7 Day Western Caribbean - 9/9/06 to 9/16/06

[Sarangel]

We actually started on 9/8/06. Me (Sara, who just by the way pronounces her screen name "Sara Angel") and my DH (Mike). We took this trip for our 5th Anniversary. I took lots of notes, and then typed up the report a day (or several) later.

Day 0

It’s hard to believe that our vacation is actually here – both of us have been working really hard this week (me to get everything at work ready for me to be gone for 2 weeks, and Mike to get us and our DD packed, the house ready, the dog kenneled, and run any misc. errands). We started the day at 5:00 am for me & 6:30 am for Mike because we wanted to get the last set of packing done and I was working to finish a dress I’d been trying to make for the cruise.

At 9:00 am the cab picked us up at the house and drove the 20 minutes to the San Francisco airport. We boarded the 11:10 non-stop to MCO, after picking up lunch (a Boudin’s sandwich for me & a burrito and quesedilla for Mike). For those unfamiliar with Boudin’s, they are a specialty bakery in San Francisco famous for their sourdough bread – and I figured that I needed to get a sourdough fix before we left. Since we live in San Francisco, I tend to forget that there are whole sections of the country that don’t actually have sourdough bread and it’s one of my favorites.

Once on the airplane, we got our first taste of the magic on the trip. When the airplane doors had closed, the flight attendant asked us if we wanted to move up to the Exit Row, which as it turns out was actually in Economy Plus. So we had as much leg room as we could possibly use and an empty seat between us. The rest of the flight was pretty uneventful, we read, ate, slept a bit, and watched X-Men 3.

After we landed, and collected our luggage, we headed straight to the National Emerald Aisle. We had rented a car one way from MCO to Cocoa Beach (for $22 + tax since it was a weekend rental). We ended up with a full-size Chevy Impala with a trunk that could store the entire state of Rhode Island in it and easily took our 6 bags (2 of clothes and snorkel gear, 1 with formal night and pirate night clothes, one (smaller) of Pins, one with camera equipment and one with our day stuff).

We had booked our first night at the Dolphin at a great rate ($69.00 – which after we parked the car and paid taxes ended up being $95.00), since we had breakfast the next morning at the Polonesian with a friend. While we were checking in we chatted with the front desk clerk, who chose to upgrade us to a balcony room. We were on the 7th floor, facing the back of the Swan. After we settled in to the room, we headed down to Shula’s for dinner.

I don’t know what I expected from Shula’s, since mostly we went because Mike loves steak, but as a non-hoof eater I wouldn’t go again. The entire menu can (and does) fit on a football, and there are no prices anywhere. The waiter found out that we were from San Francisco, and told us that they would start us with sourdough bread, so of course we had do discuss San Francisco sourdough vs. the rest of the world’s sourdough. What we ended up with, was what I would have classed as sweet French bread back home. For the rest of dinner, Mike had the 24 oz. steak and a twice-baked potato. I had the broccoli and a twice-baked potato. We ended up spending $80.00 for dinner (with a very small tip for the waiter, who we told 3 times that we just wanted to eat in a hurry and go to bed and who let us drag on and on – another diner started and ended her whole meal between the time we ordered and before we got the check). With that being said, Mike says the steak is very good, but not perhaps worth the price. Once we had finished dinner, we went upstairs and so to bed.

 

[Sarangel]

Day 1

We got up at 7:00-ish, once we fought off the time-change hangover, showered, and dressed to go to the Kona Café for breakfast. We arrived close to 8:00 am and met our friend. We had a lovely breakfast (Macadamia Pancakes for me, French Toast for Mike) and traded some pins with our friend (who was here for the pin event). Then went back to our room at the Dolphin and checked out.

We stopped at the Publix on Vineland Road to pick up a few essentials for the trip – Pepsi and reading glasses that Mike thought he didn’t pack – and started towards the Magic. At 11:15, we saw cars pulling over on the road and were momentarily confused until we realized that the shuttle launch had made its 10 minute window for take off. We watched as she lifted off, and disappeared into the clouds.

