A Mom, 12 Year Old & a Sausage on a Dream Voyage Jan 12! Complete 2/28!!

[Wish I lived in Fl]

Enjoying your report!

I was surprised how good the food was on the Magic because reviews are mediocre but I was usually very happy and got to try new things.

 

[Tracerr00]

Ok, the title of this is Nassau Day but we really spent very little time in Nassau. There weren't really any excursions that thrilled us so we decided to just take it easy that day and enjoy everything the ship had to offer with only a short trip off of the ship. Holly and Leah had always planned to head into Nassau for the whole day so it was just the two of us! I was originally going to order room service for the two of us but when I looked at the menu it was mostly pastries and fruit. And we wanted a giant breakfast darnit! So we went to Cabanas for breakfast and had a little of everything. At 10 am Eilee had an appointment at the teen spa for a pedicure. I realize it is a "teen" spa and Eilee is 12 but I just went up and made an appointment the day before - they didn't ask and I didn't tell! She loved it!! She was in there for quite a while and she came out with pink toes with purple Mickeys painted on them. So cute! After that we got some ice cream and then decided to head into Nassau. It was later in the morning so there wasn't a line or anything to get off of the ship. But two other ships pulled in right after us so the port was pretty busy. I took these pictures as we got off. You never realize just how big the ship is until you're standing next to it.




We grabbed a map off of the visitor's desk right inside the terminal and walked to the straw market. Eilee got a bunch of cheap souvenirs for her friends and I am not someone that likes to haggle. I'm sure I got ripped off but the items were still pretty cheap and they probably need the money more than I do. We walked around a little bit and then back to the ship! I said it was a short trip into Nassau, right? Somewhere between the straw market and our room I'd lost $40 and Eilee lost two necklaces that she'd purchased. That is a bummer. We went back to the ship and decided to go see Beauty and the Beast 3D which was playing in the Buena Vista Theater. I sure do love that movie, it never gets old and somehow seeing it while on a Disney cruise makes it even better!! Eilee and I grabbed some chicken nuggets and fries for lunch (we felt like Holly & Leah!) right after the movie.

And then my friends...it was time for my martini tasting! Eilee was tired and decided to chill out in the room while I did that. When I left she said "Don't drink too many martinis mom!". As if!! I'd registered the day before and the ticket said that it was at The Meridian. I set off to find it and I was so confused! I could not figure out how on earth to get there. I stopped to ask a cast member and he was dragging me all over the ship! He then stopped to ask someone else who said that we needed to go down a level, go back, then go up the stairs. I understood her perfectly and this guy still wanted to take me in the wrong direction. So finally I told him, "I think it's this way" and he followed me to The Meridian. At least next time he'll know! I was a little bit late but our host, Sukhsan (I'm sure I butchered that!) was just getting started. There were about 10 people belly up to the bar and he he started out telling us about the history and different types of martinis.

This is a classic right here!

He ended up making 5 different kinds and I think he slipped in an extra at the end. Sukhsan makes the best drinks!!

Eilee told me not to drink too many martinis but I think I did anyway!


It was well worth the $15 fee. I went back to the room to find Eilee out cold. She was napping so I decided to turn on the tv and relax as well. I don't know whether it was the martinis or not, but after Eilee woke up we went and booked another cruise!!!! When you book onboard you get 10% off the price, only have to put down a 10% deposit and you get a nice onboard credit. Who could resist that?? Not me! The fellow at the desk asked if we were sure of the date or if we were definitely going to change. I said that we would change it so he booked us on the cheapest sailing in December 2103. I'm happy to say that we just moved the reservation to the 7 night Mediterranean cruise in August!! My sister has decided to come along with us and I'm super excited!

When we were walking around a little later we ran into Sukhsan!! Here is me with him. He's so nice!


Pretty soon it was time for dinner. We didn't see Holly & Leah at all this day so we just planned to meet up at dinner. Tonight we were eating at Animator's Palate and this was my favorite restaurant of all. It was colorful and fun and entertaining! Turtle talk with Crush was so cute and it was fun to watch all of the animals swimming by on all of the screens around the restaurant. I think my favorite was Bruce! Again, the service was excellent. Tonight I did not order an appetizer but I had the beef filet with mashed potatoes and look at those thinly sliced carrots. How do they do that?

