You may recall the cute Hall family who won our Unfrozen Winner contest earlier this year. Check out their adorable snowman submission!
Neal Harris Service Experts sent the family on a Disney Cruise and covered airfare for four. Rebecca and Bradley (Mom and Dad) took their two oldest youngsters, Korbin and Brooke, on their Disney Cruise during mid-summer. This was the first cruise for Korbin and Brooke and the first in about 10 years for Rebecca and Bradley.
“I cannot begin to describe the amount of fun we had and how absolutely wonderful the whole thing was,” wrote Rebecca. “It was a trip we could have never taken on our own. Disney does cruising right!”
The Hall parents were kind enough to give us their itinerary and some snapshots from their incredible trip. If you want to a Disney Cruise, or just want to find out what it’s all about, check out the highlights from the Hall’s cruise.
Monday
We sailed for 2 days (Saturday and Sunday) and then landed in Tortola, British Virgin Islands. We had reservations for a Catamaran and went out with 4 other families for the day. It was my son and daughter’s first time snorkeling and they were in heaven. We got to see turtles and stingrays – it was quite possibly the best experience of the whole cruise!
Tuesday
We traveled from Tortola to St. Thomas in the American Virgin Islands, where we got to snorkel even more, swam, and hung out on the beach. The water was really that turquoise blue that you see in movies – truly perfect.
Thursday
We sailed all day Wednesday and then ported at Castaway Cay, Disney’s Cruise Line Guest-Only Island. The water was incredibly blue and had perfect visibility underneath, so of course we had to do more snorkeling! They placed a bunch of Mickey Mouses you could look for underwater, which was nice because there weren’t as many fish. They also had an 18+ beach which we enjoyed while the kids played games. Castaway Cay had people everywhere to watch the kids so we (Rebecca and Bradley) laid out and had a daiquiri. It’s like a floating Disneyland!
Aboard
I (Rebecca) get goosebumps thinking about everything on the boat – it was all so fun and extraordinary! The cruise has a “Midship Detective Agency” where you choose the mystery you want to solve and the cruise gives you a card so you can keep track of all your clues. When you place the card up to a painting, it springs to life – it speaks to you, tells you about the mystery you are working to solve, and gives you signals and directions. One mystery went on for two hours because we were running all over the ship.
They are always showing first-run movies out around the pool so we got to see Big Friendly Giant, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Jungle Book, and Finding Dory. We also got to ride the Aqua Duct, which is a big slide that shoots you up and down and swings you out over the boat!
All of us went Goofy Golfing and they also have games like foosball, basketball, and a Tween Club called Edge with things like scavenger hunts, get to you know you games, and more.
It’s very easy to meet characters on the boat – you only have to wait a couple minutes versus a half-hour or more at Disneyland. We met about two per day, and one day we hit five in a row! They also have several versions of the characters, like Captain Mickey, Traditional Mickey, etc.
The room was amazing! We had an ocean view room with a large porthole and window seat. Our room was a perfect size and all four of us were cozy and never felt smothered.
Dining
You rotate through three restaurants. Enchanted Garden has cool flower lights on the ceiling that open and close and the colors on the ceiling change throughout your meal and Royal Court was really elegant and put me in mind of Cinderella. The food is very gourmet and they have a great variety. My oldest tried everything, even the escargot at the Royal Court. (He said it tasted like dirt!)
Animators Palette is animation-themed and they leave markers on your table so you can illustrate a figure. They provide instructions on how to draw a figure, then they take the drawings and at the end of your dinner, they animate your drawings on these screens on the wall. It’s completely unexpected! They choreograph them to music and place them in Disney films. My daughter is our artist so she put a lot of effort into hers and was ecstatic – the rest of us weren’t quite as talented
“We can't thank Service Experts enough for this once in a lifetime experience,” Rebecca told us after they returned from the trip. “I get emotional when I think about the experience as a whole. Submitting an entry I never thought would go anywhere, hearing we were a finalist, the stressful voting round, the big announcement, reading about and selecting which cruise, the excitement of going and finally experiencing an amazing adventure. It was such a wonderful time living it all. Thank you, thank you!”
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