OMG You're a Disaster......no wait I'M a Disaster! August Land and Sea Adventure!...Updated 9/30

Omg that’s insane about the drunk driver! I don’t blame you for having PTSD!


Also I would also think it was an eternity when it wasnt
 
CM - OK you are all set!

Me - Really? That is it? I can get on and more importantly OFF the boat?


CM - You are able to get on and off the boat! Have a magical day!

Yay!!! Despite knowing that these are the rules for closed loop cruises, the concept of traveling internationally without a passport just doesn't compute with me. I renewed my girls, too, as it just felt like I *should*, even if I didn't have to. I'm so glad everything worked out for you!!!
 
Omg that’s insane about the drunk driver! I don’t blame you for having PTSD!


Also I would also think it was an eternity when it wasnt
Yeah it was like the perfect storm. I wasn't even supposed to be working that day, I was covering for someone else!
Yay!!! Despite knowing that these are the rules for closed loop cruises, the concept of traveling internationally without a passport just doesn't compute with me. I renewed my girls, too, as it just felt like I *should*, even if I didn't have to. I'm so glad everything worked out for you!!!
Same! I said to my husband, if there is an emergency don't tell me til I get off the boat because I cannot get home til Friday once I am on the boat. I am so glad a copy of the birth certificate was enough. I now have the copies saved in my phone just incase Im ever this dumb again. I probably won't be, but never say never!
Goodness this sounds like a fun adventure! Can’t wait to hear more!
Oh it was!! Glad to have you along!
 


Our first order of business once we were finally on the boat was to get some food. I have no photographic documentation of this, but I do know for a fact that is what we did. We went to Marcelene Market and hit the buffet. Once we had our food we roamed and roamed for what seemed like a life time. There was just not enough indoor seating in this area. People had a single bag placed on a chair to reserve the table while I assume they went for food. So we would get all excited thinking we found a seat, and then LET DOWN. It was a solid 90+ degrees outside so eating a hot meal in the hot sun just did not appeal to us. We eventually found two seats together along the windows and ate our lunch, taking turns to refill our diet cokes. After lunch it was just about 2 so we decided to go and see if our room was ready.

Now remember when I said my friend was a disaster? It comes into play here. About 60 days or so before the cruise we had to make our final payments. I went on line and plugged in my credit card and my half of the balance. I texted Anne to let her know in case an email confirmation came her way so she wouldn't be confused. I also reminded her the the final payment was do that day........see where I am going with this?

IMG_1346.jpg IMG_1347.jpg IMG_1348.PNG IMG_1349.PNG

Yep. Anne forgot to call/go on line to make her final payment and our room was cancelled! So after 12 hours of our lives spent on the phone, we got it all sorted out. We moved from Deck 7 to Deck 8 and before we sailed we were moved from late dining to early dining. Once the stress wore off we now laugh about it and the running joke was "don't forget to pay your bill."


We found our room on Deck 8 Forward. We were at the very front of the boat and over looked I want to say Deck 4 and the ocean. This was the largest cruise room I have ever been in. I believe based on the layout it was a 3 person room. The first night the put the sofa bed down for us, but we decided to just share the queen size bed.


Our room was quick to welcome us aboard!


IMG_0701.jpg
And I took some room photos for posterity.

IMG_0702.jpg IMG_0703.jpg
Our Window had kind of a funky angle and didnt keep the light out as much as I wanted it to, but overall it was not a huge deal. We left our stuff in the room and headed up to The Bayou. Like all good Disney Cruisers we joined the facebook group for our cruise and decided to partake in the unoffical pub crawl. Now this little pandemic thing over the last two years, and spending 18 months of the last 24 pregnant, my tolerance level has dropped dramatically. My college days are OVER, so actually participating in a full on pub crawl is just something I cannot do. I can't hang with the cool kids any more. SO we got our lanyards and did the pub crawl on our own time over the four days.

We both got Hurricanes. They were good. Not NOLA good, but good. I also got some Beignets. Again, they were good, but not NOLA good. I was glad I only got two of them.

IMG_0710.jpg IMG_0714.jpg IMG_0715.jpg

Lanyards acquired and drinks and treats consumed we decided it was time to find the Adult Only area of the boat. There are some mixed reviews on this area, but I will give my opinion. I liked it. I felt like it was VERY much out of the way.

