We need a little “Magic”, right this very moment! – Completed

[franandaj]

One of the first things that Fran noticed in the Navigator was that Brave was playing tonight. This was a movie that we had wanted to see for some time. It was playing on our last cruise, but we never seemed to find the time to go see it. We decided not to miss it this time.

We made our way to the Buena Vista Theater and found it was practically empty. There were maybe six or seven other families present and the movie started promptly. As soon as the lights dimmed, we started to kick ourselves for forgetting to bring one of our boxes of snacks!

The movie was cute, and both of us were in tears for most of the second half. Thankfully with Disney you can usually count on a happy ending so no one was sad when it came time for dinner.

The movie finished with a little extra time before we had to be at the dining room and Fran wanted to go shopping before they sold out of all the large sizes of T-shirts. We both picked out a few shirts, she bought the “extra gifts” that you can purchase with an x amount of dollar purchase. I helped out there by purchasing a pair of earrings to match my cruise pendant. I’m not exactly sure what all we bought, but it took two of their bags to hold it all. They let me take the earrings with me, but they held the rest of the stuff until after dinner.



I was a little apprehensive about taking took many pictures at dinner so you’ll excuse me if I recycle these menus from the last time.

I ordered the Blue Margarita



For an appetizer, I had the Island Spiced Seared Ahi Tuna



Fran went with the Baked Crab Martinique



She went with the Cream of Green Asparagus with Crabmeat and Asparagus Tips



While I had the Parrot Cay Salad. BACON!!!!!!



We decided for the “best of both worlds”, that she would get the Rib Eye and give me half and I would get the Mixed Grill and share it with her. It worked out pretty well. We ordered everything Medium Rare and only the Lamb Chop and shrimp were overcooked. The rest was cooked rather nicely.





Then we were brought the dessert menu.

Fran had the Crème Brulee Cheesecake



I went with the Piña Colada Bread Pudding. I normally don’t like coconut, but Fran keeps reminding me that it isn’t the TASTE that I don’t like it’s the TEXTURE. So this was pretty good!



Here was our serving team. Our waiter was very nice, he wanted to make everything perfect, almost to a fault. He would spend so much time telling us how perfect he wanted to make things that sometimes it took forever to get our dinner!



This was also a first for us. We were seated with other couples. On our first Disney Cruise we were at a table of four. I’m not sure what was the problem with the other couple, but no matter how hard I tried to be friendly, they just wouldn’t budge. I was plenty happy we had our own table last cruise. This time, we met two of the couples this evening. The third couple had dined at Palo the first night, but our waiter assured us they would be there tomorrow.

With the conclusion of our meal, we went up to the stores to pick up our merchandise. Fran still wanted to look around in the other store so I sat in Preludes and waited for her. Notice the angle of this first shot. That’s about how my head felt! I was tired from a long day, waking up early moving three VERY heavy suitcases onto the luggage cart. Schlepping our carry ons all over creation and then unloading our bags upon arrival. I just wanted to go to sleep!









And when we came back to the room, we found our first towel animal. And of course the Navigator, which I had to read from cover to cover.



With that we decided to call it a night. Our first sea day was ahead of us tomorrow and we had some really big plans!

 

[Linda67]

Wow, you must have been exhausted. You had such a long day

Looks like the shopping trip was a success and I love your new earrings

 

[PrincessInOz]

You saw Brave? Guess what? I saw Brave at the weekend. First time for me!


Looks like great meals are on the cards on this TR! Nice earrings.

 

[Pinkocto]

Great update dinner looked delicious! Glad you made it to Brave, I really liked that movie, saw it again on the ship as well.

Oh no on your server, I hope he wasn't too slow making things perfect. I hope your tablemates were enjoyable.

 

[lorimay]

Everything looks so yummy!!!!

I like the earrings you chose.

My favorite thing on that dessert menu is the coconut ice cream!
I'm thinking your pina colada choice with a scoop of that ice cream would be perfection!!!!

 

[rentayenta]

I'll read the Navigators from cover to cover too. And I'm bringing a highlighter.

That's a good idea to get clothes pressed. I'm sure Joshua's khakis will need it as I don't iron and my wrap dress will need a decent steam. Great tip.

Brave is one our favorites and I cry every time too. We always tease Gabby that her babies will look like the little brothers as she's got an affinity for red heads and curls.

Love love love the earrings. You always get the cutest stuff.

The blue margarita looks heavenly.

Thanks for posting the menus. I enjoy all of the little details.

Fran's Ribeye looks dreamy. Nothing like a rare piece of meat.




Can't wait to read more.

 

[dgbg100106]

Yummy food and very nice update, I am sure you were tired, that is a lot of trekking and carrying and unloading.

looking forward to tomorrow..

 

[ACDSNY]

I'm finally caught up, you're room and verandah look awesome. That room is really close to the secret verandah on Deck 7 aft and the cabin we had for the Panama cruise.

Cute earrings and they'll go nicely with your pendant.

 

[franandaj]

Wow, you must have been exhausted. You had such a long day

Looks like the shopping trip was a success and I love your new earrings

Thanks, I was definitely ready for bed after all that! I did get a lot of sleep the night before, but still I was up for about 17 hours by the time I went to bed.

You saw Brave? Guess what? I saw Brave at the weekend. First time for me!


Looks like great meals are on the cards on this TR! Nice earrings.

I hope you liked it! It was definitely heartbreaking. Yes, we had some great meals. At least nine pounds of great meals for me!

Great update dinner looked delicious! Glad you made it to Brave, I really liked that movie, saw it again on the ship as well.

Oh no on your server, I hope he wasn't too slow making things perfect. I hope your tablemates were enjoyable.

He was pretty slow at making things perfect. We were almost always the last table to leave the dining room. The tablemates were pretty good. Better than our last time we had them!

Everything looks so yummy!!!!

I like the earrings you chose.

My favorite thing on that dessert menu is the coconut ice cream!
I'm thinking your pina colada choice with a scoop of that ice cream would be perfection!!!!

Thanks! I like the earrings too, perfect for the cruises. I was taking a risk on the Pina colada dish, I'm not even going to risk coconut ice cream.

I'll read the Navigators from cover to cover too. And I'm bringing a highlighter.

That's a good idea to get clothes pressed. I'm sure Joshua's khakis will need it as I don't iron and my wrap dress will need a decent steam. Great tip.

Brave is one our favorites and I cry every time too. We always tease Gabby that her babies will look like the little brothers as she's got an affinity for red heads and curls.

Love love love the earrings. You always get the cutest stuff.

The blue margarita looks heavenly.

Thanks for posting the menus. I enjoy all of the little details.

Fran's Ribeye looks dreamy. Nothing like a rare piece of meat.

Can't wait to read more.

I never needed a highlighter, but I'm one of those who can see the whole day schedule in my head without writing it down. I knew when our tastings were, when dinner was and for me the puzzle pieces just fall into place of when we would need breakfast and lunch.

If you want rare, you need to ask for it, most of the meat is cooked medium or more in the main dining rooms. Our server was very attentive about that, and he actually waited for our cuts to be cooked properly. I think that was part of what ended up taking so long. Plus another situation that will eventually be revealed.

Yummy food and very nice update, I am sure you were tired, that is a lot of trekking and carrying and unloading.

looking forward to tomorrow..

Let's just say that I was in no danger of coming down with anything in the was of a virus, there was plenty of germ killer on that cruise!

I'm finally caught up, you're room and verandah look awesome. That room is really close to the secret verandah on Deck 7 aft and the cabin we had for the Panama cruise.

Cute earrings and they'll go nicely with your pendant.

At some point on one of the sea days, they had a wedding on that secret verandah. It turns out that one of the ladies on our later excursions was the Aunt (I think) of the bride.

Now that you are caught up here, you can catch up on the PTR for PIO's and my October trip.

Alison's 2013 Gamers meet PTR

 

[franandaj]

Before going to bed I perused the Navigator that they left on our bed.

 

[franandaj]

I found that adjusting to non concierge crusing was pretty easy. All I had to do was remember to put out the little card each night placing my order for coffee and whatever other goodies we wanted in the morning. Also before going to bed that night before we put in a wake up call, and pleasantly enough, we could set it for the duration of our stay on the ship. I set it for 7:15AM and planned to have breakfast or coffee arrive daily between 7:30-8:00AM.

Mickey called right at 7:15 to wake us up and shortly after that I received a call from room service to let me know breakfast was on the way.

I forgot to take a picture of the tray, but Fran ordered a bagel with cream cheese.



Some milk, chocolate milk and orange juice.



I had coffee, special K, and orange juice.



I hadn’t quite finished putting away our clothes last night since our last suitcase arrived, after we headed out to the movie, so I finished that up and stowed away the suitcases for the next few days. While I was unpacking, Fran mentioned that yesterday she noticed a “Jet Lag special” in the Spa for $99 in the Navigator, and that it sounded interesting. I called and it was only good for yesterday, as I thought, but she seemed interested in visiting the spa.

I went up and grabbed a price list. On my way out the door I found an envelope containing our Martini Tasting Tickets and our Tequila Tasting Tickets, and a note which made no sense, but no chocolate tasting tickets.

I went up to the spa and grabbed some papers and found out about another little special that they were having. The Salon Taster. She thought this sounded good going with the Scalp Massage, Neck and Shoulder Massage and Hand Treatment.



I decided that just a plain old Swedish Massage would be fine, and I would go with the 50 minutes instead of my normal 90 minutes. I called the spa and they had availability at 4:00PM. Perfect timing with the way our day was planned. We decided that on our way to the Martini Tasting we would drop by guest relations and find out what the cryptic note meant.



After we had our reservations set, I decided to distribute some of the FE gifts. People were in two definite groups, those on decks 7 & 8 and the ones on decks 1 and 2. I decided to get the upper decks out of the way today. That was about half of my gifts.

After that I wrote up some of the TR, and we hung out until just before 11AM when we went up to Palo for our Brunch reservation. It was pretty cold, windy and the seas were really choppy. Up on the 10th floor we could really feel the sway in the deck.







We got our same table again…did the Wonder message the Magic to let them know this was our table?





We started off with a champagne and a mimosa



Then our server took us to the buffet to explain the various offerings

The bread and pastry table.









Then we went to the table near the kitchen. They had a variety of sauces to us on your choices.





Various seafood options









Now you notice the bottom plate on the chilled seafood? This was one of the “Texas twists” that I noticed on this trip. I’m pretty sure that the Wonder out of San Pedro wasn’t serving Crawfish.




[Continued in Next Post]

 

[franandaj]

[Continued from Previous Post]

On to the next table…





Now you may think I’m crazy taking a picture of butter, but this is no ordinary butter, I dare you, spread some on a piece of the delectable bread they serve and tell me it isn’t the best butter you’ve had (outside of freshly churned Parisian butter).



Toast points



Salad Nicoise



Caviar



Caprese Salad







Beef and Prosciutto









This was the garnish for this table




And then the dessert table





[Continued in Next Post]

 

[franandaj]

[Continued from Previous Post]

























Here is Fran’s first plate.



And mine



We ordered two of the strawberry soups



Fran wanted some fruit and a sticky bun.



I just wanted some fruit.



I tried one of their bloody marys. They only had one “flavor” and our server said it was spicy. I could take it and mixed with vodka and ice, it turned out to be just fine. I missed taking a picture of the full one though.



Then we ordered eggs Benedict.



Fran got the pancakes



And Another Strawberry Soup



I always have to order the Chicken Parmesan, it is so tasty! The risotto that it is served on top of is so delicate and delicious.



I got some coffee to help me stay awake for the other activities of the day. Then I got a whole plate of desserts for the two of us.



Fran enjoyed the Eggs Benedict that we split so much, she got one for herself.



By this time we were stuffed.



We headed back to the cabin to get ready for the next part of the day.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Alison - That is a gorgeous picture of you! You should wear your hair down more often!


Love the picture of you and Fran. You look really happy to be on the Magic.

And that food porn. WOW!!! WOW!! WOW!


I wonder what that note that didn't make sense said and where your chocolate tasting tix got to? Hmmm.

And I hope your FE gifts worked out for this trip.

 

[lorimay]

Yum!
Palo is the best!!!!!

Looks like you guys enjoyed yourselves. I love the tables by the window.

I read your trip report when you sailed concierge. It looked awesome. NOW THATS A ROOM!!!!!!!
But any room on a Disney cruise is amazing really. Concierge is sailing like a Queen I would imagine. I keep asking my hubby, he says someday. In the meantime I will keep dreaming about it.

Did you guys get to see OZ? I'm looking forward to it.

 

[jedijill]

It's dangerous to see pictures of Palo Brunch first thing in the morning. Looks fantastic and you two look great!

Jill in CO

 

[Pinkocto]

Yummy!!!!! I like seeing all the differences from the Fantasy. I guess it depends on the chefs working.

Don't worry, I totally understand the butter picture

I can't wait to hear about the spa treatments.

Uh oh on that chocolate tasting.

 

[rentayenta]

Haven't had time to read the update but wanted to wish you a:

 

[rentayenta]

I'm all caught up and OMG Palo looks amazing and I must get there. Maybe I'll pay a kid to be Joshua's friend so I can do brunch.


Thank you for posting the Navigators. I'm looking through any I can find to sort of wrap my head around what's going on on the ship. Seems there's a lot to do at any given moment.

Glad the adjustment to non concierge was painless.

Did room service charge for the milk and cereal as they are in containers? I'm not sure what's extra and what isn't but thought I read that anything that comes in an individual container costs.

The Salon Taster looks great. I won't ask which Fran chose and I'd be jumping the gun. I'd love to do something that like. I'd choose the scalp massage, the next massage, and I'd live the facial but knowing we'll be in the sun a lot, I'd most likely get the foot massage too. The collagen eye to looks tempting too but again, with the sun, I don't want my face messed with.

That is a really good photo of you. The big smile is my favorite.

After through all of the food porn and wiping the drool from my chin, the pancakes looks phenomenal. It all looks incredible especially the crab, shrimp, butter, and the chocolate blob dessert (near the tart with the strawberries and blueberry) but out of all of it the pancakes look heavenly with the layers of butter in between. Tell me they tasted as good as they look.

 

[Minniemum]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm contemplating a Disney cruise for the first time in September and find you're posts wonderfully informative. Love that you've taken photos of everything - especially the Navigator. I can't believe how many activities there are on the ship, my kids are going to love it! As for the food porn, you can keep that coming! Fingers crossed you got to the chocolate tasting.