Disney Cruise Part 5: The Food

Because that’s an important part of a cruise, right?  We ate A LOT.  There are three free sit-down restaurants.  For dinner, you sign up for either an early or late seating, and you eat at 6:15 or 8:15, and then your show is the opposite.  We chose the late seating because the restaurant and show are less crowded that way.  You’re assigned to different restaurants every night, so you rotate through them and eat at some more than twice.  For dinner, you’re assigned a table number and depending on the size of your table, you might have one or two other families with you.  You eat with the same group at the same table number every night, even when you go to different restaurants.  They even keep the same servers assigned to you, so after a couple of days, they know what you want to drink, they know everyone’s name, and you get to kind of know each other.

The first night we were nervous to see what our dinner companions would be like, and we were relieved that we actually liked the other family at our table!  Phew!  They were really cool, and they had a boy and a girl not too far in age from our kids.  In fact, we found out they were staying in the stateroom right next door to us!  We ended up doing a lot of stuff with them, and the kids all played together.  Sometimes we’d visit on our verandas when we were both in our rooms.  It was a lot of fun having another family to hang around with like that.  This is the eight of us on our last day:
 

The servers are cool.  One night, several of us had baked potatoes, and we all needed lots of sour cream and bacon bits, so the next night when we showed up, there were bowls of sour cream and bacon bits waiting on the table.  Another night, Rob asked for a little bowl of maraschino cherries for our sodas, and the next night, we had bowls of cherries waiting for us the next time, plus the stuff for the potatoes!  It was pretty funny.
 

The servers also interacted with the kids really well.  The kids can order off the kids menu or the adult menu, and they can ask for seconds, or they can asked for their food to be a certain way, and the servers were always happy to do it.  They played and joked with the kids, and a couple of times, they cut our meat for us.  Not just the kids’ meat, but the adults, too.  Uh-huh.  Here are our servers, Adela and Noel:
 

Here's Adela getting down on Robbie's level one day when he was being shy:

We had no problem waiting til that 8:15 to eat dinner, because we could pretty much eat all day leading up to that if you want to.  You can eat breakfast and lunch in any of the three restaurants, because you’re not assigned anywhere for the other meals, plus there’s a buffet separate from those.  There’s one other restaurant that’s supposed to be a little nicer, but you pay extra for it and have to make reservations.  We ended up not going to that one because we were pretty happy with the food situation as it was.

The buffet is on the same deck as the pool, and you can eat inside or bring your food out by the pool to eat.  Also on that deck is a pizzeria, a place for burgers/fries/hot dogs, a sandwich/fruit place, several soda fountains, and a four-flavor soft-serve ice cream station.  All included!  The soda fountains (and hot chocolate dispenser, too) and the ice cream are self-serve, so you can really load up.  You can just be walking past and decide you want a slice of pizza or an ice cream cone or some fresh fruit, and there you have it!

Goofy's Galley - sandwiches & fruit

Self-serve ice cream!  I wish they had one of these at work.

This is inside one of the restaurants, Triton's.  It had an under-the-sea theme, following The Little Mermaid.  It's hard to see, but the back wall is a mosaic of Ariel and King Triton.

One of the restaurants didn't allow us to take photos because it was too cool.  :)  It was called Animator's Palate, and it starts out black and white.  There are black and white line drawings on some of the walls that look like sketches from a Disney animation studio.  As your meal progresses, the room slowly starts to fill with color... parts of the sketches fill in with color, and big paint palates on the ceiling start to light up with different colors.  By the end of the meal, the whole restaurant is full-color; the waitstaff has even changed from black and white vests to colorful ones!  Very cool.

One of the highlights of all the eating we did was on lobster night when I ordered a lobster tail and the waiter asked me how many.  :o  I told him one, but he brought two anyway, and THEN he shelled them for me!  (And yes, I did eat them both...)
 

Disney Cruise Part 4: Character Breakfast

Everyone is assigned a morning for a special "character breakfast".  Ours was our first morning on the ship.  Almost all the characters made their way around the tables to take pictures with everyone and interact a bit.

 

Another interesting thing about the character breakfast is the servers go around and make napkin hats for everyone.  Erin got a giant bow:

 

(yes, her teeth are covered in chocolate sauce)

 

Robbie got a Robin Hood hat:

 

 

And Rob got this:

 

 

I was lucky enough to be the photographer and didn't take a picture of my own hat!  It was a yellow TABLECLOTH ala Rapunzel and it was way too long & bulky for me to wear for the rest of breakfast anyway.

 

Minnie Mouse

Dale

Pluto

Mickey

Goofy

 

Chip



Disney Cruise Part 3: Around the Ship

We tried to take a lot of pictures of different places on the ship, but looking through tem now, I realize we didn't get as many as we probably should have.  Kids in windows...

You can barely see a dark spot to the left of this splash, but it was a whale!  Sadly, this was the best photo I could get of it.  We saw whales a couple of times, but never very close up.

The first sunrise from our veranda

The main lobby - a cool glass sculpture/chandelier thing and double staircase:

There was a phenomenal kids area where you can drop off the kids and they can run around a play and do their own thing while the parents go to a show or take a nap or whatever.  I wondered if the kids would get bored of it after a while, but they never did.  They weren’t there all the time, but they were always excited to go, and they never really asked to be picked up.  They can stay til midnight if they want to.  They have electronic wristbands (like house arrest monitors – ha ha) so only the right parents can check them in and out, and they have GPS in them in case a kid gets lost.  Each stateroom also had two "wave phones" - kind of older model cell phones that work on the ship so you can call or text each other if you're doing separate things and trying to meet up, or if the kids need you for something while they're in te kid's lab.  They came in handy.

