Attempted Trip Report- Mother/Daughter MouseFest Cruise (2nd day added) About This Page:

[Goofy's Mom]

Okay, okay, okay! I'm going to attempt a trip report!

The party was made up of only two of us: my daughter (12) and myself (age not needed!)

Mousefest Cruise 2003 - (November 30th-December 4th)



FIRST DAY- Nov. 30th, 2003

We decided in July 2003 to do the Mousefest Cruise. Rates were so great with MouseEarVacations.com we were tempted to do the whole 8 nights, but since we had just returned from a girls only trip to Disney World in June, we had better just be satisfied with doing the cruise only! My husband would have to not only take the boys to school and pick them up for four days by himself, but also get them up every morning and out the door. My daughter homeschools, so that would be no problem with her missing school.



At first I had made a reservation at the Radisson at the Port, but after a couple of months of thinking of that 9+ hour drive back AFTER the cruise, I decided to get plane tickets. So the search begins for the best rates on flights. Well, I was so paranoid that something would happen like a flight delay or something, that I got the 6:35 am flight out of Atlanta. With the outgoing flight being on Sunday after Thanksgiving, the news had already said that would be the busiest day of the year. Also, being the most busy airport: Atlanta's Hartsfield Jackson (used to be Hartsfield International). I felt comfortable with having so much extra time, just in case! I only got about 2 hours of sleep that night. Would the clock go off? Will I sleep through the alarm? What if....???? Our goal was to leave about 3:30 am since it would take us about an hour to get to the park-n-ride place and get on to the airport for the busiest day of the year. Well, we left out about 3:42 am and still got to the airport a little before 5 am. The curbside check-in hadn't opened yet, so we had to take all of our checked luggage into the airport. Not that big a deal, but the curbside thing is really nice! I had already checked in online the night before to get extra skymile points, but it seemed kind of useless since they said I still had to do the kiosk to check in my bags and it printed out boarding passes all over again. Hey, as long as I got my skymiles! So off to leave my bags and then to security. Wow, never knew so many people would be going through security at 5 something in the morning! It still only took about 10-15 minutes. They didn't seem too happy that I had a bag full of 800 speed film. They made me take it out of my camcorder bag, and run the camcorder through. They had a little thing you can pre-check your shoes on to see if they are going to set the alarm off. When they were rushing me, I had accidently set my camera bag on this thing!!!! Quit rushing me! What do you know, it beeped when I put my foot up there! I had no idea that my shoes, which were slip ons with no ties or anything, would beep. So off they go into a bucket. I think I'm up to three buckets by now! Whew! Glad that's over. Still don't know yet if the shoe thing messed up any of my film. I haven't gotten it developed yet. We finally get to our gate and wait and wait and wait. Burger King and Chick-Fil-A is right in front of our gate, but wait, it's Sunday. No chicken biscuit, then!



Okay, so we are taking off and my ears are going crazy. The sunrise was great though. My daughter's first flight and she didn't even want to hold my hand. After getting off the runway, it's only about a 56 minute flight. So we arrived in Orlando before 8:00 am. About 7:56 am. Disney said they would have a representative there, which they did, but it was still 10:30 before the first bus would leave. Maybe some of you might have seen us wandering about the airport for 2 1/2 hours! We did go and have a doughnut and looked around. Much more to see here than in Atlanta! We went outside and waited after a while. It was way too cold to wait out there the whole time though.



So, we finally get to the port. By now, the day seemed so long. Remember, we left out about 3:42 in the morning. I was so worried that something wouldn't be exactly as needed with our documents, so I did want to get there early just for peace of mind. It's not like I needed there early for Palo reservations!!!! This was a mother/daughter trip. Everything went smoothly with the documents. Now for the next line to wait in! It wasn't too bad. Pretty cool to spot Dave and Jennifer for the first time! This was really a long day though, and it wasn't even half over yet!



