Trip Report Our Wonder-ful October 2014 cruise and Magic Kingdom day

Hi all! We are back. But we had an incredible time and I can't wait to share it with you all!

First up, introductions! This was a kid free trip with just myself, Amy, and my husband, Brian. We were on a 5 night Castaway Cay double dip cruise on the Wonder starting October 1, followed by one day in the Magic Kingdom before flying home.
Here we are in DHS during my 40th birthday trip last November.


Wednesday, October 1
Our day started way too early when the alarm went off at 3:15 am! The fact we were going to Disney made it a little bit easier to get out of bed, but not much!! We were pulling out of our driveway by 4:25 am to make the drive to Columbus to catch our 7 am flight. We boarded our flight and pulled away from the gate right at 7 am. It was still dark on the ground, but once we were in the air we could see the sun rising.

The flight was uneventful, and before we knew it, we were on the ground in Orlando. I took a quick break to change from jeans to shorts, then we took our first ride of the trip!

Ok, so it wasn't a very exciting ride, but the kids always consider it the first ride!!
We quickly made our way to this sign:

And followed the signs until we found this one:

There was no line, so they checked us in and sent us right out to the waiting bus. It was pretty full, but we found a seat about 1/3 of the way back. Unfortunately, it had one of the "stickers" covering most of the window which made it hard to get good pictures! Our bus and the one right next to it pulled out very shortly after we boarded, which was about 9:30 am. I was able to get this pic of the other bus as it was pulling out.

It seemed like no time at all before the driver was telling us to look out the windows to see the Wonder. There she is:


I may have been bouncing in my seat like a little kid at that point!
Here is a picture of the terminal as we were pulling in:

I just love the seat fabric on the bus.

 

[TheMouseFan]

They weren't quite ready to start serving yet, so we wandered a little instead of just standing there waiting.




I was a little disappointed in the food offerings this time. I really loved the spicy chicken sandwich I had in June and I felt like there were more sides offered then too. Oh well, I found a few things to eat.

A view from our seat:

I tried the strawberry/banana ice cream this time. It was delicious!

 

[TheMouseFan]

The beaches were much more crowded after lunch!



Then they quieted down pretty quickly again!
Someone offered to take our picture for us.

A few more pictures from the water:





An empty Cabanas beach:

 

[TheMouseFan]

We decided to relax in our chairs in the shade for awhile before heading back to the Wonder.



Finally, we decided it was time to say goodbye to Castaway Cay! We took our time walking back to the ship.

 

[PartOfYourWorld]

All caught up!!!!!!

A double dip at Castaway Cay!!! That sounds awesome!!!!! The Wonder looks beautiful! And I'm a little Mermaid fan like you! One reason I want to go on the Wonder!!!!

All of your pictures got me excited for my quick dip on the Dream in December with my mom and can't wait to get back to Castaway! But also excited to try a new ship next summer!

I LOVE your costumes!!!!! Very clever having Flotsam and Jetsam strapped to his arms!!!!! That's pretty awesome!!!!

Oh and like someone else said earlier (can't remember who sorry!) about Thomas Kinkade puzzles, I highly recommend getting the puzzles, gluing them and getting them framed and hanged!!! We bought the castle one and having it hanging up in our bedroom!!! We bought the Beauty & the Beast one in May when we were just there so we can hang that one up too! But oif you are going ot glue it I highly suggest buying a posterboard and doing it on there...we did it on our table and had to transfer it onto a posterboard to glue...that was a feat in itself LOL.

I love how you both had a section of Castaway almost all to yourselves!!!! I'll have to remember that spot for December!

Love all the pictures you have of the different cruise backdrops, need to remember those too!!!!

Can't wait to read about the rest!

 

[TheMouseFan]

All caught up!!!!!!

A double dip at Castaway Cay!!! That sounds awesome!!!!! The Wonder looks beautiful! And I'm a little Mermaid fan like you! One reason I want to go on the Wonder!!!!

All of your pictures got me excited for my quick dip on the Dream in December with my mom and can't wait to get back to Castaway! But also excited to try a new ship next summer!

I LOVE your costumes!!!!! Very clever having Flotsam and Jetsam strapped to his arms!!!!! That's pretty awesome!!!!

