WannaBeImagineer 98 Posted June 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 Continuing on. I just found another picture from the Muster Drill: Oh and I think I messed up before, Goofy Golf is on Deck 13 not 12. The Waves bartender was super nice (as were they all) and told me that if I used CP's cup I get a bigger drink for the same price. Nice! The shuttle assembly building: I didn't know it at the time but I think these are the bartenders in the Meridian bar, it has an outside area. Selfie: haha i just saw the orange peel in my hand and remembered that the bartender gave W some fruit and he loved it. Family selfie attempt but W found a ping pong ball and didn't want anything to do with a picture. This is Rusty's where we had lunch the day before: And Fishlips where we had dinner the day before: At this point we had to head down to get ready for dinner. That main dining comes real early. Our door decor: The view from our room as we got ready: Once we were ready we headed to the atrium and found the head hauncho himself greeting guests, this was our view while waiting our turn: This a good time to mention that we weren't sure how W would do with the characters, and we quickly found out he loved them...from a distance. He wanted to see them every chance he could but as soon as he got close he got scared. He would still high five them and wave but that was all. I think on the 6th night he finally warmed up to them. But he also learned where Mickey and other characters usually met so he would run to the center of the atrium and look for them and point to where Mickey should be. We spent a lot of time in the atrium area. Pluto came out for a dance: Evidently we liked that chandelier. Tonight dinner was in Animator's Palate. We showed up right on time and were escorted right to our table and found W's high chair, menu and water with his name on it. not too shabby! We weren't sure how dinner would go with W, sometimes he's perfect through an entire dinner other times you want to leave before you get your drink. We told ourselves we give him two nights and then if it wasn't going good we would put him in the nursery for dinner time the rest of the trip. Well he didn't do too bad so we got to eat as a family the entire cruise. Honestly the first two nights were his worst so i'm glad we didn't stick to our plan. Right to bare arms: We met our waiters at this point, Onner and Alex. When we ordered we asked if they could bring fruit (off menu) for W hoping it would keep him occupied for a while (we later found a better option). W's fruit: Oh I should also mention we bought a wine package, you can find the details online but we bought the three bottle option, if you don't drink the whole bottle they'll bring it to your next dinner, it worked perfectly. That's 30 pictures so the rest of the food pics will be in the next post. WBI Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannaBeImagineer 98 Posted June 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 It looks like you had great weather for the sail away. I hope that continued for the rest of the trip. TCD We did have great weather that day, I think it started to rain but not enough to do anything. Sadly though our luck ran out by our first port day. WBI Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547 Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 Sail away is always so much fun! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
momof3kids-Yvonne 596 Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 I can't really compare the room size because when we went on our RC cruise we were in one of the Family suites because their are 5 of us. It was very spacious. I noticed you said "We chased W", but every picture shows CP chasing W. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannaBeImagineer 98 Posted June 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 Sail away is always so much fun! Yes it is, everyone is so excited for the cruise, its a great feeling! I can't really compare the room size because when we went on our RC cruise we were in one of the Family suites because their are 5 of us. It was very spacious. I noticed you said "We chased W", but every picture shows CP chasing W. That makes sense, our's was a normal balcony not the family. haha we take turns, and in those updates I had a drink and the camera, usually when I'm chasing him there aren't any pictures. WBI Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jmaul 65 Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 I was going to criticize CP on the drink during Muster Drill but then figured she'd be better prepared. God forbid, if something happened, it would be while everyone is having a good time and drinking. Score on W being good at meals. I recall us not going out much during "those times".... Carry on. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannaBeImagineer 98 Posted June 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 I was going to criticize CP on the drink during Muster Drill but then figured she'd be better prepared. God forbid, if something happened, it would be while everyone is having a good time and drinking. Score on W being good at meals. I recall us not going out much during "those times".... Carry on. That's a good point, if something happened it probably would have been while we were enjoying a beverage. Yeah W was still a handful at meals but considering dinners took around 2hrs he didn't do too bad, especially towards the end of the trip. WBI Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannaBeImagineer 98 Posted June 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 Before I post the next update I have to back track a little. Drawing from the TCD Family's previous cruises we decided we needed a LOF (List of Fun) to make sure we did all the things we wanted to. We spent the two months before the cruise compiling it and then I got to work and made it up: Here you go: As you'll see there are some unique ones on there that have a back story. There's also a lot to do with food, but what can I say we like to eat. In the end we did pretty good with the LOF but we did miss some or only partially did some, like the Cake of The Day from room service. After day 3 we realized we weren't impressed with them so we stopped ordering. I'll try to update you as we go on the status. WBI Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Tri-Circle-D 2,059 Posted June 11, 2015 Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 Nice job on the LOF! I like how eating chicken wings is on there twice. It's good to know that your have your priorities straight. I have heard they serve Mickey pretzels on the Fantasy. I haven't ever seen them on any of our prior DCL cruises. I'd hurt myself if presented with that opportunity. TCD Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannaBeImagineer 98 Posted June 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 Nice job on the LOF! I like how eating chicken wings is on there twice. It's good to know that your have your priorities straight. I have heard they serve Mickey pretzels on the Fantasy. I haven't ever seen them on any of our prior DCL cruises. I'd hurt myself if presented with that opportunity. TCD haha! Good Catch, CP actually made me revise that, which I did. I accidently uploaded the wrong LOF, the one below is the one we brought on the ship. We actually stuck it up on the wall and marked off things as we went. I had read about the pretzels being hard to find so I kept an eye out the entire cruise for them. WBI Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Family of Bears 98 Posted June 11, 2015 Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 That's funny that you gave up on cake of the day. That was what I was most excited about on your lof. What can I say, I like cake. You haven't lived until you've eaten a Mickey bar on top of a piece of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. It's like a la mode, only way better. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannaBeImagineer 98 Posted June 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 Time for an update. I left off with us at dinner on our first night of the cruise, we are in Animator's Palate. Even though it's a casual atmosphere, we really liked it, there's tons of detail all over the place. Also we were kind of in the corner near the entrance so we were close to two big screens which meant we saw Crush up close. Have I mentioned we had our own table, that was nice because we didn't know how W would do at a 2hr dinner. The table next to us was a table of four, parents with a son who graduated college and daughter who just graduated high school. They were super nice so we talked to them a lot. This was their 6th cruise, they are DVC members so they use points to cruise. We met a lot of DVC members this trip. Back to the food: This is my app, some kind of Spanish ham (prosciutto style): CP had some kind of smoked salmon thing: W had cheese pizza and steak fries and he ate a ton of it: My entrée was a steak and CP had the tuna steak: CP really liked hers, mine was good but not fancy steak house good. This is a good place to point out that we were left a little disappointed by the dining room food. All the other food on the ship we loved, but for some reason the dining room wasn't as good as it could have been. Don't get me wrong we ate plenty and it wasn't bad just a comment we had and from other conversations lots of people agreed with us. On the last night the table next to us put it this way, they have good food that is just not executed to its full potential to make it great. Moving on desert menu: CP ordered W the ice cream sundae, he did good at first but it ended up on the floor upside down...I picked it up with losing the ice cream but we stopped eating it at that point. I got a chocolate layered thing: CP also got a fancy ice cream sundae We also had coffee with our desert, for some reason after a good meal coffee really goes good with your desert, especially when the night is still young. With dinner over, we went exploring. Deck 4 The ship is nice and this deck 4 area is where a lot of pictures are take for advertisements, I'd love to be lounging there right now! Next we headed to the Tube (adults only club) for the family dance party. The ceiling: After some dancing we headed to the Walt Disney Theatre to see the All Aboard: Let the Magic Begin show: On the way I stopped at Preludes and bought some fresh popcorn. No I wasn't hungry but it smelled so good. Why on a ship full of free food do they charge for popcorn? Because they can, I bought it...twice. $3.50 plus 15% gratuity. Sadly there was a lot of talking before the show, we met Mr. Ray our cruise director. Once the show started it wasn't keeping W's attention so we slipped out. and headed to the room to put him in his pjs. We found this guy, and I honestly don't remember what it was. We also