We finally made it to our Disney Cruise from January 21-24, 2010! We went down to Cocoa Beach a day early to relax and do a little shopping before leaving on Thursday. It was a nice day, considering the cold weather we've been having, not hot but not cold, either. We hopped over to Merritt Island to shop, had lunch at Applebee's, then spent some time at Barnes and Noble's - Tanek wanted to stay there all day and play with the train they had. We finally got him out of there, went back to the hotel and went for a short walk on the beach. By the time we went for a walk, it was starting to cool off pretty quickly, so we didn't stay out long.
We stayed at the Quality Suites, which was nice and very reasonable. They have a Park & Cruise deal so you can leave your car there during the cruise and avoid the $15 a day parking fee at the Port. We actually left our car at the Radisson and took the shuttle from there at 10:00 am.
We were at the port by 10:30, got checked in, had our security pictures taken, had Tanek registered for the kids' club, and were on board the ship by noon! Here we are outside of the terminal before we boarded - Tanek did have to have a bit of an attitude adjustment because he didn't want to wear his armband/locator for the kids' club, but he eventually got over it (by the time he had to return the locator and beeper, anyway).
Tanek is all ready for his first cruise dinner, but still trying to get that armband off!
The sun was just beginning to set as we were heading out to sea. This was the closest we came to a beautiful sunset while we were at sea!
Here is Tanek getting ready for the emergency drill. He kept wanting to know if we were getting in the water. Ummm, no, I certainly hope not!
After lunch on Thursday, we let Tanek go swimming while we were waiting for our luggage to arrive at our room.
The pool and the slide were his favorite part of the cruise. Attitude adjustments were a necessary part of every afternoon when it was time to go inside!
He barely reached the minimum height of 38 inches, but he certainly wasn't afraid of going down the slide!
This is a picture of part of our room. I have to say, Disney's staterooms are much more spacious than the staterooms I've stayed in on Carnival! And the service is far better as well. Everyone we talked to was friendly and helpful.
Here is Tanek with our dinner servers. Lidia was our Assistant Server - she is from the Dominican Republic; Mladen was our Server - he is from Serbia. Both of them were awesome with Tanek, very friendly and seemed to really enjoy getting to know the guests. We had the late seating (8:15 pm), so Tanek was not the most angelic little boy by that time of night after a very active day. I know that may be hard for some people to believe, but it's true - just ask my Mom! He looks like an angel in this picture, but it is deceiving.
Disney is the only cruiseline that does fireworks at sea! Not quite as dramatic as the fireworks show at Disneyworld, but impressive nonetheless! They do the fireworks during the Pirate's party right after Mickey rides on a zip-line across the top of the ship. Mickey sure showed those Pirates a thing or two.
And, Tanek finally crashes at the end of the night. He had no trouble sleeping after all of his activities during the day.
On a side note, I have to say how impressed I was with Disney's attention to cleanliness - not only with the ship itself, but with the guests. You did not board the ship or enter any restaurant or buffet without first receiving (and using) a sanitary hand wipe. I don't know if this is a new thing or if they have always done it, but the attention to preventing the spread of germs was comforting. Not that it prevented me from wiping down our entire room when we arrived, but...it was nice to think that people were at least entering the restaurants with clean hands before touching anything (especially at the buffets).
We stayed at the Quality Suites, which was nice and very reasonable. They have a Park & Cruise deal so you can leave your car there during the cruise and avoid the $15 a day parking fee at the Port. We actually left our car at the Radisson and took the shuttle from there at 10:00 am.
We were at the port by 10:30, got checked in, had our security pictures taken, had Tanek registered for the kids' club, and were on board the ship by noon! Here we are outside of the terminal before we boarded - Tanek did have to have a bit of an attitude adjustment because he didn't want to wear his armband/locator for the kids' club, but he eventually got over it (by the time he had to return the locator and beeper, anyway).
Tanek is all ready for his first cruise dinner, but still trying to get that armband off!
The sun was just beginning to set as we were heading out to sea. This was the closest we came to a beautiful sunset while we were at sea!
Here is Tanek getting ready for the emergency drill. He kept wanting to know if we were getting in the water. Ummm, no, I certainly hope not!
After lunch on Thursday, we let Tanek go swimming while we were waiting for our luggage to arrive at our room.
The pool and the slide were his favorite part of the cruise. Attitude adjustments were a necessary part of every afternoon when it was time to go inside!
He barely reached the minimum height of 38 inches, but he certainly wasn't afraid of going down the slide!
This is a picture of part of our room. I have to say, Disney's staterooms are much more spacious than the staterooms I've stayed in on Carnival! And the service is far better as well. Everyone we talked to was friendly and helpful.
Here is Tanek with our dinner servers. Lidia was our Assistant Server - she is from the Dominican Republic; Mladen was our Server - he is from Serbia. Both of them were awesome with Tanek, very friendly and seemed to really enjoy getting to know the guests. We had the late seating (8:15 pm), so Tanek was not the most angelic little boy by that time of night after a very active day. I know that may be hard for some people to believe, but it's true - just ask my Mom! He looks like an angel in this picture, but it is deceiving.
Disney is the only cruiseline that does fireworks at sea! Not quite as dramatic as the fireworks show at Disneyworld, but impressive nonetheless! They do the fireworks during the Pirate's party right after Mickey rides on a zip-line across the top of the ship. Mickey sure showed those Pirates a thing or two.
And, Tanek finally crashes at the end of the night. He had no trouble sleeping after all of his activities during the day.
On a side note, I have to say how impressed I was with Disney's attention to cleanliness - not only with the ship itself, but with the guests. You did not board the ship or enter any restaurant or buffet without first receiving (and using) a sanitary hand wipe. I don't know if this is a new thing or if they have always done it, but the attention to preventing the spread of germs was comforting. Not that it prevented me from wiping down our entire room when we arrived, but...it was nice to think that people were at least entering the restaurants with clean hands before touching anything (especially at the buffets).
3 comments:
I love seeing all the pictures - it looks so WARM!! Glad you had a great time!
Thanks! It was beautiful with perfect weather - warm, but not too hot! I added some pics of the Atlantis & Paradise Island, too.
Hi Stephanie! I didn't know you were a reader of mine. You should have introduced yourself. I love to meet new people! I saw you on my blog frog and stoped over. We haven't been to Disney yet, but, it looks like lots of fun. I hope that we get to take our children in the next year or two. ~Blessings on your day!
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