and everything in between
Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course is located in the heart of Pennsylvania. It doesn’t attract the big city players, but it’s as good as just about any casino not found on the Vegas strip (and better than many of those!). And this has something those casinos lack: live thoroughbred horse racing.
Bridgestone Arena is the home of the NHL’s Nashville Predators, a team with a solid recent history of success. We attended an early evening Saturday hockey game against the Washington Capitals, the team with the best record in the NHL. Given the time of the game and the opponent, we expected a large crowd. Although paid attendance was a sellout, it never really looked like the place filled in.
For a full review of the Disney Cruise experience for adults, click here.
The FE is a fun gift exchange that I recommend everyone try at least once. It makes your cruise just a little more magical. Everyone can participate, even if you don’t have kids like us! Who wouldn’t be excited to receive all these wonderful gifts? (This is the queen sized bed in our cabin.)
Sailing with Disney is such a dream come true that we make sure to do it every year! We are often asked why we would choose to cruise with Disney when we don’t have kids and the answer is simple.We rarely ever see kids on board! Disney has the most amazing kids-only areas that are devoted to their entertainment, so kids are always there having the time of their lives. In fact, we usually only see children in the main dining rooms at night and when we stop at the free drink station which is adjacent to the kid’s pools. And because this is a “family cruise,” most of the adults-only areas are never crowded, thus we find the cruise very relaxing. The entire Disney Cruise experience is absolute perfection and no other cruise line we’ve tried comes close to creating the magical experience that Disney does.
Disney Cruise Line offers a wonderful dining experience which is unlike any other dining experience at sea. There are three fabulous dining rooms that you rotate through called Animator’s Palate, The Royal Palace, and Enchanted Garden. Your dining room servers will always remain the same since they rotate with you. Each dining room has a different theme and menu and not only is it the best cruise food we’ve ever had but also the best service.
It is best to book excursions early on the Disney Cruise website. If you wait to book excursions until you arrive on the ship, you’ll be disappointed to find that most everything is already sold out. Online booking windows are different depending on how many Disney cruises you have taken. When your window arrives, stay up until midnight and book what you want online immediately. Here are the different Castaway Club member levels and when you can begin booking excursions, spa appointments, and adult restaurants:
If this is your first Disney cruise: booking opens 75 days before your cruise
Silver Castaway member: after 1 cruise – begin booking 90 days before your cruise
Gold Castaway member: after 5 cruises – begin booking 105 days before your cruise
Platinum Castaway member: after 10 cruises – being booking 120 days before your cruise
Click to skip down to these excursions: Atlantis — Graycliff Chocolate Factory — Caribbean Queen Snorkel Tour
Castaway Cay, which is Disney’s private island, is the best part of a Disney Cruise for child-free couples. This island is perfection in every way and we love it so much that we make sure to visit every year. The weather has always been warm and bright and although our visit in January had water that was far too chilly to get into, every other month has offered warm and refreshing water. Disney has designed their island so that the ship can pull directly up to land thus eliminating the need to tender and the island is never crowded because only Disney Cruise passengers are allowed here and only one ship is docked here at a time. Simply walk off the ship, grab some of the big striped beach towels that are provided, and have some fun!
Sailing up to the dockyard seems to take forever and it feels like you are circling the island a few times but we later discovered that this is because there is a certain way a ship must approach Bermuda so that it does not crash. It is so precise that tug boats have to assist the cruise ships. This long approach is beneficial in that you basically get to see all of Bermuda.
We took a week long cruise on Grandeur of the Seas to Bermuda sailing out of Baltimore. Built in 1996, this is one of the oldest of the Royal Caribbean ships and it definitely shows. It feels small and cramped and the decor is dated but certainly not disgusting. They do a good job of keeping the ship clean. Being so old, it is also likely that this ship lacks stabilizers as we discovered late one night when we were awoken by a terrifying rocking of the ship that lasted more than a day and was so intense that the staff had placed barf bags along all the stairways. Also, sailing for a week on this ship was unbelievably boring but the the three days in Bermuda made it all worth it.
I visited Water Country USA with my extended family that included 8 adults and 4 children. The children were between the ages of 6 and 11. The older “kids” were in their 30s and 40s. If you want the short version, the younger and older kids loved the park. They loved it so much they went back for a second day.