As we crested the bridge on 95, Mike looked off into the distance and said, “Look you can see the VAB.” To which I responded, “Yes, but there’s the Magic.” She was neatly framed by the trees and looking ready to go. We, however, had to go to Cocoa Beach to drop off our car at the National there. Drop off was easy, and we got a great cab driver to the port. We got into the terminal around 1:30, checked in and walked on to the Magic.

We asked about upgrades, but moving from a Cat 10 to a Cat 8 was almost $300 (a Cat 5 would have been $749), so we passed. Mike asked if we could get the Walt Suite and have them kick the current residents out, but they wouldn’t go for it. Oh well, we soon spent the money anyway. Once we got on board, I went to Rockin’ Bar D to change our seating from Main to Late and Mike went up to Palo to see if he could get us a Brunch reservation. It turns out that PJ and his staff were in Rockin’ Bar D working on the last minute reservations, so I asked about brunch. PJ said they were waitlisted, but that if I came and talked to him once he’d gotten his paperwork in order, he’d see if we could work something out.

I found Mike back at the stateroom trying valiantly to unpack the luggage. We had stateroom 7005 (Cat 10) and found it a little smaller than we thought we would – I know the square footage is the same, but there’s something about being able to see out the window that makes it seem bigger.

Since we knew that we were late, we wanted to get up to Topsiders for lunch; however, we got sidetracked by the Spa tours. We ended up getting the rainforest room passes for both of us, and booking a couples villa for 10:45 tomorrow morning. They give you a cut rate for booking while the ship is in port, so we’re only on the hook for $350 instead of $475. Since this was our anniversary, we felt that we could splurge a little.

Once more we started towards Topsiders, hoping for lunch. Mike said something about it being already 3:30, and I stopped. How could it be 3:30? I had just looked at my watch a little while ago and it said 12:00! It took Mike about 10 seconds to realize that I had forgotten to re-set my watch. Since we had scheduled a DIS Meet for 3:00 pm, we walked over to the Mickey pool to see if any of the DIS Boarders from our cruise meet thread were still there. There were a few, we met 6 or 8 people – hi guys – and then realized that Topsiders was closed and that we had missed lunch.

Back to the cabin, where we grabbed a couple of snacks we’d brought and then it was time to get down to deck 4 for the lifeboat drill. It was mostly painless, and the new life vests were much more comfortable than the old ones.

Once more back to the cabin, this time to unpack and try to set things to rights. Fortunately, we had made dinner reservations for 6:30 in Palo, so we did get food eventually. I had the excellent Portobello on Polenta with shallot reduction and balsamic vinegar sauce, the Wild mushroom risotto, the fairly forgettable Chicken stuffed with shrimp scampi, and the requisite Chocolate Soufflé. Mike had the Eggplant Parmesan appetizer, the Gnocchi in a tomato cream sauce, the Seared Pork Sirloin on shredded apples with a wine reduction, and the Chocolate Soufflé. There were a lot of white uniforms in Palo that night, and when we asked we were told that Saturday night was when they were allowed to eat there because fewer guests chose that night to book.

The last thing to mention is that Mike had set things up with the Palo staff to surprise me with an anniversary band that I’d looked at months ago and had decided that we couldn’t afford. It didn’t bring tears to my eyes, but it was a close call.

One last trip back to the cabin to get some sleep.

 

[Sarangel]

Day 3 – At Sea

Our first day at sea, we slept in until about 10:30 am. We got up and dressed and headed up to Topsiders for breakfast. We had some pastries, bacon, and the made to order omelets, plus I had some fresh berries. Mike says the omelets were “excellent” – he had one with everything in it, and mine was mushrooms, cheese and peppers. This turned out to be our only breakfast here; we kept meaning to get back but never did. I love fresh berries and I missed them after this morning.

