The UnDisney family floats again - NYC-San Juan - Merrytime (oh my) - Nov 10-15, 2019

Conorama

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jul 18, 2012
Mandatory Introductory Info about The UnDisney family and this cruise.

Greetings and happy November (if there is such a thing) to all.

I am writing this having just realized (for the first time, I swear), that I failed to finish my last report, that I was 100% sure was done. Oops. Blame middle-age. I will finish it, but as that will take a bit of digging for photos, I'll do this one first (and finish it).

So- with that stellar opening, I bring you our latest adventures on the Mouse Boat, as a family of folks who still don't like Frozen, who skipped all opportunities to see the previews of Frozen 2 (or 5, or whatever it's at), and who only barely recognize any Disney characters that are not Pixar-based or part of Mickey's original crew.

We have just returned from a 5 day/night cruise from the proverbially Big Apple, to San Juan and, oh my, it was a Merrytime cruise. I didn't find a lot of TRs about this cruise, so here we go.

For those who have not met us, (virtually speaking), I will provide introductions.

We are a family of 3 (not counting 2 very poorly behaved cats), hailing from middle-sized-town Ontario, Canada. We do not love Disney. We have never been to the parks. As noted above, we haven't watched many of the movies. However, many years ago now, we were convinced to try DCL, and we appreciate Uncle Walt's smarts (on his ships anyway) and approaches to keeping adults and kiddos happy, so, we seem to keep going back. This was cruise number 8 for us. This is beyond belief, really, but well, it is what it is.

Other important info:

DH: 50+UnDisney dad, who doesn't know the difference between Anna and Elsa (I had to study myself)
Me: Not yet 50 (ha!) mom who generally feels like she will break out in hives if she hangs out near the Princess gatherings.
Conor: 11.5 (exactly as of yesterday) year old figure-skating, Harry Potter-loving, chef-boy, who loves the ships, but won't watch most of the movies.

And here is our cruise itinerary - on the Magic.

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And, per tradition, I'll give you how we ended up on this cruise, and our general planning details, because I like to plan, and I feel the need to pay it forward by sharing details.
 
Woohoo!!! I'm first! Can't wait to read up on another Un-Disney adventure for you 3 :thumbsup2 :flower1:
 
Background and pre-planning

When we last met (virtually), I was apparently still stuck on the Magic somewhere of the coast of Scotland or England in the summer of 2018, for our misnamed "Norwegian Fjords" cruise (there were no fjords unless you found one yourself). As I didn't finish that TR (sorry!) I will note that we did successfully disembark, and returned to Canada and did not in fact spend the last 18 months on the Magic (which would actually not be a good thing in our books!)

I will admit though, that DH and I decided to book a placeholder while on that trip "just in case". Within a couple of weeks after we returned, we found this 5-night cruise. It appealed mostly because:

A) It was a very short flight for us to get to NYC (compared to the whole "fly to/from Europe" deal we had just completed.
B) It meant we could spend some time in NYC beforehand (we've wanted to go for quite a while).
C) It was short (10 nights was a lot but worth it for Europe)
D) It was an itinerary we had not done before at all

So- we plunked our placeholder down on that cruise, and we pondered for a while (as we usually do).

Long story short- in the spring (2019) we decided to commit to the cruise, so planning began in earnest.

For those who have not read my reports before, be prepared (or just skip through the next few posts) that I try to give lots of 'deets' (words I use to mortify the 11.5 year old -- this one meaning details if you don't speak annoying-parent-trying-to-pretend-to-be-cool), because that's what I look for in a trip review.

And so...

How much time in NYC?

This required much discussion and came down to 2 days due to not wanting to have the kid out of school too long, or me away from work too long, and, well, wanting to not have to sell off family jewels (if we had any) to fund the trip.

Thus- Thursday the 7th was a travel day, and we spent the 8 and the 9th exploring cool stuff, until we boarded on the 10th.

Where to stay in NYC?

