Fred, Wilma and Family - A Graduation is Cause for Celebration - Days 12-15 Grand Slam Thank U Ma'am

[wilma-bride]

The title of this part of the trip report comes from a phrase coined by Disney cruisers – the Grand Slam - meaning to sail on all four Disney ships. Kim and Terry and Gary and I had all sailed on the other three ships in Disney’s fleet, so booking this short cruise on the Dream meant we would be completing our Grand Slam, something we were stupidly excited about.

Friday 31st August

The day dawned and, instead of feeling sad that we were packing up and leaving Disney World, I was excited that we were about to embark on the third part of our holiday – the 3 night cruise on the Disney Dream. I know, from experience, that these short itinerary cruises go unbelievably quick – and it did, therefore I will be condensing the whole cruise into just one or two posts.

We had decided to have a last breakfast at the Boardwalk Bakery and took the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful surroundings once more.

Then we went back to the room to collect our luggage, and congregated in the lobby to wait for our transfer to the port. We booked transfers through Fl Tours, to take us both to the port for our cruise and pick us up afterwards, to return to the airport. This was more cost effective than renting cars either end of the cruise or taking Disney’s massively overpriced transfers at $35 per person each way!

We had a free grocery stop included in the price of our transfer but told the driver we wouldn’t need it. However, a call of nature on the way to the port meant we ended up asking the driver to make a stop after all. He was very good about it and took us to a Publix near the port, where we were able to use the facilities and pick up some last-minute Oreos and some Caramel M&Ms for Linda, who had a newly found love of them, having got a pack a couple of days before at the Halloween Party. Sadly, Linda had been unable to come on the cruise with us, so we figured the M&Ms might make a good consolation prize.

We were soon catching our first glimpse of our home for the next 3 nights.

After a short wait to get into the terminal, we were soon checked in and, after a stop at the supervisor’s desk to switch us all around so we were booked into the right rooms, our boarding group was called and we walked right on board the beautiful Disney Dream. Wendy and Rich had arrived earlier and were already on board. We caught up with them at Cabanas, where we all sat to have lunch. We were delighted to bump into our favourite Head Server, Rakesh, here. We had requested his section and, after a quick look at our Key to the World cards, he confirmed he would be looking after us at dinner, which we were very happy about.

After the delicious buffet lunch, we took some time to explore the ship. Palo and Remy, the adult only restaurants, were absolutely gorgeous and I was a little sad we had decided not to dine at Palo while we were on board.

I loved the little detail on the back of the Remy chairs

The deck areas on the larger ships are (obviously) much more spacious but I still prefer the adult pool area on the smaller (classic) ships.

It wasn’t long before we were able to go down to deck 6 and check out our rooms. Gary, Daniel and I had a Cat 5E room, right at the back of the ship with an oversized balcony. It was amazing. Rea and Ben had an inside room, with a Magic Porthole.

Wendy had brought us some magnets and a little gift bag of useful stuff for the room.

While Rea and Ben continued exploring and Daniel disappeared to check out Vibe, the rest of us went back upstairs, found some seats near the bar and ordered drinks. My first frozen raspberry daiquiri of the cruise – cheers!

We then went back to the room. Our room host, Nikoya, introduced herself and told us she was going to go and find our luggage and, lo and behold, just a few minutes later we had 2 of our 3 cases and started to unpack. The third case soon appeared and we finished unpacking just in time to make it to the lifeboat drill. There was a bit of confusion here, as many people had started to go inside the room and we were all told to leave again and line up. Eventually the drill was over and we were able to head up to Deck 10 for the sailaway party. We lost Rea and Ben at this point so they had a little party of their own on the opposite side of the ship.

Back at the room we quickly freshened up and changed for dinner which, tonight, was at Enchanted Garden.

Our servers were Yaroslav and Sabina. They made us feel very much at ease and we had a really pleasant dinner. Rakesh dropped by to check on us and we had a bit of a chat. Half way through dinner Yaroslav mentioned to me that he knew that Gary and I were celebrating an anniversary and also Rhiannon was celebrating graduation. He asked if we would like to celebrate on different nights, which I said would be fine, and we agreed that they would bring Rhiannon a celebration cake tonight, which they did immediately after dessert. She was suitably embarrassed at the fuss!

After dinner, we went to get ice cream from Vanellope’s - this place is a sweet-lover's paradise! the ice cream is reasonably priced but the sweets/truffles were ridiculous at $2 each!

We then went to the movie theatre to see Christopher Robin. I loved the film, although it did irritate me that there were a lot of people who clearly did not care about movie theatre etiquette and were talking loudly and allowing their children to run around and misbehave. Kim and Terry were so annoyed by a rude family behind them, they ended up moving seats. I refused to move so just turned around and told them very firmly to be quiet so others could please enjoy the film. After the movie finished, Kim and Terry headed off to bed. Gary and I just wandered the ship for a while, watched some kind of party going on in the atrium and then went to bed ourselves.

Our towel animal was a sausage dog - cute! Who had quite rudely borrowed my Tiffany's sunglasses without asking - not so cute!

Saturday 1st September

I was shattered this morning. Unfortunately, Daniel had taken full advantage of the freedom he’d been given and didn’t come back from Vibe until 2.30. Since I wasn’t able to fully relax and sleep until I knew he was in the room, I had ended up wandering the ship at 1.30am trying to find him, as I was mistakenly under the impression that Vibe closed at midnight. This resulted in a very grumpy Mum and a not really much less grumpy Daniel.


Today was our first port of call - Nassau. After breakfast at Cabana’s, we spent a relaxing morning at the pool since we had been ashore at Nassau a few times, so were taking the opportunity to stay on the ship and chill. Rea and Ben were slightly more adventurous and went ashore to visit the Queen’s Staircase.

After a delicious lunch of a ham and cheese Panini, we went to the pub for movie music trivia. Since we were limited to teams of four people, we ended up with two teams – Kim, Rea, Wendy and myself in one team and Gary, Rich and Terry in another. Unbelievably, we came joint first and won a couple of packs of playing cards.

Back up on deck, we had to get a drink – another raspberry daiquiri for me.

Continued in the next post.