Oh and like someone else said earlier (can't remember who sorry!) about Thomas Kinkade puzzles, I highly recommend getting the puzzles, gluing them and getting them framed and hanged!!! We bought the castle one and having it hanging up in our bedroom!!! We bought the Beauty & the Beast one in May when we were just there so we can hang that one up too! But oif you are going ot glue it I highly suggest buying a posterboard and doing it on there...we did it on our table and had to transfer it onto a posterboard to glue...that was a feat in itself LOL.

I love how you both had a section of Castaway almost all to yourselves!!!! I'll have to remember that spot for December!

Love all the pictures you have of the different cruise backdrops, need to remember those too!!!!

Can't wait to read about the rest!

Thanks for reading! I loved that we had two days on Castaway Cay! Especially since we found the not very crowded spot!

I loved all of the Little Mermaid details! You will definitely have to check out the Wonder at some point!

Thanks for saying that about the costumes. I thought they turned out cute! We had several people comment on them on the ship.

Those puzzles are on my Christmas list. I definitely plan to frame them after doing them!

Have a great trip! I loved our Halloween sailing, but I'm jealous that you'll be doing a Christmas one!!

 

[TheMouseFan]

I had to get a few more pics from the verandah.


Despite the fact that we had stopped at Cookies for one last banana ice cream cone, we were still a little hungry, so we quickly showered and headed up to deck 9 for a quick bite. I got a turkey sandwich from Goofy's Galley and Brian got a cajun chicken sandwich and fries from Pluto's Doghouse.




Both were good and filled us up enough that we could make it until dinner. Look who we saw wandering around while we were eating:

 

[TheMouseFan]

Next, we headed back to the room to get our packing done. Then we stood on the verandah to say our last goodbyes to Castaway Cay as we were pulling out.




I didn't give Brian a choice this time about seeing the show. It was Disney Dreams. I absolutely loved it! Much better than Toy Story was. Then we watched one last sunset from the verandah.

Mickey and Minnie were meeting in the atrium, so we headed down to see what outfits they would have on. It was just their nautical ones which we already had pics of, so we just watched for a few minutes as they changed places.


I wasn't quick enough to catch the kiss Mickey gave Minnie on camera, but it was cute!!
Then we ran across Tiana while we were making one last trip through the shops. The interaction between her and this little girl was just precious!

 

[TheMouseFan]

Next up was dinner. I really had no interest in this menu, but it was our last chance to see Anthony and Elle since we wouldn't be attending breakfast in the morning. Nothing really appealed to either one of us, but we suffered through!

We both skipped the appetizers and ordered the potato and leek soup.

I chose the slow roasted breast of chicken. It was okay, nothing special, but it wasn't bad.

Brian went with the beef wellington because that is what Anthony suggested. He really enjoyed it.

I ordered the Sweet Temptations (chocolate decadence, cappuccino mousse, and celebration cake which was a strawberry cheesecake).

Brian got the celebration cake.

And Anthony brought us his favorite, the apple pie.

Then we sadly said goodbye and headed up to deck 9 and 10 for one last stroll.

 

[TheMouseFan]

We got one last cup of hot chocolate to drink while we walked. We had gotten a cup every night before returning to the room and drank them on the verandah while we discussed what we had done that day and what our plans were for the next day! I really miss that right about now!! Anyhow, we walked around for a little while before returning to the room.

They had the football game on, so we of course had to watch it for awhile. Brian is a Falcons fan and he was at the game in Cincinnati when they got their butts handed to them by the Bengals, so he was all too happy to see them losing!




We found this cutie waiting for us in our room:

We were sad that the cruise was over, but excited about going to MK the next day!

 

[Goofnut1980]

you always have the BEST trip reports! so many pictures... I never get work done when I see a trip report from you... Glad my boss can't see my screens!! lol

 

[ginadee]

The chocolate dipped key lime pie there was one of the best things Ive ever had.

 

[TheMouseFan]

you always have the BEST trip reports! so many pictures... I never get work done when I see a trip report from you... Glad my boss can't see my screens!! lol

Awww, thank you!

