A Merrytime Cruise, 4 Park Challenge and MVMCP OH MY! -Disney Dream 12/10-12/14 (Sea & Land Report)

Shrfleen

DIS Veteran
Joined
Sep 13, 2016
Hi everyone and welcome to my trip report. My name is Shauna and I will be doing most of the reporting. Joining me on this adventure was my twin sister Sarah (@SarahSnow), she may chime in from time to time. You can check out our pre trip report for this adventure, here.


A little background on us...we are 27, living in Indiana and love Disney! You can check out our previous Walt Disney World vacations by checking out the links to the trip reports in my signature below. We love to share our love of Disney with our family and anyone who ask!


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(L- Sarah R-Shauna)

This trip report will look back on our first ever cruise and a quick trip to Walt Disney World!
Our first ever cruise obviously had to be a Disney one, so we boarded the Disney Dream for a 4 night Merrytime Cruise (December 10th- December 14th) out of Port Canaveral, FL and went to WDW after.


Let's get started!

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Chapters

 
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Cold Rainy Indiana to Sunny Florida! - Day 0 (Travel Day)

We started our adventure by flying into Orlando on Sunday, December 9th. Our cruise research showed that it would be in our best interest to stay near Port Canaveral the night before to help ease any travel anxiety and to help avoid any potential delays that may derail our vacation. We chose to stay at the Hyatt Regency Hotel located in the Orlando International Airport. Since it was just the two of us and we didn’t need to rent a car, this was a good choice for us. We paid for Disney Cruise Transportation to take us to the port in the morning and it was right downstairs from the hotel.

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We opted for a balcony with a skyline view instead of a Christmas tree/lobby view. The only negative about this was the distance from the elevator. They are currently updating the hotel and this area and floor were recently renovated which was nice but rolling the luggage on carpet a distance was not fun. We dropped off our luggage and went back downstairs and ate at the Chili’s in the main airport terminal. We had a table with a great view for people watching. They were busy and the service wasn’t great but we made do and went back to the room to unwind before embarkation day.
 
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All Aboard the Disney Dream! - Day 1

We checked out of the Hyatt Regency Hotel around 9:15am. We lugged our luggage downstairs to the Disney Cruise Line Transportation desk by 9:30am. We handed our luggage over to the delivery truck to be delivered to port later. Waited about ten minutes and then loaded the second bus out of the airport. We had bus driver James. He was very entertaining, the time seemed to fly by. We left the airport at 9:51am and arrived at the port at 10:40am. By 11:10 we made our way through security and we were all checked in, for boarding group five. At 11:25am, boarding group one was called and by 11:32am our number was called and we made our way onto the ship.


We made our way to Cabanas for lunch. It wasn’t too busy yet and we were able to find a spot towards the back. Since the weather was windy and a bit overcast, people avoided sitting outside. Following our lunch, we made our way down to the Enchanted Garden to secure a Palo brunch reservation. They open the Palo and Remy line a little before 1pm. We were the 3rd guest in line and were able to secure a brunch reservation for our at sea day at 10am.

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We had about 20 minutes or so before we would be allowed into our room (6568) so we headed to the pool deck to find the drink station. We took a little cup to go and made our way to deck 6. They let us get into our rooms a few minutes before 1:30pm. We unpacked our carry ons and made our way downstairs to explore the ship. We had a Facebook Group meet and greet at 2:30pm in Evolution. We had a great group of people in our Facebook group and all of our moderators and veteran cruisers really helped us newbies. Following our meet and greet we went back to our room to get things ready for the evening events and our luggage was there waiting for us, so we unpacked.