After breakfast, we went to the shopping talk for Grand Cayman and Cozumel (hoping for free stuff, more than anything), but we bought the Platinum Passport book, which has lots of ‘free’ coupons – they really are free, but often we ended up paying a little extra or buying stuff in the shop (which is what it’s intended to do). Mike also wanted to talk to Cody about the best place to buy a watch, and it turned out to be fortuitous, but I’ll tell you about that later. After the shopping talk, we wanted to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, so Mike stayed in out seats in the Buena Vista Theatre, while I scurried over to the Cake and Plate Decorating seminar in Studio Sea.

The Cake and Plate Decorating seminar was cute, mostly he showed us how to work within a base of vanilla sauce and accent it with chocolate, kiwi or raspberry sauce. For the cakes, he showed us how to decorate “in the black forest style” (which covers up the sides of the cake with shaved white or dark chocolate) and one in a fondant covering with white chocolate curlicues. I left a little bit before the end, so that I could make it back in time for the movie, so I didn’t get to taste either one, but they sure looked good.

Once I got back to the theatre, the movie had already started, but it was Cars, not Pirates. Since the theatre was full and Mike was in the centre of a row, we just stayed (and we’d planned on seeing Cars anyway since it’s one of Mike’s favorite movies. We just hadn’t planned on it for this afternoon).

After Cars, we decided to go to the Rainforest room. This was lovely, but if I had to do it over again, I’d buy my days one at a time instead of the full week pass. There were so many days that we meant to go, but just couldn’t fit it into our schedule. For those who haven’t read about, experienced or researched the Rainforest room, it is really several rooms – a large central room with 3 showers (two inside circular walls) along the back wall, a fountain in the centre, and 4 heated tile lounge chairs. Off of the central room, there are two steam rooms and a sauna. The smaller of the steam rooms often has some sort of aromatherapy in the steam, but it seems like it is hotter. The sauna is a tile sauna instead of a wood one, and seemed very mild to me. Mike and I really liked the heated tile loungers – they were great for tired or sore muscles.

Dinner tonight was Formal Night in Animator’s Palate. So we dressed after coming back from the Rainforest room. We stopped to take a picture with Captain Tom and a couple of the other backgrounds, and Mike kept getting compliments on his vest. I made this last year for him out of a cotton “Finding Nemo” fabric with blue satin lapels (and a matching bow tie). It’s nice to make people smile with this kind of stuff.

We met our final set of seatmates – Julie and Kristy. It turned out that they live within 40 miles of us and have many of the same interests – hi guys. I had Garlic Mushrooms in Puff Pastry, Butternut Squash Soup, Maple Glazed Salmon (all of which was good), and the Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie (which I was fairly unimpressed with). Mike had the Baked Tomato w/Rice, Garlic Mushrooms in Puff Pastry, Gazpacho, Filet Mignon w/Pastry & Shrimp, and the Boston Cream Pie (which he’s still smacking his lips over).

Tonight was also the Golden Mickeys, so we wandered over to the Walt Disney Theatre after diner. I quite like this show, though I’m not crazy about the Ensign Benson storyline. They did have Roy for the video clip instead of Whoopie (who is who we saw the last time we cruised), which was nice.

After the show, Mike decided to go up to the Cove Café for a Cigar & Drambuie, where he met Jaz from South Africa (the barman) and a fireman from San Rafael (which is about 25 miles north of where we live) who went to great lengths to explain to him just where he lived. Mike let him get it all out and then said, “yeah, there’s a great Ben & Jerry’s there that we go to” and told him where we live.

I was tired, so I just went back to the cabin and read for a bit and went to sleep.

 

[sherry]

I am enjoying your trip report, thanks for posting. I agree with you about Shula's. My dh and I went to the one in Philadelphia, we were not impressed. Looking forward to the rest of your report.

 

[Karen Mouse]

Great report so far. Is day 2 missing?

 

[Sarangel]

You're right, I did miss Day 2. See what I get for writing it all up in word and cutting and pasting. Here it is....

Day 2 – Key West

We got up a little late this morning (9:00) and had breakfast in Lumiere’s. I had the fruit (which sounds good on the menu, but isn’t so wonderful in person), a bagel, hot chocolate and orange juice. Mike had the pancakes, ham, and coffee.

From there, we went to the DVC meet in Sessions. They talked a bit about how much of Saratoga Springs had sold out (they’re expecting it to be gone by some time next year) and asked some trivia questions by pulling names out of a hat – we won a towel by having the host cough the words “Hilton Head” as we tried to figure out which property had rooms available for as few as 6 points a night. Mike says the question was unfair, since he doesn’t think it should count if it isn’t at a Disney park.

We left a bit early since we had Spa Villa reservations for 10:45. We arrived at the spa, and filled out their questionnaires, and were led into our villa. The villas are decorated in an eastern style, with what looks like cedar trim. The main room has 2 massage beds, cabinets on the wall inboard, a small table at one end of the room to hold the products for the therapists to use, and some artwork on the wall at the foot of the massage beds. It has a sliding glass door on the wall opposite the cabinets, leading to the deck – which has a 2 person hot tub/spa, an outdoor shower to rinse off in, and a ‘day bed’ that looks like you crossed a mattress with a porch swing.

They start with asking if you want to change into suits (or just robes, but I recommend suits because there’s a deck 10 overlook where people can see the front half of the villas – where the hot tub is), and then do a foot cleansing ritual that involves putting your feet into cool tubs of water and then scrubbing them one at a time with a peppermint granular scrub, rinsing them in the tub and drying them.

We were then given some time in the hot tub with aromatherapy salts (I think there was eucalyptus in it, but I’m not sure and I didn’t ask). For us this part of the treatment occurred as we were pulling into Key West, and I wasn’t sure whether or not the crowds gathered on Deck 10 were watching us or the docking… Either way, I was glad we had chosen to go with bathing suits and not in the buff!

After our therapists collected us from the spa, we moved onto the massage tables. Mike had the hot stones massage and I had the Spa taster (Swedish massage plus a mini facial) as our treatments. Both were wonderful – I’m not sure what else to say about them. Mike says that anything that makes him drool uncontrollably while being rubbed the right way with warm oil and rocks deserves better than “wonderful,” he suggests “amazing,” “out of this world,” and “OFS.” We got no sales pitch at the end, as we had requested that they didn’t do one.

The final part of the Villa experience was being allowed to sit and relax on the ‘day bed’ on the verandah, with a tray of fresh fruit (much better than the stuff they serve in the dining rooms) and two individual pots of tea (we had peppermint and lemon grass, which was pretty forgettable). Afterwards we were told that we could dress in our own time, and settle the individual bills that they had left in the main room for us… All in all, it was a lovely experience. I had been worried about the cost, but with the port day discount, it was absolutely worth it!

After the spa, we grabbed some Pizza and Turkey Pannini from deck 9 and went back to the cabin to change to street clothes and disembark into Key West. We did a little shopping and then bought our tickets for the Trolley. We got on at Mallory Square and went ‘round to the Southernmost point, got off and stopped (briefly) at the Butterfly conservatory. BTW, a big thank you to Shirley for the 2 for 1 coupons – we used them at the Trolley and the Butterfly Conservatory.

The butterflies were wonderful. I must have taken 150 pictures – tho’ I never did get the photo of the beautiful blue butterflies that I wanted. The actual butterfly habitat is small, but it is set up as a lovely little garden with a stream running through it. There’s an art gallery next to the gift shop that has some amazing pieces. We didn’t buy any, but I would if I’d won the lottery.

