Trip Report What happens in the Cabana, Stays in the Cabana: A September 2013 Girls' Cruise Adventure

Ariel484 · Sep 19, 2014

Embarkation!!

Everyone left pretty soon after breakfast was over...it was time to head to port! Most of the ladies took the huge limo while Holly kindly agreed to let me and Courtney ride with her. The drive went by pretty quickly (to me) – we spent the entire time chatting and frantically digging for change at the (many) toll booths. Before parking the car at Port Canaveral we made a stop at the liquor store to stock up

and encountered a gentleman that had clearly already had more than a few...he enjoyed chatting with us, and we did not enjoy chatting with him.

After the liquor store, we parked and got our first glimpse of the Dream. I think this is when it hit me that the trip was finally here...FINALLY!

Now...there were group chats leading up to this cruise where we discussed many things, and one of them was coming up with a group logo. Here is the final product...very special thanks to @disneybelle for designing it for us!

Ladies got the logo printed on coasters, shot glasses, tumblers, notebooks (I myself had it on a notebook...which I never actually wrote in, except for Castaway Cay day). It was also decided that we should get this logo printed on shirts for all of us to wear on embarkation day.

There was just one problem with the shirts...at least for myself and Holly. While we loved the logo and thought wearing the shirts would be fun, the shirts themselves looked (to our eyes) incredibly unflattering when we actually wore them. Not the logo itself, of course, we just weren't a fan of how the cut of the shirts looked on us. So we hadn't worn ours to breakfast.

But now that it was embarkation time, we had to put up or shut up. So we actually did a quick change right there in the parking garage!

I'm pretty sure no one saw us...I think.

Ariel484 · Sep 19, 2014

Okay, so shirts are on...back to embarkation. I could not get over how big and beautiful the Dream is...pictures just don't do her justice. :inlove:

We handed our luggage off to the Cast Members and approached the terminal. Courtney handed her camera off to one of the porters so that he could get a shot of us.

"Say MICKEY!"

"What, what?! TEE HEE HEE!"

I think this may be where Courtney, Holly and I were starting to warm up to the idea of just pooling all of our photos at the end of the trip (and of course Jess @plaz10 joined in on this later). It certainly made more sense at the time to not make the CM take this photo with 3 different cameras. I'm SO glad we decided to do this. It was so relaxing not to worry about taking a million photos of every single detail of what we were doing. And I think this sort of paved the way for this 4-person trip report...alone none of us has enough material for a good one, but between the 4 of us we think we can get it done! TEAMWORK!

The terminal wasn't super full yet at 11ish AM. The limo of WDWMagic ladies arrived just after we did.

We split up so that Courtney could go check in with Sherry @Tiggerfanatic and Holly and I could check in together. Because Holly had cruised before we got to check in at the shorter Castaway Club member line!

After check-in Holly and I hopped in line to meet Minnie with Courtney, Sherry and Joanna @joanna71985. Minnie is just the cutest, and over the course of the week she became our unofficial mascot!

Roommate shot!

At some point we realized that our boarding group should have been called by then. Came to find out that it HAD been called, but somehow we hadn't heard it. So we just walked over to the big ol' Mickey ears and right on to the Dream!

I'm pretty sure my mouth was just hanging open. The Dream is such a beautiful ship...I couldn't believe I was actually on this cruise!

Ariel484 · Sep 19, 2014

I think we lost Sherry soon after we boarded the ship...Sherry, where did you go?!

Our first move was to head up to Deck 11 and take some pictures...because as Holly said, this was the only time we'd see the pools empty. Too true!

There will be many selfies in this report...and many mirror shots. And many "Brett-face" shots. Oh yes.

Pools are still empty, but I spy people queuing up for the AquaDuck already!

Hello, adults-only area! We’ll be back!

After our little photo shoot we headed to Cabanas for lunch. All of the other ladies were already there!

I think these are my and Courtney's plates. I remember those potatoes were especially tasty!

Ariel484 · Sep 19, 2014

It was closing in on 1PM at this point, which meant that we needed to get into our rooms and get ready for the muster drill.

