From Galveston to Rome: Magic Transatlantic/Med Trip

[Luv2Diz]

Day 5: Tuesday May 21st

It was lunchtime so over to Cookies Too. I’m not a huge fan of the food, but at least it’s right there. The mahi mahi was pretty good and um the bag of chips was good…I’m reaching here. While walking to our seat some lady FINALLY saw the Dream sailing away (was she under a rock for the last 45 minutes while the ship circling us and BLEW THEIR HORN over and OVER??). When she saw the Dream she screamed “Oh my God the ship is leaving us”. I try not to make fun of people (who are not my family) but where did she think the 500 or so people sitting there came from? Did she think the ship left 25% of the passengers and just sailed away? Also, I can think of worse places to be marooned.

Too funny! (We were getting off the Magic the day that you were gettin' on. Loved Castaway Cay - yep, I could handle being marooned there!)

 

[lilpooh108]

It was lunchtime so over to Cookies Too. I’m not a huge fan of the food, but at least it’s right there. The mahi mahi was pretty good and um the bag of chips was good…I’m reaching here. While walking to our seat some lady FINALLY saw the Dream sailing away (was she under a rock for the last 45 minutes while the ship circling us and BLEW THEIR HORN over and OVER??). When she saw the Dream she screamed “Oh my God the ship is leaving us”. I try not to make fun of people (who are not my family) but where did she think the 500 or so people sitting there came from? Did she think the ship left 25% of the passengers and just sailed away? Also, I can think of worse places to be marooned.

OMG So what happened to her?

 

[gotomu212]

OMG So what happened to her?

Well we gave her crazy looks, but someone much nicer than us said "that's the Dream. Our ship is still here, see everything's okay" and led her off.

 

[gotomu212]

Ok, your whole report so far has me

I kept hitting the quote button, then I realized I was quoting all of your posts

We were on both legs of this with you. Loving your report. You have my kind of humor, but are much funnier than I am.

You guys are all SO nice. Sometimes I wonder if my family is the only one who finds me funny and when I showed the TR to my husband be said "little long Deann, little long". Since that was only day 4 I was a little concerned.

 

[lilpooh108]

Well we gave her crazy looks, but someone much nicer than us said "that's the Dream. Our ship is still here, see everything's okay" and led her off.

Awwhh. Poor lady.

 

[Kirbo]

You guys are all SO nice. Sometimes I wonder if my family is the only one who finds me funny and when I showed the TR to my husband be said "little long Deann, little long". Since that was only day 4 I was a little concerned.

Well now, I could handle it being even longer

 

[gotomu212]

Day 7: Thursday May 23rd
I can only assume this was the day I bought cough syrup; I’m fairly certain I’m right since my notes of the day are kind of a cluster; so pressing forward with that assumption. During the night Carlitos and I developed a horrible cough. We think it was environmental (maybe allergies) since it got better when we turned the AC off and when we went outside and got fresh air. We didn’t have any other cold symptoms but just kept coughing in our sleep- all night. I never worry about noise and cabin walls until I’m coughing or unless. ..ummm…well..hmmm.. let’s just stick with coughing (hehe).

Carlos can sleep through a tornado (no joke he has actually slept through a tornado, a hurricane coming onshore, a hotel fire, and a 5.1 earthquake. I am legitimately worried about leaving him alone) so I didn’t worry we’d disturbed him, but I did worry about the poor person sharing the wall with our bed frame. I heard her coughing a few nights later and didn’t feel as bad.

We woke up at 11:00, mostly due to the coughing, but the time change didn’t help. We missed our character breakfast; we didn’t tell Carlitos. Honestly I’m not a huge fan of the DCL character breakfast. If you’ve never been to it, go; but after going to a few we think they’re just way too rushed and the food is bad bad bad. Since we were so late we ended up in Parrot Cay for lunch, and afterwards we went to Treasure Ketch to buy adult and child cough syrup.

I have this fear of being sick onboard, not of actually getting sick, but of being quarantined in the room, far away from over the counter drugs. The friendly cashier said “I hope this makes you feel better” at which point I turned into a paranoid freak and started giving the guy my whole theory about how we had some sort of allergic reaction to the air on the ship, and we only coughed at night, and were using the wet wipes constantly in an attempt to avoid being red listed on some sort of list. I must have sounded crazy because his eyes were getting bigger and bigger and my husband said “okay then, let’s go” and as we walked away he added “pull it together crazy”. The guy probably thought I was off to make meth in the room.