After my butterfly fix, we walked down to the southernmost point, took our picture and re-boarded the trolley. On our way back, we passed Bill & Tracy at the Green Parrot. Once we made it to Mallory Square, we walked down Duval Street (after we discovered that the Mel Fisher Museum was closed) to Margaritaville, so that Mike could have his Margarita in Margaritaville. That accomplished, we wandered back to the ship by way of the Blond Giraffe (yes, we did pick up a Key Lime Pie on a Stick and yes, it was good).

My one piece of advice would be that if you want to mail postcards from Key West – buy stamps before you come. There is a post office in town (which is closed on Sundays) and it does have a stamp machine with postcard stamps, but you either need cash or your own stamps – we had neither. So no mailed postcards for us (we did mail them later at Castaway Cay, but they’re all Key West Postcards ? )

Dinner tonight was in Lumiere’s and we finally met some of our tablemates, a Japanese man who works at Disney/MGM and his girlfriend (who was visiting from Japan). Our other tablemates were eating at Palo tonight. I had the Shrimp with dill appetizer, the Tomato Basil soup, Coquille St. Jacques, and White Chocolate Dome (which I actually didn’t like much and didn’t finish). Mike had the Escargot, the Vichyssoise Soup, the Beef Tenderloin, and the Grand Marnier Soufflé. We shared an entree - Duck w/Orange, which was quite good, but the scallops were much better.

Since our table was only half full, we were joined partway through the meal by Kyle, who turns out to be the Head of Guest services. His sister and her husband were traveling with him, but since he’s an officer of the ship, he has to sit wherever there’s room in the dining room. It turns out that Kyle helped set up the cruise line (he watched the Magic & Wonder built). We had a very enjoyable conversation about the company and the cruise line, but he says that the new ship will be build only after Euro goes down – pretty much the party line… Though he did say that building a new ship would be as expensive as a new theme park and that they are listening to their guests.

 

[lillygator]

Loved your info on the couples spa treament. I didn't know they offered a discount on port days!

 

[Karen Mouse]

Day 2 sounded great - that spa villa sounds $$$$$

 

[Lindy Loo]

More more please!!!

 

[oybolshoi]

Enjoying your report so far...can your husband talk to mine about planning an anniversary surprise?

May I ask how much of a discount you received for the spa villa by booking a treatment on a port day? And did you book in advance or did you have to wait until you were on board in order to receive the discount?

And having experienced a hot stone massage myself on more than one occassion, I'd like to offer the phrase bone-meltingly good for your husband's consideration.

Thanks for sharing!


D'OH - Brenda still hasn't mastered reading comprehension...I found the answer I was looking for when I took the time to mentally process your earlier posts. I swear I'm not usually this dense!

 

[tjeagle]

Great report! Discount on port days...noted!!

 

[Sarangel]

Day 4 – Grand Cayman

For our arrival in Grand Caymen, we had scheduled the Shipwreck and Reef Snorkel excursion, so we got up in time to make our 8:00 am meet in Studio Sea. WinoTracy and her husband Bill were on this excursion with us. Mike and I had room service bring us breakfast – Coffee, Milk, OJ, and Doughnuts. We got to Studio Sea a couple of minutes before 8:00 am, said hello to Bill and Tracy, slathered on some sunscreen, and gathered up our towels.

The excursion, much to my surprise, ended up being within sight of both the Magic and the shoreline. We disembarked from the tender and walked 50-100 feet to the beach at the end of the pier, down to the beach and onto the boat for our excursion. The excursion was operated by Don Foster excursions, and our guides were fun (even though I can’t remember their names).

Once we’d motored out into the bay, we were told that the reason the reef was called the “cheeseburger reef” because it was in a direct line with the Burger King on the shore. Not very imaginative, but descriptive. The bad news was that there was a swarm of Moon Jellyfish above the reef. We all got in the water anyway, but I got out soon after, since I was spending more time looking out for the jellyfish than watching the reef. Mike was stung a couple of times and Tracy got stung three or four times while she was getting onto the ladder to the boat. Bill and I both escaped unscathed, but we all joked about our "swim with the Jellyfish" excursion for the rest of the week.

