 By Senior Vacation Planner, Meghan I know what you’re thinking -- why would a vacation need to be forced upon anyone? Well, my husband and I have two children - a 12 -year-old son and a 15-year-old daughter. Any questions? For those of you blessed to not have children this age yet - taking them anywhere at this age without their friends is just shy of the death penalty for this age group, and so we (like many others) must put our foot down when it comes to a family only vacation and force them to have a fun time! Our forced vacation? A five-night Disney Cruise from New York to Bermuda! We booked this when the itinerary was released so everyone had PLENTY of time to adjust to the idea! Historically, booking this far in advance will get you a lowest fair possible for your sailing - in addition you get the largest options of stateroom choices this early in the game as well! Disney Cruise Line’s frequent cruising program is called the Castaway Club, the higher your Castaway Level (based on the number of times you have cruised) determines how early you can book when the new itineraries get released. We arrived at the port an hour earlier than our Port Arrival time of 11:30am. We parked offsite at a facility that allowed reservations - they also drove you in your own car right up to the port arrival area, helped us with our luggage and for an additional fee promised to pick us up! By 10:45am we were in and breezed through port security. We had a rolling suitcase with our allowed alcohol (2 6-packs of beer for my husband) and our swim attire. All other bags were checked through with our bag tags we received in the mail a few weeks prior. Mistakenly we put through a backpack with water bottles in the side pockets… which we never saw again!
Our Port Arrival Time was 11:30am, but boarding group 3 wasn’t called until 12 noon… so we were good and ready for lunch! After having our boarding photo taken (but not with our camera), we were headed down the gangway! When you board a Disney ship you are announced, and while most would give their families name when they are asked, my family likes to come up with fun names - so for this cruise we were the Tink’s Family!!
We then headed to the kids clubs to get them signed up and to get familiar with where the clubs were on the ship. One of the “deal’s” we made with our children (remember forced family fun?) was that they had to attend the “ice breaker” activity run at each of their camps before decided that they didn’t want to go for the rest of the week! My son was eligible to go to Edge (for ages 11-14) and my daughter was old enough for Vibe (ages 14-17). One of the best tips for anyone with children who are hesitant to join in on the fun at any of the Disney kids clubs is to get them in there ASAP. On the first day the majority of the kids are all in the same boat (few know anyone else on the ship) but for older kids friendships are made quickly, so by day 2 or 3 it might be hard for your child to break into a buddy group to play/hang with during your cruise. For the little ones, it’s more about comfort - with the surroundings, the counselors and the process to get in (all children MUST use the hand-washing station before entering). After a bit of grumpiness that his sister’s club was bigger and cooler than his (Vibe was also refurbished at dry dock) BOTH my son and daughter found friends to hang with their first night at ice breakers!
 Staterooms are usually ready around 1pm - with your checked luggage being delivered to your room at any time throughout the rest of the evening. So with our room being ready we headed there to get unpacked and settled. On past cruises we usually would have been at the pool (the reason for carrying on our swimsuits), but the rain had cooled temps down a bit and exploring the ship seemed like a better option. This cruise I had put us in a secret porthole room (5024) this was priced like a Deluxe inside stateroom category 10A but had a large round porthole window that gave us an obstructed view outside. This is a great option for those that are afraid of feeling trapped with no view of the outside but need to sail at a lower price point.  After the mandatory muster/safety drill our sail away time was scheduled for 5pm, so of course this was when the sail away party was planned to begin. However, due to circumstances beyond the control of Disney Cruise Line we ended up pulling out around 6pm. While this did cause some conflict with choosing between being up on deck to see the Statue of Liberty from an amazing starboard vantage point or heading to see the first scheduled showing (for late diners) of Tangled, in the end, the late sail time being AFTER some rain during the sail away party allowed us to see Lady Liberty at her finest while the sun was setting! Some mousekeeping advice regarding wifi on board: before you are completely out of cell phone data signal range (hopefully way before) make sure you have already downloaded the DCL app onto your phone. You are able to communicate with friends and family with the special wifi set up for it - but only if you have this app! Then at some point once you are onboard and finished using your cell phone data to post pictures of yourself on the ship, you will need to turn your phone to airplane mode and then turn your wifi setting back on. Doing this will allow you to then use the app on the ship for texting those in your state room and those that share their text code with you. New on this sailing for me anyway (my last sailing was January of 2018) was that I was already connected to those in my stateroom, I didn’t have to choose a name (I think I