Who Needs Toes Anyway? A 2016 EBPC Trip Report *COMPLETE*

[arielmomma]

We were assigned to table 41. This is a ten-top table. When we arrived, the Ireland family: Don, Alison, Christopher, and Lauren were already seated. At this point we weren’t sure if anyone else would be joining us to fill in the last two open seats. Neither were the servers, apparently, because they asked us if anyone else would be joining us. Since no one seemed to know, our Assistant Server, Nicha, initially left the extra service on the table, but no one else arrived.

The dinner menu for this evening was the Let the Magic Begin Menu. Sorry about the photo quality. I promise they get better!

 

[SonyaShay]

joining in!

 

[arielmomma]

We started with the bread basket. You’ll note that I didn’t take a picture of the bread basket every night. After this point, I only took pictures when the bread was exceptionally good and the table ordered seconds. Although, I will admit that all of DCL's bread was yummy.



Jimmy and Emily ordered the calamari. They love calamari and this was no exception.



James and I ordered the Bruschetta, but I forgot to take a picture of it. It was delicious though!

The kids and I ordered the mango and papaya soup. We love all of the cold, creamy, fruit soups on DCL. I also ordered the clam chowder to try it. It was good, but a bit too salty for my taste. James didn't order any soup. You'll note as I go along that he often doesn't order soup or appetizers. He's a meat and potatoes kind of guy. He'd rather get a double steak.



For the main course, I ordered the mango chicken salad. It was very good.



James and Jimmy had the steak. James enjoyed it, Jimmy did not. He gave his steak to James and ordered a second calamari for his main course.



Emily had the Pork Wellington. She didn't care for the outer pastry but liked the pork.

 

[arielmomma]

Onto the best part of any meal…Dessert!



I ordered the Warm Apple Date Pudding. Totally scrumptious!



James order a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. He also doesn't eat many fancy desserts.



Jimmy had the sundae.



And Emily had the Mickey bar.



She liked to strip Mickey naked before she ate him.



Me and the kids ordered crème brulees to have as snacks later in the evening. We usually love crème brulee, but we didn't care for this one. We prefer the vanilla or fruity flavors to the Kalua and Chocolate. That was okay, though, because we were pretty stuffed for the rest of the evening.

 

[arielmomma]

After dinner, the kids headed off to the various kids’ clubs while James and I took a walk on Deck 4.




We met back up at 8pm. We’ve seen the All Aboard show enough times that we decided to skip it. Instead, we went to see The Good Dinosaur at the Buena Vista Theater. It’s a cute movie. Em and I had seen it before, but the boys hadn’t. We all enjoyed it.



After the movie, we were all tired so we decided to call it a night. We headed back to our cabin to find a seal waiting for us on the bed. This became the first critter in our menagerie that you will see later. It was time to say good night.



The End of Cruise Day 1

 

[SnowWhite2]

Those look like new chocolates at bedtime. Did these replace the Sleepy chocolates?

 

[arielmomma]

Those look like new chocolates at bedtime. Did these replace the Sleepy chocolates?

Yes, they no longer have the Sleepy chocolates. They give Ghirardelli instead. My kids say they are even better.

 

[arielmomma]

Thank you to all of you who have commented or are following along. I'll post more tomorrow.

 

[arielmomma]

On Saturday, 8/27, I woke with a sinus headache. This was nothing unusual for me. For some reason, I always wake up my first morning on a cruise with a headache. Our whole family woke up early this morning so we decided to have breakfast together at Triton’s.



We started by ordering beverages and selecting pastries. I had pineapple juice, while James and the kids had hot chocolate.



I love the coconut-pineapple muffins. I had one nearly every morning. Yum!



Next came the Mango Hike. Good as always.



I took a couple pictures while we waited for our breakfasts.



Then, of course, I got distracted and forgot to take pictures of our meals. This is what my plate looked like by the time I remembered to take a picture. It WAS eggs benedict. No fear. I remembered to take a picture the next day. It was yummy!

 

[arielmomma]

After breakfast, the kids scampered off to the Oceaneer Lab and the Edge, while James and I headed back to the room to get cleaned up and check out the day’s navigator.



After a shower, my head felt much better so James and I went to hear Captain Puckett speak. I mainly went for James’ benefit, but it turned out that I really enjoyed listening to Captain Puckett. He’s a lot of fun. I had every intention of going to his lectures every day or, at least, watching them on the TV in our cabin. As you will come to see, that didn’t happen. Oh darn! Just means I’ll have to go on another Panama Canal cruise to get another chance to hear him speak.



