ducklite
<font color=teal>Take the Poly, it's fabulous!<br>
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2000
- Messages
- 33,487
Magical Day 3
Monday dawned with a beautiful sky and incredibly calm seas. The bridge report channel on the television was showing waves at under four feet. DH had gotten up before me in order to run for an hour, and I was just waking up as he came back. As DH took a shower, I relaxed in a wonderful bubble bath. We got dressed, and I ordered room service for all three of us. I was pleasantly surprised that the woman who took our order remembered that I needed nut free foods, with no nut contaminations.
I dont recall what each of us had for breakfast each day, but by the end of the cruise we had sampled pretty much everything on the breakfast menu, and the only thing that we didn't quite care for were the pancakes, which we thought to be dry. We did find some of the portions to be small on the breakfast entrees, especially the pancakes, french toast and waffles. When ordering these items we also needed to order pastries or something to go along.
As they had the previous day, the servers came in and set up the table with a tablecloth, cloth napkins, and a full selection of condiments. I tipped $5, and after they left, noticed that DS's sausages were forgotten. Not to worry, less than five minutes later one of the servers was back with a plate of sausages, apologizing profusely. We had the same servers bring our breakfast each morning, and by the last day they were laughing about "the Lump", or as they were calling him, "Sunshine", who would usually be sound asleep when the breakfast arrived.
We actually had tickets for the character breakfast this morning, which our head server had given us the night before, but we had decided not to attend, and had offered the seats to another DIS Boarder.
We noticed the message light was lit on our phone, and checked it. It was Gabriella from concierge, reminding us that we had a reservation at Palo's for brunch, a spa appointment for the Surial Ritual Chamber, and reservations at Palo again for dinner. It became a bit of an inside joke every day playing "guess how many voice mail messages we'll get from the concierge staff today". The staff was incredibly helpful in keeping us organized.
We decided to see Lilo and Stitch again, and got there just as it was starting.
We had Palo's reservations at 12:00noon. On arrival we were promptly seated at a comfortable window booth. Our server, Erika, arrived and brought us each a glass of champagne. Erika was not only an exceptional server, but had a wonderfully endearing way about her, and she quickly became our favorite crew member. She first explained the brunch menu, and then took us on a tour of the various stations, all the while pointing out her favorite selections.
We started with breakfast foods, pastries, fruits, cheeses, progressed into lunch with shrimp and salads, and then Erika delivered our delectable entrees. DH had decided on the highly recommended Tallapia, which was surprising, as he doesn't eat fish. I had selected the filet, which was absolutely delicious. I ordered a second glass of champagne, and
DH ordered a beer from a decent, although not extensive, international selection. After dinner there was a large selection, and I had the fresh fruit, which was an excellent finish. We finished our meal, left a tip on top of the service charge, and headed back to our room at about 1:30.
We were scheduled for the Surial Bath at 2:30. We hadn't been to the spa yet, so I wanted to allow some extra time. We had thought about doing the rainforest room, and decided against it. In retrospect, I would have loved the Rainforest as a segway between brunch and the surial. We got to the spa and filled out the general health questionnaire, and were asked to have a seat and wait for a few moments. Shortly we were handed baskets with a robe and slippers, and led back to the locker rooms. I am a spa person. I have spent time in a great deal of them. Frankly, I was not impressed with the locker room on the Magic.
The doors would often be left open, and any passerby (male or female) could see right in. The décor seemed more like that you would find in a gymnasium rather than a luxurious spa. The seating area only had chaise lounges, no regular chairs. The layout was confusing in general.
I undressed, put on the robe, and stashed my personal items in an empty locker. I grabbed a few extra towels thanks to a tip from these boards, and went into the hall to rejoin my husband and the spa attendant. We followed her down the hall to the Ritual Chamber. She spent a few moments explaining the various muds and other items, and how to apply them. We were a little confused on which was for what, but she made such a hasty retreat that we didn't really have time to ask.
