Disney Magic B2B Western Caribbeans, April 12-26, 2015 Trip Report, Navs & More!

[st37]

Thanks for the directions. Very helpful. I have another question though that you may not be able to answer because you took tours. I would assume that they are set to take cash? Not worried so much about Jamaica because of the economy but last I heard the dollar is lower than the GC dollar.

 

[AAshleySEG]

Your picture with Donald is precious, I love taking pics with the characters!! The food in Cozumel looks amazing, love authentic Mexican food! How did you decide to book this particular food tour and where did you find it??

Thank you so much, we love character photos, last year we spent an entire day on a character hunt, getting as many of them as we could...it was so much fun!

I looked up Food Tours on TripAdvisor and read all the reviews to see which ones were the best and then went to their websites and looked at photos of the food! The Cozumel Chef had fantastic reviews, and the food looked delicious, the same with the Grand Cayman Food Tour. Trip Advisor always helps me out, I have booked a few things that way before, I did some Alaska excursions that way instead of booking through Disney. This was the actual first time we booked any DCL excursions! There was also a Food Tour I wanted to book for Jamaica, but sadly by the time we booked our cruise it was already sold out. Maybe another time though...

 

[AAshleySEG]

Thanks for the directions. Very helpful. I have another question though that you may not be able to answer because you took tours. I would assume that they are set to take cash? Not worried so much about Jamaica because of the economy but last I heard the dollar is lower than the GC dollar.

You are so welcome! I know definitely that we paid with US Dollars everywhere we went in Grand Cayman on our own, like the shops and things, it is really close to the port, so they may take USD, just not exactly positive about Singh's Roti. In Jamaica, I feel like everywhere in the port took USD, they even listed all of their prices that way. I never even saw anything that wanted Jamaican Dollars. You could probably send Singh's Roti a facebook question or something like that or even send an email to the Cayman Food Tours, they would probably know Hope that helps!

 

[disney2mom]

Thank you so much, we love character photos, last year we spent an entire day on a character hunt, getting as many of them as we could...it was so much fun!

I looked up Food Tours on TripAdvisor and read all the reviews to see which ones were the best and then went to their websites and looked at photos of the food! The Cozumel Chef had fantastic reviews, and the food looked delicious, the same with the Grand Cayman Food Tour. Trip Advisor always helps me out, I have booked a few things that way before, I did some Alaska excursions that way instead of booking through Disney. This was the actual first time we booked any DCL excursions! There was also a Food Tour I wanted to book for Jamaica, but sadly by the time we booked our cruise it was already sold out. Maybe another time though...

Thanks for the info, this whole cruising thing is new to me! I didn't realize you could book excursions ahead of time thru another company. I will look at Trip Advisor for our next cruise!!

 

[KarriTigger]

I really enjoy your writing style...and love your trip report.

 

[AAshleySEG]

Thanks for the info, this whole cruising thing is new to me! I didn't realize you could book excursions ahead of time thru another company. I will look at Trip Advisor for our next cruise!!

You are very welcome! It is really fun for me to see what activities are in certain areas other than what the cruise lines offer. Sometimes (most of the time), they are less expensive as well. I just always make sure to read as many reviews as I can, so I don't get ripped off either! We did 3 excursions with DCL this time, some were better than others, but the bad thing is I can't really read reviews for those except when someone posts something on disboards or the company happens to be on trip advisor as well and you know what it is beforehand. Hope you have a great time on anything that you decided to do this time around!!

 

[AAshleySEG]

I really enjoy your writing style...and love your trip report.

Aww, thank you!! I am so glad you are enjoying it!!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Thursday, April 16th, 2015 - Part Three
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The first stop we made when we got back onto the ship was to the stateroom. We dropped off our things and checked the Navigator to see what type of things were going on. The only thing that was really happening was a movie in the Buena Vista Theater. So we went to go and see Into The Woods. If you like this movie, I am very sorry for what I am about to say. Both Jeremy and I really did not like it. On second thought, that is all I am going to say about that. Once the movie was over we went back to the room to get showered and ready for dinner. Tonight was Pirate Night, so we had the fun "Pirates IN the Caribbean" menu!

