Disney Cruise Part 8: Odds and Ends

We had so much fun on our cruise so I just wanted to share some tidbits of info in case anyone is planning a Disney Cruise.

-We had a deluxe verandah room. I'm pretty sure we are all spoiled forever after having a verandah. I never would have thought that the verandah would add that much to the experience but it was SO nice.  We had such a good view all the time, the kids loved eating their pre-breakfast snack out there in the mornings and Ellie and I read many a book out there. Our room also had the toilet and a sink in one room and the shower and a sink in another room. Having the bathroom split up like that was really nice since there were 4 people in each room.
-We did magnets for our door and my parents door. I bought the templates on Etsy and then customized them, printed them out, and laminated them. I am so glad we did the magnets. It was an easy way to quickly find our door (especially for the kids) and it's a great souvenir for afterwards!

-Some people do Fish Extender groups. If you do FE groups you bring a present for everyone in your group (you generally find these groups on Facebook by searching your ship and cruise date) and then they give you presents. They put the gifts in a little bag you hang by your door on the fish (or the seahorse). We didn't do it because we didn't want to drag all that extra stuff around but people who do it love it!
-Before we went I had seen a post where someone had suggested taking a nightlight and if we went again I would definitely take one for the kids.
-We took magnetic hooks for our walls. While we had enough hooks to get by in the room I was glad to have some extras.
-Your Key to the World card turns on the light in your room (you stick it in a slot in the wall) and bathroom. This is all well and go unless someone's in the bathroom and the person with their card in the light slot leaves the room! I took an old gift card and stuck a magnet on the back and we used that for our light card. When the last person leaves the room you just stick it to the wall. Perfect!
-I used this case to carry around my iPhone and our wave phone (the room phone). It was PERFECT. I could carry both phones and when we went in to the ports I would put my lanyard and the kids' Key to the World cards in it. Generally I just had the iPhone in there unless I had laundry in (it alerts your wave phone when your laundry is done) or the kids were in Kid's Club.

You can click here for the link!

-Everyone has to have their Key to the World card when you go off the ship. I had a lanyard for mine but was terrified of the kids losing theirs so I shoved them in the plastic holder on my lanyard and would hand them to the kids as we got to check in and check out and then quickly gather them back up. About half way through the cruise my plastic holder broke and so when I went to guest relations to get another they game me one for each card. Total game changer. I felt so much more comfortable handing them a plastic sleeve with their card in it then just a card. I would just pull them out of my little bag and hand them out and then collect them again once they had been scanned.
-Our room was on the 10th floor (for reference the pool deck is on 11) midship. We LOVED our location. Midship was great and then because we spent SO much time at the pool it was really nice only having to go up one flight of stairs and it was easy to run back to the room if we needed anything.
-Everyone loves a good towel animal on a cruise. Here were some of ours!

We had a pumpkin on our Halloween night.

Pirate night!

-I think we took about 4 days worth of clothes for each person and 3 bathing suits. We absolutely needed all those bathing suits but we could have easily gotten away with only 2 or 3 outfits. (We washed about halfway through the week) We wore a bathing suit on our excursions and we mostly just wore a bathing suit around the ship since the kids planted themselves at the pool for most of the time!
-We used a Disney Travel Agent. If you need a recommendation, Kari at A Touch of Magic Travel has helped us with a few Disney trips and our cruise and she is fabulous! If you've never used a Disney agent they are great! You don't pay any extra to use them and they do all the hard work for you plus they know the ends and outs of everything and can give so much useful guidance for making your trip fabulous!
-Do the Aquaduck at night. It is such a fun experience! We went one night immediately after dinner and there was NO line and it was all lit up which was really fun. We also saw people riding it during the early pirate night show which I think would be really fun if you didn't have little kids that wanted to see the show.
-Most importantly, have a GREAT time! We had no idea what to expect and how the kids would do but we went with the flow and had a blast!

Disney Cruise Part 7: Food, Formal Night, and Fun on the Ship

This post is a bit of a hodge podge post of everything I haven't talked about yet!