could have changed my name if I wanted to) and I had to give my son (who was under 14) permission to text. You will need to do this with your children while you are still together as they will need to punch in a code generated on the parents app. One note regarding texting: there are no text sounds and so my family missed MANY texts throughout the cruise that were being sent. So remember to check your phone especially when the seas get rough and you have a child at the kids club, who may have been texting you repeatedly to come get them at the infirmary -- more on that later! The other wifi item to take care of on this first night is signing up for the FREE 1 GB of data that is only offered the first day - for use over the entire cruise. I was able to make this small amount of data last about 24 hours by logging in to use it then logging out right afterwards. The ship then has packages available for purchase in different sizes if you would like to have it for the length of your cruise. These packages are great for checking emails and posting to social media - but I have heard that it’s not the best for streaming. I highly advise you to check with your cell phone carrier before traveling to see what they can offer you for this. There is a cast member onboard who will help you get your phone set up properly to use the app and not incur charges while sailing - ask guest services for the location on your ship, or check your Personal Navigator for the Connect@Sea Desk location! We choose late seating around 8ish (depending on your sailing and ship) to allow ourselves time to enjoy the day and then have plenty of time to get ready for dinner. Disney does have a buffet dinner option at Cabana’s if desired that would allow you to eat slightly earlier but not as early as the first seating at 6:15pm. Our first dining experience in our rotation was Rapunzel’s Royal Table. There are 3 table service dining rooms on all Disney ships and everyone is given a dining rotation, that will cycle through as many nights as you are sailing. For our 5 night sailing we dined in two restaurants twice and one restaurant, only once! Also unique to Disney Cruise Line is that your servers follow you each night; they get to know you and your families likes and dislikes! I had my favorite wine waiting for me each evening on this sailing. On a previous cruise my son was on a hamburger kick and wanted to hang out in the kids club for as long as he could, so each night our server brought us his burger at the end of the meal to take back to the room for him after he got back from the kids club! When my children were toddlers our servers would even cut their food for them, and provide puzzles to solve when they were done and we were not, thereby allowing mom and dad to truly enjoy their own dinner!
With dinner at 8pm, one would think that there’s not too much going on at 10pm when we finished. WRONG! The kids headed off to camp and the adults only night club area had all sorts of great options for keeping my husband and I busy! Before heading to bed we tried to remember to place our breakfast order form out on the door knob, so we have coffee and a light breakfast brought to our room in the morning. These forms can be found in your stateroom desk drawer. Since room service is included (except for the tip) we did this every morning of our cruise.
like, the classic Mojito - and it shouldn’t be messed with! The class was in the The Keys bar - a martini bar by night, and so my husband (who loves a good chocolate martini) made fast friends with the head bartender who also led the tasting class!
This fabulous day continued and I wish I could say it ended as fun as the night before. However, as is the case every time I board a ship, I run the risk of getting seasick, as I am prone to motion sickness. I do take precautions every time I sail, and after 9 cruises and trying 4 different methods, I have decided that Bonine is the best option for me. I start taking it the day before I sail, and continue it until 24 hours after getting off the ship. This is usually enough to help me never feel sick while the ship is moving. But as was the case in 2009 (ironically on the same ship) we sailed through some rocky water that hit me the wrong way, sadly during the awesome Ventriloquist act this evening in the theatre - and apparently my son as well, since he greeted us just outside the theatre holding a packet of motion sickness medication and a sheet of instructions from the on board clinic! Remember the texts on the ship make no notification sounds? So I missed my son texting me to come and get him from the clinic as they were all coming in during the show, while I was concentrating very hard not to get sick myself! Needless to say we both went back to our stateroom, choose a free Disney movie on demand on our stateroom TV and went to bed. Sadly, this meant that we missed our first night of dining at Lumiere’s - but eating wasn’t an option! My husband and daughter continues their evening without us though, and I believe had another fun evening!  