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

[dgbg100106]

You really need to try a Disney cruise!

So I was talking to David about it, and we decided that we could swing it out of Galveston for a week, but have no idea when to start planning on doing it.

What are your upcoming ones? Are you going to go back out of Galveston?

 

[dgbg100106]

Look forward to hearing about the tasting....

 

[Linda67]

Thanks for all the photos of the breakfast buffet

I am slightly obsessed with breakfast and would happily eat it for every meal so I love seeing what they have ...... Sad I know!

 

[Leshaface]

All caught up!

I was just commenting on Pam's TR about neat it is that she would always have on some Disney movie and it looks like it's the cool thing to do! I need to look for the GMA shows that you watched. I would like to catch that.

Your Duck Tour looked way better than the one I did in Boston. Maybe because you guys went out into the actual ocean. And man what cool (and weird) stories!

Palo, of course, looks amazing as always. I wish I could afford to eat there every night of the cruise....and Brunch too.

Omgosh I can't wait to hear about your tequila tasting!

 

[franandaj]

Foreshadowing you say? How very exciting

I'm loving your pictures of Cozumel, they're taking me right back to my trip last year.

I'm glad they didn't cancel your excursion, everything I've heard is that when there are not enough people they can be canceled.

I did a little of that before, but it was too subtle...

I don't think this is one that they would cancel. We were in a private taxi, so there was no need to rent a bus or anything. Also this seems to pretty much be one of the only HA activities.

So I was talking to David about it, and we decided that we could swing it out of Galveston for a week, but have no idea when to start planning on doing it.

What are your upcoming ones? Are you going to go back out of Galveston?

Well you may have missed the boat (so to speak). After this year Disney will no longer be sailing out of Galveston. There are a few cruises in the Fall, but then they are done.

I'll be getting to that soon.

Look forward to hearing about the tasting....

Next update!

Thanks for all the photos of the breakfast buffet

I am slightly obsessed with breakfast and would happily eat it for every meal so I love seeing what they have ...... Sad I know!

I always like having an idea of what the buffets offer. I just booked Cape May for my Fall trip and would love if someone is going to take pics and post them! Sad, I know!

All caught up!

I was just commenting on Pam's TR about neat it is that she would always have on some Disney movie and it looks like it's the cool thing to do! I need to look for the GMA shows that you watched. I would like to catch that.

Your Duck Tour looked way better than the one I did in Boston. Maybe because you guys went out into the actual ocean. And man what cool (and weird) stories!

Palo, of course, looks amazing as always. I wish I could afford to eat there every night of the cruise....and Brunch too.

Omgosh I can't wait to hear about your tequila tasting!

We've always got the TV droning on in the background, so we just do it on the ship too. I'm not always paying close attention, but it's fun to see these movies again, especially since we don't have time at home to watch DVDs. We are so far behind on the DVR, we are still trying to clear out all the shows in March!

 

[dgbg100106]

Well you may have missed the boat (so to speak). After this year Disney will no longer be sailing out of Galveston. There are a few cruises in the Fall, but then they are done.

I'll be getting to that soon.

 

[franandaj]

Well not that soon...

I'm a day ahead and I'm just writing about it now.

 

[dgbg100106]

Wrll not that soon...

 

[rentayenta]

Thank you! I love my dresses, but I rarely get to wear at home them since Fran is usually requesting me to install, clean, move or dig out things. I end up wearing my shirts full of holes and stained pants at home.

I'm glad you're enjoying the posts. Your trip will be totally different, but at least you get the idea.

I've got a date with Kohl's this weekend and a 30% off coupon, hoping I can find a few cute sundresses.

 

[franandaj]

I'm working on it!

I've got a date with Kohl's this weekend and a 30% off coupon, hoping I can find a few cute sundresses.

I haven't really shopped at Kohl's, I like Dress Barn, and surprisingly enough Sears!

 

[rentayenta]

I haven't really shopped at Kohl's, I like Dress Barn, and surprisingly enough Sears!

I don't shop a lot at Kohl's besides tank tops but Joshua needs socks and I saw dresses in their ad plus the 30% off is enticing. We've got a Dress Barn close by but I've never been in, good idea. I'll let you know what I find.

 

[franandaj]

We waited outside for a few moments before heading into the nicely air conditioned museum. It was awful awful awful hot! Really muggy, and just oppressively hot. Maria convinced Fran to ride in a wheelchair while she pushed.



Now Pam and I have been talking about “rushing” through things. I don’t like visiting museums with other people because we have to go at their pace. It was nice that we had a guide to tell us about everything, but she spoke so fast and rushed us through things, I really barely had time to take pictures of all the stuff that I thought was really cool, much less listen to what she was saying. As a result I caught only bits and pieces of what she said.

In the entry way there were several statues of Jaguars. This is the only one that came out decent. Evidently in pre-Columbian Central and South America, the jaguar has long been a symbol of power and strength.

The jaguar and its name are widely used as a symbol in contemporary culture. It is the national animal of Guyana, and is featured in its coat of arms. The flag of the Department of Amazonas, a Colombian department, features a black jaguar silhouette pouncing towards a hunter. The jaguar also appears in banknotes of Brazilian real. The jaguar is also a common fixture in the mythology of many contemporary native cultures in South America, usually being portrayed as the creature which gave humans the power over fire.

Jaguar is widely used as a product name, most prominently for a British luxury car brand. The name has been adopted by sports franchises, including the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars and the Mexican football club Jaguares de Chiapas. Grammy-winning Mexican rock band "Jaguares" were also influenced by the magnificent animal to choose their band name. The crest of Argentina's national federation in rugby union features a jaguar; however, because of a historic accident, the country's national team is nicknamed Los Pumas. The country's "A" (second-level) national team in that sport now bears the Jaguars name.

A melanistic jaguar loose in a South American city is the central figure in the 1942 novel Black Alibi by Cornell Woolrich. In the spirit of the ancient Mayan culture, the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City adopted a red jaguar as the first official Olympic mascot. But I didn’t learn all that on the tour. Thank Wikipedia!



We walked right past those and our guide sat us down in this “theater”. They had still photos that featured the people and places in Mexico, it was a nice photo collage and we sat there for about 5-7 minutes.



Before we entered the main art gallery there was this painting of Mexico. She took quite a bit of time to explain this. Each of the regions has pictorial references of the things which are important to that region.







This piece was a Tree of Life.





If you know about the Day of the Dead in Mexican Culture, you’ll understand the significance of this piece.



I’m not sure what this is exactly, like I said, she was moving quickly. You can see all these masks on the wall in the background.



These chests were symbolic of something.



Masks.



Some dolls.



This. Is a Chupacabra. I was first introduced to the Chupacabra in the Ben Rehder novel “Flat Crazy”. Brandi, you were asking about books. Did I mention Ben Rehder’s Blanco County Series? We’ve listened to a few of these on CD, and they are hilarious! They are good mysteries, but really funny too. They have a lot of Large Texas characaters.

The Chupacabra is a mythical animal that comes in the night and steals goats, and household pets. No one really knows what it looks like, but it’s winged creature with fangs and talons. In the book there were all kinds of wild animals that were supposedly seen as the Chupacabra.









The detail on this one is astonishing. But we didn’t have time to stop and really look.







More masks





[Continued in Next Post]

 

[franandaj]

[Continued from Previous Post]

Now this I do remember, the rooster is made from Chili Peppers.







Then we passed a wall that was filled with woven items. They were all hand woven and the detail was fascinating. She talked about how this was becoming a dying art and soon the knowledge of how to do it would be lost.





























And then the tour was over. We exited the museum to be hit with a wall of heat and humidity.



And we met Mary.



They let us hold her, but we couldn’t take pictures of us holding her with our cameras. Only their camera. Which of course they offered us to buy at $35 each! But how often do you get to take your picture with an iguana, so we did it.





[Continued in Next Post]

 

[franandaj]

[Continued from Previous Post]

Then we were off to our next destination. Our guide told us that we would have time to come back and explore the miniature buildings, but we never did. I think she talked about the tequila making process for too long.







As we traveled to the Tequila Tasting Room I took this shot of where we would be returning to for lunch.



Jose Cuervo and Corona Sponsored the place so all the tequilas there were by Cuervo.



These were the ones that were included in our tasting.



This was our place setting.



The tasting room.



They were kind enough to make a special table area for Fran and the other woman on our tour since the high seats were difficult for either of them to sit in.



Maria talked all about the tequila making process and legal issues with Tequila (similar to Champagne and France). We tasted the tequilas after sniffing coffee beans and cinnamon to enhance or change the flavors of the tequila. After we finished our little samples, then we went over to the tequila bar where we sampled a tamarind Margarita.







They also had some Jose Cuervo Special Reserve Tequila available for $10 per glass. The guy got it out of the jug for me.



Then he topped it off from the bottle!





Then Maria took our picture.



[Continued in Next Post]

 

[franandaj]

[Continued from Previous Post]

After that we took our drinks back to the taco area, and were served lunch. Another tour had stopped in and they were served lunch as well.









In addition to the tacos, they also had quesadillas



And French Fries



And some condiments.





This was my lunch.



And Fran’s plate.



We also got a complimentary soda and a Corona. Neither of us wanted a beer, but they were also offering Margaritas for sale. Notice that our bartender is “perking up the drinks” for us.



In the area where they were serving food, there was a little Marketplace. It was sort of annoying that they were trying to sell me some bracelets. I didn’t like any of them, but she kept trying to show them to me. Thankfully the other lady that was with us bought one and that sort of took the heat off of me.

They brought out a Pinata for the little kids to break, and it was amusing watching them try.





While we waited for our taxi back to the port, this caught my eye in the gift shop, so we bought a bottle.



Soon we were back at the ship. We perused the liquor store and considered bringing back some Tequila, but since we have no idea about prices or brands, we gave up on that. So we hit the pharmacy for the Quinine that the FDA no longer allows to be sold in the US and we were back on our way to the ship via the bicycle cart.







So I showed you the room at the beginning of the cruise. I just thought I would be real here and show you the room in it’s actual state!

 

[dgbg100106]

I've got a date with Kohl's this weekend and a 30% off coupon, hoping I can find a few cute sundresses.

I have one of those this weekend also....

Sundresses.....

 

[dgbg100106]

This. Is a Chupacabra. I was first introduced to the Chupacabra in the Ben Rehder novel “Flat Crazy”. Brandi, you were asking about books. Did I mention Ben Rehder’s Blanco County Series? We’ve listened to a few of these on CD, and they are hilarious! They are good mysteries, but really funny too. They have a lot of Large Texas characaters.

The Chupacabra is a mythical animal that comes in the night and steals goats, and household pets. No one really knows what it looks like, but it’s winged creature with fangs and talons. In the book there were all kinds of wild animals that were supposedly seen as the Chupacabra.

I did read those after you told me about them.... I did read this one also.. They are good books.. Thanks again for the books... Always look for something to read, and net to tie into a vacation, or tequila tasting!

 

[dgbg100106]

I hate when we don't get enough time to read and enjoy what we are seeing. I have been know to lag behind the group taking pictures and reading plaques.

David knows me so well, that he is no longer worried, he knows I will show up eventually!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Love all that artwork! They look beautiful!

Happy shopping. I love Dress Barn too.

 

[rentayenta]

I have one of those this weekend also....

Sundresses.....

You going shopping too? Hope you find some cute things. I'm hoping for a little rain. I'm not a big shopper and dislike shopping when it's sunny out.




Great update Alison. You drink/taste the tequila straight? I have never developed a taste for any sort of straight tequila, scotch, vodka, any of it. Michael enjoys it though. I'd be all about shots though. Looks like you had a really great day. Nice of the bartender to pad your margaritas. Did you nap after? How was lunch? It looks good. What's in the bottle with the picture of the saint?


Oh and I like the real lived in stateroom photo.