Our Island Hopping, Rain Dropping, Champagne Popping Adventure About This Page:

[luvnwdwgal]

Can't wait to read all about the cruise!

[nanajoyx2]

More please!

[Jillybean]

Sorry for the delay! Once we returned from CA, I had work, jury duty and more work! Next update coming right up though - - as long as my family will leave me in peace for an hour!

Jill

[Jillybean]

Friday, June 1

It’s funny how waking up and getting ready is really not an issue when you’re about to board the Dream! Our shuttle pick up time wasn’t until 10:30, but we were still up and at ‘em fairly early (at least for us! )

Once we were dressed, we headed down to breakfast. It was a bit of a mad house, so we grabbed what we could and then found a table outside by the pool. After breakfast, the girls asked if they could put their feet in the hot tub, so we let them do that for a while. Actually, after longingly gazing at other children in the pool, I’m pretty sure that they wanted to do that but settled for the hot tub.

While we were outside, Mary Devall spotted Monica in the breakfast area and ran in to say hi. Apparently, breakfast was already shutting down, so Monica was grabbing what she could and heading to the room.

We soon followed and finished up with teeth brushing and repacking. Before long, we were all trudging down with our luggage to the assigned pick up room on the first floor. The room was already pretty full, so apparently we were that last to arrive. Upon seeing everyone else’s luggage, I realized that I never put our tags on our own luggage, so Thom and I were still doing that when they started loading luggage on to the trailer.

Every one else in the room had skedaddled to the shuttle when they began loading the luggage on the trailer, so we were also the last ones to board. Not a single seat was available, so apparently someone had decided to take an earlier shuttle. The driver of the shuttle was great, however, and asked for smaller children to sit on laps if possible. Two seats became available, so Mary Devall and Maddie had seats. The driver then spread a towel on the steps and asked if Thom and I were willing to have the best seats in the house. Well, of course . . . and they really were. He repeatedly thanked us for “going with the flow,” but we were good as long as we made it to the terminal in one piece.

Once at the terminal, the process was easy breezy. The porters whisked away our luggage leaving us to quickly go through security. Once upstairs, I sent the family to seating area while I headed to check in. There was no line, but I quickly discovered that I needed my family with me (in order for their pictures to be taken) to complete the process. I found them and back we went where we were quickly checked in.

We found a place to sit and just sat back and relaxed until boarding began. I called my dad to check on him and found out that all was good in his little world. It wasn’t long before Monica sent me a text that they were here, checked in, and waiting in line to see Minnie.

We were either in boarding group 2 or 3 (my long term memory isn’t working so well ), so we didn’t wait long when boarding began. The hardest part was maneuvering our way through the crowds waiting for their group number to be called. Apparently this is a constant issue because the announcement even encouraged called boarding groups to move past the masses. Miraculously, we met up with the Mitchells once we waded through the sea of people.

We were soon taking our boarding pictures and being announced on board (I will never cease to love that part). It was evident from my first step aboard the Dream that this was going to be a totally different experience from the Wonder.



Our first line of business was to head upstairs and stake out some lounge chairs so that the girls could swim. Monica, Macy, Gem and even Maddie had the forethought to wear their bathing suits, so the rest of us quickly changed. My second clue that the Dream was something special was revealed when I stepped into the bathroom. Can I just say “Wow!”

Maddie spent some time in the Mickey pool until she discovered the Finding Nemo Reef. She had an absolute blast in there.



And, just in case the above photos were not enough, here's a video!



As soon as the Aquaduck opened at 1 p.m., the older girls along with Charlie and Thom hopped in line. It wasn’t long before we saw them zooming by us. The absolute joy on their face said it all. Monica joined them on the second go around and loved it as much as the rest had.

Here's one of them, but I have no idea who!



It was about this time that our old friend, rain, joined the party. We moved our belongings to a covered lounge chair before everyone scattered. The older girls were kind enough to let Mary Devall tag along as they did some exploring while Thom went looking for food and Monica and Charlie took off to check out the adult area. I went back and forth checking on Maddie and keeping an eye on our belongings.

The adults gradually drifted back to our spot. They had all found food and Charlie and Monica had even found a bar and were enjoying their first drinks of the cruise. Charlie was especially excited that there was a bar beside the Ice cream station since he had felt that this was lacking on the other Disney ships!