Love this shot from Holly:

As some of you may know, Holly's parents instilled in her the Stair Rule – while on a cruise one must only take the stairs to combat all of the food (and drink) consumption. This was especially important this week as Jess was just days away from her wedding and needed to fit into her dress when this thing was all said and done. (SPOILER ALERT: She did! #ThanksKimAndRick

) We started off on the wrong foot by not taking the stairs...but can you blame us?! We had bottles and big cameras to carry!

Elevator mirror shot!

Courtney headed to Deck 7 and Holly and I continued on to Deck 6...and then we got distracted.

Characters in the wild! The 'munks were fascinated – and a little scared by – this enchanted art.

Yay!

Sad fact – this 'munk photo and the elevator mirror shot are the only "roommate-only" shots Holly and I got on this trip.

Trip reporter fail. Although considering how awesome we both think mirror and character shots are, I would say both are pretty appropriate.

Bye!

Ariel484 · Sep 19, 2014

Okay, let's focus. On to the room!

Holly and I were in a Deluxe Family Oceanview Stateroom with a Verandah, and it was pretty great!

We were right next to Tammy @Disneyfalcon and Missy @polymissy. Jess, Kelly @sweetpee_1993, Jen @Sans Souci and Christina @Kerby626 were on the other side of Tammy and Missy's room. Our stateroom host took the barricades down dividing the 3 verandahs so that we just had one, giant, awesome verandah to share, spanning our three rooms. It was great!

Jess' room was just like my and Holly's room. Courtney and Sherry were in a different room category:

Behold the awesome pillowcases Sherry made for her and Courtney. Sherry's the coolest!

We unpacked, lined up for the muster drill, and then high-tailed it to Meridian. Time for the WDWMagic Girls' Cruise reception!

HollyBelle · Sep 19, 2014

I forget the original venue for our reception, but I know we met up with Tammy and Missy in the hallway who mentioned it had changed to Meridian, which I was super excited about... the views from up there are pretty amazing. And I’m all about that natural light. Yet, among the four of us, we have no pictures of those views. Proooooobably because there was A LOT of instagramming/texting/tweeting happening. Not to mention, some hardcore photo shoots with our drinks. Case in point, Shannon's and Courtney's glasses of wine are perfection!

Pretty sure the best thing that happened to us when we pulled out of port later that day was the death of our smart phones. It was beyond refreshing to focus solely on getting to know one another and not on communicating with the people we already know and love. I believe this big social experiment would have gone much differently had we just gone to WDW together... I expect too many distractions from our individual lives would have left us all a little less bonded in the end.

As for the reception, it was a great way to kick things off and get everyone in the same place at the same time. There was far more shrimp than anyone could eat... seriously though, someone could've force fed us shrimp and I think there would've still been some leftover just waiting to be eaten. That being said, some of us had nooooo problem consuming the alcohol. Shades of things to come?! I mean, check out that beautiful bar... who could blame us?

I spent a good portion of the reception discussing marriage and motherhood with Kelly @sweetpee_1993 . It was awesome how we settled into this perfectly real conversation upon just “meeting.” When the reality is that we so totally already knew each other. We had been sharing stories for YEARS, just in a different medium. I’m pretty sure we first started communicating via private message back in 2008. BOOM! Six years ago. I experienced this same phenomenon with so many of the wonderful ladies who were on this adventure. And it made the whole experience feel much more like a reunion with old friends than a forum meet-up.

And now that I’m off on this tangent, I’m going to spiral away for a quick minute. It was sort of surreal (especially at the beginning) how I would sometimes start to share a story from a past Disney trip or even just a thought and someone would say, “oh yeah, I remember that, you and Brett, so on and so forth...” And then I’d kinda face palm and realize, yep, I’m an oversharer. And you know what? I’m so glad for it. As absurd and laughable as this will sound to those of you who’ve read the words I’ve written about some of my most personal experiences, I consider myself a private person. It’s like the trip reports I’ve written over the years were providing an outlet for me to open up while the internet acted as a buffer, allowing me to really put it out there. Hopefully some of you know what I’m getting at. I guess what I’m trying to say is, getting to meet women who felt they already knew me and women who I felt I already knew was, truly, one of the coolest most unique experiences ever. I can honestly say that everyone I met was exactly who I thought they were going to be, as if they’d just stepped out of the pages of their trip reports.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled reception... which concluded with a special guest. And some pretty spectacular group shots, which you’ve already seen in Tammy’s @Disneyfalcon fabulous report.