Properly medicated, we finished our FE deliveries and played a marathon session of Uno. The water was really strange today. It looked completely still, no waves at all. If you stared at it though you would see that the water had long small amplitude waves. The water looked like it was pulsing. It was so cool. I had expected rougher seas but this was so smooth and something I had never seen before. After staring at the water a while it was time for the Princess Party. Having a little boy, we don’t get too into the princesses, BUT as previously mentioned he had a big crush on Aurora and wanted to go see her again. They gave all the boys little crowns and we sat down to have juice, cookies, and cakes while Belle, Alice, Snow White, Cinderella, the mice, Daisy, and Minnie came by. He wasn’t too excited but hey free cookies!

Back to the room for Uno, no one wanted to swim, and Carlitos didn’t want to go to the clubs. We played Uno and watched The Parent Trap (the modern one with pre-rehab LiLo). We apparently took another nap (that’s how I deduced this was cough syrup day- up at 11, napping in the late afternoon -we had to be sedated). What was more important to us than sleeping…food. Off to dinner at Parrot Cay. I had an ahi tuna appetizer (good), a plain salad, and grouper (good actually). They has s’more cake for dessert (YAY this is my FAVORITE, but alas the marshmallows were stale again-MAN can’t catch a break today).

Carlos went off to Skyfall and April (our friend) and I went to Sessions for a drink (I know, drinking and cold syrup guess what time I woke up the next day). I had never sat in Sessions before, but it was a lot of fun. I got a pomegranate passion- it came in a big glass and was SO good. The pianist was on a break and came around talking to all the tables. He asked April and I if we were guests or the new entertainment (??? Whaa?). He explained that the current entertainers who do all the Broadway shows and character greetings were leaving after this cruise and the next contract group would take over. They were on board now I guess getting acclimated. Just to be very clear, we are two moms in our 30s and while we can definitely bring it, we could never be confused with stage dancers who perform and exercise for hours each day and yes the lighting is low in Sessions but not that low. (So thanks piano man, but no we’re just guests and we don’t have a musical request either). We stayed for an hour and then it was time to pick up the kids (club closes at midnight).

Carlitos and I went back to the room while Carlos was still at the movies. Our host made the best towel animal- a little brontosaurus dinosaur with a long neck. Carlitos and I sat on the bed to play Uno and the little dino fell off. Carlitos peeked over the side and said in the saddest voice ever “oh little dinosaur you broke your neck and I don’t know how to fix you.” OH SAD, then “I guess I’ll just throw you in the shower so we can rub you on our hair tomorrow”. Um okay that’s weird.

 

[lilpooh108]

LOL on the cough syrup.

The cough, right? Did it start on the EBTA? B/c by the time we got on board, everyone had this hacky, phlegmy cough. Which I now have.

And Carlitos is funny

 

[Kirbo]

LOL on the cough syrup.

The cough, right? Did it start on the EBTA? B/c by the time we got on board, everyone had this hacky, phlegmy cough. Which I now have.

And Carlitos is funny

The whole family is funny

We've got the phlegmy cough now :hack:

 

[gotomu212]

Day 8: Friday May 24th

I forgot to mention that last night we had another time change. That, plus the drugs (cough medicine), plus the alcohol mixed all together and we woke up at….12:15. Ronald, our stateroom host, probably thought we were dead. Rest assured Ronald. We had entirely missed breakfast and all the brunches. That left us with Topsiders. I normally don’t rag on the food too much, but something was going on this cruise and Topsiders was no exception. I got all the way down to the bread and realized I only had 1 thing on my whole plate. I loaded up on salad at the lettuce bar (it was only the yucky lettuce too) and grabbed some bread calling it a day.