On the Dream and Wonder (only other two boats I had been on), there were often children walking through it. Now I love kids. I have two of my own who are my world, but I do not like OTHER kids when I don't want them around. To be fair, it isn't kids I don't like, it is parents who let their kids kick my seat on the plane, kick me in line, and basically let the kids do what they want. I get it kids are not always controllable, but when my two year old acts out, if she doesn't stop, we leave. I may not be able to control her, but I can control the situation I put her in.

So I really liked that kids were not seen in this area. The pool was a bit small and flanking it there were these weird waterfall type seats in a semi circle. I would have either made the pool bigger, or made one of the semi circle things into another hot tub, or heck, made both of them hot tubs. There was only one hot tub and it was kind of in a weird spot, but since it was like a billion degrees outside, I did not feel the need to use the hot tub. Should this boat ever go to Alaska or Northern Europe, I could see this being an issue. The winter months this could also be an issue too. I am not much of a hot tub person in general so I can't complain too much.


***I have been photo blocked so I will do a short update in the next post***
 
Once we did our cursory look around the Adult Only area we found what I consider the BEST feature of the adult only area. OVER SIZED ROCKING CHAIRS!
IMG_0718.jpg

I am an old lady at heart. I love to cross stitch and tell people to get off my lawn! Well I would, but I live in the woods and people don't come to my house. I have had to chase deer and wild turkeys off my lawn though.

I sat back and ordered a beer and just admired my view.

IMG_0719.jpg IMG_0720.jpg
After ordering my drink a lovely young waiter man came over and asked if I needed anything else. I asked him if he was able to get us any of those neat cooler bags I saw on the main deck. He said of course and he could have them delivered to our room. Sweet! So Anne and I each bought a bag that came with 5 beers and had them delivered. Well, waiter man is the BEST and gave us each an extra beer for free!

One of my weird (to most people) quirks is I am a New Kids on the Block Fan. Anne is as well. In fact, we met because of them. Feel free to judge us, our families and non-new kids friends do. We have gone on several of the NKOTB cruises and Anne and I are known on the carnival cruise circuit for having buckets of beer. We don't like to share either. So when we got back to our room we had to text our friends that we have upped our Bucket of Beer game, and now we have bags of beer.

IMG_0724.jpg IMG_0722.jpg
One we confirmed our Bags of beer had been delivered we decided it was time to change and head to dinner.

Up next, an evening in Arendelle!
 


After checking out our bags of beer, we changed our clothes and headed off to Arendelle! This was probably my favorite meal of the trip. We were seated with three other staterooms and had an Adult only table. The first night was a little awkward, but by the final night of the trip we were really enjoying each others company.

The Disney Imagineers really did a great job with this restaurant. The details made me feel like I really was walking into the Palace.

This guy welcomed us with a nice note!


IMG_0726.jpg

We walked down the hall and took in all the details. I loved the snowflake in the porthole window.

IMG_0727.jpg IMG_0728.jpg IMG_0730.jpg

We were seated at table 706 and met our table mates and servers. I cannot remember the head servers name, but our assistant server was named Glory. She took our drink orders and we perused the Menu. I got a Frozen Fractals cocktail and a Diet Coke. I will say Glory did a great job keeping us in our DC's. I tended to get one cocktail per meal. I thought the plates were so pretty and secretly hoped they sold them in the gift shop. Spoiler Alert. They did not.

IMG_0733.jpg IMG_0732.jpg
 
The entertainment in this restaurant was fantastic. We had signing minstrels and Mr. Oaken!
IMG_0740.jpg IMG_0735.jpg

During the Music break the Queen, Kristoff, Elsa, Oaken and Olaf came around to visit the tables and see how we were enjoying our meals!


IMG_0743.jpg IMG_0744.jpg IMG_0745.jpg

IMG_0746.jpg
Before we left, Elsa used her magic and froze the ceiling!

IMG_0751.jpg
We wrapped up dinner with some yummy desserts which were OBVIOUSLY chocolate. We all know how much Queen Anna loves chocolate! We paid our bill and decided to head to Mickey's Main Sails before we went down to the evening show.

