How Wonder-ful! A 10 (& 11) Double Dippin' anniversary cruise

[LilacBarries]

We've been planning since last September but I'm just now deciding a PTR sounds like fun. I've written it all out up to this month and to save anyone reading this I'm going to break it up in to a month or two (or three) at a time.

Last year was rough for various reasons so we're really viewing this as a delayed 10 (and 11) year wedding anniversary celebreation. DH is truly my best friend and we have so much fun together. We've been together 14 years and haven't had a lot of opportunity to travel ( this will be DH first flight over an hour long) but there's no one else I have has much fun traveling with. He's more go with the flow and I'm planning ocd girl-we balance each other out.

 

[LilacBarries]

This is my first time doing this (only second cruise with DCL) so not sure if there’s a format or anything but here I go…

The Characters- Me the DW 31 and DH 32. We live in San Francisco- both California natives. I’m a nanny and he’s a café manager with a degree in Animation and Visual Effects. We both love Disney- him for the obvious- the impact and innovation Walt Disney brought to animation and me because I’m just a kid at heart. We both also just love animation. We met in high school and I knew he really loved me when we went to Disneyland after graduation and he rode It’s a Small World with me not once, but twice! (he really hates that ride) My favorite Disney movie is The little Mermaid or Mary Poppins (long before I became a nanny) his is Wall-E

The background: My BFF’s DH surprised her last year by sending her and I on a 5 night WC on the Wonder for her 30th birthday (February 2-7th 2013). It was amazing! I came back raving about all things DCL and told my DH we HAD to take one.

Our 10 year wedding anniversary was coming up and as much as I wanted to do it for that it just couldn't happen financially. I kept bringing it up throughout the year and by September I was able talk him into it. The last 4 years have been a roller-coaster financially so if we’re able to pull this off it would be a huge accomplishment. DH was cautiously optimistic where I was just excited.

The Cruise: We Booked on September 22,2013 for a 5 night Bahamas cruise on the Disney Wonder for September 26- October 1,2014. We book a category 9C Deluxe Oceanview stateroom. It’s a double dip with two days at CC! I loved my previous day at CC and am super excited about this.
It gives us a year to save. For as much as I would have liked to book one in our actual anniversary month of June we just can’t swing the premium summer prices
We initially booked airfare through DCL as well because we both liked that everything was guaranteed as far as getting there on time etc. We were flying in the day before and staying at the Hyatt MCO.

 

[LilacBarries]

October- Fairly quickly I wanted to add on a day or two for MK but as the whole trip was a stretch financially already it didn’t look like it would happen. At this time I started looking at airfare on my own thinking if I could save us enough money I could talk DH to adding a night at WDW post cruise so we could go to MK. I didn’t see us as planning a whole trip to WDW and doing all the parks and I thought this would be a good opportunity to check it out. We either love it and plan for the future or like it well enough or can at least say we’ve tried it. We leave our reservations as is (with airfare) but I start looking for our own.

November & December: I start researching excursions. I didn’t do any on the previous cruise I had been on. We ended up just walking around in Cozumel and it was nice but I kinda wish we had at least gone to the beach or something.

I initially like the Graycliff art of Chocolate making and factory tour in Nassau, a kayaking tour in key west and a walk and kayak tour in CC. I almost immediately nix the Key West tour as its 4 hours and we’re only in key west 5 so wouldn’t give us any time to see anything else. DH likes the sound of the chocolate tour. We think about just renting kayaks at CC as we both love to even though we’ve only done it a couple times.

 

[LilacBarries]

January- I discover DISboards and quickly kick myself for not finding it sooner when I learn about booking through a travel agent to get on board credit.because by this time it's waayy to late to transfer our reservation. (live and learn!)

February- I had been stalking Expedia and airlines websites and in February bam! The perfect airfare popped up $306 pp round trip! Saving us $800. Just the savings I need to add on a night at the end of our trip so we can go to MK. I settle on POR and make the reservations.

At this point I’m still planning on staying at the Hyatt the night before but upon putzing around the WDW resorts pages think it will be fun to stay at a different resort pre trip. We have a red eye so are getting in pretty early and I wasn't too impressed with what the Hyatt had to offer as far as pool and it was basically the same price to stay at Coronado Springs with all it has to offer. So three days after I book POR and the tickets I make those reservations

The trade off being that we wont be leaving as early with disney transport as we would be from MCO but as my hubby points out we're on vacation, we arent' in a hurry and with the DCL busses we're guranteed to get there in time..

 

[LilacBarries]

March- I’m obsessing about it and talking incessantly with anyone and everyone about it. I’m super excited for the trip of course but almost more so am so thankful and proud that we've actually been able to save most of the money for it. I think at this point we’re almost completely paid off and I’m just elated. I think (I know) I’m driving DH a little batty with all my planning and obsessing.

I also find our cruise group on Disboards and join the fb page along with the FE. I didn’t know so didn’t do a FE the first time around so I’m excited. Looking back though we did see them and just had no idea what they were. Thought that a lot of people were celebrating kids birthdays or something!

April- DH finally gets around to getting his passport. There’s a bit of a hiccup as the dept of state doesn’t except his picture (the one the post office took, really?!?)

I’ve been trying to figure out what to do in Nassau before our tour. I read bad reviews of Nassau in general and having second thoughts about booking a Bahamas cruise. I start googling Nassau and start getting excited again. So much history! (I’m a history nerd) I find a free self-guided walking tour that takes about 2 hours and am officially excited again.