After lunch, Carlitos went off to the club and Carlos and I went to hear the lecture by Charles Richards. Today’s topic was the True Stories of Pirates (or something like that). I thought this was interesting but it could have been even better… I thought it would have been fun if he had talked about the Barbary Pirates since we were going into the Med and not as many people know about them or more specifics about towns they had sacked or what day to day life was like. I don’t know maybe I’m too picky but this felt just a little dry and basic. He had been on a cruise going through the Suez Canal that was attacked by pirates in 2011 and THAT seemed like something he could have talked more about but instead it was just a little addition to his last slide like Oh by the way. I think I would have opened with “I survived a pirate attack” (see really grabs you doesn’t it?)

Carlos went off to watch Chimpanzee. I did not join him; no way could I watch a little orphan left alone in the jungle. I can never click on those stories of little animals orphaned in the wild, it makes me think of orphan kids, who make me think of my son and what if we were in a terrible accident and he was all alone. I’m a mess I know it, that’s just my irrational thing. Carlos clearly isn’t as mentally unbalanced as I am, but still he was really disappointed in the movie (who looks smart now?)

While he was at the movie, I picked up Carlitos and we went back to the room to dress up for pirate night (when you don’t get up until 12:15 the day just flies by). I do not dress up for pirate night. I also don’t dress up for Halloween (I know, I am no fun, every party has a pooper that’s why we invited you). Carlitos wore a skull and bones sweater, a hook, an eye patch, bandana, and pirate flag necklace. He looked like a cute little preppy pirate; one that would attack your yacht and maybe borrow your ipad. All decked out we went out to take pictures with Hook, Smee, pirate Minnie, and Peter Pan. These lines were obviously much longer. Carlos found us in the lobby and then we went back to the room so he could dress up (poor Carlos, I know it’s not as much fun for him to dress up without me doing it too).

The show tonight was a hypnotist so we headed down to the theater. I’m sure this guy isn’t on the disboards so I won’t hurt his feelings by saying he was well..creepy; really really creepy. It probably didn’t help that he started off by saying he’d “been on board all week watching us as we went to shows, walked around, ate” (it would not have shocked me if he added while you sleep but thank God he didn’t). He seemed like the type of guy who would have a dinner party, invite everyone over into the living room, and then you’d wake up an hour later wearing someone else’s socks and have no idea what happened. He’s probably a lovely man….

After telling us he’d been watching us, he did a little exercise with everyone that involved getting your fingers stuck together. I refuse to participate in these; I deliberately sing songs in my head so I don’t “accidently” get hypnotized. I found out at dinner the next night that our friend’s 10 year old did the same thing (she’s a smart girl!). He got about 30 people on stage and did an exercise with them to pick who he would keep. I think about a dozen people stayed on stage, and he did various things with them like pretending they were cold, pretending they were Miss America, you know the drill. At random he would yell “sleep, sleep sleep” and they would all pass out (not creepy at all-geesh). He did one thing at the end where he said he was invisible and then swept the stage with a broom and held a kid up like he was flying. That was kind of cool. At the end he plugged his DVDs/CDs that were for sale in the gift shop. The way he did it seemed cheesy. This guy made me wish for John Charles (let that sink in).

I made sure he wasn’t trailing us and we headed to Studio Sea for the Pirates Life For Me game show. It was cute and this one has activities that involve all the kids. We were in Lumiere’s for Pirate menu night. We were also alone. Our friends were at Palo that night. I didn’t realize how great it was having dinner with them until they were gone (I mean I knew it was fun but I didn’t realize that it really made the meal for us). We really loved meeting up at dinner every night, talking to anyone other than our immediate family, the kids talked, we talked to the adults, it was just really awesome. For anyone that’s hesitant about sitting with strangers, I would really give it a try. We had one bad match before (it was hilariously bad- for the first 30 minutes we didn’t think the other family spoke English since they completely and utterly ignored us and then the father told Carlos “you took my bread plate”. That was his first words to any of us, and yeah they spoke English, just not to us. We were moved though and it all worked out). So the worse that could happen is you spend one bad meal with oddballs. On the flip side you just might meet some really cool people who end up getting you to go on Transatlantic cruises (seems like a good risk/benefit for me!).