Black Beard's Jumbo Crab Cake - Jeremy
with a Golden Raisin-Carrot and Coconut slaw served with a spicy Calypso dressing

Pirates Golden "Pot Stickers" - Andrea
Oriental Pork Dumplings Deep Fried and served with a Tamarind-Ginger Soy Sauce and Pickled Vegetables

The Buccaneer's Sun-Ripened Pineapple - Victor (For us To Try)
Fresh Island Pineapple with a Coconut covered Banana and Orange Glaze

Sunken Vegetable Treasure - Andrea
Black-Eyed Pea and Quinoa Croquettes with a Mushroom Sauce

The Dutchman's Dijon Crusted Sirloin of Beef - Jeremy
Thick cut of beef with Oven-Roasted Sweet Potatoes and a Black Spot Tomato, with a Deep Red Wine Glaze

Captain Hook's Macadamia Nut Dusted Mahi Mahi - Victor (for us to try)
Jasmine Rice, Sauteed Pineapples, and a Mild Curry Sauce

Bounty Fruit Cobbler - Andrea
with Vanilla Ice Cream

Coconut Cream Treasure - Jeremy
Encased with Passion Fruit Jelly and Mango Sauce

Banana - Chocolate Filled Crepes - Victor (for us to try)
Served with Mango Coulis and Roasted Coconut

​

Victor talked Jeremy into joining in the limbo line with him, not one time around but twice! I sat and recorded video of that for proof! Once we were finished with dinner we headed up to Deck 10 for the Pirate Party Show. Due to getting out of dinner so late, we couldn't really see anything, which was fine, as we had seen it before. So we just kind of watched and waited and listened until the party was over and the fireworks were going to start!

After the fireworks we were really tired from everything we did today. Even though Victor and Yanupa told us to go to the Pirate Buffet...we did not. We just headed back to the room and met our little monkey towel animal for the evening, then it was time for a little Navigator reading and bed! Tomorrow was another day at sea!

Next Up: Quintessential Disney Cruise Line Experience!!!

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[Linda67]

Great updates!
Your foodie tour of Cozumel looks great and what I really love, is that you got to check out places you probably wouldn't have just stumbled across
No pirate night for us in a couple of weeks, Frozen is taking over
Oh and yeah, I understand where you are coming from with 'Into The Woods'

 

[egesicki]

Living vicariously through your trip report. We have the same 7 night itinerary for Thanksgiving 2016; so long to wait! Thanks for all the photos and comments, learning lots about the Magic and the ports. Do you think elementary school age kids would like the chocolate factory?

 

[AAshleySEG]

Great updates!
Your foodie tour of Cozumel looks great and what I really love, is that you got to check out places you probably wouldn't have just stumbled across
No pirate night for us in a couple of weeks, Frozen is taking over
Oh and yeah, I understand where you are coming from with 'Into The Woods'

Yeah, I am pretty sure I would have never made it that deep into Cozumel on a one day trip, definitely not without someone who knows the area, so I am very pleased that we found this tour!! I am definitely interested in how the Frozen festivities are going to turn out! I would love to hear about it once you get back! And yes...Into The Woods...

 

[AAshleySEG]

Living vicariously through your trip report. We have the same 7 night itinerary for Thanksgiving 2016; so long to wait! Thanks for all the photos and comments, learning lots about the Magic and the ports. Do you think elementary school age kids would like the chocolate factory?