Represent, ladies!

HollyBelle · Sep 19, 2014

What a glorious day to sail away. I mean, aside from the beautiful weather and sky, there was so much excitement amongst us, it was palpable.

As the other ladies lined up with the sign for sailaway, I drifted off to a corner to call home. After all, this was my first overnight trip away from the little man. I shed a tear or two (or twenty), and then turned my attention to the fabulous women surrounding me. Let's do this!

Can I just say, I much prefer old-school DSLR selfies!

HollyBelle · Sep 19, 2014

jesemeca said:
@HollyBelle We only succeeded because Mickey was faster than us! He always knew when and where we were going next. He's just so awesome like that!

I will be back in January for a few days before my next cruise. Maybe we can meet up?

We'll definitely have to meet up when you're in town. DM me on instagram when it gets closer and we'll figure it out!

PolynesianPrincess · Sep 19, 2014

plaz10 said:
Port Arrival

Some groups broke off - driving themselves or hitching rides with each other to get to the ship.

My ride to port was this bad boy...

Huzzah! Talk about riding in style! It was pretty hilarious to see this awesome Hummer Limo...with an attached trailer to hold all our luggage!

Chillin w/ @derelicte19 in the limo. Probably talking about booze...or Adam Levine...or @blackthidot

We piled in there pretty well! Lots of talk about the cruise and such...and a good bit of talk about booze as well! We had 1 pit stop to make and that was a booze run! We stopped at a liquor store which was closed so we had to turn around to find one that was open - SUCCESS! We loaded up on essentials and headed to port!

Check in process was quite quick - I was so lucky I had Tammy and Kelly guiding me every step of the way - since I had never been on a cruise before! If I had any questions they were quick to help! (and to ease my nervousness!)

Before I knew it...we were on the ship!

We were probably discussing all three! We had to make fun of @blackthidot! It wouldn't have been right if we didn't!!

And we absolutely had the best shorts / pants of the day! Your bright yellow and my bright pink!

mrdrift · Sep 19, 2014

Great start to the report. It is really fantastic that you can relive a vacation with such detail, almost like you just got off the ship. Following along.

HollyBelle · Sep 19, 2014

mrdrift said:
Great start to the report. It is really fantastic that you can relive a vacation with such detail, almost like you just got off the ship. Following along.

Thanks, @mrdrift , some of these early parts have been written for months. I'm pretty sure we started writing this thing last fall.

fractal · Sep 19, 2014

This trip got more coverage than the Grammys; but as they say "can't get enough of a good thing"!

plaz10 · Sep 19, 2014

derelicte19 said:
We were probably discussing all three! We had to make fun of @blackthidot! It wouldn't have been right if we didn't!!

And we absolutely had the best shorts / pants of the day! Your bright yellow and my bright pink!

DEFINITELY all 3. Similar to what we will discuss TOMORROW - woot woot for mini wdwmagic girls meet up in Boston!

I didn't pack my yellow shorts or I'd totally wear them...we definitely brought the color to the group!

plaz10 · Sep 19, 2014

Before I go on...I have to show my reason for not being on the top of the ship w/these ladies while they took empty pool pictures...

I was too busy hanging with my cruise roomies! Shout out to the awesome ladies of 6122!

]

@sweetpee_1993, @Kerby626 and @Sans Souci - whats up ladies? These awesome ladies are cruising AGAIN on girls cruise together in just a few days. JEALOUS!!

plaz10 · Sep 19, 2014

Golden Mickeys/Enchanted Garden
After Sail Away – We all headed back to our rooms to get ready for tonight’s show “The Golden Mickeys” We sat down and Holly had already seen the show so I asked her “I know the Villains show is tomorrow but is Ursula in this?” To which Holly answered “No.”

Bummer.

