OK, so I’ve remembered some stuff from the cruise you might be interested in; namely our purchases. Firstly, I treated myself to a Disney Dooney and Bourke messenger style handbag. It was the Dream’s inaugural voyage collection and had 40% off. We also bought some Cruise edition Vinylmations. There is a whole set of 12 or more but we just got 2: one of Captain Mickey and one of the ships livery. We considered the Chinese zodiac ones but decided against it. We are not about to become avid collectors but may get a few pertinent and meaningful ones as we go along.
So, back to journal (it’s Thursday am remember?). The 528 was quiet despite in being rush hour and we made really good time. Since it was early enough when we got back to the Orlando area we stopped at the World’s Biggest McDonalds for breakfast. Our plan was to go to the Premium Outlets (Previously Prime) at the top of I-Drive and got there by 9:45. Stores opened at 10am so we walked to the far end to kill some time. We bought some candles from the Yankee outlet and Paul tried to get some replacement foam pads for his earphones from Bose. The store didn’t have any but confirmed they do sell them so he can try elsewhere or online. We looked in Juicy and Neiman Marcus Last Call but there were no more purchases. The shops were really quiet. Not sure if that was because it was early or merely the time of year. Either way it was nice.
After the shops we went over to Saratoga Springs. It was a really hot again and a glorious day. We collected our membership cards, helped ourselves to a cookie and went to take a look at the model units. First we looked at the Aulani villas, the new unit in Hawaii now selling as DVC villas. Then we looked at the Animal Kingdom villas. Both were stunning. Fab décor, great amenities, huge whirlpool tubs, really comfortable and very inviting. We definitely think we will use some of our points for a stay in May.
We left Saratoga Springs and made our way to Downtown Disney, Westside. First stop was the silver shop where I managed to get a really nice amethyst ring. A little pricey but a really nice piece; very simple solitaire bezel set oval stone in silver. After this we wandered past the candy store, briefly stopping to watch the cast member making chocolate covered pretzel sticks, and into the store that sells Vinylmation. We looked at some awesome special editions, hand painted large pieces for $1,200 as well as some weird sets, like a sushi set! We did buy our zodiac editions; they were better than the Chinese zodiac ones so not getting those was a good decision!
It was now about 2pm so we decided to make our way to Bahama Bay to check in. After unpacking we headed over to the clubhouse to get some lunch. Since we had planned dinner at Longhorn we didn’t want too much so shared a portion of cheesy bacon fries. It was still a pretty big portion but they were yummy. We checked our email, having been at sea for 4 days before making our way back to our own verandah where I wrote yesterday’s blog entry.
After hours of typing we got ready and went to Longhorn. It was quite busy so we had a 20-minute wait. Thankfully this time they didn’t forget us and we sat down to eat around 6:30pm. We had our usual Flo’s Fillet and Paul tried the new bourbon glaze that was advertised. It was way more oniony than the TGI Jack Daniel’s glaze but he said it was OK. After dinner we went over to Target to get a few groceries then came home and watched an episode of Hawaii-5-O with a nice cup of tea.