For dessert I had the chocolate wanut cake which was really yummy!

Eilee had the same thing and Holly & Leah ordered off the children's menu again and went with....chicken strips! Surprise, surprise!

After dinner I went back to the room and found this guy!

I'm not sure what it is but it's so funny! He looks kind of rasta to me. And those are Eilee's glasses by the way. Eilee loved it too! We also found the pirate party gear in the room as well which was a pirate print bandana.

The girls had ditched us right after dessert so Holly and I went to see Villains Tonight. I wasn't all that impressed with it to tell you the truth. I didn't think it was as good as the Golden Mickeys. But it was still fun! And after that it was pirate party time!

Then came the fireworks which I have no photos of. But they were really good! And then came the dance party. They played some really good current music and I was surprised to see how many little ones stayed up and were out there cutting a rug! I don't dance but it was fun to watch! At one point Eilee ran by with a group of kids and a counselor from The Edge. She said hi, said she was having run and ran off!
Here is a photo of everyone dancing!


After watching the dance party for a while I decided to head back to the room as I was a little bit tired. Eilee also came home a little before 1 am on this night. What a busy day for not even heading into Nassau for very long!

And one thing to mention about this day - we realized that we were not leaving Nassau on time. The gift shops do not open until we leave port and we wanted to shop. We went to the shops after dinner and they still weren't open! That means we hadn't left let. At Villains Tonight Clayton the cruise director mentioned that we hadn't left yet (and that was at 8:30) due to a passenger's medical emergency and he said that his heart went out to that passenger's family. That didn't sound good at all.

Next up Castaway Cay day.

 

[jenseib]

Love the relaxing, yet busy day. Yay for booking another cruise too. I can't believe with all that great food your friends get nuggets every day. Nuggets are Ok, but I would grow tired of them fast.

I didn't care much for Villains either.

 

[Tracerr00]

The food sounds amazing! That's one thing I'm really looking forward to

I love the food too! I was on a diet for a long time before the cruise so I could put it all back on!

Enjoying your report!

I was surprised how good the food was on the Magic because reviews are mediocre but I was usually very happy and got to try new things.

I'm usually not that hard to please so I thought the food was excellent. I'm looking forward to another cruise to do the same! If you ask my daughter she'll tell you that the best food there was the free ice cream available almost any time!

Love the relaxing, yet busy day. Yay for booking another cruise too. I can't believe with all that great food your friends get nuggets every day. Nuggets are Ok, but I would grow tired of them fast.

I didn't care much for Villains either.

At least it's a FUN kind of busy, right? And I completley agree that chicken nuggets would get old after a while. It reminds me of that story on Yahoo about the 17 year old that's never eaten fruits or vegetables, only chicken nuggets!
I also have to tell you that I'm a big fan of your reports too Jen and Claire is adorable!

 

[tokyodisneydad]

Hi....Where is the sausage?

Quick question....you were in Animators Palate on Pirates night...right? Did this effect the restaurants regular show and did Crush still come out and talk with guests?

Thanks ahead of time...I'm on the Dream for the NYE cruise in 2013.

 

[Tracerr00]

Hi....Where is the sausage?

Quick question....you were in Animators Palate on Pirates night...right? Did this effect the restaurants regular show and did Crush still come out and talk with guests?

Thanks ahead of time...I'm on the Dream for the NYE cruise in 2013.

The sausage is coming up! I promise!!

Yes we were in Animator's Palate on Pirates night and we didn't miss anything at all! We saw all of the Pirate celebration as well as everything that Animator's Palate has to offer. Crush came out as well as all of the other characters - it was amazing and you'll love it!!

 

[Tracerr00]

Hi....Where is the sausage?

Quick question....you were in Animators Palate on Pirates night...right? Did this effect the restaurants regular show and did Crush still come out and talk with guests?

Thanks ahead of time...I'm on the Dream for the NYE cruise in 2013.

The sausage is coming up! I promise!!