We unpacked a little before the muster drill at 4pm. We were a few of the first people there and the crew members let us leave first after the drill was over. Our muster drill station was on deck 4 outside. We strategically found a spot so the sun would be blocked by the lifeboats. We checked in with guest services about the Princess and Frozen Meet and Greet tickets since they were not in our room. They let us know that since they are trying to become more environmentally friendly, paper tickets are no longer being printed and to just show up at your assigned time.
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We watched some of the Sail Away Party before we headed inside to wait for Captain Mickey. We then made our way to the Walt Disney Theater to watch the Golden Mickeys. I enjoyed the show. It was cute and had a lot of 90s Disney. I’d like to see some more interaction with the show. Maybe live voting for a special category or more like an award show with acceptance speeches. Following the show, we headed back to the room to get ready for dinner. Our dinner was in Royal Palace.


Royal Palace was beautiful. We were near the second entrance (the one in the hallway) and assigned to a table with 6 other people. Our table mates were all coupled off and happened to all be newlyweds celebrating their honeymoons. I am all for meeting new people but I honestly felt a little uncomfortable sitting at table with my sister and a bunch of newlyweds. They were all great people and we all got along and tried to solve those tricky riddles together.


For our starters, Sarah had the deep fried brie and farmhouse salad and I had the red wine bosc pear salad. Sarah really enjoyed the brie (she loves cheese) and my salad was surprisingly good. Now Sarah and I are not adventurous eaters and do not eat seafood. We both had the slow roasted breast of chicken with a baked potato. For dessert Sarah had the Apple Tart Tartin and I had the Grand Marnier Souffle and the signature dessert, the Classic Opera Gateau. Sarah says the tartin was a 3 out of 5. It wasn’t overwhelming great. The gateau was a great kick of coffee, but a little overwhelming. The souffle was 5 out of 5, it was fantastic.


Following our dinner, we made our way up to the pool deck to fill our water bottles in case we needed anything to drink during the night or in the early morning. The sign said to not fill up personal cups, so we we used their paper cups and filled up our bottles that way. We called it a night and prepared for the adventure that was ahead of us.


Join in next time and we take a look at what we did with our day in Nassau...

 


Where’s the sunshine?- Day 2

We started our day in Nassau early. We woke up around 7am or so and watched the ship continue docking, got ready and headed to Cabanas for breakfast around 8:30am. Cabanas was busy but we were able to find a table for two easily. Following breakfast we headed down to the Princess Meet and Greet at 9:30am. This was the time everyone who was heading into Nassau was leaving the ship so the stairs and elevators were busy.

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From day one of planning we knew we would not be getting off the ship in Nassau. There was just so much we wanted to do on the ship, so we stayed on board. The Disney Wonder was also docked in Nassau on December 11th so we spent a lot of time on deck 4 taking pictures of the Wonder, the port of Nassau and Atlantis. Unfortunately it was overcast and windy in Nassau, there were very few people using the pools. At the end of the day I actually ended up putting on jeans and long sleeves. I should have also put on some tennis shoes because my toes were freezing.

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I didn’t mention in the last post but we were apart of a family Fish Extender on this cruise. We delivered our gifts on the first night and throughout the day and night on Day 2. We split up our deliveries by floors and did 2 floors at a time. Luckily most of the cabins in our group were on the 6th floor also, all in the same area.


After our Fish Extender deliveries and some reading in the Adult only area, we headed to the pool deck to grab something to drink and eat for lunch. Sarah and I both grabbed stuff from Flo’s Cafe, Fillmore's Favorites. Sarah had some veggies and a tomato and mozzarella sandwich and I tried the turkey sandwich and a little chicken wrap. The turkey sandwich was good, the chicken wrap was a bit spicy and Sarah enjoyed her meal.

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After our lunch on the pool deck, we made our way up to our room to see if Carols (our stateroom host) had been in yet. We ran into him when we were out delivering our fish extenders and helped him learn more about them. He said a lot of people ask him about it and since it isn’t a Disney sponsored event he wanted to learn more so he could help answer other cruiser’s questions in the future. We made our way down to Pub 687 for Villains Quotes Trivia with Tony (#TonyfromSpain). Tony was very energetic and really made the adult activities we did super funny! We finished in second place during this trivia and we were super proud of ourselves!

