Venus & Family - August 2007

Whew...I am home. My dh, dd (6), and I went on a seven night Carnival Cruise and chose to end our vacation the right way (in Disney of course). We booked a garden view room at the Polynesian. We had always wanted to stay there and finally decided that this short stay for our ten year anniversay would be the perfect time.

We elected to use Southern Elegance as our transportation option for this trip since there were several legs involved. They were fantastic. When Miguel picked us up from the airport we discovered that I had left the garment bag at home (with all of our formal wear for the cruise). I was almost in tears and completely stressing out. Miguel saved the day. He said let's go to the mall. I ran in Macy's and bought a few things and quickly ran back to the car. We wanted on that ship. I'm sure you can imagine the faces of the shopper's as this huge stetch limosine pulls up in front of the Macy's entrance to the mall. It was my claim to fame. :-) I know I am off topic but I highly recommend them for service! They were affordable, prompt, and catered to our daughter.

Anyway, back to the Disney part of our trip: We arrived at the resort around 11:00 and were prepared to have a long wait for our room. My dh and dd went and sat down and I proceeded to the checkin line. The cast member that was checking me in was "Earning his Ears" and as sweet as can be. He went through the credit card motions, etc and said "Congratulations on your Anniversary. I see that it's been ten years." He then handed us Mickey and Minnie Happy Anniversary pins as well as the Polynesian Lei's and instructed us on how to find our room.

After a little bit of a hike we reached the Tahiti room and proceeded towards room 1035. I was blown away when I opened the door. The room was fabulous and we had a beautiful view of the lagoon and Cinderella's Castle. Directly outside of our room was a hammock on the beach and our own little family of ducks. We were in heaven. My hubby even said we should have skipped the cruise completely. This is way better.

That evening we had priority seating at Cinderella's Royal Table for 4:00. Luckily that's when they chose to let us in the park (Pirate's and Princesses tickets) and not a moment before. Dinner was "ok". The service was rushed, food average, and the character interaction extremely minimal. I know that this isn't a character meal but we were with Cinderella for 15 seconds before being rushed off and then the little show in the castle was over so quickly. I will say that they gave us awesome champagne flute glasses as a present from the Fairy Godmother and they were really neat. I think that we will continue to eat at Crystal Palace for dinner in the park as that's our all around favorite.

We had a great time at the party. It was laid out very well and the events were great. My one complaint is that there weren't as many characters out and about like the other parties (possibly due to the afternoon shower that closed in on us). Overall though a great event (my favorite is still the Christmas party).

The next day we went to Downtown Disney and engaged in my favorite sport...SHOPPING!! I love the stores there and we brought back a ton of souvenirs. My hubby had a blast building a sword at the toy store. We bought it for my nephew and my hubby talked about it all day. He went back to the store that night (by himself) and made another one for him. His excuse is that he needed it to play with Anthony (my nephew). Uh-huh....yeah right!! ;-)

All in all we had a fabulous vacation and are already planning our next trip.