You are very welcome, I always love to read trip reports before I go anywhere Disney related, I usually get some good ideas from them! It is nice to see how other people spend their vacations...lol!! As far as the chocolate factory goes, we didn't really get the full tour, we actually were supposed to go somewhere else on our food tour, so the only thing we did was taste the chocolate. There is supposedly a really awesome tour there where you get to make your own chocolate and learn a lot about the process. Here is the link to some reviews for the Chocolates Kaokao Factory Tour from Trip Advisor. There are lots of photos and definitely elementary school age kids making their own chocolate! I would suggest to read some of the reviews on there, I think that may help more than I could. It looks really fun to me, and there are children doing it, and they look like they are having fun!!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Friday, April 17th, 2015

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Another day at sea! I always love exploring the ship and seeing which fun activities are available. We always go up and check out the pool deck, it is almost always too crowded for us to even think of going there. I am not a big fan of pool crowds. For breakfast, yet again, we chose Cabanas! This morning we saw Victor pushing his "BMW" which is actually a dish cart! After we finished up with our breakfast we headed down to D Lounge to watch the Anyone Can Cook series and learn how to make Lobster Ravioli!

Chef Lindsey was our teacher and he chose someone from the crowd to be his sous chef! As we were watching everything someone started bringing around wine for our tasting. It was definitely something new for me to be having wine at 10:30 in the morning, but hey, we are on vacation!

As they were finishing up the dish, another castmember started handing out the small plates of Lobster Ravioli. I thought it was pretty good, I would definitely make it differently at home. I am not the biggest fan of wonton wrappers as pasta, and as far as the seasoning, it was a little underwhelming. I definitely may tinker with this one for my blog! It was a fun experience though, and I would recommend going, if you like food!

Our next stop was on Deck 4. We always love to play Shuffleboard. We never get around to doing it as much as we like, but we did make time, and oh man...was it awesome! I always used to play shuffleboard, when I was little, with my family a lot. We even had a shuffleboard court in our basement...if you can believe that. It was a great day outside, and a great day for a little competition!

Anyone notice a "Hidden Mickey" in the background of that photo?? Well...I never imagined in a million years that this sort of thing actually happens on a Disney Cruise. It is kind of like when you see one of those Walt Disney World commercials, where kids run up to Mickey, or a Princess in the middle of a land or Main Street...and that just does not happen...sorry to disappoint anyone headed there. But we were just playing shuffleboard and Mickey walked up, and actually started playing a round with me! How cool is that!!

We had so much fun, and that is a memory that is going to stay with me for a very long time! When we were done playing it was time for a little relaxation. All of the lounge chairs on 4 were filled with people so we headed up to Deck 10 to look for some loungers in the shade. We wanted to head to the DVC Presentation later to see if there were any special offers for this particular sailing so we didn't stay too long, just enough to lay down in the shade and feel the breeze for a bit! After the DVC presentation we walked down to the shops to look and see what things we might want to get at the end of the second cruise. As always I like magnets, but they had some really cute luggage tags and also I wanted one of the butter knives from Animator's Palate. I thought it would be a fun thing to have! Jeremy thought it would be cool to have a sword or is it a cutlass? I am not very good with weapon names! He thinks he is a Pirate!

Instead of Cabanas or a sit-down lunch, we wanted to go up to Pete's Boiler Bites. I ended up getting a "Spicy Chicken Burger" the burger word threw me off, but really it is just a crispy, spicy chicken sandwich...and it is delicious...I would be having a few more of these as the next cruise went on!

Jeremy had a regular burger, and he was totally jealous of the awesomeness that was my chicken sandwich!!

For dessert we headed over to the ice cream area, I think I had the Mango-Vanilla Swirl and Jeremy got a chocolate-vanilla swirl! Next on the agenda was, you guessed it, trivia! It was another round of Disney Tunes Trivia in the Promenade Lounge! We ended up with I think 42 out of 45, so a pretty good showing, not enough to win, but I was at least proud of myself! O'Gills was the next destination on our list and they were having Brainteasers Trivia. It was a little difficult and I think we had 11 answers correct out of 25. That was a little sad, but hey, we had fun anyway!! With not too much going on that we wanted to do, we headed back to the room and ordered the All Hands on Deck Cheese Platter and some cookies to snack on! For some reason my cheese didn't come with any crackers, like it stated on the menu, but oh well, I made do!

