Day 4 - Tuesday 10/3 - Back on the Ship!
It was a little after 2pm when we got back to the ship. We decided to drop off our stuff in the room and then go relax in the adult pool and hot tubs.
They had alcoholic dole whips at the pool bar… I had been craving one of these since we saw them on the first day. You could get one with regular rum, or one with spiced rum. I went with the spiced rum.
I was pretty disappointed by it. It sort of tasted like a dole whip, but the consistency was all wrong. More frothy/grainy/icy than smooth and creamy. And the alcohol was just at the bottom, you had to stir it in by yourself, which didn't help the consistency much. But it was still enjoyable!
We went back and forth between the hot tub and floating around in the pool area. So nice!!!
Eventually, we headed back to the room to get cleaned up for our 5:45 PM dinner seating.
And oh yeah, today was Halloween on the High Seas. A little bit before dinner time, we decided to head down to the lobby to watch some of the afternoon Halloween party.
It was fun seeing so many people dressed up. And just like the pirate party, a lot of the adults really got into to. How fun!!!
They were having costume contests when we arrived.
And then Mickey and friends came out to party with everyone. Lots of dancing and goofing around!
And after their performances, the characters came out for meet and greets in the crowd.
I've been saying how the ship hasn't been too crowded. I think this party and the late night Pirate party (fireworks) were the exceptions. It was super crowded here, and we were glad to be up a couple levels!!!
After the party, we still had 30 or 40 minutes before dinner, so we walked around the ship and enjoyed the views of Cabo a bit morel…
And eventually we made it to Triton's!
Dude!!!! We lucked out. Our table was on the back wall right alongside the amazing tile murals!!!
We didn't plan on dressing up for Halloween, but we did get into the spirit a little bit with some Star Wars shirts. And Stephanie tried to put Princess Leia buns in her hair. I think they turned out pretty well considering that she doesn't have long hair...
And the menu…
A few minutes later, the other two couples arrived. We had fun catching up and sharing stories from our excursions through the day. They both did one of the tours that included a short boat tour and then beach time (and lunch) at one of the local resorts. I think they enjoyed their excursions quite a bit, but I don’t think they were blown away like we were with Roger's Tour Boats.
Here's a 360 degree photo for you to click on…
Starting off, for the bread selection, they brought out Warm French Country Bread with an Olive Spread.
It was good, but like normal… I tried not to fill up on bread.
I ordered the drink of the day, "Spooky Juice". It was rum and St. Germaine based… with blue curacao. It was supposed to have lychees and cherries for eyes.
Here's an official promotional photo.
Here's what I received. LOL.
No spooky eyes and the colors were off, but it was still tasty and quite enjoyable!
For the appetizer, Stephanie and I both had the Chilled Jumbo Shrimp with White and Green Asparagus, Micro Greens and Lemon-Dill Dressing with Horseradish Cream. Very tasty!!!!
And then I had the “Chef Louis” French Onion Soup with Gruyère Cheese Crouton.
I'd give it a solid B, maybe B-. Enjoyable, but to be honest, I'd probably prefer the onion soup from Panera.
Stephanie had the Red Wine Bosc Pear Salad (Arugula, Sliced Red Onions and Crispy Lardons dressed with a Sherry Wine Dressing and served with a Red Wine Poached Bosc Pear.) She thought it was amazing. Another lady at the table had it too, and they both went on and on about it.
For the main course, I narrowed it down to the stuffed pasta and the chateaubriand steak. I couldn't make up my mind, so I ordered one of each. And Stephanie went with the steak.
Here's the Wild Mushroom-Stuffed Pasta in a Vegetable Broth (topped with Watercress, Shaved Parmesan Cheese, and Paprika Oil Drizzle.) I have to say... although it looked lovely, I wasn't very impressed by it at all. (And I normally LOVE mushrooms.) I ate a few bites and then focused on the other plate. I was pretty happy to have a plan B ready to go.
And here's the Chateaubriand-Roasted Filet Steak (Roasted Filet Steak, Crushed New Potatoes with Shallots, Buttered Green Beans, Red Wine Jus, and a Béarnaise Sauce on the Side.)
This was pretty good. I'd maybe give it a B+ (the mushroom pasta was maybe a C-)
Next up was desert…
I wasn't really excited about anything on the dessert menu, so I used this as a good opportunity to order a Mickey Bar from the kids menu!!!
Mickey Bars get an A+ all day long!!
