Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Jen's Top Five Cruise Tips of the Month

1. On Disney Cruise line they have free sodas at the buffet so get your refills there.

2. Make sure to look at your newsletter for activities and shows that day. Some cruises have a portion you can tear off to carry around with you.

3.If you are a big coffee drinker you might want to bring a travel mug with you to fill up at the buffet to carry around with you. They also sell them with a coffee package on most cruise lines if you like specialty coffee drinks like lattes. The cup can also make a good souvenir.

4.Talk to your cruise counselor about what you want to experience on your cruise. There may be a cruise out there you have not even hear of before, and better suited for you. There are more cruise lines offering cruises than you may think.

5. Try the dinning room for lunch. I am usually pleasantly surprised, plus they aren't crowded and you get great service.

**If you have cruise tips of your own, add them as comments to share with other cruisers. They may even end up as one of next months top five cruise tips!

Monday, May 5, 2008

Disney Land and Sea 2008




This year for my personal vacation time Will and I went on a Disney Land Sea vacation. This was if not our best vacation, the closest to it! We spent 4 nights at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and 3 nights on the Disney Wonder. Disney transported us from the hotel to the ship and back and made the whole process seamless.






The hotel we stayed at was fabulous and loved everything about it. The rooms even had a fridge and we bought breakfast and lunch foods at Albertsons to save some money to splurge on wonderful Disney themed restaurants for dinner. Our favorite dinner was the Luau dinner show at the Polynesian hotel. The food and entertainment were amazing. We packed our sandwiches and apples and put those in a cooler and brought a backpack in to the parks. The fridge was a lifesaver. We also thought that the lobby and the pool areas were especially nice. The resort even has Savannah view rooms where you can sit out on your balcony and animals such as Giraffes are right there in front of you.




We got a 2 day Park Hopper Pass and spent the first day at Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. The next day we went to Animal Kingdom for the whole day. We had such a great time at all the parks. We especially loved the Roller coaster and went on thunder mountain railroad 6 times and Everest 7 times! I know we are crazy like that. We mostly did that with fast passes so that we did not have to wait long. I am a huge fan of the fast pass! We also did the safari in Animal Kingdom and saw tons of animals. I was actually very surprised at how much we saw. We also spent a whole day at the Blizzard Beach water park. That was a ton of fun and wished we had more time there.


Thursday they had a motor coach waiting outside our hotel that took us over to the cruise ship. It was about an hour ride and than, there we were on our 3 day cruise to relax after running around the parks. Nassau we just got off for lunch and went to the Seafood Haven in the Fish Fry area. I love their conk fritters! Than we spent the rest of the day on the ship to relax in the adult only pool area and lounges.





Castaway Cay was my very favorite day. We docked right at the island so no need to tender it. That saved valuable time for relaxing. We went right over to Serenity Bay which is their adult only area of the Island. They even had a tramway to take us over there. They had their own buffet and equipment rental booth. We rented floats and laid out all day and the weather was perfect. We than had lunch at the buffet which was great! They had ribs, chicken, steak, burgers and fries. They even had fresh tropical fruit like mango and papaya. I was bad and had the cookie dough ice cream :)





















The Disney shows were great and was so impressive. They did a Toy Story the Musical show on the second night. I usually skip the shows but on here I went to all three. The rotated dinning was fun as each night we were in a different themed restaurant. My favorite was Triton's for the food and Animators Palate for the theme.








Really there was so much I could say about this trip but the video below says it all!