We went straight from Puckett’s lecture to Art of Entertaining in Studio Sea. The chef made mushroom risotto. I love this dish! James doesn’t eat mushrooms so I got to eat his too. So good! I’ve seen this dish prepared on previous cruises, but I enjoy watching different chefs prepare the same dishes. They each have their own unique way of preparing a recipe. I learn something new each time.



Up next...The reason for this trip report's title.

 

[arielmomma]

Full on mushroom risotto, we returned to the Walt Disney Theater to listen to Ridley Pearson speak. To those of you who may not know, Ridley Pearson is the author of the Kingdom Keepers and Peter and the Star Catchers books. I have not read the books, but I am familiar with them. His lecture primarily centered on his tours of the Disney Theme Parks at the end of the night after all of the guests went home -- just like the characters in his Kingdom Keepers books. It was interesting. He’s also in “the worst all-author rock band in history” with Stephen King and Amy Tan. It was funny to see pictures of creepy ole Stephen King rocking it out.



We had a little while before Triton’s opened for lunch, so James and I went for a walk on deck 4. Today we really began to notice the differences between this cruise and the previous 5 and 7 night cruises we’d been on. First off, the elevators were never crowded. Really. Usually riding an elevator on any DCL ship was an up-close-and-personal experience with your fellow passengers, but that rarely was an issue on this cruise. It was refreshing. Second, the adult pool area was a mad house! On previous cruises, I liked to read outside of the Cove Cafe. Not this time! It was ALWAYS crowded. If you wanted peace and quiet, you went to the family pool deck. No joke. The daytime adult activities were also very crowded. The Art of Entertaining was standing room only on some days. Then there was deck 4. Our secret, quiet refuge wasn’t a secret amongst this crowd. Getting a seat could be a challenge at times, and there were always walkers and runners exercising. Not that any of these things negatively impacted our experience. On the contrary, this was hands-down the best cruise we’ve ever taken. It was just different.

At noon, we gathered the kids and headed to Triton’s for lunch. This experience was also different from our previous cruises. Usually, Triton’s is quiet and scarcely populated at lunch time. Not the case today. It was packed by 12:15. No matter, we got a seat right away. It was just unexpected. Here is the menu.



Unfortunately, I only remembered to take pictures of our appetizers. The kids and James ate the seafood sampler, while the kids and I had the mango soup. Thumbs up all around.




I also ordered the fusilli pasta with extra sauce on the side and key lime pie for dessert. They repeated this menu toward the end of the cruise. I got pictures then. Both were delicious.

After lunch, the kids returned to the clubs, while the adults headed to Wavebands to learn to dance with Willem and Natalia.



At this point, James and I were both ballroom dance virgins. Needless to say, I left class with sore toes and a bruised knee, curtesy of both James’ and my equally dreadful dancing skills. Still, the ballroom dancing opportunities turned out to be both James and my favorite parts of the cruise. Willem and Natalia were fabulous teachers. It’s not their fault we were born with two left feet!

We limped out of Wavebands to do the Art of the Theme Show Tour led by Tony and Mia. As we’d come to expect, plenty of people showed up. I believe there were 49 of us, so Tony and Mia (Magic in Action as she liked to be called) split us into 2 groups. James and I went with Mia. She discussed some of the intricate details and theming throughout the ship. It was sad to think that much of what she showed us would be gone after this cruise. Especially the chandelier in the atrium. I love the chandelier. At least it will be going to a museum so that others will continue to enjoy it.

We started in Palo.




After all that dancing and walking, James and I decided we could use a break so we made our way back to deck 4. Along the way, we grabbed a horse race form. We came up with some cool ideas for it, but in the end decided not to do it when the kids showed little interest in participating. Maybe next time…



Now this is the life....


Up next...Formal night

 

[arielmomma]

It was formal night. James and I gathered the children, and we got ready for dinner. Once dressed in our finery, we took the stairs to the atrium for the Captain’s Welcome Reception. It was too crowded to linger. So, we accepted a few complimentary cocktails and slowly meandered in the direction of Parrot Cay. James is holding two screwdrivers, which were way too strong for our tastes. The kids had a blend of apple juice and sprite. They enjoyed having their own special drinks.




Tonight was the Golden Mickey menu.



