northsouth
DIS cruiser
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2000
One thing I have noticed reading other peoples' trip reports is that everyone's experience is totally different!!! And this is a good thing, it points out that there is something for everyone on DCL. We travelled with 3 teens, (16 year old girls, one is ours, 2 are friends of hers), and a 12 year old daughter, DH and myself, aged 40-ish. I can't claim that I was generous enough to pay the way of my daughter's friends, they paid their own way pretty much, although we did have to rent a van (more $$) from Avis and get larger (Radisson) or more (Priceline comes through!!) hotel rooms to accomodate the 6 of us.
We booked this cruise in November of 2000 after taking the 3 day Wonder cruise in August 2000 and loved it. DH especially was very taken with cruising, and this is a man who has never wanted to do family vacations before taking a cruise. On the Wonder cruise my teen daughter was a bit reluctant to strike out on her own with the other teens, so we allowed the 2 friends this trip (and didn't really regret it, they are pretty good kids but do cause a few headaches.) We intended this to be our last blast family vacation, I hesitated to take my kids out of school for it but they are both good students and my 12 year old has already made up most of her work since her teachers were kind enough to give her assignments ahead of time. She actually did homework while on the cruise, what a good kid!! My 16 yo arranged her schedule to only carry 2 classes this quarter and is catching up now with no problems that I know of.
We stayed at the Radisson at the Port, arrived Thursday night 1-31 because the airfare was better to fly in on Thursday, and we wanted an extra full day anyway to enjoy Florida. We also had an extra day at the end because the Saturday flights available to us were too early to count on making the flight after disembarkation.
The Radisson is beautiful and I highly recommend it, although if there were only 4 of us I would have probably booked something else, if only for our budget. It was also very convenient for us since we had 6 people and we all fit just fine into one of the suites there. I do think the port view rooms are a bit overrated though, you can hardly see the port, so if you get a regular room, don't stress about it. The pool area there is very nice to sit around or swim or whatever you want to do. We liked their gift shop too, things there are very reasonably priced and they had some really unique items, like a pair of plastic sandals for 12 yo DD that don't look like plastic, they are really cute for $7.
On Friday we visited Cocoa Beach and Ron Jon's surf shop (which the teens love). Behind Ron Jon's there is a public beach, costs $3 to park. We played in the surf for a couple of hours, a beautiful day in the 80's tempwise, we had a great time. Bought some beer and soda pop to take on the ship, had to buy less than we wanted since now you have to carry it or pack it in luggage. And yes we did use it all up, but it was only 2 -12 packs pop and 1 -12 pack beer.
Ate dinner at Zachary's Greek/American restaurant next door to Radisson after turning in rental van at Avis. Food there is OK, service was kind of slow but they were quite busy also. We did find out that we could take either the Avis or Radisson shuttle to the port Saturday, since we had already booked the Radisson shuttle for 1040am we stuck with that, but it looked like the Avis shuttle was a little more accessible, as many people wait for the shuttles and the "booked" time was kind of a joke, you just have to stake out a spot and hope you get on a shuttle.
So Saturday we did get on a shuttle around 1050am finally, and arrived at the port at 11am. I was so excited, a beautiful day and here we are after waiting all these months!!! The luggage is collected out in the parking lot and we walked to the port terminal, the security lady checked us off and then I had my documents checked at the downstairs desk, sure enough I had forgotten to fill in some things but mostly I had all our "tickets" filled out and headed upstairs for the real checkin.
The lines were not bad at all, and everyone so friendly. Spent about 20 minutes checking in with Margaret at one of the check in counters, I was almost teary to actually be there, but Margaret didn't mind, she was great. Our dining rotation was LAPLAPL which I was afraid we would get, I wanted PLAPLAP but oh well. Not worried enough about it to try and change it, and it worked out fine anyway. I wouldn't trade our servers for anything, they were wonderful .