I give full credit to DH- he found us the Homewood Suites in Midtown Manhattan. It was a good landing spot for newbies. More on this later.

What to do in NYC?

Not the focus of this, of course, seeing as it's a DCL report but for completeness said I'll mention that we wanted 1 show, 1 fancy bucket-list dinner, and 1 museum. We got all 3, plus 1 bonus "hey- this is actually educational' trip to the UN, which was oh-so-conveniently covered at the beginning of grade 6 for Conor this year.

Having perused tickets to shows, (and having rapidly ruled out anything Disney related), we checked out a few videos and Conor picked Stomp. Kiddo fell in loves with drums a few years ago when they had one class (ONE!) on Djembe drums at his school, so now he does drum lessons just for fun. (This is what happens when they put arts into schools ... parents end up with kids with new interests. It's horrid :) ) Happily, Stomp was on the low-end of ticket prices, so we felt justified to get the slightly premium seats, which promised more interactivity.

We scoped out various bucket list restaurants and narrowed the list down to 3 or so, so that on the day reservations opened (about 1 month out), DH could hopefully get one. We got our top choice, Babbo, one of Joe and Lydia Bastianich's restaurants. As the kiddo is a big fan of MasterChef, and loves to cook, this was a major score.

We decided to just play it by ear re: which museum we would visit (living dangerously, I know).

And finally... the UN was a no-brainer, as we are all major geeks, so we were interested anyway, and when it was a big source of interest to Mr. I Am In Grade Six now, DH procured tickets on-line.

How to get to NYC?

As usual for us, this involved checking out a bunch of options as our tiny local airport involves tiny planes that are frequently cancelled (there is a Twitter feed dedicated to the cancelled flights), and only 1 airline is involved. As usual, this was quickly ruled out.

Not per usual, driving to Syracuse won out, because wow, are tickets cheaper if you fly domestic in the US.

After much checking around, we settled on United from Syracuse to Newark; and then Jet Blue from San Jan to Syracuse via Orlando (it was originally via something else, but Jet Blue changed things around.) Initially we were getting in just after supper, and then it was more like 9:00 p.m. As we were flying in on a Friday night, we just sighed (loudly) and accepted our fate. (Foreshadowing....!!!!)

And finally, we used the same company to drive us to and from Syracuse, so as not to worry about parking, hotel rooms, and the unlikely even that the weather would think it was winter. (Feel the irony there, as you'll see where that headed.)

How to get to port/from port?

This was far less worrisome than usual. NYC = Uber to port (it was about a 15 minute drive on a Sunday morning). San Juan = taxi to resort for a day, and then taxi to the airport. All quick and reasonably cheap (well, take that as you will in NYC.)

What's this about resort for a day?

Ah - right. Our flight left San Juan at 2:20 p.m. and if you plan on the usual "get off the ship" at about 8:00 a.m.-ish, with way too many suitcases you need a plan. I was assigned the task of figuring out a plan. Many folks recommended a restaurant where you could check your bags for free, but that would then involve planning out the whole morning... so we ruled that out.

We had used resort for a day previously, so we put down the rather minor deposit for the Marriott Stellaris in San Jan for a day pass. We picked it because a) it was close to port and to the airport, b) it had a beach and pools, and (well) c) it was the only one available on ResortForADay. :)

So- that was our advanced planning for the before and after the cruise part of things. In terms of timelines, we booked the hotel and flights in August. DH was watching prices and seemed to find that to be a good time. (How's that for precision?)

I assure you the rest of this report won't be this dull. Or I hope not. To keep you from giving up, I'll give you this photo of us visiting St. John's, Newfoundland in June (DH is from Newfoundland and I met him while going to school there). It was actually sunny every day except this one, so of course we picked the rainy day to get a photo on the top of Signal Hill.


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Last bit of planning- what to do at our one and only port; and then the usual arrangements at home

What to do in Antigua?


