The TCD Gang Sails Again!: A Four Night Disney Dream Trip Report

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

Teens in the adult only section SMB.

 

At times my teenage son might drive me crazy, but he has never been loud and obnoxious in public. In fact he tends to avoid hanging out with teens who act that way.

I am fine with parents who want to drink. Even in front of their kids. Heck we do it. But that does not mean that you cease to be a parent when you are imbibing. Too many parents these days seem to want to be best buds with their teenagers instead of parents.

No reason at all you should have had to deal with the screaming teens.

 

Amen.

 

Is that a roll of duct tape on the seat behind the rude girl in pink?  What the heck would THAT be for?? 

 

Good eye and weird!

[michele j 9]

Wow! What a great day...

     

 and

 

Why is that stupid fake palm tree there anyway?  

[Grumpy and Grandma 739]

     

 

Why is that stupid fake palm tree there anyway?

Bet it's a communication antenna in disguise.

[Katman1356...Jason 1,140]

Wow! What a great day...

     

 and

 

Why is that stupid fake palm tree there anyway?  

 

Communication tower. SO the wave phones work all over the island.

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

Great day!

castaway cay is my favorite cruise ship port. It's just so relaxing and no people trying to sell you junk.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

I am sure if he had the chance he would have loved it!

 

His career took him to Bosnia, shot a MIG down and later he flew the F-22.

 

He enjoyed his time flying in the AF.

 

Wow!  Shot down a MIG?  Cool!

 

Castaway Cay was a great time.

Looking forward to Pirate Night.

 

We did have a great time on Castaway Cay!

 

And Pirate Night will be coming up later today.

 

At times my teenage son might drive me crazy, but he has never been loud and obnoxious in public. In fact he tends to avoid hanging out with teens who act that way.

I am fine with parents who want to drink. Even in front of their kids. Heck we do it. But that does not mean that you cease to be a parent when you are imbibing. Too many parents these days seem to want to be best buds with their teenagers instead of parents.

No reason at all you should have had to deal with the screaming teens.

 

I don't care if parents drink in front of their kids- and they can scream all they want- as long as it's in an area where the kids are allowed to be.

 

The adult only area on the Dream is very small.  If adults want to escape there to be away from all the screaming kids covering the rest of the deck, they should be allowed that.

 

The problem is parents who think the rules don't apply to their charming little darlings.  Isn't it cute how those 15 years olds cuss?  Ha!  Ha!  They actually think other people enjoy it.

 

Is that a roll of duct tape on the seat behind the rude girl in pink?  What the heck would THAT be for?? 

 

Yes, that is a roll of duct tape, and Grumpy Dave is on the right track:

 

Looks like there is some sort of "foot brace" sitting next to the other girl.  Maybe she had plastic bag around it  to keep it dry and used the tape to close the bag.   ?

 

But apparently TCD should have used it on their mouths. :rofl3:

 

Yes, the teen with the big potty mouth had some kind of boot on. Based on how she acted, she must be some kind of big shot cheerleader from wherever it is that she came from.  Must have been a cheerleading battle wound. We were all very impressed. Her mom, who was sitting there half blitzed laughing at the kid's antics, must be very proud.

 

Teens in the adult only section SMB.

 

 

Amen.

 

 

Amen to that Amen.

 

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Wow! What a great day...

     

 and

 

Why is that stupid fake palm tree there anyway?  

 

 

Bet it's a communication antenna in disguise.

 

 

Communication tower. SO the wave phones work all over the island.

 

 

Dave and Jason are correct.

 

Here are some shots of that tree from my trip backstage last year:

 

 

 

I've seen quite a few fake palm tree cell towers around Florida.  There's one near Animal Kingdom at WDW, as a matter of fact.  But none of them stick out like a sore thumb like this one does.

 

 

Great day!

castaway cay is my favorite cruise ship port. It's just so relaxing and no people trying to sell you junk.

 

Absolutely right.

 

I've been to many ports in the Bahamas and Caribbean.  After a while, they're all the same.  A bunch of crappy shops trying to sell you crappy stuff.  People begging to braid your hair or take you on a taxi ride.  A few "fancy" shops claiming to offer great prices on jewelry and watches.  Blech.

 

I've also been to many "private" islands on cruises.  A lot of them aren't private, and are shared by different lines.  All of the others I've visited required the use of tenders, so the ship is anchored in deep water, and you have to be shuttled back and forth.  The facilities on these islands leave a lot to be desired.  None of them come close to Castaway Cay.

 

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Before we move on, I want to make sure everyone got the Willow Bay reference on this sign, which I saw on Castaway Cay on the way back to the ship:

 

 

I think everyone knows that Robert Iger (or Bobby to FWG) is the CEO of Walt Disney Company.