I will mention here how great our servers were every night consistently. Aleksandra and Dennis made sure we were happy with our dinner choices every night; if not they would bring something else to try, in an instant it seemed. With fickle and picky teenage girls, hardly a night went by that someone didn't need a new dinner, and our servers were ever-patient and truly cared if we were happy. Dennis kept us supplied with bread, butter, and drinks (I drink a lot of water) and we almost never had to ask, he was just there. Also Dennis did magic tricks almost every night to entertain the girls. He was such a fun guy. Alen from Croatia was our head server, and he came by almost every night to be assured that everything was "excellent". "Very good" wouldn't do, he wanted "excellence". Well, it was.
We finally boarded the ship about 1245pm, I went straight to Palo for ressies and sent family to deck 9 buffet. Booked brunch and dinner with no problems, got pretty much what I wanted (late Tuesday dinner and Monday 11am brunch with Gina). Then I ate my welcome aboard brunch, almost too excited to eat, but the beef and mango chutney was interesting if you like to try new things!! Pretty soon all my folks abandoned me to explore the ship, so I went to stateroom to see if luggage was there by 130pm; it was still arriving but mostly was there. Also each of our staterooms got the very nice DCL carryon/beach bags with water bottle (for returning cruisers); they are well constructed and we needed them on our return, as things never quite fit right when you pack to go home. Also used one of them on island days, very handy.
After unpacking for an hour after lunch it was time to relax and enjoy the ship. I went to Signals bar at the adult pool and ordered the drink of the day (sea breeze: cranberry juice, grapefruit juice and vodka) and a large mug. The mug thing was confusing, somehow the $2 plastic mug is for refilling mixed drinks and the glass one is only for beer. But the bartenders will usually do whatever you want. I wanted the glass mug as a keepsake and hardly ever used mine, but DH got the ESPN glass mug and used his quite a bit LOL. I did usually try the drink of the day every day but usually didn't have my mug with me. My favorite was the 2.99 mimosas, 10am til noon, I forget which day that was, probably one of the sea days (Thursday?).
Well, the rest of this day was safety drill, then sailaway party where I met Gina but somehow missed all our other DIS'ers and never met them. We had a wonderful sailaway, the weather was beautiful and we sailed off into the sunset, so to speak. The Coast Guard boat flew through the water alongside of us til we left the Port area. They seemed very attentive to any other watercraft in the area, we saw them stop a little boat and drive them away from the ship's path.
And thanks to whoever turned in my lost 2 way radio that I dropped somewhere on the way to sailaway. Truly a good Disney crowd of people on this ship, DH was skeptical that we would ever see that radio again, but when I checked a little while later at guest services, it was there, safe and sound.
Went to Welcome Aboard Variety show, it was alright. Gary D, the "guitar comedian", especially was pretty funny. Unfortunately we missed his show at Rockin Bar D later in the week, due to being too tired to stay up for it. Then Lumiere's for dinner and met our servers, Aleksandra (Netherlands) and Dennis (Phillippines), who were outstanding. We had father & teen daughter tablemates who were a great match for us. I hope they thought the same, we enjoyed their company. Had not met our room host Luis yet but he made great towel animals every night and we did eventually meet him in person.
BTW we had booked a Cat 6 on Deck 6 with a Cat 11 across the hall for the 3 teens. No problem changing our key cards (since they legally have to put an adult in each room for booking purposes), and we also got an extra card for each room that only had door access on it. That way I could keep an eye on the teens, but as far as I know they didn't get into much trouble (that I know of), other than I did catch them at the adult pool once and gave them a warning about it. It is very difficult to keep up with teens on this cruise, even with 2 way radios. I had given them firm instructions about not disturbing people and following rules, I hope they listened!!! They are pretty good kids though and I have to assume they did not do anything bad. If anyone knows otherwise please let me know!! Most nights they were out very late with the teen activities; there were a total of 55 teens on the ship out of 2305 passengers. My 12 year old did still enjoy Oceaneers, I was afraid she may have outgrown it but she still liked it, and made several new friends that she emails with now.