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Following this round of trivia we made our way to the D Lounge for Game Show: Holiday Feud. This activity was really interesting because the people who were used in the survey had been on the Disney Dream. They asked questions like what is your favorite holiday movie, song and food. We were winning but the game go harder. We needed to remember that a) not everyone is celebrating Christmas during the holidays and b) people from other countries and ages may have different views on American holiday movies and songs. I mean Elf and the Santa Clause were not even listed as favorite holiday movies. Frosty the Snowman and Santa Claus is Coming to Town were a few that were listed and I personally didn’t even think of those.

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After a very competitive Feud, we headed back to Pub 687 for Disney Tunes Trivia. This was another fun round of trivia. Didn’t win this round either. We were a little bummed but all was still well on the Disney Dream. We went back to our room for some rest and relaxation. We watched Oliver and Company on the TV before we needed to get ready for Disney’s Believe. We went back to Deck 4 to get some photos of us leaving the port and the sunset before we headed downstairs for the show.

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While making our way to the show we began to really feel the ship moving. We didn’t even make it down the stairs in the theaters, fearful we would fall or not be able to get back up. We were still able to enjoy the show and munched on the popcorn in our new Alien popcorn bucket. It was interesting watching the show for up there because we could see the trap door open and kinda got a “behind the scenes” view of everything. I liked this performance, it was cute, the music was great and loved the Genie.


At dinner our servers Craig and Sipho were awesome! Mark was also great and made sure to check on us every night. Sipho made sure we had our Shirley Temples every night right when we walked in. On night two we ate in Animator's Palate, all of our table mates could feel the ship rocking and we were set next to one of the screens. Crush came up and spoke with one of the couples and it was very entertaining. Sarah had the Black Truffle Pasta Purseittes and Pinnate Bolognese. She liked everything that night. She thought about ordering seconds of the truffle pasta. I had the Chicken and Walnut Salad (with only 2 pieces of chicken) and the Herb Crusted Pork Chop. I feel like I would have been happier if I had the marinated chicken ( I love chicken) but the pork chop was good. Both of us had the Cookies ‘n Cream Sundae. It was a sweet way to end the night. After dinner we headed back to the room to try and settle in. We ended up watching a bit of Black Panther before we drifted to sleep.

Keep following along, my next post will be about Castaway Cay, the spa and more!
 


A peaceful ocean breeze- Day 3

Before we headed out to Castaway Cay, we had a quick breakfast in Cabanas. We left the ship about 45 minutes after guest were allowed to debark. Our first stop was Serenity Bay. We were with only a handful of other adults over in the area this early. The sun was shining but the wind was tearing through Serenity Bay. The wind made it a little cold on this side of the island. We found some chairs, laid out, drank some virgin strawberry daiquiris and read before we decided to walk along the shore. The water was ICE COLD! This was not the warm bath water I was expecting. We quickly returned to our chairs.

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We enjoyed lunch at the Serenity Bay BBQ. The food was really good. Sarah had the chicken and I went with hot dogs. They also had hamburgers, ribeye steaks, ribs, chips, fruits, veggies, a toppings bar, cookies, banana nut bread and ice cream. Serenity Bay was such a peaceful place to be. All you heard were the waves and the ocean breeze. The only downside was the amount of seaweed along the shore and the breezy weather. Overall it was a great place to relax.


As we made our way back to the ship we stopped by to get some photos of the ship and buy some items from the gift shop. We didn’t go onto the family beach, the area wasn’t very loud but you could see it was crowded. After our picture taking adventure, we made our way back to the ship to use our Rainforest Room passes.

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The Rainforest Room pass allows you to use the Rainforest Room showers, heated loungers, the sauna and the jacuzzis for an entire day or entire cruise depending on what you purchase. There were very few people in the Rainforest Room and and we did not have to wait to use anything. We spent some time expiring the showers before spending what felt like hours on the heated loungers. They were so relaxing.