Day 3: Bermudaful The next morning we were docked at King’s Wharf in Bermuda. In order to make the most of both days docked in Bermuda, we did our best to sleep in and still get off the ship by noon. This was made a bit harder by the fact that we were instructed to turn our clocks ahead one hour to keep on Bermuda time. All Ashore time was 10am, and this was a welcome departure from the traditionally earlier times of cruises past! We rallied the troops, had a fabulous breakfast in Cabana’s and got off the ship right around 10am. When you get off in any foreign port of call - make sure you have both your Key to the World card and a government ID, depending on the port some say to even carry your passport with you as your ID. We did use passports for travel, but opted to carry our driver’s license’s with us onto the island. Disney Cruise Line offers their own excursion packages that are amazing, and when you book an excursion through Disney you are guaranteed to get back to the ship on time (if sailing away the same day this is important) and you have the piece of mind that the excursion experience will be of Disney quality. I recommend booking through Disney when you have little ones, or if you new to island travel. My family and I have done Disney excursions in the past, and as our children have gotten older, we have also done our research before and headed out on our own to explore. For this trip we did lots of research and discovered that this island is considered safe and easy to navigate - with both public bus transport and taxi service readily accessible from the port area! So we decided we wanted to see the Crystal and Fantasy Caves, go “cliff diving” in Tom Moore’s Jungle, eat at the Swizzle Inn and spend some time relaxing on Horseshoe Bay Beach. Just a note here regarding shopping - I overheard from more than one guest that they had planned on shopping on Sunday only to be disappointed to discover that the only shopping that is open is some of the port shopping - the rest of the island shops are closed on Sunday. With the first day being the longer of the two days that we would have in Bermuda, my family had decided before we went that we would head to the far side of the island to tour the Crystal and Fantasy caves first. With many transport options, I ultimately made the decision to spend the extra money for a taxi, rather than spend time figuring out the bus and or ferry system, both of which were less expensive and very viable options to get there. King’s Wharf is actually the name of the berth used to dock the ship the Port itself is called the Royal Navy Dockyard and has become a tourist trove of shopping and activities in recent years. Many shops advertised free wifi with purchase, for those needed to stay connected. With our sailing being the very first time a Mickey Ship had visited the island, we walked of the gangplank to a DJ playing music and many friendly islanders hired by the tourism industry to greet us. They set up an area for taxi and van drivers to wait for passengers - and when we realized we didn’t bring enough cash with us to get there and back (vacation brain I guess?), a very nice woman helped us find a taxi that took credit cards. Not all taxi cabs take plastic, but they can be found! Once we were settled (with me in the front seat, on the left side, as they drive on the opposite side of the road) we were off! Since the port is on the furthest western point of the island, we had about a 45-minute ride (approx $73.00 +tip) to get to the Crystal and Fantasy Caves located almost on the opposite end of the island. The time flew by with our friendly driver who educated us on the island as we drove! We would come to discover that we didn’t just get lucky - as all of our taxi and van drivers were just as proud to share information about their beautiful home. The caves were amazing. Better still, they were in walking distance to the Swizzle Inn, which is the home to the popular island rum swizzle! I’m not sure this is a must do, but due to it’s location to the other activities we did it made perfect sense for us to stop there. After lunch we walked down the street to an area called Blue Hole Park popularly known as Tom Moore's Jungle (and also as Walsingham Nature Reserve). We had read that there was some easy cliff jumping at the Blue Hole Pool and this was enough for my kids to want to see it! We spent about 2 hours jumping and exploring this area, it’s paths, caves and the view before heading back to the main road. This is where it got a little iffy, as we didn’t see a clear place to get a taxi from - we headed to a local gas station to ask someone there to call us one, but as we were walking, one passed us and stopped! We headed back to the ship around 4:30pm in time to get ready for dinner! I have to say it was quite nice not to have to worry about making it back to the ship in time since we were staying in port for two days. In addition, there was no large lines to get back on the ship like we have encountered in the past when everyone tries to board the ship around the same time! We even encountered passengers getting off the ship as we were getting back on!  While getting ready for dinner, I called room service for an “All Hand’s on Deck” plate of cheese and crackers to nibble on. Again, with room service being included with your cruise fare make sure you take advantage of this great perk! You can also get more substantial food (salads, mac and cheese or paninis anyone?) as well as sweets and even a Mickey bar! Dinner this evening was at Animator’s Palate. As a side note, this is not my favorite restaurant on the Disney Dream as Crush was fun the first two or three times when my kids were young, but I usually plan to eat at Palo on this night now! I was looking forward to eating here again on the Magic because I still remembered how “magical” it was the first time I dined there in 2009. I will say that while the atmosphere does feel magical here, the “show” didn’t wow me like I remembered. This evening I was able to hang in for a late night “Adults only” showing of the ventriloquist from the night before. Remember this is a Disney ship, so I use the "adults only" term loosely! While I do love a good musical, I really enjoy these acts that are brought in to break up the Broadway style shows on cruises of 5 nights or more. We also enjoyed the juggler/comedian the next night and his “Adult only” show the night after!  