After our late seating dinner we changed into comfy clothes and wandered around Deck 10 looking at the stars and enjoying being at sea. I even saw a shooting star ("when you wish upon a star...!!") Then the waning moon rose over the sea, fascinating to watch.
Our very Magical first day was just about over.
We booked this cruise in November of 2000 after taking the 3 day Wonder cruise in August 2000 and loved it. DH especially was very taken with cruising, and this is a man who has never wanted to do family vacations before taking a cruise. On the Wonder cruise my teen daughter was a bit reluctant to strike out on her own with the other teens, so we allowed the 2 friends this trip (and didn't really regret it, they are pretty good kids but do cause a few headaches.) We intended this to be our last blast family vacation, I hesitated to take my kids out of school for it but they are both good students and my 12 year old has already made up most of her work since her teachers were kind enough to give her assignments ahead of time. She actually did homework while on the cruise, what a good kid!! My 16 yo arranged her schedule to only carry 2 classes this quarter and is catching up now with no problems that I know of.
We stayed at the Radisson at the Port, arrived Thursday night 1-31 because the airfare was better to fly in on Thursday, and we wanted an extra full day anyway to enjoy Florida. We also had an extra day at the end because the Saturday flights available to us were too early to count on making the flight after disembarkation.
The Radisson is beautiful and I highly recommend it, although if there were only 4 of us I would have probably booked something else, if only for our budget. It was also very convenient for us since we had 6 people and we all fit just fine into one of the suites there. I do think the port view rooms are a bit overrated though, you can hardly see the port, so if you get a regular room, don't stress about it. The pool area there is very nice to sit around or swim or whatever you want to do. We liked their gift shop too, things there are very reasonably priced and they had some really unique items, like a pair of plastic sandals for 12 yo DD that don't look like plastic, they are really cute for $7.
On Friday we visited Cocoa Beach and Ron Jon's surf shop (which the teens love). Behind Ron Jon's there is a public beach, costs $3 to park. We played in the surf for a couple of hours, a beautiful day in the 80's tempwise, we had a great time. Bought some beer and soda pop to take on the ship, had to buy less than we wanted since now you have to carry it or pack it in luggage. And yes we did use it all up, but it was only 2 -12 packs pop and 1 -12 pack beer.
Ate dinner at Zachary's Greek/American restaurant next door to Radisson after turning in rental van at Avis. Food there is OK, service was kind of slow but they were quite busy also. We did find out that we could take either the Avis or Radisson shuttle to the port Saturday, since we had already booked the Radisson shuttle for 1040am we stuck with that, but it looked like the Avis shuttle was a little more accessible, as many people wait for the shuttles and the "booked" time was kind of a joke, you just have to stake out a spot and hope you get on a shuttle.
So Saturday we did get on a shuttle around 1050am finally, and arrived at the port at 11am. I was so excited, a beautiful day and here we are after waiting all these months!!! The luggage is collected out in the parking lot and we walked to the port terminal, the security lady checked us off and then I had my documents checked at the downstairs desk, sure enough I had forgotten to fill in some things but mostly I had all our "tickets" filled out and headed upstairs for the real checkin.
The lines were not bad at all, and everyone so friendly. Spent about 20 minutes checking in with Margaret at one of the check in counters, I was almost teary to actually be there, but Margaret didn't mind, she was great. Our dining rotation was LAPLAPL which I was afraid we would get, I wanted PLAPLAP but oh well. Not worried enough about it to try and change it, and it worked out fine anyway. I wouldn't trade our servers for anything, they were wonderful .
I will mention here how great our servers were every night consistently. Aleksandra and Dennis made sure we were happy with our dinner choices every night; if not they would bring something else to try, in an instant it seemed. With fickle and picky teenage girls, hardly a night went by that someone didn't need a new dinner, and our servers were ever-patient and truly cared if we were happy. Dennis kept us supplied with bread, butter, and drinks (I drink a lot of water) and we almost never had to ask, he was just there. Also Dennis did magic tricks almost every night to entertain the girls. He was such a fun guy. Alen from Croatia was our head server, and he came by almost every night to be assured that everything was "excellent". "Very good" wouldn't do, he wanted "excellence". Well, it was.
