A Magical Trip from the Lone Star State - Oct 13 2012 Sailing

[iloverags2]

Joining in! It sounds like a wonderful cruise so far! I hear you on AP...while I really enjoyed our dinner on the Dream a few weeks back, there is something about the original version on the classic ships. (And I truly miss PC, which is my favorite dining room on the classic ships.) The Fantasy is next up for us, but I'm aching to get back on the Magic soon!

 

[ukintheus]

We had set up a Mickey wake up call for 6:15 am. W needed to be on one of the first tenders off the ship as we had booked an Island Tour followed by a Stingray City and snorkel stop with Captain Marvins. We've used them before and they were great.

We were up before the wake up call went off. We also set up for room service at 6:30 am and had breakfast cereal, toast, English muffin and juice and coffee. They called at about 6:15 am to say they were on their way.

The personal navigator had told us the night before that we needed to consult our tender letter, which hadn’t arrived by the time we went to bed. I guessed that first tender would be about 7:30 am. The tender letter was in our fish early that morning and showed the tenders as starting at 7:30 am, and everyone that was NOT on a DCL excursion needed to go the Buena Vista Theatre to get a tender ticket.

Due to “inclement weather”....which we could only guess was related to the tide because the weather was beautiful...they weren’t tendering into Georgetown but were going to Spott’s Bay (which I had no clue where it was).

We watched the first tenders line up while we were waiting...

And took these from our verandah...

We got down to BVT before 7:30 am and got our tender tickets. Each person had to get one. They were also handing out shuttle tickets, one per person each way, so two per person. Having never been to Spott’s Bay, we didn’t realize that it is a bus ride from the pier into town. We were on the first tender quickly and off over to the Island.

We got on a bus...it was a little more chaotic with various excursions going in different directions to various buses...you could tell there were already some frazzled people........but we found our bus and it was filled up quickly. The first few minutes we zipped along........then ran into traffic.... a LOT of traffic!!! It took us over 45 mins to get from the pier into downtown. We found out later there had been a fatal traffic accident on the island that morning.

I thought we were going to miss check in at Captain Marvin’s...the bus dropped us off close to the center of town, so we then had to walk back past the Georgetown pier.... but we made it with 2 minutes to spare. It was close to a 10 minute walk I think. Because of the huge mess with traffic Capt Marvins were also having problems. Their 8:30 snorkle tour was running late and so they put us on that, it all worked out, and we didn’t really care which we did first. We headed out to the other side of the island where Capt Marvins run their boats. The traffic had eased up, but I think we were on the opposite side of where the accident had been.

 

[ukintheus]

Captain Marvins is run out of a large home in a very affluent subdivision where all the homes sit on the water. As soon as we got there, they loaded us up and we were on our way. There are iguanas everywhere.

The boat was smaller than the one we had been on last time, and was fairly full. The weather was beautiful, and the water was like a swimming pool.

There were only three other boats when we got to Stingray City....and the one large one was almost finished with their excursion....

The guide started feeding the stingrays squid...

Most people got in...there were a few that stayed on the boat...Mum being one of them! I think Scott was the first one in....go figure....

Soon had a lot swimming around us.

The guide showed us the barb, and told us some things about the stingrays in general...

Last time we were here in 2010 I was too chicken to stay in, but this time we all fed the stingrays and even had photographs taken picking them up, kissing them and with them on our back.

Because the tour wasn't full, they said that they had enough time to do an additional stop so we all loaded back onto the boat and headed to Coral Gardens to do some snorkeling.

We saw a few fish, but it wasnt anything fantastic.

Next we headed to Barrier Reef and they had more squid to feed the fish. There were a lot of fish and we got some great pictures...we also took video...but I don't know how to post it...

The guide told us there was a moray eel in the crevice of this rock....I never could see it...

After 20 mins there, we began to head back in...right as we pulled away the guide pulled out some starfish for us to photograph...

The water there is absolutely beautiful...

We docked back at Capt Marvins. They already had a bus waiting for us to take us on the island tour.

