22nd Anniversary WDW/Wonder 11/5-11/8 Trip Report About This Page:

[KSSteve]

There is nothing like sitting on your verandah in the morning and seeing the ship dock in to Nassau. The buildings across the dock are so colorful. Pat and I love being outside, so having the verandah on Deck 7 was wonderful.

We ate breakfast this morning at Tritan's, as we were going to miss Tritan's on our anniversary. After breakfast, we got off the ship to explore Nassau.

For those of you who wonder if Nassau is safe, we had no issues there. If anything, I'd say I felt safer than I did in Ensanada on our RCL cruise in 04. If you just ignore the street vendors, they will leave you alone.

We grabbed a Taxi and went to the Atlantis resort. After seeing all the commercials for it on TV, we really wanted to explore it.

Atlantis is a beautiful property. I can't imagine staying there for a week, as I would probably be bored of Nassau in that amount of time, but it was fun to visit. We toured the shops, bought a few souveniors (sp?) for folks back home, and walked along the dock and saw all of the beautiful boats.

We took a taxi back to the center of Nassau, and disaster struck

We were hustled out of the cab as the driver was in a hurry to load more passengers, and we forgot our digital camera inside of the cab

We didn't realize it until 30 minutes later, and by then we could not find the cab. Imagine that, all the cabs are white cars

Luckily, the HD video camera we bought before the cruise also takes still photos, so we had a lot of our pictures from WDW still on the Video camera. We were alos going back to WDW for 2 days after the cruise, so we could visit hotels again and take pictures.

Discouraged about the camera, we went back on board the ship, determined not to let the camera incident ruin an otherwise perfect trip. We ate lunch on deck, and enjoyed sitting on chairs on the deck.

Tonight's dinner was in Parrot Cay. I had the Ribeye steak, which was wonderful. It was Pirate's night, but the wind on deck from Ida almost made the party unenjoyable for us. It was fun though, and the buffet was fantastic.

We played bingo, and to this day, 2 years later, I can still hear the "B11 B-B 11" song in my head.... I may never play bingo the same way again.....

We went to sleep that night with visions of Castway Cay in our heads.......

Next.... 22nd Annivesary, Castaway Cay and Palo

[chezp]

What a shame about the camera.

[pamcarey]

Wonderful to see you updating this TR! I'm glad that you enjoyed the Sum of All Thrills, as I work for the company that sponsors it (Raytheon).

[KSSteve]

Day 3 of the cruise was a wonderful day. It was our 22nd anniversary and we are spending it in paradise, aka Castaway Cay. The winds from Ida caused the parasailing excursion I had booked to be canceled , but no worries! It was a relaxing day on the island. I sat in a beach chair while the Zac Brown band song "Toes" danced through my head.

As soon as we got off the Wonder, we got my picture taken with Goofy, and headed to the trams for the adult beach. We have never seen water so blue as on Castaway Cay. Being from Arizona, the beach was a welcome site. The water was quite cold for us, but saw a lot of East Coaster's in the water. Guess it just depends on the time of year and where you are from. When the weather is in the 20's and 30's where you are from, 60-70 degree water is probably wonderful.

We basically people watched and enjoyed the beach on Castaway. Imbibed a Konk Cooler, which is a wonderful drink.

We did some shopping at Sea Shells, and sent a postcard back to us from Castaway. We have since framed the card and it is a wonderful reminder of our great cruise.

Meals on Castaway were great. We ate ribeye steaks and hamburgers from the cookout, which were wonderful. We got back on the ship around 4:00 and got ready for the final show and our anniversary dinner at Palo.

Disney Dreams was one of the best shows we saw on the ship. We really enjoyed the shows as they were good clean family style shows that anyone can enjoy, and were comparable to many Broadway road shows we have seen in Phoenix.

Palo was an experience that I would recommend for everyone at least once. The food was outstanding and the service even more so. At the end of the meal, A decorated plate was sent to our table wishing us a happy 22nd anniversary. Disney really knows how to treat you special!

After dinner, we ran into our head server outside of Triton's, who gave us a big hug, told us she missed us at dinner and asked how we enjoyed Palo's. I can't say enough about the service on DCL.

We then saw the final "Until we meet again" show in the lobby and got our picture taken with Christian, our cruise director.

All in all, our 22rd anniversary was a day to remember on DCL!

[chezp]

What a magical anniversary!

[KSSteve]

We disembarked Sunday November 8th. Normally, we would be sad about the last day, but we still had 3 days left at WDW and then on to San Antonio and home.

We had breakfast at Triton's that morning, and said a sad farewell to our servers.

We drove back to the Lake Buena Vista Resort, and by this time the weather was getting cloudy. Little did we know that Ida was coming.

We spent the day at the Magic Kingdom. The park looks great with all the Christmas decos out. We had never been to one of the parks (here or at Disneyland) when it was all decked out for Christmas.

We were exhausted by the end of the day, and when we got back to the hotel, we saw the reports that Hurricane Ida was going to hit the Panhandle. I definitely have a fear of severe weather, growing up in the Midwest, but we decided to stick it out. Weather wasn't bad in Orlando, and we didn't want to waste the last few days of vacation.

[chezp]

Hope the rest of your vacation wasn't affected too badly by the weather.

[KSSteve]

Originally Posted by chezp

Hope the rest of your vacation wasn't affected too badly by the weather.

Not at all. We got a little bit of rain driving to Beaumont, TX, but the parks were wonderful with the overcast weather.

[KSSteve]

This was one of our favorite vacations ever. We will probably never cruise on any line but Disney again.

Don't worry if you have no children. DCL has more than enough for adults to do,

Don't hesitate to get off the ship at Nassau if you have never done it. Atlantis alone is worth the visit.

If you are combining the cruise with a WDW visit, try to get WDW out of the way first. DCL and WDW are too entirely different experiences.

Thanks to all of you on the board for your posts and suggestions. This is a great community!

[pamcarey]

Great report! Thanks for sharing!