 

I know Key West is a port that is sometimes visited by DCL, but I didn't know where Willow Bay was.  Didn't sound very tropical to me.  I figured it must be some other port that DCL visits.  But I wasn't sure.  So I googled it.

 

It turns out that Willow Bay is a person.  And not just any person, she's Bobby's wife.  And she's some kind of semi-famous journalist.

 

I didn't know that.

 

I'll bet a lot of you didn't either.

 

Now you do.

 

TCD

[Memphis 105]

Before we move on, I want to make sure everyone got the Willow Bay reference on this sign, which I saw on Castaway Cay on the way back to the ship:

 

 

I think everyone knows that Robert Iger (or Bobby to FWG) is the CEO of Walt Disney Company.

 

I know Key West is a port that is sometimes visited by DCL, but I didn't know where Willow Bay was.  Didn't sound very tropical to me.  I figured it must be some other port that DCL visits.  But I wasn't sure.  So I googled it.

 

It turns out that Willow Bay is a person.  And not just any person, she's Bobby's wife.  And she's some kind of semi-famous journalist.

 

I didn't know that.

 

I'll bet a lot of you didn't either.

 

Now you do.

 

TCD

You are correct I did not know that.. What is the "Shrimp Distributors"  a reference to?  Does she perhaps have  hygiene issues.     

[AC in A2......Aaron 693]

I love all the CC pics.

 

The hot dog pic was funny even without the back story.

 

Willow Bay used to be on NBA pre-game broadcasts.

 

As soon as I saw the name on the sign that is who I thought of; but I didn't know she was married to Bobby.

 

I have no clue what she does now.  Maybe she will take over for Samantha on the DVC videos?

 

I hope not.  I like Samantha.

[ajcjmom 8]

Wow!  Shot down a MIG?  Cool!

 

 

 

If the link works my brother's story start around 36:18.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxZjMq2206Q

 

 

It originally aired on the Military Channel - Dogfights Season 2/Night Fighters.

 

He is "Dozer"

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

You are correct I did not know that.. What is the "Shrimp Distributors"  a reference to?  Does she perhaps have  hygiene issues.     

 

You are bad.

 

I love all the CC pics.

 

The hot dog pic was funny even without the back story.

 

Willow Bay used to be on NBA pre-game broadcasts.

 

As soon as I saw the name on the sign that is who I thought of; but I didn't know she was married to Bobby.

 

I have no clue what she does now.  Maybe she will take over for Samantha on the DVC videos?

 

I hope not.  I like Samantha.

 

Wow, I can't believe you've heard of her.

 

Who's Samantha?  Do you mean Stacy?

 

 

 

If the link works my brother's story start around 36:18.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxZjMq2206Q

 

 

It originally aired on the Military Channel - Dogfights Season 2/Night Fighters.

 

He is "Dozer"

 

 

Cool.  I'll have to save watching that for another time.

 

Because we need to move on.

 

But before we do, I just noticed a major and very ironic error on the Bobby sign:

 

 

Look at the "I" in Quality.

 

Look at the "I's" in Reliability.

 

LOL.  The sign painter messed up the word quality.

 

TCD

[AC in A2......Aaron 693]

Samantha Brown from the Travel Channel

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Samantha Brown from the Travel Channel

 

She does DVC videos?

 

I thought you were talking about the videos that repeat on the resort TV stations at WDW.

 

Thus my Stacy reference.

 

TCD

[DaveInTN 3,247]

She's been around forever.  Personally, I think she could have done better.  Bobby always looks like a stuffed shirt.  Check out some pictures of him.  His collars are always too tight, so his head looks like it's going to pop off. 

 

[alexwyattmommy 181]

Samantha Brown has done a few of the DVC videos.

 

ETA:  He looks Photoshopped into the photo.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

She's been around forever.  Personally, I think she could have done better.  Bobby always looks like a stuffed shirt.  Check out some pictures of him.  His collars are always too tight, so his head looks like it's going to pop off. 

 

 

I think she has her reasons for hanging around the stuffed shirt.

 

Several million reasons probably.

 

 

Samantha Brown has done a few of the DVC videos.

 

ETA:  He looks Photoshopped into the photo.

 

Where would one see one of these alleged DVC videos?

 

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Update time.

 

We are back aboard the Dream somewhere in the Bahamas.  The ship is going to be driving around in circles for the next 24 hours before heading back to Port Canaveral.