*Amazing Spoiler Alert*
So imagine my SHOCK AND AWE when giant tentacles come pouring over the stage and Ursula’s evil mug takes over the screen. I just looked at Holly like this :O and she was like this

AH IT WAS THE BEST PART OF THE SHOW!

After the show (which I rate as #2 out of all 3) I headed over to meet the Captain himself.

We all met up for tonight’s dinner at Enchanted Garden.

I sat with Christina, Kelly, Jen, Holly, Shannon and Joanna. We were all still in the “get to know one another” phase so it was a relatively quiet evening. Except for dessert when Kelly ordered extra Mickey Premium Bars for Christina’s Birthday! I believe it was her first premium bar EVER too!
I personally had the lobster ravioli, New York strip steak and dessert sampler of a trio of “Esterhazy Cake, Strawberry Cheesecake, and Chocolate Silk Mousse.” Other ladies had the romaine wedge and sea scallops. My personal choices – the ravioli was very good…the steak was just OK and surprisingly the Esterhazy cake (almond meringue soaked in maraschino liqueur and layered pastry cream) was my favorite of the desserts. I’m a big chocolate and cheesecake fan so this was a pleasant surprise.
**Obligatory food photos**

plaz10 · Sep 19, 2014

After dinner we headed to Skyline for drinks.

I had a Stella Artois. Nothing fancy. Unlike Shannon and Siobhan who had the “New Yorker” (so fitting for Siobhan – who is in fact a New Yorker). We enjoyed ooing and awing over the changing scenery..Siobhan was able to correctly identify each one…and this was before we knew what cities were possible! Impressive.

After a few rounds and more getting to know one another…we decided to call it a night.
Holly, Shannon and I headed back to the 6th floor to find these adorable Cruise Girls magnets on our doors! FUN!

Up Next: Nassau Day. (Also known as the day we discovered POG machines)

plaz10 · Sep 19, 2014

Nassau

Nassau Day!

We had very loose plans of meeting for breakfast. I know there are wave phones but we never really used them.
Shannon put us to shame by heading to the gym early on. Here are some of her photos – I personally never set foot in the gym but I did run a little of the Castaway 5K (more on that later…)

We ate breakfast outside. Here was our view.

Here’s some of our breakfast plates

At some point during breakfast…it was brought to our attention that a POG (Passion fruit, Orange, Guava) juice machine was in Cabanas. [Those familiar with breakfast at the Polynesian Resort know this as POG Juice or Lilikoi Juice] Someone birthed the amazing idea of creating our own “Island Sunsets” on board the cruise. We had Parrot Bay coconut rum in the room so why don’t we go down and fill our cups with rum and then come up and get POG…makes sense, yes? NOPE. We were worried the machines would be turned off after breakfast and we were cutting it close. So we went and got cups with lids…filled them with ice…and then more cups to fill with POG.
Actually a woman was opening the machine to clean it when we approached her (probably scared the crap out of her) “Ma’am can we use this machine please?” So we went to TOWN on that machine. I’d be surprised if the Dream itself didn’t find itself low on POG after these WDWMagic girls cruised in!
Look at my eyes…I’m mesmerized by POG!

After the supply for our drinky drinks…Holly and Shannon headed up to grab us loungers on the adult deck – Courtney, Jen and I went to deliver our fish extender gifts (Mickey hair ties, candy and shot glasses – respectively). After the deliveries we met back up with the ladies.

Hey…there’s Atlantis!

Shout out to @DisneyFalcon for the AWESOME Tumblers. We put ours to good use!

We spent most of the early afternoon talking and laughing – sharing stories of everything from Disney guests, ex boyfriends, family drama, drunken college tales and views on breastfeeding (yep…there were no lines we didn’t cross)
I believe it may have started to sprinkle at this time (honestly I don’t remember…none of us took notes) so we headed down to a covered area on the adult deck – not far from the hot tubs. Again – the time was filled with views on parenting, wedding talk (I was currently planning my wedding at the time – got some great advice!) how we met our spouses and the picture texting habits of one of my best friends. We all had a blast getting to know one another!

plaz10 · Sep 19, 2014

At some point...while none of us were really hungry...we decided we SHOULD eat something.
I am disappointed in myself and the lack of food pictures. I know I had the margherita pizza from Luigis Pizza and it was fantastic. I believe Tammy has a pic of us enjoying our lunch in her TR.