The attentive reader will have noticed that the cruise involved 3 days at sea, and then one day in Antigua and then, off you get in San Juan.

This limited planning, considerably.

Mucho discussion occurred however. Do we do a beach day, because of having been on the ship for most of the 3.5 previous days? Do we just wander around the town on our own? Or do we find something else to do?

We most definitely were NOT going to do any sort of DCL excursion. We are totally done with the paddles of power and random Disney characters on stickers. Too many lines, too much sitting around, and, if I am being honest, too little control. :smooth:

After much back and forth, we decided on a "Tours By Locals", particularly asking for Emelda, as she came highly recommended on various sites we checked. We hoped for a half-day tour, and then we would meander back to the ship.

Once this was confirmed, we moved on.


DCL on-line booking

The more we do cruises, the less we book on board, it seems. We were pretty minimal this time.

We went for 1 Palo brunch and 1 Palo supper. We elected to miss pirate night at the main dining rooms for Palo supper.

And that's about it.

Well, except that then there was this hysterical discussion that started up about the Merrytime blanket. I had been sort of watching this emerge from afar, and I freely admit I got sucked in. I will admit that we love our Star Wars Day At Sea blanket - it is very fuzzy, and warm (key in Canada), and, well, it has Star Wars on it. It has held up well after 3 years or so.

So, despite the great "but it's not as nice as last year" and "what on earth does it say anyway", I waited until it was available on-line (I hate talking on the phone.. so I was not phoning to ask for it), and I nabbed one, with all the other glorious room decorations, mostly to irritate DH, and to give Conor some joy. (Honesty is key in our family.)

Oh, and DH did book some tastings for us.

No rainforest room (don't love it on the Magic), and no spa (saving money).

And yes, we did sign up for Fish Extender joy, and an ornament exchange.


Arrangements at home

Somewhere in about August, I started making my lists. I used to use Excel spreadsheets, but my computer was acting up so now I have (and I love) The Book of Lists. I use this for work, for life, for trips, for everything. My family hates the book. I love the book.

I made lovely to-do lists, packing lists, and lists of lists, and all was well.

So - from this I can tell you that we:

  • Arranged pet sitters for the bad kitties
  • Notified the school
  • Notified all of Conor's activities
  • Did not book snow removal (not needed in early November.... usually)
  • Sorted out phone roaming plan
  • Lined up friends and family to provide extra visits to naughty cats
  • Completely forgot that we signed up for a fall version of our CSA (community supported agriculture) so failed to arrange an alternate pick-up date :)

This is an equally not-thrilling post, so I'll amuse you all with photos of our feline scoundrels, enjoying the heated bathroom floor.

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Next up- the thrilling few days before the trip and we hit the road! (But that will be for a post tomorrow.)
 


The Glory (not) of the last few days before you leave in my world

As always, for whatever reason, of the 18 or so days before we left, I worked all but 2 days. This meant that I had to be "annoying mom" when I was at home in order to actually ensure we had what we needed on the trip.

Annoying mom is always making lists, and even gives lists to other family members to complete. One of these lists, nicely printed on a convenient post-it note, was actually crumpled up (after it was completed, to be fair) and, (accidentally I'm sure), tossed in my general direction by DH. :duck:

Annoying mom (can you imagine) forces the 11 year old to (perish the thought) try on clothes to make sure they still fit. And then, when they don't, annoying mom mandates (the horror) that clothing shopping happens (on my 2 days off), where, once again (oh the humanity), you have to try on *more* clothes.

Annoying mom also contacts the school to get homework. And actually gets the homework. And mandates that appropriate school-type stuff be packed.

Anyhow- annoying mom was in full force, and as a result, all bags were packed, and (I'm pleased to report in retrospect) we weren't missing anything important. (I am still recovering from the great lack-of-sock incident of 2017.)