Friday morning saw a bit of a lie-in but we were up and about for about 10am. We had considered going east to a mall called Waterford Lakes as it had a Bose store for Paul to look for his earphone pads but since I still had so much blog to write we decided to sit outside and chillax. It was a much cooler day and very cloudy but warm enough to be outside as our verandah is nicely sheltered. We eventually went out about lunchtime after posting the cruise blog. Our first stop was the Center State bank (on 27 by the Polo park). We wanted to open a checking account since it was recommended for offering free banking without a minimum balance. The bank requires you to own property in Florida and since our DVC membership comprises a formal ownership deed this allowed us to open an account. The process took about half an hour and we still have to email over the formal deed once we have paid up with DVC and receive the paperwork but we have 90 days to do this. Once we got out of the bank we went over to Animal Kingdom (our new home ?). Showing our membership card gets us in so easily with a great welcome and greeting. We firstly went to Jambo House, the original Lodge. We looked around the shop, which is really big and bought a couple of cushions that say “once upon a time, happy ever after” and “never grow up”. We then went out back to the viewing outlook but other than birds nothing was really near. We saw some Zebra and Wildebeest in the distance and Paul got some pics. There were 2 viewing areas with one being behind the pool area. This had some nice hot tubs and secluded seating areas. We then went over to Kidani Village and got a cup of tea each to drink as we sat in the rocking chairs at the overlook area. The Giraffes were around and there does seem to be better viewing from Kidani. We took a look in the shop on the way out and Paul bought a DVC members only pin whilst I bought a pink DVC members t-shirt with Tinkerbell embroidered on it. Sadly, this has turned out to be a little big so I need to try and swap it tomorrow. I also got some African made stone animals; a Hippo and a Rhino, which will go really nicely with my wooden Giraffe and Elephant back home.
We stayed at AK until about 5pm before heading over to Kobe for dinner. We shared a meal again but as well as the shrimp and fillet had some teriyaki chicken. The food was as good as ever and our chef had some new tricks like ‘lava from the volcano’ which was the sauce spitting our of the onion volcano. We didn’t really talk to our tablemates again which consisted of a family of mum, dad, 2 kids and grand parents then one other couple.
We finished at Kobe around 6:30 and after a stop for gas went over to the Polynesian to watch the Wishes fireworks from the beach. It was cool but not too cold and we perched on sun beds. The film on the beach was “Tangled” and there was a dad with his 2 kids next to us who was struggling to get them to sit and wait for the fireworks as all they wanted was to go and watch Rapunzel! We saw, and heard, a couple of Pirate firework cruise boats out on the lake. Wishes was good and half way through I swear I saw an Alligator swimming past in the lake. Paul saw something too but thought that folks swam in the lake. After the fireworks we checked the signs which do say ‘no swimming’ so I am still convinced it was a gator.
We came straight back after the fireworks and after a welcome cuppa we did most of our packing. We had bought out 3 suitcases (one inside another on the way out) so have plenty of space and should be able to even out the weight.
It is now nearly midnight. Paul is in the tub whilst I finish up this last blog update before we head back to Blighty tomorrow ? ?
Well hello again, it’s been a while. We are now back on dry land (suffering with sea legs a tad) and sitting out the back of our Bahama Bay apartment. Good news is the bed is bigger in the deluxe. It is peaceful again and very sunny as I type at just after 4pm. I think I must have about 3 days to catch up on so this could take a while. You might want to put the kettle on, treat yourself to a biscuit as well and settle in…
…so, some pertinent updates for you to begin with. Firstly, the Vinylmation Mickey came back all signed and is AWESOME. They have made such a good job of it we were both in wonder. It will be displayed well away from Norah as it is (to quote a famous credit card ad) priceless! Secondly, the cruise itself was also awesome. Probably the best Cruise we have done. Definitely not too overbearing on the Disney although it was busy with 4000 passengers. The time flew and we didn’t even get to do everything we wanted but have vowed we will definitely do it again. Very probably we will book in Jan next year and try to get the same deal we did this time. Finally, before I go back to Monday afternoon, we are now members of the Disney Vacation Club. We have pondered if for some time but there was an on board offer so we took the plunge and signed up. I’ll not go into the details of how it all works and what that means in this blog.
So, where did I leave you? Monday lunchtime I believe as we were getting off the boat to take a wander around Nassau. It was a pleasant day, a little cloudy but warm enough and no sign of the forecasted rain. We looked in a few shops and in ‘Diamonds International’ I tried on a canary yellow diamond ring, which was a snip at $600,000!! I also was interested in some Amolite pieces but the prices were not even comparable to what I can buy from jewellery channels on TV, and it’s the same branded stone. We tried to barter and get a deal but the shops didn’t seem to want our business. Maybe they get enough sales from all the tourists but they seemed happy to let us walk away. I also looked at the Larimar (the stone of the Caribbean) but that too was way more then back home. So, after a couple of hours we got back on board with our dollars in our pocket. On board we went up to deck 11 to get a hot dog and fries and a drink. We sat in the quiet cove (which is mis sold as a live guitarist ruins the peace) before heading back to our room to watch the Princess and the Frog.