We got the steam rolling in the steam room, and started with the muds. Once we were covered and looking like aborigines participating in some sort of ritual, we entered the steam chamber. I have asthma, and was able to stay for all of about 15 seconds before I had to step out. If you are asthmatic and want to participate in this "treatment", bring your inhaler!
After some of the steam subsided I was able to go back in for a bit. Yes, the floor does get hot, but if you turn on the white handled faucets and let the cool water flow onto the floor, it's very comfortable. What I enjoyed the most was sitting in one of the "cubicles" and letting the water from the top and side faucets fall on me all at once, kind of like a vichey spa treatment. Keep in mind that the water pressure really decreases the more you turn on, and you might need to make choices. I also found that if you take the hose attached to the white handled spigots and cover the end with your thumb, it makes a great water gun to spray at your spouse, which causes a landslide of mud to rain all over the floor of the chamber
After a bit of that I went back to the main room, and showered to get the mud off. What a mess. There was mud colored water everywhere!! I was very glad I had brought extra towels and had stashed two aside to keep clean "no matter what", because we ended up leaving several sopping wet, mud covered towels on the floor of the main room.
We still had plenty of time left (we hoped, neither of us had bothered to bring in a watch--mistake number two), so we decided to try out some of the various lotions and oils and such. I really enjoyed the peppermint shower gel, but didn't really like their shampoo much.
At any rate, we were pretty much finishing up when the attendant gave us the ten minutes left knock on the door, and a few minutes later we stepped out. All in all it was fun, but I'll pass next time.
We went back to our cabin, and I put some CD's in and sat on the verandah and read my book while DH took a stroll up to check out the ESPN sports bar. At around 5:00pm the concierge team had chocolate covered strawberries delivered to our cabin, yum!
Dh and I had Palo's reservations for dinner at 8:00pm. We were hoping to have Erika again, but it was not to be. She did see us and stop by to chat for a moment though. I selected the tomato and mozzarella with balsamic glaze as my appetizer, and DH passed, as he was still pretty full from brunch. For the entrée he ordered the lamb while I had the chicken. The food was good, although we had enjoyed the brunch a LOT more. Our server asked if we would be ordering the chocolate souffle for dessert, as souffles need extra prep time. Even though it is billed as a chocolate hazelnut souffle, she told us that they no longer add hazelnuts or nut oils to it, so it would be safe for me to eat. Of course we had to try that, who could possibly pass up a chocolate souffle. After we finished our entrees, we were served the souffle, which was fabulous! The addition of the vanilla cream sauce makes this a wonderfully decadent, but not overly sweet concoction. We got our bill for our wine and beer, left an additional tip, and headed downstairs.
We met up with DS who told us he was cold and what could he wear as a jacket. Oops, I hadn't packed anything for him, so I took him down to the shops and bought him a hooded zip front sweat jacket, which was actually a fairly reasonable price. ($28?) He did use it a couple more times on the trip. Mental note, next time pack something for him. It was extremely windy that evening, with a storm front blowing by. Because he had to get up for a shore excursion the next morning, I gave DS a midnight curfew for this night.
While we had been at dinner, the concierge staff had stopped by and left two $5 arcade cards for Mark.
It was too late to see the dueling piano's show by this time, so DH and I called it a night and went to bed. I woke up at about 12:30am and noticed the light was still on in the living room. I was more than a little angry that DS had missed his curfew, and put on my robe and went into the living room, intent on calling Common Grounds to have him sent back without waking DH. DS was actually in the room, laying on the Murphy bed still awake. I asked why he wasn't sleeping, and he explained that he had taken a tumble down some stairs, and thought he broke his wrist. Wonderful. Why didn't he wake me up? He didn't want to disturb me. Sometimes you dont know whether to hug or throttle your teenagers All sorts of scenarios started to play through my mind. I looked at his wrist through my bleary eyes, and it looked a little bruised, slightly swollen. I moved it. He didn't scream. I wiggled it around, had him move it, OK, it's not broken. My brain slowed down a bit. I handed him a couple of Advil, got a Zip lock bag out and emptied the ice bucket into it. He put on his pj's and brushed his teeth, and then I put him to bed, his arm propped up on a couple pillows with my improvised ice bag on top of it. Disaster averted, and we all slept well.
