Disney, FOS and Tennessee Smoky Mountains - full review with pics

[Tinkers70]

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They also had a go on the crazy golf course and table tennis then they wanted to walk round and check out the flowrider. I've got a feeling they'll spend most of their time up here lol

 

 

I was a bit confused and concerned about the muster drill. I'd read all about it on Cruise critic and knew we had to attend but we didn't know where to go or at what time. We all went back to our room to see if there was any instructions. By this time it was 3pm and our luggage was waiting outside our cabin for us. Wow....I didn't expect it so soon so a big thumbs up for this.

 

I had assumed there would be instructions on the muster drill left on our bed or somewhere visible in our cabin but we couldn't find anything.

 

Our stateroom attendant chapped our door and came in to introduce herself. Her name was Lola and she was lovely. She was very friendly and really made us feel welcome. We asked her about muster drill and she pointed out our muster station area on our seapass. We were allocated B13 but I didn't know where this was. Lola told us it was down on deck 4 outside bascially near where we first entered the ship. She told us to go there at 4pm

 

We headed along about 3.45 as I hate being late for anything. We followed the signs until we found B13 and showed the staff our seapass. Before long lots more people arrived and at bang on 4pm the captain came on with his announcement. It was all over within 10 mins.

 

We knew we were departing around 4.30 and I had told all my friends and family back home to look out for us on Port canaveral webcam. So we went straight from muster drill to the end of deck 4, walked up the flight of stairs and onto the helipad on Deck 5. We were right at the front of the ship! We could see Disney and Carnival docked alongside us and a couple of minutes later Carnival Sensation pulled out of her pier and soon sailed past us. We knew it wouldn't be long until it was our turn to leave.

 

 

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[Tinkers70]

At 4.30pm we pulled out of Port Canaveral. I didn't even feel us move to start with, it was so smooth. A few minutes later we were sailing past fishlips and waving like mad to all our family and friends back home

 

 

 

 

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Soon enough we were out at sea and started picking up a bit of speed. We could see Carnival in front of us and a while later we over took her. From our balcony we could also see Disney Dream behind us. It felt surreal.

 

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Scott wanted to go to the pool so we put on our swimming gear and headed back up to deck 11. The sailaway party was still on and it looked like a lot of fun.

 

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We found some loungers without any problems then we went and got ourselves some towels and settled down to feel that lovely early evening Florida heat. Scott and me spent some time in the pool and it was a lovely temperature. We stayed up there for an hour or so them went back to the cabin to get showered and changed for our first meal in the main dining room

 

 

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[Tinkers70]

We were on My Time Dining and arrived on Deck 5 at 7pm. We only waited a couple of minutes and we were then escorted to our seats. I love the main dining room, it's gorgeous! I couldn't believe the size of the place and it was over 3 floors. This was a real WOW factor for me.

 

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I have taken some photo's of our food but because I didn't take notes i'm afraid I don't know what the names of the dishes are.

 

 

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Scott really enjoyed it when our waiter came round and should him some tricks. He was really baffled and couldn't work it out. This would continue every night of our cruise. We had different waiters every night and each one impressed Scott with a different trick. He sussed out some of them but other's were like real magic tricks.....even I was impressed!

 

The food was lovely. Myself, hubby and our elder son Callum all chose from the main menu and Scott chose from the kids menu every night.

 

We left the dining room and went to explore the ship a bit more. We went back up to Deck 11 again and got some photo's of this deck lit up at night. I was surpised it wasn't cold up there, it was a really warm and pleasant breeze and I remember thinking 'I've got a feeling i'm gonna love this holiday'

 

 

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[Tinkers70]

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We came back inside again and back down to deck 5 and went for our first walk along the Royal Promenade. It was a lovely atmosphere with lots of smiling faces.

 

We headed back to our cabin for an early night as I still wasn't 100% but I was feeling much better than I had over the last few days.

 

When we opened the cabin door Lola had been in and sorted the boys sofa bed for them. I was surprised at how big it is when it's turned into a bed. It was as big as our bed. She has also left us a copy of tomorrows Cruise Compass so we all had a look at that and hoped the weather would hold up so we could go onto Coco Cay then we went to bed Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz :D

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[klingoncruiser]

Wonderful! Keep it coming.:D

[JM-1972]

Your review brings back such wonderful memories, we did freedom exactly the same week 2 years ago. We love Florida in October, gives you a boost before the winter and it is school holidays for us Scots!