 

[ukintheus]

Our tour guide, Dennis, was ready to go and because of all the chaos during the earlier excursions we had the bus to ourselves! A personal island tour we were thrilled!

We started by stopping outside the Governors House...

Dennis explained some of the political background of how the Governor is appointed by the Queen of England, and the rest of the officials are elected.

We passed by Seven Mile Beach, the water looked beautiful...

Dennis stopped to tell us a bit about The Old Homestead and the preservation and restoration that has been done on it despite many hurricanes..

My Mum had been looking forward to sending lots of postcards back to her friends in England at her church to say shed been to Hell.

Dennis took us back and showed us the rock formation....

We took a few photos back here and all posed in the corny cut out...

Next stop was the gift shop....we had prepared address labels ahead of time as she wanted to send about 15 cards. The people running the gift shop next to the post office knew our tour guide and were very friendly and helpful, but we were the only people there, so we had plenty of time to get them all quickly written. All of them said the same thing Having a Hell of a Time. Still alive!! It had to be short and sweet as we needed to get them written and over to the post office to get them in the mail. The postage on 16 postcards to the United Kingdom and 5 to the United States was about $5.00, a total bargain!!

Next stop was the Turtle Farm.

We werent that interested in spending a lot of time there, but it was included in the cost of the excursion and Dennis was good at steering us around there with the highlights. We all held a turtle....

Mum wasn't keen at all....

We had our photo taken...

....and were in and out in about 20-30 minutes. We saw other people with Disney excursion stickers on there, so we werent quite as worried about getting back to the ship on time. Dennis knew we were concerned about the shuttle back to the pier to tender so once we were back in the bus we headed straight back into town and he dropped us off right where the shuttles were loading. We contemplated trying to find a good cup of English tea for Mum and my sister, but by this time we were tired, hungry and ready to get back to the ship.

 

[ukintheus]

There was a DCL representative at the bus stop who was helping to coordinate the buses back and make sure things were going smoothly. Another small detail that just makes Disney first class.

We got on the next bus, they were loading very quickly, and we were off back to the ship. The journey that took us 45 minutes that morning took us 11 minutes in the afternoon!

We snapped some photos of the Magic before we headed down to the tender...

The weather looked like it was going to get bad...but it never made in inland...

They had iced water and lemonade at the pier...I grabbed a lemonade, and we got straight onto a tender...no waiting at all...

We were back to the ship at 2:30 pm....incredible given how much we had managed to pack into the day... we headed up to Deck 9 to grab some lunch. Scott and I both had chicken tenders and fries and they were great....LOVE the chicken tenders.

Scott took a few photos of the island while we were up there...

We went back to sit on the balcony and watched the final tenders bringing people back from the pier.

The ship turned around while the last few tenders were loading and unloading, so we figured they weren’t planning on being late! We pulled away at 4:30 pm and got underway in a hurry.

 

[ukintheus]

Tonight we had dinner booked at Palo at 7:00 pm. I called up and requested Susana as our server again.

Scott decided to run up to Deck 10 to take some sunset photos....I stayed in the room and took these....

Scott arrived back with some tale of meeting some guy while getting a beer, who was also an avid photographer...who had told him he had missed the sunset....which is strange....because it wasn't DARK??? Needless to say, the story didn't involve ANY photographs...

We got ready for Palo and arrived right on time and were shown to our table. It was a bit busier than brunch, but not full and they seemed to have extra room.

We had the Palo antipasto....so yummy...I could make a meal of the bread and the parmesan reggiano with balsamic....slurp!!! Scott and I shared a bottle of wine, Mum and Mo had a mojito.

Scott and I both had the Palo signature appetizers...Calamari, Grilled shrimp, portobello and polenta....

Scott and I both had beef tenderloin....

Susana also bought me a side of the lobster ravioli...

... and Scott an extra Portobello and Polenta, which we had with the Palo signature appetizers and which was absolutely delicious.....

Mum and Mo both had the lamb....and Scott and I both WISH we'd ordered it!! It was fantastic...and we both thought it was better than the beef...