Tonight was semi-formal night and we were in Lumiere's. So we got a little dressed up again and while we were waiting to go to dinner we made our way up to the pool deck and watched Wreck-It Ralph on Funnel Vision! It was always quiet up there at this time of night, which I really loved, I wish we could have done it more often than we did! There was a little game show in D Lounge called "So You Think You Know Your Family". This sounded like it could be pretty funny...and it did not disappoint!! Once the show was over it was time for us to get to dinner! Luckily, we only had to go down one floor to get there!

The menu tonight was the Captain's Gala menu, and we really enjoyed the food we had, too much as always, but it was definitely pretty good! Even the dessert!

Garlic and Herb Sauteed Shrimp - Both
with a zesty lemon-aioli with spaghetti vegetables

Minestrone - Jeremy
Our hearty vegetable broth loaded with an array of vegetables

Wild Forest Mushroom Soup - Andrea
swirled with White Truffle Oil

Fettuccine with Parmesan Crusted Chicken - Jeremy
Chicken encrusted in Parmesan Cheese with Sweet Peppers and Mushrooms in a Cheddar Cheese Sauce

Oven-Baked Lobster Tail - Andrea
served in shell with Lemon Butter, Bean Casserole, and Saffron Rice

Ginger and Teriyaki Crusted Yellow Fin Tuna - Victor (for us to try)
with Bok Choy, Soybeans, Ginger-Sesame scented rice noodles, and a Ponzu Glaze

Warm Chocolate Lava Cake - Both
Baked Chocolate Delicacy served warm with double chocolate sauce

Banana Creme Brulee - Victor (for us to try)

Captain's Sweet Temptations - Victor (for us to try)
A trio of Amaretto Cheesecake, Banana Creme Brulee, and a Coconut Macaroon
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Beyond stuffed, we somehow made it back to our room. Waiting for us when we arrived were a lovely pair of swans crafted by Ebit! Tomorrow was our first day at Castaway Cay!! This is always the day we seem to be looking forward to the most! We could not wait to get on that island again!!

Next Up: Peace and Quiet on Serenity Bay...will I get a sunburn???

P.S. Just a little note, We are heading on a camping trip to Iceland for our anniversary in a little less than two weeks. I am going to try my best to get this TR finished before we go, so I wanted to apologize if it starts to seemed rushed and the posts either get really long or short...I just knew that if I don't get it completed, there would possibly be an over two week post drought, since we are going to be gone for 12 nights. But for now, everything is as normal!! Thank you everyone for reading along with me, I hope to have another post up very soon!!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Saturday, April 18th, 2015 - Part One
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We woke up this morning and when we turned the television on to the map, it showed that we had made it Castaway Cay!! This is always for any Disney cruiser, one of the highlights of the vacation! It is just such an amazing place. We are always so excited that we get up and try to get out of the room for breakfast early enough so that as soon as we are allowed on to the island, we go!

The first thing I always do before I leave the room on Castaway Cay day, is to put sunscreen EVERYWHERE! Now, last night at dinner, Victor had mentioned certain places to avoid because of the potential of the "sea lice" which are actually just the larval stage of thimble jellyfish. The other 2 times at Castaway Cay, we never had a problem, the only reason I knew about it beforehand was reading other trip reports and posts on Disboards. Apparently springtime, when the waters start to get warmer, is when they are "possibly" around. This is really not nearly as big of a deal as people make it out to be. Considering Victor mentioned it, we went ahead and grabbed a bottle of Safe Sea. SPOILER ALERT: We had no problems with this at all, and the second time at Castaway Cay we did not use the Safe Sea at all. But if it really is important to you, they sell it on the ship.

So when I was all sun screened up, I put on my swimsuit, braided my hair (well Jeremy braided it for me), and then put on my sun hat and I was ready to go!