Day Four (Bermuda Continued): Our second day in Bermuda happened to fall on a Sunday. The day began fairly overcast and I thought it put our beach plans at risk. However, I was assured as it began to rain while we spoke to the attendant about getting to Horseshoe Bay that it wasn’t raining on that side of the island! We trusted him and jumped in a shared van that was just making trips to Horseshoe Bay and back throughout the day. At $7 per person, this seemed like the way to go! Again, our driver was an amazing host, and talked happily with passengers about the island and her life there. Horseshoe Bay is a well known tourist destination beach. I even asked our driver the day before if she thought there was someplace that was better to go to. The short answer is no due to the fact that Horseshoe Bay is the only beach that has a vendor who rents lounge chairs, beach chairs, umbrellas, boogie boards and even tents for large groups, plus also offers public changing facilities. A package of 2 loungers and 1 umbrella was $45 plus tip, the beach chairs were $15 each and were also sold in a set if preferred. If needed, bottled water can also be purchased. After you pay one of the attendants will follow you to your location of choice and set it all up for you. This beach day was my idea of vacation! There was pink sand and clear water - it really was breathtaking with slightly overcast skies and no rain. Again, for those of you who need to not just lay there and enjoy themselves, there are plenty of areas to explore. For instance, there is a shallow (in most areas) alcove surrounded by large walls of rocks, that many parents of young ones seemed to like, presumably due to the lack of access to the open ocean. There is a restaurant located here as well with wifi if you, like us, have no service. However based on my husbands reaction to the cost of the hamburger on the menu that my son HAD to eat before we left (he loves hamburgers) I would plan on spending a pretty penny to eat there. As a side note - Bermuda is an ISLAND - they import EVERYTHING - thus things are more expensive for a reason (for example, the $9 per gallon gas that was mentioned by every driver we had). Sadly, we did have an all aboard time of 3:30pm this day - bringing our beach day to an end way too early for me! However, I do not ever want to write a blog about how we missed the ship, so we re-boarded the Magic around 3:15, with relative ease and little waiting. Once back on board, my husband and I headed to the adult pool and the kids were off to the Kids Clubs! I will say the adult area this day was particularly busy, but we stalked several chairs and found two eventually! Pirate Night One evening on just about every Disney Cruise is designated as pirate night - and to truly embrace this evening dressing up is a must! We see everything from some wearing just the bandana’s provided to you by your stateroom host - to thinking you are actually meeting Captain Jack Sparrow and everything in between! Dinner is even pirate themed, with a special pirate menu offered at all dining rooms! All the Kids Clubs will have special pirate themed activities and the characters even get into the action wearing their pirate get ups for photos as well! The evening offers Pirates IN the Caribbean on deck family pirate party with all your favorite characters. While Jack Sparrow had been apart of this show in the past, he was strangely missing from this evening's show. In general, the pirate show looked like it had been slightly reworked since I last saw it (which was Oct of 2017 - as I have skipped “gasp” this when sailing with adults only). Maybe because we were in Bermuda and NOT the Caribbean, Captain Mickey still makes a “special” appearance to save the day - and then the world famous fireworks at sea begin! Disney ships are the ONLY cruise line to have a fireworks show in the middle of the ocean. Make sure you are with on an open deck or on a port side verandah to view it.
Day 6: Debarkation
One other reason we choose late dining is the breakfast seating time that you get assigned to will be the later one on your last morning. If you are assigned to the early seating, do know that you also have the option of dining in Cabana’s for their breakfast buffet. Keep in mind that all guests need to be off the ship by 9am, so our “later” breakfast seating was 8:15am in Lumiere’s (it was 8am at the other dining rooms.) You are assigned to the same dining room as the one you dined in your last evening. In addition The Cove Cafe is open from 5:30-9am and this is usually my last hurrah, as I am usually using my 6th free coffee drink on this morning! Debarkation is always the worst! Walking on deck and seeing the pools covered by their netting, the crew cleaning for the next passengers, and everyone’s else's sad faces makes for a very somber morning. The only thing that made this debarkation somewhat tolerable was the notion that we didn’t have to head to an airport to wait for a flight! We walked off the ship, collected our luggage and made it through customs with really no wait! We then headed to the corner across the street from the post entrance, calling our parking facility to come and bring us our car to us! Driving home we recounted all the great times that we all had and I think the forced family fun was appreciated by all! |
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