We finally boarded the ship about 1245pm, I went straight to Palo for ressies and sent family to deck 9 buffet. Booked brunch and dinner with no problems, got pretty much what I wanted (late Tuesday dinner and Monday 11am brunch with Gina). Then I ate my welcome aboard brunch, almost too excited to eat, but the beef and mango chutney was interesting if you like to try new things!! Pretty soon all my folks abandoned me to explore the ship, so I went to stateroom to see if luggage was there by 130pm; it was still arriving but mostly was there. Also each of our staterooms got the very nice DCL carryon/beach bags with water bottle (for returning cruisers); they are well constructed and we needed them on our return, as things never quite fit right when you pack to go home. Also used one of them on island days, very handy.
After unpacking for an hour after lunch it was time to relax and enjoy the ship. I went to Signals bar at the adult pool and ordered the drink of the day (sea breeze: cranberry juice, grapefruit juice and vodka) and a large mug. The mug thing was confusing, somehow the $2 plastic mug is for refilling mixed drinks and the glass one is only for beer. But the bartenders will usually do whatever you want. I wanted the glass mug as a keepsake and hardly ever used mine, but DH got the ESPN glass mug and used his quite a bit LOL. I did usually try the drink of the day every day but usually didn't have my mug with me. My favorite was the 2.99 mimosas, 10am til noon, I forget which day that was, probably one of the sea days (Thursday?).
Well, the rest of this day was safety drill, then sailaway party where I met Gina but somehow missed all our other DIS'ers and never met them. We had a wonderful sailaway, the weather was beautiful and we sailed off into the sunset, so to speak. The Coast Guard boat flew through the water alongside of us til we left the Port area. They seemed very attentive to any other watercraft in the area, we saw them stop a little boat and drive them away from the ship's path.
And thanks to whoever turned in my lost 2 way radio that I dropped somewhere on the way to sailaway. Truly a good Disney crowd of people on this ship, DH was skeptical that we would ever see that radio again, but when I checked a little while later at guest services, it was there, safe and sound.
Went to Welcome Aboard Variety show, it was alright. Gary D, the "guitar comedian", especially was pretty funny. Unfortunately we missed his show at Rockin Bar D later in the week, due to being too tired to stay up for it. Then Lumiere's for dinner and met our servers, Aleksandra (Netherlands) and Dennis (Phillippines), who were outstanding. We had father & teen daughter tablemates who were a great match for us. I hope they thought the same, we enjoyed their company. Had not met our room host Luis yet but he made great towel animals every night and we did eventually meet him in person.
BTW we had booked a Cat 6 on Deck 6 with a Cat 11 across the hall for the 3 teens. No problem changing our key cards (since they legally have to put an adult in each room for booking purposes), and we also got an extra card for each room that only had door access on it. That way I could keep an eye on the teens, but as far as I know they didn't get into much trouble (that I know of), other than I did catch them at the adult pool once and gave them a warning about it. It is very difficult to keep up with teens on this cruise, even with 2 way radios. I had given them firm instructions about not disturbing people and following rules, I hope they listened!!! They are pretty good kids though and I have to assume they did not do anything bad. If anyone knows otherwise please let me know!! Most nights they were out very late with the teen activities; there were a total of 55 teens on the ship out of 2305 passengers. My 12 year old did still enjoy Oceaneers, I was afraid she may have outgrown it but she still liked it, and made several new friends that she emails with now.
After our late seating dinner we changed into comfy clothes and wandered around Deck 10 looking at the stars and enjoying being at sea. I even saw a shooting star ("when you wish upon a star...!!") Then the waning moon rose over the sea, fascinating to watch.
Our very Magical first day was just about over.
Our first cruise was January 2001, the week flew by in the blink of an eye! I couldn't believe how soon it was over and we were getting off....so sad. 
Can't wait to go back!! That was so nice of you to let your daughter bring two of her friends along, I'm not sure I would be that brave!
I bow before you, I am impressed. 