General packing tips/thoughts for this cruise

From a packing planning point of view, this was an interesting challenge because you start out in a very cold place (for a few days from our point of view), and then it (you think) gradually gets warmer over the next 5 days. But the question is- how warm? As in- how many days of shorts do you plan for, vs. light pants, vs. all-layers-on-deck? Alaska was different- it was warm, then cooler (but not really Canadian winter cold), then warm again. Ditto for Europe.

Fear not. We are Canadian. We know layers.

In general, we went with:

  • 3 days of cold weather clothes - with a plan to do laundry on the day we board the ship in case we needed more.
  • 4 days of hot/summer weather clothes (plus swim stuff)
  • 2 days of stuff that can swing either way ... :) so- zip-off pants for the kiddo, but also pack the long underwear in case more layers are needed on cold days.
  • 1 outfit each only of dressy clothes- covered off fancy dinner in NYC, and any nights anyone felt like dressing up on the ship (and make use of DCL laundry services for it if things get spilled at supper)
Otherwise, it was our usual stuff: Our fish extender, DH's magnets (he has fun with them), a laundry bag (not hamper), at least 2 decent backpacks, coffee travel mugs (very important on cold cruises), and my mandatory first aid kit.

We are finally leaving!

November 7th involved me getting up early to finish packing and the last load of laundry. I'm a morning person anyway, so 5:00 a.m. doesn't scare me. We were being picked up at 10:30 and I work well with a firm deadline.
I was super-productive for an hour, and then Conor got up. Productivity screeches to a halt. Fortunately, I plan for this. After making omelettes (new skill for him) to put him in a less grouchy mood, I handed him his list. Tween drama ensued, but ultimately, he is my kid, and he loves crossing things off the list.

The espresso machine (same one that apparently died an untimely death in August 2018 - the day we left for our European cruise), was working (it just needed a vacation and a good cleaning), so productivity was rediscovered.

As per our usual packing mornings, we had our usual process:

I annoy everyone with lists
DH acts smug that he is packed, until I hand him a list.
Conor is grand, until he is not, and then we throw him outside (works every single time)
Cats do not help.
Things are crossed off lists.

For variety this time, to get in the Merrytime mood, I broke out Christmas tunes, which also served to annoy DH.

A few photos of the morning:

My helper in packing strategy/flattening of itemsIMG_0716.jpg


Oh, and did I mention that Uncle Walt decided to make this all very Christmas-sy for us? We do get snow in November, but not usually on November 7th and not usually so that it stays.

It snowed. A lot. Voila kiddo who has been dumped outside, in his hastily-dug-out-of-storage winter coat and snow pants. The goggles are his idea. I questioned whether they were a bit much, and got in reply:

"Mom! 'A bit much' is my MOTTO."

Right.

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Kiddo made a mini-snowman by taking snow off my car. He then insisted on placing it behind the wheel of our airport limo (not a real limo- just a car this time), so as to crush it prior to our leaving. Our driver happily complied.

And finally, we asked for a stop at Starbucks on our way out of town, to recaffeinate, and because the holiday cups were out.

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Thus, fully caffeinated/snacked-up, with all luggage carefully arranged, and everyone reasonably content, we sat back for our ride to Syracuse.

Up next - airport adventures, filled with thrills and close calls, and way too much sitting around in between...
 
Woohoo!!! I'm first! Can't wait to read up on another Un-Disney adventure for you 3 :thumbsup2 :flower1:

Thanks! I honestly thought I was done the last one. I think it was around when my laptop started having major issues so I got behind and forgot to check back. It is feeling much better now, thanks, (finally), so we're back in business.
 
Airport fun

I'll keep this one brief as things will then get to the fun part.

We had an uneventful drive to Syracuse, but then realized that we were not exactly in a position to not rush through the airport. Fortunately, it's a nice small airport, so getting to the check-in kiosks, checking in and then moving briskly to/through security to the gait is not terribly time consuming. Regardless, we were a bit anxious about our bags arriving with us due to how close we had cut things. (The Starbucks stop took a bit too long...)