Dinner was at the Enchanted Garden restaurant which we were told was based on the gardens of Versailles although it was a tad tacky for our liking. The food was ok and after appetizers of soup and salad I had the roast chicken with sweet potatoes and Paul had prime rib. There was no entertainment in this restaurant and the evening was slightly marred by the entire table (10 of them) of children behind us that were very boisterous and loud. Our fellow table guests were not best pleased either.
After dinner we went to the theatre for the evening’s show that was “Villains Tonight”. It was a stage production with Hades (the ruler of the underworld from the film Hercules) trying to ensure he was still evil enough (having been defeated by Hercules) by enlisting the help of his friends such as Ursula,The Evil Queen, Maleficent, Jafar and Scar. It was not as good as the first night’s show but still good. Afterwards we went back into Pink and had a champagne cocktail then watched a family Disney quiz show before bed.
Tuesday began as all cruise days with breakfast being delivered to our room and consumed on our balcony. We were docked at Castaway Cay (pronounced ‘key’ by Disney for some reason) which is their private Island. It has clearly been well “designed” and was quite idyllic. We got off the boat about mid morning and wandered along the pathways to the beach areas taking photos. At lunchtime we stopped for the on-shore BBQ food which was really good. The weather was amazing, so amazing that I have burned arms to show for it. There were plenty of activities for families to do including lots of the usual water sports as well as bike rides and a water slide called Pelican Plunge.
There were bars and shops as well so we each bought a souvenir t-shirt and had an official photo taken as a memento. We walked all the way down to Serenity Bay, which is the adults’ only beach. We had a paddle in the turquoise blue ocean and then sat in beach chairs with our feet in the sea as the waves lapped. To be absolutely honest, the water was freezing but the scene was certainly paradise. We had decided to get back to the boat for about 2:30 for a ship tour so got the tram all the way back to the boat. We were cutting it fine time wise and then struggled to find the bar the tour start from so ended up missing it. Instead we went to a presentation on the making of the Disney Dream (our boat). I’d got myself a frozen Piña Colada with lashings of rum to sip on so was happy enough 🙂 After this we stayed in the same lounge to here the DVC presentation and as you have already read, they did a good sales job on us! We left there having made an appointment for 9:30pm and went back to our room to get ready for dinner.
Tonight’s dinner was Pirates night and we were in the Royal Palace restaurant. The restaurant was really nice with particularly cute Cinderella Coach breadbaskets. The menu was Mickey and Pirate themed with a Caribbean flavour. I had a Pineapple appetizer whilst Paul opted for the pork dumplings. I then had a jerk chicken salad before a main course of sirloin steak. Paul went for the shrimp and scallop linguini, asking Sean (our server) to de-shell his shrimp. Deserts were rum soaked sponge, yummy. In our cabin we had each been given a bandana and some families had really gone to town with the dressing up. After dinner we went to the theatre, we were late out so had no time for a pre dinner drink. The show was Ronn Lucas, the ventriloquist we had seen on the first night. His main show did not differ much sadly so we saw a lot of the same. He was funny though and is definitely very talented. After he finished we darted to our DVC meeting and were “sold to” by Rob, a very typical American salesman from NJ whose wife was called Cindy. We asked all our questions and got our info but did not want to sign there and the as we still wanted to think about it and work some numbers. He really wanted the sale but we said we may well be back. We were with him an hour which meant we had to run up to deck 11 afterwards as this was fireworks night. DCL is the only ship allowed to set off fireworks at sea from on board. They are called Buccaneer Blast:-
They were excellent, obviously smaller scale as they we set of from the ships funnels, but still excellent. Afterwards there was a show on the deck stage with Captain Jack Sparrow and various Pirate dancers. It was really mild out on deck with no wind and plenty warm enough with just a light cardie. Once the show was over we headed for bed. There was a 3D showing of the 4th Pirates movie in the cinema that we considered but tiredness over ruled.