Following the spa we stopped off at Vanellope's Sweets & Treats for some ice cream. This is not included in your trip cost but it is definitely worth a try! Wreck It Ralph is also one of our favorite movies and who wouldn't’ want to visit the Candy Crush Kingdom? Sarah got a Taffyta Sundae and I tried the Peanut Butter Tower Milkshake with the donut! We took these back to the cabin to enjoy. We continued to rest, or as known as, trying to take a nap but Sarah put on The Goofy Movie, which was totally distracting, I love that movie.

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After some relaxation, we got ready to head out for the evening. We decided not to watch the magician they had that night. Sarah and I both programmed student events in college so we have seen our fair share of stage performers. We hopped in line to meet with Captain Jack Sparrow outside of preludes. We met with him together and he asked if we had met him before. He was dead set on he had met us before but we have never met him. He was very much in character and interesting to talk with. The only problem with this meeting location was the first performance of the magician was getting out the same time the meet and greet was. This made that tiny area, very crowded.

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Before dinner we decided to try our hand at 90s music trivia in the pub. Sarah and I felt confident going in but quickly released that since we were born in the 90s that does not make us 90s music expert. Following trivia we quickly made our way back to Animator's Palate for the Pirate Night menu. I had the Chilled Mango Soup for my starter and Sarah had the Fennel, Orange and Quinoa Salad. I’m not a huge mango fan but it was pretty good and Sarah liked her salad. We both had the Tia Dalma’s Jerk Chicken. The chicken was tasty. For dessert I had the Caramel Macadamia Nut Cheesecake Tart and Sarah had the same plus the Bananas in Paradise dessert. I thought about asking for seconds of the tart, it was so good!

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Following dinner we made you way up to deck 12 to find a spot to view the show and fireworks. Unfortunately having the late seating for dinner the good viewing spots for the stage show were already taken so we find a good spot to watch the fireworks and listen to the show. The weather was absolutely perfect. Once we were finally able to leave deck 12 (they had everyone going down to deck 11 to the dance party we went back to our cabin to grab our laundry. Since we were heading to Disney after the cruise, we needed it done and we picked Pirate Night because on the Sea Day it would have been very busy. We finished our laundry sometime after 1am. Called down to room service for Mickey Ice Cream Bar and called it a night.


Thank you for reading up on our adventures today, join me next time to hear about our at Sea Day, Palo brunch and more trivia!

 
I think we are going in circles!- Day 4

We started off our day at sea a little later than usual. We had a 10:00am Palo brunch reservation followed by the Frozen Meet and Greet. We made our way to Palo about 10 minutes early and we were asked to sit in Meridian. While we were waiting for our table, the Art of the Theme Show tour was taking place. We were able to listen to a bit of the presentation and it seemed like a really interesting tour. Palo was a good experience. The only weird thing that happened was the waiter thought he knew us from a previous reservation earlier in the cruise, put we had never dined at Palo. The food and service were great but I don’t think it is a must do next time. I ordered the buttermilk pancakes and rollatini melanzane from the kitchen to go with my items from the buffet. Sarah had the apple cinnamon waffles and the parmesan crusted chicken breast to go with her items from the buffet.

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Following our very full brunch, we quickly went to our Frozen meet and greet. We were a little late because our Palo reservation but they allowed us in anyway. Sarah recorded a video for a coworkers daughters of Anna and Elsa letting them know they were going to Disney World! They were very kind to do the video and and we took a quick selfie with them before we headed back to the room. We noticed on our way back that the ship appeared to be going in circles to avoid some rain in the area.

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We noticed our on board account was charged the morning of our sea day. We had planned on adding gift cards to the account to pay it off before the credit card was charged. We went downstairs to guest services and had them add our gift card money to the account so that money would go back to the credit card. Doing it this way I was able to pay back Sarah, since it was her credit card. We stopped in on the DVC presentation in the afternoon to see if we could win some on board credit. Sarah has done a DVC presentation before and she was nearly convinced to purchase last year at Copper Creek. The only reason she didn’t purchase is because she is planning on buying a home this year and could not afford to do both. Following the DVC presentation we went to TV Tunes Trivia. Another great round of trivia with Tony.