We headed up to Cabanas to get my usual breakfast of fruit, croissants, and milk. We found a really nice spot outside to sit while we ate with a fantastic view of Castaway Cay!

Jeremy had just gotten a new "rash guard" (swim shirt), with good ole SPF for him to wear, he got two for this trip so he wanted to wear his bright blue one today! The other one is an actual rash guard, this one isn't really, or at least I would not consider it to be one.

After breakfast we walked down to Deck 4, I wanted to call home and check on my dogs considering yesterday was a day at sea, and I was not able to call home. After that, we just waited around snapping some photos until the announcement came on that we were cleared to head on to Castaway Cay! It looked like it was going to be an AMAZING day!

We made our way off the ship, grabbed some towels, and made our way over to the tram. A few minutes later we were off and headed to the Pelican Point tram stop where we were going to have to change over to the tram for Serenity Bay!

Without too much of a wait time, the next tram was here and we were almost to the wonderful calm of Serenity Bay! Now...there is only one thing that really irks me about Serenity Bay...and it is the people. This is a large debate type topic so I will only say a little about it. Firstly, there are PLENTY of umbrella/lounge chairs around, so please feel free (IMHO) to reserve one for yourself for the duration of your stay at Serenity Bay. But please for the respect of other people don't reserve a hammock unless you are physically going to stay in it all day long!!! It is really not fair to anyone and you are being very inconsiderate (IMHO) if you do so. Moving on...Jeremy and I walk all the way to the very end of the beach, to the very last lounge chair/umbrella and stay, it is a very long way, but it is worth it for us.

Not many people at all come down here and if you go in the morning, there is a very good reason why you should. The very last hammock on the end is in the shade of a tree! This is the only time of day I actually will use the hammock, so as soon as I am done with it, I get out...and "leave nothing in it"! It is wonderful, I get there in the morning when the beach is deserted, use the hammock for 15-20 minutes while it is in the shade, then leave it for someone else. Here is a photo of my favorite hammock spot!

As soon as we get there, the water is always calling Jeremy's name! It looks so inviting, he was all lathered in sunscreen, so that is where he went as soon as it was rubbed in.

I park myself in the hammock for the 20 minutes or so it says to wait after applying the sunscreen. Nice, relaxing, my sunscreen has time to set, I am in the shade, which for me is fantastic since I am so fair-skinned! Peace, tranquility, serenity...bay!

I had ordered us a bucket of water that way we could stay hydrated while we were here. so I waited until that was delivered until I headed into the water myself. Before we came I wanted to make sure that I had a really good waterproof camera to take photos/videos with. Jeremy has a goPro, and sure it takes nice video, but we don't have the LCD thing for it so we can never tell until we get home and it is too late what we are actually shooting with it! I have a Canon T2i, which is my favorite camera for taking photos and videos, but it cannot go in to the water. So we debated for a while, read reviews, watched youtube videos and decided on the one we wanted! Today was going to be the first day it was going to get some real use!

Jeremy was pretty thrilled right away , he was finding really cool sea life as soon as he entered the water! Really large Sea Stars (Starfish), live Sand Dollars, which I had never seen, and even some fish!

Once my 20 minutes were up, I headed in and brought our little ocean ball to play around a little with, we took this time to get a photo of us together, which we never really do at CC, but since we had our nifty new camera, we did a lot of that!

After we finished with the ball, we took it back to the lounge chairs and decided to swim out to the sandbar. Which at this time of day you actually had to swim to get out there. Once we finally reached it we took a nice break and just relaxed in the water lounging on the sandbar. I think we ended up staying out there for about an hour before we decided to head back in, since we were getting prune-y fingers.

Once we made it back to our chairs, we read a little and just enjoyed the wonderful weather, we were planning on staying out of the water until it was time to go to the Serenity Bay BBQ for lunch!

Next Up: Sandcastles, Sea Worms, Sand Dollars, and Starfish!