Wednesday was our sea day so we had a little more of a lie in before breakfast was delivered at about 9:30. Having looked at our planner (called the Personal Navigator as opposed to RC’s Cruise Compass) there was a lot we wanted to do including the ship tour we had missed the day before and various quizzes. Before all of this however, and having done some sums, we called up Rob and made an 11:15 appointment to give him the good news. We couldn’t sign up there and then as paperwork needed t be drawn up but we paid or closing costs and agreed to come back and sign at 2:30pm. We left with a few freebies such as baseball caps, a bag and a really nice wooden box. We grabbed some lunch before we met for the ship tour at 1pm. It was hosted by Lauren; a Brit from Basingstoke. She was new to it (this only being her second tour) but was very good. Her grammar was a little lacking in places (lots of ‘them features’ and ‘them characters’ with seemingly no knowledge the word ‘those’ even existed) but she was enthusiastic and friendly. We learned all sorts of facts from this and the previous days presentation including:
(OK, I’ll be honest, I had to stop here and go for dinner and being really tired after an early start I couldn’t do anymore before bed. So, it’s now Friday morning but I have made a commitment to finish this!)
The ships colour scheme of black, yellow, white and red are the colours of Mickey Mouse
Painting the hull of the ship pure black was a little too imposing so Disney wanted a very dark navy blue. After searching unsuccessfully a meeting was called with several top Disney bigwigs and one of them was a lady in navy trousers; the exact colour they wanted, so they took her trousers and had paint made the same colour. They then named it Monica blue in her honour!
Disney had to get special permission from the Coast Guard to have yellow lifeboats instead of fluorescent orange as was the law. They had to prove their colour was just as noticeable but eventually were granted permission.
Magic and Wonder hold 2000 passengers, the Dream and Fantasy hold 4000
The Magic and Wonder only have “When You Wish Upon A Star” as their horn sound but the Dream has several. On You Tube you can find a video of the ‘battle of the horns’ when The Magic and Dream met each other at Castaway Cay. We’ve watched it and it is so cool.
The tour took us into Remy, one of the restaurants you can pay to eat in. It is $75 a head and French themed. It is based on the film Ratatouille and has a glass model of Remy worth over $45,000 as well as a private dining room that looks exactly like the one in the film. It also has little stools at each table for a lady to put her handbag on so it never has to touch the floor. We also looked at the Bar areas. We had already seen Pink, the champagne bar, but there are about 3 or 4 other bars one of which is called the Skyline. The views from this bar are all LCD screens showing an evening view of a major city. The view looks lifelike with moving cars, flashing lights and waves on the water. Every 15 minutes pixie dust covers the screens and they change to another city. There are about 4 in all so guests can drink for an hour or so and get to see all revolutions. I told you earlier this cruise was neat and way more than just Mickey and his friends. Some if the features and technology are really clever and that’s the Disney we love.
The tour took about an hour and finished in the grand atrium where there is a bronze statue of Admiral Donald. Each ship has a statue: the Magic has Captain Mickey, the Wonder has Ariel and the new Fantasy will have Mademoiselle Minnie. Apparently she has been in over 75 cartoons with Mickey but has never starred in her own feature so the fact she now has her own ship that is bigger than Mickey’s is well deserved according to all the crew.
After the tour concluded we were just in time to see the Princess parade in the Atrium. Cinderella, Snow White, Aurora, Tiana and Belle all floated down the grand staircase and then pranced around signing autographs for the kids. We got a few pics, especially of “Cinders” with “Cinders”. It was now time to go and sign our DVC deeds so we made our way to the office. The whole process took about 20 minutes or so but by 3pm on Wednesday 1st Feb 2012 we were members of the family. Now wherever we go in DVC areas we are greeted with “Welcome Home”. Since the membership gets us some discounts on property (including Raglan Road the Irish Pub at Pleasure Island) we were told we could pick up our membership cards at Saratoga Springs when we disembarked so we could start enjoying our membership immediately.