United was ... OK, I guess. We had diligently followed the rules of one personal item only for carry-on only to find that others didn't, and that wasn't annoying at all. :)

The flight was on-time (yippee), short (yippee), and our bags were first off the carousel at Newark (yippee!)

Unfortunately, our string of luck broke in a spectacular fashion as it took 90 minutes for our booked transportation to find us. To this day, we don't know what went wrong, but DH called them repeatedly. They (booking agency) said that the driver was trying to reach us, but couldn't. This repeated for way too long until they finally figured out a way to patch the driver through to us.

Finally, after 90 minutes, a not-so-friendly driver found us, did not apologize for being 90 minutes late, and then led us in sullen silence out in the rain to where he had parked. He then (I kid you not) left the luggage cart in the middle of the lot (as in... right in the middle) as we left.

60 minutes later, we arrived, tired, hungry, to rainy NYC, promptly got very wet, and checked into our hotel a lot later than planned.

Fortunately, NYC (and Manhattan in particular) is well equipped with a gazillion meal delivery services, so we picked a place that had quick delivery, and order was restored, and vacation mood was rediscovered. We all agreed to an early bedtime, and that was easy enough in our room, which was (blessed relief) very quiet.

And now... get get going with the vacation.

(OK- brief segue here to the Homewood Suites- for those who want to know. Our room had a King Bed, plus sofa bed for kiddo. It also had a very complete kitchenette with 2 burner-stove, full-sized fridge, dishwasher, plates, cutlery, basic cooking stuff. It had a nifty table that nested under the desk - sorry- I failed to get a photo - and this allowed for nice quite meals when we needed them in the room. The hotel has the basic buffet breakfast, which was fine... and included. :) It's very walkable to lots of things. )

With that... NYC fun!
 


Are you coming back? I hope all is ok. I would really love to read more, as we are considering using our placeholders for this cruise in 2020 (Tortola instead of Antigua)! Would you recommend it?
 
Eagle eyed reader here notices this is cruise number 8. but when last we left you on the magic in Europe it was cruise number 6? So really we get two trip reports out of this gig, which is giving me life during this lockdown.
 
And finally- NYC fun!

OK- that was a long break. I had many issues with photos (they went to a cloud but I wasn't sure which cloud, or how... but I have found the cloud, and all is well- this is an advantage of finally finding some of this extra time some people have right now... I can solve annoying problems that were just never high enough on the priority list to get addressed.)

So- here we go - day 1 in NYC

We spent a bit of time in the morning organizing ourselves (well, I did this) because we had essentially just collapsed the night before.

First up today was the UN. Kiddo was pleased as punch to be visiting it IN PERSON having studied it at school. We Ubered over and were early but we spent time trying to find various flags outside the UN until the appointed time for DH to go and get his fancy sticker and for us to go in. We cleared security which felt a lot like boarding a ship, to be honest.

We even managed to join an earlier than planned tour (they suggested it), which was totally fine with us.

Conor was by far the youngest on the tour- which was full of a nice variety of people from all over the world (seems deeply surreal to say this now, but, well, back in the day, like, in 2019, one could travel).

This does not mean he was bored. He loved it. When we were in various rooms, our guide would ask questions like: "Who are the members of the security council?" and the local 11 year old's hand would shoot up, and he was mostly right. :)

He was also Mr. Photographer:

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The tour was overall rated as "AWESOME". Parents enjoyed it too. Folks on the tour were patient and amused by the young keener. Afterwards, we nabbed a snack at the super-environmentally friendly coffee place in the basement and spent a fair bit of time in the gift shops.

After a trip back to the hotel to dump our souvenirs, we persuaded Conor that it *was* worth going out in NYC to get food. He HATES crowds so he was never a fan of our trips that involved walking, but he coped.

