Grumpy, and Not of the Dwarf Variety - Mar 29-April 1 on the Disney Dream

Kbmas0n

Mouseketeer
Joined
Mar 29, 2017
Right.

So.

We are four days back from our VERY FIRST Disney cruise aboard the Disney Dream. We spent a mere three nights sailing the high seas, and the majority of us had an amazing time. I have spent HOURS and HOURS (of work) and HOURS (haha) perusing the Disboards, and reading trip reports was probably my favorite thing ever. I want to give back with my own report. However, I suck big time taking pictures, so it may be word heavy. I was also on the wild side in high school/college, so my memory is...not the greatest.

But alas! I will do my bestest.

Meet the Crew:

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Me! (awkwardly leaning forward) I'm Keri, and the Disney-addict of the group. We took our first trip to Disney in 2011 for my 30th birthday. Despite being 27-weeks pregnant and getting a stress fracture in my foot, I was hooked. We went back in 2017, 2018, cruised in 2019 and will be at the parks this summer for a girl's trip. Can't wait to ditch the fellas, and you will see WHY. Sigh.


Dave! Grumpy! God love him. He dreads each trip, usually has a bad attitude at first, and then loves it in the end. This one tested our marriage a bit, but listening to him tell people about the cruise...he had a good time.

Hallie! 12 years old, and Grumpy of the tween variety. Attitude. Lots of it. But had the time of her life on this cruise, and one of the main reasons we booked another for next spring break.

Henry. Oh, Henry. He is our grumpiest. He is on the autism spectrum, but is generally a pretty go-with-the-flow kinda kiddo. Except on this trip. He took up...growling...at other kiddos and us and just wasn't the happiest all of the time. This was the bulk of the grouchy stuff between me and Dave. Henry made things tough, so why bother with vacation (his view). If we didn't force Henry to do new things he would never do ANYTHING (my view). I digress. Henry ended up having a great time, and can't wait to go back (yay!).

Now you know the reasoning behind my title. I also included the exact dates of the cruise, as I tried to find as much info about the three-night Bahamian cruise on the Dream, from Port Canaveral, at the end of March. It helped with weather planning and whatnot. So there ya go.
 
Can't wait to follow along...We are on the Dream next year (it's been a while) and Grumpiness rules! I am guilty of it myself many times.
 
We actually started our trip with a few days at Universal. We love the dark side, too (gasp!). Mostly we love roller-coasters, and Henry LOVES the Woody the Woodpecker ride. At least he did in 2017. He was scared to death of it in 2018, and was obsessed again in 2019. This kid, I tell ya.

But look how cute:

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Anyway, we flew in from St. Louis and took an Uber to the hotel. We have stayed at Universal's Royal Pacific Hotel the last three years and love its proximity to the parks. It's a lovely, leisurely walk or water taxi, and the hotel itself is beautiful, too. We also love the pool.

We rocked the parks Wednesday and Thursday until our driver (Tony Hinds, but not Tony) picked us up around 6:15pm Thursday evening and deposited us at the Country Inn and Suites in Port Canaveral. The hotel was super close to the port, and we arranged for the $5/pp shuttle to take us in the morning. NCAA games were on, so Dave retreated to the hotel room (clean, spacious, nice!) to order pizza and watch the games. The kiddos and I donned swimsuits and went to the hot tub. It was fabulous after two days of parks :)

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(do not let that sweet smile fool you)

We ate delivery pizza from Papa Vittos (so good!) and went to bed knowing that we didn't have to wake up early and had a cruise to look forward to!

In the morning, Dave and Hallie went to snag some free breakfast while I organized suitcases and Henry ate his chocolate chip mini-muffins. I brought along his tried-and-true snacks this trip and sooo glad I did.

We met the shuttle downstairs and headed to the port. Check in was easy, albeit a little stressful with a grumpy Henry. I thought he would like to see Goofy - nope. I thought he would want to go outside and checkout the ship - um, nope. All he wanted to do was play Angry Birds on my phone and generally just grouch at everyone. oh - and he had to go to the bathroom as soon as they called our boarding group. A great start! Yahoo!

I have zero pictures from boarding through the Mickey ears, having our name called and being applauded, and the craziness of Cabanas. I DO have a picture of Kid Soup, the crowded Sail Away show that no one but me cared about and a pathetic shot of my kids in a porthole before we ate at the Enchanted Garden that night.

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But I WILL tell you about our eating experiences...in the next post. Oooh, a cliffhanger! Bet you can't wait to see (or not see) what I ate! Excitement!
 

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Can't wait to follow along...We are on the Dream next year (it's been a while) and Grumpiness rules! I am guilty of it myself many times.

Great to have you along! We really did have an amazing time. I found myself having to surpress my grumpiness lest it cause ADDITIONAL grumpiness with the fellas.
 


Following!! Great start, can't wait to read more! :) Going on the Dream in a little over 3 weeks, but only booked last week, hopefully I can pick up some tips!!
 