[Lyann]

Can't wait to hear more. I am originally from just up the road from you in Thornton. Going on Mariner in 4 weeks time from Galveston so will be doing the first part of our flights the same as you. Been to Tennesee and the Smokies before. Where did you stay? Sorry I know you will get to that part after your cruise details. As I said before enjoying your reveiw.

[Gizmoltom]

 

First impressions of the cabin were good and we checked out the toilet and shower area then headed out to the balcony. Me and hubby went out first and looked over. OMG...it felt sooooo high up (and i'm scared of heights.....not a good sign lol). I felt quite dizzy looking over so went back into the cabin.

 

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This is exactly the picture I was hoping for! Thanks for posting it. You have a lovely family and I am really enjoying reading your review! Can't wait for more!

[cruisegalsince77]

Oh My Goodness! We were on this sailing too and I spotted my husband and son in one of your pictures by the pool during sailaway. They were looking at Alex the lion from the upper deck in turquoise shirts(not the bright yellow group). More to the right of the picture. Too funny!

It was a great trip and am enjoying reliving it thru your review! I hope it all lived up to your expectations!

[Tinkers70]

Wonderful! Keep it coming.:D

 

Will do, day 2 of our cruise is coming right up :D

 

Your review brings back such wonderful memories, we did freedom exactly the same week 2 years ago. We love Florida in October, gives you a boost before the winter and it is school holidays for us Scots!

 

ooooo a fellow Scot, i've noticed quite a few on this forum (and also on our ship). Yeah i'm so pleased we get 2 weeks off here in October for school holidays. It makes a huge difference as that's when we tend to go on holiday.

 

For the last 6 years we've went to Florida and did the whole Disney thing so it was lovely planning a new adventure:)

[Tinkers70]

Can't wait to hear more. I am originally from just up the road from you in Thornton. Going on Mariner in 4 weeks time from Galveston so will be doing the first part of our flights the same as you. Been to Tennesee and the Smokies before. Where did you stay? Sorry I know you will get to that part after your cruise details. As I said before enjoying your reveiw.

 

Oh my....that is just up the road from me. Literally a 5 minute drive:)

 

We've did this flight a few times before and we love flying with United. The choice of movies / music channels etc is fab and the seats are very comfortable too. When we were at the Smokys we were high up in the mountains (as you'll soon read all about :eek:) and the nearest town was Pigeon Forge which was about 12 miles away. Amazing place!

 

This is exactly the picture I was hoping for! Thanks for posting it. You have a lovely family and I am really enjoying reading your review! Can't wait for more!

 

The connecting door was directly behind where I was standing, there was plenty of room in there even for the 4 of us :)

[Tinkers70]

Oh My Goodness! We were on this sailing too and I spotted my husband and son in one of your pictures by the pool during sailaway. They were looking at Alex the lion from the upper deck in turquoise shirts(not the bright yellow group). More to the right of the picture. Too funny!

It was a great trip and am enjoying reliving it thru your review! I hope it all lived up to your expectations!

 

ooooo how cool! I'll need to look back at this photo and see if I can remember them from around the ship. I was amazed at the amount of people on that ship but it always felts empty apart from things like sailaway parties around the pool :D

 

I hope you had a lovely time too, it truely was an amazing time for us

[Lyann]

Once you've done one cruise I bet you can't wait to do another. Like you we have done the disney thing. We have toured a lot in the US visiting various states and have loved every one we have been to. This is our 9th cruise coming up and still get as excited as we did on the first one.

[Tinkers70]

Day 5 - Coco Cay

 

I woke up at 7.30am, just as we were docking at Coco Cay. Ramsay was already up and on the balcony watch the whole process. The room curtains were still closed but the balcony door was open and I shouted out to him '"is it sunny??". He came back into the cabin and opened the curtains and I could see grey skies *SOB*. This wasn't part of my dream when I was younger! I dreamt of sunny blue skies and clear blue sea's and it was gray pffft!

 

I went out to the balcony and looked overboard. I felt like our ship had shrunk! We didn't look so high up when the ship was in the water. Yet when we were in ports it felt much higher......very strange! (although probably a very logical reason) lol

 

 

 

Tender boat from our balcony

 

The double rainbow

 

 

Although it didn't look very promising outside it was still warm which was a bonus but it did look like it could rain at any minute. The tender boats started to arrive though so it looked like we were staying here for a while anyway.

 

I got changed and headed back up to the windjammer on deck 11. I just walked up the 2 flights of stairs and as it happened we very rarely used the elevators as we were on an upper deck and close enough to the food area's, swimming pools, sports deck etc.

