Dreaming of Magic 10/18/08; Part II
We found the elevators and waited for one with enough room to fit us in and get us to deck 6. Our stateroom number was 6600. After turning down the wrong corridor, then finding the right corridor and turning the wrong way, we finally learned to count and got our bearings and made it to the room (I think it was, like, the last full day onboard when I was finally turning down the right corridor!) One of our bags was already outside the door! As we got to the room, though, two maintenance men were working on the drawers next to the closet.
It seems the folks on the previous cruise were a bit rowdy, or so we were told. It looked like they were just repairing the rollers and they were through in about five minutes. The men left and we entered our home for the next week. It was wonderful! It was wrong!! We had twin beds! That just won't do!
Before we could turn around, our stateroom host, Darwin, from India, knocks on the door and introduces himself and asks if everything is OK. We told him, we didn't want twin beds, and he said that he could fix that, but he had a lot of other rooms to take care of, if that would be alright. He said he had us down for twin beds in his paperwork. We told him not to worry about it, but if he could get to it before bedtime, that would be great. Darwin said that he would take care of it. I picked up our dinner tickets and gasped in HORROR!! They had scheduled the Animator's Palette show on our Palo dinner night!! That could not stand! We had to get to Guest Services and get that taken care of! (But we had to step out on the veranda once, too!)
We barely had a chance to see the Romance Package items left in the room for us! Our two robes were rolled up inside a soft sided ice bucket.
We had the room ice bucket with a bottle of champagne on ice, two glasses, and two white chocolate glasses filled with candy.
There was also a coupon for an 8"x10" photo from Shutters and a door hanger for our champagne breakfast-in-bed. There was a letter detailing the package which also included romantic turn-down service one night, a pass for the Rainforest Room at the Spa good for the whole cruise, and a bottle of wine from Palo's premium wine list. Everything looked so good (and it was)! But, we had to get to deck #3 to get our dinner line-up fixed. When I made Palo reservations, I assumed the dinner rotation would have us visiting the three main restaurants in the first three nights. I remember from others' TRs now, that they doubled one of them, though, so ours was PLLA, so it was my own fault, but it still had to be fixed!
We left the stateroom and headed down to guest services. I explained the problem to one of the CMs there and she said it would probably be easier to change our Palo reservation than our dining rotation so she took us to where the Palo reservations were being made. They first wanted us to change to that evening, but we didn't want them that soon. Then they said we could have 6:30pm on Wednesday, and we agreed to that. Now it was after 2:45pm and I knew we had to go back to the stateroom before 4pm so we would be ready for the safety drill. But, first we had to get some lunch, so up to Topsiders' we went to enjoy our first buffet. How do you describe Topsiders' Buffet to someone who has never experienced it? Think Ponderosa on steroids! This thing was huge!
Then you turn the corner and there is the dessert buffet! I'm sorry, Topsiders' and Beach Blanket fans and you that want to be, I didn't get enough pictures to adequately quench your desire to see this place. They had something for everyone, and we came along towards the last of the crowd. We really only had time for one pass through, but we did it justice and filled up very well, thank you!
Brenda's plate
Kenny's plate
By now it was closing in on 3:30pm so we headed back to the stateroom to get ready for the drill. As we approached the room, we could see that two more bags had arrived, so that left only one. We entered the room and the twin beds were gone and our queen bed had "magically" appeared! Darwin came by and told us he had gone back over his orders and he had gotten it wrong; the twin beds were for next door, so he had to switch two rooms around. I was too nervous knowing the drill would be soon, so I kept going out to the veranda and back inside, afraid we would miss the drill. About 3:45, I thought I heard them call the drill so we headed out to our station: "O" on deck #4. We were the first passengers there. It seems I heard the call for the crew to go to their stations! No worries, some of our crew were there and told us what to expect, and even took our picture.
Safety drill over, we went back to the stateroom and found our last bag had made it! We put the life vests away and went up to deck #10 for the Adventures Away Party. Our Cruise Director, Brent (from Australia) lead the Cruise Staff and Disney Characters in a high energy party that you just had to get involved in.
And so begins our Magic-al Adventure with Mickey and the Gang! At about 5:00pm, the ship's horn played: "When you wish upon a star..." (I've heard those 7 notes played all my life, through the fifties, sixties, seventies... Right on through to today, when I have those notes as the ringtone on my cellphone,... but, I've never heard a sweeter sound than when I heard them played that afternoon!) Everybody on the ship cheered, and I'll bet we weren't the only ones either! With that, we started to move down the channel.