I had the Carmelized Bay Scallops, the Broccoli and Maytag Blue Cheese Soup, and the Mushroom Tagliatelle. They were all scrumptious! Again, I forgot to take pictures of our meals. I promise, I got much better at remembering as time went on. In fact, even our wonderful tablemates, The Ireland Family, let me take pictures of their meals. So, there will be plenty of food pics to come! I did remember to take pictures of James’ and Jimmy’s desserts.

Dulce de Leche Ice Cream


A Strawberry Shortcake Sundae and an ice cream headache


Since we were all dressed up, we needed a picture.



We needed one of our amazing server, Claudius, too, looking so dashing.

 

[arielmomma]

After dinner, Emily ran off with our tablemate, Lauren, to the Oceaneer Club. Jimmy was undecided as to what he wanted to do, so he wandered with James and I toward Wavebands where we intended to watch Matt Baker’s juggling show. Standing outside of Wavebands, Jimmy still wasn’t sure if he wanted to stay for the show so our stalker-CM Brett helped him decide. Brett promised Jimmy that if he watched the show with us Brett would give Jimmy a special prize later in the cruise. Always a sucker for bribery, Jimmy accompanied us into Wavebands and was glad he did. Matt Baker was talented and hilarious. Definitely worth seeing.



Upon leaving Wavebands, we gathered Emily and went to the Walt Disney Theater to watch The Golden Mickey’s.



Like all of DCL’s stage productions, it was well done with lots of classic Disney songs to sing along to. Emily, however, didn’t do any singing. She slept through the whole show.

We managed to wake Emily up long enough to get her back to our cabin. An elephant was waiting on our bed for us along with a special note from Princess Anna inviting us to participate in her chocolate chase. There was chocolate involved. Of course we would participate!





We changed out of our dress clothes and got Emily ready for bed. Jimmy agreed to stay in the cabin with Emily while James and I went to see Shawn Farquhar’s Adult Magic Show. Shawn is an amazing magician and lots of fun, too. He said that marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with hearts. Next, you give diamonds. But soon, you’ll want spades and clubs. Ha ha!



Although it was only 10:15 when Shawn’s show ended, we decided to call it a night. There was too much fun yet to be had to get worn out now!

Up next...A very short, HOT visit to Cabo

 

[disnygirl55]

Great trip report so far - can't wait to hear more!

 

[arielmomma]

On Sunday, 8/28, I awoke bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Last night was the first really good night's sleep I'd had since the trip began so I was eager to start my day. The rest of my family felt the same way. Without the slightest bit of moaning or groaning, we got up and went to Triton's for breakfast.

Jimmy trying to look dapper in his napkin tux.


Again, the kids and I had pineapple juice, while the kids and James had hot chocolate.



I started with a Mango Hike.



Emily and I ordered the eggs benedict, but we replaced the Canadian Bacon with smoked salmon and asked for extra Hollandaise sauce on the side.




I didn't get a picture of James' plate, but it was similar to Jimmy's -- meat and potatoes.


Our breakfasts were delicious as always. Once we finished, the kids (as usual) dispersed in the direction of the clubs, while James and I prepared to disembark in Cabo San Lucas.

Let me confess right now, we are not excursion people. While I love to plan, much of my planning is dedicated to us not needing a plan while on vacation. If that makes any sense. We like to be able to go with the flow and do activities on a whim. This was our first visit to Cabo, so we decided to explore.

This port required a tender. So, we headed to the Buena Vista Theater where our good buddy Mia told us to take a seat in the back row. A minute later, a second couple joined us and Mia came back to escort the four of us to a tender boat.

I took a few pictures as we pulled away from the ship.

 

[arielmomma]

While we tendered, we enjoyed a pleasant conversation with the other couple on our boat. Once at the dock, without the pleasant breeze provided by the movement of the tender boat, we realized how INSANELY HOT and HUMID it was. Wow! Yeah, I know. It's Mexico in August, what did I expect? But for us Michiganders who, on occasion, experience winter-like weather eight months of the year, the heat was down-right oppressive. Still, we pushed on.






This port was nowhere near as nice to stroll as Cozumel. There was plenty of barbed wire and abandoned buildings.


There were some nice shops though.


We teased the kids with this picture of an eight-foot tall lobster climbing a building. We told them that we were selecting a lobster to bring back to the ship and have for dinner when this monster escaped the aquarium. It climbed the building and began wreaking havoc all over Cabo. For a minute there, they got all wide-eyed and actually believed our tall-tale. Except rather than be frightened of a killer crustacean on the loose, Jimmy said, "What are you doing back here then? You let it get away? Let's go find that sucker. I want an eight-foot lobster."