We were so excited! We were finally making our way up to the ship! Traffic was moving, stopping, moving and stopping. What was going on? Oh, pictures!!! We had to back up so as not to be in the way of the picture of the people in front of us, then move up to have our picture made. Ooops!!! Too much for me, I guess. Down to the floor I go. Yes, that was me!!!! It really seemed like a dream. Did I just fall? I seen my hand do something I hope never to see it do again. It was so weird. The photographer rushes over and gets us to Guest Services to make a note of what happened. They ask if I wanted to see the doctor, but we just got here. We might get sent home! It really did hurt, all the way from my fingers to my elbow. "Just get me some ice" I said. They wrote down what happened and gave me a couple of ice packs and rushed us into Parrot Cay. At this point I wasn't hungry! I had completely lost my appetite. After taking some Motrin, we headed out to walk around and find our room. They helped with the bags getting to Parrot's Cay, but we were on our own now, so the bags were not so easy to handle with an injury. With it just being my daughter and myself, I really didn't want her to sit at the doctor's office worrying about me. I promised her that it would not interfere with anything she wanted to do during the trip, although she did have to help me do a few things.



After getting our bags to the room, my daugher gets into her swimsuit, of course. She ended up swimming in Mickey's Pool since the 4 foot one was closed. After freezing for a while, she gets her some nachos. The sign said Cheese or Chili Nachos. But, she wanted both. Not a problem! They made her chili/cheese nachos.



Our dinner was at 6 o'clock, so we didn't have much time. And of course, we were at Triton's the first night! Didn't really look forward to getting dressed. I was still quite worried about my hand. My arm was feeling better by now, but I figured something must be cracked somewhere in there.



Triton's was fine. It was a little uncomfortable at first. At the time, I can't even remember what we ordered. It wasn't seafood though! Maybe I'll remember later. After dinner we went to see Hercules in the Walt Disney Theater. It was hilarious, which was just what I needed with my hand hurting. We went through Shutters, and one of the cast members there asked how I was. Confused, I said, "Okay". He then asked about the fall. He asked every time we seen him how I was doing. It didn't hit me until the last day that he was the photographer that was about to take our picure when I ended up horizontal on the floor! He was very nice, and gave us some of the generic pictures of the ship and of Mickey. Nice guy.



Wow, I think I'll have to finish this report later!



BTW, be careful walking up the gangway!!!!!!

[Irene]

<font color="blue"> Thank you for the report . . . I'm looking forward to hearing more. . .

Sounds like a wonderful time. How's your hand now? </font>

[LilMarcieMouse]

<font color="blue">i hope everything smoothed out for ya. Do you rember who the Photoagrapher was? </font>

[Goofy's Mom]

The photographer's name was Riche. I can't remember where he was from, though.

Thanks for asking about my hand. It still hurts and has a lot of burning. It's mostly sore when I first get up in the mornings. I'm just glad I can use it. It could have been a lot worse, I guess. I am worried that it might not get all the way better, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Oh, I haven't included the party on Sunday. Maybe I'll get to that soon! If you've seen my other post about needing a video tape of the party, that's why. I really didn't feel like video taping with my hand bothering me. Now I'm searching for someone who might have some footage!

[Colexis Mom]

Great start Sorry about your hand Looking forward to more

[DrDolphin]

Definately a great start - Can't wait to read more!

[DouglasE]

I'm so glad you decided to post a trip report! This is the first trip report on Mousefest! I am truly impressed that you tried typing with a sore arm and hand. You are doing a fine job describing everything so far. Having some one on one time with your daughter sounds like a great idea. Don't forget to mention how the guys fared while you were away by the end of your story. I bet they had some funny things to tell you when you got back.

[All Ears]

I am sooo sorry to hear about your hand!
I am enjoying your trip report so far. Keep it coming!
Michelle

[Marv]

Looking forward to hearing more about the cruise! Thanks for posting.

[Goofy's Mom]

Added to Day One Trip Report Nov. 30th, 2003. Mousefest Cruise

There were a few more details about day one that I didn't mention. Like how beautiful the ship is when pulling up towards the port! And the inside is just so absolutely gorgeous!