After the Cheeseburger Reef, we puttered over another couple of hundred yards to the wreck. Contrary to my subliminal expectations, this wreck dated from the 1940’s instead of from the eighteen or nineteenth century. It turns out that a cargo ship full of rice ran aground on the reef in the 40’s and had sprung a leak that the crew was unaware of. The ship was eventually demolished by the British Navy; unfortunately, they used a little more explosive than they needed. As a result, what is scattered across the bottom of the bay is more like a scrap yard than a shipwreck.

Despite this, there is a section of the wreck that creates a small tunnel. It’s about 25-20 feet below the surface. Mike and I both tried to swim through it – Mike made it, I did not. For some reason, I couldn’t get my ears to clear and couldn’t stay down at the depth I needed to in order to swim through the wreck. Mike says it was pretty cool, but a little small. One of our guides stayed with him to make sure that he made it out of the wreck.

As we were sailing back from the snorkel tour, the clouds (which had begun to gather during the wreck portion of our tour) opened up. I felt bad for the second excursion that day, since they were boarding and beginning their tour in pretty heavy rain. We didn’t care much, since we were already pretty wet. We got off the boat, and re-grouped (and made use of the facilities) at the mall across from the pier.

After we sorted ourselves out, Mike, Bill, Tracy and I went over to Paradise by the Sea for an early lunch (since we had a coupon, we thought, for a free smoothie with an entrée and a free piece of rum cake with an entrée – more on that later). I had the Conch Chowder and Mike had the Quesadillas, a Cheeseburger, red beans & rice, all of us shared the piece of Rum Cake, which was really quite good. The first thing we found out is that they only take one of the coupons from the Platinum Shopping Guide – even though there are 3 on the page. The other thing I would warn others planning on doing this is that the prices on the menu are in Grand Cayman currency, which is about 2/3 of USD. I was a little surprised at the bill (the credit card charges in dollars), since so many of the other prices are in USD.

After lunch, the four of us wandered around for a bit, but eventually decided to go back to the Magic and get dry clothes. Mike and I wanted to find our shopping map, since he was looking for a new dive watch and I wanted to find the Swarovski shop, since I collect the Swarovski Christmas ornaments every year. Once we had dry clothes, and the sun had come back out, we headed back to shore to shop. Mike did find his watch at a shop called Grand Switzerland, and I found my Christmas ornament (for about $11.00 less than I would have paid for it in the states).

After our real shopping, we toured through several shops that were offering free stuff – we got a free replica pirate coin, a sunglasses cloth, a free cigar for Mike, and a free pair of earrings for me.

We made it back to the Magic in time for the Art Auction, and spent far too much on a Minnie & Mickey “blind date” and a Thomas Kincaid castle. For those unfamiliar with the art auctions – they are set up like a regular art auction, but every so often they offer a piece that they don’t show you until after you’ve bid on it. They call this a “blind date,” and you are not committed to buy the piece (but you can, in theory, only buy it if you’ve previously bid on it). Again, theoretically, the price on the blind dates are often dramatically lower than if you bid on it in the regular fashion.

I ended up going to the meeting with the Park West auction guys (who were very nice and showed me all of their Kinkade stock, and I had them mark a couple so Mike could look at them later). The reason I went by myself is that Mike spent the time before dinner pin-trading.

On our way into Parrot Cay, we ran into Kyle and his family again. Mike stopped to say “hi” and mentioned that a curions thing had happened to the cold box in our room the day after we’d had dinner with them. Kyle denied knowing anything about it, with a conspiratorial grin. We thanked him and chatted with them for a bit before we went into dinner…

My notes stopped here, so I have no idea what we ate for dinner or what we did for the rest of the evening. We might have gone to bed early, since we knew we needed to get up early the next day.

