Trip Report The "I have no idea how to do this" Land & Sea Trip Report!

Hello All. So this is my first trip report. It won't be the most detailed report ever, but it will be awesome, because it is mine! I kid, I kid.

This trip was actually supposed to happen back in the spring of 2013. It was to be a first anniversary trip for my wife and I. We were to do a 7 night cruise on the Disney Fantasy, the same ship we spent part of our honeymoon on. However, it was not meant to be. Instead of going on that trip in April 2013, we welcomed our first child into this world, a baby girl.

This meant we had to postpone our trip a year, to April 2014. So later in 2013, I re-booked the same cruise for this year. As time passed, I thought, "Hey, we want to go to WDW as well. How can we make this happen!" So I called DCL, switched the trip around, and instead booked a 3 night cruise on the Disney Dream, followed by 4 nights at WDW, staying at Port Orleans Riverside.

As the trip grew closer, my wife and I got more excited. We were scheduled to leave for our cruise on April 24th. We had our port adventures booked and our fast pass+ selections ready to go well ahead of time. So away we went!

Day 1, April 24:
We took the morning flight out of Dallas direct to Orlando. Our baby girl stayed behind with my parents. We were sure going to miss her but we were excited for our anniversary getaway together. It had been quite some time since we spent time together alone.

We arrived in Orlando around noon time and jumped right on the DCL bus to take us to Port Canaveral. I am still loving how we don't have to pick up our luggage at baggage claim, but instead it arrives right to our cabin (even though this is something we have done before). When we arrived at the port, it was a pretty quick process to get through security to get onto the ship. The Disney Dream!

My wife and I were both excited to board the shop as quickly as possible. Nevermind the pre-board family pictures. We were not going to buy those anyways! As we entered the ship, they announced our family name and we found ourselves here!

The art-deco design was stunning. The feel was different than the Fantasy's art-nouveau design, but just as great. We snapped a few more pictures before heading to our room.

Now our room was just as amazing. We had a corner room on the stern of the ship on deck 9. This meant the room was about twice as large and the balcony was enormous. It was partially handicap accessible but that did not bother us. The size of the room as well as the great views we were ready to experience from the balcony made it well worth it.

We had a bit more time to explore the ship and find something to eat before the muster drill. Of course, something quick meant going to Cabana's. I have been to the buffets and several cruise lines. DCL always seems to be my favorite. I am not sure if it is just the quality of the food, or something else. Being on a Disney ship may have something to do with it.

After the muster drill, it was time for the sail away party. On our last and only other DCL cruise, we missed it so this time we intended to be there. We went up to deck 12 so that we had a bird's eye view of the festivities. My wife's co-workers also told us to go up there to see if they could see us on the port's webcam before we sailed away. The sail away party was a good time. I thought it would just be for kids, but adults were getting into the action too. I was also able to grab my first drink of many. One pina colada please!

After the sail away party, we had some time to freshen up a bit before the show that evening. We had been travelling since early in the morning so it was needed! We also were able to relax on our balcony as the sun set. This was truly awesome and somewhat breathtaking.

After some relaxation time, it was time to head down to the Walt Disney Theater for the first show of our cruise, The Golden Mickey's! This is the first time we have seen this show as they do not have it on the Fantasy. I would not say it was my favorite show of all time on a DCL cruise, but it was still definitely awesome. DCL is the only line that you will get me to actually go see the shows. And they are always well worth it.

After the show, it was time for dinner. The first restaurant as part of our rotational dining was to be Animator's Palate. And I forgot to take pictures! Darn! We were seated with two families. A younger couple who were visiting from Colombia and a WDW CM with this mother believe it or not! I can't get into all the details, but he and my wife sure did share some stories, as my wife is a CM as well (just not at WDW). It was interesting for sure to be in a setting where a CM was able to open up and share his thoughts about WDW's current path. Don't worry, I did not pester him too much. We were all here to enjoy the cruise, not talk about the greatness (or the problems) at WDW.

