Yall I had over 1500 photos to go through when we got home. So it’s taken me a hot minute to get everything lightened (every iphone photo inside had to be lightened…), uploaded, culled, etc.
So let’s dig in!
Thursday 2/15 we got up bright and early and hit the road.
I felt SO BAD the entire time leading up to the trip that Kevin wasn’t going with us. It felt weird not to have him in the backseat. There were so many times over the week of the cruise I would think “Kevin would’ve loved this”. But… after our one night of rough seas, I can confidently say his motion sickness would not have allowed him to enjoy this trip. So we’re already trying to plan a “regular” disney trip for him asap.
Also – I don’t think I’ve mentioned before but this was a family trip – Cath was getting married ONBOARD!! But it was my other side of the family than my Kevin side (even though they all know and love him and would’ve gladly had him come along too), which is why we didn’t just automatically think to take him.
Got to New Orleans around 2 – Mardi Gras remnants still everywhere! We got these great sandwiches, mine was supposed to be roast beef and fries but it was more like a fry sandwich with a light topping of roast beef LOL Not complaining. Ok maybe a little bit because the roast beef was dang good I would’ve liked more.
Checked into our hotel for the night, the Loews.
Walked around for a little while, did a little shopping, I got some new sunglasses that I wore a lot on the trip.
Had dinner and then headed back to the hotel for the night.
Next day we slept in as much as possible because we didn’t have to be to the dock until noon.
We had a great view of the ship from our hotel room window.
My new magicband had the same art on it as this spirit jersey so I had to wear them together.
Chase dropped me and the luggage at the entrance while he parked the car a gazillion miles away. Then we got in, got through security, I got yelled at for standing in the wrong area after security (because Chase got stuck behind a guy who left everything in his pockets to go through the metal detector and had to go back through like 5 times before he got everything off him).
Passports checked and we headed onboard finally.
We were announced as the “Skywalker family”, haha. We’d had other names planned but in the end decided to go with the easiest and most obvious thing.
Headed straight into Rapunzel’s for lunch:
The lobby was so pretty!
Walked around a little bit to get our bearings before going to our room. This hallway was one of my favs, I loved the carpet, the lights, the mural at the end of the hall. I love maximalist Disney design.
Our room!
Thoughts on the stateroom:
We had a oceanview room – so a window but no balcony – but I went in one of the balcony rooms and they were exactly the same. I actually really loved this room layout and I wish Disney would do something more like this in their economy/moderate WDW resorts. There was SO MUCH storage in this room! We were both able to completely unpack and we didn’t even make use of all the drawers and cabinets! Usually at WDW I’m left leaving stuff in my suitcase (and thus having to leave my suitcase sitting out) because there aren’t enough drawers to put things in. No problem here. I LOVED that there was a full vanity in the room right next to the window. It was nice to get ready there instead of standing on damp towels in the bathroom.
Speaking of the bathroom – I LOVED that there were 2! One room had a sink and the toilet and the other had another sink and the shower. That made getting ready SO much easier. Nobody has to hold it because someone’s in the shower LOL
Also loved having a couch to sit and hang out on when we were just hanging around the stateroom, instead of having to sit on the bed or an awkward chair.
It was great for 2 people. That said, if we’d brought Kevin, I feel like it would’ve been a tight squeeze for 3 adults.
After dropping our stuff off, went and checked out the kids club:
And then up to the top of the boat:
Finally started running into family as everyone trickled in:
First night outfit was my Haunted Mansion dress!
Yes I finally got to wear this! I wore it with a black cardigan because it was still pretty chilly out leaving New Orleans. And I wore a black netted bow that belonged to my great aunt, who loved cruising so I felt like I was kinda bringing her along for the ride.
Donald shook his tail feathers for Chase LOL
That night was the Tangled musical, which was great.
Then off to dinner at Animator’s Palate.
So overall this dress did well, I got some nice compliments on it. But I did discover a problem. I can’t remember if it was in the pattern directions or it was a tip from Janine Spendlove who used this same pattern a couple of months before me – but I added an extra closure for the front panel, so it snaps closed in the back to hold it in place. Well that worked fine for having it on the dressform, or the one time I had it on me standing in front of a mirror, but in actual wearing it walking around, sitting, standing, sitting again, etc, I had it positioned wrong. Too tight. It was pull the bottom of the dress up funny anytime I sat and it wouldn’t go back down without somebody fixing it for me. So since it kept doing that, I just unsnapped it, and that was a problem too, because then the front panel wouldn’t stay in place and kept gaping very badly at the armholes. Like if I didn’t have a cardigan on, my bra/sideboob would’ve been on full display a few times. I kept tugging it back int o place, but definitely something I’ll have to revisit and fix the length of that elastic strap/snap before wearing it again.
