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

[franandaj]

Here is the Navigator for our last day at sea.













Now today we had another brunch at Palo booked so we went with our normal room service of Bagel, cereal and orange juice. The thing is that on the order form I DID NOT TICK OFF COFFEE!!!!!!

Thankfully, I must have tipped our guy well all week, it was the same guy delivering our tray every morning (which was not the case on the Wonder), or he was just being a diligent CM because he did notice that I didn’t order coffee and offered to get some and bring it right back. I gave him a nice big tip ($4 this time) and when he came back I stuck another dollar in his pocket. I know it’s not a huge amount, but I was tipping him $3 each time he brought us breakfast and $2 each time he brought us coffee and juice. It seemed fair to me, and if he was serving more guests than just me, he was easily making $10-12 or more in tips per hour for breakfast. Probably better.

While we were hanging out in the room I started the packing up process. We had bought way too much stuff between all the T-shirts, Rum cakes and little figurines and stuff that there was no way we were getting this stuff home without another suitcase. Luckily (and I reserved this detail until the last minute), we had found out that there was a location of our favorite steakhouse chain in Houston. It was quite a distance from the hotel we were staying at so when we made the reservation (before getting on the cruise), we also reserved a rental car at the airport. We decided that our first stop from the airport would be a Goodwill or some kind of thrift store to pick up a throw away suitcase to lighten our load on the way home. Each of us could check 3 bags and we only had five total on the trip out. Plus the wine was gone (or would be) as well as a few other “first night” things we brought.

So I proceeded to pack up all the stuff I knew we wouldn’t need. Formal clothes, etc. Since Disney doesn’t have a weight requirement we knew that we could get the stuff off the ship even if the suitcases were too heavy, the key would be once we got to the room in Houston to rearrange things so they would fit.

Once we had done all we could, we headed up for our 10:30 brunch at Palo.



Since you already saw all the offerings in the earlier post, I’m just showing the stuff that is pertinent to today’s post since they had all the same stuff offered today as the first day.

This was our wonderful server, Evandro. We have since become friends on Facebook and he is quite the dashing gentleman, though I do really wonder. Guys this pretty are rarely straight, but who knows? He comes from Brazil and we loved him. He tells me that he will be on the Magic in 2014, but I get ahead of myself!



He took our picture.



He also stole my camera off the table when we went to the buffet and took pictures of us.





My plate



Fran’s plate



Then we ordered some Strawberry soup



I got some berries and a roll



I went for the Eggs Florentine. I meant to get these the last time, but my mouth said, “Eggs Benedict” instead of Florentine. They didn’t come with Hollandaise sauce and at first I was put off, but then once I tasted them, the subtle sauce over this egg was really tasty.



I gave half to Fran and she liked the subtle sauce, but still wanted to douse it in Hollandaise!



After the complimentary glass of champagne, I ordered some kind of glass of wine.



Fran got another (since the 1st day) order of the pancakes. She liked them that much!



She had me grab her a couple of the desserts (in case they disappeared before she got back there).



They also had this awesome ice sculpture.



I ordered the Tomato Basil soup from the menu. It was much better than the one I had in the dining room, but I knew that would be the case.



We split these entrees, the veal saltimbocca



And the Chicken Parmesan (I will always order this!)



Then I got us a plate of desserts.



This was just such an awesome brunch. I read Pam’s review and after comparing how much she and her mom ate I feel like Fran and I were total pigs! Oink Oink!

 

[rentayenta]

I think this is where we were taking about dresses Alison...anyway, I was able to exchange them at Kohl's. With my 30% off and them on sale, they were $22 each. Here's the first one:

Now I just got finished with my walk so I'm a little disheveled.

Now this one no one likes but it feels festive and fun and admittedly a little busy and most importantly, I like it:

Now on:

They're knit/cotton but with a little cardigan the black would be dressy enough for anywhere in Mexico, Vegas, or the cruise. Thoughts?

 

[rentayenta]

Didn't mean to go so OT. Going back to read.

 

[franandaj]

Those dresses are really cute! I like them! Fran told me to tell you that if you go to cardpool.com you can get Kohl's and other retail gift cards for between 3-20% off.

 

[rentayenta]

Those dresses are really cute! I like them! Fran told me to tell you that if you go to cardpool.com you can get Kohl's and other retail gift cards for between 3-20% off.

Really? I'm all over that. Kohl's isn't my favorite store but it's so close. i do love their tank tops and of course they've got socks and staples. I'll check it.


I have got to figure out a way to get to dine at Palo. That meals looks perfect. Strawberry soup? Sounds very refreshing and light. I'd love to try that. Saltimbocca is my favorite, chicken or veal.

Your server is darling. I have no idea if your server was straight or gay but Beckham is pretty, pretty HOT, and straight. It was very sweet of him to take the photos of you two. That's great service.

That's butter on the pancakes this time, right?

You forgot coffee? That's like forgetting to breath. Glad it was an easy remedy.

Love the photo of you and Fran at the table. The view is fantastic!

 

[PrincessInOz]

What an awesome update. Love the food and the not-so-missing coffee story. That ice leaning tower of Pisa is amazing. And I love Benedict too.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Great dresses Jenny. Not only are they great, you look fabulous in them! Thanks for sharing. I think they'll be perfect with a little black cardi over themm

 

[rentayenta]

Great dresses Jenny. Not only are they great, you look fabulous in them! Thanks for sharing. I think they'll be perfect with a little black cardi over themm

You're sweet, thank you. I have such a hard time really dressing up. A cardigan and some nice sandals are about as dressy as those will get. The blue is a little louder than I'd normally wear but I love the colors. Maybe I'll even wear lipgloss.​

 

[Pinkocto]

And here I'm eating a salad for breakfast I'm ready to go back on a cruise right now! I thought mom and I ate a lot though. And if there's ever a place to try lots of things it's Palo for sure.

 

[Pinkocto]

Love the dresses Jenny, you look fantastic!

 

[franandaj]

Really? I'm all over that. Kohl's isn't my favorite store but it's so close. i do love their tank tops and of course they've got socks and staples. I'll check it.


I have got to figure out a way to get to dine at Palo. That meals looks perfect. Strawberry soup? Sounds very refreshing and light. I'd love to try that. Saltimbocca is my favorite, chicken or veal.

Your server is darling. I have no idea if your server was straight or gay but Beckham is pretty, pretty HOT, and straight. It was very sweet of him to take the photos of you two. That's great service.

That's butter on the pancakes this time, right?

You forgot coffee? That's like forgetting to breath. Glad it was an easy remedy.

Love the photo of you and Fran at the table. The view is fantastic!

The strawberry soup is really good, very refreshing! We had this discussion before, that is cream on the pancakes, not butter! It was Veal Saltimbocca and very good!

I'm not sure I could even pick Beckham out of a line up. Jill got it on FB the other day, something about "why is it so hard to find a sensitive, attractive man? Because they already have boyfriends!"

When the Room Service guy showed up and there was no coffee on his tray I was positively mortified! But I was so tired the night before I wasn't surprised that I forgot.

What an awesome update. Love the food and the not-so-missing coffee story. That ice leaning tower of Pisa is amazing. And I love Benedict too.

Both of them were so good! The traditional one and the Florentine one. I'm so glad they fixed the coffee problem!

And here I'm eating a salad for breakfast I'm ready to go back on a cruise right now! I thought mom and I ate a lot though. And if there's ever a place to try lots of things it's Palo for sure.

I'm looking forward to taking a really long cruise with lots of sea days so that I can eat there over and over again!

 

[franandaj]

So we still hadn’t found a cruise and we had less than a day to decide. On our way to the chocolate tasting we stopped by the future cruise deck for yet another brochure. This time we decided that since we have an obligation in Ft. Lauderdale next year over the weekend of the 7-9th in November, perhaps we could combine the cruise with that event. Also because this is a non-profit related event, we can write the airfare off our taxes.

So with our brochure in hand we headed off to the chocolate tasting and started plotting with a calendar when the various sailings departed, arrived, and how much away time from the kitties it would take. I also had to deal with the part of the tasting that Fran had not paid for it yet, but she wanted to go up and check out the silent auction before it closed at 1PM.

I spoke to the folks at the door and explained that we had one ticket, but that Claudette had told us that we could pay for the second one on the day of because she had booked me in the first day when Guest Services overbooked the tasting. They told me that they couldn’t do it. I asked if Claudette was there and of course she wasn’t. I told them that we had taken this up with Guest Services on the first day and they tried to charge the remaining tasting spot and were unable to do it that day, but told us to just show up at the tasting and they could take care of it there.

I decided to just go and sit down, I had a ticket! Well they must have worked it all out because soon the gal serving and clearing the drinks came to get my room key to charge the $30 for the tasting. Fran showed up shortly thereafter and we started planning cruises.

Here was what the table was set like. Now realize that this is two place settings, originally they had spaces for two people on the other side of the table, but I guess because Fran “crashed” the tasting another party of three sat at a table that was not planned to be used for the tasting and they eventually moved the other glasses.











Our host took the stage and our tasting began. He explained that all the chocolate we would be tasting today was Valrhona chocolate, which explains the pricetag for the tasting. Our first pairing was the Caramel Chocolate and Champagne.



We had molten chocolate, and the little chocolate discs in each flavor. The molten chocolate was simply the discs melted in a double boiler. First our host encouraged us to take a spoonful of the molten chocolate, put it in our mouth and then take a sip of the champagne to taste the two together. Then he suggested taking a bite of the discs, and then finally dipping the disc into the molten chocolate. Each time combining the chocolate taste with the accompanying beverage. He told us to continue to do this process throughout the tasting.



Our next combination was Milk Chocolate and Tawny Port, of which I didn’t take a picture. This was a great combination, well they all were! This is the Dark Chocolate and the Lasseter Merlot. This was probably my least favorite combination only because I am less of a fan of Dark Chocolate than the others. I still ate it all and drank the wine!



The last one was my favorite! Normally I am not a White Chocolate eater. It just tastes bland to me. But combined with this Whiskey! Woohoo! I believe that it was Glencairn Whiskey, but I can’t quite make out the bottle. The Whiskey gave just the right kick to the white chocolate to take away the blandness.



The host asked which was our favorite pairing and it was a toss up between the Caramel Chocolate/Champagne and the White Chocolate/Whiskey. Next stop the Future Cruise Desk!

So you see, our band in Los Angeles is part of a larger network of bands across the globe. The farthest away groups are in Sydney and Melbourne. I think an organization in Dublin is forming, and there is one in Vancouver, not to mention most large cities in the US. I think there are 30 something bands. The first was in San Francisco followed by our band a couple months later. Then The Big Apple Corps formed in NYC. Each year one of the bands hosts a conference where people get together and play in a REALLY BIG band, meet new friends and have a good time.

In 2014 this meeting will be in Ft. Lauderdale, so we looked at cruises out of Miami before or after the meeting. It turns out that there is one leaving on October 31, 2014 for five nights and the ports are Cozumel and Grand Cayman. This will give us a year and a half to get our act together, get in a little better shape and do some of the excursions we wanted to but couldn’t this year! So off to the desk we went and dropped in our quote card.

Then we went to Guest Services to pay our tips. We wanted to give several of the folks larger gratuities than the suggested amount so we took care of that and then had all their envelopes ready for them.

We went back to the Treasure Ketch to pick up a few last minute items. I got a couple picture frames since I liked some of the pictures that we had taken, Fran got another T-shirt or three and some magnets and another one of the items that were $X amount of dollars with a $15 purchase. I think we ended up with two Disney Cruise Line bath towels and two of the little wheeled duffel bags. One was a gift for a friend of ours.

After that we stopped by Shutters and bought the 20 photo package on CD. They said that it might be ready this evening or at the latest tomorrow morning. All of that shopping took it’s toll on us. We went up top to fill up Fran’s drink mug and she decided that she wanted some ice cream, so we took advantage of the self serve ice cream.



We still had a little more time to kill before the Mixology class so we decided to relax by the pool and have a drink.



Mine was the drink of the day, Planter’s Punch



Fran got the strawberry daiquiri



It started to get chilly and we had only about 20 minutes until the class started to we made our way to Diversions. This was a first for me to go into that lounge. There was a Movie Quotes Trivia contest going on that was just wrapping up. They were going over the answers to the questions, and both Fran and I were glad that we weren’t playing, they weren’t Disney movies and we didn’t know any of the answers.

When that wrapped up we snagged a table up front. They started to bring us the ingredients we would need for our “class”. Can you guess what we would be making?



We muddled the mint leaves



The servers came by with ice and filled our glasses.



Then we added the rum and Club Soda. Voila! A Mojito! It was my first and I really liked it!



Then they brought us a Sunken Treasure. Which includes 1 oz Malibu coconut Rum, 1 oz Midori, 1 oz Orange juice, 1 oz Pineapple juice, 5 oz Curacao, Splash of Sprite. I enjoyed this smaller portion just as much as when I ordered it as a Drink of the Day.



Then they brought us a Cosmopolitan. She told us that technically this was classified as a Martini, but normally Martinis are made with only alcohol and this drink has a splash of cranberry juice which is not alcoholic, so it is an exception to the drink rule.



Then we got a Cadillac Margarita. This was really good.



Our final drink was called something that I can’t post on the boards, it was two words and the first one was Big, the second word can be found in my tags. If you type them with no space in between the words, the DIS will *** them out. I think the Boo Boos know what I am talking about!

We were given a glass with Kahlua and Bailey’s that were cleverly layered. Then they passed around a bottle of Grand Mariner and we were to complete the final layer.





Then we raised our glasses and toasted!





By that time we were pretty toasted!

 

[rentayenta]

I knew the first pancakes had cream but this time the dollop looked more yellow. I'm having butter on mine.

Now back to your update......

 

[franandaj]

I knew the first pancakes had cream but this time the dollop looked more yellow. I'm having butter on mine.

Now back to your update......

Same pancakes, you can probably order them without the cream. They also put the syrup on for you.


So I gave the big reveal on the cruise....where is everyone?

 

[Pamlur]

I have been following along, happily and silently. But, having been schooled rigorously by my Scottish friends, if you had Glencairn Whisky, there is no "e"in it.

Fun report!

 

[franandaj]

I have been following along, happily and silently. But, having been schooled rigorously by my Scottish friends, if you had Glencairn Whisky, there is no "e"in it.

Fun report!

Welcome! I'm glad you came out of lurkdom! I'm really not sure if it was even that brand of Whisky. I zoomed in on my picture of the bottles and made my best guess on what the label said. I'm glad you finally spoke up, we're almost done here!

 

[Minniemum]

Sounds like a perfect day to me. Dark, white and milk chocolate are all the same to me....yum, yum and yum! Loved the look of the mixology class too. If you suffer from seasickness and you have a little bit too much to drink, do you think the seasickness would be worse or balance it out?!!?

Congratulations on booking your next cruise! Which classes do you feel you missed out on this time? Any you would do/not do again?

I'm really curious about your band. Genre? Instruments? Number of band members? How awesome is it that you'll get the opportunity to meet/play with similar bands from around the world. Sign me up for that TR!

 

[PrincessInOz]

I'm going to find some chocolate as soon as I finish typing this.....actually I'm not. I need to get something to clean my screen. That chocolate tasting is just AMAZING! Glad that Fran managed to crash in and enjoy as well.


Good job on booking another cruise.

The cocktails look great. Pity about the Dis Filter. And I'm deliberately typing asterisks here. *** ***

 

[Pinkocto]

I'm here I'm here! First time on the Dis today, it's been a doozy. I'm just surprised you have so much time between now and the next cruise. And when you commented that you look forward to a longer cruise so you could go to Palo more I was hoping you'd be joining me on the transatlantic. I'm glad you were able to find one that works with your schedule the band meet sounds like great fun! How long will you be away from the kitties?

I'm glad Fran was able to get in to the chocolate tasting.

 

[rentayenta]

I'm here too. Think it's just a slow DIS day. I updated too today and hear crickets.

Woo hoo on your cruise! You've got an amazing Fall planned that's for sure. So you're doing WDW then going back to cruise, is that right? I'm glad you are able to really travel and plan again.

What excursions have you got your eyes on?

The chocolate tasting looks killer. That with the booze would have me in a sugar coms for sure. Michael is the chocolate fan- maybe that coupled with Palo coupled with kids having their own space will talk him into a Disney Cruise?

I still can't believe that's not butter.