Belle* & Mushu1’s stay on the Disney Magic and at the Contemporary About This Page:

[Belle*]

This is not going to be a full-out trip report. Just some high-lights and low points. Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

The Disney Cruise

Transportation
Happy Limo picked us up at the airport to drive us to Port Canaveral in a beautiful brand new Lincoln Town Car, Cartier Edition. We loved their service and will definitely use them again. There was heightened security around PC, our passports were checked before the car was even allowed in the parking lot. We were not allowed to board until 12:30 and headed straight for Parrot Cay for the buffet. The food was all right which turned out to be the case the entire cruise.

Stateroom
Our Stateroom, 2556, was right next to the elevators on deck 2 below Lumiere’s. I was initially concerned about noise but it was really very quiet relatively speaking. (More on that later! [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] ) We had Category 9 room with a large porthole. The rooms are very big with a split bath. We loved our room steward who left us great towel animals every night.

Restaurants
Because this the 3 night is normally on the Wonder, we did not actually get to eat off the dining rooms actual menus. With the exception of Palo’s all restaurants served the same menu each night. The first night was the Master Chef series, the next Tropicalifragelisticexpealidocius and then It’s a Small World (we skipped this thinking it was our Parrot Cay night and went to Palo’s instead.) I wish I had known about the menu change ahead of time because I would have made different decisions about Palo’s. Palo’s was good but not spectacular. Since we were on the late seating we saw no children anyway so Palo’s was not notable for it’s lack of them. The food was not bad (except for one item, a pasta dish at lunch) but it was also not great. The show at Animators Palette is something to see.

Servers
The service is amazing in the ship! We had great servers, Anja from Germany and Will from S. Africa. Dewa from Indonesia was our room steward and all went out of their way for us. Also, Sarah from the Netherlands served us at Breakfast one morning. When we saw her later she greeted me by my first and middle names!! (We had compared names quickly that morning.)

Shows
I can’t say enough about the shows. We saw C’est Magique, Hercules – the Muse-ical, and Disney Dreams. They were amazing. I laughed, cried and sang along. DO NOT skip these no matter how tired you are.

Ports of Call
We did not even get off the ship in Nassau as the only thing I wanted to see was the Straw Market. (Which burned to the ground 3 weeks ago.) I used this time to have a pedicure at the Vista Spa. Castaway Cay was wonderful!!!! Mushu1 went snorkeling, he brought his own gear. I had the Spa Taster (25 min massage, 25 min facial) in an Open Air cabana. Amazing and worth every expensive penny! [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] We then met up, laid on the beach, swam, had lunch and went back to the ship for a nap. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Overall Impression of Ship
The ship is magnificent. We decided we would definitely cruise again on this line but next time it will be longer. The 3 night was perfect for our first time out. I did not feel it was too short and we got to do everything we wanted. But I would like to have more days at sea next time.

Coming up next…The Contemporary! [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

[HiddenMickey]

UhOh----is that a frown next to "the Contemporary"? Thanks for the quick report. Did you meet other people on board, eat meals with other folks, or did you guys stick to yourselves? -HiddenMickey

[Belle*]

The Contemporary

I’m not going into detail here because it gets ugly. All I am going to say is if you are going to stay at this hotel, DO NOT stay in the Garden Wing. Either spring for the Tower or stay somewhere else. The Wing rooms we saw while large were desperately in need of cleaning and/or refurbishing and desperately needed some form of soundproofing. We did spend our last 2 nights in a Tower Room with a Magic Kingdom view (Thank you Manager Ellen) and that was lovely. We loved the convenience of the monorail and because of that our next stay will hopefully be GF.

The Parks
The parks were pretty quiet. The longest line we waited in was maybe 10 minutes. We only used 1 FP on Space Mountain. We skipped the AK this trip and spent little time in MGM. We did play WWTBAM twice and got VERY close to the hot seat but never made it. We made time to see things we had never been on before such as: COP, Peter Pan’s flight, Snow White’s Adventure, American Adventure, Wonders of China and O Canada. We loved all of them, especially PPF and Amer Adv. (Could someone please start humming It’s a small world so I can get Great, Big Beautiful tomorrow out of my head? [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] )

Meals
We had wonderful meals with good food and great character interactions at : Hollywood & Vine, Liberty Tree Tavern and CRT. I would wholeheartedly recommend these to anyone. We also had lunch at Marrakesh which was very good.

PassPorter Meet!!!
We had the pleasure of meeting up with LilMarcieMouse, her sister and MommaPooh. It was great to meet all of you. Can’t wait to see how the picture came out! Hope the rest of your trips were wonderful and safe.

That’s all for now. Again, let me know if I can be of assistance with any details or answer any questions.

[PhilaDisney]

Great,Big,Beautiful Tomorrow does tend to stick in your head, doesn't it? I was even singing it in the car two days later on the ride home. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[maggy_1]

Great and I feel sorry you don't have the chance to visit Nassau and The Straw Market, I was there in 1993 and loved the market and people was ready to deal some articles at lower price very funny. What I read seam you have fun at WDW and meet some of ours friends [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Chantal [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[Beth L.]

I'm glad that the two of you decided to go!!! One day maybe DH and I can get to go on a cruise ourselves, the shows sound wonderful. Sorry that the beginning of your time at the Contemporary was not what you had hoped for but I'm glad that Manager Ellen was able to change that for you. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] It's too bad about you not getting to the Straw Market but kinda makes you realize why the smart little pig built his house out of bricks huh? [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] Glad your back and looking forward to our postponed meet to hear everything else.

[LilMarcieMouse]

Nice summary of your trip.I just got my picture back Mushu1 did a great job!!!!!! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]