I have no photos of the shops (TR FAIL) but at the end of the report I will post a photo of my haul. I can tell you that bag numbers 2 and 3 were indeed purchased. If you will ignore my messy bed Bag number 2 is below:



68521179183__308CD4C6-CD1B-4EB4-99FD-793671646F77.jpg
The Disney Wish Dooney in all her epic glory! Isn't she a beauty! Now the main reason I have next to no photos is because I am an Epic disaster......have I mentioned that before? I decided to carry as many items (and there were many) as I possibly could and buy essentially EVERYTHING in one trip. Yep. Disaster. The thought that I would be on the ship 3 more nights, and the next day was at sea so the shops would be open ALL DAY. Nope. I needed it ALL, and I needed it NOW. I was doing my very best imitation of Veruca Salt, sans the temper tantrum. I was actually quite composed during this endeavor. I waited in an impossibly long line with everyone else at main seating dining to make my purchases. Once at the register the CM asked me if I would like to purchase a reusable cruise shopping bag. I said to the nice CM, is that even a question? Yes please sell me one! I NEED ALL THE BAGS!!!! And thus bag number 3 was purchased.

After shopping we lugged half the merchandise the boat sells back to our room and went to the show. I got exactly one photo as that is all I was allowed to take.

IMG_0759.jpg

The show was the new show on the Wish, Disney Seas and Adventure. It was a really cute show where Goofy lives out his wildest dream and captains the ship! After the show we were exhausted. This is when we decided to share the main bed, and if one of us felt it didn't go well, we would alternate who got the small bed the rest of the cruise. Spoiler alert, neither of us bothered the other, we pretty much kept to our sides of the bed and felt there really was no need to use the couch bed and we could just use the couch for its intended purpose. To sit on. We got back to our room, said hello to our towel animal and watched Frozen on Demand. Then let the ship rock us to sleep.

IMG_0761.jpg

Up next a day at sea!
 
The entertainment in this restaurant was fantastic. We had signing minstrels and Mr. Oaken!
View attachment 703505 View attachment 703506

During the Music break the Queen, Kristoff, Elsa, Oaken and Olaf came around to visit the tables and see how we were enjoying our meals!



View attachment 703507 View attachment 703508 View attachment 703509

Before we left, Elsa used her magic and froze the ceiling!

We wrapped up dinner with some yummy desserts which were OBVIOUSLY chocolate. We all know how much Queen Anna loves chocolate! We paid our bill and decided to head to Mickey's Main Sails before we went down to the evening show.

I have no photos of the shops (TR FAIL) but at the end of the report I will post a photo of my haul. I can tell you that bag numbers 2 and 3 were indeed purchased. If you will ignore my messy bed Bag number 2 is below:



The Disney Wish Dooney in all her epic glory! Isn't she a beauty! Now the main reason I have next to no photos is because I am an Epic disaster......have I mentioned that before? I decided to carry as many items (and there were many) as I possibly could and buy essentially EVERYTHING in one trip. Yep. Disaster. The thought that I would be on the ship 3 more nights, and the next day was at sea so the shops would be open ALL DAY. Nope. I needed it ALL, and I needed it NOW. I was doing my very best imitation of Veruca Salt, sans the temper tantrum. I was actually quite composed during this endeavor. I waited in an impossibly long line with everyone else at main seating dining to make my purchases. Once at the register the CM asked me if I would like to purchase a reusable cruise shopping bag. I said to the nice CM, is that even a question? Yes please sell me one! I NEED ALL THE BAGS!!!! And thus bag number 3 was purchased.

After shopping we lugged half the merchandise the boat sells back to our room and went to the show. I got exactly one photo as that is all I was allowed to take.


The show was the new show on the Wish, Disney Seas and Adventure. It was a really cute show where Goofy lives out his wildest dream and captains the ship! After the show we were exhausted. This is when we decided to share the main bed, and if one of us felt it didn't go well, we would alternate who got the small bed the rest of the cruise. Spoiler alert, neither of us bothered the other, we pretty much kept to our sides of the bed and felt there really was no need to use the couch bed and we could just use the couch for its intended purpose. To sit on. We got back to our room, said hello to our towel animal and watched Frozen on Demand. Then let the ship rock us to sleep.

View attachment 703517

Up next a day at sea!
The Arendelle restaurant looks like a lot of fun! Thank you for your report
 
August 23 was our day at sea. This was a "new" itinerary for me in the sense that our sea day was first. Usually we go Nassau, Castaway Cay, Day at sea. I was not complaining though. We had a gorgeous weather day so it was perfect. We slept in this morning. My that bed with the slight rocking of the ship. I really got some great sleep this trip.

We started out day off at Bingo! We are old ladies at heart we we needed to get our Bingo on!

IMG_0765.jpg IMG_0767.jpg

While we were waiting for Bingo to start I went and grabbed a snack.

