Some things I forgot:
The Pirate's League: John and I did this on our Mum and Son day - he was a bit wary at first but it was heaps of fun and as our appointment was at 9.30 am we got to be dressed up all day in the Magic Kingdom. We picked each others make up and I was hoping to be the pirate princess but no he pick a real pirate face for me. Some americans need a sense of humour too - I mean have they never seen a bearded woman walking around a theme park before????????? The package included a lot of things I never knew about and I will bring it all along to the next meeting and do a big expose there - including photos.
Photo Pass: Now I have always thought this was a great idea. However today I am a bit pissy with Disney - I paid $149 plus tax for a cd with all my photos on it. It has 142 photos however when I log into my online account it has 413 photos so now I have to send them an email to try and sort it all out.
Winter: I hope it was because of Winter but I have never seen so much dead grass around WDW. Is it always like that Colin? I am used to lush green grass you want to roll on.
Ok on with the Cruise...............
Firstly let me say this was the best week of holiday I have ever had. The ship is huge and as far as I know none of us put on any weight this cruise - probably because our room was at the opposite end of the boat to the entertainment options so there was a lot of walking! We had a category 5 stateroom - number 6118. Right near the stairs and elevators which meant the kids could always find the way back to the room. We got a towel animal everynight which is good because we never got one at our resort
The room had a huge bed (they said queen size it seemed bigger though) as well as a sofa - at night the sofa turned into a single bed and another single bed pulled down from the roof. THe toilet and shower were in seperate rooms each with their own sinks which meant at least two people could get ready at a time. It was kind of like showering in a caravan though - one of the comedians said the best way to do it was lather up the walls with soap and just slowly rotate under the water!
Day 1 - The Adventure Begins.
The plan had been to have breakfast at Chef Mickeys before heading to the dock however a note slipped under our door the night before warned us that driving time to do this would be up to 1.5 hours due to the marathon so we decided no breakfast was worth that. We ate in the POR food court and left the resort. It was far too early to head to the ship so we drove into Orlando so Peter could visit (for the 50th time) the Harley he is thinking of importing.
We finally got on our way at ten thirty and just before you get to the Port you go over a huge bridge and from the top you can see the ship!!!! That woke the kids up! We parked our car in the Ports secure parking ($105 a week so that we could leave most of our luggage on shore) Being non US residents we had our own check in line and we were ready to go by around noon. We had time for a quick photo with Mickey before our group was called to board. A couple more photos and we were in the foyer being welcomed - they even got our name right but there was no-one in there except cast members so the welcome wasn't huge. We were directed up to Topsiders for lunch. The buffet was great and we just relaxed there until we could get into our state room. We headed out and did a welcome to the ship tour at 2 pm so we could get acclimatised to our new home. By 3 we were back at our room, our bags had arrived so I unpacked and we headed up to deck 9 for the sailing away party. We left around 5.15 and although I had expected hoardes of people to be on the dock waving at us with big mouse hands I had to be content with 5! The party was fun and around 5.45 pm we headed down to our early dinner seating.
We were still wearing our jeans as we figured not everyone would have gotten their bags yet so would be fine not dressed up. It was not a problem and in hindsight it was a waste hiring the suits and packing formal dresses because even on formal night people were in the restaurant in jeans. Our first meal was in Parrot Cay and we met our servers Agus form Indonesia and Milan from Bulgaria, they were great and travelled with us every night. One thing you should know is they are very good at remebering what you like - I order a sprite zero to drink that night and every night after it appeared even though I may have felt like something else to drink. We were not seated with another family which disappointed me and Eli but the boys preferred it. Eventually I just started talking to those at other tables anyway. We had expected a lot of food but the meals are not huge - at no meal did we feel stuffed. You always got three courses and John was able to order from both the kids and adults menu mixing it up how he liked. We finally figured out that maybe peole who say they eat til they explode augment at the takeaway places?????
After dinner we headed to the Walt Disney Theatre to see the "Broadway Style" Show of the night. This was my one dissapointment - whoever named these Broadway Style has seen very little live theatre. They are built up so much but especially in the case of Villians Tonight the storyline was so dumbed down that even kids were rolling their eyes. Some local groups here do far better productions. I don't believe that theatre has to be in the style of a pantomine aimed at 5 year olds for kids to enjoy it. I understand that it is a ship and not Broadway but the performers showed at other venues that they were highly talented, the stage is large and equipped with trap doors and moving set pieces so it could have been a lot better. Could have just been me but we actually walked out of the first night show and Villians tonight halfway through.
We took the kids to their respective clubs Edge for John and Vibe for Eloise and pretty much lost them for the rest of the trip -/ -/ -/ -/ -/
We spent some time up on deck and then headed to Rockin Bar D for the rest of the night. After 9.30 pm the bar areas of the ship become adults only which was great.
Key West
After breakfast Eli and I headed to what we thought would be an informative talk on Island shopping - it was only about diamonds. We can not afford diamonds. we did however get a whole heap of brochures that we could exchange for free jewelery at each of our ports - it was not good quality jewelery but when your 14 who cares?
You dock at Key West around 12.30 pm and as we did not have any shore excursions booked we bought tickets for the hop on/hop off trolley. We did not get off at all the stops but did walk along the docks a bit and made a stop at the southernmost point of the mainland US. As we got off the trolley someone said to me are you Sandie? I, of course said, no I was Queen Elizabeth.
It turned out iit was the meet co-ordinator for our Dis cruise group. I had missed the meet as we were on the ship board tour the day before and had missed it. As we were talking we noticed our daughters hugging - turned out they were already friends from the clubs.
After the tour we visited a few shops - Eli got a charm bracelet from a chain jewelery shop and at each port we shopped at she only had to show the bracelet and she got a new charm. We also bought nail polish at Del Sol - it is one colour inside but in the sun changes to a completely different colour, they also had bags, t-shirts etc that did the same thing. We were back on the ship in time to get changed for dinner which was a Lumineres. This is avery fancily theme restaurant and it was ruined by those who turned up in shorts etc. I just tuned them out. I am not sure why Disney has a dress code if it does not enforce it.
More to come....