Stephanie went with the signature dessert, Classic Opera Gateau (layers of Jaconde Sponge, soaked in Coffee Syrup, Chocolate Ganache and rich Buttercream.) She was just walking by, and I asked her how she liked it. She gave me an enthusiastic, "it was really good!!!"
All in all, Triton's was fine for me. Probably my least favorite dinner of the cruise, but possibly the best location! (Obviously, with so many options on the menu, I'm sure that for someone else, this could have easily been their favorite dinner on the cruise.)
After dinner, we immediately headed back to the atrium for the pumpkin tree lighting ceremony. And old lady (well, probably a young lady dressed up as an old lady) told a "scary" story and the light up the pumpkins on the tree. It was fun. Some of the kids were really getting into it!
We headed up to the room for a few minutes after the ceremony. And how cool! A frog was on our bed!!!
On our last two Disney cruises, we really enjoyed seeing a couple movies… So we had to see at least one on this ship. Believe it or not, neither of us had seen the live action Beauty and the Beast movie yet. It wasn't our first choice, but other movies like Cars 3 and Guardians of the Galaxy 2 didn't have as convenient of times. So Beauty and the Beast it was!
The movie started at 8:15 PM and we showed up about 10 minutes early. The theater was completely empty for at least another 5 minutes. And even after the movie started, I'd say there were only about 10 of us total.
Since we were completely alone, I goofed off with my camera for a couple minutes.
First a shot of us with the selfie stick. Click on the photo to get the interactive 360 experience. It's pretty cool!
And since the camera has wifi, I then went and put it on the stage… and took a photo of us from a distance… Wow, I still can't believe we have this entire theater to ourselves!
And then a few minutes later, a couple people showed up and the movie started.
I have to say, that I enjoyed it a lot more than I had expected that I would. Stephanie was getting pretty sleepy towards the end and somewhere around 10:15 PM or so, she decided to head back to the room. I stayed the last 15 minutes or so and then came up…
To find that our room was really noisy!!!!
Especially the door. It was rattling and rattling. The bed was shaking like one of those coin operated beds from the 70's (I'm thinking of the original Chevy Chase Vacation movie here… but not quite that bad.) And the ceiling was squeaking all over the place.
It turns out that the ship had issues leaving Cabo, and we got a late start. About 2 hours late. So, they had to run the ship at full steam to make up the time through the night. Apparently, this is what caused the shaking/vibrations to go all the way up to 11.
Stephanie was trying to go to sleep, but the front door was just too darn loud. I tried messing with it for a while, but could never get it to stop rattling.
After a half hour of trying to ignore it, I went down to guest services to ask if this is supposed to be tolerable or not.
They were nice and professional, but not very friendly or empathetic. It just didn't have that Disney charm in the interactions. (And I wasn't upset or angry in my interactions. I kept my cool the whole time.) In hindsight, I'm guessing they knew exactly what was going on and felt bad about it, and tried not to engage… maybe to ease their conscious.
It was that loud.
(After the cruise was over, from the Facebook group, I discovered that other people had complained… and some were even given other rooms. Since it was after 11pm when I came down, I don’t think they had any options for us.)
They said that they'd send a "carpenter" up to check on the room. And that was that. No, "I'm sorry this happened to you", or "I understand your frustration", or anything. I was like, "Do you need anything else from me? Is he coming up now?" And they were like, "We called. He'll be up in a little while." Well... All righty then.
I headed back to the room and the carpenter showed up about 40 minutes later. If you've ever seen the Karate Kid, he was like Mr. Miyagi. A nice guy, but a man of few words. Very short and to the point. Again, he didn't have the Disney charm either. But who cares if he can fix the door!!!
After 10 or 15 minutes of fiddling with it, he could't get it to stop. So his solution was to load up the door jamb with a gazillion layers of tape to act as a cushion. It looked pretty shoddy, but it did the trick!!!! The door stopped rattling. I mentioned the other squeaks to him, but he wasn't interested and pretty much moved on.
Here's the taped up door jamb. It stayed like this for the rest of the cruise.
The worse part of the noise was dealt with, but the squeaking ceiling was still annoying. I realized that if I pushed up on the ceiling, that it would stop. And that I might be able to wedge some paper between the crown molding and the ceiling to stop it…
And then I noticed a bunch of wooden wedges all around the room.
The were randomly spaced along the ceiling joints every several feet. I realized that this was the more permanent version of my paper wedge idea. And that I would be fighting a loosing battle, because they've obviously tried this before and it didn't work… Argh!!!
I gave up and did my best to just go to sleep. Not cool, Robert Frost!