IMG_0768.jpg

Popcorn is one of the few snacks on the boat you have to pay for, but I don't remember it being super expensive and it was good. We ended up talking with a gentleman in a wheelchair and he was telling us about his experience with accessibility on this ship compared to others. He said the hallways are much wider which is nice, but there was a pole in the middle of their stateroom which made it difficult for his wheelchair to maneuver. Anne was very interested in this information as her boyfriend uses a wheelchair. He is able to walk, but if the seas were rough it would be a challenge for him. I always find it interesting to talk to people who come from different walks of life or cultures. I like to educate myself on differences as much as I can. I have coworkers from all over the world and I love to hear about their cultures and customs, I also have quite a few friends who are medically fragile and I like to hear about their lives as well. I will never understand what they go through on a daily basis, but being able to understand why they cant do certain things, or how they have to do things in certain ways is important for me to hear and understand.

Sadly we did not win the jackpot, or even a dollar. It was lunch time so we decided to see what was available. Nothing really appealed to me until we went into Joy's Sweet Shop. Seriously. This place was GOLD. I wanted EVERYTHING!

IMG_0769.jpg IMG_0771.jpg IMG_0772.jpg IMG_0773.jpg IMG_0774.jpg
IMG_0775.jpg

I swear I browsed for at least 30 minutes before I finally decided what I wanted.

IMG_0777.jpg

My lunch everyone! I bowl of Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream. It was heaven! I believe Anne got some Pizza.
 
Once we were done with lunch we went over to Guest Services. I had some gift cards I wanted to put on my account. I always buy gift cards at Target with my Target debit card. It saves me 5%, which I know isn't a ton, but I'd rather have $5 in my pocket than Disney's.

IMG_0778.jpg

While we were waiting our turn they had a cute game for the kids going on on the stage. It was a Guess who is behind the Curtain game. They brought kids up and played 20 questions.

IMG_0779.jpg

Once we were done at Guest Services we went our separate ways. I cannot remember where Anne went, but I went up to the Adults only area for some sun and a drink.

IMG_0782.jpg IMG_0785.jpg

I really enjoyed this area on the boat. It was nice and peaceful and I could just sit and read my book.

When I had enough sun I went off and found Anne and we decided to continue to check off our Pub Crawl list

IMG_0786.jpg IMG_0787.jpg

Bud Light for me, and some kind of Martini for her. I know she liked this drink. I had just had two Blue Hawaiians in the adult only area, so I didn't want a sugary drink right now.

When we were done we headed over to the DVC desk and picked up our daily gift!

IMG_0791.jpg

I think we are up to bag number 4 on our bag count tally!

We then headed back to the room and stocked our fridge with our beers from our bags of beers.

IMG_0792.jpg

We got changed and then headed up to dinner! Tonight we were dining in 1923! Up Next Dinner time!
 
Hi, Katie! Joining in :) Loving your TR so far! I also can't get enough of some reality trash TV, and really enjoy your love of both boy bands and beer--same here, though Miller Lite is my brand :drinking1My husband is my beer bucket partner, and on our last cruise he had to have the beer bag, too! When we brought it back to our room, imagine our surprise when BOTH our TA and my parents had ordered us a bucket of beers to be in our stateroom to celebrate our Anniversary! We were well-stocked to start off!
 
Hi, Katie! Joining in :) Loving your TR so far! I also can't get enough of some reality trash TV, and really enjoy your love of both boy bands and beer--same here, though Miller Lite is my brand :drinking1My husband is my beer bucket partner, and on our last cruise he had to have the beer bag, too! When we brought it back to our room, imagine our surprise when BOTH our TA and my parents had ordered us a bucket of beers to be in our stateroom to celebrate our Anniversary! We were well-stocked to start off!
Hi! Welcome! Thank you for reviving this TR! I guess I will have to finish it now that I have some new followers!

We would get a long so well! Haha reality tv trash and boy bands are life! My dad used to be a Miller Lite guy, but he switched to Bud Light at some point. Not sure if it is because it is what I like or what. Anne and I love our Buds, but we rarely drink in our daily lives so it is kind of funny. Haha My friend Stacy sent me a bucket on our cruise in October because I helped her with a project. I was so excited!

Following
Welcome! I am hoping after the holiday to get this back up and running. It was such a fun trip, I cant wait to relive it!
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!











facebook twitter
Top