We're just cruisin' along...

[Villains Fan]

As you may have heard, a group of us from MiceChat and other assorted boards went on the repositioning cruise together from May10-25...count em', 15 whole days of cruising the Caribbean, the Panama Canal, and Mexico!

We went to 5 ports: Castaway Cay, Aruba, Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, and Cabo San Lucas.

Some of us left Friday and stayed the night at the Hyatt hotel in the Orlando Airport. Here’s a picture of the front. The hotel lobby is on the second floor. The first story is the security check for boarding, so the line you see in the second picture (taken from the elevator) is the travelers waiting in line to go through security prior to boarding:






Here’s my first glimpse of Mickey, through the fountain at the airport…I knew I was on my way!





Here's some of us as we're getting ready to board the bus that will take us to Cape Canaveral (Me, Wolfy999, GoofyGolfer, Earkid, and Princess Buttercup). Do these look like excited people, or what?!?!?



After about a 30-45 min ride, suddenly, there she was..our home for the next 15 days....The Disney Magic!!!!!


The ship terminal (I love the Mickey hands on the clock):


Here we are all checked in and ready to board:
(alphabassetgrl, Wolfy999, Goofygolfer, and Earkid)


(Westly, Disneyphile, alphabassetgrl's husband, and Disneyphile's Dad)


We made it on board!!! Here's our room (the beds were later split into two twin beds with the nightstands in the middle. I have been on a few cruises and can say Disney has the biggest rooms I've ever had on a cruise. Even the shower was a reasonable size.


Next up, a tour of the ship...

The Adults only pool:


The Family Pool:


The Kids Pool:


The Crew's Pool:


Beat Street, the main hallway leading to all the Lounges:




One of the Lounges (Sessions), where they played piano music at night:


Tiled picture of Walt outside the Walt Disney Theatre:


The main Atrium (usually there's tons of people, but this was taken late at night):


And looking down from up above:


Mickey statue in front of one of the dining rooms, Lumiere's:


Enough touring, before we can leave it's time for the dreaded lifeboat drill. First this ear-piercing alarm goes off and everyone meets in their designated area clad in their lifejackets:


Chernabog and skywaygrl look mighty dapper in orange:


And of course not to be outdone in our lovely shade of orange are Wolfy and me:


That being done, it's time to say goodbye to Florida


And now it's time to party...let the fun begin!



Next up...day 1 at Castaway Cay

[Princess Buttercup]

Oooh, great report so far Joanne. You got some really great shots of the ship that we didn't! I sure do miss our home away from home!



Oh and I didn't know you guys all went to Animators for the life jacket drill. We had to go to deck 4 for our section of the ship!

[Dr. Earkid]

for Joanne's TR.

[MTNGIRL]

Can't wait for more and I'm so glad you had such a good time! I saved your picture message so you're currently traveling in my pocket in Montana

[Villains Fan]

Day 1 - Castaway Cay (pronounced Key).

How's this for the start of a vacation...I walk outside and this is the view that greets me:





This was by far, the most breathtaking beach of the trip...the sand was so white it was blinding and the water so beautiful it took your breath away. Here's just some more pictures of it:














Okay, I know you're thinking, enough with the scenery pictures...what did you do while you were on Castaway Cay. Well, I'll tell ya'...first off, we went on the Stingray Adventure where you get to feed stingrays (they're trained to eat of of Mickey shaped pads ). I thought these were going to be little guys, but noooo, they were huge (yes, the stingers were cut back). Here's a few pictures of them:

All of the dark shadows you see in the water are stingrays:









We did the Stingray Adventure for about an hour (between lecture and feeding) and then met up with some of our people to snorkel. I got a few pictures from underwater:


This little guy came by to say hello:



I thought I had discovered a sunken treasure, but alas, someone had beaten me to it:


Then who should I come across but a sunken Minnie (Mickey was in refurb )


At this point I was way out in the bay by myself (please, no lectures, I've learned my lesson), when suddenly I turned around and came face-to-face with a three foot long barracuda. I took off like a bat out of Hell, and got back to shore out of breath and choking on swallowed water. Not the way I wanted to end the day, but I decided a nice nap on the beach would help...ok, that and a couple of bahama mamas did .

Sadly, our day ended and we had to get back to the ship, but one last picture:




Next up, our first formal night and our first show!

[Villains Fan]

Oooh, great report so far Joanne. You got some really great shots of the ship that we didn't! I sure do miss our home away from home!



Oh and I didn't know you guys all went to Animators for the life jacket drill. We had to go to deck 4 for our section of the ship!

Yeah, this was our first view of Animators . It was too funny to see just a sea of orange lifejackets in the dining room.

Can't wait for more and I'm so glad you had such a good time! I saved your picture message so you're currently traveling in my pocket in Montana

And there's nowhere else I'd rather be

[Olympicnut]

OH BOY!!! Great TR so far, but no more snorkling alone missy!!!

Can't wait to see more more more!!

[pratt55]

Looking great so far, I can't wait to see more.

P.S. and now I know for 100% certainty that I am not ever going snorkeling.

[Villains Fan]

Day 2 - At sea

Today we had reservations for brunch at the upscale restaurant Palo's. This is by reservation and has a small additional fee (but worth every cent!). We had our own room and were there for at least 2 hours. The food and staff are phenominal and I can't recommend it enough.

Our room:





But first a toast:



And more importantly, here's pictures of some of the food:

Pastry Table:


Pizzas (I'm not a big pizza eater, but these were amazing!):


Desserts!


More Desserts:


And more desserts (did I say how much I loved this place )


Sorry, but apparently I was so entraced by the desserts I missed taking pictures of the real food .


After brunch, I was so stuffed that finding a lounge chair and reading was about all I could handle for the rest of the day (gotta love cruises!)

That evening was the first big show, it was The Golden Mickeys, a toe-tapping tribut to the Disney Studio's classic films (no, I'm not that poetic, that description came from the program).

Another thing Disney excels at are the shows, they were all spectacular and everything you would expect from Disney

Here's a few pictures:






And who should be walking around but, Golden Mickey and Minnie:



And now for the stars of the evening...our lovely group:















Golden Mickey dessert that evening:


Next up...Day 3 and Day 4 - Aruba!!!

[Princess Buttercup]

Pizzas (I'm not a big pizza eater, but these were amazing!):




More Desserts:




Oh man! I could totally go for one of those pizzas right now. The margherite pizza there in the front was my favorite , but the sweet pizza was pretty yummy too!



And I think I ate two of those shot glasses of tiramisu. I had to make myself stop!

[Princess Buttercup]

Joanne, here is one of mine and Ken's favorite pictures of you from the trip!

[NeverNeverland]

Great TR so far!

[Hakuna Makarla]

WOW !! these are amazing shots!!! I love seeing a trip report with more then faces, but the scenes in these pics is amazing !! Pool shots, deck, rooms, man I have always wanted to see more on these ships.
I am staying close to this trip report!! and Joanne,can I say how amazing you look!! More, please say you have tons more of all the sights you saw this is a very exciting trip report!!!

[kelly]

amazing report.. MORE MORE MORE

[mikeland]

It's wonderful to see all these TRs from the cruise. I'm glad everyone had a fabulous time.