Our first ever family vacation was in 2002 when our daughter was 5 years old. We decided to make it the All-American driving vacation to Walt Disney World! We live north of Chicago and now that we've made the trip to Orlando many times since that first adventure, it's a two day driving breeze for us. Our DD Lauren is now 17 and she was granted permission by my DW Robin to actually participate in the drive this year. Lauren drove into the WDW property for the first time!
Robin's Mercury Mariner was sporting her favorite Disney character antenna topper for the drive.
I magnetized a Mickey bobble head with a piece of felt underneath to protect our truck's paint and good ole Mickey lead the way down from Northern Illinois to central Florida.
We had saved up $1875 on our Disney Chase VISA Rewards card so I made the command decision that we were going to go on the four-night Disney cruise. We've cruised on Carnival, Norwegian, and Royal Caribbean before and had a wonderful time on each. I'd been itching to try Disney to see how it compared. The trick has always been that Disney is so much more money than the other cruise lines. But we're Disney Nuts and we had that $1875 to put a rather decent dent in the cost.
We left home at 4:30am and stayed south of Atlanta in a nice roadside motel like we always do. The trick is that we had to leave on a Friday so we would make it to Port Canaveral on Saturday, stay overnight Saturday night somewhere, and then hop aboard the Disney Dream to head out to sea on Sunday. I priced Saturday night stays in Port Canaveral and...guess what? It's expensive.
So why not stay at WDW Saturday night and just drive to the port Sunday morning? Great idea! Now, where to stay? Throwing caution and money to the wind, I booked a Cabin at Fort Wilderness! My parents used to have a log cabin in Wisconsin that they retired to. While the CaFW is a bit pricey, I couldn't wait to give it a try.
We always stop at the Florida Welcome Center to get the traditional sip of fresh orange juice:
Then we arrived at WDW several hours later.
I had completed the online check in before we left for our trip and we already had our Magic Bands. Actually, we had two sets of Magic Bands. One was for our stay at WDW after the cruise and the second arrived after I booked the one night stay at the cabin last minute.
So check in was really quick and we actually could have just called to find out our cabin number and simply driven right up into its driveway and used our Magic Bands to open the doors.
The cabin was amazing. The a/c was ice cold, just how we like it. Super clean inside and out. I could stay at this cabin for months! We really liked the decorating inside. Lauren had never seen a Murphy Bed before so I unfolded it from the wall and told her to try it. I got her about 45 degrees folded back up into the wall before her screaming/laughter/screaming made me stop.
I really wanted to grill my own burgers at WDW. I brought three Mariano's cheddar burgers with pretzel buns in a cooler, along with my Mickey burger flipper. I was in all my glory, grilling with the small bag of charcoal I brought along as well. The wood deck with the grill was awesome. The smell of charcoal and burgers cooking mixed with the pine needle sweetness was magical.
We had gone to the pool and relaxed before dinner. We had our own soda pop and chips and pretzels and we even had cereal and donuts we brought from home for breakfast in the morning. We stopped at the Fort Wilderness store and bought milk.
We also went to the s'more roast and outdoor theatre (of course Frozen was playing that night!) for the Chip n Dale sing along. It was all wonderful. We took the intra-resort bus to the beach area and we were just early enough to get a chaise lounge chair on the white sand in the dark. We saw the Disney Electrical Water Pageant parade and then the Wishes fireworks over the water. The music from MK is piped in and it was a great way to see the fireworks.
We didn't have to get up super early in the morning, which was nice. I was really sorry to see the cabin in the rear view mirror. I would love to stay there for a week if we could afford it. It was very quiet at night and I really like the idea of having a full kitchen and that Disney will deliver your grocery list for just a $10 fee. That's a great deal! It's also really convenient to be able to park in your own cabin driveway. You could save a lot of money by buying groceries at a regular grocery store if you have your own car too.
We arrived at Port Canaveral and parked in the parking garage. Our Sears luggage carrier mounted on the top of our Mercury Mariner was too tall to go any higher than the first level, but no one told us that. I figured it out by getting out of the truck before going any further. That would have been bad if I had gone through that garage at any kind of speed over 5 mph. Our luggage carrier would have been knocked right off. I wish the people who took our money would have mentioned that to us. Ah well.
The line went fast inside the terminal and our luggage was handled quickly by very friendly porters who stack luggage like they're experts at playing Tetris. It was fun to see all the families wearing matching outfits waiting to get on the ship. Once aboard, we walked around to get the lay of the upper decks, had lunch, played ping pong, and then there was a sail away party.
Every day on board the ship for lunch at Cabanas, they had crab claws and shrimp. Suffice it to say, I enjoyed crab claws and shrimp every single day!
I had printed out Mickey Captain ears, laminated them, and glued flat advertising magnets on the back at home. It was fun to put them up over our port hole on our cabin door.
We had booked our cruise through Dreams Unlimited because of all the great reviews here on DisBoards and because they offered a $150 onboard ship credit. We also received our Disney Chase VISA $50 onboard credit as well. Keep in mind that the $200 total credit can be used on the ship OR it can be used to pay your tips at the end of the cruise when you get your bill.
We were pleasantly surprised to find very useful items in a gift basket from Dreams Unlimited waiting for us in our stateroom (9666 on the starboard side with a balcony). The travel mugs were very, very, very useful on board the ship. Did I mention they were great? Well, they were. So was all the other fun stuff inside as well as the gummy fruit chews.
The cruise was fantastic. We did not get off the Dream in Nassau because we've already been there and we wanted more time on the ship. Plus, it was much less crowded. We spent some time in the adult only section (uh-oh, Lauren was six months away from being 18, but looks older and she acts more like an adult that I do, so it was no problem. There wasn't really even any one around to say anything anyway.).