But look how cute it looked with the black and white aesthetic of Animator’s Palate 🙂 (Wish we’d been on the ship with the Haunted Mansion bar)
We were exhausted so off to bed for Day 2…
Day 2 we started at Cove Cafe.
Thoughts on the 18+ Areas of the ship:
These were all great – the 18 and over pool/bar and Cove Cafe were great. We hung out there quite a bit when the weather permitted. But our fav was definitely the Fathoms/O’Gills Pub/Keys area. There was something very cozy about that whole section, plus we loved the trivia and games, which I’ll talk about more later.
The non 18+ areas – obviously especially the pool areas – were just chock full of kids running everywhere. Which is to be expected, but it felt like we were trapped at an All Star resort with multiple school groups and not able to leave to go to the parks to escape it LOL
Stitch taking in the view.
I brought Stitch mostly as a way to safely transport my Wanda tiara – I could put the headband part around his neck and he cushioned the rest. But it was also cute to have him posed around the room.
I wore my Marvel outfit most of the day – switching between my Avengers ears and Captain Marvel ears.
Was realllly hoping they’d have a Captain Marvel meet and greet onboard, I’ve seen pics of it recently, and they were playing The Marvels in the theater, but alas, no Carol.
It was a mild and cloudy day at sea. Too cold for me to try the pool.
Everybody talked us into coming to trivia that night.
We skipped all the trivia the first day because I was like, that’s not really our scene. But we were convinced to come for 80s Music trivia the second night and.. it was so much fun!! Everybody was singing along and it was not serious at all.
Getting to hang out with Hannah all week was a highlight!!
Show that night was the Cinderella one which was kind like Cinderella 3 but not? But I loved the black and white set and costumes and then the change to color. Super cool.
Dinner was Rapunzel’s!
Rachel organized for all of us girls to secretly do a villain costume to surprise Cath, so we all walked into the dining room together. It was so funny I’ll talk more about it later.
We had so much fun sitting with Melissa, Josh and the kids every night. Getting to watch the kids meet Rapunzel and Flynn and do the dance around the room was so fun.
Grandma Walton meets Flynn LOL
MINNIE
Our whole villain group! As I mentioned a few posts ago when I posted about my Scarlet Witch dress, Rach put this group together as a surprise for Cath. I picked Wanda just because I had my crown (plus my Scarlet Witch ears if I wanted to do those instead), and fabric onhand to make something. I do wobble on whether or not she’s a true “disney villain” but with having all of that already onhand, it was the cheapest option for me.
I did go with the crown over the ears. But I wish I’d added gloves or sleeves. It was chilly in this AND it just felt like it needed it to be complete? I did end up wearing my black cardigan with it most of the night because I was cold.
If/when I take this to disney world, I’ll add sleeves or gloves. I still have more of the black fabric.
With the Princess of the Day!
So we all convened in the lobby together so we could all walk into the dining room at the same time to surprise her. We got applause from the crew, a few photo requests, and apparently a few scared kids LOL
We went to bed after that and apparently I missed the amazing silent disco.
Day 3! Cozumel! Pretty much our entire group had excursions planned that day except us.
We had breakfast in the room.
I threw my Marvel outfit back on to go meet Thor.
And promptly turned into a giggling 13 year old.
Watching the boat dock
Chase has that perfect hair moment
We did decide to get off the boat and just walk into town a bit. But it was drizzling, weirdly both slightly chilly and humid so I was cold and sweaty at the same time LOL And the sales people at all the stores were an introvert’s worst nightmare. One guy kept yelling at me calling me Ariel trying to get my attention.
So we didn’t last long in Cozumel. Came back within 30 minutes and headed to lunch.
The lunch buffet was better to me than the breakfast buffet. One time I got nothing but mac and cheese which was delightfully institutional. (As in, it tasted like some really good mac and cheese you got in elementary school and could never find in the “real world”) One time I got nothing but different forms of potatoes. But Chase, as a breakfast person, preferred the breakfast buffet.
