Dream Eastern 9/24/11-10/1/11- LONG REPORT w/ PICS and MICKEY'S HALLOWEEN PARTY

This is my first attempt at a trip report. I hope I can give you some good information if you are sailing the Dream or going to these ports. I also hope to entertain you along the way with my humor (hopefully you will think it’s funny) and obsessive food photos! So let’s see how this goes…

The Travelers:

That would be me, Jay, 34, and Bryon, 42, my boyfriend of almost 9 years. This is our third cruise together. We cruised on Victory in April 2007 and Freedom in April 2009. Bryon has been on one other cruise, on Triumph, with his best friend Christy during Christmas 2005. So Bryon introduced me to cruising and we really love it. All our cruises have been Eastern Caribbean itineraries. For multiple reasons I won’t go into here, even after all this time, we still live in different cities. I live in Atlanta and he lives in Montgomery, AL. So not only are vacations like this cruise a well needed break from our every day responsibilities, it is also an extended period for us to actually spend time together!

So I have this habit of extending our vacations. I’ll explain… usually for vacation, we are either cruising or going to Disney World. So we make an initial plan and then I’ll say ‘Well for only so much dollars extra we could stay another night..’ or ‘Hey, what if we leave early and we can stop by and do such and such’…You get the picture. Anyway I had really not tried any of that business on this trip since we were already going to have a week on the ship, and that meant taking 6 days off work. Well Bryon surprised me and took the reigns. So he says one night, the week before we leave, ‘Hey, so I was thinking... since we are leaving out of Port Canaveral, and Disney is just a little trip away, I checked out the schedule and the night before we leave they are having Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party’… SOLD!

So needless to say, we were squeezing two of our favorite things together and we were both super excited!

Day One: Traveling to Florida and Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party.

We awoke, or should I say, I awoke bright and early at 6:00 am. I started singing to Bryon ‘Weee’re on vacaaaaayshun! Yeah!’ I was greeted with a smack on the forehead as if I was a human snooze button and a groggy ‘5 more minutes...zzz’ I guess I’m first in the bathroom this morning! We both got dressed and were on the road about 7:30 (only 30 minutes behind the secret schedule I always have in my head of where we should be… I am my father -oh no!).

Bryon feeling much more chipper with his Chicken Minis:

Chicken Minis make everything better:

We only had to stop one time from Atlanta to Port Canaveral (another victory for my secret schedule!). We did run into some bad weather around Daytona Beach, but we managed to pull into the Country Inn and Suites around 3:00 pm.

Check in was a breeze. I have been doing some work in North Georgia and have been staying at a Country Inn and suites so I joined their little frequent stayers club thingy called Club Carlson. Well when I arrived they had upgraded me to a Captain’s Suite and I had a little bag of goodies…. including a necklace??

Anyway, the front desk staff was lovely and they let me choose my floor. We chose the top floor. We had a beautiful view of…the parking lot. So what, who cares <in my Joy Behar SNL imitation voice>. The room was very spacious and if you have a family this is the room you want. There was a kitchen and table and sofa and separate bedroom.

Oh well, no time for me to play Captain in my Captain’s suite, we had a Halloween party to get to. We set off for the Magic Kingdom.

Next up- Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party

keep the review rolling,and hope you had a good time

So far, so good!

I'm excited for your review. Thank you for taking the time to post. We are going on the dream in march. We are from atlanta and trying to decide whether to fly or drive. We are new to Atlanta (one year) never been to disneyworld and am thinking of going per cruise.

Thanks

Kathy

Nice so far... Can't wait to read the rest

Awesome start! Keep going! Me likey, me want more! :D I'm excited for your review!

I can tell already this is gonna be a great review, sounds like alot of fun!!!!

Disney plus a cruise, what's not to like?!!!:)

Heather

Oh my- I can't wait to read the rest!!

My family was supposed to be staying at the Beach Club Resort in September and going to the Not So Scary Halloween Party, but we cancelled for a cruise from NYC in May instead. So, I can't wait to hear about the party!!. . .and the cruise!

I can't wait to read more! Great start!