 

[Linda67]

Fab updates again
The moment with Mickey playing shuffleboard must have been amazing - so, so cool

 

[AAshleySEG]

Saturday, April 18th, 2015 - Part Two
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At 11:30 we decided to start the walk down the beach to the Serenity Bay BBQ area. It is so convenient that we do not have to go all the way back over to the main areas of the island to have lunch! Plus, it is really nice and quiet, a break from all of the goings on back on the ship in the dining rooms and chaos of Cabanas or the pool deck!

It hadn't been extremely long since we had eaten breakfast, so I just chose a few things to have sort of a light lunch, besides I didn't want to be too full considering we were going back out in to the water later. So I had a little Lemon Chicken, Pasta, Tomato, and Potato salad, but just really small scoops of each!

Jeremy ended up with I think a cheeseburger, a hot dog, and a few other assorted items, like pickles and chips. He loves his pickles!!

When we had finished eating we walked back down the beach to our lounge chairs and started reapplying sunscreen, gotta keep up with that...sunburn is my worst enemy! So we both rested on the lounge chairs in the shade so my sunscreen would be working well when we decided to head back out to the sandbar. Jeremy wanted to show me the live sand dollar! I think I had only ever seen them the other way...white...inside beach shops and things that sell shells.

Another cool thing was that by this time in the afternoon the tide had gone out which meant that we could pretty much just walk right out to the sandbar instead of swimming out there! I was very happy just relaxing in the water in the sun and Jeremy decided that he wanted to build himself a sandcastle!

I started looking around at the sea life, it was really cool that a sting ray had decided to swim up and around the sandbar, and then I noticed a really odd "sea worm" under the water burrowing into the sand...or at least I think it is a worm?? I had never seen such a thing before so I took its photo!

A little while later Jeremy had finished building his sandcastle and wanted to show it off!

I was starting to get a little warm feeling, kind of like my sunscreen was about to wear out, so I went a little deeper into the water and found a really cool Sea Star!! It is crazy to me, how much this looks like pool water...it is so transparent and blue!

I put the little star back into his habitat and we started making our way back to the shore to get in the shade! When we made it back I checked my phone and we realized that we had been out there for over 2 hours!! No wonder I felt like my sunscreen was wearing off...oopsie! It was now around 2:15 so we decided that we would spend the remaining time we had on Castaway Cay reading some books that we had brought with us. The weather was so fantastic and we were really loving every minute of it!

At around 3:00 we decided to start making our way back to the ship. Jeremy wanted to try and ride the Aquadunk before a huge line formed once everyone was supposed to be back on the ship from CC. I was still a little apprehensive about riding it. I don't mind the height or any of that, my problem with those type of waterslides is the water shooting up my nose. It is just not a pleasant feeling and for some reason short of holding my nose, I can't seem to figure out how to make that not happen. So really it is just not the most fun type of slide when you are having to hold your nose, at least for me anyway. So Jeremy went...and immediately decided he needed to go again!

After he went twice, I decided to give it a go! It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but I did not have a second go at it. It is such a strange sensation for the floor to be dropped out from under your feet. Definitely something that I have never experienced before in my life. When I got off of it, my heart was pounding like crazy, I had no idea I was going to have such a physical response to it, but I get pretty nervous or anxious whenever I try anything new, so I should have expected it. Once we were finished we headed down to the room to shower, wash some clothes, and get ready for dinner.

By 6:45 we were ready and I was catching up on some TR notes. Tonight we were having another dinner in Animator's Palate, this time it was going to be the special version! We headed down to O'Gill's for a beer for Jeremy, some nachos, and a "Double Shot" for me (which is just a large glass of water), but that is what Andys calls it! The trivia was 80's music trivia, which was not either of our forte so we just listened along while sitting at the bar. Then it was time to head up to dinner. The menu was very simple today since it was a pretty orchestrated meal with the drawing your own character thing happening! We were handed our sheets and told to get drawing!