After the Thor photo in the morning, I went back to the room and switched to my Star Wars outfit with my elhoffer Padme shrug, and my Padme ears for the rest of the day.
Since the ship was pretty empty, we grabbed our ipads and went down and just chilled in O’Gills for a while. We reviewed our upcoming costumes, figured out what we needed, etc. Doodled in procreate.
After a while we moved to Soul Cat’s for a Donald Duck drawing tutorial:
This was actually a lot of fun!
Our door decorations!
All of us had a Cath and Courtney magnet for our doors from our wedding goodie bag (which also had a ton of snacks, and sunglasses, and other fun things… that was awesome). I drew the art for it! I also made the Leia and Chewie “magnets” – drew them in procreate, Chase printed them and we had them laminated. Then just taped some magnets to the back. All cuz I was too cheap to buy the cute things off etsy LOL
Our fish extender was a cheap one I bought off amazon, took the pockets off and used them as a pattern to make new ones from some scrap cotton I had.
Dress that evening was my Black Widow dress that I originally made for Dapper Day 2020. I’ve only gotten to wear it once, I took it with us again in 2021 and just wore it to dinner at Narcoossee’s, so nice to wear it out again.
We met Black Panther!
And Ariel!
At dinner that night, we played the “matching shirts on the boys” prank:
And lined them all up on the staircase together after dinner LOL
(Some of the guys ended up with different Star Wars Hawaiian shirts because they original one couldn’t ship in time anymore)
That night we went to this sort of “Newlywed Game” show and my aunt and uncle ended up being chosen as one of the couples!
It was SO. FUNNY.
We ended up having some rough seas that night. There were times it felt like we were on a roller coaster… which was fine by me because I love roller coasters LOL But it made a lot of folks motion sick and Chase did not do well with (he doesn’t get seasick – he gets anxiety from it). This is what I think Kevin also would not have done well with, he’s told me in the past that he doesn’t like the way roller coasters make his head feel.
Day 4 — the wedding day!!
Finally some blue skies!
I was up early to get ready, and on the way to Cath’s room ran into these 2:
Star Wars dress turned out cute!
Headed up to Cath’s room to take pics of her getting ready.
And then it was time!
The lobby set up for the ceremony:
And now a couple of pics from the professional photog:
The big moment!
I have never seen someone radiate joy more:
Then off to the private reception in Keys:
We had cake, champagne, speeches, and of course dancing:
One of my fav pics I took of Cath and her grandma.
Afterwards Chase and I went up to deck 9 for a snack and I finally got a dole whip:
(with rum)
After a short nap, Chase and I changed into our pirate outfits to go around and take some pics.
Of course we had to go get Chip and Dale in their pirate duds.
And Hook and Smee, because I’ve never had a pic with them.
And of course Captain Jack.
And then we put back on our nice clothes and it was off to dinner at Palo!
We had the private room! The servers were incredible, the food was incredible. Only problem is I was full halfway through the appetizer LOL
I had this lobster pasta that was SO good but I could only eat about a quarter of it LOL My Star Wars dress was feeling pretty tight LOL
I think this was my fav towel animal of the trip.
After Palo (which took 3 hours!) we got back into our pirate outfits for the pirate party.
And then there were about 5 of us, all taking pics from different angles and different cameras to hopefully capture some good pics of Cath and Courtney with the fireworks going off:
My Pirate Ariel look:
This consisted of:
-the bodice (from amazon) and peasant shirt (target) I bought last year to wear to go see Six
-My Belle village dress skirt, safety pinned up
-My Stevie Nicks skirt underneath it
-My Star Trek boots
-a pirate hat I bought online (only thing I bought for this), and decorated with trim leftover from an Elsa American Girl doll costume, a feather leftover from Marie Antoinette TARDIS hat, a rhinestone starfish I had for some reason, and a giant 3d printed fork Chase made for me. I made a little elastic pocket on the inside flap of the hat for the fork/dinglehopper to slide into.
For a bunch of stuff I dug up from my closet, it turned out really cute.
Day 5! At sea! The last day 🙁
I put on Padme that morning!
I had my Royal Gathering so I thought Padme would be the most fun to wear to that.
After that we went to Lumiere’s for breakfast.
Then we went up to take some pics on the 10th floor:
I have a bunch of these and I haven’t figured out which one I like best yet.