They didn’t allow photos in the kids’ areas, but I got one from the drop off area.  You can kind of see all the crazy lights and big screens & stuff in there.  There are separate areas for younger kids and older kids, and then the teens and tweens have their own areas on a whole different deck.  There were all kinds of games, toys, computers, books, beanbags, movies, and a couple of play structures.  They also had organized activities like crafts, science experiments, cooking classes, games, character appearances… those kids kept busy!

Of course the whole ship is very family-friendly, but there are also some adults-only areas, like little night clubs and the spa, a little café, and one pool is only for adults.  Disney is one of the few cruise lines without a casino on board, so we liked that a lot.  There was plenty of alcohol flowing, but we really didn’t have to deal with obnoxious drunks or partiers.  It was a good environment.

There were two full-sized theaters where we watched some movies and some really good musical productions.  I thought these would be cheesy & wasn’t too excited to see them, but they’re full-on productions with very impressive stage props and effects, and the acting/dancing was really good.  It’s something we’d really enjoy even if we weren’t trapped in the middle of the ocean!  This photo is from about halfway up the rows.

There were a few small lounge areas where you can relax and listen to piano players or bands or play with board games, and some larger studio-type areas where they had comedians and game shows and karaoke.

This was fun - one night we planned to go to a karaoke thing with another family, and when we got there, they had ordered virgin drinks for Rob and me (strawberry daiquiri and banana colada...mmmmm) and Cokes for the kids!  Here they are fueling up...

One thing we liked about the adult entertainment - Not "adult entertainment" if you know what I mean... everything was pretty clean, the comedians didn't curse all through their acts, and even if something was a little racy, it would be considered "Disney Dirty".  Not sleazy or creepy.  This was from a little skit some of the crew members did on the last night.

On the top deck, they have a sports court with basketball hoops and soccer goals, all surrounded with netting so you don’t lose your ball into the ocean!  There were also foosball tables, air hockey, and ping pong tables.  There was an arcade that we never even used.

This is a little clip of us walking through the "Route 66" part of the ship. I thought it was a cool area.

There’s a shallow pool in the shape of Mickey Mouse, with a cute slide and a splash pad for the little kids, and there’s a four-foot deep family pool that they can slide a deck over when they do big parties.



 

Robbie watching a bit of Toy Story and eating ice cream by the family pool.  This is the one they can cover with the deck.

 



Every night with turndown service, they leave a "navigator" in your room - a sheet outlining all the activities for the next day.  You can be as busy or as lasy as you like!

 

Disney Cruise Part 2: Our Stateroom

We booked one of the larger rooms with a veranda, so that was pretty nice.  I think it would be rough in an interior room, so that was probably money well spent.  Here’s our room – we learned that people like to put magnets on their doors, so we came prepared with some cool ones.

Entering the room, the closet is on the right and the bathrooms are on the left.  Pretty narrow coming in:

They have one small bathroom with a sink and toilet and a second one with a sink and shower with a cute mini tub.  Having the two separate rooms was helpful with all four of us. You can see some shelves reflected in the mirror above the sink - those are to the right of the toilet when you walk in.

And you can see the closet doors reflected in the other sink mirror.

We had a queen bed and the kids sort of had bunk beds.  The couch turns into a bed, and the top bunk comes down from the ceiling.  They loved it!  They took turns on the top bunk, and whoever slept up there usually work up with their pillow on the floor.  The best part is that we didn’t have to mess with setting up the beds because they crew does that during turndown service.

This is from the veranda door looking in toward the stateroom door.  That's the kids' couch/bed on the right.
 

And this is from the queen bed looking toward the veranda, with the bunk beds set up.

We actually had quite a lot of room to store stuff, and we didn’t feel cramped.  One more view - this is from the bed with the couch on the left.  You can also see the  room divider curtain to the right of the TV.
 

Every night we found a different towel animal on the bed after turndown service… Here they are:

Elephant

Bunny

 

Bear

 

Monkey (with chocolate gold coin eyes on pirate night)

 

Dog (they put Rob's shades on him)

 

Lobster with chocolate eyes

 

Disney Cruise Part 1: The First Day

We’ve been planning and saving for a Disney cruise for a year, and last week we finally went!  It was awesome!  Where to start?

Last Saturday, we drove to L.A. (about 5 – 6 hours).  We stopped along the way to have lunch with Rob’s uncle J.B. and his wife Carol.

We stayed the night at the Crowne Plaza, because they have a “stay and sail” deal where they drive you to and from the cruise center and keep your car in their underground garage while you’re gone.  Not bad!  That night, we walked across the street to see some cool guns and torpedoes outside the Navy museum.  We also saw the U.S.S. Iowa and some cool dancing fountains.

 

We brought nail polish so Erin and I could do our nails in the hotel.  Never mind my wrinkly E.T. fingers - we made little Mickeys with black polish  :)

 

 

We woke up early the next morning and watched for the Disney Wonder to show up in the harbor…

After breakfast, we headed over to the cruise center and checked in.  Disney knows their stuff, and they’re super-organized!  While we waited, Mickey came out and the kids got their picture taken with him.  It wasn’t long before it was time to board!

 

Heading down the gangway…

 

When you board the ship, they have a little reception line of crew members and they announce your family’s entrance like it’s a big deal.  It’s pretty cool.  Here’s a little clip of that:

We knew we wouldn’t be able to access our room for a couple of hours, so we took our time at the buffet and checking out the rest of the ship.  We ran into several characters along the way:

 

That evening was the sail away party on the top deck.  All the characters come out and perform for a little bit.  There’s lots of music and dancing and lights & it’s pretty fun.  Then there’s a countdown and we got to hear the Disney horn – it plays “When You Wish Upon a Star”… here’s another clip:

 

And before we knew it, we were headed out to open water on our way to Mexico!