Appetizer Sampler Platter - Both
Smoked Duck Breast on Duck Confit with Pickled Red Onions, Sliced Mozzarella with Basil and Cherry Tomatoes, Dill-marinated Lobster and Shrimp with Tomato Mayonnaise and a Horseradish Cream

Macaroni and Cheese Baked Potato Soup - Both

Seafood Linguine Pasta - Andrea
Lobster, Scallops, Shrimp, Clams and Asparagus with a White Wine Sauce

Roasted Filet of Beef Wellington - Jeremy
covered with Mushroom Stuffing wrapped in Puff Pastry served with Fingerling Potatoes, Baby Vegetables, and a Black Truffle Jus

Garlic and Rosemary-Marinated Lamb Sirloin - Victor (brought for us to try)
with Onion, Leek, Potato Gratin, and Sun-Dried Tomato Jus

See Ya Real Soon Sweet Temptations - Both
a Trio of Celebration Cake, Chocolate Decadence, and Cappuccino Mousse

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It was really cool watching our drawings come to life on the screens in front of us, of course mine was not the best drawing ever, but hey, we really had fun! It was really awkward handing out the gratuity envelopes tonight for us, only because we were going to be seeing everyone again for a whole new week. Luckily we were staying in the same room, so we did not have to pack up anything. When we got back to the room we had a little packet explaining the process for getting back on the ship. We had a little green card that would let us re-board the ship when they called for back to back guests. More about this process later. For now, we were stuffed and tired from being in the sun all day. We moved our little froggy from the bed and had us a nice night's sleep! We had a semi-early breakfast to get to in the morning before we watched everyone else leave!

Next Up: See You Real Soon...you have no idea just how soon that will be!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Fab updates again
The moment with Mickey playing shuffleboard must have been amazing - so, so cool

Thanks! Yeah, playing shuffleboard with Mickey was really fun and unexpected, definitely one of the highlights of the trip for us! Your trip is getting so close!! I hope you have a great time!!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Sunday, April 19th, 2015 - Part One
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This morning we woke up bright and early at 7:00am! We had to get ready for our breakfast at 8:15, before we had to leave the ship. Breakfast this morning was in Animator's Palate and when we arrived all of the staff look extremely tired. We found out that they were having to get ready for a CDC inspection. They looked very happy, but sort of like walking zombies! Breakfast on the last (first) day of a cruise is really quick, I ordered the fruit and croissants, and Jeremy had the Route 66.

Once we finished breakfast and finished chatting with Victor and Yanupa we left Animator's Palate to go and get ready to disembark the ship. We did receive a packet explaining the procedure in our room last night, but I had read different things on disboards, so to make 100% positive I headed over to Guest Services. Well, here I got a little different story, I was told that everyone who does Back to Back cruises meets in Fathoms and leaves the ship together. Ok, so we headed over to Fathoms and no one was there. We sat for a bit waiting to see if anyone would show up and they did not, so we went back to the atrium.

We knew we still needed to wait a bit because the customs area was going to be packed, so we stood over by the couches and chairs next to a porthole window, when someone spotted some dolphins! I tried to take a photo but then they were gone. Or at least under the water again!

At Final Call we left the ship and headed towards customs. The person in line behind us was doing back to back also, however, she was a jewelry vendor. We chatted with her while in the customs line and then it was our turn to go through. The inspector asked us if we were newlyweds...I was like no...but Thank you! We just had to show him our cruise documents to prove that we were doing a back to back, since we didn't have any luggage with us like everyone else, then we were on our way! We followed the hall and then instead of going left to go outside, we turned right to pass in front of security and headed back up the escalators to the terminal to check-in for round two!! There were already a few people here and trying to check-in at this early hour!