I did rain for a little while so the pools were closed due to lightning.
The upper deck at night:
Lauren in her bunk with the stars on the ceiling and the outline of Peter Pan and Wendy in the stars:
Robin's Mercury Mariner was sporting her favorite Disney character antenna topper for the drive.
I magnetized a Mickey bobble head with a piece of felt underneath to protect our truck's paint and good ole Mickey lead the way down from Northern Illinois to central Florida.
We had saved up $1875 on our Disney Chase VISA Rewards card so I made the command decision that we were going to go on the four-night Disney cruise. We've cruised on Carnival, Norwegian, and Royal Caribbean before and had a wonderful time on each. I'd been itching to try Disney to see how it compared. The trick has always been that Disney is so much more money than the other cruise lines. But we're Disney Nuts and we had that $1875 to put a rather decent dent in the cost.
We left home at 4:30am and stayed south of Atlanta in a nice roadside motel like we always do. The trick is that we had to leave on a Friday so we would make it to Port Canaveral on Saturday, stay overnight Saturday night somewhere, and then hop aboard the Disney Dream to head out to sea on Sunday. I priced Saturday night stays in Port Canaveral and...guess what? It's expensive.
So why not stay at WDW Saturday night and just drive to the port Sunday morning? Great idea! Now, where to stay? Throwing caution and money to the wind, I booked a Cabin at Fort Wilderness! My parents used to have a log cabin in Wisconsin that they retired to. While the CaFW is a bit pricey, I couldn't wait to give it a try.
We always stop at the Florida Welcome Center to get the traditional sip of fresh orange juice:
Then we arrived at WDW several hours later.
I had completed the online check in before we left for our trip and we already had our Magic Bands. Actually, we had two sets of Magic Bands. One was for our stay at WDW after the cruise and the second arrived after I booked the one night stay at the cabin last minute.
So check in was really quick and we actually could have just called to find out our cabin number and simply driven right up into its driveway and used our Magic Bands to open the doors.
The cabin was amazing. The a/c was ice cold, just how we like it. Super clean inside and out. I could stay at this cabin for months! We really liked the decorating inside. Lauren had never seen a Murphy Bed before so I unfolded it from the wall and told her to try it. I got her about 45 degrees folded back up into the wall before her screaming/laughter/screaming made me stop.
I really wanted to grill my own burgers at WDW. I brought three Mariano's cheddar burgers with pretzel buns in a cooler, along with my Mickey burger flipper. I was in all my glory, grilling with the small bag of charcoal I brought along as well. The wood deck with the grill was awesome. The smell of charcoal and burgers cooking mixed with the pine needle sweetness was magical.
We had gone to the pool and relaxed before dinner. We had our own soda pop and chips and pretzels and we even had cereal and donuts we brought from home for breakfast in the morning. We stopped at the Fort Wilderness store and bought milk.
We also went to the s'more roast and outdoor theatre (of course Frozen was playing that night!) for the Chip n Dale sing along. It was all wonderful. We took the intra-resort bus to the beach area and we were just early enough to get a chaise lounge chair on the white sand in the dark. We saw the Disney Electrical Water Pageant parade and then the Wishes fireworks over the water. The music from MK is piped in and it was a great way to see the fireworks.
We didn't have to get up super early in the morning, which was nice. I was really sorry to see the cabin in the rear view mirror. I would love to stay there for a week if we could afford it. It was very quiet at night and I really like the idea of having a full kitchen and that Disney will deliver your grocery list for just a $10 fee. That's a great deal! It's also really convenient to be able to park in your own cabin driveway. You could save a lot of money by buying groceries at a regular grocery store if you have your own car too.
We arrived at Port Canaveral and parked in the parking garage. Our Sears luggage carrier mounted on the top of our Mercury Mariner was too tall to go any higher than the first level, but no one told us that. I figured it out by getting out of the truck before going any further. That would have been bad if I had gone through that garage at any kind of speed over 5 mph. Our luggage carrier would have been knocked right off. I wish the people who took our money would have mentioned that to us. Ah well.
The line went fast inside the terminal and our luggage was handled quickly by very friendly porters who stack luggage like they're experts at playing Tetris. It was fun to see all the families wearing matching outfits waiting to get on the ship. Once aboard, we walked around to get the lay of the upper decks, had lunch, played ping pong, and then there was a sail away party.
Every day on board the ship for lunch at Cabanas, they had crab claws and shrimp. Suffice it to say, I enjoyed crab claws and shrimp every single day!
I had printed out Mickey Captain ears, laminated them, and glued flat advertising magnets on the back at home. It was fun to put them up over our port hole on our cabin door.
We had booked our cruise through Dreams Unlimited because of all the great reviews here on DisBoards and because they offered a $150 onboard ship credit. We also received our Disney Chase VISA $50 onboard credit as well. Keep in mind that the $200 total credit can be used on the ship OR it can be used to pay your tips at the end of the cruise when you get your bill.
We were pleasantly surprised to find very useful items in a gift basket from Dreams Unlimited waiting for us in our stateroom (9666 on the starboard side with a balcony). The travel mugs were very, very, very useful on board the ship. Did I mention they were great? Well, they were. So was all the other fun stuff inside as well as the gummy fruit chews.
The cruise was fantastic. We did not get off the Dream in Nassau because we've already been there and we wanted more time on the ship. Plus, it was much less crowded. We spent some time in the adult only section (uh-oh, Lauren was six months away from being 18, but looks older and she acts more like an adult that I do, so it was no problem. There wasn't really even any one around to say anything anyway.).
I did rain for a little while so the pools were closed due to lightning.
The upper deck at night:
Lauren in her bunk with the stars on the ceiling and the outline of Peter Pan and Wendy in the stars:
