Unfrozen Winter Winners Enjoy Their Disney Cruise

You may recall the cute Hall family who won our Unfrozen Winner contest earlier this year. Check out their adorable snowman submission!

 

Service Experts sent the family on a Disney Cruise and paid for airfare for four. Rebecca and Bradley (Mom and Dad) took their two oldest children, Korbin and Brooke, on their Disney Cruise during mid-summer. Korbin and Brooke had never been on a cruise before and Rebecca and Bradley hadn’t been in about 10 years.

“I can’t even begin to tell you 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 Halls were nice enough to send us their itinerary and some photos from their awesome trip. If you want to a Disney Cruise, or just curious what it’s all about, keeping reading for the highlights from the Hall’s trip.

 

Monday

We were on the ship for 2 days (Saturday and Sunday) and then ported in Tortola, British Virgin Islands. We reserved a Catamaran and went out with four different families for several hours. It was my kids’ first time snorkeling and they were in heaven. We spotted turtles and stingrays – it may have been the best experience of the whole cruise!

 

Tuesday

We went 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 truly that turquoise blue that they show on TV – truly picture perfect.

 

Thursday

We sailed all day Wednesday and then got off at Castaway Cay, Disney’s Private Island. The water was incredibly blue and had amazing visibility underneath, so of course we had to do more snorkeling! They had hidden Mickey Mouses you could look for underwater, which made up for not having as many fish. They also include an 18 and older beach which we enjoyed while our children played games. Castaway Cay had employees everywhere to watch the kids so we (Rebecca and Bradley) relaxed and drank a daiquiri. It was just like a floating Disneyland!

Aboard

I (Rebecca) get goosebumps thinking about everything on the ship – everything was all so fun and amazing! The cruise has a “Midship Detective Agency” where you select the mystery you want to solve and Disney gives you a card so you can write down all your clues. When you hold the card up to a painting, the painting springs to life – it speaks to you, tells you about the mystery you are solving, and gives you hints and directions. One mystery took us two hours because we were going all over the cruise ship.

 

They are always showing first-run movies out by the pool so we got to enjoy Big Friendly Giant, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Jungle Book, and Finding Dory. We also got to go on the Aqua Duct, which is a big slide that zooms you up and down and swings you out over the boat!

 

All of us went Goofy Golfing and the cruise also has games like basketball, fooseball, and a Tween Club called Edge with things like scavenger hunts and more.

It’s really easy to see characters on the ship – you only have to wait three or four minutes versus a half-hour or more at Disneyland. We got to see about two per day, and one day we got five in a row! They also have different versions of the characters, such as Captain Mickey, Traditional Mickey, etc.

 

 

 

 

The room was awesome! Ours included an ocean view room with a HUGE porthole and window seat. Our room was a really good size and all four of us were comfy and never felt squished.

Dining

You alternate three restaurants. Enchanted Garden has neat flower lights on the ceiling that open and close and the colors change on the ceiling throughout your meal and Royal Court was really elegant and made me think of Cinderella. The menu is very gourmet and they have an awesome variety. Korbin tried everything, even escargot at the Royal Court. (He thought it tasted like dirt!)

Animators Palette is animation-themed and they give you markers on your table so you can draw a figure. They offer a tutorial on how to draw a figure, then they collect the drawings and at the very end of dinner, they animate your drawings on the wall. It’s completely unexpected! They arrange them to music and position them in Disney movies. Our daughter is our artist so she did really well with hers and was elated – the rest of us weren’t quite as accomplished

“Our family can’t thank Service Experts enough for this amazing vacation,” Rebecca said after they returned from their cruise. “I get teary-eyed when I think about it all. Submitting our picture to a contest I never thought would go anywhere, finding out we were a finalist, the anxious voting round, the big win, planning and picking which cruise, the anticipation of going and finally experiencing an amazing vacation. It was such a wonderful time living it all. We are so grateful!”

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