The food at dinner was amazing as usual. This seems typical of DCL, although I have only sailed a couple times with them. Of course, Crush came about and talked to our table. Very entertaining. He gave everyone at our table cool 'surfer' nicknames.

After dinner, we headed to the adult entertainment district aboard the Dream, called The District. I have to say, although I tried to not compare the Dream with the Fantasy too much, I found the adult district to not be as nice as the Fantasy's Europa District. The theming of Europa seemed to be a lot better. But that did not ruin our time by any means. It was still a wonderful area of the ship that we could enjoy together without little kids running around. And the great thing to us was that it was never crowded.

As the night wrapped up, we headed back to our room to rest up for day 2 of our cruise and vacation. Next stop, Nassau!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Oh yay! Love cruise trip reports!
Great pictures so far! You did get a great stateroom!

 

[TheMouseFan]

I'm in!! We are taking our first cruise in June, so all of these cruise reports are awesome and getting me even more excited!! Can't wait to read more!

 

[Andrew C]

Day 2, Friday April 25th:

On the second day of our cruise, we arrived in Nassau. And guess what ship was next to us? The Disney Wonder! It was cool to have two Disney ships at one port. I could not get over how much smaller the Wonder was than the Dream.

We had not heard great things about Nassau but we had never been before. We at least wanted to get off the ship and spend some time at a beach. Because of this, we decided to book a port adventure at Atlantis. We booked a beach day break one, which included access to their beach and aquariums. Lunch was also included.

We met for our port adventure at the Walt Disney Theater around 10am. From here we disembarked the ship and headed to shuttles which were to take us to the island resort. It was a long walk from where we got off the shuttle to the actual beach. I knew Atlantis was huge, but geeez!

Although we were escorted to the beach, we decided to visit the aquariums first. There were several aquariums, the largest being The Dig. You could enter The Dig either from the hotel lobby or from the pool area. We opted to enter from near the pools since this was closest to where we were. The Dig was very cool. There was lots of great sea life to see, from sharks to jelly fish to rays. It probably took us about 30 minutes or so to walk through the entire thing.

After we finished with the aquariums, we decided to have lunch. There were a few options where we could use our vouchers for lunch. We decided to go to the cave bar and grill. The food was simple with burgers and such. However, the tables were placed next to an aquarium area we did not visit so we got to see more sea life as we ate.

From here, we finally made it down towards the beach. Chairs and towels were provided by the resort. It was a relatively nice beach but nothing amazing. One good thing is that it was not that crowded. I expected it to be super busy but luckily it was not. We spent a couple hours laying around on the beach. This was stopped short by the weather. Unfortunately, clouds rolled in and it started to rain. We decided to head back to the ship immediately to beat the rush of people heading back. We were able to jump on the shuttle and head back before the rush. We are fast like that!

So we were cold from the rain and thought about what to do now...Hot tub time! It was definitely nice to relax and warm up in there a bit. I still love the glass bottom hot tubs too looking down into the ocean. Oh yes, and we also took the time to ride the Aquaduck for the the first time on this trip. It was just as I remembered, a lot of fun.

As the afternoon turned into the evening, it was time for us to prepare for the evening's festivities. This included the show, dinner, and then the pirate deck party! But before that, a mixology class! We thought it would be fun to learn how to make a few drinks as this is not our area of expertise. The class was held at Skyline and was a lot of fun. There were only 2 other couples so we got to spend the class behind the bar the entire time. I knew we would probably drink a bit. Well, we ended up drinking a ton!

That evening, we decided to wear normal clothes to the show at the theater before changing into our pirate gear. The show for this evening was to be Villain's Tonight. This was a really fun show as you don't usually get to see the villains front and center for so long. Everyone had a great time in the theater "booing" them.