We walked as far as the mall only to discover that most of the stores were closed. By now, I had developed a headache from the sun and heat, so we decided to call it quits and head back to the ship. We were only at the port for an hour. The funny thing was, our fellow tender-mates only lasted that long too. They boarded the return tender boat right after us. Again, it was just the four of us chatting our way back to The Wonder.

We'd promised Emily that when we returned to the ship we would take her swimming. So, James and Emily got into their swimwear and headed to the pool, while I took a shower and some ibuprofen. Once clean, I felt a million times better. I helped myself to an ice cream (strawberry-banana) and took a few shots of Emily in the pool.




Note the open space around her. Port days are a great time to utilize the pools.

 

[arielmomma]

Before long, despite being lathered in sunscreen, Emily's cheeks began to turn pink so we pulled her out of the pool. Once cleaned up, Emily decided that she wanted to be Jasmine for the rest of the day.



By now, we were all hungry again so we collected Jimmy and went to Triton's for lunch.



For appetizers, the kids and I all ordered the strawberry soup. Emily also ordered the antipasto (which James ended up eating). James ordered a double helping of mozzarella sticks off the children's menu.







For the main course, I had a double portion of the duck appetizer. So good!



James had the Reuben. He loves this sandwich!



Jimmy ordered the burger, which was strange because he doesn't like burgers. Shock and Surprise, he didn't care for this one either. He did, however, enjoy the side of bacon and fries.



Emily had the Kebobs. She really like these.

 

[arielmomma]

For dessert, James and I had the apple crumble. Jimmy and Emily had Mickey bars.





Regardless of the fact that we were all full to the brim, we were going to see the movie Finding Dory so we had to have snacks. We headed up to Beach Blanket buffet and gathered a few goodies for the show.



My kids and husband informed me that Finding Dory was a great movie. Why, might you ask, did they have to tell me this when I was in the theater with them? I may have fallen asleep and napped through the entire middle of the movie. Good thing I'm on a cruise. I'd just have to watch it again another day.

After the movie, we wandered the ship to gather today's clues for Anna's Chocolate Chase. With that complete, we had fifteen minutes before we had to get ready to eat yet again! We were already beginning to feel more like cargo than passengers. Did that slow us down, though? Not even a little.

We spent those fifteen minutes doing our own things. The kids ran off to the kids' clubs, and James and I went to read on deck 4.

Dinner tonight was in Triton's -- my family's favorite restaurant. It was the standard rotational menu.



I started with the duck confit.



James had the fried brie.



The kids both had double escargot. This is one of their favorite appetizers on DCL.

 

[arielmomma]

For the next course, the kids both had the shrimp appetizer.



James had the French Onion Soup. I was content with my duck for now.



Onto the main course. I had the mushroom pasta.



James had steak with a side of shaved parmesan. I used some of the cheese on my pasta. Yum!



Jimmy ordered the kids' burger, quickly discovered he didn't like it (shocker!), and ordered the duck as a replacement. He and I actually shared the duck.




Emily ordered the fish.



Everything was wonderful as always.

 

[arielmomma]

A special friend joined us for dinner.



She led the children in a parade around the restaurant.



Once the kids got settled again it was time for dessert. I had the crème brulee.



James had the apple tartin.



The kids both had the strawberry shortcake sundae.



After dinner, our tablemates joined us in playing Wonder Quest in Wavebands. Emily and Lauren decided to be their own team. Jimmy and Christopher were the runners for our team. The object of the game was to find the items Ross, the CM, called out and run them to the front of the room along with your team number. It was wild and crazy and lots of fun.




The gamed ended and we all headed to the Walt Disney Theater to see Shawn Farquhar's family show. He was a fantastic magician. I could see why he was a two-time world champion.


After the magic show, the kids, as usual, abandoned us for the kids' clubs, while James and I headed back to Wavebands for the adult entertainment.

We stayed for both of Wayne Cotter's comedy shows as well as Icebreakers in between. Wayne was very funny. He'd intended to put on the same show for his 2nd act, but since most of the room stayed from the first show, he struggled a little to come up with fresh (Disney appropriate) material, but he was great.



Finally, we gathered the kids and returned to the cabin for bed. This little guy was waiting for us.



It was time to rest after a fantastic day.

Up Next...The Navigators I forgot to post for today as well as another hot day in Puerto Vallarta.