Following trivia we attend the towel folding class. This was a great interactive family friendly activity. We learned how to make a monkey and a dinosaur. They also sent us home with a list of other towel animals we could try and make. We were so proud of our creations we recreated them for our stateroom host Carols before we headed out to play Bingo! We didn't’ win anything at bingo but that is ok. It was really exciting experience to almost win! Before we headed to the Beauty and the Beast performance, we booked a placeholder for two rooms. We plan on going on a cruise in November or December of 2020 with our Mom, Aunt and cousins.

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The Beauty and the Beast show was incredible! The music, the stage, the costumes, everything was amazing! The cutest part was when we found out the little boy who played Chip was a child from the cruise! After the incredible show we went to 2000s trivia! This was our last game of trivia with Tony : ( We did really well during this trivia round but we still didn’t win. We know for our next cruise, we really need to step up our trivia game! If you are on the Disney Dream make sure you check out the adult entertainment events hosted by #TonyfromSpain he’s great!


Our final dinner of the night was in Enchanted Garden. Everyone was kinda tired at the table. The day at sea, really wore everyone out. I had the Cucumber Garden Roll, Romaine Wedge for my starters, the Marjoram-Scented Roast Chicken as my main course and the Warm Sticky Date Pudding for dessert. Sarah had the Cucumber Garden Roll, Marjoram-Scented Roast Chicken, Chocolate Brownie Sundae and the Orange Yogurt Cake. We were also surprised with a birthday dessert! We ended our last dinner by a final riddle with the table next to us.

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Following dinner, we made our way upstairs to quickly put out our luggage. We ran into our stateroom host Carlos. He needed us to sign some documents confirming we received our stateroom gifts. While we were signing we asked if he enjoyed the surprise we left him in our room (we made a dinosaur). He loved it! He asked who made it and we told him about the towel folding class. He said we could give him a run for his money. He also wished us a happy birthday, we told him it was technically in a few weeks (January 4th). He told us that was the day he was going home to Honduras between his contracts. He would be home for a few weeks and then come back to the Dream for another 5 ½ months! I don’t think I could ever be away from my family for that long. We were both very excited that Carols was going home and we made him a monkey and left him a thank you note before we left the next day. With our luggage gone, we turned in for the night.


Join me next time for a report on disembarkation day and our first day at Disney World!

 
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“Turn these sea legs into land legs!”- Day 5

We began our disembarkation process early. They were very clear, if you were taking Disney transportation you needed to be on the bus by 9AM! Unfortunately things were not running very smooth at Customs that morning. It took us over a hour to make it off the ship and out of Customs. We got on the bus around 8:30am I do believe.

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Once we cleared Customs we made our way to the bus area. We were told by one of the cast members we were in the wrong spot, our Key to the World card said we were headed to the airport. We made it very clear to him that we were indeed headed to Walt Disney World and he took us over to another cast member. (I had multiple printouts that showed we purchased Disney Transportation and Coronado Springs was our return location) She asked which resort we were going to and said “head to bus number 3.” I’m glad that it wasn’t really any trouble but the first cast member made it seem like it was. Our driver was Jesse. He was nice and helpful. We left the port at 9:05am.


We stopped at Art of Animation first, Coronado Springs next and All Star Sports for last. We were checked in and in our room by 11AM. We were chatting with Annette from Puerto Rico about our cruise and she said that when she got back from hers she was really tired, so she found a room that was already ready so we could rest a bit. That was awesome! We also received a renovated room. The renovated rooms at Coronado are so modern and nice. The shower is also incredible!