Formal night for our cruise was Sunday night. We didn't do much for formal night. We wore nicer clothes but I wasn't bringing extra shoes (x6) for one night so we just wore flip flops or tennis shoes. There was definitely a mix of participation for formal night. Some people went all out and some people didn't participate at all.

I haven't really talked about dining either. For breakfast and lunch we ate at Cabanas (my parents did the sit down a few times but the kids were much happier with casual meals) which is the buffet on the ship. It is conveniently located right off of the pool deck so it was very easy to just pop over and grab food! Often in the mornings someone would run get a bowl of fruit and whichever kids were the early risers that day

would sit on the verandah and snack on that until everyone else was awake.

For dinner we did the sit down each night. We had the main dining time (6). We originally were assigned the late seating (8/830...I can't rememner for sure which time it was) and our travel agent put us on the waiting list for main dining and a few months before the cruise we were moved! I am SO glad we had mian dining. The kids are used to eating at 530/6 so they were very ready to eat. Plus they went hard all day and so they were tired. Our servers were great and by the second day they knew we wanted the kids food first and they always had it ready quickly! The kids would get their meal about the time we got our appetizer and then the ones who wanted to go to kid's club could. Kids Club comes to the dining room and picks up the kids but our kids were done long before the time that Kid's Club came so one of us always just ran them up there. In general, everyone except Ruthie went to Kid's Club. She prefereed to sit with us and color everyone's coloring page and eat all the desserts! It's so rare for kid #3 to be the only child around and it was really fun to get to spend that special time with her.

Mickey Mouse bars for dessert every night. They were a big hit!

When they put the ketchup on the plate it was of course in a Mickey Mouse shape!

Emmie with our servers

JP watching the show at Animator's Palate

Our food was VERY good. My very favorite thing was the lobster bisque. So good. On the ship you rotate between 3 dining rooms. Each dining room has it's own menu and the menu changes every 3 days. You can also order off of any of the menus no matter which dining room you're in. (Except for the lobster. We discovered you can only get that in the dining room where it is on the menu.) You can also order as much food as you want. We had some people in our group (ahem...David Rainey) that had quite a collection of food at dinner!
Oh, and they even sang Happy Birthday to my dad on his birthday!

The dining rooms were Enchanted Garden, Royal Court, and Animator's Palate. Animator's Palate is really fun because you draw a person and then it is brought to life on the screens around the restaurant! I was able to get pictures of a few of our creations brought to life!

We also found lots of fun things to do around the ship! There was Kid's' Club which the kids loved. There was always lots of fun activities there. From cooking, to dance parties, to drawing, to science experiments, to games, there was something for everyone! (Below are some of the crafts they made.)

There was also mini golf and the Midship Detective Agency which takes you all over the ship to find clues to solve a puzzle.

We found a cruising duck! They are the cruise ship version of the painted rocks.

a mini door

At night there was always  a show after dinner. We went to most of these. Our Broadway show was Aladdin and it was SO good. We also saw one of the signature shows which was also excellent ( I can't remember the name now!). There was a ventriloquist who was hilarious and had Emmie and Ellie almost in tears they were laughing so hard and a magician.
Ellie spent a lot of time reading on the ship. She managed to read the entire last Harry Potter book while we were there. I ended up with a lot of "Ellie reading" pictures...which my little reader heart just loves!  I didn't get any of her reading on the pool deck but she spent a lot of time reading there!

Reading on the Promenade Deck.

My personal favorite reading spot...the verandah of our room. 

By far our very favorite thing on the ship was the pool! The kids spent a LOT of time in the pool and going down the Mickey slide and the Aquaduck. JP was so sad that he wasn't tall enough to ride the Aquaduck (which goes around the deck of the ship) but fortunately he was tall enough for the Mickey slide which he loved. He and Ruthie also spent a lot of time in Nemo's Reef which was the little kid splash area. There were 2 pools on the deck and a huge movie screen that always had a movie playing. Just to give you an idea of how great the pool is, one of the "at sea" days Ruthie and JP spent SEVEN hours in the pool area!

Did I mention there's an ice cream machine on the pool deck? That was a big hit with my crew!