Susana is such a nut...she told us that she would be RIGHT back...and dashed off to her cabin to get her tablet to show us a photo. Another customer had taken a photo of her with the pepper grinder....it was a GREAT photo...she wanted Scott to try and recreate it... Here's his attempt....it didn't come out as well as the original....

We also had the chocolate soufflé....Mum had the tiramisu, but said it wasn't AS good as the one at brunch...

We took some photos with Susana....

Tonight was pirate night so we walked out of Palo and out onto Deck 10 to see what was going on with the party.

We were all so full and sleepy that in the end we didn’t stay to see the show but decided to walk off a little of the food by walking down to Deck 4 to show Mum all the machinery for the anchors and mooring ropes and chains at the front of the ship.

We were all back to our rooms by 10:00 pm...this guy was hanging around...

We went out to watch the fireworks from our balconies, we had a great view.

It had been a really busy day...and we were all tired so right after the fireworks we headed to bed.

 

[ukintheus]

ohhh, I am really getting excited reading this!

Funny, I guess growing up in Texas and seeing the water in Galveston - I just kind of assumed that its a green/brown color in the gulf. Your blue water pics are beautiful!

It turned to blue much more quickly than I thought it would...too bad it doesn't look like that in Galveston!

More please!!!! Sailing Dec. 1st.

I know you will have a great time...

subbing along, great trip report! We really had a great time, and enjoyed the cruise, I hope to maybe go on another cruise soon!

Thanks for following along Glad you had a great time...cruises are addictive aren't they??

Joining in! It sounds like a wonderful cruise so far! I hear you on AP...while I really enjoyed our dinner on the Dream a few weeks back, there is something about the original version on the classic ships. (And I truly miss PC, which is my favorite dining room on the classic ships.) The Fantasy is next up for us, but I'm aching to get back on the Magic soon!

Hi Cindy! I thought of you and Russ a few times...I wondered how much you were missing having the Magic there...and now know how GREAT it is to have her so close!

 

[Arkum]

Subscribing as well! We were on the same cruise and it's fun to see it through your eyes! Thanks again for setting up the FE. My kids loved coming back to little gifts.

 

[ukintheus]

Subscribing as well! We were on the same cruise and it's fun to see it through your eyes! Thanks again for setting up the FE. My kids loved coming back to little gifts.

Hello! So glad that your kids enjoyed the FE... It was fun to set up and to participate in. Thanks for subbing...it's fun to remember...all that waiting to go and now it's over...that's the only bad thing!!

 

[ukintheus]

After our reasonably early night, we all were up before 8 am. Scott and I ordered coffee and fruit juice from room service and sat our on the balcony for a little while.

The sun was out and it was warming up, so Scott decided to head down to Deck 4 again to go and run....I sat on my backside and did almost nothing while he was gone...but I did take a pic of all of our FE gifts so far....

This morning was going to be fairly relaxed as All Ashore wasnt until 12:45 pm and we didn't have to be ready for our excursion until 12:30 pm.

We all headed up to Topsiders for breakfast after he got back. I had scrambled eggs, a sausage, mushrooms and half a bagel with peanut butter. This is Scotts plate&we all pretty much ate the same thing!

My sister fell in love with the sausages they had, they are a LOT like English bangers (sausages) and so for us are super tasty.

After breakfast we all headed back to our rooms to watch for the arrival of land in the distance.

As we got close to Costa Maya a military boat came out and went from side to side for a while, not really sure what he was doing other than just checking us out.

The pilot boat came out, it looked more like a fishing boat, and dropped off the pilot. The pilot boat then seemed to have some kind of engine failure as we left it bobbing around and it didnt seem to be under power at all. The military boat came out and checked on them and you could finally see a big puff of smoke and they managed to get under idle to head back in.

We took a few pics while we were out there watching everything...

We docked in Costa Maya at 12:10 pm and we all gathered our stuff to head out to the Walt Disney Theatre to be there for our 12:30 pm excursion to the Chaccohoben ruins. There were quite a lot of people signed up, and they took us from the WDT down to our motor coach that would take us on the trip to the ruins. We walked along the pier and took a few pics.