 

[TheMouseFan]

The chocolate dipped key lime pie there was one of the best things Ive ever had.

Brian and I agree!

 

[Goofnut1980]

I have a sort of stupid question.. When you do a cruise with Disney and you are on CC - do you pay for the food on the island as well or is that included? We have never done a cruise, much less a Disney cruise. Thanks

 

[TheMouseFan]

I have a sort of stupid question.. When you do a cruise with Disney and you are on CC - do you pay for the food on the island as well or is that included? We have never done a cruise, much less a Disney cruise. Thanks

Not a stupid question at all! All of the food is included. Alcoholic beverages are the only thing you would pay extra for.

 

[TheMouseFan]

Monday, October 6
We were up really early, as we wanted to be off the Wonder and on our way to WDW as quickly as possible. We ate some bananas and cereal that we had brought back to the room after our breakfast at Beach Blanket Buffet the day before. I made a quick run down to Shutters to pick up our photo CD, then we were on our way to the atrium with our luggage at about 7:00 am. We were off and in a Mears van by 7:08 am. Unfortunately, we didn't leave right away. We waited until one other couple and one family were also in the van before leaving at 7:30. A few last pics:



It seemed like no time at all before we were seeing this sign:

I was sad that I wasn't able to get a good picture of the main part of the sign. This is the first time I didn't get it!
Then we drove by this:

on our way to Saratoga Springs. Then we had to go to Caribbean Beach. Then we were finally on the way to our resort.

 

[TheMouseFan]

We got all checked in and left our luggage with Bell Services. Then we found the walkway to MK and were on our way!!
I had to stop to get some pics on the way. Brian was giving me a hard time. He kept saying, "I thought you wanted to get there as quickly as possible!" He just didn't get it!!



We were finally there! And it was only 9:25 am.

We made a relatively quick stop at Guest Relations to purchase the one day Memory Maker they were testing. The CM tried to tell me that it was only available for MNSSHP. Luckily, she believed me when I told her I had already called and asked the PhotoPass department about all of the specifics. She quickly hooked us up and we were on our way! I wish I could say it worked flawlessly, but alas, I cannot. When I got home and checked my account, all of my regular PP pics were on there and our SDMT video was on there, but none of our other ride pics were there. I called on Wed. morning and spoke with Denora. She was awesome!! It took her all day to fix it, but she did figure out what the problem was, and had to get creative to fix it! It turns out that they sold me the Memory Maker for Wed, Oct 8, when I was in MK on Mon, Oct. 6. They could not find any way to delete the one they sold me and add it back on for the correct day, so I eventually had to make an MDE account for Brian with a dummy email address so they could add it to his account and we could download everything that way, including all of our ride pics. Luckily, they were stored in my account and could still be accessed. Definitely a pain in the butt, but I'm just glad she was able to figure it out!
Then it was time to get some breakfast. We made out way down MSUSA.

 

[TheMouseFan]

If anyone remembers from my PTR, one of the must do things for today was a nutella waffle, so that was where we were headed.

There was a little bit of a line, so I had some time to take in the surroundings.


We got one to share and found a table with an awesome view!


We decided our first ride of the day would be Pirates, so we headed that direction.




We got side tracked when I saw a PP photog who looked lonely and bored! He took a couple of regular shots, then posed us for this one:

Brian thought it was kind of weird. I explained to him that he must just really enjoy his job and wanted everyone to have fun. Brian thought it was more likely that he just wanted to make us look stupid! Either way, we all had a good laugh!

 

[TheMouseFan]

After our picture break, we headed over to Pirates. We both really enjoy this ride.




Then it was time for our first FP+, Big Thunder Mountain. We walked slowly in that direction with lots of pics on the way.










I don't know what it is about BTM, but it is one of my favorite rides in MK, especially at night!

 

[TheMouseFan]

We still had a little time before our lunch ADR, so we decided to check out the line at Haunted Mansion. It wasn't too bad, so we hopped in. We basically walked continuously through the queue and into the stretch room.














Brian has very fond memories of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, so I had to make sure he saw his statue.


We checked out the new gift shop after exiting the ride. I'm glad we chose to do it then, as there was a huge line just to get in later in the day!