More to come
Monday dawned with a beautiful sky and incredibly calm seas. The bridge report channel on the television was showing waves at under four feet. DH had gotten up before me in order to run for an hour, and I was just waking up as he came back. As DH took a shower, I relaxed in a wonderful bubble bath. We got dressed, and I ordered room service for all three of us. I was pleasantly surprised that the woman who took our order remembered that I needed nut free foods, with no nut contaminations.
I dont recall what each of us had for breakfast each day, but by the end of the cruise we had sampled pretty much everything on the breakfast menu, and the only thing that we didn't quite care for were the pancakes, which we thought to be dry. We did find some of the portions to be small on the breakfast entrees, especially the pancakes, french toast and waffles. When ordering these items we also needed to order pastries or something to go along.
As they had the previous day, the servers came in and set up the table with a tablecloth, cloth napkins, and a full selection of condiments. I tipped $5, and after they left, noticed that DS's sausages were forgotten. Not to worry, less than five minutes later one of the servers was back with a plate of sausages, apologizing profusely. We had the same servers bring our breakfast each morning, and by the last day they were laughing about "the Lump", or as they were calling him, "Sunshine", who would usually be sound asleep when the breakfast arrived.
We actually had tickets for the character breakfast this morning, which our head server had given us the night before, but we had decided not to attend, and had offered the seats to another DIS Boarder.
We noticed the message light was lit on our phone, and checked it. It was Gabriella from concierge, reminding us that we had a reservation at Palo's for brunch, a spa appointment for the Surial Ritual Chamber, and reservations at Palo again for dinner. It became a bit of an inside joke every day playing "guess how many voice mail messages we'll get from the concierge staff today". The staff was incredibly helpful in keeping us organized.
We decided to see Lilo and Stitch again, and got there just as it was starting.
We had Palo's reservations at 12:00noon. On arrival we were promptly seated at a comfortable window booth. Our server, Erika, arrived and brought us each a glass of champagne. Erika was not only an exceptional server, but had a wonderfully endearing way about her, and she quickly became our favorite crew member. She first explained the brunch menu, and then took us on a tour of the various stations, all the while pointing out her favorite selections.
We started with breakfast foods, pastries, fruits, cheeses, progressed into lunch with shrimp and salads, and then Erika delivered our delectable entrees. DH had decided on the highly recommended Tallapia, which was surprising, as he doesn't eat fish. I had selected the filet, which was absolutely delicious. I ordered a second glass of champagne, and
DH ordered a beer from a decent, although not extensive, international selection. After dinner there was a large selection, and I had the fresh fruit, which was an excellent finish. We finished our meal, left a tip on top of the service charge, and headed back to our room at about 1:30.
We were scheduled for the Surial Bath at 2:30. We hadn't been to the spa yet, so I wanted to allow some extra time. We had thought about doing the rainforest room, and decided against it. In retrospect, I would have loved the Rainforest as a segway between brunch and the surial. We got to the spa and filled out the general health questionnaire, and were asked to have a seat and wait for a few moments. Shortly we were handed baskets with a robe and slippers, and led back to the locker rooms. I am a spa person. I have spent time in a great deal of them. Frankly, I was not impressed with the locker room on the Magic.
The doors would often be left open, and any passerby (male or female) could see right in. The décor seemed more like that you would find in a gymnasium rather than a luxurious spa. The seating area only had chaise lounges, no regular chairs. The layout was confusing in general.
I undressed, put on the robe, and stashed my personal items in an empty locker. I grabbed a few extra towels thanks to a tip from these boards, and went into the hall to rejoin my husband and the spa attendant. We followed her down the hall to the Ritual Chamber. She spent a few moments explaining the various muds and other items, and how to apply them. We were a little confused on which was for what, but she made such a hasty retreat that we didn't really have time to ask.
We got the steam rolling in the steam room, and started with the muds. Once we were covered and looking like aborigines participating in some sort of ritual, we entered the steam chamber. I have asthma, and was able to stay for all of about 15 seconds before I had to step out. If you are asthmatic and want to participate in this "treatment", bring your inhaler!