The motorcoach was in good enough shape, better than I was expecting, but the AC wasnt working well and it was a warm ride to the ruins. The journey took about an hour, but our tour guide, Jesus, did a good job giving us information about the Mayans and their culture and some interesting facts about some of the villages that we passed through.

 

[ukintheus]

We arrived at the ruins and there were gift shops, restrooms and a place to buy cold drinks.

We were given a 10 minute stop for a restroom break, and it took every bit of it with all the buses arriving together and everyone needing to use them! We also grabbed 3 bottles of cold water and a Gatorade from the little place selling drinks and snacks.

It was very warm and humid and we were glad of some cold drinks. Everyone also applied bug spray as they said the mosquitos can be bad. There were several stops on the walking tour where they explained the ruins, the sacrificial alter and the different phases of Mayan culture.

There were several different ruins to walk to...the heat just took all the energy out of us....even the teenagers were happy to find a bench to plop down on at some of the stops...of course...they could also have been bored!

The last stop included a chance to climb up to see more ruins up on a hill, but because Mum can’t do stairs too well...me, Mum and my sister all elected to wait down at the bottom and let Scott do all the climbing and take all the photos. This is what was at the top....

These are the tiny coconuts that grow everywhere...

This was a cool tree....our tour guide said it was a strangled fig...

After the tour there was a little time to browse the gift shops before we loaded back on the motor coach.

They had water and soft drinks for us in a cooler getting onto the coach.

It seemed a little cooler in the afternoon but I have a feeling it was because we were on the shady side of the bus. The tour guide had several items made from the local coconuts that he was selling as part of a project he was spearheading to try and bring more economic growth to the local population. He was selling coconut candles, Christmas ornaments and various pieces of jewelery, all made from the local coconuts which are much smaller than the type we usually see.

Candle...

Christmas Ornament....

They stopped to show us a local cemetary and explained how the upcoming holiday of the Day of the Dead (Nov 1) was so important to their culture...he said that they host a dinner at the graveside for the loved one that has passed...

Selling pineapples...

All aboard was 5:30 pm and we were dropped off at 5:20 pm so there wasn’t any time to do any shopping. Because of the lines of people coming back from the ruins tours it was 5:40 pm by the time we got back on board.

 

[mandymouse]

We have been spoilt with your updates today Jen I love your photos, there are some good sunset ones there and this is a lovely one of you and Scott

I look forward to your next update

 

[ukintheus]

We hadn't eaten for at least 3 hours so we dropped our stuff off at the cabin and headed straight to Goofy’s Galley where I got a turkey Panini and Scott got a beef and bean wrap and a roast beef sandwich. Scott got a beer and I got a DOTD which was High Tide. Yum!

After eating Scott and I headed up to Deck 10 to take some photographs of the sunset and of Costa Maya disappearing as we sailed away.... While we were out in front of Palo taking photos Susana our Palo server came FLYING around the corner with another server behind her and came to take some photos of us with the sunset in the background. The other sever was her camerman! LOL

The sunset wasn’t the best, but we waited it out and then headed back down to our room to change and shower and get ready for dinner.

We got sucked into watching some of Finding Nemo on TV right before we headed down to Lumieres for dinner.

Super-quick snap on the way into the dining room...

Cocktail for dinner....Cosmopolitan L'Orange...

Mum & Mo both had a Pina Colada....

Also the yummy bread...we always dived into this so quickly, we never got photos of the bread!

I had the Applewood Smoked Bacon and Wild Mushroom Tart, Tomato and Basil Soup, Triton's Seared Sea Bass and an Ice-Cream Sundae.....plus a Crème Brulee on the side that Mum and I sampled...

Mushroom Tart...

Tomato & Basil Soup...

Sea Bass...

Ice cream....

Creme Brulee..

 

[ukintheus]

Scott had Duck Confit, Market Green Salad, Triton's Seared Sea Bass and the Grand Marnier Soufflé.

Duck...

Salad...

Sea Bass...

Grand Marnier Souffle...

For some reason this evening, our drink server....Erwin....decided that Mum needed her meat cut up like a 5 year old...it was sweet and funny all at the same time...