Fortunately, we found an amazing little hole in the wall known as Kungfu Kitchen where they make their own noodles. They squeezed us in (literally- it was packed, even at 1:30 p.m.) and within a few minutes, very yummy dumplings, noodles, broth and other joys were brought to our table.

Happiness ensued as you will see below. YUM.

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It was clear after lunch, though, that everyone was tired, so we elected to spend a bit of time recovering from our travel day and our activities so far by resting in the hotel room. (Introverts are we!) Plus, we had to save up our energy for that evening's entertainment.

I know we ordered again from somewhere local and yummy, and then we headed out to our night of theatre/percussion/performance.

Yep- it was not a fancy new Broadway show for us... just an old standby, far removed from Broadway. Stomp was the right fit for us- in no small part due to my having wanted to see it for, oh, decades, and because of Conor's new passion for drums.

I give you the brilliant (NOT) selfie we attempted before the show. Conor was fascinated by the theatre, which has all kinds of stuff plus multiple kitchen sinks on the walls, and it's fascinating to look at.

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Because these tickets were quite a bit less expensive than most, we did splurge a bit on premium seats- so 2 rows from the stage.

To put it mildly- this was an incredible, mind-blowing experience. It is so clever, so funny, and so intricate it's hard to explain. I had no idea it was side-splittingly hysterical.

The only concern we had was that the finale was getting pretty loud- (lots of percussion) so Conor had put his hands over his ears, though he was still loving it. In the middle of the finale (it's pretty long), one of the funniest actors dove to the floor at the front of the stage and launched something at us. We found it- a bag of ear plugs. :) I'm sure they do this often, but it was one of those moments that my theatrical child will never forget. He happily put them in and enjoyed the rest of the finale. We were just amazed that they could see him, and that they could throw ear plugs with excellent aim whilst doing their thing.

After the show, he got to meet a few of the performers.

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We headed back to the hotel, with the boy all a-tizzy, and once again, we all hit the sack, fully tuckered out, but happy.

And now, my oh-so-patient readers, know that I am committed to finishing this as it's bugging me greatly that it's not done. It also helps that it is stupidly hot here, so there is zero inspiration to leave the air conditioning even for a few minutes.

Next up- NYC day 2 and the morning of day 3 before we boarded.
 
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I can't wait to read more!

Please accept deepest apologies for 7 month gap. Thanks!

Looking forward to more!
Are you coming back? I hope all is ok. I would really love to read more, as we are considering using our placeholders for this cruise in 2020 (Tortola instead of Antigua)! Would you recommend it?

Finally back. As noted, things got a bit wonky with various computers dying, and then photos being unfindable on a random cloud.

And yes-I would recommend this cruise... if it happens! We liked Tortola when we were there a few years ago- we did the Baths on our own. Rebels.

More, please. :surfweb:

Here finally!

Eagle eyed reader here notices this is cruise number 8. but when last we left you on the magic in Europe it was cruise number 6? So really we get two trip reports out of this gig, which is giving me life during this lockdown.

Yep. There was a mini one in between, and I seem to have not reported on it. Embarrassing! But I'll do a short report though, since, well, thinking about travel is as good as it gets at present. :)
 
NYC day 2

It was pretty clear on the morning of day 2 (Saturday if you're following that part of things) that we were all a bit tired of running around.

Nevertheless, we managed to rally (slowly) and get to the Museum of Natural History. Museums are a happy place for us all, and it was big enough that we (mostly) managed to avoid huge crowds.

Deep study of codes here:

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There were some neat corners in the old part, and then we headed over to cool new(er) areas by the planetarium.

Somewhere in here, there was a wall that was hit. We were all tired, hungry, and tired of All The People. The plan had been to grab a snack at the museum, but that involved All The People too. However, there was a minor element of revival... enough to spur us out of the museum, to find an Uber, and return to the hotel to eat leftovers for a proper lunch.

After a period of relative silence and recuperation, we persevered and headed out to walk around a bit. We found a great coffee place (phew) and found a few more souvenirs here and there.