After some of the steam subsided I was able to go back in for a bit. Yes, the floor does get hot, but if you turn on the white handled faucets and let the cool water flow onto the floor, it's very comfortable. What I enjoyed the most was sitting in one of the "cubicles" and letting the water from the top and side faucets fall on me all at once, kind of like a vichey spa treatment. Keep in mind that the water pressure really decreases the more you turn on, and you might need to make choices. I also found that if you take the hose attached to the white handled spigots and cover the end with your thumb, it makes a great water gun to spray at your spouse, which causes a landslide of mud to rain all over the floor of the chamber
After a bit of that I went back to the main room, and showered to get the mud off. What a mess. There was mud colored water everywhere!! I was very glad I had brought extra towels and had stashed two aside to keep clean "no matter what", because we ended up leaving several sopping wet, mud covered towels on the floor of the main room.
We still had plenty of time left (we hoped, neither of us had bothered to bring in a watch--mistake number two), so we decided to try out some of the various lotions and oils and such. I really enjoyed the peppermint shower gel, but didn't really like their shampoo much.
At any rate, we were pretty much finishing up when the attendant gave us the ten minutes left knock on the door, and a few minutes later we stepped out. All in all it was fun, but I'll pass next time.
We went back to our cabin, and I put some CD's in and sat on the verandah and read my book while DH took a stroll up to check out the ESPN sports bar. At around 5:00pm the concierge team had chocolate covered strawberries delivered to our cabin, yum!
Dh and I had Palo's reservations for dinner at 8:00pm. We were hoping to have Erika again, but it was not to be. She did see us and stop by to chat for a moment though. I selected the tomato and mozzarella with balsamic glaze as my appetizer, and DH passed, as he was still pretty full from brunch. For the entrée he ordered the lamb while I had the chicken. The food was good, although we had enjoyed the brunch a LOT more. Our server asked if we would be ordering the chocolate souffle for dessert, as souffles need extra prep time. Even though it is billed as a chocolate hazelnut souffle, she told us that they no longer add hazelnuts or nut oils to it, so it would be safe for me to eat. Of course we had to try that, who could possibly pass up a chocolate souffle. After we finished our entrees, we were served the souffle, which was fabulous! The addition of the vanilla cream sauce makes this a wonderfully decadent, but not overly sweet concoction. We got our bill for our wine and beer, left an additional tip, and headed downstairs.
We met up with DS who told us he was cold and what could he wear as a jacket. Oops, I hadn't packed anything for him, so I took him down to the shops and bought him a hooded zip front sweat jacket, which was actually a fairly reasonable price. ($28?) He did use it a couple more times on the trip. Mental note, next time pack something for him. It was extremely windy that evening, with a storm front blowing by. Because he had to get up for a shore excursion the next morning, I gave DS a midnight curfew for this night.
While we had been at dinner, the concierge staff had stopped by and left two $5 arcade cards for Mark.
It was too late to see the dueling piano's show by this time, so DH and I called it a night and went to bed. I woke up at about 12:30am and noticed the light was still on in the living room. I was more than a little angry that DS had missed his curfew, and put on my robe and went into the living room, intent on calling Common Grounds to have him sent back without waking DH. DS was actually in the room, laying on the Murphy bed still awake. I asked why he wasn't sleeping, and he explained that he had taken a tumble down some stairs, and thought he broke his wrist. Wonderful. Why didn't he wake me up? He didn't want to disturb me. Sometimes you dont know whether to hug or throttle your teenagers
All sorts of scenarios started to play through my mind. I looked at his wrist through my bleary eyes, and it looked a little bruised, slightly swollen. I moved it. He didn't scream. I wiggled it around, had him move it, OK, it's not broken. My brain slowed down a bit. I handed him a couple of Advil, got a Zip lock bag out and emptied the ice bucket into it. He put on his pj's and brushed his teeth, and then I put him to bed, his arm propped up on a couple pillows with my improvised ice bag on top of it. Disaster averted, and we all slept well.More to come
