Wonder January 14-18 cruise w/sick baby

[Bella8286]

Our adventure began on Friday, January 12. Along for the ride was me, dh (Jason), dd7 (Taylor), and ds (Tucker) 8 months.

Day 1- Up at 4:30 to get ready for the 5.5 hour drive to Orlando. The drive went great (well at one rest stop dh thought he left his very expensive sunglasses but we luckily found them when we pulled over.) We stopped at Chick-fil-a for breakfast and got into Orlando about 12:30. We were meeting up with dh's stepmom and 2 kids. She took off from Pensacola with no directions so we missed the exit to Sea World while trying to figure out where she was and give her directions as well... I was getting really frustrated with Jason at this point...no big deal. We ate at Wendy's by the entrance to Sea World and Taylor thought it was so cool to see all the Sea World workers in their uniforms eating at Wendy's! So all is well, we're all excited to get into Sea World...

I had printed off the tickets we purchased on AAA.com. When we went through the gate, the lady tells me, "You can come back for a free day anytime w/in the next 2 weeks." I looked puzzled but then realized we got one extra free day... how cool! We quickly had the idea to come back on Thursday after leaving Port Canaveral for one more day of fun after the cruise!

First stop was the Shamu show at 1:00. All I have to say is AMAZING!!!!!!!! I told Jason if I were a kid, I'd decide right then and there that I want to be a killer whale trainer when I grow up. The show was the coolest thing ever and the interaction and relationships you could see the trainers had formed with these huge creatures was truly amazing. We rode rides, grabbed a free beer at the Budweiser place and finished the day around 5:45 (they closed at 6:00) with some very tired and hungry kids.

We headed back to the hotel we were staying in... the Hilton at DTD. We were so tired that night we decided to just eat at Benihana's for dinner at the hotel. The drinks were good and I got a cute little buddha glass but I was NOT impressed with the food. We love Kobe and I couldn't believe a Japanese steak house didn't have shrimp sauce!! Anyways... the baby acted horribly during dinner b/c he was so tired and fighting sleep. He finally fell asleep at the end of the meal as me and Jason had taken turns eating. All I wanted to do was get back to the hotel room and go to bed. Jason wanted to go down to the bar for "a drink" but I think he really was going down to bum a cigarrette off of someone.

On a side note, the hotel was just okay. We paid about roughly $170 a night to stay there and although it was convenient to DTD and had a small Disney shop inside, I don't think I'd stay there again.

 

[Bella8286]

Day 2- Up at 6:30 to get ready for breakfast at Chef Mickey's. Jason wasn't much help in getting the kids ready so of course I was running around like a mad woman and freaking out come 8:00 and we still weren't ready to leave. In all the excitement of leaving home for our vacation, the one thing I forgot to do was print off directions to the Contemporary Resort. No problem... they had maps at concierge...

We get valet to pull the car up and we're off at 8:15. I'm stressing of course that we're going to be late. We head to where we think we're supposed to be going and Jason decides we're going the wrong way 5 minutes down the road... it's now 8:20. He goes the opposite direction and after driving for 10 more minutes, he decides we're going the wrong way again. I'm screaming at him of course as I had this trip planned out perfectly... so I thought. So it's now 8:30, time for breakfast. We finally get there at 8:50 and dh drops me and Taylor off at the door to run up to Chef Mickey's to let them know we're there. We get inside and tell the guy we're late, no problem he says we'll get you right in. Jason and Tucker come up a couple minutes later. We step towards the line to get our family photo and the buzzer goes off.... no picture... oh well. We get seated and I immediately realize, THE CAMERA! WE DON'T HAVE IT! Luckily I had only left it in the car so Jason had to run down to get it. Donald and Minnie came around so I missed the pictures but luckily they came around again. If you stay seated long enough, they'll make their rounds again! The food was excellent and we all had a blast. I will definately return there for breakfast again.