found W's bed all setup: But it wasn't time for sleeping, we headed back out and right down the hall to the It's a Small World Nursery, we checked W in at 9pm. He was sleepy so we asked that he be put to sleep soon. We headed straight to Skyline, but sorry no pictures. We sat at the bar and enjoyed a fancy martini and toured across Europe. The bartender was from England and was nice to talk to. After one round we headed to Ooh La La, which is French style. We again sat at the bar and honesty that place was pretty dead, but that meant we got a good visit with the bartender and learned some things about fancy champagnes and brandy's. I could have sworn we took pictures in here but I can't find any. Soon enough it was almost 11pm and that meant we had to pickup W. But on our way out though we discovered the late night snacks. I had heard about these but there's not much info so here you go. At 10:45pm they put out some finger foods in the little café area next to La Piazza and they are only there until 11:45pm so you have to act quick. This food was great! It changed nightly but it was all good, we hit it every night and brought some back to the room with us. They had wings, fried shrimp, coconut shrimp, pot stickers, fried fish bites, chicken popsicle wings, mini pizzas plus other stuff. So at 11pm we get W from the nursery, he had fallen asleep pretty quickly. We found out that no open snacks are allowed in his diaper bag, so they took his zip lock bag of golf fish out but returned them to us. We learned then that you have to really go through your diaper bag to check for items not allowed because they will. Sorry for the lack of pictures at the end of the night but we were too busy enjoying things and then we had our hands full with food, water, and W. Up next our first Sea Day! WBI Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannaBeImagineer 98 Posted June 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 That's funny that you gave up on cake of the day. That was what I was most excited about on your lof. What can I say, I like cake. You haven't lived until you've eaten a Mickey bar on top of a piece of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. It's like a la mode, only way better. Oh you and CP would get along great, she loves cake and frosting, she loves to pile extra frosting on top of cake, or cookies, or especially cookie cake!WBI Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Family of Bears 98 Posted June 11, 2015 Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 Oh you and CP would get along great, she loves cake and frosting, she loves to pile extra frosting on top of cake, or cookies, or especially cookie cake!WBIDon't even get me started on cookie cake!!Question: how did they get W to sleep at the nursery? Just put him in crib or did someone rock him? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jmaul 65 Posted June 11, 2015 Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 haha! Good Catch, CP actually made me revise that, which I did. I accidently uploaded the wrong LOF, the one below is the one we brought on the ship. We actually stuck it up on the wall and marked off things as we went. I had read about the pretzels being hard to find so I kept an eye out the entire cruise for them. WBI Escargot at 'every' dinner?? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Littleolwoman.aka.Kristie 119 Posted June 11, 2015 Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 Was that the only pool on the ship? What a mad house. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannaBeImagineer 98 Posted June 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 Don't even get me started on cookie cake!!Question: how did they get W to sleep at the nursery? Just put him in crib or did someone rock him? Double doozie cookie cake is the bomb, we get one at Sam's Club for celebrations of anything and its huge and amazing and way cheaper than Great American Cookie Company! That's a good question about the sleeping. They asked us what he would like, so we asked that he be rocked to sleep or rocked for a while then laid down. I assume they did that but there's not way of knowing. But I'll go ahead and tell you now that W grew to hate the nursery, I think he went four nights. The first night he cried a little, but each night got progressively worse, to the point we felt horrible dropping him off and didn't take him the last night . We did stop in to check on him and every time we did he was already asleep. So even though he was upset he did go to sleep, and they never had to contact us on the Wave phones so I guess he wasn't too bad. We aren't real sure why he got so upset, probably just being tired and not wanting to leave us but the last night. We talked to other parents with babies and toddlers and some kids loved it and others didn't. Same with the kid clubs, kids either loved it or hated I guess. Was that the only pool on the ship? What a mad house. The pools were crowded a lot but every ship I've been on is like that (except for adult pools). The Fantasy has two main pools, an adult pool, a shallow lounge pool, an adult shallow lounge pool, a toddler splash water feature area, and older kid splash area, a kids slide and the aqua duck. Not to mention the hot tubs and the teen only pool and hot tubs. Honestly I think they have more water areas than any ship. Escargot at 'every' dinner?? Yes! On our honeymoon cruise, my wife asked about escargot because she