Once Upon a Dream, We Took Our First Cruise - Goodbye Dream Vacation

[kmedina]

I don't know how, but I lost my subscription to this thread. Glad you haven't posted the link to the new TR yet.

I am still in the process of working on my photopass CD, uploading pictures and many other things including celebrating our 16 year anniversary yesterday. I hope to have the next report started some time over the weekend.

 

[pooksma]

whew! I didn't miss the new start!

 

[kmedina]

whew! I didn't miss the new start!

We've had a pretty busy week. I am still uploading pictures and trying to make a photopass book before I order my CD. My goal is to start it on Sunday, which is exactly one week after we got home.

 

[StitchIsOurHero]

Love your trip reports...I am a dork enough to admit that I read the entire WDW one yesterday!

We are taking DS(who will be 4 then) on a Dream 4-night in March 2013. It is for his 5th and DH's 40th birthdays. We are so excited, and reading your TR made me even more excited!! What town car service did you use from GF to the port? Did they assign you a pick-up time based upon your port arrival time? Sorry for my 4 million questions! Looking forward to reading your next TR!

 

[MinnieLovesMickey]

I am still in the process of working on my photopass CD, uploading pictures and many other things including celebrating our 16 year anniversary yesterday. I hope to have the next report started some time over the weekend.

First of all, congrats on 16 year together! DH and I have been together 12 years and I thought that was a long time! This is like the golden anniversary, right?

I'm excited to hear all about your trip. I'll have something to read on the drive down to DL.

Sorry about your phone. My boss' son dropped her EVO 4G in the toilet, she was told to place in uncooked rice and a couple of days later, it was working again. I would be very upset if that happened just because I take so many pictures on it.

 

[kmedina]

Love your trip reports...I am a dork enough to admit that I read the entire WDW one yesterday!

We are taking DS(who will be 4 then) on a Dream 4-night in March 2013. It is for his 5th and DH's 40th birthdays. We are so excited, and reading your TR made me even more excited!! What town car service did you use from GF to the port? Did they assign you a pick-up time based upon your port arrival time? Sorry for my 4 million questions! Looking forward to reading your next TR!

Thank you. I have read entire reports in a sitting or two, so I do not think you are a dork at all.

Four is such a magical age to take a vacation. Xander was really easy to take on trips as an infant and only got harder each trip until he was about 3.5. Your DS will most likely have a great time on the ship. Sailing on DCL was quite awesome. That is neat that your husband and son have birthdays that are so close together. We will be crusing the Wonder in March 2013 for Xander's first official Spring Break. We used FL Tours for our car service. We selected our own pick up times.

From GF, I selected 11:30am, because I knew checkout was 11am. We also had a breakfast scheduled that morning to use the last of our deluxe dining plan credits. Next time we leave from WDW to DCL, I will try to arrive on ship a little earlier though. I think I picked a 12:00 to 12:30 arrival time with DCL thinking we could arrive just before 12:30pm. With our driver being half an hour late, we arrived closer to 1pm. No one even mentioned our arrival time when we checked in, so I think they assign times to prevent everyone from arriving at the same time. I do not think they are set in stone though. That said, I would pick the earliest arrival time you can, because they may not allow you to enter as soon as you arrive if you get there before your arrival time.

From the port, the pickup times ranged from 7am to 9am if I remember correctly. It would not let me select a time later than 9am, because it said everyone has to be off the ship before then.

First of all, congrats on 16 year together! DH and I have been together 12 years and I thought that was a long time! This is like the golden anniversary, right?

I'm excited to hear all about your trip. I'll have something to read on the drive down to DL.

Sorry about your phone. My boss' son dropped her EVO 4G in the toilet, she was told to place in uncooked rice and a couple of days later, it was working again. I would be very upset if that happened just because I take so many pictures on it.

Thank you. In three months, Crap and I will have been together for half my life. It feels golden for sure.

I cannot wait to hear about your trip to Dl as well. Hopefully, I will start and post the first segment tonight. We picked up some last minute plans today, so I may not get it done until tomorrow.

I am glad the rice trick worked for him. It did not work for my phone, and I gave it longer than the suggested amount of time (since we were on vacation anyway and could not have the phone repaired). Thankfully, iCloud backs everything up daily. All of my pictures were stored nicely to iCloud, and transferred into the new phone as soon as iCloud was activated on it. The only thing I lost were my emails, because I did not have them backed up. Luckily, all of the emails I needed were on my computer anyway, so there was no loss there either. I bought a case for my new phone yesterday that is waterproof. If I ever drop it in the toilet again, it should not get to the phone. Lesson learned.

 

[StitchIsOurHero]

Thank you. I have read entire reports in a sitting or two, so I do not think you are a dork at all.

Four is such a magical age to take a vacation. Xander was really easy to take on trips as an infant and only got harder each trip until he was about 3.5. Your DS will most likely have a great time on the ship. Sailing on DCL was quite awesome. That is neat that your husband and son have birthdays that are so close together. We will be crusing the Wonder in March 2013 for Xander's first official Spring Break. We used FL Tours for our car service. We selected our own pick up times.

From GF, I selected 11:30am, because I knew checkout was 11am. We also had a breakfast scheduled that morning to use the last of our deluxe dining plan credits. Next time we leave from WDW to DCL, I will try to arrive on ship a little earlier though. I think I picked a 12:00 to 12:30 arrival time with DCL thinking we could arrive just before 12:30pm. With our driver being half an hour late, we arrived closer to 1pm. No one even mentioned our arrival time when we checked in, so I think they assign times to prevent everyone from arriving at the same time. I do not think they are set in stone though. That said, I would pick the earliest arrival time you can, because they may not allow you to enter as soon as you arrive if you get there before your arrival time.