We leave there and head to Downtown Disney for Taylor's appointment at BBB. Her appointment was at 11:00 and after getting there and seeing all the "princesses" in their costumes Taylor becomes upset that she doesn't have a princess dress as well. Too bad I told her, I'm not paying $200 for you to get a costume. She settles for a $19 Tinkerbell t-shirt and is off to see her "Fairy Godmother." She had a blast getting the make-over done and we walked around the Disney store there for a while. There was just so much to see! We walked to more shops and Jason decides on lunch at Planet Hollywood. It was good and it turned out our server had gone to high school in the town we live in which was weird. We walked around more after lunch and headed off to find a Walmart and liquor store. By the way the liquor store is in Walgreen's down the road which I thought was strange. Jason walks out with a huge bottle of Crown for the cruise so we're all excited. We went to Walmart to buy a case of beer and Red Bull. It's now back to the hotel for naps. I thought about doing laundry so Jason went to get a bunch of quarters for me but I changed my mind... I'll just do it on the ship I thought. We went back to DTD to walk around some more and eat at Rainforest Cafe. Before we left the hotel we called to ask the wait time and it was ONE hour. By the time we got across the street and there, the wait was now TWO hours. We should have made reservations! Oh well... Taylor rides some rides and we grab some beers. Finally we're called to be seated and dinner was great. We get back to the hotel and I try to pack everything up as much as I can b/c I wanted to be up early to head to the port!!!!!!!! Jason went back down to the bar to watch football and I drifted off the sleep before he got back....

 

[cepmom]

enjoying your trip report so far....how did you like the SPH room?? I am going to try to get connecting SPH rooms for our next cruise.

 

[christophfam]

 

[CapnJackGroupie]

Subscribing.......

 

[kevinsmom]

So Far, Sooo good! looking forward to the rest!

 

[Bella8286]

enjoying your trip report so far....how did you like the SPH room?? I am going to try to get connecting SPH rooms for our next cruise.

I'm working on it guys!

As for the SPH room. it was an excellent view for "FREE". There is VERY little obstruction in 5022. However, this was our first cruise and I will not stay forward again. I never got motion sickness but you can DEFINATELY feel the boat rocking more in the front than towards the middle/aft from what I could tell!

 

[Bella8286]

Day 3- I had wanted to be AT the port at 10:30 sharp so I set the alarm for 7:00 so we could make sure all was ready to go by 9:30. Well in the midst of trying to pack everything back into the suitcases and figure out what was clean and what was dirty... Jason calmed me down and convinced me there was no rush to get there. I thought about it and figured, Hey... we're on vacation, just go with the flow! We finally left the hotel around 10:30 and found our way to the toll road (I think it's 528 or something) I had told Jason to get gas the day before but being a man, he didn't listen so onto the toll road we go... About 15 minutes later, he's telling me, we've got to find a gas station. For all of you who have never driven to the port and plan to, GET GAS BEFORE YOU LEAVE ORLANDO!!! There was no freaking gas station the rest of the way that we could find. Also take LOTS of change! It seemed like every few miles we were paying another .75 cents to get through again. Oh and if you get off on an exit, you have to pay .25 to get back on the toll road! It was a good thing I had Jason get me quarters the night before and never did laundry!!! We finally reached the 528/I-95 junction and decided (since we didn't know just how much further the port was from there) that we were sure to find a gas station on 95 I mean it's a major road! Yeah... I looked over and the thing said 14 miles left on the gas tank. We ended up driving another 6 miles or so and finally found a gas station. Major detour but we had gas now. We head back towards the port which was only probably another 5-10 minute drive from there. As soon as we drove over the bridge, we could see the red tips of the ship!!!!!!!!!!!! It was so exciting!! When we pulled into the port, we were all amazed at how big all the cruise ships were since we had never seen one in person before.

Jason pulled up to a man who directed us to another woman who told us where to park etc. Jason dropped us off where the porters take the luggage. I had Taylor, Tucker in the stroller, diaper bag, my purse, and our rolling cooler filled with all the alcohol. I get in line to go through security when I suddenly realized I will NOT be able to lift this cooler onto the conveyer belt. A few minutes later Jason walks in and through security we go. The lady hands us a card with our boarding number 14!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't believe we were already 14 since most people here seem to be 2 and 3. Anyways, it was about 12:15 at this point and I went up to the counter with all the paperwork to sign in. Jason and the kids headed off to the bathroom and he pointed in a direction and said, "We'll be over this way." I hand the man everything he needs and he said, "I'll need the credit card you'll be using to pay for everything." Great, Jason had the credit card so I quickly tell the man I'll be right back and go to find them. It took me almost 10 minutes to find them as they were on the opposite side of the terminal than where he said. We got our KTTW cards and I didn't care for our rotation TAAP since I had made Palo ressies for Monday night and that would be the "show" in AP. No biggie, we'll try to change once we board. The terminal was crowded but not too bad. We went ahead and registered Taylor for the kids club and got our pager. I highly recommend doing this before you board the ship as it makes it so much easier. There were times that we'd stand in line for 10 minutes trying to get her into the club b/c SOMEBODY didn't do this and had to get their pager etc in the club. So finally #14 is called and we get in line. We went through the line smoothly and got our family photo taken. We walk towards the lobby of the ship and they asked our last name. Suddenly when we walked through and they LOUDLY annouced our name which was fun. They directed us toward Parrot Cay for lunch but we opted to go find the buffet on Deck 9. Before that, we went to Wavebands to see about getting our Palo dinner changed and we couldn't figure out when would be the best so we left it as it was. There were people already swimming and of course this was Taylor's main priority now. I must say with the stroller and the cooler, it wasn't easy getting through the buffet line but we managed. At the end, a CM thankfully took one of our trays and helped us find a table. There were none inside so we headed to the poolside and it was nice. The food was pretty good for a buffet. After we ate it was time to find our stateroom. We got there around 2:00 and the luggage hadn't arrived yet. We put our belongings down and just sat there taking it all in. Tucker was tired of being in the stroller so we took him out for a bit. Taylor and Jason went to explore things for a while. The luggage arrived a short while later. They came back just in time to get our life jackets for the munster drill and head to Deck 4. It didn't last too long but they kept telling everyone to squeeze closer together so me and Taylor were getting squished by the time it was over. After the drill, we headed back to the room to put the life jackets away and immediately headed to deck 10. I HIGHLY advise getting a seat on deck 10 as you can see EVERYTHING perfectly there. Send one member of your party straight there after the drill and have the other take their life jacket back to the room while they save a space.