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We had a 2:25pm lunch reservation at Via Napoli with a Candlelight Processional Package. We arrived at Epcot around 1:00pm. We searched for the Candlelight Processional or Epcot International Festival of the Holidays pin to add to our collect but unfortunately they were sold out. (Note to self: Go the first week haha) We watched the Voices of Liberty perform before heading to Via Napoli for our reservation. I enjoyed the restaurant other then the rooms varied in temperature. We both had the Mozzarella Caprese to start with. I ordered the individual pepperoni pizza and Sarah had the individual cheese pizza. Let me tell you, that individual pizza is huge! I could have easily shared the pizza with maybe 2 other people and it was delicious! We ordered dessert and while we were waiting for it I ran to the restroom. When I got back, Sarah told me they came out singing Happy Birthday to her with a candle on her gelato. I was like oh on, I didn’t get a candle. I didn’t get a candle because I was wearing my birthday button on my backpack. If you want birthday surprised and wishes, wear it on your shirt!

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We made our way over to the line for the Candlelight Processional dining package entrance. We got there sometime before 4pm and the line was only getting longer, so we waited until it opened around 4:30pm. We had a hard time picking somewhere to sit because we wanted to make sure we could see the whole stage but wanted to be under the roof because there was a chance of rain. Blair Underwood was the narrator and he was great! You could definitely tell he enjoyed being there! Following the processional we make our way over to the France pavilion to look for a tumbler for our cousin. Unfortunately a small fire had broken out and the gift shop and bakery were closed. We saw some lightening off in the distance so we started to make our way back to the front of the park. We looked at more pins and we were told that we could get free slushies from Club Cool for our birthday. We stopped in before we left the park, they were delicious. We want to thank the cast member for telling us about this awesome treat!

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We headed home to avoid the rain and end the night a little early. You definitely know you are back at Disney World when you walk 7 miles in like 6 hours. We took the bus back to Coronado. We were closest to registration center bus stop (#1). This stop is the last to pick up and last to drop off for the parks. I did find that a little annoying especially later on in our trip.


Tune in next time, we are taking on all 4 parks in one day!

 
Four parks, one day, oh my!- Day 6

Our goal for the four park challenge was to: take one phone, meet a character, eat a snack and ride one ride.

We started our day our day out early. We left the resort around 7:30am to make it to the first park of the day, Animal Kingdom. AK had extra magic hours starting at 8 AM that is why we started there first. We rode Kilimanjaro Safaris as soon as we got in. No wait and the animals were super active. We ended up watching one of the lions roar. Apparently this lion does this everyday to let the other lions and lionesses know that is his spot for the day. We then took a journey through the Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail. This was our first time on the path and it was incredible. Since it was still early, the animals very active too. We didn't make it to the other trails but I will definitely make sure it's on my list for our next visit.

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We stopped and picked up an elephant ear as our snack for our 4 park challenge. Definitely not exactly what I was thinking when we ordered an elephant ear but it was ok. Following our snack break, we went to met Donald and Daisy in Dinoland. We were finished with Animal Kingdom around 10am and hopped on the bus to Hollywood Studios around 10:30am.

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We arrived at Hollywood Studios around 10:45am. Our first stop was to use our Alien Swirling Saucer Fastpass in Toy Story Land. Toy Story Land was not extremely busy but lines were long. We rode and took pictures before we stopped to get our churros. We went to find Chip and Dale to get a photo with them but they never showed up, so we went and met Kylo Ren. He was only a 5 minute wait which wasn’t bad. We left Hollywood Studios and took the boat over to Epcot around 12:30pm. It took us about 20 minutes to get to Epcot on the boat.

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On our Epcot adventure we rode Living with the Land, ate a delicious sugar cookie from Sunshine Seasons and met Vanellope from Wreck it Ralph. We were hoping to meet Ralph too but he was “on an assignment”. We had to make a stop at Guest Relations because somewhere on our Epcot adventure I lost my umbrella. Luckily, someone turned it into Guest Services.