 

[LilacBarries]

May- Hubby gets his passport; I’m still all over Disboards and happily obsessing. Current obsession: Palo brunch or dinner? I had planned on dinner because our cruise has no at sea days, however we’re in port late enough two of the days that a platinum cc member finds out that there will be brunch. Hubby for once has an opinion ( he happily lets me be OCD on the planning) (he also doesn't like tv spoilers so he asks me not to tell him everything i read on Disboards as he wants to be surprised) My favorite game: what are you most looking forward to on the trip? his answer? always: everything. (much to my chagrin)

June-We pay off our cruise!!! We've actually pulled this off! Our actual PIF date is July but since I’m silver I can book everything on 6/28 which happens to be our anniversary. I book Palo on Pirate night and the chocolate tour for Nassau.

We celebrate our 11th anniversary here in the city. We’re both super sick, dinner was lovely but we both crash as soon as we get home. Thankful we have the trip to look forward to for a proper celebration. I’ve been wanting to upgrade our room to a verandah room hubby has been so so on the idea. Sounds nice, not sure how much we’ll actually use it. Also he just wants to get to PIF. Then we can figure out if we can budget in an upgrade.

Now that we’re paid off we figure out the budget for everything else- souvenirs, food pre/post, money on board, excursions, our day at MK etc etc.

 

[LilacBarries]

July- we talk more about MK. I've been going back and forth on whether we should go the day before we leave for the cruise (we get in to MCO at at 9:30 am) or go the day we get off the cruise. There’s pros and cons to both. Ultimately we decide that it’s just going to be too much time wise and we don’t want to try and fit it in and at $95 pp if we don’t have a full day to do it we don’t feel it’s worth it money wise.

I use this as the opportunity to upgrade our room. It’s less than both MK tickets combined and we’ll still be saving the money we would have spent in the park. I upgrade to a category 7a Navigators verandah. It’s unfortunately in GTY status so I don’t get to pick a room. My control freak self is actually ok with this (it is guaranteed to be at least that after all) but just impatient because I want to know what room!

I also made reservations for bike rentals in Key West. We decided this would be the best way to see as much as possible and I found a good deal for $10 pp for the day. When I call to book I also find out that since I’m booking direct I get a %10 discount, score!

Other things on the Key West agenda:
Cuban Coffee at Cuban Coffee Queen ( have I mentioned we're obsessive coffee drinkers? I don't think I have, well we are). DH is a coffee snob- roasts his own beans, knows when espresso is burnt and is a total coffee nerd (the funny thing is he never even drank coffee till I got him hooked 2 or 3 years into marriage). I like the good stuff but will drink the instant stuff when needed (quelle Horreur!!!) so we're super excited to be trying Cuban.

The southern most point

frozen key lime pie

maybes: little white house or Hemingway's house.

We’re now finalizing our FE gifts. We have one thing we need to get going on that we’re making and I need to make our actual FE. I bought the supplies a couple months ago but haven’t had time (or a clean sewing table!!) to actually get it done.

Our flight got changed a bit and we’re now not leaving till almost 11pm ( soo late! Not a night person) and getting into MCO close to 11 am. Thankful we nixed going to MK because once you factor in checking in to CS and dropping our luggage we would have had no time at the park.

Just this week I’ve started researching what to do at WDW since we’re not going to any of the parks. Both resorts we’re staying at have nice pools and I’m pretty sure since we’re on a red eye flying in we’ll just hang out by the pool and sleep!

We’re staying at POR the night we get back from the cruise and that has a water taxi to Downtown Disney that I think we’ll utilize. I also found that there’s a Cirque Du Soleil show there (La Nouba) when DH just last week said it would be neat to see a Cirque show. The tickets are kinda pricey (of course) and the sale that’s going on right now ends while we’re on the cruise so we’re waiting and seeing.

 

[LilacBarries]

Here are somethings we're doing to personalize the cruise

1. Photo Mat: on my first cruise my BFF brought pillowcases and had all the characters sign them for her kids. I like this but wouldnt do it myself. Then I saw on the boards various things people had signed and I loved the photo mat idea. We're going to use a black mat with silver pens. we're not going to do a photo package but will buy at lease one picture for our frame.

2. Sketchbooks: DH went to art school and has been doodling and sketching most of his life. I'm crafty but have no sketch ability but have always wanted to learn. Hubby has been teaching me and we thought it would be fun to bring our sketchbooks and take a few minutes at each port to sketch some favorite spots

3. Scrapbooking: I saw on instagram last year a quilter who went on vacation to Hawaii with her then bf she brought Project Life scrap book cards with her and each day her and her bf would write a little bit about what they did that day. I loved this idea! I always take a ton of pictures and keep the ticket stubs and maps and what not but never get around to doing anything with them. ( I still have an envelope of pictures and mementos from our trip to DL in 2001!!) This way you're doing it all along and all you have to do when you get home is print the pictures and add them in.

 

[LilacBarries]

Got our room assignment from our GTY upgrade and I couldn't be happier. We ended up being given a category 5b room! We never even imagined being in a navigators verandah much less a 5b!!

I of course am now scouring the interwebs for all information on 5b i can find. It's on deck 7 starboard side so I think we'll have a great view of CC when we're docked. It's also not too far from the "secret" deck which looks like a fun little spot.

I can't wait to have breakfast on our own verandah and watch the sunset and just generally relax.

Have I mentioned I'm excited?​

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