We all decided to go and see the hypnotist in Rockin Bar D. Mum and Mo hadn’t made it to the adult areas yet, so we went straight there...passed by this guy though...

It was empty – there was no way we needed to be there that early. DJ streak was firing up some tunes, and Mum found it too loud so she and Mo went and found a place to sit outside that was quieter and Scott and I sat holding the table.

Soon it started to fill up, and by the time the show started there were quite a lot of people there. Asad Mecci was the hypnotist. I have to be totally honest and admit I’m a HUGE skeptic and that it didn’t do much for me. I guess I’m just not a believer and 2 of the 3 people that I had picked out of the group to be “plants” before the act actually got started were chosen to be in the final group on the stage. Parts of it were funny, but again, I’m not a good person to judge it because it just didn’t seem real to me.

Mum and Mo left right after his act finished but Scott and I couldn’t pass up the 80’s Flashback trivia game and decided to stay. Scott could remember way more than me, but I got a few of them! LOL We left there as it finished at 12:05 am and headed up to the room.

We sat on the balcony for 10 mins and Scott saw a shooting star. There also appeared to be couple of bats out there. At first we thought they were birds, but after watching them a couple of times they definitely acted more like bats. We were in bed about 12:30 am.

 

[ukintheus]

We have been spoilt with your updates today Jen I love your photos, there are some good sunset ones there and this is a lovely one of you and Scott

I look forward to your next update

Thanks Mandy! I planned on today being a MEGA trip report day.... Scott left for Dubai and Abu Dhabi for 2 weeks last night... I've got plenty of time to sit and work on it so I figured I'd get ahead while I could.....

 

[mandymouse]

Thanks Mandy! I planned on today being a MEGA trip report day.... Scott left for Dubai and Abu Dhabi for 2 weeks last night... I've got plenty of time to sit and work on it so I figured I'd get ahead while I could.....

That's a long time to be away for work isn't it ? I hope it all goes well for him. At least your mum is there Tell her it's dark, damp and dreary here, and the clocks went back an hour this morning, just in case she's feeling homesick (lol, as if)

I could just do with one of those orange cosmos before I head to bed in an hour

 

[ukintheus]

That's a long time to be away for work isn't it ? I hope it all goes well for him. At least your mum is there Tell her it's dark, damp and dreary here, and the clocks went back an hour this morning, just in case she's feeling homesick (lol, as if)

I could just do with one of those orange cosmos before I head to bed in an hour

I forgot about the clock!. Ours don't change til next week. Yuck on the weather!! LOL

We had only been back a day off the cruise when they sent him to Mexico for the week. He got back Fri night just in time to unpack, me do laundry and then head out again.

Gives me plenty of time to plan the next cruise ;-)

 

[shaned]

Jenny, was reading your trip report. Makes me remember alot of stuff. The rainbow, Mike and I seen it from our room.

The military boat when we were down walking around on deck 3. That was kinda creepy. Till we seen them waving at someone on the ship.

I seen the shotting star , we were sitting out on the veranda. The water was such an amazing blue. Our servers in the dinning room were server Bradford, and assistant server Alessandro, awesome guys. Bradford from India, Alessandro from Italy.

Oh! Met Becky on formal night.
Dena

We missed doing alot of things. But will try and remember to do on the next one!

 

[ukintheus]

Jenny, was reading your trip report. Makes me remember alot of stuff. The rainbow, Mike and I seen it from our room.

The military boat when we were down walking around on deck 3. That was kinda creepy. Till we seen them waving at someone on the ship.

I seen the shotting star , we were sitting out on the veranda. The water was such an amazing blue. Our servers in the dinning room were server Bradford, and assistant server Alessandro, awesome guys. Bradford from India, Alessandro from Italy.

Oh! Met Becky on formal night.
Dena

We missed doing alot of things. But will try and remember to do on the next one!

We are still doing things that we've never done before....there's so much to do!

 

[Mommy2Emmy]

Subscribing! Trying to absorb as much Magic as I can before January!! Great report!