After the show, we ran back to our room to change into our pirate gear. Our get-up was pretty limited. Eye patches, earrings, pirate jewelry, and bandannas. My wife also had a "pirate-looking" shirt. There were quite a few people dressed up in full pirate gear but not as much as my previous cruise. Even so, it was cool to see all the costumes.

We headed down to dinner. Night two was to be at enchanted garden. This is probably my favorite restaurant in the rotation. Our table mate and WDW CM was in a full-on pirate costume as was his mother. It was pretty awesome. Dinner was good as usual, but we did not stick around too long. We were ready for pirate night!

To see the show and fireworks, we headed up to deck 12 on the starboard side. We were told by our servers this would be the best location to see the fireworks. We have seen them before, but who can say no to fireworks at sea?. We watched the show on the deck, which included Jack Sparrow taking on other pirates. I am sorry...Captain Jack Sparrow! And then, the fireworks began. I do not know what it is about fireworks at sea, but if you saw the same show on land, it would just be lacking. I think the whole pirate back story behind it adds a ton to the overall experience as well.

After the fireworks, we stuck around to watch people go crazy during the deck dance party before heading down to the district. We spent the rest of the evening at the District Lounge listening to a band called The Get Ups (from England). They were actually pretty good. They would play all of their songs based on requests, which you could select from a book. The best thing was that they played so many different types of music. We actually ended up listening to them each night!

After their last set, we called it a night. It was a long day and we were dead tired. But we were also very excited at the same time because we knew what the next day would bring...Castaway Cay!

 

[mrdrift]

Great report so far, can't wait to hear the rest about the cruise and then on to WDW. Sounds like you guys had a awesome time so far.

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

Loving this TR so far! My next cruise isn't for 6 months so I'm counting on cruise reports here to keep me satisfied until then!

I have only been on the Dream so far (twice) but will be going on the Fantasy in November and the Wonder in February. How cool that the Wonder was docked in Nassau at the same time!

I always get nervous wondering who we will get seated with on our trip. In February, we were seated at our own 4 top (there were 3 of us) I fear that people we get seated with might not like us and vice versa! That would make for a very long diner lol

Can't wait to read the rest!!

 

[Andrew C]

Day 3, Saturday April 26th:

We decided to sleep in a bit this morning. And when I say a bit, I mean until 9:30. That is pretty good for us considering our daughter wakes up at 7:00 am every morning. I woke up and immediately got excited. We had arrived at Castaway Cay! I opened the curtains to my balcony, then the door, walked outside, and saw this!!

Talk about an amazing view. This alone made the location of our room worth it. I could not help but keep staring in amazement. I had been to Castaway Cay before, but this just caught me off guard. Eventually, I was able to pull myself away from the view and get ready to disembark. We walked off the ship and took a few pictures on the way to serenity bay. Yes, serenity bay. Where else would a young couple in their prime go!? Well, maybe not in our prime anymore but you get the point.

As we arrived at the beach, we realized it was not crowded at all. Much less, in fact, than the last time we were there. We did not have to walk all the way down to the end to find a good spot to set up. Another thing I noticed was how shallow the water was this time around. There was a huge sand bar out relatively far that I immediately decided we needed to walk out to. It took a little bit of convincing the wife though. Although she likes the beach, she is not a fan of actually getting into the water. She has a fear I guess of fish swimming around her feet and legs. I have been scuba diving since I was 12 so I have no worries like this whatsoever. Eventually, I was able to convince her it was okay.

We did see many fish, and even star fish on the way to the sand bar. Because the water was so shallow, it was super warm, which is what we liked. My wife actually enjoyed the walk out to the sand bar. She also enjoyed the time we spent out there, just relaxing in the sun. Maybe some may find sitting around boring, but not us. It was just the escape we needed from our hectic life.

After a while, we walked back to our chairs and lounged around until lunch time. I ordered a few drinks and chilled until we were interrupted by a guest. Captain Jack Sparrow! Of course, we had our picture taken with him.

