Can we just cruise forever?...Fantasy SWDAS - January 27, 2018 - Completed

[ukintheus]

Glad you were able to support them with those rum drinks at the end, too

I'm always willing to do my part when it comes to rum drinks and supporting the economy!

following along!

Thanks for joining along with my ramblings.

Late to the party, but I'm so excited I saw your TR! Your reports are so fun!

Aww...thanks, that's very kind.

 

[ukintheus]

Wednesday, January 31st – St. Thomas

Another beautiful day was upon us and I was woken up on and off by us docking but I was too lazy to get up. I did finally get up right as the docking procedure was finishing as I was looking forward to seeing how the island looked.

Ahh…it still looks beautiful. I had been really looking forward to getting back to St. Thomas to see first-hand how the islands were doing post-hurricane. I had been following stuff online and it looked like they were doing fairly well but it’s always nice to see it for yourself. There were a few things here and there, but all in all the place looked as beautiful as ever.

It was good to see the Kon Tiki made it and was already arriving for the scheduled excursions.

Some of the roofs looked new and red to me, but I could have been imagining it.

We hung out on the veranda for a little while just looking at everything and taking lots of photos. It was a beautiful morning.

We decided to order room service again this morning and it arrived at 9:15 am. Same type of stuff but with a couple of English muffins thrown in there. (BTW – don’t ever order an English muffin in England- we don’t have them over there! Ha ha) We only ever had to wait about 30 minutes for room service, and I don’t like to pre-order the night before because we don’t always know when we are going to want to get up!

We all had to be ready and be down at the Buena Vista Theatre by 10:30 am for our St. John Island Tour excursion. This was going to be a “do-over” for Mum and Maureen as they had missed it last time we were all here when Mum was sick. We arrived a little early and were glad that we did as it was a bit more chaotic this morning and the check in wasn’t quite as smooth. It didn’t take long before we were checking in, labels on, and sitting down ready to go. We walked off the ship at about 10:40 am and were walked down the pier.

The gate to go through security is about half way down the pier, not at the end closest to town. I’m sure that’s an “exit through the gift shop” strategy on the port’s part.

This strange stilt-man character was walking around – he was kind of creepy to be honest! A bad combination of scary clown and towering over you. Welcome to the island!

The Fantasy had a bit of weathering going on and looked like she needed a wash – I’m sure they took care of it later on.

Another ship had docked behind us and so we had to walk the length of it as well. It seemed like a longer walk than yesterday and also a bit warmer.

We made it down to the end of the pier and there was a line of us all waiting to get onto Island Girl for our trip over to St. John. I could mention the older lady (relatively speaking....she was probably younger than Mum), and her (maybe?) daughter that decided that the line wasn’t for them, and just decided to skip the line and walk on right past everyone. Should I mention that? Probably not.

We didn’t have too long of a wait to board and we ended up sitting inside as it was really crowded. There were several different excursions for St. John all on board at the same time. They gave us instructions on the fact that there were not any facilities at any of the beaches since the hurricane and that if you wanted water or something to eat, they had it for sale now. We had all brought a bottle of water with us, but Belinda decided she had better get some crisps, just in case.

This is the skyride that goes to Paradise Point, it is still not operational.

Overall things looked better than they had in St. Maarten yesterday, but you could still see a lot of damage on the ride over to St. John.

Someone was giving narration along the way, but to be honest you could only hear about every 3rd or 4th word, so it was hard to know what they were saying plus the general noise of everyone was just hard to hear over.

We got to the dock in St. John close to noon and we were one of the first excursions to be called to get off the boat. We headed over to the open air buses that were going to be taking us on the tour.

And we all piled in. Literally! We all got onto one bench despite it being a tight squeeze. The look on Paul’s face cracks me up and you can barely see Scott and I at the ends but it’s a photo of all of us!

Despite being crammed in like sardines, we dutifully waited for the bus to leave. The rest of the tours were coming off the boat by now.

And then we were off….the town itself looked a little roughed up in parts.

But it was good to see some shops open.

We didn’t go very far (maybe 5 minutes tops) before we stopped so that people could use the restroom if they wanted to. The driver told us that there wouldn’t be anywhere else on the trip where one would be available. We all had noticed that the row in front of us wasn’t very crowded at all.

Maureen decided to move so that we could all spread out a bit and she had a bit more room as well.

Ahh….we can all breathe again.

 

[ukintheus]

We got on our way and had a quick stop going up this hill to look down on the town and the dock area.

This photo made me laugh. The story behind this is that yesterday evening while we were on the verandah, Paul’s sunglasses had fallen off his head, bounced on the lifeboat below, and fallen onto the jogging/walking track. A guy picked it up and waved to us and Paul went down to retrieve them, all the while thinking how lucky he was, only to find the guy had only found a single lens and the glasses themselves were gone. So, now cut back to this photo, where Paul is completely squinty eyed because he doesn’t have any sunglasses. BHAHHAH

Our next stop was overlooking Caneel Bay, which used to be a five star resort and one of the most prestigious places to stay in the Caribbean before Irma. As you can see from these photos the place was completely destroyed. So sad, I mean, not that we could ever have afforded it, but now I can't even dream about affording it!

Still... beautiful beaches though.

We continued on our drive with some good narration from our driver about things that had survived the hurricane, and things that hadn’t.

Despite the damage, you just can’t beat the beauty of this place, it really is just amazing and is on my bucket list of places to go and stay for a while one day.

These were growing in someone’s yard. I think they are papaya but I can’t remember now. Awesome though to just be growing tropical fruit right in your own yard.