Even though it was sunny out, the wind was very cold. And it was SUPER windy on the 10th floor, as you can see. Made for great pics, but not so much for laying out in the sun or swimming. I had goosebumps all over while we were doing these pics. So after this I decided to go change. Put on my Stitch outfit which really wasn’t warmer, but easier to wear. We tried to find a place in the sun to sit but everything was taken, so we decided to head back inside for the day.
We watched this absolutely hilarious baby race.
We did some more Drawing Classes, then played regular marvel trivia, which we lost.
Moved to O’Gills for snacks and drinks, and played Advanced Marvel trivia, which our team won!!
Then we went to see the last show of the trip, Disney Dreams, and this time we got front row seats with the kids! That was so fun!
Then we went to the last music trivia – 2010s music. We’d done pretty good on 80s and 90s, missed 2000s because of Palo, so we TRIED 2010s… we did not do well LOL
Like half of them were “I know this song from tiktok but I can’t tell you the name or artist” LOL
Before dinner I went and looked at onboard photos, and took some pics of my favs to narrow it down because we did want to buy some – we had a disney gift card we planned to use. I had NO IDEA you had to buy them before you got off the ship, I thought it was like at WDW where you can take a bunch of photopass pics and peruse them later to figure out what you want. Apparently not and they’re gone after you de-board. I’m so sad, I really wanted this one. At least I got a pic of the pic…
I wore Tiki Bird this last night, with Chase wearing his matching shirt.
Dinner was animator’s palate again and you would’ve thought Taylor Swift walked into the room the way everyone reacted when Sorcerer Mickey showed up. I was right there with them, I got a little teary eyed LOL
So let’s talk about the food. Like I see people say Disney food is not great a lot, but at WDW there’s such a mix. We know what places to avoid at this point and we usually have a really great experience with food at WDW. Most of it is really really good, like overall score I’d give WDW food a 8/10. The cruise food was more like a 6/10. All of the sitdown restaurants (excepting Palo) were good. Not great, but not bad. None of it was particularly memorable. The buffets were hit or miss, but mostly fine. Somethings better than others of course. The free quick service food areas were fine as long as you’re expecting grubby theme park food. Room service was fine. Overall it was fine, but there was nothing that, like a year from now, I’m going to be thinking “man I wish I could have that again” like say the beer cheese soup at Le Cellier or bread service at Sanaa. Which is why I give it a 6/10.
That rating doesn’t count Palo. Palo was amazing, everything we had there was fantastic. It’s a 9/10.
After dinner we went to Fathoms again, we played this “guess that sound” game, and an 80s music trivia game.
The 80s music trivia was hilarious and I have this one video of half our family dancing to Maniac. I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard.
Our last towel animal 🙁
We finished packing, and next morning as soon as they gave the all clear we had our stuff and were out the door. We were back on our car by 7:45AM.
I do have to say being dropped off by a shuttle in a muddy grass/gravel lot with our luggage was disappointing. Chase came to pick me up because I was not about to destroy our luggage trying to roll it over this mud and gravel.
Final thoughts…
So overall, I am really glad we did the cruise. I’m so glad to finaly mark “disney cruise” off my disney to-do list. We had SO MUCH fun, but like I told Chase, most of that fun is because of the entire group we were there with. We laughed our sides off because of our family and friends, we had fun at trivia because of our family and friends, we had fun because of an amazing wedding with amazing people. If our family and friends were not there, I don’t know that I would’ve come away with the same glowing feeling. The cast and crew were amazing, everyone was so nice, the boat was beautiful, the shows and entertainment was fantastic. But it did truly feel like we were trapped at a Disney Hotel and couldn’t leave to go to a park or disney springs. Like I can hear the Pirates of the Caribbean music… but I can’t go RIDE Pirates of the Caribbean, and it made my heart ache for the parks.
In terms of costuming it was MUCH easier to wear all this silly stuff on a cruise than in the parks, so that was nice. I could just pop back down to my room to change, there was no bus, TTC, monorail, etc just to get to the park finally and realize my shoe is rubbing a blister.
And overall Chase did do well with his ocean anxiety. Obviously the rough night was hard for him. But he never wants to do it again. And I doubt I will want to do it again too. I feel like we got everything out of it. We could always try another (bigger, newer) ship to a different destination, but we’ll never have this group of people to go with again, and that’s really what made it special. I’d rather spend the same money on a trip to Orlando or Anaheim. But I absolutely do not regret the trip for 1 second, it was 100% worth it.
Now… back to real life, getting the house cleaned up, and onto dragoncon plans…