loves it and the waiter remembered and brought it to us as a pre-appetizer every night the rest of the cruise. She wanted to do that again, but honestly she didn't ask until the third night when it was on the menu in the Royal Court. I'm getting ahead of myself but the waiter said we should have asked right away because he could have done it but we still had it 5 out of the 7 nights so not too bad. The funny thing part is it tasted slightly different each night, turns out they made it in two different restaurants or kitchens so it was never exactly the same, the last night was the best! WBI Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannaBeImagineer 98 Posted June 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 Sunday May 31st A sea day, a relaxing, do nothing sea day, these are our favorite! First things first, the night before we had placed our breakfast room service order, so at 7:01am a knock on the door woke me and next thing you know we were all up enjoying a relaxing coffee on the balcony. Well W enjoyed a very messy donut, it is vacation after all: That sticker on W's back is from the nursery, every child gets one with his name and drop off and pick up time on it. Oh and W also had some healthy fruit. Not a bad way to start a day right? #shewokeuplikethis #lucky #blessed #Ineverdohashtags Some rain clouds in the distance: That's a boat way out there: After enjoying some coffee, we got dressed and headed out in search of more breakfast: This was our neighbors door but for some reason Photobucket won't rotate this picture: Another neighbor: Mirror waiting for the elevator: Breakfast was good, I found out they don't have mickey waffle out every day, but they have them hidden. If you don't see them ask and they'll give them to you. Odd. I slipped up on buffet pictures but that's because it take a team to eat, get drinks, feed and keep W entertained. Leaving breakfast a mural: The cutest elevator operator ever: The aft elevator sign. This elevator brings you to the center of Cabanas (the buffet) on Deck 11 it also takes you to the adult section on Deck 4. Some nice artwork of Beast's castle: W trying out the throne: By checking the tv earlier I knew that those were the Florida Keys off in the distance. Aqua Duck! We still hadn't tried it at this point: Oh but wait, I had on my suit so I was going to right now! W pictures while he waits on Dad to ride I think I'm a little short of 30 pictures but Photobucket is giving me some problems so I'll stop here. WBI Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannaBeImagineer 98 Posted June 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 Let's see if I can get another quick update in this afternoon. While walking around we realized it was rope drop time for Aqua Duck so we headed that way! Hey that's me in the aqua duck, good job CP! My review, it was fun, the water was cold though. I hadn't been in the water yet so it was a bit of shock when it hit me! It was awesome to have no real line though! After my quick ride, we had to go get W's suit on so we ran back to the room. We setup shop on Deck 12 while CP went to the gym. The water spray was a little too much for W in the aqua lab, but Nemo's reef was just right! This area is a big reason we paid extra to try DCL, I don't think any other ship has a play area this nice for swim diaper babies. The view from our chairs: Then I turned around so I could see tunnel vision CP's view: Looks like Toy Story was on Funnel Vision We sat and enjoyed this for awhile and CP rode Aqua duck too at some point. We also started eating around 11am when the lunch stuff started, we enjoyed it all, I think they even had fried shrimp this day at Tow Mater's and man were they good, I could have eaten my weight in them! Ice Cream time: Eventually back at the chairs W fell asleep and we decided to head in. Look who we ran into: I forget why but I think I went to guest services for something. Since we were here I snapped more pics: That's 30. More to come tomorrow. WBI Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547 Posted June 11, 2015 Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 Great pictures of the Aqua Duck! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannaBeImagineer 98 Posted June 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 After one round we headed to Ooh La La, which is French style. We again sat at the bar and honesty that place was pretty dead, but that meant we got a good visit with the bartender and learned some things about fancy champagnes and brandy's. I could have sworn we took pictures in here but I can't find any. WBI CP just reminded me that while we were in Ooh La La the bartender surprised us with an assortment of chocolates. That was nice touch! We'll be running into him again later in the trip. WBI Quote Link to post Share on other sites
twiceblessed....nacole 433 Posted June 11, 2015 Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 Pool... wow, a lot of people. (I've been told by other cruise fans, that this is always the case) Food... wow, a lot of it! (I've been told by other cruise fans, that you diet before the cruise...because you'll gain so much weight :) Ocean... wow, a lot of stinkin' water with no land in sight. A bit nauseous over here. (I've been told, by husband, that I'm a big baby ) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