Anyway, we were on our own, abandoned, lost at sea, with only our server and assistant to guide us through dinner. I got double appetizers (to console myself)-the crab cakes (okay), pot stickers (really good. I don’t think a lot of people order this because it seems like an odd choice but they’re good), jerk chicken salad (good), and the chicken breast with jasmine rice (horrible). When you see chicken breast on a menu what do you expect? Do you expect a smallish piece of chicken on a bed of rice? (uh yeah, me too) What I didn’t expect was a huge chicken torso complete with giant bone sticking out of it. It looked like half of a rotisserie chicken (minus the legs) was thrown on my plate. I actually laughed and asked Carlos “WTH is this?”. He gave me some of his macadamia crusted mahi mahi (it was really fantastic- that might have just been the chicken breast talking though).

Carlos had a headache which is really unusual and I was just over everything. They did the big pirate show where all the servers dance and limbo and they pull the kids up with them. Carlitos went up even though he’s shy and laughed and laughed. We watched counting down the seconds. Our servers came by for their high fives and to return the kids and then ran back to the kitchen. While the head servers were still waving those big pirate flags, we were out the door. I’m sure Limbert and Martin came back and thought where did everyone go? We left without even looking at the dessert menu. I’m surprised they didn’t put out an APB on us.

We went back to the room (completely skipping the pirate party on deck). It was only 9:45 but we went to bed, hoping that maybe we could get back on a normal schedule. If we weren’t staying on board and getting another pirate night I think I would have dragged myself up there.

 

[cforsythe]

LOVE, LOVE , LOVE your report so far!!!

Tell your DH that we disboard people love our funny, detailed reports.

Cant wait for more!!

 

[Kirbo]

You are my new favorite person

I thought the hypnotist was awful . We had Ricky Kaloman (sp?) on our MR cruise and he was a riot. But this guy was cheesy and, I agree, creepy. I felt as if he would be perfect in Vegas. (Same with the magician.) But I did love when he got Steve to forget his name ("Is it Cromwell?" ) We ended up seeing Steve and his partner Ron all over the ship for the rest of the cruise and on the Med.

 

[gotomu212]

Day 9: Saturday May 25th

SUCCESS! We were up at 9 am. (This is the state of our vacation; we are celebrating waking up at 9 am). We had breakfast at Parrot Cay, strolled through Shutters (if we are not buying the pictures why do we keep collecting them and putting them in a pile? Because we are hoarders- we also have 18 cats in our stateroom). Chip and Dale were out in the lobby and we stopped for Carlitos to play around with them. They stole his crown and hijinks ensued (oh did I mention that he was wearing his crown from the Princess Party all the time now? No?, yep, everywhere we went).

We played some shuffle board on Deck 4 (Bowling Board to Carlitos). He doesn’t quite grasp the game, or maybe he does and he was just playing dumb to scam us. He kept winning so he was doing something right. Carlos and Carlitos went swimming and I went up to Deck 10 to read and enjoy the sun over the Mickey Pool. SUDDENLY I heard the lifeguard blowing his whistle over and over and people scrambling. I looked over the rail and they were pulling kids out of the pool faster than a Jaws sighting. It took me a second to figure out what I was looking at but (OH GOD, grossest thing ever!) The pool would be closed for several hours while men in hazmat suits scrubbed every inch of it. I didn’t see Carlos and Carlitos (I later found out that he was in the pool when it happened but had no idea what it was—uh BATH NOW-scalding hot bath). I went down to deck 9 and walked all around the Goofy Pool trying to find them. I didn’t have any luck (I found out later that they were shoved in a hot tub with about 12 other people since the Goofy pool got very crowded after the evacuation.) I really did look for them. I wandered into the arcade, back by both pools, down to the club, through promenade, where else could they be? Oh well, I went to the room to luxuriate in the silence and read.

But first, remember how I told you I was in room 6030 right off the elevators? I took the forward elevator, got out, noticed by stateroom door was propped up and Ronald was cleaning the bathroom. Well, that’s fine; Ronald and I are ole friends now. I went in and lay down on the bed with my book. I heard Ronald finishing up, walking into the main room…and OH MY GOD that’s not Ronald! Wait oh my friggin word, that’s not our stuff on the dresser...HOLY COW,THIS ISN’T MY ROOM. We both looked at each other, I jumped up, yelled “this never happened”, and ran out of the room. Jesus I’m on Deck 7. I took those steps 5 at a time and hid in my room.

At 3:30, Carlos and Carlitos came back to the room and I never told them what happened. I just played it cool. “Hey was looking for you guys. Oh you were in the hot tubs? Weird I looked there. Me? Oh nothing just been in the room, just this room, nowhere else, NOTHING HAPPENED. Why are you looking at me like that?” (I’m amazing under pressure right. I’d never break in an interrogation.) We hung out in the room watching a movie while Carlos shot side eyes at me (maybe I was paranoid?).

The show tonight was magician Scott Pepper. I generally find magicians creepy but after last night this guy seemed like a nice normal bloke. When we were walking in we each got a piece of paper and were told to write our names down. I hate this kind of stuff since I never want to be picked for anything in these shows. There has to be 800 people in here though so no worries. We were a little farther back tonight, almost the last row in the lower section. The show was good. He’s probably not the best magician but he has a lot of fun energy, a cool assistant, and again he didn’t seem weird. So here’s the big set up. We take out our papers and fold them into paper airplanes. There was an instructional video but I gave up half way through it and just made some random folds. Carlitos asked me to help him, took a look at the hot mess my plane was, and then asked dad instead. I actually said “whatever it doesn’t matter”. We fold them, and then we’re supposed to throw them at the stage towards a hanging chalkboard. Under the chalkboard is a box. Whoever gets the plane in the box or is the closest wins. I got hit in the back of the head by no less than 3 planes (I guess I have a big head and they kind of hurt) so I just tanked my plane into the ground. Carlitos asked daddy to throw his plane and it soared up to about the front row. At this point we’re not sure exactly what happened. There are still a lot of planes flying, I’m trying to protect my eyes, someone hits the chalkboard dead on and the plane falls in the box, it’s a good time all around right? Guy walks over to the box, takes the plane, opens and yells out “CARLITOS”. (whaaaa? I am now believer). Now the true hilarity starts because the guy is yelling Carlitos and Carlitos is trying to raise his hand but Carlos (who saw Carlitos’ plane fall in the first row) is grabbing is arm and saying “no, no. There must be another Carlitos”. The guy is like “hello, maybe I’m saying this wrong?” and I’m saying “there’s not another Carlitos on the ship, it’s him dude” and Carlitos doesn’t know what to do, so I push him into the aisle. There is relief now that we have found Carlitos in the crowd. (We suspect that someone in the front one picked up the plane off the floor and flew it into the box. To him I say “nice flying son.”)

Apparently we were suppose to also write our favorite character on the paper (no one told us) but no worries he yell/whispers Chip and Dale and is told to go sit down. Magic guy wads up the paper and throws it into the crowd to a random kid and that kid is asked his favorite food (escargot- seriously a nine year old said escargot), then he threw it back behind us and asked best place to visit (USA-um kinda vague), that guy throws it to the right wing where- who pops up but our friend John (this feels staged) what’s your favorite weather (storms). At this point, they call Carlitos down to the front to give him a prize for his airplane going in the box. Carlitos is dressed in a blue sweater vest, striped pants, is wearing a huge crown, and is carrying a little white polar bear named Mr. Pettibow. I just needed to paint that picture for you. He actually got some “ahhhhs” out of the crowd. (Several times later in the week I would yell at him “Carlitos stop that, get over here” or something similar and people would turn around and say ohhh it’s Carlitos from the show.) He got a Scott Pepper DVD out of the deal and he’s very excited about it still. After all of that….the trick didn’t work. They couldn’t get the cover off the chalkboard. We are assuming it would have shown Chip and Dale eating escargot in the US during a storm but alas we’ll never know. We are one Scott Pepper magic DVD richer though. John brought the paper he’d caught to dinner and it was really cute to see Carlitos written in 5 year old handwriting and all crumbled up (magic, magic, magic-sorry that was such a long story).

Feeling lucky we went to Studio Sea for Disney Ultimate Trivia. There were 25 questions, and they were really really hard. We got 2….that’s right 2 correct. I did not enjoy that little exercise, but hey we still have that free DVD so we’re all winners (well I guess not all, just us and the trivia people).

