[Disney Cruise] Days 5 and 6

Monday, March 7, 2016

Goodness this post is LONG overdue. But what's that saying... better late than never? I'm going to take that saying and run with it!

This is the last installment in my cruise recaps : Days 5 and 6! I hope you've enjoyed the recaps and haven't been overloaded with all my Disney photos :)

In case you missed them, Days 1-4 can be found here : Day 1 // Day 2 // Day 3 // Day 4


I'm embarassed and ashamed that it has taken me THIS long to get this post up. I'm sure most of you have already forgotten that I even went on a Disney cruise back in October. It's been THAT long. (insert monkey covering eyes emoji). Even though it's been so long, I still did want to do a recap for my memory purposes. Since I haven't scrapbooked in AGES, this blog is serving as my memory and my scrapbook, so I want these details for myself for later.

When I last left you, we had just finished Day 4 of the cruise. We are now on to Thursday, Day 5. To be honest, I REALLY wish that I had recapped this sooner because I've already forgotten so many details and when I looked back on my phone to find the pictures I took, I was a little confused at where they were. Apparently we either didn't do much or we did so much that I was having so much fun and forgot to take pictures. We'll assume it was the latter.

So, Day 5, Thursday, was our second to last day on the ship. It was a full day at sea as we were traveling back to the port in San Diego. We were all pretty sad that our vacation was coming to a close and we tried to get in as many ship activities as we could.

First thing in the morning, we went to breakfast and then saw that Jake and Sofia had some character signing times so we knew we wanted to hit those up since it was our last chance to see them. I didn't have high hopes for Mason seeing them since he pretty much hated almost everyone else. BUT, Jake. Oh my goodness, Jake. He LOVED him. I mean, do you see that smile (below)? He loved him so much that after he and I took our picture with Jake, Mason ran back into the photo with his cousins. After their photo was over, he didn't even want to leave. Of course we found his favorite on our second to last day onboard!


After breakfast and our Jake and Sofia sightings, we went back to the room to get ready to go to the pool. It was a bit windier and colder than it had been the past couple days but we didn't think anything of it. (We later found out that we were sailing away from an impending hurricane, but we didn't know it at the time.)

We waited in line to meet Daisy and then we played by the pool for a few hours, had some lunch, and then headed back to the room for Mason to take a nap.


After Mason napped, we got ready for our very last dinner on board our cruise ship.  We stopped by to see Pluto and then headed over to our restaurant for the night. Dinner was so, SO good (I mean, we had beef wellington and baked Alaska!) and it was a great way to end the cruise. We said goodbye to our server (who was AMAZING and is probably 98% of the reason that I probably gained 5 lbs (or more) on the cruise) and headed back to our room to put our luggage out so they could take it to the holding area to be taken off the ship in the morning. We then headed to our last show onboard. To be honest, I can't even remember what it was called but I know it was AMAZING!



After the show, we headed back to our room for one last sleep and then in the morning, we woke up early (we docked at 7am), had some breakfast and waited for them to call our color and character (we had tags that we put on our luggage that corresponded to a color and character (we were purple Minnie) and when they called that color and character, you were allowed to get off the ship). At this point, we finally had cell phone reception again and the information came through that we had just narrowly escaped a major hurricane that was now hitting Mexico (where we were a couple days before) which also explained why it was so windy the day before.

When we got off the ship, we went to go pick up our luggage which was surprisingly organized. I was actually really impressed with how well they organized it considering there was luggage for 2,500 people to disembark. Once we found our luggage, we headed to the shuttle bus area to take us back to our car. We had parked off site in a little park and ride and just had to call for a shuttle to come get us and take us back to the parking lot. Or so they made it seem that easy. I could use a few choice words for how I felt about the situation, but I'll just say, it definitely was NOT as organized or as easy as they made it seem. We called for the shuttle, the shuttle picked up a different group of people. We called again and approximately 20 minutes later, a shuttle came... for us and another family of 8. There were clearly not enough seats for us all, but we lap sat and made it work since those people had been waiting for forever also. 

We finally made it back to our car, we said goodbye to our family members, and we headed back over to the dock to take some pictures of our cruise ship, the Disney Wonder. I had wanted to get pictures before we got on the ship, before our cruise started, but we were dropped off basically right at the terminal by the shuttle bus and I didn't have a chance so I wanted to make sure we got some before we left. Because, I mean, look at that beauty!






Someone was a little worn out after his week long party (aka vacation with little to no naps) that he crashed almost immediately when we got into the car!


And that's that! Looking back on these pictures, it makes me SO excited for our next cruise! Yes, we had so much fun on this cruise that we booked another one for 2017! It's officially less than one year away and to say that I am excited would be an understatement.