There was one check-in open at the time, and so we stood in line with the other vendors/talent who were doing back to back cruises. So when it was our turn...we had a very interesting time. You remember last week when Jeremy was not showing up as a Castaway Club member? Usually if there are changes that have to be made to a reservation or something like that, they have to call and have that changed. Someone on the ship changed Jeremy's name on our second reservation to Robert McGee. So we had to change to a "manager" to have everything sorted out. She stayed on the phone for quite a while with the reservations group getting everything corrected. The reason they found it was because when we went up to check-in and we handed her our passports she said, and who is this Robert McGee? We were like..uh no idea. So with all of that sorted out we headed to the Concierge Lounge to wait for Back to Back cruises to be called! Here was our Green ticket, to let us back on!

I called my mom to check on everything at the house, and then checked Facebook and email. At about 11:00 we were allowed to get back on the ship, minus all of the fanfare. I mean, if we wanted to go through the mouse ears, or have our name called in the atrium, we were allowed, we could have just waited to board with everyone else. First of all, we headed straight to our room, we were going to stay there until lunch started in Carioca's. When it was time for everyone else to board the ship, we walked to the atrium and watched the Family of the Day, and then everyone else start to board the ship! Before they came on you could really see just how the excitement would build for the crew. It was a very cool thing to experience the ship when technically, we were the only guests on board!

We were the first to be seated at Carioca's and Victor was our server. He said we came at the perfect time that way we made it before the "tsunami"! Which is what he called all the people that would soon start to flood this restaurant!

We were the first also to get our food from the buffet, and it was a really great spread of different foods! If we get on this ship again, I may just go here instead of up to Cabanas, it seems more low key and less crowded, but it could have been because we were the first ones in here. We filled up our plates and were ready for a little light lunch!

After lunch we headed over to O'Gill's to chat with Andys a little bit and so Jeremy could try a different beer. Victor showed him the Kona Castaway when we were in Carioca's, Jeremy really likes the Longboard, so he wanted to try this one too!

So he got that, and I of course got a Double Shot again. Water is totally my favorite beverage. So the verdict on the Castaway, was that he pretty much hated it. So with that, he got an O'Gill's to wash it down. Every few minutes or so more crew would come in and make sure everything was clean inside the bar area, since they were having that inspection. We even got to see it taking place! It was pretty cool and looked nerve wracking for all of the officers. There were at least 5-10 people standing around watching this guy do the inspection. We were anxious to know how well they did on it! It only happens every 6 months, so we kept out fingers crossed that they do well. The Disney Dream and Fantasy both have perfect scores of 100!

Not too long after the inspector left, we went up to D Lounge for the DVC Members Celebration. We got really cool refillable mugs to use while we were on the ship as well as a USB drive for Jeremy acting like Tarzan. They asked some trivia questions but we did not win the $200 on-board credit!

It was now time for the 4:00 Drill so we headed down to our station, Cole was our assembly leader yet again, but he didn't recognize us from last week. So we all stood around answering trivia questions until the drill was over. After the drill we stopped by the Port Adventures desk, because when we were in the room earlier we checked out our tickets and sure enough, all of Jeremy's had Robert McGee on them. Even his dining ticket! So we had to get them re-printed. When we were finished with that we headed back to the room to start getting ready for dinner, and a little rest since we had gotten up early and had been going since we got up!

Next Up: New Dining Rotation, Same Great Servers!

 

[Flossbolna]

Wow that Robert McGee story is just totally bizarre!! How could anything like that happen??????

 

[cheermom2four]

Jeremy has a goPro, and sure it takes nice video, but we don't have the LCD thing for it so we can never tell until we get home and it is too late what we are actually shooting with it! I have a Canon T2i, which is my favorite camera for taking photos and videos, but it cannot go in to the water. So we debated for a while, read reviews, watched youtube videos and decided on the one we wanted! Today was going to be the first day it was going to get some real use!

I know Jeremy had the GoPro but what waterproof camera did you end up using? Go Pro is great and all but my hubby and I are looking into a camera that has the display screen and also where you can zoom in (unlike the gopro from what I have heard anyways). I have a Nikon D3100 but its definitely not waterproof LOL