From the port, the pickup times ranged from 7am to 9am if I remember correctly. It would not let me select a time later than 9am, because it said everyone has to be off the ship before then.

Thank you so much for all of the info! We are getting really excited about the trip (only 8 1/2 months!). I checked out FL Tours, and that looks like who we will go with. Fingers crossed that we will be able to get a good flight! . Looking forward to reading your next report!!

 

[kmedina]

Thank you so much for all of the info! We are getting really excited about the trip (only 8 1/2 months!). I checked out FL Tours, and that looks like who we will go with. Fingers crossed that we will be able to get a good flight! . Looking forward to reading your next report!!

You're welcome. Even though our driver had some back luck that morning with the ticket, I really liked him. FL Tours is a good way to go. Good luck on the flights. Our cruise is departing from Miami, and the Delta prices are ridiculous right now. I am hoping they go down. Paying $900 for one ticket seems crazy almost 9 months out. I keep getting sidetracked on the next report. Hopefully, I can write and post it tonight though.

 

[kmedina]

Thanks for your patience everyone. The new trip report is ready.

A Chance of Lightning and 25 Other Friends at Connor's First Birthday, Ka-chow

 

[ronnmel]

Phew, 5 months late, but here I am! I’m so sorry for disappearing like that. I’ve doing intensive DISing this weekend and am finally ready to tackle your TR! And I just saw that you have yet another one for me to read after. Guess I have my work cut out for me!

I keep alternating between being excited about travelling with a baby, and being scared that it will be complicated, so it’s perfect timing that I read your TRs again to remind me how easy it was for you guys.

The lobby of the ship looks so majestic and gorgeous!
The wave phone is such an interesting concept!
I would LOVE to try Animator’s Palate! I’m a big fan of Turtle Talk With Crush so I know I would enjoy this restaurant.
Ok, I just got through the first three updates to realize that I had already read them. Oops! I thought I had commented when I read them, but I can’t find my post so I guess I didn’t. Anyway, the comments I had meant to post were that I’m sorry you felt sick, and WOW, it’s awesome that Xander got chosen to participate in the show and be on stage!
I think I read that the kids club is free, but that you have to pay for the nursery? Even if you do though, it’s still a very useful thing to have!
It’s too bad you don’t have pictures of the Atlantis water park, as I am always interested in seeing water parks. I’m especially curious to see what a water escalator is. Wow, one hour on the lazy river! I don’t remember spending that much time on the one at Blizzard Beach, and it’s a pretty long one. I too would have been disappointed after going down that slide off the Mayan temple through the shark lagoon and not see anything. Good thing there was another slide better suited for this. The Ruins part seems pretty. Well, the entire Atlantis looks pretty, but I really like the feel of the Ruins. I hope to be able to try a cruise one day and go to Atlantis. It’s in Nassau I think?
LOL, so typical of kids to throw a fit when the parents try to send them off to a kids club, and then refuse to leave it when the parents come to pick them up. Even Connor seemed to prefer the nursery to being fed. I love reading your review of the nursery, and that conversation between the two employees. Really makes me feel safe about ever using their service should I be lucky enough to find myself on a cruise with a baby (doubtful, but one can dream!).

Ok, I'll stop here for now. Next time I'll start at the Pirates update.

 

[kmedina]

Yes, the nursery is $6 an hour, but worth every penny. Once they are 3 and potty trained, the kid's clubs are free. We just left our second cruise. Connor did not do as well on this one now that he is older (21 months). He cried every time I dropped him off and almost every time I picked him up. He was playing with Goofy one night when I picked him up, and although he was happy to see me, he was having too much fun to cry. We also had a couple of rough meals. Our head waiter even volunteered to send someone back with food to the room after Connor and I returned to the room in the middle of dinner one night.

Xander did better on this cruise. He was a year and 3 months older, AKA 6 1/4. He wanted as much time in the kid's clubs as possible and only wanted out one time. It was also a 5 day, so we had 2 sea days. That was nice, because we got to explore the ship much more than we did the first time.

Atlantis is in the Bahamas. It is very beautiful. I still need to invest in a waterproof camera. I love the one you have. What kind is it again? I will get it before our next trip to WDW as long as we go during months where we visit the water parks.

 

[ronnmel]

I'm sorry to hear the cruise was harder for Connor, but at least Xander had lots of fun.

We have a Fuji Finepix XP. We love it! It's not too expensive, and works well underwater! It's also great for outside pictures on bright days. Just not so good for inside/dark areas, but we have another camera for that.

 

[kmedina]

I'm sorry to hear the cruise was harder for Connor, but at least Xander had lots of fun.

We have a Fuji Finepix XP. We love it! It's not too expensive, and works well underwater! It's also great for outside pictures on bright days. Just not so good for inside/dark areas, but we have another camera for that.

It was still awesome, and we are already excited about the next one.

Thanks. I am going to get that camera.

 

[MenefeeMouse]

do most leave their infant in the nursery during the evening meal?

 

[kmedina]

do most leave their infant in the nursery during the evening meal?

Sorry, I just saw this. I'm not sure about others, but we had our son with us for every evening meal. He was a nursling, so he tended to eat when we did. We did check him into the nursery for every evening show. Since you left it nearly 7 years ago, I doubt you still need this answered.