The food that they brought back was impressive - - it was not your ordinary counter service. On vacation, I was quite often skip lunch in favor of a large breakfast and large dinner, but the offerings at the numerous counter service locations on the pool deck were perfect for a snack or a full blown meal. I particularly loved the turkey and greek rollups and ate them almost every day.

About the time we finished with our snacks, it was finally time to check out our rooms. The girls were already there when we opened the doors. We had requested connecting rooms and they were perfect (we were even able to have the divider taken down on the balcony the next day). We quickly opened the connecting door and it rarely stayed closed throughout the trip.

We quickly checked out all of the goodies on our bed which included a cool backpack from the Castaway Club. My family being my family . . . they were immediately drawn to the block of chocolate that the Mitchells had sent us as a Bon Voyage present! As if planning almost the entire trip for us hadn’t been enough!

I was standing on the balcony taking it all in when Monica appeared with a glass of bubbly for me. She had the forethought to order a bottle for her room and she was graciously sharing (I learned a lot about the finer points of cruising from Monica on this trip ). We toasted to the start of a wonderful trip.

We all spent the next couple of hours unpacking and running back and forth between the rooms to chit chat. My two weren’t letting the older two girls out of their site that much.



Before we knew it, the time had arrived for the lifeboat drill. I’m still thankful that we no longer are required to wear the life jackets, but I think that Thom is a little disappointed. I think he always loved that little extra bit of excitement.

Our muster station was in the Buena Vista Theatre and we were directed to go down the crew staircase (and also told not to even try going down those again unless it was a true emergency ). We were apparently late to the party because the theatre was already packed. The entire process took no longer than twenty minutes and we were soon heading back to our staterooms (although not by the crew staircase ).

The Sail Away celebration had been moved indoors due to the rain, so the adults decided to skip that potential for claustrophobia and watch us sail away from our balconies. The girls, on the other hand, wanted to go exploring, so all four of them took off (with our two having to pledge to behave and follow Macy and Gem’s direction ). It was fun watching them have a little bit of independence on this trip . . . yet scary at the same time.

Our balcony wall wasn’t down yet, but we made the most of our sail away party. As we sailed out to sea, the kids on the other side of us were screaming at each and every person that we passed. They were loud but I couldn’t get angry at them since I shared in their excitement.

It was fun sailing past Fish Lips since we had just eaten there the night before. Tons of people were there enjoying happy hour and to us. I imagine that some of the locals have a little send off party every week - - if not, every day.



Once we were out to sea, we went back inside and relaxed until the girls showed back up. They were both holding streamers from the sail away party and announced that they had also visited the kids club. Mary Devall was over the moon about the club for the 11 to 14 set, the Edge, even though she was a couple of months shy of eleven. I had read that, in the past, exceptions had been made when children were close to the cut off, but Disney had recently decided to strictly adhere to the age restrictions. I imagine there had been a few issues.

Now, I’m a rule follower, so I had been telling Mary Devall for months that she had to be in the Oceaneer Lab. She was a little disappointed, but she knew the rules (where did you think she got her “rule following” gene? ) Thom, on the other hand, listened for a bit, got up and left the room with a “I’ll be right back.” Sure enough, he returned about 15 minutes later and spoke one sentence “She’s in.”

Mary Devall was overjoyed which was made evident by her squealing, jumping up and down, and hand clapping. Even if you’re not a rule breaker yourself, sometimes it’s good to have a parent who is (or at least attempts to be when necessary ). Thom told me later that he just explained the situation to the CM at the Edge and she had no problem letting Mary Devall move up. Apparently, they do still allow exceptions . . . if you talk to them face-to-face. Of course, I’m sure they still hold the right to send your child back to their age group if there are any issues. Thankfully, we had none.

The biggest difference for Mary Devall was the fact that children in the Edge could sign themselves in and out. I believe that my little girl was a tad apprehensive about all of this new found freedom, but not so much that she wasn’t going to take advantage of it.

Since I had not seen the Edge yet, she asked me to go with her while Thom took Maddie to the Oceaneer Club. After climbing a steep set of stairs to Deck 13, we arrived at the Edge. First, Mary Devall had to point out that their view was of a bar.