The sailway party was truly a blast!!! It's not to be missed for sure. They had people walking around with yummy drinks. Jason had brought some crown and just used the sprite from the drink station on Deck 9 to make his drinks. It worked out well. After the party, we headed back to the room since Tucker needed a nap before our 8 pm dinner seating. Jason took Taylor to the pool and I started unpacking everything while the baby napped. Taylor decided she didn't want to eat dinner with us so I quickly made her shower, ordered her chicken fingers from room service (and a cheese tray for me!) and took her to the kid's club around 6:30 when they opened. We hung out and ate some crackers and cheese after she left and at 7:20 I realized, we need to get dressed!! So we get all dressed for dinner and around 7:30, wake the baby up to get him dressed.

DUM DUM DUM.... Now the saga begins...

When Jason picked him up, before he was even fully awake, he starts vomitting NON-stop. 8:00 came and obviously we weren't making it to dinner. The boat was really rocky so we thought perhaps it could be motion sickness. We called our room steward for assistance in cleaning and he told us we could order our dinner from the place we were to dine that night. I called GS to see how to go about doing this and the man that answered the phone was VERY rude to me. He got very defensive and started questioning me, "Who told you this?!, This is not our policy!!!" blah blah. I knew I had read about being able to order food from your dining restaurant but I guess at this point we weren't confined to the room Who knows, anyways, about 30 minutes later our head server calls us from Triton's to take our order. She very nicely read the menu to us! The rude man from GS called 15 minutes after that to make sure "everything was taken care of."

Tucker was sick continuously until 9:00 when I called the medical center. I simply wanted some pedialyte but the nurse became very concerned when I told her how many times he had gotten sick. She then tells me, "Well I'm not too familiar with babies but it just seems to me that 10 times in one hour is too many, I think you should come in to see the dr and it will be a $144 charge since it's after hours." I'm thinking, okay you work on a DISNEY ship with families and you don't "know much" about babies? I am a nurse and I knew that there was nothing a ship dr could do for my son at this point. He wasn't dehydrated (obviously after ONE hour of throwing up.) I finally conviced her to call the dr to see if she could just give me the pedialyte. She called back and told me the dr said I could give him an anti-emetic suppository and she would meet me down there to give that and the pedialyte to me. We gave him the suppository and I think he only got sick 1-2 more times before it kicked it.

We both ordered the beef tenderloin from Tritons with the creme brulee for dessert. It was absolutetly delicious! I didn't order an appetizer and Jason got a salad (but no dressing so he didn't eat it) and we enjoyed our cold meal in our room.

I went to bed and Jason went to pick Taylor up from the Oceaneer Club. We all went to bed around 10:30 and were excited for our day in Nassau....

Up next... Nassau...

 

[drewspop]

Sorry to hear about your sick son. We were on your cruise and actually had a great time with a few exceptions. The "accident" in the Mickey pool on the at sea day was a bummer since it was such a nice day. It also didn't help that I broke my ankle playing basketball that same afternoon !

I guess playing basketball barefoot on a cruiseship after a few rum and cokes is not the best idea. I just found out it was actually broken yesterday. Ouch. Looking forward to the rest of the report. Hope it gets better for you and your family.

 

[Disney owl]

Sorry to hear your son was ill

Great report thanks

 

[seb1104mom]

Great report! I'm so sorry your DS was feeling so bad but it sounds like you took it in stride.

More please,