Ok this has to be said- Florida, really? $5 to drive 1 hour on your road to Disney World? Now that that is out of my system…

We arrived around 5:30 (only about an hour to get over to WDW). Oh! I almost forgot about Alistair... Alistair is my GPS. Alistair used to be a rugby star in New Zealand until a knee injury forced him to retire and live in my GPS and tell me how to get to places. Bryon hates Alistair. He thinks he is annoying, but since I was driving, Alistair got to tell us where to go. Well on the way to the Magic Kingdom, I was listening to Alistair, while Bryon was actually reading the road signs. We ended up at Epcot….Oh Alistair, you prankster!

WDW in sight! Through a lovely love bug covered windshield

$14 to park at the Magic Kingdom

After we ended up finding the correct place to park at the TTC we caught the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom. We had made a little plan of attack on what order we kind of wanted to do things, but once we entered the gates, and turned into 9 years olds, all that planning was out the window. Let’s go meet Mickey!

More Disney Halloween Decor!

This was a new meet and greet section for Mickey and Minnie and the Princesses. It was really nicely done. Disney’s attention to detail is always amazing.

I totally hate this picture of me, but it's the only one I have

AHHH! So excited for this review! Love the start! Your personality sounds so much fun and this review is going to be fun to read! My GPS is Samantha, sometimes she drives me nuts! But I couldn't make it anywhere without her! :-)

I'm so excited you are reviewing Not So Scary Halloween! I want to go there so bad! I'm so upset we couldn't plan Very Merry Christmas this year. Was supposed to be last year, then for sure this year...not HOPEFULLY next year! I love Disney-my husband doesn't. But I'm so excited I talked him into a 3 day weekend there for christmas presents for our daughters! I can't wait to go see Mickey Mouse!

Looking forward to reading more! I'm now subscribed! YAY!

Ok I should also mention that it was raining once we got here. Not raining like terrible, but that annoying drizzle rain, where you still attempt to be outside but still get soaked. Anyway, we caught the end of a parade (not sure which one it was), then took the obligatory Cinderella Castle shots. Bryon makes fun of me because I always say ‘That castle is so beautiful’, but it really is. I don’t know how they keep it so shiny and new looking, like its right out of a storybook…

Ok, so mission at this point was food. We had already decided we would eat at Pecos Bills. Bryon always gets a BBQ sandwich and I always get the taco salad. Ok, the best thing here is the topping bar and the best thing about the topping bar is they actually let you put the cheese on your taco salad…I mean, just say self serve cheese and you got me…

I refilled my shell with just cheese after the first fill was done….

 

Ok, so mission at this point was food. We had already decided we would eat at Pecos Bills. Bryon always gets a BBQ sandwich and I always get the taco salad. Ok, the best thing here is the topping bar and the best thing about the topping bar is they actually let you put the cheese on your taco salad…I mean, just say self serve cheese and you got me…

I refilled my shell with just cheese after the first fill was done….

 

That looks amazingly YUMMY! I will have to write that restaurant name down and try it out when we go!

Hahaa.... my best friend calls my truck.... maybe I can't say it here.... rhymes with store... female.... ummm starts with a W... :D I have on star and when you call someone with the phone feature sometimes she doesn't understand you and wants to call someone else. We call the GPS "dumb dumb" instead of tom tom. Once on a road trip we "reached our destination" about 5 times. DH hates dumb dumb

Still loving this... it's awesome! :D

So here is what we were able to ride in the 6 hours or so we were there: Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, Mickey’s Philharmagic, Haunted Mansion (x2), and Pirates of the Caribbean.

One of the many Trick or Treat stops.

They do a really cool fog affect to the Haunted Mansion and have a hilarious 'dead' lady out front during the party. I think they should do this all the time!

We also met Buzz Lightyear, saw the Boo to You parade, the Hallowishes fireworks display, and the Villains show. The villains show is pretty cool and they do a meet and greet afterwards. We also got some pretty good candy at the trick or treat stops throughout the park. This Halloween party is a ticketed event, meaning you have to purchase an additional ticket to attend the party, but you do not have to have a regular park pass. If you are in the area, this is a great time to do the Magic Kingdom. The crowds are substantially smaller (although the crowd this night was bigger than when we went last year) so you are able to ride the attractions and meet a lot of characters in a short amount of time. There was lightning this night and they shut most of the rides down for a time, and we were still able to pretty much ride everything we wanted to by the end of the night.