She gave me a quick tour and then showed me to the piece de resistance, the green screen. She chose to do a Disney Channel newscast. It was really cool and I could see why she was drawn to this club. The activities were right down her drama loving alley. There was one female CM in the club at that moment and she asked Mary Devall if she could hang out with her since they were the only females at that point. I left a very happy little (um . . . big) girl.

Thom and I met back in our room, got ready for dinner and then headed out for a little adult entertainment. Macy told us that her parents had already headed out, so we took off for the bars on Deck 4. There are four bars arranged in a circle and one leads to the next. It’s the perfect setup for bar hopping.

We wandered through Pink which was like the coziest plushest cave that you’ll ever find (think “woman” cave ) before moving on to the Skyline Lounge. Just as the door slid open, who walked out but Monica and Charlie! They had already been to Pink and Skyline and invited us to join them (or we invited ourselves ) as they moved on to 687. If Pink was a woman cave, then 687 was definitely a man cave. It was a cross between a pub and an exclusive sports bar with dark wood and deep leather chairs and couches.

We easily found an empty bar table for four and placed our order with the server who quickly came by our table. They didn’t have limoncello so my first choice of a lemon drop martini was out, but I soon rebounded with pomegranate martini. Monica went with her favorite, a French martini, while Charlie had a beer and Thom had a Jack and Coke.

We had a great time sitting around talking, laughing and enjoying our drinks. We were having so much fun that we ordered a second round. Our late dinner seating was approaching, so we finally pulled ourselves away and headed for the first night of our rotation, the Enchanted Garden. Thom ran upstairs to get the girls and met us back in the line that had formed to enter the restaurant. Macy and Gem also joined just before the line started moving.

We were shown to a table for eight tucked in at the very back of the restaurant just off the center aisle. Our assistant server, Charm, quickly came over to introduce herself and offer us a choice of sparkling or still water (this will become very important shortly ). Both Monica and I said sparkling and off she went to retrieve the sparkling water.

Next our server, Passayun, stopped by to introduce himself. Both he and Charm were so kind and pleasant. I don’t think I ever saw one of them without a smile on their faces and they were constantly doing whatever they could to make our meals special. I took this picture on our last morning, but wanted to post it here since it was the only picture that I have of them (and since I like to know what people look like when I read about them! )



Charm came back and poured water for all of us and then took our drink order. Months before, Monica had suggested that we split the 4-night wine package (we opted not to go with the 5-night to allow for cocktail consumption here and there ) and this turned out to be a perfect plan. The first bottle we selected was . . . of course . . . Conundrum.

Once our drinks were set, Passayun came back to take our order. Maddie had recently discovered that she liked salad (as long as it is covered in ranch dressing ), so she was thrilled it was on the menu and ordered it first up for her appetizer. Passayun must have enjoyed watching her eat salad because he brought her a salad every night after that whether she ordered it or not. He also had her booster seat in her chair every night too – it was the little things like that that meant so much.

While waiting for our food, the adults were chatting on our end of the table. Charlie took a drink of his water and made a face. Monica started laughing and asked “What’s wrong?” Charlie answered in only the way that Charlie can . . . “That tastes like toilet water.”

Oh my good heavens! Monica and I laughed until we had tears streaming down our faces. It wasn’t the type of laughter that died down after a moment either. We were giggling off and on the entire night and, quite honestly, through the rest of the trip (and essentially every time either of us sees a bottle of San Pellegrino ).

It wasn’t just what Charlie said, but how he said it. He was so very matter-of-fact about how nasty that water was. Apparently, Charm had just assumed that everyone at the table wanted sparkling water when Monica and I told her that we did. We found out the next night that Maddie (who was sitting at the other end of the table) had been equally unimpressed with the water. She made sure that every glass after that wasn't that "nasty water."

We were still laughing when Charm came back to the table, so Charlie shared with her his true feelings about sparkling water. She laughed about it almost as much as Monica and I did and she kidded him throughout the rest of the trip. She never forgot though and we all ended up with still water the next night just to make sure that the mix up didn’t happen again.



I believe I had scallops that night, but I failed to take any pictures. It’s hard to stop and take pictures when you’re laughing as much as we were. I do know that every single meal we had was delicious. In comparison to other cruise lines, Disney truly outdoes themselves on food quality (and we won’t even go into the quantity ).