By now, it was time for lunch. Being from Texas, I am usually picky about my BBQ. But I have to admit, what they served us at serenity bar was pretty tasty. I had some really good chicken along with some ribs while my wife has a bratwurst. Yes, anywhere we eat, if they are serving bratwurst, my wife has to have one. No exceptions to this rule.

After lunch, we headed back to the beach for a few more hours, before heading back to the ship. On our way back to the ship, we made pit stops at the other beaches to look around as well as pick up souvenirs for the family.

When we got back to the ship, it was time to get ready for the evenings festivities. It was optional formal night so we dressed up a bit. I wore a button down and slacks while my wife wore a dress. Before we headed to the show, we had a few drinks at Skyline to start up the night. We were greeted by the bartenders from our mixology class. We talked with them a bit before heading to the Walt Disney Theater.

So tonight was the show that we were looking forward to the entire cruise. It was Disney's Believe. This, along with Disney's Wishes, are our two favorite stage performances that DCL puts on. We both love the story, along with the music of course. It also makes my wife tear up a bit, along with many others in the crowd.

In between the performance and dinner, we had to stop by the officer's pin trading event. Yep, my wife is a pin trader. The two current collections she is working on include orange birds and Disney villain sidekicks. Luckily, she did find an orange bird on one of the officers that she did not have.

After pin trading, we headed to Royal Palace for our last dinner of the cruise. It was at this point that we realized how quickly the cruise passed by. We decided at that time, we will never do a Disney cruise again that is shorter than 4 nights. I think we really missed the extra day(s) at sea.

After dinner there was a goodbye party with the Disney characters. They sang a song or two and then got into their positions for the meet and greets. The lines got long quickly. But no 4 hour waits because no Anna or Elsa on the ship.

We decided not to get involved in the meet and greets. My wife left me for a second to use the restroom, which is when I noticed that Goofy was in his meet and greet position with zero line. How could I pass up this opportunity for a picture with the Goof?

As we did on the previous night, we again headed down to the District Lounge to enjoy the music of The Get Ups. My favorite song I requested them to play; She's Electric by Oasis. As they played, I drank...and drank...and drank. I guess the goal was to pass out. Otherwise I would have been too excited to sleep. Although we were sad that our cruise was coming to end, we were ready for the next part of our vacation. Walt Disney World!

 

[Jae99]

What a fantastic sounding cruise. I can't wait to hear about your WDW portion of the trip.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Gorgeous view of Castaway Cay!
Great report on the cruise portion! Can't wait for more!

 

[mrdrift]

What a great cruise and trip report you have going on here. I am so jealous of seeing on the Castaway beach with almost nobody there, I mean the whole beach to yourself. That is really AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!
Will be watching for the rest of your report coming up.

 

[cfry06]

Loving the report, thanks for sharing! The band sounds like something my husband and I would really enjoy. Our first cruise was with our 2 yr old - and while awesome, I would totally love to do an adults trip! There were so many parts of the ship we did not have the chance to see.

Gorgeous view of Castaway! I want to go back!!!

Looking forward to the rest of your report!

 

[lbrad]

Great start !!!
Enjoying every minute.
I love DCL

 

[FlaggNL]

Great report! Love your pictures!!

 

[Maggie Mae]

Lovin' the trip report!!!

 

[Andrew C]

Day 4: Sunday, April 27th.

The plan on this day was to wake up super early in order to make it the the parks as early as possible. And this is exactly what happened. We were showered and ready to disembark by 7 AM. We took our own luggage so we would be able to get off easy. By 7:10 AM we said our final goodbyes to the Disney Dream. We were very sad to leave after only just 3 nights. We will always look back on this part of the trip with fond memories, as our first time on the Dream and our first Disney cruise since our honeymoon.

We were able to disembark very quickly and get through customs. So quickly in fact that we were down to the Disney bus terminal before 7:20. We told a cast member where we were heading...Port Orleans Riverside!