Suddenly we saw Ariel (with legs) walking out of some door through the adult deck. This launched a discussion of why it would be easier for Ariel and Eric’s relationship that she had legs instead of fins. I’ll let you all come to your own conclusions on why legs would certainly make things easier (possible?) in a marriage. Cue lots of laughter and lots of inappropriate comments and “that’s what she said” type moments.

With our bellies full and our tumblers dry we headed back to our rooms to get ready for tonight’s show “Villains Tonight.”

As we walk down the stairs (if you ever followed a Hollybelle cruise TR before you know that her parents introduced the Stair Rule on cruises to counteract all the eating/drinking – this rule was strictly enforced and helped me to fit in my wedding dress after this cruise) we see ARIEL. WITH LEGS. IN THE WILD. NO PHOTOGRAPHER. Thank GOD I have my trusty point and shoot! We knew immediately that we had to snag a stranger and have him take our photo.
I won’t lie…we were all a little murky/hazy/giggly (read between the lines) at this point. The conversation with Ariel went a little like this….

Ariel: “And what were you ladies doing today?”
The 4 of us…look at our empty tumblers…look at her…: “Talking!”
So lucky that the stranger we had to take our photo took numerous shots because you can see the rest of our conversation in photos.
Me: “So Ariel we were just discussing today the benefits of having legs vs. fins. What do you think?”
(Laughter ensues…Ariel keeps her cool)
Ariel: “Oh I love my legs! I just love dancing! It’s my favorite! What’s your favorite thing to do with your legs?”

Giggling…SO MUCH GIGGLING. Nothing appropriate is coming to mind (mainly what one does to butter) Then we all seemed on the same page as we all looked to Shannon and said “well Shannon likes to run…”

Have to give Ariel credit – she never broke character through our laughter. She suggested a “fish face” photo. (you can see we couldn’t stop laughing long enough to suck our cheeks in)

Then a regular smiling photo.

We thanked Ariel profusely for taking some photos with us. She moved on and we just broke into a fit of giggling. Tears running down our faces.

I know the story and photos just can’t convey the hilarity that ensued in meeting Ariel that day. It was truly the highlight of the day.

And the moral of this story is…Don’t hate on the point and shoot. It’s much easier to transport and you never know when you’ll need to snap a picture. Always carry a camera on Disney Cruises!

We realized at this point that while it was a goal of the day to ride Aqua Duck with low lines (since it was a port day) we had yet to ride it and it was almost time to get ready for the evenings festivities!
We dropped off our bags and tumblers in our rooms and headed back to conquer the DUCK! We decided to ride together – Shannon and I together, Holly and Courtney together. I can’t speak of HBells and Courtney’s ride but Shannon and I just giggled the entire time. Right before we go down the lifeguard says “if you get stuck just stay seated.” WHAT? WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT TO US? Which just led to the giggling fit that lasted the whole ride.

The Aqua Duck is quite fun – although could be a little faster. The POG induced state helped to make the ride a little better.

We headed back to our rooms to get ready for tonight’s show and dinner.

HollyBelle · Sep 19, 2014

Some of us met back up in my and Shannon's stateroom to mix drinks before heading to the show. But first, lemme take a selfie:

And a sunset shot:

The fun didn't stop there... on our way to the Walt Disney Theatre we happened upon the most dapper duck.

Even though the CM had Shannon’s camera in hand, we decided we must also attempt another hilarious selfie.

It’s really too bad the CM didn’t get a picture of us taking our own picture. You know, a selfie meta moment.

Next, we ran into Aladdin for a priceless mirror shot. We’ll call this one “Prince Ali and his harem.”

The best part about this... we weren't quite done taking pictures with Al, when a couple ladies came up and tried to steal him from us. To which he quickly said, "One moment, I'm busy taking some pictures with my friends." That's right! BURN!

jesemeca · Sep 19, 2014

If ya'll keep posting at this rate, I'll never win. I have another day of cruise, plus 3 days in the parks to finish! Not quite fair. Lol.