bobbyseal
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2013
Family of 4 just getting back after our 4 night Easter weekend cruise to Nassau, Castaway Cay, and am at sea day.
We really enjoyed our cruise. DW and I traveled with DS (10) and DD (14). This is our second trip with DCL. Hello, free lanyards and shoulder tote gift upon arrival! Yay, for silver status!
We had a deluxe family verandah. This worked well to have the Murphy bed and sleeper sofa for the kids. DW and I found the queen bed to be pretty cozy. I’m a usual 5:30am wake up person, but found myself sleeping in till 7:30am most days!
We enjoyed eating in the main dining room. Andrew was our server and Lemuel was our assistant. They were so attentive the whole trip. Food was perfectly fine. I’m not picky with food and enjoyed trying things I normally wouldn’t order. Andrew and Lemuel were handy with the beverages and always had some after meal puzzles for the kids and parents to figure out. They really made the trip special for us. It’s what I enjoy most about the cruise experience.
Our stateroom attendant was amazing as well. Our room always looked like a tropical storm went through every morning with the room service plates, coffee cups, leftover Fruit Loop bowls strewn about. Sheets and towels everywhere…. Okay, I’m being dramatic, but Dedy was an angel coming in every day turning our room back to ship shape! Nightly turn down service was great. I love the towel animals.
Anyway, we are a fairly low key family. On the Nassau day we stayed on ship. DD loves all of the crafts and made just about each one. DW likes the trivia and won the pirate trivia contest! DS spent most of the day at Edge. Gaming with other kids is right up his alley. He was proud of winning a Mario Kart tourney!
We enjoyed the pool deck and rode the Aquaduck. It was a lot of fun. I know it sounds silly, but I like the Aquamouse better. Fewer stairs to climb, maybe. Maybe you can watch funnel vision the whole time in line makes it a bit easier on the Aquamouse. I don’t know…
Shows were good. Audio engineers need to do a better job bring the vocals out in the mix and bring down the backing music. It was hard to hear the performers on in the theater as well as outdoors. The pirate show at night was better on the Wish. The dream show was just a bunch of singing a pirate’s life for me. I really liked the rock band playing on the Wish which morphed into the fireworks. The dream pirate show was again hard to hear the cast and seemed a bit boring. But, I still loved the fireworks with the pirates of the Caribbean music as a backdrop. Goosebumps!
Castaway Cay was fun. DD and I did some snorkeling. It began to rain while we were in the water, but that passed quickly. Fortunately, our belongings were somewhat covered by an umbrella. DS went to the teen hideout and hung with the kids there. DW read a book. Water was chilly. It seemed a bit warmer in October when we went there first. We are at Cookies. Food was fine. Everyone had something to eat. Ribs were not as good as how the head server described them to be, but honestly, I don’t care too much. I didn’t have to cook them or clean up afterwards. That’s a win for me.
Last thing, I’ll point out; the service at Cookies was very good. The staff were happy to take our plates from us. We ate at the gumbo limbo pavilion. We were there fairly early and it was nice to have the staff present. They did a nice job. It’s not fun taking plates filled with barbecue ribs. It’s not that big of a deal, but I noticed it.
Our last night we enjoyed the beauty and the beast show. Again, hard to hear the cast and the backing track was loud. But, Mrs. Potts had a wonderful voice and I enjoyed her rendition of Beauty and the Beast. At the end of the show, DW and I stood up for a standing ovation. There were probably only a dozen other people standing, but I really thought they deserved it. They worked so hard doing two shows every night to entertain us. Standing up was the least I could do. As I’m applauding I locked eyes with Lumiere. He pressed his hands together and bowed to us. Afterwards, DW asks, “Did you see how Lumiere looked right at us at the curtain call?!” I’m glad that I wasn’t the only one who noted it. It’s these little moments in life when you connect with someone that really stay.
Anyway, the debarking went well. We opted to do the express walk off or whatever they call it. We lugged our bags up to Cabanas. Eggs were a little runny, my only food complaint. Otherwise, coffee did its job and we got fueled up for our travel day. We probably could have left our bags in the room and picked them up on the way down. We got in line on deck 3. They have 4 or 5 check out lines funneling into one line for the gangway. That was efficient. Customs was no problem. We grabbed a taxi for our trip to FLL. It was a $100 fare plus the tip. Probably, a bit more than a Lyft, but we didn’t have to wait. We were off the boat around 7:15am. We arrived at FLL around 8:15. I didn’t really check. We were anxious about our 11:45am flight out, but we had plenty of time.