We had a blast that night at dinner. Macy and Gem had both graduated junior high the week before, so we had a little celebration for them on top of all of the other fun.



As soon as we were finished, all of the girls went to their respective clubs and the adults went to bed. Thankfully, Thom stayed awake in case Maddie wanted to be picked up because I couldn’t keep my eyelids open. I think it was about midnight before both girls were back in the room and finally going to bed themselves. That was some first day!

[ilovedisney247]

What a great first day! Yum! Scallops!

[lauriep]

What a great first day! You're really making me want to try one of the new ships. Glad the food is so good!

[Dlandmom2]

That was some first day! Love the smiles all around!

[chezp]

What a wonderful first day on board!

[kingfamily1129]

wow! sounds like an awesome first day! I can't wait to read more!

[Grammy Grumpy]

Wow, everything sounds so great! Love how much the girls could test drive their independence too! Now I'm ready for more!

[MontiMouse]

Our day didn't start off as smoothly as Jill's. For some reason we weren't moving as fast and nearly missed the free breakfast the hotel offered. Charlie and I did manage to get down there before everything was cleared away and got a little bit of food to bring back to the room.

We finally managed to get ourselves loaded in the car and drove to the port around 10:45. Charlie dropped us and the luggage off before returning our car to Budget. Their shuttle brought him back to the port and I was able to get us all checked in before he got back. A smooth process and before we knew it boarding group 3 was called and we were boarding the Dream with the Koenigs.

We had decided ahead of time to skip lunch and head straight to the pool. There were very few people at the pool so we found chairs and waited for the Aquaduck to open. We all managed several rides in a short amount of time except for Maddie who was having no part of it at this point in spite of the older girls trying to convince her. Once the rain started and it got more crowded on deck we all managed to do some wandering around. Charlie and I knew we would be able to hang out in the adult areas more on this cruise since Macy was now old enough to have some independence and had a friend to hang out with. They decided to get some lunch and Charlie and I decided to wander around which led us to the adult pool and bar. There were only 1 or 2 people in that area and the bartender looked a bit bored so we decided she needed company! We ordered Konk Coolers and visited with her for a bit learning her name was Pia and she was from Chile and more importantly she worked in the champagne bar, Pink, in the evenings. This would not be our last time visiting with her!

Once our rooms were ready we headed down to deck 8 to get settled. I had done quite a bit of research on adjoining rooms and our travel agent was able to book us in staterooms 8562 and 8564 which was a perfect location! We really enjoyed being all together in these adjoining rooms.

Knowing how I like to get completely settled before we leave port, I decided to order champagne, beer, water and snacks for our stateroom from Disney and knowing how much the Koenigs love chocolate I ordered a little surprise for their stateroom. I had also brought beer, wine and champagne with me on the ship but knew it would not be cold for us to enjoy that first day. Ordering from Disney, while expensive, worked perfectly for us. We were able to get settled and still have time to relax with our adult beverages and snacks and visit before the safety drill.

Since we were traveling with two teen girls, we had decided ahead of time that Charlie and I would get ourselves showered and dressed early while the girls swam or hung out at the pool. Once we were done, we would head out so the girls could shower and dress and then we'd all meet outside our designated restaurant. This worked perfectly all week and Charlie and I managed to see every bar on the ship and made friends with several bartenders (and ship officers who seem to pass through the bars regularly) before dinner every night .

Jill was right about our servers, they were so wonderful. We really connected with them and enjoyed seeing them every night. The "sparkling water incident" was hilarious. Charlie was just so matter-of-fact about it sounding like he was the ultimate toilet water expert. Makes me giggle every time I think about it and I am sure we will still be laughing about it many years from now - good times!!

Our cruise was off to a great start and an amazing first day was had by all...

[disney_duke]

Oh wow, what a great first day! I'm proud of you for giving your girls some independence. My oldest is 10, and then an 8 year old, and I'm struggling with it already. I've got a rough road infront of me!

[KMB733]

Sounds like you had a wonderful first day aboard the ship!!

[jandsdennis]

Sounds like a great first day. Looking forward to more.

[wydivers]

Great start and love that you're both writing! Can't wait to hear more as we have only sailed on the Wonder in the past and next spring will be our first Dream cruise!