When we went on this cruise, we had NO intention of booking another one anytime soon. I mean, I won't sugar coat it, cruises are not cheap. BUT when they give you an amazing deal if you book another one while you are onboard this cruise, you just can't say no. To be honest, I was actually SHOCKED how easy it was to convince Seth that we should take another one, but he must have had such a good time (or been on a Disney vacation high, one of the two) that he was excited to book another.

I was planning to do a recap post with questions and answers, but I'll be honest, it took a LONG time for me to get to this one, so that probably won't happen. A couple questions that people had asked already that I planned to answer in the post though were :

How far in advance did we book? We booked FAR in advance. Probably about a year and a half. I think it was around June of 2014 that we booked our October 2015 cruise and then we booked our January 2017 cruise when we were onboard in October 2015. We did this for multiple reasons.
1) It takes time to save and pay for the cruise. It's not something you can just say you want to go on tomorrow and have enough money to pay for it (or at least we can't).
2) Also it happened to be the time of the cruise we wanted to go on. This particular cruise was offered only in October 2015 so when we found out about it and saw the good deal that was going on, we jumped on it. Which brings me to my next question...

Did we know we wanted to go on a Halloween themed cruise or did it just work out that way?  It really just worked out that way. I'm not sure that I would have ever chosen to go on a Halloween themed cruise, but it was amazing and I'm so glad we did it. My sister in law found this amazing deal through her friend who is a travel agent, asked if we wanted to go, and I said yes. We chose the week in October that worked best for all of us and we went. It was also a major plus that for our first cruise, we didn't have to fly to a port and then leave from there (we just drove down to San Diego and then left from there), but that wasn't necessarily why we chose the cruise.

Why did we choose the cruise we did? In terms of choosing Disney Cruise Line, I knew I wanted to go on a Disney cruise so that's how that worked. But in terms of knowing where I wanted to go or when we wanted to go, it just kind of fell into place based on the good deal we found. But moving forward, I would look into time of year (we booked our next cruise during off season so it was cheaper) and where the cruise goes and choose that way.

If you have any other questions for me, please leave them in the comments and I'll email you back (PLEASE make sure your email is associated with your profile so I can email you back)! I'm definitely no cruise expert, but I did have fun, so if your question is, would I do it again, the answer is obviously yes :)




15 comments:

  1. A Disney cruise does sound like so much fun, and how exciting you have another one booked! I love booking vacations in advance because I find thinking about and planning for it is just as exciting as going :).

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  2. I'm afraid to go on a cruise, but I think a Disney cruise would be a blast! We need a vacation. haha!

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  3. How fun does this look!? I love the way Mason is looking at Jake!

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  4. So awesome! We watched a Disney special about their cruiseline and Mason is SOLD! He is so ready to go on one. We do too, but we kind of want to go back to Disney World. Who says we can't do both? ha! If only they weren't so expensive. Looks like y'all had a good time and you got such cute pictures.

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  5. We are considering taking Toddles on a Disney cruise sometime this year or next but they are so expensive! Any tips to save money?

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  6. Another cruise..?! SO FUN!! Loved seeing all about this one, can't wait for the next. :)

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  7. So fun! I've heard so many good things about Disney cruises, so I'm glad you all had a great time. And yay for booking another one! Now I just need to book my next Disney vacation, to help me get over these post vacation blues :)

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  8. That looks absolutely amazing! I think that cruise is the way to go. I love Mason sleeping in his car seat. What a trip!

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  9. Your recap isn't that late, trust me! I just posted a trip that we took over a YEAR ago. Oops! So glad that Mason eventually found a character that he liked and wanted to take a photo with! And how exciting that you already have another cruise to look forward to!

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  10. You get me all excited over a Disney Cruise! I still have my eye on that Alaska one but maybe in a few more years lol.

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  11. That food looks amazing! It really looks like Mason really enjoyed his time & I'm really glad that he loved Jake. :)

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  12. Sounds like a pretty amazing vacation! Cruises are my favorite. We just looked into a Disney cruise and you're right - they are not cheap. Wow! I'm so exited to do one eventually, but it will have to wait. Booking over a year in advance is a great idea!

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  13. Mason's smile with Jake is absolutely priceless!!
    All your recaps have me wanting to do a Disney cruise (bonus points for the ship being so gorgeous)! Scott had never cruised, and this seems like the perfect one to get him and the kids on!

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  14. I'd have forgotten 78% of everything if I didn't blog it right away haha. Honestly I do Disney trip day posts a few days later and I'm like wait...what did we do?? I'm impressed with your forever later remembering! Love the Jake pic. Love that you have another to do in 2017 - bummed we are moving by then though!

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  15. Looks awesome. Where is the 2017 cruise heading? We have discussed an Alaskan cruise since before our son was born...would be even better if it was Disney!
    Another question...anyone in your group get seasick? I have heard that is not usually a problem on cruise ships since they are so huge but my boyfriend gets it pretty bad on smaller boats so that had been a concern.

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