"Witty Western-Fantasy Trip Report Title"... January 5th-12th With Pictures

[Maple17]

It didn't bother me at all. There is a small obstruction from the outer framing, that did give me a second look at first but it was never an issue. I plan on booking this room again.

This is the room from outside, you can see the frame.

Here you can see the obstruction better.

Glad to hear it didn't bother you - thank you!

 

[MrRay]

We had opted to do the "Shipwreck and Reef Snorkeling" excursion. It's relatively cheap by excursion standards, $39 per adult.
We met at the DLounge. They have piles of towels there for you to take.
Off topic here, when we were on the Norwegian Gem last year towels always seemed to be a project. At the pool you had to go to a little kiosk and ask someone for them and they would take your room number, but there wasn't always someone there... it was a project. On this trip there were PILES of towels everywhere. I felt like they were overcompensating by about 100 times. It was great.
Grand Cayman is a tender port, so from the DLounge we were led to a tender with a couple other groups, it all ran very smoothly. This is also the first time that we were able to get a real good, unobstructed, look of the ship. You forget while onboard just how pretty it is.

Once on land, 5-10 minutes later, Disney cast members were there to direct us to our tour guides. It was all very organized.

It was a short walk to a little beach where our boat was waiting. Our tour guides consisted of our head guide, a man from Canada, and 2 other guides, 1 girl from Canada and another from Scotland. They were all incredibly nice and made us feel very safe. There was about 30 people on the tour.
We took a short ride to the first place, everything was in the main port area, so it was like swimming right outside the ship.

The reef was nice, nothing crazy, but plenty of fish.

The water is very salty here, they said it was the 5th highest salt content in the world I think. You can totally feel it, our lips were starting to get chapped like we had eaten a bowl of super salty popcorn or something.

A quick 5 minute ride and we were at the second site, "The Callie". It's a neat shipwreck that isn't too deep, I was able to get down to it pretty easily.

Then they dropped us back where they picked us up. It's a short tour so you are able to still do plenty of site seeing around the port area if you're interested.
The parking lot.

We decided to head back to the ship...

 

[MrRay]

When we got back to the ship we were ready for some lunch. I think we walked up to Cabanas at 2:30 and they had closed at 2:15. There are definitely ways of dealing with it but the "lunch window" is probably my biggest gripe on this ship. We ended up grabbing some quick service. We took advantage of the still somewhat empty ship to do the Aquaduck again...but again it was windy when we got off and it was off to the hot tub to refresh.

We wandered around the ship some more. When I had first heard about "Enchanted Art" I thought it was a cute gimmick but didn't think I would appreciate it as much as I did. There are so many of them all over the ship and they change a few times and each one seems to have a couple different animations. It's a lot of fun to go see them all. I even found one that had a pirate ship steering wheel and it was a little game where you drive the ship around collecting things. I played it the first day and never found it again.

Here's an amusing "Disney Detail"... There are a mix of "Enchanted Art" and "Real Art", and sometimes right next to each other. There are lights in the ceiling shining down on them, as you would expect so you can see them. Since the "Enchanted Art" is a digital display it doesn't really need this light. The light shining on the "Real Art" would cast a shadow on the picture from the frame it was in. So Disney added a fake shadow to the enchanted ones.
It's easy to see when one of the lights is out because the shadow is still there.

It's quirky...I like it.

We went to go see "Buckets and Boards". They had done an Adult show the day before that we missed. Maybe it was our bad and we should have gone to that one because the one we saw felt like it was aimed at 5 year olds. They basically banged on some buckets and made some jokes. They also tap danced a little, but Jenna being a dancer wasn't impressed. We hear people banging on trash cans in every subway station in NYC so this was nothing new for us... we left early.

Then we went to O'Gills for some pre-dinner drinks. I had their O'Gills beer that they had on tap. I was a big fan of this. If I was going to do a souvenir
beer glass I would get my money's worth out of this place. I love Irish bars but I was surprised that they didn't have an Irish bar tender. I think she was from Croatia and was only 2 days into her 6 month contract so she didn't seem too thrilled to be onboard. Oh well.

Dinner was at Royal Court. It was great. The french onion soup was the stand out dish here. It's a lovely environment.

We walked up on deck to check it out after dinner. There was a college football game on the funnelvision. Seems like a great place to watch the game. The screen really is incredible.

I don't think someone knows how rope and stanchions work. This made me chuckle.

Another great day...Costa Maya tomorrow.

 

[melissajx3]

Enjoying your report! & your pictures are so good! what camera did you use?

 

[MrRay]

Enjoying your report! & your pictures are so good! what camera did you use?

Thanks!
I have a canon t2i and used mostly an 11-16mm lens or a 17-55mm.

 

[MrRay]

We didn't have too much planned for Costa Maya.
I stopped by Cove Cafe for Coffee and the Barista had suggested a restaurant in a nearby fishing village to go to. He even suggested what to order and said that he was goes there often and he was actually going there that day. I appreciated that he was willing to tell us where he goes in his off time. We unfortunately didn't end up getting there, maybe next time.

We made our way up to Cabanas for breakfast where we ran into our server Diartha. When we would run into him it wasn't like a "oh hello good morning" it was more like "heeeeeeeyyyyy!!! Bob and Jenna!!!". He made a point to talk to us for a while and give us some tips for the day, even tried to see if he could get us anything like he was our personal server in the buffet. Love that guy.
We weren't pulling into Costa Maya until after 12 so we had plenty of time to hit up Satellite falls and swim in the adult pool. It was nice and hot this day so we spent plenty of time in the water.

We went to Royal Court for lunch. Somehow this ended up being the only time we did this, but it's a great place to go for lunch.
I ordered shrimp cocktail as an appetizer and I don't know if word was getting out about how much shrimp I was eating or what but our server brought me 2.

It was great. Jenna here...I had the Bruschetta as an app...delish. I was ready to eat just that for the rest of lunch. For my entree I got the Bacon Cheese Burger, I have to say it might have been the best burger I have ever had. Now I also wanted to try the Butternut Squash Risotto, just a little bit. Our waitress brings out our food and she says, as she is putting the plates on the table, "Ok dont be mad" So sweet-she brought me a whole plate of risotto. So I had 2 entrees now and had never been so happy. I wish I was not so full or else both plates would have been cleaned

After the rush to get off the boat we strolled off to the port area. We parked next to a Norwegian ship.

 

[Thumpersmom]

Great pics!!! Enjoying your trip! Can't wait for more!

 

[LisaHK]

Enjoying your report and pics.

 

[Buckeye218]

Was the restaurant in Costa Maya called Fernando's 100% Agave by any chance?

 

[MrRay]

Was the restaurant in Costa Maya called Fernando's 100% Agave by any chance?

That might be right... He wrote it down on the back of one of my coffee cards but I think I redeemed it for free coffee before copying it down. He said that he would always get a seafood dish with all kinds of stuff, including octopus, and some kind of drink that combined beer and lime and something else.

 

[Floridagram]

Can't wait to hear the rest. We are doing this itinerary on April 27.

 

[MrRay]

Can't wait to hear the rest. We are doing this itinerary on April 27.

I'm jealous... you're going to have a great time. The weather was magnificent even in January.

 

[disney honeymooners]

I can't wait to see the rest of your pictures it is getting really excited for our trip in 8 months

 

[MrRay]

This port is kind of unusual. It's a 7 minute brisk walk from the ship to the port area. Once there it's pretty much a weird resort area. There is a pool that it seemed that anyone could just go in and it was surrounded by little shops and a couple restaurants. We wandered around a bit but there really wasn't anything here for us. One of the dolphin experiences is right here also and anyone can see it pretty easily.

We couldn't have been there for more than an hour...if that...and headed back to the ship.

It's fun being on the dock right next to the Fantasy because you get a real good look at the Aquaduck shooting off the side.

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and riding the Aquaduck again. It's pretty fun with another ship so close. It gets hard deciding what to look at.


After washing up we went down to Deck 4 to watch us sail away.

Here's another bit of Disney pride. We pulled away before the Norwegian ship and it was fun watching everyone on that ship taking pictures of us pulling away. The Fantasy looks so nice with all of the lights lit up and especially with the lights underwater on...Those are my favorite. And then just as we were off the dock they played a quick horn blast "Yo Ho Yo Ho a Pirate's Life for Me"... the icing on the cake.

We had just enough time to run into the theater to catch "Wishes"...

 

[Majordis]

I am really enjoying your report - we are taking this cruise in May

 

[DH6230]

Really enjoyed your trip report, nice job. I have a question for you. How far is the disboards welcome center from the port? My wife wants to go by and say hi. Is it walking distance from the port. Thank you!

 

[MrRay]

Really enjoyed your trip report, nice job. I have a question for you. How far is the disboards welcome center from the port? My wife wants to go by and say hi. Is it walking distance from the port. Thank you!

It's less maybe a 5 minute drive... But not walkable.

 

[MrRay]

So just a reminder, I work in the entertainment industry. I work on a lot of Theater... A LOT of theater, some of which is on Broadway. So I cringe a little when I hear that anything that Disney has in it's theme parks or on the ships is Broadway quality. Please don't take any offense to this if you like the shows, just understand where I'm coming from.

"Wishes" I think it definitely aimed at the younger crowd, it has a very "Disney Channel" vibe to it. It uses 3 kids in Disneyland celebrating their upcoming high school graduation as vehicle for moving through Disney musical numbers. So it's basically a montage show. It wasn't for me. Kids probably love it though, there are loads of characters in it.

We decided on "Skyline" for some pre-dinner drinks. We wanted to try some of those drinks we had made in Mixology class a couple days prior. Our man Patrick was there and mixed up Jenna's favorite, Paris 75, a blue pineapple type drink, and mine, BerryOska, a blueberry and Lime based something or other. Honestly after your first drink in that class it gets a little hard to remember what goes into everything else.

Paris 75...

Dinner was in Animator's Palette for the animation show. Dinner is a little more structured here because they have to keep the schedule of the show. There is only 1 appetizer and it's a combination of 3 things, I can't remember but it was good. I also had a lamb dish that was excellent.

Not much of an artist...

Through the whole dinner they play a video montage of Disney movies that have to deal with food. There's a lot of Ratatouille in there but all kinds of stuff going way back in their catalog. The smaller screens show concept art from what's being shown. It seems like they really dig through the Disney vault for the art on this ship and its easy to appreciate.
Everyone was tired at dinner and we all stared at the screens all night...it was pretty soothing actually.

The dessert sampler had a few different desserts but I only wanted to Tiramisu, Diartha hooked me up...

We took a quick stroll through the lobby, which we were a little surprised was still decorated for Christmas for the entire cruise.

Then we crashed...Cozumel Next.

 

[bitlerzx4]

Love this TR! You guys are such a cute couple

 

[ohanaMAMA]

Great Trip report You have me interested in that mixology class. looks like fun!