 

Tonight's entertainment is a family show with a  ventriloquist in the big theater.  That was one that I would be fine skipping.  Coincidentally, the ventriloquist was the same one that was aboard for our cruise last year.  My friend, Frank, saw the show, and said it was funny.  My oldest DD wanted to check it out, so I said I would go with her.  But, I said, let's sit in the back in case it's bad-then we can sneak out.  Right before we left the cabin to head to the show, the twins showed up.  They had been playing the Mid Ship Detective Agency game, and were stopping by to see if their older sister wanted to join them.  They agreed to come with us to check out the ventriloquist.

 

In the pre-show for the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor at the Magic Kingdom, there's a clip where the phrase "Ventriloquists are never funny!" is said.  We all repeated that clip as we headed in to the theater.

 

It turns out that statement was true.  We stayed for about the first five minutes of the show.  You figure a performer will try to engage the audience by using some of his best material.  We were not impressed, and snuck out the back door.

 

The girls headed back to play the Mid Ship Detective Agency game.  This is an interactive game similar to the new interactive games at the Disney theme parks, like the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom game.  We had never played through a whole game, and the girls wanted to on this cruise.  It apparently was fun enough to hold their attention.  Here they are in action:

 

 

 

 

The game requires travel all over the ship.

 

When the girls finished with this clue, they were going to take a break and head up to Deck 11 for some ice cream and a drink, so I waited around, and we grabbed one of the Mid Ship Elevators.  There is one, and only one, mid ship elevator that will take you up to the 14th deck.  That was the one that came for us.  The girls didn't even know there was a Deck 14.  But I did.  I found it last year while exploring the ship.  Since the LOF said they had to explore a new place on the ship, they agreed to go to Deck 14, and we did.

 

There is a lounge on Deck 14 which is used for meetings and special occasions.  It's called the Overlook, and here it is:

 

 

It overlooks the adult pool.

 

There's a piano here:

 

 

And that's about it.

 

We saw it all.  Time to go.

 

The only other thing on Deck 14 is the radio studio:

 

 

I think occasionally they have visiting radio broadcasters use that radio station, but nobody was using it on this cruise.

 

We took the stairs down.

 

There's a cool piece of artwork in the stairwell here:

 

 

You can't really tell the size of that painting from that photo, so I asked Twin #2 to step in and let me use her as a size reference:

 

 

We walked down to Deck 11 to get that ice cream.

 

Then walked aft to the drink machines.

 

They were setting up Deck 11 for pirate night:

 

 

They have to close down the pools for this.  Which isn't that big a deal, since half of the ship is at the first dinner seating, and the rest of the guests are supposed to be watching the ventriloquist:

 

 

Even though the pools were closed, the Aqua Duck was open, and if you look up on those stairs next to the smoke stack, you will see that the line was very, very short:

 

 

I suggested to the girls that we go and get our suits on and come back for the AD, but they had already showered and changed, and didn't want to get back in the water after our long day at Castaway Cay.  I didn't really want to ride alone.  So, we had no AD rides on day 3 of the cruise.   None.  The AD would be open all day tomorrow, so we could still get in our 10 rides.  Maybe.

 

As we headed back to our cabins, we passed by the Concierge Lounge;

 

 

They have gates on the hallways next to the lounge to keep out riffraff like us:

 

 

 

I don't understand the gates.

 

The lounge is right there, and it's locked.

 

What are the gates for?

 

I think they left these off the Fantasy.

 

I think it's pretty obnoxious.

 

But I guess the concierge guests need to feel like they are getting something for the exorbitant amount they pay for those cabins.  I really would like to know what they get in that lounge too.  Snacks?  On a ship with 24 hour free food?  Who needs a snack?

 

Oh well, I guess enough suckers guests are willing to pay the freight.  And that's why there are concierge cabins.

 

We ended up back in the cabins.

 

I noticed the sun setting from our porthole:

 

 

So, I decided to head up top to get a photo.

 

When I got there, they had the front part of Deck 13 roped off, and they were pressure cleaning it.

 

So, I had to take my sunset photos from here:

 

 

And here:

 

 

Then it was dinner time.

 

Our dining rotation took us to Animator's Palate tonight.  We haven't been in this dining room for Pirate's Night before.  I didn't know they projected pirate-y things on the screens that Crush uses, but they do.  So that was cool.

 

I only have one food photo from dinner.

 

This is it:

 

 

That was an appetizer.

 

It was called Pearls of the Sea or something close to that.  I don't know what those pearls were.  Not rice.  Not pasta.  But good.

 

We stopped by the room to change into shorts before heading up to the Pirate Night show.

