Disneyfun1
Walt Disney World Lover-DVC Owner Since 1/07
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2000
Hi all,
This is my first attempt at doing a pre-trip report so I hope I can do it so it's enjoyable for anyone reading this.
We are booked to go on the Disney Dream June 24, 2012 5 night sailing, with 2 stops at Castaway Cay, which also happens to be my birthday on June 24 where I will be turning 46, and it happens to be the podcast cruise 3.0, which we did not know about when we did our booking.
To start, there will be 3 of us on this cruise, Myself-Art, wife-Lisa, and our Daughter Meghan, who will be one month shy of turning 17 when we board.
We originally re booked while on board our 5th trip on the Disney Wonder in Oct, 2010. We had originally booked for May of 2011 on the Dream, but then later changed it to June 2012 to go on my birthday and go when school is out. My oldest son could not decide to go with us or not at the time, who is 21 now, and when he decided to go, it was too costly to add him on, get his airfare, etc, so he has opted not to go with us.
On this trip, we are leaving Phoenix, AZ on June 22 at 6 am, getting into Orlando about 4 pm, then staying 2 nights at Bay Lake Tower using our DVC points, we are actually doing night 1 in a studio, then night 2 in a 1 bedroom(due mainly to using all our points up previously!), and after the cruise, spend one last night at the Boardwalk Villas in a studio before flying back on June 30th that afternoon.
We have had some ups and downs with this trip already. We originally booked to be in a cat 8C and had a cabin all assigned and everything. Normally, we like to send DCL money just about weekly to go with payday, as we are not wealthy by any means, but we do ok and plan to go to WDW at least once a year as a family trip, something I never had growing up, so that is important to me. I was born and raised in Ventura, CA, just north of LA, so I used to go to Disneyland all the time while growing up, yet always wanted to go to WDW and could never seem to afford it. Well one year, we got a little money and I said, if we dont go now, Ill never get there, so I finally got there for the first time in 1999. Since then, I have now been 16 times, with this upcoming trip being #17 for me and cruise #6. I have said somehow I will get there at least once a year now and have, even buying into DVC at SSR and BLT.
Back to the cabin, all was good, we got it all paid off by Feb of this year ahead of schedule. We booked this to go on my birthday of June 24, the day we set sail, and after we booked it we found it it was also podcast cruise 3.0. We inquired about joining it, but could not unless we cancelled our res and lost our room credit, etc., so we were fine with that. Then right after we paid off our room, I got an email that we could join podcast cruise 3.0 and not have to cancel, just switch it all over to DU travel. I was so happy we could do this, but then we hit a snag. The only way to transfer it is if we had not paid off our room and owed money on it. So we came up with upgrading to the next cabin level of an 8B and just paid the extra amount which was not all that much, we were now part of PC 3.0!
When we upgraded, we had to take a GTY room, figured no big deal, we get an 8B or maybe better! So of course, everyday since, i log into DCL to see if we have a room yet, nothing showed up for weeks, then finally about 2 weeks ago, we got a room! Problem was we got an 8A Handicapped Accessible room. I found pics of the room we got assigned, and while its bigger, it has no divider curtain, no split bath that we wanted, and with my wife and 16 y.o. changing, that wasnt good for us. We tried to see if we could be moved at all and were told they would see what they can do. After a week, we were told there was no place to move us and would keep looking, which basically meant they did not want to give us a verandah room for free, which is fine, they certainly dont have to, we even would have downgraded to get a regular room, but they said there were none for us. So now we decided for us, it was better to pay to upgrade ourselves and now have a cat 5D verandah room, with a stateroom number we picked, only thing we really lost was the extra inside room we wanted and the round tub that was new for the family staterooms. We are still debating on paying to upgrade to the 4D and get the bigger room and round tub and should decide by next week.
So now after all that, our pre cruise plans are to arrive in Orlando on Friday, June 22 about 4 pm, go to BLT and get our room, then go to Downtown Disney to look around for the night, have dinner at T-Rex, then head back to the room later that night.
Day 2 so far consists of going to Magic Kingdom, checking our Fantasyland and the rest of the park, Lunch at Crystal Palace, then either stay in MK or maybe go to Epcot for a bit. Later that night, we have dinner at Chef Mickey's planned, then either to MK or Epcot after dinner.