Feeling brave (well, some of us), we headed to Times Square, and, being even more brave, we ..... entered the Disney Store.

Why, might you ask, would we attempt this? (If you know anything of us- this was not our usual approach.) Well, because we had been told there were Tsum Tsums in there. Someone is very attached the fuzzy hamster like things, and they are very hard to find now, so we girded loins and all that jazz, and entered. DH immediately found a corner and Did Not Move. Conor was horrified at all the Frozen 2 stuff, and quickly averted his gaze.

Fortunately, we got lucky and he quickly found these:

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Yep- 2 mice with NYC iconography. In a yellow cab.

It may be that a piglet in a winter sweater also accidentally ended up in my basket. Can't help it- I grew up with Winnie the Pooh before Big Mouse bought him (he has Canadian roots you see). Piglet, in the end, helped Conor be brave about walking about NYC.

We ensured a return to the hotel in time for more resting/repacking our bags. We had more big evening plans, so we had to be ready.

Everyone got spiffed up, and off we went to Greenwich Village, to Babbo. This was a bucket list item for DH (eating at a restaurant with a Michelin star) and Conor was just thrilled to be at "Joe's restaurant". I was mostly hungry, but also happy.

While there was no sighting of Joe, the staff were amazing, and great with the budding foodie. When the sommelier came by, we were surprised by Conor asking, very earnestly and politely, what he would recommend as a non-alcoholic drink for himself. Without even blinking, the sommelier was equally earnest in discussing someone's tastes and returned with some sort of yummy thing, which even, mostly coordinated with someone's nifty tie. Yes, that is a very purple vest with a very orange tie with blue polka dots, and yes, that is a necklace. Outfit assembled by the local 11 year old.

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All in all- it was a meal to remember. No photos- just memories of YUM. Conor had some selection of gelato flavours for his dessert, I remember, and he was over the moon with the unusual flavours.

We actually walked around a bit as some stores were still open and quite interesting and it was far less crowded than, well, Times Square on a Saturday afternoon (no kidding).

And then, home again for us to our hotel, to prepare for day 1 of the cruise.

More in the next day or so! :)
 
It’s so fun to read your report! We had planned to take this cruise in a few months but switched to a different cruise because of COVID concerns. I’m sure we will do this in the future when the world feels a little safer.

What a great Stomp experience!! The earplug part was so cool, Conor will always remember that!
 
How cool that the sommelier didn't even blink and answered Conor's request. I love it when I finally get my kids to speak for themselves and they get treated respectfully as a result. This is especially gratifying when I can get the shy teenager to do it, and all she wants is to be taken seriously.
 
NYC morning- day 3 and boarding

We all slept well and folks put up with repacking reasonably well. As a reward, we headed to Cafe Grumpy, which we had discovered the day before, where they serve amazing coffee, and it was very peaceful. Highly recommend!

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(I should note- at some point, DH had bought some nice wine, so 2 bottles or so were incorporated into appropriately adult carry-ons.).

Astute travellers that we are, we had noticed a lot of folks who looked very, um, Disney-ish in our hotel, and sure enough, when we returned a bit before check-out, the lobby was pretty full, with many folks who had very Disney labels on their luggage. We retrieved ours, and lucked into a nice corner in the lobby where we waited for an appropriate time to Uber to the port. I am pretty sure we had a rather early port arrival time, but we knew it wasn't going to be a thrilling port experience, so we weren't too keen to get there too early to wait about.

Anyhow, we finally got moving and got our Uber to the port. I mostly remember walking a lot with our carry on luggage, but it wasn't too bad. We met up with DCL Queen and her son by happenstance, which helped pass the time a great deal- as always, they boarded before us, but not by much.

Boarding was easy though- and it was clear that they were not done with the decorations- this was the first Merrytime cruise for the Magic in 2019, so we got to watch them finish things up over the course of the cruise. I took a lot of photos at the end of the cruise in the lobby, so you'll just have to wait- sorry!