She told us we can either jump on one of the normal DCL buses and wait around for a while until they load it up, or jump on a shuttle that is ready to take you to your resort immediately. Of course, we picked the shuttle! As we rode to WDW, we took a quick nap because we knew today would not be a day of rest. After about an hour or so, we had arrived.

We slapped on our magic bands and went to check-in. Our room was not quite ready yet so we set up a text alert to our phone which let us know when our room was ready. We were told we did not even have to stop by the front desk, which was a plus. Although we have stayed at several WDW resorts in the past separately, this was only our second time to stay at one together. Our usual hotel of choice is the Hilton next to Downtown Disney. This made for a special trip.

We did not care that our room was not ready, as we only had 1 goal. Magic Kingdom! We threw our luggage at the bell-stand (not literally) and jumped on the bus to MK. As we arrived, I realized just how early it still was. We had arrived just a bit after rope drop. The plan that day was just to do MK because we thought we would not arrive until later in the day. Now, we knew we had a full day in the park!

Our FP choices for this day started with Space Mountain, followed by Big Thunder and then Peter Pan's Flight. Our first FP was not until about 11AM so we had a bit of time before that. We went on difference attractions such as IASM and some others with shorter lines. We also grabbed a snack as we had not eaten that morning since we left in such a hurry. And...we also waited by the 7DMT to see if they were going to have any soft opening that day Didn't happen. We even stopped at our favorite place, shown below.

After eating and hanging out in front of 7DMT we went on our 3 FP attractions. These 3 attractions are pretty much our favorite at MK. Maybe Splash Mountain sneaks in there sometimes. The FP lines were actually very short and moved quickly. I was a bit worried about this because I heard FP lines were now longer since FP+. We actually never moved through the Peter Pan FP line faster than we did on this trip. In between our FP times, we has grabbed a bite at Pinocchio's Village Haus. The recent updates they made to the place really brightened it up.

After our last FP, we had an hour before the Festival of Fantasy parade. We usually do not attend daytime parades but we knew this one would be worth it. We got to a spot right on Main Street early. This is not typical for us as we usually watch parades from the hub. There was only one problem. It was so hot outside! That week was well in the 90's and my weather app told me these were record temps for these days of the year. We sat there in the hot sun like 45 minutes before the parade started. Then it took another 15 minutes or so before the parade made it our way. But it was well worth it. And everything was working.

After the parade, we were beat from the sun so we decided to go back to the resort because I received a text that our room was ready. Before heading to our room, we explored the resort a bit since we had never been. It was definitely a cool place to walk around. Our walk took a bit longer though because it took us forever to find out room location. Even when we found the building we had to walk all the way around to the back side to find out room. Our room ended up being right next to the north bus depot, which was convenient.

At the room, we freshened up and napped a bit before heading back to MK to ride more attractions as well as have dinner. Our reservation that night was for Be Our Guest Restaurant. Although we had lunch there on our last trip, this was our first time there for dinner. And it was amazing. We were seated in the main ballroom, which was fine for us. We both love the themeing of the entire restaurant and the food was amazing as well. Not to mention that Beauty and the Beast is my wife's favorite Disney movie. We even took the time to take a picture with Beast.

After dinner we decided were were going to skip all remaining parades as well as Wishes and keep enjoying the attractions. The extra magic hours that night went to 1 AM so we had plenty of time. Because of the amount of time we had, we definitely took it slow. On this trip, we probably took the most time just to walk around and "smell the roses" than we ever had in the past. There was no rush on this first day, and that is what made it awesome. Somewhere between midnight and 1 AM, we were finally spent, so we slowly walked down Main Street, as we like to do every night, before getting on the bus back to PORS. Day 1 was done..4 more to go!

 

[mrdrift]

What a great day at the Magic Kingdom and a great trip report with pictures. Will be watching for more of this report. I knew you could catch a bus from the cruise ship but didn't know about the shuttle, was there an extra charge for the shuttle?

