Trip Report #tonyfromspain: A Prophet Surf ‘N Turf story

Whelp, now that the Freestyle/Greco season is over, I’ve completed my course setup for my summer class, and I’ve finished my laundry I can kick this beast off!

!!!DISCLAIMER!!!​

For those overly sensitive to satirical sass, poor spelling, and overall weak grammar then please feel free to excuse yourself now because all bets are off from here on forward… As @Zipitidoda would say, there are plenty of prophetisms to come.



Still here? Swell!



Most of the backstory can be found here How to celebrate a proper 20/40 in just 18 months.... For those suffering from krikosophobia (I’ll let you stew on that one), the long and short of it is that we’ve been planning this trip for over 18 months and we are celebrating our 20th anniversary and our 40th birthdays since they both occur this year! I have mentioned that one of us has yet to hit that milestone and the other is indeed a full 40? I can tell you who still 39 but that would just lack class…it’s me…I’m still 39 and she’s older me! ;):D Anywho, there will be some park visiting, WDWMagic member meetup, and a 7-night cruise in this TR.



Anyway, this journey starts out with a late flight out of the busiest airport in America. We worked to late afternoon and drove down the northern most Marta station. We took Marta down to ATL thinking this would not only save us money on parking, which it did, but also time since Hotlanta has some of the worst traffic, ever. Sadly, we didn’t win the “saving time” game as about half way down a train on the same track broke down causing some delays that put us at the airport less than 2 hours before our flight. We quickly checked our bags and waded through security. We had planned on having a nice sit down meal at the airport but settled for Jersey Mikes since we were now time strapped.
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Unfortunately, 24 hours prior to our flight we forgot to log into Southwest and complete precheckin and we ended up with a real late boarding group. I was legitimately concerned we would not be sitting together on this trip but thankfully we found a pair of seats together near the rear of the plane. I’ll let the DW speak to how this affected her trip. IMO this was one of the BEST flight experiences we’ve had! The head attendant seemed like he was classically trained in the Jungle Cruise Skipper arts and was VERY entertaining. There were no issues with our flight at all! We even got to see the HEA fireworks as we approached MCO! As we made our descent we were notified that it was one of the attendants birthday and a request was made for all of us to turn our flight attendant lights. We all followed the request and they then turned off the cabin lights as we all sang happy birthday to the birthday boy. He then “blew out his candles” as we all turned off the lights as he blew, a very cool experience! As we disembarked I, of course, had to get a photo with the birthday boy and his crown!
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We took the MCO monorail to the main hub and collected our bags. We were flying later than normal and I didn’t want to leave bag pickup and delivery to the Disney folks because I didn’t want to be woken up at 1am when our bags got delivered to our room. Our luggage was on the carousel quickly but I got us turned around and took a small detour before we finally made it to the DME queue:

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Thankfully they opened another line up and we were quickly waiting in our bus queue. There must have been a slew of cheer and or teen events going on this week because the DME lines were chalk full of rowdy teens and inappropriately dressed 7 year olds. Soon we were on our bus with about 12 other people but then just sat there for at least 15 minutes. We waited and waited and then, all of a sudden, a mass of teen conventioneers with a few parent chaperones walked on and filled up the remaining seats. Finally we pulled away with the notice that we would be hitting POR first before making our way to the POLY. It wasn’t long before were in the bubble! We unloaded our teen patrons and made for what should have been a short trip to the POLY but the Mouse’s road construction turned it into an almost 30 minute drive! We finally arrived at the Polynesian sometime between 11:30 and midnight!



Still to come: Our room!
 

Brian & Jill

Well-Known Member
lostpro9het.....we are loving your trip report so far!!!! The FB meet and greet looked and sounded fun. Love the pics of your verandah and was without a question bigger than ours. We are going to try and stay in one of those rooms on our next cruise next year. I will agree with you that Team Nashville definitely looked confused about the wdwmagic community. Looking forward to reading more of your trip report. Go team Buffalo!!!!!
 

imahistorygeek

Well-Known Member
lostpro9het.....we are loving your trip report so far!!!! The FB meet and greet looked and sounded fun. Love the pics of your verandah and was without a question bigger than ours. We are going to try and stay in one of those rooms on our next cruise next year. I will agree with you that Team Nashville definitely looked confused about the wdwmagic community. Looking forward to reading more of your trip report. Go team Buffalo!!!!!