Let's not forget about the mandatory boat drill at 4 o'clock. There were three adult lifejackets in our room, but no child size ones. I had tried calling guest services and also the button on the phone for stateroom request, but I guess they were all busy getting ready for the drill since no one ever picked up. My daughter goes ahead and puts the adult size one on, which she could slip her head all the way through the top! But, it's only a drill!!! At this time we are very thankful to be on deck 5. That means we only have to walk one deck down the stairs, which make me feel very uncomfortable with these things around our neck! And also, with the Sail-Away Celebration being at 4:30 there's not a whole lot of time in between, so only having to go back up one flight was pretty easy.

Now, about the Sail-Away Celebration. Passporter's gathered on deck 10 where there was a much better view of the party and could also watch over the rail as we sailed away. My niece told my husband about when she went on a cruise and was docked beside of the Disney ship how it was rockin'. Now I know what she meant. The music was very loud and fun. It's easy to see why the people on "the other ship" would want to get on Disney's after hearing the Sail-away party. It's so cool to sail for the first time!

After dinner at Triton's there wasn't really time to do much before going to see Hercules the Muse-ical, so we just sat in on Bingo for a few minutes to see if we might want to come back for that at another time. Oh yea, I ordered a Sirloin Steak (well-done) for dinner. It was a little difficult to cut, but still yummy.

I wanted to get to the internet cafe for the first 5 minutes free deal, but it just didn't happen. Too much to do!





Day 2 - December 1st, 2003

We had put our little door hanger for room service out the night before, so at about 7:20 am we have breakfast delivered. The pastries were so very delicious. The texture of that cinnamon roll was... well, you'll just have to try one!
We hadn't previously booked any excursions since we could never make up our mind, so we go down to the shore excursion desk and find out what the weather is supposed to be. It was very overcast and chilly for someone from the South. We were trying to decide whether to do Blue Lagoon Beach today, or Lucayan Beach tomorrow at Freeport. They looked up the weather for us and said the temperature was going to be about the same but the wind was going to be stronger tomorrow (Freeport) than today (Nassau). She suggested doing the beach today instead of tomorrow. I'm so glad we went against that suggestion! It was still just too cold for us to even think about getting wet, so we went ahead and booked for the glass-bottom boat. That was fun. I never knew that Elvis used to have a house out there. The wind was blowing so much I couldn't help but thinking how cold the water must be! It was very beautiful though, and I'm glad we did get off the boat to do something. But since we've done it already, I probably wouldn't do it again. It was cool sitting on the top deck, catching the breeze.

Before going to meet for the glass-bottom boat, we went through Beach Blanket Buffet and ate again. My appetite had returned! I love a buffet for breakfast, since that's my favorite meal!

Tonight we ate at Animator's Palate. The paint brushes are so beautiful and colorful. I actually tried some seafood tonight. Well, I took a bite anyway.

After dinner, of course, was the show. The Hill Brothers were doing a juggling act tonight. I'm so glad we didn't miss this show! They were hilarious. I would love to see them again!!! Comedy's my favorite.

After the show, it's time to go up to deck 9 for the tropical party. We left soon so that my daughter could go to Oceaneer's Lab and make goo. After dropping her off, I went back up to the party and watched everyone have a blast until it was time to go back to pick her up. The goo- making thing was over at 11:00, so I picked her up and went back up for the midnight buffet. There were soooo many things to chose from! By that time, we are ready for bed. It's hard to believe, it's our second night already! How sad!!!

[Colexis Mom]

Sounds like you had a great day!! Looking forward to more

[Marv]

I would not have thought to check for child size life jackets ahead of time. I put that on my to do list!

[AnnetteO]

Great trip report so far! I am enjoying every word!

We had the same issue with only adult life vest in the room.
My 6 year old was all an Orange Vest! It was corrected that night when we came to the room to change for dinner.

Can't wait to hear more from you trip!

[Irene]

Enjoyed reading about your 2nd day. Looking foward to more soon.

[luvnwdwgal]

I'm enjoying your trip report! So sorry about your fall and hope your hand has healed well! Looking forward to your next installment!