 

[Andrew C]

What a great day at the Magic Kingdom and a great trip report with pictures. Will be watching for more of this report. I knew you could catch a bus from the cruise ship but didn't know about the shuttle, was there an extra charge for the shuttle?

No extra charge. They just had some Mears shuttles on hand and they offered it to us.

 

[Tiggerish]

Great report!! I was on the Dream in February and have to agree, the 3-night cruise is JUST TOO SHORT!! Luckily, I am anxiously awaiting September, when I'll be joining some of the lovely ladies of WDWMagic for our second girls' cruise, a 4-nighter on the Dream.

I love how quickly you got to the parks! (and I love your wife's MK outfit)

 

[Andrew C]

Day 5: Monday, April 28th.

The original plans for the day: Start with Animal Kingdom and end with Epcot. These plans changed a bit, or, more plans were added. But I will get to that later.

We woke up early to make the rope drop at AK. This was 8AM because their were extra magic hours for this day. We did not have any fast passes for this park as I had booked them all for Epcot. So at rope drop, we headed to Everest, naturally. Being there this early there were no lines so we got to ride it several times in a row...at least until my wife started to get motion sickness!! Luckily, we stopped just in time. After Everest we headed to the other end of the park for Kilimanjaro Safaris. It was still before 9AM so the line was pretty short still. I like this attraction because you always see something a bit different. This time around we had some good views of several lions and rhinos.

Other attractions we rode included Dinosaur, Primeval Whirl (another good one for motion sickness), and Its Tough to be a Bug. We rarely stay longer than a few hours at a time in AK. It is a beautiful park but we usually just jump on our favorites rides, attend a couple shows, and move on to the next park. The plan this day was to see Finding Nemo the Musical as we had never seen it before. Well, we still haven't seen it as we left the park early and headed to Epcot. On the bus ride there, I was able to move all of my fast pass selections up to an earlier time. This included Soarin from what I remember. In fact, I changed my fast pass selections and times so frequently during this trip I do not think we ever stuck with an original pick/time. Our fast pass selections included Spaceship Earth, The Seas (dang you FP group tiers!), and Soarin.

When we arrived at Epcot, we had to stop by the pin trading station for my wife of course. She just started this on our last trip and it is becoming a problem! It is like a drug addiction maybe...well, not really.

We spent time in between our fast pass selections to visit different countries as well as go on a number of attractions with shorter lines. We had another day planned for Epcot so did not need to knock out everything in one day, which was good for me. I usually get a bit anxious if we have to do everything in one day at a park. It was also the Flower and Garden Festival so we got a few good jobs of some of the topiaries.

Our dinner reservations for the evening were at Rose & Crown. This is actually the first time I have eaten here since I was about 8 years old when I knocked over a waitress with a tray full of pints of beer. Luckily, I did not make the same mistake this time. I had corned beef and cabbage while my wife had...well I have no idea what she had and she is not here is ask. We did enjoy several pints of Bass however.

After dinner, the plan was to stay at Epcot to watch Illuminations. However, we have seen this show a ton of times (including with the special mickey 3D glasses that turn every firework into a hundred mickey heads) so we said, forget it! Lets go back to MK. So that is just what we did, went to our 3rd park in 1 day. Yes, this is typical for us as we are major park hoppers.

So this day was the first official day where you were able to book extra fast passes on the kiosks once your first three have been used. So of course, we gave this a try...and it was awesome. Some of our extra fast passes included Space Mountain and Big Thunder. When we went to get the FP for Big Thunder, a park manager was there and asked us what we thought about getting extra fast passes. I said it was a great addition and definitely needed. She let me know she was getting the same feedback from just about everyone.

After our last FP, we did our usual walk around the park, checked out some merchandise, and had a few snacks. No parades though! And...my wife made me start my own lanyard full of pins. After another full day of park fun, we called it a night. We looked forward to what the next day would bring.