Day 3, the day we leave for the port, I was hoping to do the exotic driving experience at WDW and drive a Lamborghini on my birthday in the morning ever since I found out about it. We now it just so happens, they are on vacation just before we arrive, and until we are on the cruise. Such a bummer, I have always wanted to drive one of those cars and the only other day they have it open while there is the day we head back to the airport and i think with the times, it would be too close to chance it. So our plans now are to get up, maybe have breakfast at The Wave at the Contemporary or just have a quick serve meal, then take the Magical Express bus back to the airport so we can catch the DCL bus to the port. We prefer to do it this way instead of having to rent a car, or to wait for the bus to get us from the resort because I was told they dont come until noon or so. We like to get to the port early to relax, take pictures, etc. We are hoping to get to the airport about 930 or 10 then take the bus to be at the port about 11 or so. We have a check in time at the port of 11-1130.
The rest of the cruise for now will go as follows:
Day 1-Board the Disney Dream
Day 2-Castaway Cay-try and do the CC 5K, Palo 2nd seating
Day 3-Nassau
Day 4-Day at sea, Palo Brunch
Day 5-Castaway Cay
Day 6-Off ship, back to Boardwalk Villas, then to Hollywood studios for lunch at 50's Prime time, hope our favorite server Mark is working that day, then go to Epcot at night and have dinner at Rose & Crown.
The next morning we plan on breakfast at Cape May Cafe, then heading to the airport when our time comes.
I will say I just heard of the CC 5k, and while none of us have ever done anything like this before, we want to give it a try, I may be walking it most of the way, but would like to try and see if I can do it, as does my wife and daughter.
On another note, we are going to WDW just about 1 year and 1 week after I was able to adopt my step-daughter, Meghan, Which I am very proud to have been able to do!
Today, we spent most of the day designing and printing up magnets for our stateroom door, I cant wait to put them all on and hope they look good!
This will also be our longest voyage on the ship, as so far I have not been able to talk my wife into a 7 night cruise yet, she wants to work up to it, so we have only done 3 and 4 nights so far, and now this 5 night cruise coming up.
I will try to update as things change leading up to our departure, or at least once a week. I just hope this doesnt drag on for the readers, as I like to read the reports myself so i can find things i may not have thought of to do.
Here is a pic of the 3 of us going to give you an idea of who we are.
Enjoy!!
This is my first attempt at doing a pre-trip report so I hope I can do it so it's enjoyable for anyone reading this.
We are booked to go on the Disney Dream June 24, 2012 5 night sailing, with 2 stops at Castaway Cay, which also happens to be my birthday on June 24 where I will be turning 46, and it happens to be the podcast cruise 3.0, which we did not know about when we did our booking.
To start, there will be 3 of us on this cruise, Myself-Art, wife-Lisa, and our Daughter Meghan, who will be one month shy of turning 17 when we board.
We originally re booked while on board our 5th trip on the Disney Wonder in Oct, 2010. We had originally booked for May of 2011 on the Dream, but then later changed it to June 2012 to go on my birthday and go when school is out. My oldest son could not decide to go with us or not at the time, who is 21 now, and when he decided to go, it was too costly to add him on, get his airfare, etc, so he has opted not to go with us.
On this trip, we are leaving Phoenix, AZ on June 22 at 6 am, getting into Orlando about 4 pm, then staying 2 nights at Bay Lake Tower using our DVC points, we are actually doing night 1 in a studio, then night 2 in a 1 bedroom(due mainly to using all our points up previously!), and after the cruise, spend one last night at the Boardwalk Villas in a studio before flying back on June 30th that afternoon.
We have had some ups and downs with this trip already. We originally booked to be in a cat 8C and had a cabin all assigned and everything. Normally, we like to send DCL money just about weekly to go with payday, as we are not wealthy by any means, but we do ok and plan to go to WDW at least once a year as a family trip, something I never had growing up, so that is important to me. I was born and raised in Ventura, CA, just north of LA, so I used to go to Disneyland all the time while growing up, yet always wanted to go to WDW and could never seem to afford it. Well one year, we got a little money and I said, if we dont go now, Ill never get there, so I finally got there for the first time in 1999. Since then, I have now been 16 times, with this upcoming trip being #17 for me and cruise #6. I have said somehow I will get there at least once a year now and have, even buying into DVC at SSR and BLT.