momof3kids-Yvonne 596 Posted June 12, 2015 Report Share Posted June 12, 2015 Ok I had to read the comment about the snacks and W's diaper bag twice. At first I was wondering why you were putting the snacks you had just picked up from the late night snacks in his diaper bag. Then I realized oh you meant snacks you had packed for him. Did W only go to the nursery in the evening? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannaBeImagineer 98 Posted June 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2015 Great pictures of the Aqua Duck! Thanks! I have a lot more later in the trip when I took the camera with me. Pool... wow, a lot of people. (I've been told by other cruise fans, that this is always the case) Food... wow, a lot of it! (I've been told by other cruise fans, that you diet before the cruise...because you'll gain so much weight :) Ocean... wow, a lot of stinkin' water with no land in sight. A bit nauseous over here. (I've been told, by husband, that I'm a big baby ) Yes I agree cruise pools are always crowded with the exception of the adult pools, those are usually a lot better. Yes lots of food and lots of choices! That's exactly what we do, we eat pretty good all year long and especially before the cruise. I was actually in some of the best shape of my life before this cruise, but once onboard I ate and drank all I wanted and didn't work out at all. I even debated using an extra long straw while lounging so I didn't accidently do a sit up. (all honesty though I ended up walking and picking W up a lot so there was some exercise) Yup lots of ocean but at this point we could still see the Florida Keys so don't worry you could make it to the Keys or Cuba if you had to. Ok I had to read the comment about the snacks and W's diaper bag twice. At first I was wondering why you were putting the snacks you had just picked up from the late night snacks in his diaper bag. Then I realized oh you meant snacks you had packed for him.Did W only go to the nursery in the evening? Yeah sorry that was probably a bit confusing, I'm typically typing these updates as fast as possible and I don't go back and read my work before posting. Those snacks were left over from the trip to the cruise, once onboard we didn't need them we just forgot to take them out of the diaper bag. Yes we only took W to the nursery in the evening, that wasn't the original plan but it worked out that we could do pretty much everything else with him or while we took turns. WBI Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WannaBeImagineer 98 Posted June 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2015 Continuing on, it's still May 31st and we had enjoyed our sea day but it came to an end all too soon and we now had to get ready for dinner. It was formal night and we've all heard how DCL is more casual so I was concerned with being over dressed. On our previous cruises I've always tuxedo-ed up for formal night and even though this was DCL, CP wanted me to again. Since I own a tux why not and a good friend of ours bought W one so we decided we'd be formal. Here's W getting ready on our bed: CP and I have a tradition of taking pre-dinner pictures on our balcony so we tried to continue that. Then we headed out: W did really good with his tux and didn't mind it, except when I kept trying to fix his collar. By the way his tie was pre-tied but mine was the real deal and I'm not good at tying them, but for some reason I lucked out and it got it perfect on my first try tonight! When we got to the elevators in the atrium we ran right into Princess Tianna meeting people with no line: Then we went down to the atrium and took some formal pictures. Like most cruises they had various backgrounds setup. We found out that with characters they'll take pictures using your camera but not so when its just a background and no character they will only use their camera then. W enjoyed the live music and loved to dance and run around. Tonight dinner was in the Enchanted Garden on Deck 2: We were a few minutes early so we had to wait on the doors to open. This fountain is right in the center of the restaurant: W at our table: Tonight the bread came with hummus and W loves hummus so he took over the bowl and ate it all with a spoon, crazy kid. For dinner tonight we took a lot of our waiter's recommendations, starting with the lobster ravioli which we both had: Then there was some entertaining for W, I'm not sure how this got started. Do you see the couple to the left of the picture in that last photo? Well they loved watching W, they said he was great dinner entertainment and even took our picture at some point. They were super nice and turned out they were from Louisiana also. I talked with them for awhile on the last night and turns out they are another DVC owner. I remember from TCD's trip report that the Enchanted Garden transitions from day to night but that it was hard to notice so I kept an eye out. I saw these light fixtures, don't they look like they will move? W acting a little crazy: Sorry about the blurry pictures, but this trip made me realize how old our camera is and how bad it is at adjusting to motion and light, cameras are much improved now so next trip we'll need a new one. Looks like W had his food at this point but I can't remember if it was a cheese burger or corndog, either way he had fruit and steak fries again...but not ketchup Our waiters tonight were not around much. Photo limit. Up next we'll finish dinner. WBI Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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