April 27th Report Part Five

[kritters4]

Hi Everyone!! After St. M & St. T. we had an uneventful day at Sea. We tried hard to stay out of the sun because we wanted to enjoy Castaway Cay. Lots of things on the ship to do, we went to Bingo, went to a Navagators Series with the Captain and his officers, went to a Navagators Series on Napkin folding and mixing drinks, saw the galley tour of the kitchen, and the kids took in Harry Potter. I was happy at times to just sit on the varanda of our room and read, although the entire trip I think I read about 10 pages in all, there was always so much to do or see. Castaway Cay is everything everyone says it is and more, just BEAUTIFUL!! We didn't rush off the ship, we had a relaxing breakfast at Topsiders and then got off the ship around 10. We did have trouble finding chairs with an umbrella in a good location, so we just found some chairs (and moved a few others) near the bushes to get at least some shade. As the day went on people began to leave and the umbrella and chairs opened up, wasn't really a problem since we swam and snorkled then had lunch. We didn't take our cooler as we had in St. Maartin, really didn't need it, lots of drinks and good food, just be somewhere near Cookies. We did take the cooler to ST. Maartin and it was really great to have cool drinks and food. DH, DD and I ordered room service the night before, turkey sand's and PB&J for DS, (way too muchy to eat and had to reorder in the AM, even then too much jelly and became mushy, ) just order Peanut butter and take jelly packets from topsiders if your trying to save some $$. Had zip lock bags as sugested and they worked fine. We had snorkle equip. from home and this really saved $$ as well. If you look at the map of CC there are two coves of family beaches, as we walked during the day the second cove was way less crowded, but kind of far from Cookies, so it's a trade off. We took a hike to Serenity Bay and it is beautiful, just wish I would have taken the snorkel mask with me. By the time we got there, long hot walk, I was happy just to sit in the water and look at the little fishies swimming by! Took the tram back to the family beach, well worth the wait if it's hot. Just a beautiful island, Disney really knows how to do it up right. Friendly people, clean bathrooms, good food, beautiful blue ocean wish I could be there RIGHT NOW!! All too soon they are announcing 1/2 hour till you need to get out of the water. :0( Before you know it the whistles blow and time to leave paradise. Plenty of time to walk back to the ship and take pictures. Such a great day!
So now it's time to get ready to pack up, UGH!!! As said before, you don't have to actually go to the disembarkment talk, it's on TV over and over. Seemd to take awhile to organize our luggage, but we were going to a resort for the day and needed change of clothes for the plane and pool stuff ( SUNSCREEN) for the day, not to mention is was just so darn sad. Luggage had to be out by Midnight, didn't really have a problem having it done. Disembarkment is really organized, they give you luggage tags in your room and instructions for the morning on how and where to get your luggage. Luckly US Air takes the luggage from the port, so we wouldn't see it till we got home. Hubbie went to Guest Services to charge the tips for our servers, envelops came to the room for this and they said it is usually given at the last dinner.Our rotation was PLA so our last dinner was at Parrotts. We liked all the restaurants, if we had to choose we all might be able to give a favorite, but don't stress over your rotation they are all really good. People say they want to be in Parrotts for the Tropical night or Lumiers for formal night, didn't seem to matter as all you dinner mates are dressed as you and your servers too! Kids were really tired after the day of swimming so after dinner they were DONE, just wanted to go to bed. I on the other hand wanted to walk all around and look at everyting one last time. Things were really deserted as most also seemed to be done. Oh well.......
Woke up early, not too much to worry about as the luggage was gone, ( heard no noise as some reported, we were on deck 7) and went to Parotts for breakfast. Late seating was at 8:30 early at 6:30 (!). Once you leave your room your not supposta go back as the steward is then supposta clean for the next guests to come, so once you leave they frown upon going back. Our servers didn't seem overly greatful at their tip, wondered if many people tip over the recommended amount. (?) Breakfast is served to you, no buffet, the kids loved the buffets, and then time to say Bye-Bye! I wanted to go up to deck 10 again, but the family looked at me like ...are you kidding??? Just didn't really want it to end. :0( Some afterthougts still to come...stay tuned!!

 

[daltonsdodisney]

Do you mean the servers see what kind of tip you gave them in front of you?

 

[kritters4]

It was suggested that you give the envelop the last dinner. You get to see your survers at breakfast, so even though they don't actually open it in front of you, you do see them the next day at breakfast.

 

[MICHELLENDEAN]

We did the same thing...we were not so impressed with the service and ended up eating in the room most nights (due to our 2 year old) we did give the recommended tip and the next day at breakfast they (our servers) seemed to rush us and seem pretty cold...breakfast was unusually sparce as well!!

 

[Chattyaholic]

and I think our servers appreciated that, as we were greeted very warmly at breakfast the following morning. I think many people tip more than the recommended amount, as most people realize the servers work very, very hard to make your cruise a good one. If I remember correctly we tipped our server $20 more, $10 more to the assistant server, and $20 more to our stateroom host. I think we tipped the head server more than the recommended amount too as he was visible every night, going from table to table and talking to people, he also joined in to sing to my husband and myself when they brought a cake to celebrate our 25th anniversary, and he was there at the door every night to greet people, and again to say goodnight. I also saw him helping various servers out occasionally by serving food to several tables. If you divide the "recommended amount" to tip by the number of days you are cruising, it really isn't that much per day, not for the service you're getting. And not only do your servers serve you at night, they are there, somewhere, working at breakfast and lunch as well. So they work long, hard hours for their tips and I think most people try to tip generously for that service.