Back to the cabin, all was good, we got it all paid off by Feb of this year ahead of schedule. We booked this to go on my birthday of June 24, the day we set sail, and after we booked it we found it it was also podcast cruise 3.0. We inquired about joining it, but could not unless we cancelled our res and lost our room credit, etc., so we were fine with that. Then right after we paid off our room, I got an email that we could join podcast cruise 3.0 and not have to cancel, just switch it all over to DU travel. I was so happy we could do this, but then we hit a snag. The only way to transfer it is if we had not paid off our room and owed money on it. So we came up with upgrading to the next cabin level of an 8B and just paid the extra amount which was not all that much, we were now part of PC 3.0!
When we upgraded, we had to take a GTY room, figured no big deal, we get an 8B or maybe better! So of course, everyday since, i log into DCL to see if we have a room yet, nothing showed up for weeks, then finally about 2 weeks ago, we got a room! Problem was we got an 8A Handicapped Accessible room. I found pics of the room we got assigned, and while its bigger, it has no divider curtain, no split bath that we wanted, and with my wife and 16 y.o. changing, that wasnt good for us. We tried to see if we could be moved at all and were told they would see what they can do. After a week, we were told there was no place to move us and would keep looking, which basically meant they did not want to give us a verandah room for free, which is fine, they certainly dont have to, we even would have downgraded to get a regular room, but they said there were none for us. So now we decided for us, it was better to pay to upgrade ourselves and now have a cat 5D verandah room, with a stateroom number we picked, only thing we really lost was the extra inside room we wanted and the round tub that was new for the family staterooms. We are still debating on paying to upgrade to the 4D and get the bigger room and round tub and should decide by next week.
So now after all that, our pre cruise plans are to arrive in Orlando on Friday, June 22 about 4 pm, go to BLT and get our room, then go to Downtown Disney to look around for the night, have dinner at T-Rex, then head back to the room later that night.
Day 2 so far consists of going to Magic Kingdom, checking our Fantasyland and the rest of the park, Lunch at Crystal Palace, then either stay in MK or maybe go to Epcot for a bit. Later that night, we have dinner at Chef Mickey's planned, then either to MK or Epcot after dinner.
Day 3, the day we leave for the port, I was hoping to do the exotic driving experience at WDW and drive a Lamborghini on my birthday in the morning ever since I found out about it. We now it just so happens, they are on vacation just before we arrive, and until we are on the cruise. Such a bummer, I have always wanted to drive one of those cars and the only other day they have it open while there is the day we head back to the airport and i think with the times, it would be too close to chance it. So our plans now are to get up, maybe have breakfast at The Wave at the Contemporary or just have a quick serve meal, then take the Magical Express bus back to the airport so we can catch the DCL bus to the port. We prefer to do it this way instead of having to rent a car, or to wait for the bus to get us from the resort because I was told they dont come until noon or so. We like to get to the port early to relax, take pictures, etc. We are hoping to get to the airport about 930 or 10 then take the bus to be at the port about 11 or so. We have a check in time at the port of 11-1130.
The rest of the cruise for now will go as follows:
Day 1-Board the Disney Dream
Day 2-Castaway Cay-try and do the CC 5K, Palo 2nd seating
Day 3-Nassau
Day 4-Day at sea, Palo Brunch
Day 5-Castaway Cay
Day 6-Off ship, back to Boardwalk Villas, then to Hollywood studios for lunch at 50's Prime time, hope our favorite server Mark is working that day, then go to Epcot at night and have dinner at Rose & Crown.
The next morning we plan on breakfast at Cape May Cafe, then heading to the airport when our time comes.
I will say I just heard of the CC 5k, and while none of us have ever done anything like this before, we want to give it a try, I may be walking it most of the way, but would like to try and see if I can do it, as does my wife and daughter.
On another note, we are going to WDW just about 1 year and 1 week after I was able to adopt my step-daughter, Meghan, Which I am very proud to have been able to do!
Today, we spent most of the day designing and printing up magnets for our stateroom door, I cant wait to put them all on and hope they look good!
This will also be our longest voyage on the ship, as so far I have not been able to talk my wife into a 7 night cruise yet, she wants to work up to it, so we have only done 3 and 4 nights so far, and now this 5 night cruise coming up.
I will try to update as things change leading up to our departure, or at least once a week. I just hope this doesnt drag on for the readers, as I like to read the reports myself so i can find things i may not have thought of to do.
Here is a pic of the 3 of us going to give you an idea of who we are.
Enjoy!!
Great start!
I can only imagine how much that could hurt.