We had missed one of the trivia quizzes but headed up to another one in the 687 lounge; so named as that was the hull number of our ship as she was built (it is bad luck to refer to a ship by name before it is completed). The quiz was about the Fantasy and as we had learned a lot on our tour and presentation we got quite a lot correct. We were late starting though so couldn’t win as we hadn’t answered all questions.
After a quick look at our Castaway Cay photos in Shutters we got a place on the atrium balcony to see the “See Ya Real soon” show. It turned out not to be a show, just Mickey and friends signing autographs. Since we still had about an hour before dinner we decided to complete the ‘Midship Detective Agency’ assignment. This is another really cool Disney feature. Each ‘detective’ (young or old and trust me there were several adults having more fun with this than the kids) has a key card that is registered to a screen with your detective number. You then need to seek out the enchanted artworks and solve clues. Enchanted artwork are interactive pictures (LCD screens in reality) but again really cleverly done as framed art. You hold your key card to the screen and your clue could be found in some way such as popping the on screen balloons by pointing your card at them, removing metal objects as your card became a magnet and brushing dust away to reveal stuff. All this was done by merely holding a piece of card about 18 inches from the screen – really neat! We solved our crime, that of the missing artwork and it turned out to be Ymza from the Emperor’s New Groove. The other really cool thing is that if you take another assignment you’ll get different clues for a different crime and criminal. We saw our tablemates on their 3rd assignment.
This took us nicely up to getting ready for dinner and we both felt that for a sea day it had absolutely flown by. Not only this but we could have done more and were both a little disappointed that we didn’t ride the Aquaduck but we’ve decided that it’s a reason that we have to come back.
Dinner was in the Royal Palace again and the menu was easily the best all cruise. Paul had 2 steaming bowls of Belle’s French Onion soup whilst I had some sliced duck and then the garlic escargot which were fab. Main course for me was the lamb and Paul had the Beef with Lobster although he didn’t realize it was a lobster medallion and so left it, much to the disgust of fellow diners and serving staff! Desert was an amazing Grand Marnier Soufflé with Crème Anglaise and Paul also had tasters of the others including a peanut butter chocolate mousse that was really nice. Like I said this was definitely the best meal. We gave our tips to our staff (not paying the prepaid full amount) and made our way to the theatre for the final show. The show was called Believe and was the story of a man who didn’t believe in magic but his daughter wanted him to. After finding the Genie he went on a journey with various characters to make him believe. There were plenty of Disney classics like Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, Lion King, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast along the way so we sang and clapped to our faves. This was the best show of the cruise and we both loved it.
After the show we needed to get some packing done so went back to our room and stuffed it all in our cases, remembering to keep out the next day’s clothes and filling in our comment form. We did take a stroll up to the Outlook bar, the highest point on the ship, but it was closed so we headed down to deck. Paul grabbed a coke and I had a hot chocolate and we went back to bed.
Thursday was an early start; up at 7 for disembarkation. Paul went for breakfast in the dining room but I skipped that. We were all ready to get off by 8am and the atmosphere was very different to RC. There was no push to get out of the stateroom, no sitting around in lounges and no time to disembark. We headed up to mid ship and merely wandered off. No line, no fuss, just shook the Captain’s hand and got off. We have no idea why RC make such a meal of disembarkation and seemingly cause more trouble as a ‘free for all’ by Disney worked way better. We found our cases, had a short wait in line for customs and were in our car and on the road by 8:30am which was amazing (and unheard of with RC).
I’m gonna stop now and get this posted for ya (you’ve probably drowned in tea and put on half a stone from all the biscuits). I’ll complete the ‘back on land’ stuff in the next post.