We left Epcot around 3:00pm and headed back to Coronado Springs. We waited for about 20 minutes before the bus arrived and made it back to the resort 20 minutes later. We stopped by El Mercado de Coronado (the Food Court at Coronado Springs) for a late lunch/early dinner. We both had a chicken sandwich and it was pretty good. The fries were excellent! We headed back to our room, tummies full and enough time to take a cat nap. Magic Kingdom was open until midnight so we were not in any hurry to get there.

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We headed to the bus stop at 7:30pm. The app stated the next bus would arrive eight minutes later. Then it changed to 7:50pm. The bus finally arrived at 7:56pm and it took us about 15 minutes to get to the Magic Kingdom.

The Magic Kingdom was busy! So busy one of the regulars stated she had never heard the announcement about the hub begin closed to guest because it was at capacity. We didn’t plan on watching the fireworks from the hub anyway so we just avoided that area. We hopped on the People Mover, just because and made our way over to Fantasyland to meet Tiana and Rapunzel. The posted wait time was 20 minutes but we waited closer to 35 minutes. Picked up a mickey pretzel somewhere along the way. We went and rode It’s A Small World with a 10 minute wait during the fireworks. We stopped off at Starbucks and grabbed a chicken wrap to split and something to drink to take back to the room since the food court would be closed.

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The line for the bus was obviously busy because people were leaving after the fireworks so we opted for a Minnie Van. We waited over 40 minutes for the Minnie Van but our drive was nice and gave us the option to take a shorter route and sit in traffic or go a longer way and avoid sitting in traffic. We picked the longer route. The driver also dropped us off right in front of Casitas 1. We arrived at Coronado at 12:12am. We called it a night and decided we were going to sleep in since we had a Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party to attend later in the day!


Keep following along as I share what happened at the Magic Kingdom and MVMCP fun!
 
Can I ask if the blanket on your bed was brought onboard? Or part of a gift package?


All Aboard the Disney Dream! - Day 1

We checked out of the Hyatt Regency Hotel around 9:15am. We lugged our luggage downstairs to the Disney Cruise Line Transportation desk by 9:30am. We handed our luggage over to the delivery truck to be delivered to port later. Waited about ten minutes and then loaded the second bus out of the airport. We had bus driver James. He was very entertaining, the time seemed to fly by. We left the airport at 9:51am and arrived at the port at 10:40am. By 11:10 we made our way through security and we were all checked in, for boarding group five. At 11:25am, boarding group one was called and by 11:32am our number was called and we made our way onto the ship.


We made our way to Cabanas for lunch. It wasn’t too busy yet and we were able to find a spot towards the back. Since the weather was windy and a bit overcast, people avoided sitting outside. Following our lunch, we made our way down to the Enchanted Garden to secure a Palo brunch reservation. They open the Palo and Remy line a little before 1pm. We were the 3rd guest in line and were able to secure a brunch reservation for our at sea day at 10am.

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We had about 20 minutes or so before we would be allowed into our room (6568) so we headed to the pool deck to find the drink station. We took a little cup to go and made our way to deck 6. They let us get into our rooms a few minutes before 1:30pm. We unpacked our carry ons and made our way downstairs to explore the ship. We had a Facebook Group meet and greet at 2:30pm in Evolution. We had a great group of people in our Facebook group and all of our moderators and veteran cruisers really helped us newbies. Following our meet and greet we went back to our room to get things ready for the evening events and our luggage was there waiting for us, so we unpacked.


We unpacked a little before the muster drill at 4pm. We were a few of the first people there and the crew members let us leave first after the drill was over. Our muster drill station was on deck 4 outside. We strategically found a spot so the sun would be blocked by the lifeboats. We checked in with guest services about the Princess and Frozen Meet and Greet tickets since they were not in our room. They let us know that since they are trying to become more environmentally friendly, paper tickets are no longer being printed and to just show up at your assigned time.
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We watched some of the Sail Away Party before we headed inside to wait for Captain Mickey. We then made our way to the Walt Disney Theater to watch the Golden Mickeys. I enjoyed the show. It was cute and had a lot of 90s Disney. I’d like to see some more interaction with the show. Maybe live voting for a special category or more like an award show with acceptance speeches. Following the show, we headed back to the room to get ready for dinner. Our dinner was in Royal Palace.