The only booking that had to be attended to was to slightly adjust the Palo supper reservations so that we could join DCL Queen. That took a grand total of 10 minutes and then we were free!

We decided to be radical and avoid Cabanas so it was off to Lumière's for us for lunch. (Well, we told the kids we were going to Lumière's and that if they wanted they could go to Cabanas afterwards... that mostly brought them around to parental will.) It was a lot more peaceful than Cabanas, and, well, warmer. Happily, this took us nicely until the cabins were ready, so off we went.

Now-a brief story. In the year leading up to the cruise, there was mega discussion about ... The Blanket. What Will The Blanket Be??? was heard far and wide in cruise-line forums. Photos of previous blankets were posted. Details of colour and design were hashed out. The suspense was unreal.

And then, the design was released, to, well, mixed reviews. Well, not so very mixed- people mostly did NOT like it. There was a great hue and cry.

So what did I do?

I ordered the full room decor, of course - go big Mouse or go home, I say.

And... voila. (Not sure how you feel about Christmas photos in July- but well, you get them anyway.)

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So- are you team awesome blanket? Or team ... what on earth is that? And yes, it says "There's SNOW place like Disney Cruise Line".

Now- please note the Mickey head thing... that is a pyjama holder. Or, you can stick it nicely on your head if you are 11, and walk around. The red thing to the right is the bag it all came in, but it doubles nicely as a a laundry bag.


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I didn't get photos of all of the stuff hanging from the ceiling- but you get the gist. Over on the door of the bathroom - there is a magnetic advent calendar thing. And, as a bonus, you can see that our luggage had arrived.


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Finally- we had this holiday themed Fish Extender.

Now- to be fair. We have the Star Wars Day at Sea Blanket out all the time, reversed to the 'fuzzy-side-up' for our cats to enjoy. They're great quality blankets. The holiday one however was put away after Christmas and we'll bring it out in all its glory in December 2020.

In all of this, cabin 8020 was great.

Having secured our luggage, we needed coffee, because it was COLD that day.

The Cove Café had festive drinks- not sure if we tried any- maybe I had the Candy Cane Mocha? It also looked very pretty!

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Caffeinated and warmed up, we plugged away at a bit of unpacking until it was time for muster drill, which took place indoors (yippee!) in the Walt Disney theatre. This was really our first time admiring some of the Oh My Festive outfits people had assembled. We admired, and did not try to emulate.

After muster, we headed out on deck as this was a sail-away we didn't want to miss (not the party- we still skipped that, as always).

Now- to be clear, heading out to the Deck meant bringing out All The Layers. Conor had on his lined pants (perhaps even long johns- can't recall), his winter coat, and to start, just a 'regular' hat. You'll see how things progressed as the photos come up (some in the next post as I'm running out of photo room here). Many folks were not prepared with layers. We pitied them and tried not to act superior.

Mandatory cool pose before it really got too cold.

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And with that, we shall pause while I raid my husband's photos, which are usually 10,000 times better than mine.
 
It’s so fun to read your report! We had planned to take this cruise in a few months but switched to a different cruise because of COVID concerns. I’m sure we will do this in the future when the world feels a little safer.

What a great Stomp experience!! The earplug part was so cool, Conor will always remember that!

Thanks! It was a pretty neat cruise for sure.

How cool that the sommelier didn't even blink and answered Conor's request. I love it when I finally get my kids to speak for themselves and they get treated respectfully as a result. This is especially gratifying when I can get the shy teenager to do it, and all she wants is to be taken seriously.

It was great. And the meal was amazing!
 
I’d take that Merry Christmastime blanket. For my birthday last month, I received a Mickey & Minnie gift bag containing M&M Christmas PJs for a cruise scheduled for November. Last Christmas, it was a Tervis tumbler with M&M Christmas. Hooray for Merry Christmastime.

enjoying vicariously living your vacation.
 

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