It was a wonderful spring break. Time to book another!
We really enjoyed our cruise. DW and I traveled with DS (10) and DD (14). This is our second trip with DCL. Hello, free lanyards and shoulder tote gift upon arrival! Yay, for silver status!
We had a deluxe family verandah. This worked well to have the Murphy bed and sleeper sofa for the kids. DW and I found the queen bed to be pretty cozy. I’m a usual 5:30am wake up person, but found myself sleeping in till 7:30am most days!
We enjoyed eating in the main dining room. Andrew was our server and Lemuel was our assistant. They were so attentive the whole trip. Food was perfectly fine. I’m not picky with food and enjoyed trying things I normally wouldn’t order. Andrew and Lemuel were handy with the beverages and always had some after meal puzzles for the kids and parents to figure out. They really made the trip special for us. It’s what I enjoy most about the cruise experience.
Our stateroom attendant was amazing as well. Our room always looked like a tropical storm went through every morning with the room service plates, coffee cups, leftover Fruit Loop bowls strewn about. Sheets and towels everywhere…. Okay, I’m being dramatic, but Dedy was an angel coming in every day turning our room back to ship shape! Nightly turn down service was great. I love the towel animals.
Anyway, we are a fairly low key family. On the Nassau day we stayed on ship. DD loves all of the crafts and made just about each one. DW likes the trivia and won the pirate trivia contest! DS spent most of the day at Edge. Gaming with other kids is right up his alley. He was proud of winning a Mario Kart tourney!
We enjoyed the pool deck and rode the Aquaduck. It was a lot of fun. I know it sounds silly, but I like the Aquamouse better. Fewer stairs to climb, maybe. Maybe you can watch funnel vision the whole time in line makes it a bit easier on the Aquamouse. I don’t know…
Shows were good. Audio engineers need to do a better job bring the vocals out in the mix and bring down the backing music. It was hard to hear the performers on in the theater as well as outdoors. The pirate show at night was better on the Wish. The dream show was just a bunch of singing a pirate’s life for me. I really liked the rock band playing on the Wish which morphed into the fireworks. The dream pirate show was again hard to hear the cast and seemed a bit boring. But, I still loved the fireworks with the pirates of the Caribbean music as a backdrop. Goosebumps!
Castaway Cay was fun. DD and I did some snorkeling. It began to rain while we were in the water, but that passed quickly. Fortunately, our belongings were somewhat covered by an umbrella. DS went to the teen hideout and hung with the kids there. DW read a book. Water was chilly. It seemed a bit warmer in October when we went there first. We are at Cookies. Food was fine. Everyone had something to eat. Ribs were not as good as how the head server described them to be, but honestly, I don’t care too much. I didn’t have to cook them or clean up afterwards. That’s a win for me.
Last thing, I’ll point out; the service at Cookies was very good. The staff were happy to take our plates from us. We ate at the gumbo limbo pavilion. We were there fairly early and it was nice to have the staff present. They did a nice job. It’s not fun taking plates filled with barbecue ribs. It’s not that big of a deal, but I noticed it.
Our last night we enjoyed the beauty and the beast show. Again, hard to hear the cast and the backing track was loud. But, Mrs. Potts had a wonderful voice and I enjoyed her rendition of Beauty and the Beast. At the end of the show, DW and I stood up for a standing ovation. There were probably only a dozen other people standing, but I really thought they deserved it. They worked so hard doing two shows every night to entertain us. Standing up was the least I could do. As I’m applauding I locked eyes with Lumiere. He pressed his hands together and bowed to us. Afterwards, DW asks, “Did you see how Lumiere looked right at us at the curtain call?!” I’m glad that I wasn’t the only one who noted it. It’s these little moments in life when you connect with someone that really stay.
Anyway, the debarking went well. We opted to do the express walk off or whatever they call it. We lugged our bags up to Cabanas. Eggs were a little runny, my only food complaint. Otherwise, coffee did its job and we got fueled up for our travel day. We probably could have left our bags in the room and picked them up on the way down. We got in line on deck 3. They have 4 or 5 check out lines funneling into one line for the gangway. That was efficient. Customs was no problem. We grabbed a taxi for our trip to FLL. It was a $100 fare plus the tip. Probably, a bit more than a Lyft, but we didn’t have to wait. We were off the boat around 7:15am. We arrived at FLL around 8:15. I didn’t really check. We were anxious about our 11:45am flight out, but we had plenty of time.
It was a wonderful spring break. Time to book another!