Dinner tonight was Animator’s and it was the Transatlantic menu. I got double appetizers to celebrate the win- smoked salmon and caviar (yum, yum, yum) and cheese/bacon tart (not good, at all. How can something with bacon be so wrong?), lettuce head salad (um this was an actual 4th of a head of lettuce, nothing else. They took a head of lettuce used a big knife to cut it in 4s and threw it in a bowl), and grilled salmon and risotto (very good but the salmon was HUGE-it had to be the biggest piece of fish I’ve been served). For dessert I got strawberry cheesecake-it might have been on the sugar free section and it was good. We also got the temptation trio because Limbert loves us and always gets it without asking, he’s the best.

We lingered over dinner a long time (often we were some of the last ones out), picked up the kids, played some more Uno, and called it a night around 1 am. We have another time change so I guess it was really 2. Boo time changes.

 

[Kirbo]

Love that Carlitos was called!

The chalkboard, when uncovered, was an old note written by a former student named Carlitos. He wrote that he loved Chip and Dale, etc. It worked during our second seating show.

I might have liked the magician better if we'd gotten our airplane up there . I just thought he was another cheesy Vegas guy. But if he'd called the name of one of my girls, I would have loved him

 

[gotomu212]

Love that Carlitos was called!

The chalkboard, when uncovered, was an old note written by a former student named Carlitos. He wrote that he loved Chip and Dale, etc. It worked during our second seating show.

I might have liked the magician better if we'd gotten our airplane up there . I just thought he was another cheesy Vegas guy. But if he'd called the name of one of my girls, I would have loved him

So what happened with the food, vacation spot,and weather answers? There was SO much build up (like 10 minutes) and then when it didn't work you could almost hear the wah, wa,,wah music.

 

[chiburple]

Love you're TR so far! It has me literally laughing out loud which might sound like a good thing, until I tell you that I'm sitting at work in a little cube surrounded by slightly irritated coworkers.

You can tell your DH that I go to beach blanket & cabanas to get food for my family all the time. I even ask for one of the kids trays cause you can load more food onto them. We do get the coffee and drinks from room service though so that makes it a little easier on me since the last time I was carrying for 5 people. Other people in line must have thought I was the biggest pig ever!

 

[ThePhantomsGirl]

You give good trip report!

 

[gotomu212]

You can tell your DH that I go to beach blanket & cabanas to get food for my family all the time. I even ask for one of the kids trays cause you can load more food onto them. We do get the coffee and drinks from room service though so that makes it a little easier on me since the last time I was carrying for 5 people. Other people in line must have thought I was the biggest pig ever!

He gets the kids' trays too and says "not only do people think I'm an idiot for walking around with a kid's tray but they also think I'm a pig for eating 6 eggs and a pound of bacon." I told him he seemed a little cranky and maybe a stroll to pick up juice would make him feel better (he didn't appreciate my concerned tone or helpful suggestion).

I never thought about ordering the drinks from room service. I read you quote to him, and he said "now that woman is helpful".

 

[Kirbo]

So what happened with the food, vacation spot,and weather answers? There was SO much build up (like 10 minutes) and then when it didn't work you could almost hear the wah, wa,,wah music.

It was something (not exactly) like, "I love Chip and Dale and eating escargot when vacationing in the USA during stormy weather. By Carlitos."

He gets the kids' trays too and says "not only do people think I'm an idiot for walking around with a kid's tray but they also think I'm a pig for eating 6 eggs and a pound of bacon." I told him he seemed a little cranky and maybe a stroll to pick up juice would make him feel better (he didn't appreciate my concerned tone or helpful suggestion).

I never thought about ordering the drinks from room service. I read you quote to him, and he said "now that woman is helpful".

Whenever I was getting (excessive amounts of) desserts for all of us I wanted to loudly tell everyone that I saw that they were for a number of us

 

[chiburple]

He gets the kids' trays too and says "not only do people think I'm an idiot for walking around with a kid's tray but they also think I'm a pig for eating 6 eggs and a pound of bacon." I told him he seemed a little cranky and maybe a stroll to pick up juice would make him feel better (he didn't appreciate my concerned tone or helpful suggestion).

I never thought about ordering the drinks from room service. I read you quote to him, and he said "now that woman is helpful".

Glad I could help!