Royal Palace was beautiful. We were near the second entrance (the one in the hallway) and assigned to a table with 6 other people. Our table mates were all coupled off and happened to all be newlyweds celebrating their honeymoons. I am all for meeting new people but I honestly felt a little uncomfortable sitting at table with my sister and a bunch of newlyweds. They were all great people and we all got along and tried to solve those tricky riddles together.


For our starters, Sarah had the deep fried brie and farmhouse salad and I had the red wine bosc pear salad. Sarah really enjoyed the brie (she loves cheese) and my salad was surprisingly good. Now Sarah and I are not adventurous eaters and do not eat seafood. We both had the slow roasted breast of chicken with a baked potato. For dessert Sarah had the Apple Tart Tartin and I had the Grand Marnier Souffle and the signature dessert, the Classic Opera Gateau. Sarah says the tartin was a 3 out of 5. It wasn’t overwhelming great. The gateau was a great kick of coffee, but a little overwhelming. The souffle was 5 out of 5, it was fantastic.


Following our dinner, we made our way up to the pool deck to fill our water bottles in case we needed anything to drink during the night or in the early morning. The sign said to not fill up personal cups, so we we used their paper cups and filled up our bottles that way. We called it a night and prepared for the adventure that was ahead of us.


Join in next time and we take a look at what we did with our day in Nassau...

 
Can I ask if the blanket on your bed was brought onboard? Or part of a gift package?

We got it as a gift package...we ordered it as soon as it was released because we had heard it tends to sell out quickly and it did. It was less than $50
 
That’s amazing. We have a Merrytime cruise booked for this year, but I didn’t know that this was an option. Was it listed in the stateroom gift section?

P
We got it as a gift package...we ordered it as soon as it was released because we had heard it tends to sell out quickly and it did. It was less than $50
 
That’s amazing. We have a Merrytime cruise booked for this year, but I didn’t know that this was an option. Was it listed in the stateroom gift section?

P

Yes it was, I want to say it opened for ordering in October.
 
Sweets and Character Meets!- Day 7

We decided to sleep in our last park day, since we would be at the Magic Kingdom late again. We started to get up and moving around 10am. We had a reservation for The Plaza around 1pm so we explored the resort a little before making our way to the Magic Kingdom. We watched the Country Bear Jamboree, rode the people mover and Sarah met Stitch. The lunch at The Plaza was good. The server even brought out a Birthday treat for us. We wandered around for a few hours riding some rides and taking some pictures, before 4pm rolled around to get our Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party wristbands.

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After we got our wristbands we made our way to ride Jingle Cruise before we to stood in line for Moana. Moana started meeting at 5:45pm and by 6:15pm we met her and were in line for our next meet and greet. We made our way over to meet Snow White, her prince, Aurora and Prince Philip. These were the last set of Princesses and Princes we needed to meet. They started meeting right at 7PM and by 7:10pm we were done. We headed to Aladdin and Friends next. We reached the line at 7:18pm. We had hoped we would get to meet Genie and Jasmine but sadly, they switched out shortly before our turn came up and we met with Aladdin and Abu. Abu really liked my ears though, which made for an entertaining meet and greet. This meet and greet took about an hour.

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We then ventured around some of the cookie stops. Stopped off to get a pretzel before we ended up in front of Pecos Bill’s to watch the parade. I stood along the fencing with my phone sticking out of the fence post. It wasn’t that bad of a view. Following the parade we tried to hit up a few more cookie stops but unfortunately you would really tell it was a sold out party because the lines for the cookies were long. We stopped off at Starbucks to get the chicken wrap they serve. We enjoyed it on our last trip so we picked it up again. We requested a Minnie Van to take us back to the resort and we were home around 11pm. We ate and made sure our bags were ready for tomorrow. We had an early evening flight so we turned in for our final sleep at Disney.

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