 

We had the dreaded towel plucked chicken:

 

 

I had a sense that this cruise had more guests aboard than our previous one, and that suspicion was confirmed when we arrived on Deck 11.  There was no space for one more guest anywhere on the massive space on Deck 11.  We had to climb up to Deck 12, and look down.  Look at all the people:

 

 

And Deck 12 was crowded too:

 

 

We couldn't even see the stage where the performers were- and had to watch on the Funnel Vision:

 

 

We could see Captain Jack though- here he is about to rappel down the smokestack:

 

 

You can see him rappelling down here- right in the middle of the big screen:

 

 

Then it was fireworks time.  You can't take a good photo of fireworks from a cruise ship deck, so here's a video:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d-ME1qyltc&feature=youtu.be

 

You should be impressed.

 

Only Disney shoots fireworks from their ships.

 

Coincidentally, we could look out and see Carnival and RCCL ships which just so happened to be cruising near the Dream on Pirate Night.

 

Here's one photo of the fireworks in case you don't want to watch the video:

 

 

After the fireworks, it's time for Club Pirate, which is a big dance party.  All of the shoobies who were sitting on the giant dance floor for the pirate show cleared out, and the TCD girls took it over and broke it down:

 

 

Classic TCD blurry photo:

 

 

And they danced.

 

And danced.

 

When it was time to start the conga line, they motioned me over.

 

But, some CM started it instead.

 

Fail.

 

There's a huge buffet set up in Cabanas while this was going on.

 

But we had just finished a complete dinner not 45 minutes before.

 

So we skipped that.

 

The dance party wrapped up, and they started playing the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

 

We headed back to the cabins.

 

We kind of just chilled in the cabins for the rest of that night.

 

Of course, there were Mickey bars.

 

And we watched some of the free on demand Disney movies.

 

And that was it for Day three.

 

One day left.

 

Time to evaluate how we're doing on the List of Fun.

 

I'll cover that before the next update.

 

TCD

[alexwyattmommy 181]

You did not dress up like a Pirate?

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Dining with other people sure reduces the amount of pood forn.  I am going to declare that dining with other people SMB. 

 

And that is couscous. 

[momof3kids-Yvonne 594]

New LOF item...get into Concierge Lounge. Without actually staying in a concierge room of course.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

 

They have gates on the hallways next to the lounge to keep out riffraff like us:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those gates reminded me of something, but I couldn't place it.  And then it came to me. 

 

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

You did not dress up like a Pirate?

 

Nope.  I had a bandana on my head for a while, but that was it.

 

Dressing up like a pirate is not my thing.

 

Maybe if I didn't bring my suit and tie and all that stuff, and just wore shorts in the dining room, I'd have room for a pirate outfit.

 

But, on the 3 and 4 night cruises, most guests do not dress like pirates.

 

Dining with other people sure reduces the amount of pood forn.  I am going to declare that dining with other people SMB. 

 

And that is couscous. 

 

Agreed.  Having strangers sitting with us cramped our style.

 

So, that was couscous?  Thanks for saving me from having to look it up.  What is that?  Some kind of grain?  Does it grow like that?

 

New LOF item...get into Concierge Lounge. Without actually staying in a concierge room of course.

 

I don't think so.

 

That really doesn't sound like fun to me.  I can't think of a more boring place on the ship.  And concierge people are not my people.

 

They can have their lounge.  Even if I had money to burn, I wouldn't waste it on a concierge cabin on a DCL ship. It makes no sense to me.

 

 

Those gates reminded me of something, but I couldn't place it.  And then it came to me. 

 

 

LOL!

 

I would hate to see a DCL ship sink.  And I certainly do not wish harm to the nice, stiff, concierge guests.  But, it would be funny in a way if a DCL ship hit and iceberg and they couldn't get the concierge gates open.  Just for a little while so nobody would get hurt.

 

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

We are down to our last full day on the ship.

 

Wednesday is a sea day.

 

I love sea days.

 

All day on the ship.  Everything is open.

 

Let's review our List of Fun to see how we're doing:

 

 

Not too bad, actually.

 

We need more Aqua Duck rides.  It will be open all day.

 

We need to meet a rare character.  We should be able to find one somewhere on the sea day.

 

We have not come close to winning a medal. If I had run the 5K, I would have received one.  But. other than that, we hadn't seen any medal activities yet.  Maybe on the sea day.

 

Nobody had held a DJ like a baby.  I had only seen one DJ so far, and he was kind of large.  I didn't think I could do it.  I needed a small DJ.

 

Bottom line- we had a lot to do on our sea day.

 

But we were up for the challenge.

 

TCD

[Grumpy and Grandma 739]

Now having an iceberg in the Caribbean would be funny in itself.