I'm back! Man, these reports can get away from you in a hurry, amirite?

We left off at dinner. Our dining rotation was ERA, so Enchanted Garden coming right up! I was super pumped to meet our servers and see how they interacted with our family. Mark was our head server, Sofia our server and Yulia our assistant server. We saw Mark every night, briefly, totally normal. Sofia and Yulia were....okay. I mean, Dave and Hallie absolutely loved them, but I think it's because they didn't realize maybe what they were missing? There was interaction - more than at a regular restaurant on land - but no games, no jokes or silliness. Just some sarcasm, which we love, and a little chatting. No crayon riddles or napkin hats. And it's probably just typical for a three-night cruise, but...still. Give me some freaking crayon tricks, please!

I did ask (and receive!) chicken strips not on the menu for grumpy Henry. And I mentioned he would appreciate a hotdog or chicken strips every night...and they delivered. As soon as we sat down our preferred drinks would appear with a plate of food for Henry. It was glorious. NO waiting = no whining = a happier mom. Happier yet, Henry would eat as we placed and waited for our food. He would typically finish before the main course, and one of us would whisk him off to the club, so we could enjoy some grumpy-free mealtime.

EVEN BETTER - my daughter (who had made friends with one of the girls on the ship via Instagram before we left) would disappear before dinner to meet up and run around the ship together. Which meant time just the two of us. What on earth could we even talk about?! It was crazy.

Anyway.

Grumpy Dave became HAPPY Dave during that first dinner, and he loved all of the dining experiences on board.

I took very few pictures of our dinner (I am NOT a good trip reporter), but I did take one of Hallie - and the food she ordered every.single.night. Oven-baked salmon from the "lighter notes," and she loved it!

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Anyway, we left dinner to grab Henry at the kid's club and really weren't sure what to do at that point?

So...what did we do?

A. Go to bed
B. Explore the ship
C. Adult Activity
D. Family Activity

Hmm....
 
I have grumpy husband and grumpy 11 year old daughter so I know how you feel lol. Can’t wait to read more
 


My husband is just like yours: he complains before we go anywhere, and then he loves it.

Great report! I can't wait to read more.
 
My husband is just like yours: he complains before we go anywhere, and then he loves it.

Great report! I can't wait to read more.

It's the story of our lives/vacations. Luckily, he married a planner...a forceful planner, haha. He travels for his job, which means he would rather be home than out on any adventures. BUT - I just keep reminding him that our kiddos are only young once and someday we won't be able to force them to hang with us. So yay! Forced vacations! :)
 
When I left off, we were feeling a bit confused and overwhelmed. What do we do after dinner? It was around 8-ish...typical bedtime for Henry. Looking at the app (love the app, didn't miss the paper at all), any appropriate family activities seed to be at weird times. Too late for his early-ish bedtime or too early when we were at dinner.

And I honestly felt this the entire trip. There were adult activities that we wanted to do, but Henry didn't want to do the kids clubs alone, and Hallie was busy running around with her new-found BFFs to go with him or watch him in the room. We may have been too committed to a normal routine for him. Maybe. I'm not sure. Doesn't matter other than next time we will be better prepared. Also - not really into the live shows. Just not. I'm not against them, just not really for them either. (Can you tell I'm writing this out before i've had all of my coffee? Yikes.)


(side note: I'm thinking now we could do the later supper next cruise. We can feed Henry at a quick service and do some fun family activities together before it gets too late. He can do the kids clubs again while we are at later dinner. Yes. That's what we will do.)

Moving on.

So we went to bed. If you answered A, you win...nothing :).

Well actually, my husband ended up going to Pub 687 to watch the NCAA basketball and actually bonded with another fella. Good for him. So if you answered C, you also win...nothing!

Henry and I turned on Toy Story and snoozed away. It was glorious. By nature, I am a sleeper. But holy crap...I slept even BETTER on the ship.

A note about our room:

We were in 9152, which is right next to the aft elevators. We LOVED this room. It wasn't noisy... at all. We didn't hear noise from the hallway, the mid ship detective agency game (that we didn't play), the elevators, above, below...nothing. It was two flights up to cabanas, which was perfect in the mornings. I would wake up before everyone else (perks of the early bedtime), run up the stairs and snag some coffee and a few breakfast items for the family. We would then do second breakfast a little later. I would choose this room/location again and again and again. #aftelevatorsforlife

We had Roni as our Stateroom Host and maybe saw him/chatted with him...twice? He was super nice and our room was always perfect. Our family of four never felt cramped. We had plenty of space, and enjoyed the veranda. Henry loved having this own little top bunk, and looked like such a big boy. Such a cutie.
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The next day was Nassau! Do we:

A. Excursion to Atlantis!
B. Stay on the boat
C. Excursion to Blue Lagoon
D. Shopping and then back on the boat
 

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