 

[dolphf16]

Great report. Looking forward to hearing more. I'm interested in what you have to say about Cozumel. Are they still using tenders? Thanks!

 

[Sarangel]

Day 5 – Cozumel

Another early day for us, and another breakfast brought by room service (toast, coffee, hot chocolate, fruit and a bagel for Mike). Disembarkation for those of us without scheduled excursions began at 8:00 am, and we dutifully lined up outside the Buena Vista Theatre for our tender tickets. We actually boarded the tender around 8:30, and must have had the new guy on the block. We, quite literally, pulled into the dock 2 minutes before the tender that left 10-15 minutes after we did.

We had contacted Luis Aguilar (by way of Dive with Christina. I had found their names (and websites) from another DISer’s trip report, and I did a little research on them – and found nothing but positive reviews from a couple of other boards (one fishing, one Scuba). Since Mike and I have not been certified as Scuba Divers, we wanted something that my mother (who is Scuba certified) calls a “resort dive.” This is a divemaster that is willing to do all the work for you and just let you have a good time. We paid $110.00 each for the dive.

Once we disembarked from the painfully slow tender (not that I was excited about diving or anything), we took a taxi to the Marina Caleta ($7 US) and Luis’s boat, the Nena. We ended up being the only ones that had scheduled a tour, so we had the boat, crew (of one), and Luis all to ourselves. We spent the first 45 minutes to an hour listening to Luis tell us how not to kill ourselves diving, and then we dove. Luis had done all the hard work of figuring out weights and buoyancy and other stuff that we didn’t know about, so all we did was follow him down a rope to the floor of the ocean. He had us stop ever couple of feet to clear our ears, since I had told him about my problems from the previous day. I was initially worried, but doing it his way was perfect and pain-free.

We ended up going down about 50’ for our first dive (and managed to forget our underwater camera, which was both good and bad – good, because it let us focus on the buoyancy issues and breathing correctly, bad because we have no pictures from that dive). While we were down along the reef, I started to hear a whining noise… Eventually, Luis managed to tear our attention away from the fish and point out the submarine (the Atlantis VII) – we waved to the sub as it went past. If any DISer’s were on that sub and took pictures of 3 divers, let me know, since it might be us (I saw a lot of flashbulbs going off). ?

After what seemed far too short a time, Luis let up a balloon (in neon orange with the words “Diver Below” on it) so that the Nena could find us and we started back up to the surface. After we got back onto the boat, we looked at pictures of the various fish we’d seen, snacked on some Mango, Pineapple and nuts, and talked about the dive. Luis was complementary about how quickly Mike and I picked up what he was telling us. I brushed it off with a “I bet you tell that to all the tourists,” sort of a comment, but he promised he was sincere.

It rained during our time between dives, but we were comfortable since the boat had not only a roof, but zip down windows to minimize the impact of the kind of squall we found ourselves in. Luis also said that we didn’t need to worry about lightening, since the Nena was all wood.

After we’d been above water for a while (an hour?), we strapped on new tanks (and the camera) and started our second dive. We went down a little faster this time. Luis took the camera away from us pretty early on, and took several shots of us underwater. Everything went pretty well for 20 minutes or so, and then I noticed that the camera housing was fogging up – Later Luis told me that many divers use the little silica packs that you find in shoe boxes or other sold items to keep any extra moisture from fogging up a waterproof housing like ours. Oh well, live and learn. During our second dive we saw some more unusual creatures – a Sailfin-something-or-other, rainbow parrotfish that looked like they could have eaten New Jersey, conch, skates and a spotted eagle ray.

