’t know they were out there swimming before I went out there….I may have chickened out and not did the swims! One of the guides took him up to the main building to get him something to put on the sting to help relieve the pain. Poor thing This was the end of our interaction and I must say it was absolutely amazing (well with the exception of the jelly fish)!! I’m so glad we did it.

As we were walking back to the main building, we saw this thing

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After we got back to the main building, we grabbed all of our belongings from our locker and stopped in the gift shop to try to look at all of the pictures that were taken at Sting Ray City and the Dolphin Swim. The place was packed and I asked one of the workers what the cost was for the pictures. $35 for one picture, $130 for the CD. Yikes that’s too steep!! We took plenty of our own pictures, so we chose not to buy anything. But of course, now that we're back home, I'm kind of wishing we would have bought the CD

The dolphin experience looks like it was a real amazing adventure. Too bad about your nephew's jellyfish sting. Those hurt. I know from experience.

 

[MySmallWorldof4]

There was a cute little local bar right in the port area and we decided to go grab a drink and then decide where to go for lunch.

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Could I have zoomed any closer to us

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We each had a Sol

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We noticed they served food right at the bar, so we decided to catch lunch there. We split some conch fritters and Brian had chicken tenders and fries and I had a grilled Mahi Mahi sandwich with homemade tortilla chips and salsa. Very good! Sorry, no pictures. I think we were both so hungry since we hadn't had anything to eat since 7:30 that morning!

We paid the bill and decided to go walk through some shops. We left the port area and looked around a bit, but where we were, there weren’t a lot of shops, just a lot of jewelry shops. We did go into a cigar shop to see them make cigars, but didn’t buy anything. We went back into the port area and just strolled through the few shops they had but still had about 30 minutes before the rest of the group was coming back. Didn’t find anything that we had to buy so decided to grab one more beer before they returned.

We went with a Caybrew Light which was a local beer and it was very good!

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Before too long, we got a text saying they were heading back to the port so we met them at the security line to be sure Emily got through. Emily picked out a long-sleeved t-shirt that says Cayman Islands on it, so that was the extent of our souvenirs from the Island! We went through the security area to show our room keys and then boarded a tender back to the ship.

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It's so big when you're up so close!!

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Great close-ups of the ship! I also love the ones you got of it when you were looking at it from the island.

 

[gdisneyfans]

It's going to be so sad not visiting Castaway Cay on our next cruise.

Why is that - where are you cruising to?

 

[MotherofaPrincessLover]

Why is that - where are you cruising to?

We're doing a southern Caribbean leaving from San Juan. I'm excited about the stops-just sad to be missing Castaway.

 

[gdisneyfans]

Sorry for the like bombardment, but I finally just caught up

No worries Thanks for reading!

That was our biggest complaint when we were on the Dream. The pool area and deck around it were just so crowded. The only time we really enjoyed it was when the ship docked in Nassau. Everyone else got off leaving us and just a few others around the pool and slide areas.

That was s great idea. We never utilized room service.

That's a great time to go in the pool We did sneak into the adult pool a couple of times to cool off, but it's hard when you have kids with you!

I wish we would have done it more. Especially in the morning - we could have had coffee and danishes delivered but we never did it. Another next time!

The dolphin experience looks like it was a real amazing adventure. Too bad about your nephew's jellyfish sting. Those hurt. I know from experience.

Yeah we felt so bad for him He was trying so hard not to cry, but he just couldn't help it. Sorry you got stung too

Great close-ups of the ship! I also love the ones you got of it when you were looking at it from the island.

Thank you! You never realize how big they are until you're right next to them

 

[gdisneyfans]

Friday, March 3rd

The Trip is Almost Over!

How did we get to this day already! It seems like it was just a week ago and we were heading off to our last day of work before our vacation! But as always, the week of vacation always goes so fast.

Remember this

Bye Miami - don't want to see you any time soon

Yep, we're back! We were up by 7:00 to start getting our stuff in order. We packed up all of our carry-on bags, checked the room over to be sure we weren’t leaving anything and then headed up to Carioca’s for breakfast.

I had the "On the Move" - it was good and just enough because I wasn't all that hungry

The breakfast was good, but we certainly didn’t want to rush through because we knew once we left the restaurant it was time to get off the ship!

But the time had come. We said our goodbyes to Mo and Santiago. Thanked them for the amazing service they gave us. We gathered all of our bags and slowly made our way off the ship. It took a while as there were plenty of people trying to get off the ship. Once we were outside we Ubered back to the Intercontinental. Brian's sister from Chicago and her family were staying through the weekend, so they checked into their room and then we all went up and stored our stuff up in their room until it was time to head to the airport.

We still had a few hours before we needed to be at the airport, so we decided to head back to Bayside to shop for a bit and get some lunch.

Didn’t find anything that we had to have, so we decided to grab some lunch at Bubba Gump’s and sat outside in the gorgeous weather. We had one of these

And I had the Dixie Fishwich which of course no pictures, but we love that sandwich and I swear I have it each time we go to one

An interesting tree too right by the restaurant...

However, we were watching the skies and it seemed as though they were getting a little greyer little by little! After lunch, the kids all got their picture taken with the parakeets right near Bubba Gump’s, so that was a fun way to end the vacation!

Just as we started heading back to the hotel, it started pouring rain! We waited it out a little bit but knew that it probably wouldn’t completely stop for a while, so we walked as fast as we could. Thankfully it had turned into a light rain, so we made it back to the hotel before it started to downpour again. We went back to up to the room and decided it was probably time to head to the airport to get checked in. @Tiggerish I hope you didn't get too much rain or it was over by the time you boarded!

We said our goodbyes to Brian's sister and her family and grabbed two cabs to the airport. We got through security pretty quickly and thankfully our gate was right past security so didn’t have too far to walk. Our wait was pretty quick and before we knew it, it was time to board our plane back to Chicago. The flight was right on time, was very uneventful (thankfully!) and we were in Chicago before we knew it. We had just a bit of a layover in Chicago and our departing gate to Madison was close to the one we arrived at, so we went to our gate and then all went and grabbed something quick for dinner since we weren’t getting into Madison until almost 9:00.

We didn’t wait too long and we were on our way back to Madison. Our flight was very quick again and it seemed just as we were up in the air, we were already on our way down! We got into Madison about 10 minutes early, so that was nice. But of course as soon as we walked off the plane we felt the cold Wisconsin air! Back to reality! We went to baggage claim with our fingers crossed that our luggage actually made it (since we hadn't seen it since the night before) and it did! It came off pretty quick again, so we were on our way home pretty quickly after landing. We left Madison about 9:15 and were home by about 10:45. I don’t think we were home five minutes and Emily and I were in bed! Brian was a little wired from the drive so he was up for a bit, but it was so good to be back in our own beds!

And the next morning we woke up to this

It was a wonderful trip and I know I've said this plenty of times, but we are so thankful that Brian's parents took the entire family on vacation together. We made some great memories that we will cherish always and we finally went on a Disney Cruise! We had wanted to do that for a quite a while, but just couldn’t take the plunge from going to the parks to going on a cruise. But we're so glad we did!!