Me after Spacee Mountain- It takes a lot out of me!

Boo to You Parade photos:

starting with my crappy Headless Horseman photo. This is really cool in person!

Meeting Buzz!

We rode the ferry back to the TTC after the park closed and found our car by a miracle- in all the excitement, neither one of us had bothered to take note of where we had parked- and left, extremely tired, but still with smiles on our faces. Oh I should also mention that I am one of these people who like to push the car as far I can until I refill the gas tank. So yeah, we were way past empty when we were heading back to Port Canaveral… at 1:30am… but! Fortunately for me, the Hess station right outside the Magic Kingdom was open, so no problem there.

We deposited another $5 in the Florida coffers to drive back to Port Canaveral and arrived at the Country Inn and Suites around 2:30am, completely exhausted. I felt icky so I wanted to take a shower. Bryon went to bed. Here is where I tell you a story which you may find funny, or you may find to be absolutely not funny and instead disgusting or offensive. Last year, we went for a week at Disney World. Well we stayed at Pop Century, and although I have been accused of being a hotel snob, I do maintain, that the housekeeping for our room on this particular trip was sorely lacking. Well, in our shower during this trip on the first day there was a hair on the wall. It was stuck to the wall in such a shape that it looked like one of those horrible Mexican Halloween costume mustaches. This hair did not leave us the entire week. About the second or third day, I decided to name the hair Pancho. When I would come out of the shower, I would enact conversations between myself and Pancho for Bryon- like ‘Buenos Dias, Senor! How was your day at el Mundo de Disney!’ blah, blah, blah. I mean if you’re going to have to shower with someone else’s hair, you have to have a sense of humor about it. All that is to say that when I got in the shower this night in Port Canaveral, very tired, and just wanting a nice hot shower and to go to bed, I was greeted by Pancho’s not very nice cousin…Pube-o….

Up next: I PROMISE- actual cruise photos! Our first day on the Dream!

I'm excited for your review. Thank you for taking the time to post. We are going on the dream in march. We are from atlanta and trying to decide whether to fly or drive. We are new to Atlanta (one year) never been to disneyworld and am thinking of going per cruise.

 

 

Thanks

 

Kathy

Hey- thanks for reading! We always like to drive down to the cruise port. We are 'heavy' packers, so the checked baggage fees would probably bury us right from the start. And really it was only about 7 hours down to Port Canaveral, so not too bad. I think Disney is a great way to start your vacay!

That looks amazingly YUMMY! I will have to write that restaurant name down and try it out when we go!

Pecos Bills is in Frontierland. It is a quick service restaurant. Needless to say, we love it! Thanks for reading:)

Disney plus a cruise, what's not to like?!!!:)

Heather

Oh my- I can't wait to read the rest!!

 

My family was supposed to be staying at the Beach Club Resort in September and going to the Not So Scary Halloween Party, but we cancelled for a cruise from NYC in May instead. So, I can't wait to hear about the party!!. . .and the cruise!

I can't wait to read more! Great start!

Thanks Everyone for reading! This is my first report so I was scared no one would read this!! I have a lot of the report already written so hopfully I will be able to get most of it posted in the next week or so. I just have to go through and get all the photos uploaded and posted, which is a lot more time consuming than I thought it would be :eek:

I can tell already this is gonna be a great review, sounds like alot of fun!!!!

Awesome start! Keep going! Me likey, me want more! :D I'm excited for your review!

Nice so far... Can't wait to read the rest

Thanks Everyone for reading! This is my first report so I was scared no one would read this!! I have a lot of the report already written so hopfully I will be able to get most of it posted in the next week or so. I just have to go through and get all the photos uploaded and posted, which is a lot more time consuming than I thought it would be :eek:

keep the review rolling,and hope you had a good time

So far, so good!

Thanks Everyone for reading! This is my first report so I was scared no one would read this!! I have a lot of the report already written so hopfully I will be able to get most of it posted in the next week or so. I just have to go through and get all the photos uploaded and posted, which is a lot more time consuming than I thought it would be :eek:

Great review. Cant wait for the rest.

Loving your review so far!!

Our family also went to Disney before our Dream Cruise. I am not a big Halloween fan, but it certainly looked like a fun night!

Cannot wait for the rest!

Catrin