After our second dive, we headed back to the marina. We stripped out of our dive skins, showered off, and changed (yes, the Nena does have a very small bathroom). Luis let us gather up our stuff and didn’t hurry us off the boat, and called us a taxi when we were ready to head back into town. We took the taxi down the main street until we saw the Hard Rock Café and Mike asked the driver to stop. It cost us a whole $9 US. It turns out that we stopped at the Hard Rock because Mike was starving; we ordered their jumbo appetizer and a couple of sodas and he was good to go again.

We walked the remaining 6 blocks or so to the end of the shopping district and started back, gathering our freebies along the way. Another free coin, with $3 for a pendant holder for it and $5 for a cute pair of sapphire earrings, a free pair of tanzanite earrings, a free glass stir stick for Mike… We stopped at Genoa Jewelers for a “free gift for her”, which turned out to be a mistake. I found a pair of tanzanite earrings that I quite liked, but it turned out that they were $585.00 for the pair. Too rich for my blood – except that Mike was determined to get me something and these were the only things I’d liked. We ended up paying $500 flat for the pair (1.05 carats of Tanzanite + .3 carats of diamonds).

Once we made it back onto the ship, we headed up to the Rainforest room for a little bit, and I left Mike there since I was trying desperately to finish the dress I wanted to wear for brunch the next day. For some reason, I kept thinking I’d be able to have a lot of free time on the ship – but over the week, I didn’t get to read any of the books I brought or watch any of the DVDs.


Since I wasn’t there to keep an eye on the clock, Mike came down just before we needed to leave for dinner, but we needed still needed to get dressed for pirate night! We went through dressing in record time – and I hate to admit it, but we were complemented on our costumes a number of times, and it was just stuff we had hanging around in the closet (OK, I’ll fess up, we do historical re-enactment, and most of the pieces were from that).

Pirate night in Lumiere’s is a little weird, but the food was good. Mike and I both had the Crab cakes and Mahi-mahi w/macadamias, I had the mango soup and Mike had a salad and I had chocolate cake for dessert while Mike had the cheesecake.

After dinner, we went back to the cabin – or tried to. It turns out that Mike had grabbed his driver’s license from the over the door shoe holder instead of his room key… Good for ID, not so good for getting us into the room. He called guest services, asked if they were the right place to call “if I were a stupid guest who forgot my room key,” and was met with gales of laughter. Once the woman on the other end of the line caught her breath, she said she’d send someone up right away to let us in.

We freshened up a bit and headed up to Deck 10 Starboard to watch the fireworks. We got there just in time to see Captian Mickey drop in on the stage show, and then the fireworks. Pretty cool.

We went back to the room, I finished my dress, and we went to bed around 1:30 am.

 

[Sarangel]

Just by the way, they're working at a feverish pace to get the pier back in working order. There was actually a boat/ship moored to it when we went, but I think it was being used as part of the construction. My DH (who's done construction) thinks they have a couple of months to go before it's ready...

 

[Sarangel]

OK, here goes my first [edited] attempt to post a picture:

 

[Sarangel]

OK, that didn't work (tho I followed the Tech Board guidelines... )

Let's see if the link works: link

 

[Karen Mouse]

Free stuff???? Free stuff???? - how do you get free stuff???/ - my kinda price

Your piccie is brilliant and great trippie so far.

 

[Sarangel]

Free stuff???? Free stuff???? - how do you get free stuff???/ - my kinda price

Your piccie is brilliant and great trippie so far.

Thanks, I was sorta wondering if anyone was actually reading it...

Free - sort of. We had to buy the Platinum Passport book from the shopping guide. Cost $20.00. We did get more than $20 worth of stuff from it (especially the Del Sol bags - I love those for grocery shopping). What else did we get? several pairs of earrings, a glass stir stick for DH, a couple of coins, a glasses cleaning kit, a couple of mediocre cigars for DH, the Del Sol bags (3 of 'em)... There might have been more, but that might be it.

 

[grumpydude]

I am liking your report. We were supposed to go Western but were switched to Eastern because of Ernesto. We still had a good time but we were really pumped to go Western.