 

I headed straight to the area where you could get a hot drink or the pre-poured cold drinks and asked for a cup of hot water. At the side there was plenty of tea bags, all different flavours. I stuck to the 'English Breakfast' ones and poured in my milk and added 4 sachets of sugar (I like my tea sweet.......me bad lol). I made 2 cups and brought them back to our cabin where I sat and drank them on the balcony.

 

By this time the tender boats were going back and forward with more and more passengers and out of no-where a gorgeous double sunshine appeared. It looked so close to us.

 

We woke the boys up and everyone got changed and we went back upstairs to the Windjammer for breakfast.

 

We filled our refillable mugs up, went back to the cabin again and packed a bag with some essentials for us going ashore. The sun was now out and it looked like it was going to be a glorious day.

 

We took some pool towels with us, a change of clothes, refillable mugs, hats, suncream, camera etc and headed down to deck 1 to catch a tender boat. It must have been about 10.30 by this time and it was getting hot.

 

 

The tender only took about 5 mins and it was busy. There was plenty of tenders constantly going back and forth and it was an easy and smooth process.

 

I had pre-booked the aqua slide on the sand for the boys. I would have loved them to spend time on the aqua park out at sea but after reading on Cruise Critic a few times about jellyfish in the area I decided against it. I thought the boys would have kicked up a fuss but they didn't seem to mind

[Tinkers70]

We walked towards the aqua slide and found some sun loungers not far away from it. We organised our things, plastered everyone in sun cream then went and got the boys their wrist bands for the slide.

Freedom of the Sea's from the pier where the tender boat docks

 

 

Sign post directing people where to go (we still got lost for a few minutes!) lol

 

 

 

The boys enjoying their first dip in the warm caribbean sea

 

ahhhhh paradise!

 

This cost approx £9 each for them and they could use it all day. I knew Callum would love it but was a bit unsure about Scott as he's not too keen on heights either.....I wonder where he takes that from lol. Both of them went off though and I waited at the bottom with my camera ready. Callum came down first quickly followed by Scott. I felt nervous for him all the way down but he LOVED it......result whooo whoooo.

They spent quite a while having fun on here and I enjoyed watching them. I was tempted to have a go myself but chickened out lol.

View of where our sun loungers were with the aqua slide just behind them

 

[Tinkers70]

 

 

Callum reaches the bottom

 

 

Closely followed by Scott

 

 

I left the boys to have some fun of the slide and went back to my sun loungers to relax for a while. Our loungers were beside the area where you get the wrist bands from and I noticed there was a few people coming out of the aqua park in the sea and approaching the lady with the wrist bands to say they had been stung with jellyfish. Jings I am sooo glad I didn't let the boys do this activity. I could see the marks on their legs and arms where they'd be stung. The wrist band lady gave them all something to put on the stings and heard her advising them to stay out of fresh water.

After a while to boys came back to us and we decided to call it a day on Coco Cay. It was getting extremely warm by now and we were also feeling a bit peckish so we decided to head back to the ship and have lunch in the Windjammer. There was a big BBQ on Coco cay for all the passengers supplied by the ship but we decided to give it a miss.

 

The Aqua park out at sea looked like lots of fun but we gave it a miss

[Tinkers70]

We had a play around on the hammocks and a look in the market before we went back down to where the tenders left from. We took loads of photo's of this gorgeous island, it really did feel like paradise.

 

 

 

Callum thought this t-shirt was pretty funny

 

We got on a tender boat around 2pm and before we knew it we were back onboard. We headed back to the cabin and we all showered and changed then went for lunch in the Windjammer

[Tinkers70]

Arghhh this is really so frustrating only being able to upload 6 photo's at a time plus my internet is running slow. This is taking much longer than I hoped it would:eek:

[Tinkers70]

Callum was wanting to try the Flowrider so we all headed up to the sports deck again. It looked like a lot of fun but also looked painful when they got thrown off lol.

The queue wasn't too long for it as there was still lots of people on the island. Callum joined the end of the queue and only waited about 5 mins before it was his turn. He didn't last too long as it was his first time but he's a determined lad and kept trying until he mastered it.

Soon Scott built up the courage to have a go too and he loved it too. They both spent a while up here and we sat in the seating area watching them It was all good fun. The instructors came on to show a demonstration and OMG how good are they on this!!! I was very impressed lol.

Callum enjoying the flowrider

Scott gets his first go on Flowrider and loves it

 

Before we knew it we were leaving Coco Cay and it was still glorious sunshine. I went down the few steps at the back of the ship, just behind the sits at the Flowrider and lay down on a sun lounger and watched from there as we headed back out to sea again. It was total bliss and so far I was loving this cruise as much as I always thought I would.