I was just thinking about y'all yesterday and hoping that you saw our TR! We had such a great time and glad we had y'all as table mates!
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Continuing with dinner, For appetizers the DW went with the tomato tarte with goat cheese and the potatoe and cheddar cheese soup
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I went with the Serrano ham and the farmhouse salad
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For mains the DW went with the roasted chicken and I went with the filet.
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DW passed on dessert but I went with the crunchy walnut cake.
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Dinner was excellent and so were our tablemates. We ended up easting and chatting almost to 10:00! We were cutting it close to the adult entertainment time in The Tube so we made our good nights and headed for the adult area to get our comedy on. A few minutes later we arrived at The Tube and grabbed some seats for Quest, a trivia game to warm up the crowd before the main act.
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The game was a mix of name that movie tune and name that band. Around 10:30 the comedian came on and hopefully @imahistorygeek can fill you in on her name. She was very good and did a great job of getting the crowd in to it. After her act we were ready for bed! We had been up since about 06:00 and we were feeling it. When we arrived back at our room we were greeted by this.
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I told you Tri had some towel art issues but this would improve each night. At least our room was spotless and he had taken care of our dry cleaning for formal night tomorrow!

Still to come: breakfast on the veranda, Blind Melon was wrong on day 2, and so many hidden Mickeys.
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
My Grandparents and Aunt/Uncle lived in Gainesville for years... I spent alot of time there in the summers as a tween. And I lived in Norcross for 5 years. What area are y'all from?
We're in Dahlonega, about 15 minutes north of Gainesville.
Following along! I used to work on DCL... I remember one time a Guest pointed to NASA and asked me what it was. When I told them it was NASA they said to me with a serious look on their face "WOW! The Bahamas are that close?!" NASA not Nassau!
HA! That's hilarious.
 

Rista1313

Well-Known Member
We're in Dahlonega, about 15 minutes north of Gainesville.

No way!

My Aunt use to own a cookie shop in Dahlonega years ago (wow.. like almost 20 years ago now?), and my other aunt/uncle met eachother when they went to school up there... it's such a cute town, and fun to visit.

ps. is the little country store still there? I used to get little bags of roasted peanuts there I just loved!
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
No way!

My Aunt use to own a cookie shop in Dahlonega years ago (wow.. like almost 20 years ago now?), and my other aunt/uncle met eachother when they went to school up there... it's such a cute town, and fun to visit.

ps. is the little country store still there? I used to get little bags of roasted peanuts there I just loved!
Yup, still there. The outoftowners love that place ;):D
 

imahistorygeek

Well-Known Member
Looking back over this pictures reminds me of the huge amount of food available to us on the cruise. It sort of reminds me of being on the DDP. You feel like you need to eat it. I found I was ordering an appetizer, soup/salad, main course, and dessert. I had to stop ordering dessert. After some of the meals I was quite miserable.

That said, the meals in the MDRs are good. You have to go in remembering that everything is prepped en masse and kept warm. I think one of the meals that surprised the most was one of the steaks. It was cooked a perfect medium and very good.

I love the different menus and they give me a chance to try things I've not tried in my normal life. There's absolutely one thing I will not try on the menu at that's escargot. I just can't. I read something somewhere that the texture was like a pencil eraser. I'm not sure who out there is eating pencil erasers, but that definitely makes it sound terrible.
 

MinnieM123

Premium Member
Looking back over this pictures reminds me of the huge amount of food available to us on the cruise. It sort of reminds me of being on the DDP. You feel like you need to eat it. I found I was ordering an appetizer, soup/salad, main course, and dessert. I had to stop ordering dessert. After some of the meals I was quite miserable.