Yes we were in Animator's Palate on Pirates night and we didn't miss anything at all! We saw all of the Pirate celebration as well as everything that Animator's Palate has to offer. Crush came out as well as all of the other characters - it was amazing and you'll love it!!

 

[chocolateMinnie]

The food looks amazing but especially that filet of beef looking forward to more food photos

 

[chocolateMinnie]

waiting impatiently for more

 

[Tracerr00]

waiting impatiently for more

Every day I think "I'm going to go home tonight and write the next piece of my trip report!" and then of course I get home and I get distracted with house cleaning and such. At least last night I was able to get all of the photos uploaded so I'll see what I can do this weekend!

 

[Tracerr00]

Finally an update!! I apologize for the long absence but time just gets away from you sometimes. After visiting Nassau, the next day was Castaway Cay! You’ll have to forgive me because I had written notes to myself every day about what we did and for some reason I just stopped doing it. So I’m relying on my somewhat questionable memory for the remainder of the trip!

Reading this board has been fabulous but there some threads about the ship not being able to dock at Castaway Cay and it made me nervous. Of course I would have been disappointed and I would have made the best of the situation and we still would have had fun but I really wanted to see Castaway Cay! I was up very early this morning probably because I was a bit nervous about it! Eilee was fast asleep as I looked out the porthole to see that we were moving very slowly and about to dock. The weather was a bit windy and gray so I had to oversee the process to make sure everything went well! So I threw on some clothes and went up to deck 12 to watch!

You can see, the ship was hopping and many other people wanted to watch us dock as well.



I could see quite a few employees on the dock waiting for us to come in. It made me wonder how many people live there on the island. Look, you can see tiny people out on the bridge!



I had to hold the camera out over the rail to get these shots and I was sure that it would fall right into the water but it didn’t!





I ran back down to the room, took a shower and got Eilee moving. We met Holly & Leah for breakfast at Cabana’s and then we prepared to leave the ship. We had no excursions for this day either so we were just going with the flow! And I’m glad that we hadn’t booked excursions because when we got off of the ship we saw signs all over stating that most of them (such as glass bottom boat tours and fishing excursions were cancelled). We decided not to take the tram at the end of the dock and we took the path along the beach which wasn’t a long walk at all.




The first thing we saw on the island was that cat that lives there! I didn’t get any photos of it but it let us stop to say hi, give a quick pet and then we moved on.

Once we got to the beach we saw the shop where you could rent snorkel equipment. There were some planned activities on Castaway Cay for the tween group from The Edge so we found the location where they would meet later so that the girls would know where to go. They wanted to snorkel but Holly & I thought it was too chilly so we gladly plopped down on a beach chair and congratulated each other on the fine choice we made to give the girls charging privileges as they went and got their own equipment!




They went right in and were snorkeling around for a while and Holly & I decided to take a walk. We told the girls to return their stuff when they were done . We brought bags with extra clothes and sunscreen and we left their stuff with them. We just wandered around and looked at everything. We saw a few items in the shops that we would come back to get later!

We thought it would be fun to rent some bikes to take a nice ride around the island. It was the perfect day for it because it wasn’t hot at all. It got a little warm when the sun came out but then when it would go behind the clouds it was chilly so I was constantly putting on my sweatshirt and then taking it back off! The ride was very fun and just perfect! Around the back side of the island there was a lookout tower and when you climb to the top, this is what you see!





After we stopped at the lookout tower, we rode to the adult beach. This was our first cruise so it was interesting to ride past all of the cabanas! It was very windy at the adult beach and pretty cold but we still decided to take a walk along the shore and there weren’t many people here at all.



As we started walking we saw a really hot guy walking towards us…we managed to get to him just before all of the other adult women came running!


This is also the most horrible picture of me. Ever. I'm squinting and my shirt was ballooning out from the wind! Nice.

After we returned to the main area, we brought the bikes back and it was time for lunch. This is what we had and I have to say that while it wasn’t terrible, this was my least favorite meal of the trip. The burger was dry, the hot dog was dry and the cheesy bread was tough.