 

 

Leaving Coco Cay

 

 

Ahhh this is the life!

 

 

After a while we all decided to head back to our cabin. We went via the Windjammer and I got another cup of tea (they don't call me tea jenny for nothing lol). and we loaded up a plate with some cakes and scones and took them back to the cabin with us.

We sat on the balcony and watched as the sun started to fade away then it was time to get ready for formal night *glup*

 

[Darkwolfe]

Arghhh this is really so frustrating only being able to upload 6 photo's at a time plus my internet is running slow. This is taking much longer than I hoped it would:eek:

 

No worries Tinkers, you're doing fine. It's always interesting to see the viewpoint of someone from another country in a review. I'll grant some entertainment in the English differences too. :)

 

Most enjoyable and you look to have had a great time so far!

[Tinkers70]

I was so worried about formal night as I was petrified I hadn't brought the correct clothes and they wouldn't let us in! I didn't manage to get any photo's of us in our formal wear but basically I had on a black cocktail dress, Ramsay and the boys all wore their dress trousers, a shirt and tie.

We needn't have worried though as we were welcomed in and shown to our table for the evening. We seen lots of people in really posh dresses and men in tuxedo's but we also saw other people in their 3/4 length shorts and a t-shirt and others in jeans etc. It really didn't bother me either way what others wore. As long as it was a good night (and it was) then we were happy.

The food like the night before was lovely but again I can't remember the names of what we had.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We left the main dining room after we had finished and went for a stroll along Royal Promenade. Everyone seemed in a very happy mood, lots of smiling people everywhere and I loved looking at all the posh dresses!

There was a show called 'Once Upon A Time' tonight in the Arcadia Theatre and I really wanted to see it. We walked down the stairs to deck 4 and found seats at the front. The theatre soon filled up and before long the show started.

Awww how good is this show!!! I loved it and the singers / dancers put on a superb performance. I was well impressed lol.

 

[Tinkers70]

 

 

 

After the show finished we headed back to our cabin as again we were very tired. We don't really stay up too late back here at home anyway and we couldn't get into any of the nightclubs or bars with the boys so we were happy to go back to the cabin and sit on the balcony for a while before heading to bed.

On the way back to the cabin I noticed for the first time just how long these corridors are. I was glad we weren't far from the elevators / stairs as that would be some hike lol.

 

When we got inside the cabin Lola had been in again and sorted the beds, left our cruise compass and our nightly towel animal. Bless her, she was a wee gem and she took a right shine to both Callum and Scott.

We must have been in bed about 11.30pm and it didn't take long for us all to fall asleep. I was enjoying falling asleep to the soothing rocking motion of the ship.

Tomorrow is our first full sea day so a we didn't plan on getting up early

 

 

 

 

Plenty of room in the bed for the 2 boys

[Tinkers70]

No worries Tinkers, you're doing fine. It's always interesting to see the viewpoint of someone from another country in a review. I'll grant some entertainment in the English differences too. :)

 

Most enjoyable and you look to have had a great time so far!

 

I think I was at the end of the queue when they were handing out patience :D.....I do apologise lol

 

I type each day of the review up in microsoft word first as I am also doing this for a british disney forum too. That way I just have to copy and paste things, so you'll notice I use some Amercian words (elevator) and some british (and scottish) words (queue and wee :D)

 

My friends on the british disney site will be wondering why i'm using American words.:o

 

It's a bit confusing too as on the disney site where i'm also doing this trip report you can upload about 30 photo's per post so i'm having to constantly edit things all over the place :D

[shelbylook]

You're doing an amazing job w/this review. Actually, I like it slow.... if you wrote it all at once I'd read and that would be that! Between your review, Trainman 2's and Bugsy's live posts and Host Faith's review, I'm keeping pretty busy!

 

Thank you again for taking the time to share your holiday! Looking forward to the next installment!

 

Cathy

[Darkwolfe]

I think I was at the end of the queue when they were handing out patience :D.....I do apologise lol

 

I type each day of the review up in microsoft word first as I am also doing this for a british disney forum too. That way I just have to copy and paste things, so you'll notice I use some Amercian words (elevator) and some british (and scottish) words (queue and wee :D)

 

My friends on the british disney site will be wondering why i'm using American words.:o

 

It's a bit confusing too as on the disney site where i'm also doing this trip report you can upload about 30 photo's per post so i'm having to constantly edit things all over the place :D

 

The fun of sharing is also tempered by the effort of sharing.

 

I daresay if I spent a week there in Scotland (on the bucket list I should say) I'd likely pick up a bit of a Scot's lilt in my own speech. It goes both ways! :)