That said, the meals in the MDRs are good. You have to go in remembering that everything is prepped en masse and kept warm. I think one of the meals that surprised the most was one of the steaks. It was cooked a perfect medium and very good.

I love the different menus and they give me a chance to try things I've not tried in my normal life. There's absolutely one thing I will not try on the menu at that's escargot. I just can't. I read something somewhere that the texture was like a pencil eraser. I'm not sure who out there is eating pencil erasers, but that definitely makes it sound terrible.

My father (God rest his soul) absolutely loved escargot. He was the only one . . . ;) When I was a teenager, the family went on vacation in Quebec, and every night we'd go to French restaurants, and he had escargot, prepared in different sauces. Still, none of us would go near those shells!! :jawdrop:
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 2, at sea day #1.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, and will probably mention a few more times, the beds on DCL are AMAZING! We slept wonderfully last night and, as usual, I was up before 6 ready to go. The boat was soothing and calm all night and even this morning so I was a little surprised to walk out on the veranda and see it raining.
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The night before we set out the room service card for coffee, juice, and donuts to be delivered around 7, this would give me time to get up, get ready, and hit up Cabanas for the hot food. Well, again, I was up way before I needed to be so I went top side and took a few rainy pics waiting on the call from the DW that room service had arrived.
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After a few minutes topside I got the text that room service had arrived and I went to pick up or hot food. Most folks were still sleeping and I had the run of Cabanas. Soon I was back at 8188 ready for breakfast.
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Our sweet veranda offered us plenty of overhead coverage so we were able to still sit out and enjoy breakfast despite the rain coming down.
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As I was setting up breakfast I noticed the our position on the cabin TV, we still had a ways to go to get to St. Maarten.
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Still to come: Really hidden Mickeys, veranda lunch, and formal night.
 

DisSplash

Well-Known Member
Dahlonega!! (I was told it rhymes with Veronica, and so ever since I have only been able to sing the town's name a la Elvis Costello ...). But that was my favorite day trip when we last were at my parents - I loved the town square and shops, and we found the BEST burgers at a side street restaurant. Soooo good!
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I cannot recall the name, but it had these pictures on the wall ....
Anyway, getting back to your regularly scheduled program, I have to say, I like your plan to pre-order some room service in conjunction with Cabanas!
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Dahlonega!! (I was told it rhymes with Veronica
Pretty much!
I loved the town square and shops, and we found the BEST burgers at a side street restaurant. Soooo good! I cannot recall the name, but it had these pictures on the wall
They were good but saldy that burger shop has closed. :-(

Anyway, getting back to your regularly scheduled program, I have to say, I like your plan to pre-order some room service in conjunction with Cabanas!
We've been doing it for a few cruises now. its just nice being able to enjoy breakfast in your PJs rather than having to make yourself somewhat presentable for breakfast.

EDIT:
The DW wife reminded me that I had the burger shop and Spirits tavern mixed up. Spirits is still open, does have awesome burgers, and tater tots too ;-)
 
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lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 2, at sea day #1, cont.

After breakfast I decided to head to the lobby and check with guest services about a mixology class @cfry06 told me about on Castaway Cay. Unfortunately the class had already sold out! I was bummed for a minute but got over it fast and decided to look around. We had plans to do a guided tour of the ship later this morning but I figured I’d get some pregame on. I snapped a picture of one of the fancy chairs and mosaics as well as the chandelier.
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After that, I went straight for Europa since I knew I could get some unobstructed pics while folks slept. Europa is basically the adult district even though they will have some family friendly events during the day.
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As you enter you are greeted by La Piazza which kinda serves as the hub for the district as you can get to O’Gills, Ooh La LA, Skyline, and The Tube from this point. The focal point of La Piazza is the cool carousel themed bar at the center of the room.
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Along the walls of the La Piazza you will find some other cool artifacts as well as doorways to other adult areas.
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Still to come: Ooh lala, O’Gills, and more.
 

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