After lunch Holly wanted to rest on the beach chairs and do some shopping so I decided to head to the bar of course!! I sat down on a stool and started to look at the menu when I realized that the bartender was none other than my Martini tasting teacher Sukhsan!!! It was like seeing a long lost friend. We chatted about drinks and his life on the ship and he is just a nice, nice guy. He said that there are about 100 people that live on Castaway Cay at any given time for maintenance. Wow! And employees come off of the ship to work the retail stores, rental places, bars and restaurants. During our discussion I decided to try to signature Castaway Cay drink, the Konk Cooler. I have to say that the consistency was lovely (just like soft serve) but it was just too sweet for me. But of course that didn’t stop me from drinking it.




The girls had texted us earlier that they had indeed found their Edge group. I’m not exactly sure what they did but I know that they ate lunch together with the counselors. After a while I texted Eilee to let her know that I’d be going back to the ship around 3:30 because I had a massage scheduled for 4:30. She said that she would come with me because she wouldn’t mind a little nap before dinner.

I went to my massage at 4:30 thinking that if I had a 50 minute massage, I’d get done around 5:30 which would be just in time to run and change before dinner. It didn’t quite happen that way. The massage was great, relaxing and all that but afterwards the girl spent a lot of time pitching their products which I’d heard would happen but I completely forgot about it. I didn’t have a chance to interrupt her though I wanted to. I know that once I get back home that I’d never use that massage oil that she was trying to sell me – I don’t massage myself and Vince gives a pretty pathetic back massage so definitely not worth the $50 or whatever it was! I wanted her to hurry so I could go eat but I didn’t want to be rude. So I nodded my head and finally told her that I had to hurry along to dinner!!

I walked quickly back to the room, grabbed Eilee and we darted off to dinner! We were a tad bit late but not too late. I was so frazzled that I forgot the camera and didn’t take any photos at dinner. I don’t remember what I ate but I can tell you for sure that Holly & Leah had chicken nuggets off of the kids menu! I can't recall much from that night actually. But I’m a huge football fan and they were showing the playoffs on the big screen on deck 11 that evening!!! So we grabbed some blankets (it was really cold), settle down in the deck chairs and watched some football!! What a way to end the cruise! I'm now thankful that the Packers didn't play the Giants that night.



Coming up – leaving the Dream and going to WDW!

 

[Princess Sleepy]

Hi....Where is the sausage?

Quick question....you were in Animators Palate on Pirates night...right? Did this effect the restaurants regular show and did Crush still come out and talk with guests?

Thanks ahead of time...I'm on the Dream for the NYE cruise in 2013.

We are on this cruise too. I can't wait!

OP, loving your trip report. Hoping to see more of the sausage. My sister and cousins and I travel with a monkey. He loved WDW, but has never been on a cruise.

We also stayed on Deck 2 last time and will be staying there again for NYE 2013.

 

[tokyodisneydad]

We are on this cruise too. I can't wait!

OP, loving your trip report. Hoping to see more of the sausage. My sister and cousins and I travel with a monkey. He loved WDW, but has never been on a cruise.

We also stayed on Deck 2 last time and will be staying there again for NYE 2013.

Have you joined the cruise meet group? It's still really early, but never too early to plan.

 

[CRSNDSNY]

I just found your TR this morning and am really enjoying it! Your daughter looks like a little sweetie. Can't wait for more!

 

[chocolateMinnie]

so glad you had the time to continue. Castaway Cay looks amazing considering it's January. The drink there looks weird though - like a dole whip.

Still haven't finished my report from October so I'm a fine one to nag but yours is definitely worth waiting for

 

[Tammi67]

Thanks for sharing your trip with us! I would really love to hear from your DD about some of the activities in Edge. My DS12 is curious as to what offerings they have, if there are organized activities or just "hang out" time. Also, what activities do they have on CC?

 

[jenseib]

Glad you were able to get onto CC. It sounds like a nice relaxing day.

 

[bluejasmine]

I am really enjoying your tr cant eait to read more!

 

[Disney mam]

Just read your TR and it was fab. Looks like you had a wonderful time and the sausage looked like it had the best views. lol

You'll be on your med trip before you know it. I see that I may get to meet the sausage.

 

[Tracerr00]

I can't believe I forgot to put this in my last post!! Here is the Sausage on Castaway Cay!


The sausage had a very fun, relaxing day on CC!