Scott snapped all of these as we continued the drive. There wasn’t a whole lot going on, but the beautiful weather with the breeze made it a really nice relaxing tour around.

This was the beach with the snorkeling excursion from the ship, or so the driver told us.

We had a quick stop with the overlook on this beach. I remember us stopping here last time we did this tour. The brown area is where everything was killed from the storm surge.

This is that same beach from the road level. It used to be absolutely picturesque with palm trees etc. It’s still pretty, but not as beautiful.

This is the other side of the road where the storm surge went in.

We wound our way back up the mountains (are they mountains, or just huge hills?) and came across these wild donkeys. They are well known on St. John and are the relatives of the donkeys used in the sugar mills. Once the sugar cane business dissolved (ha ha ha I crack myself up) they just let the donkeys go, and so now they are all just wandering around. Obviously, not very wild either!

We tried giving them some Polos (English version of a Breathsaver), courtesy of Belinda, and he did roll it around in his mouth a bit before spitting it out.

More scenery…

Maureen asked the driver what this type of tree was called as we had seen them all over the island. I think he called them a sunburn tree, but my memory is failing me, as it has a peeling red bark.

We also drove past these pigs, although not many of us actually saw them, but Scott got a photo (of course, did you doubt it?)

We finished up the tour and were dropped back off at the port. We only had about 30 minutes to do a little bit of shopping so we all went over to the Mongoose Plaza shopping area. Scott and I had found this on our last trip. It has some gift shops and more importantly for the boys, the St. John Brewers Tap Room. I was looking for a gift shop that I had found last time where they have hand made Christmas ornaments. The boys headed for the beer and, after asking someone, us girls found the shop, Sugarbirds, and got our fill of Christmas ornaments. It was a short walk back to the dock and the boat was waiting for us. We all split up on the ride back, Mum and I sat inside and I think Belinda did too, Scott and Paul sat outside and maybe Maureen as well. They were selling hot dogs as well as beer and water on the ride back. Some of the outside peeps got hotdogs I think and I know the boys got a beer.

Our view of the ships as we came back into port.

It would have been handy if we could have just got off right here!

 

[ukintheus]

There were fairly long lines to get through the security gate at the port and the line snaked around a bit. Side story: An older couple were a few people behind us, by the time we had curved around a bit in the loop of people they were right in the middle of us, and by the time we got to the gate, they had managed to push their way past us and got in front of us. It was funny really because we were all looking at each other wondering how brazen they were going to be with their line cutting. Yup, they cut all the way through. Then, even funnier, as we were going through security to get onto the ship, I heard the lady complaining about people cutting in line!!! You can’t make this stuff up, it’s too good!

We got through security fairly smoothly and back into the blissful AC of the ship. Maureen, Belinda, Mum and I took the midship elevators back to our cabins….and totally busted the boys at Bon Voyage bar getting a drink as we glided past in the glass elevators! Wish I could have got a photo in time. Back in the cabins the girls decided we were starving so we went up to the pool deck to grab something. Apparently so was the rest of the ship because it was a zoo up there. We grabbed a few things and I added an order of fries to mine for Scott. Needless to say the boys didn’t make it back in time for him to eat them.

By now it was about 4:20 pm and we were happy to hang out on the verandah.

It wasn’t long before we were on our way. The ship doesn’t go far before the pilot leaves, and the boat that came to get him wasn’t very fancy at all, more like something you’d see on one of the less affluent islands.

Belinda showed off one of the ornaments that Mum had bought and given to her. This look from Paul means "what the "bleep" are you taking a photo of now!!??"

At least we aren’t the only ones who like to watch the pilot get on and off.

Sigh, another wonderful day in the USVI.

I forgot to mention that when I got back to our cabin our platinum gift of fruit had arrived. Now, this may not mean much to many of you, but I said FRUIT….as in edible, not drinkable…not grape juice posing as Prosecco! LOL Believe it or not, we had enough booze that we decided against getting the Prosecco…I know!! Crazy!!

To be continued...don't have time to finish it today.

 

[bcwife76]

Loved loved loved St Thomas, cannot wait to return. Such devastation and yet such beauty .....glad to see they are up and running. Might not be perfect but please god, don't let another hurricane barrel through later this year. They NEED to recover!

Poor Paul! Please tell me he procured some new sunglasses during the trip?!

I can't believe you fed the donkey a Polo mint, you naughty girl Glad he spit it out, I always found Polos way stronger than Breathsavers and the like lol

 

[ukintheus]

Poor Paul! Please tell me he procured some new sunglasses during the trip?!

I can't believe you fed the donkey a Polo mint, you naughty girl Glad he spit it out, I always found Polos way stronger than Breathsavers and the like lol

He refused to pay the prices they wanted in the gift shop, so he remained squinty the rest of the trip. So the story on the Polos is that for some reason in England we decided that horses like sugar cubes and Polo mints I have no clue how it started, but it's somewhat common to give them to horses so we figured we'd try with the donkeys. Apparently that tradition hasn't moved on to the USVI.

 

[ukintheus]

Wednesday, January 31th – St. Thomas – continued

After watching from our verandah for a while we all went up to the Satellite Falls area to watch sunset. I just love the smoke stacks on the Disney ships, they are so cool compared to the other cruise lines, especially when you are gazing at them with a drink in your hand.

We got a good view of some islands we were passing from up there. Scott stood up and took photographs, the rest of us plonked down on loungers behind the glass as it was really breezy.

Satellite Falls had some good sloshing wave action going on when the ship rolled just enough. It was enough to keep us watching for the rogue water running across the deck under our feet.

It was shaping up to be a good sunset….fingers crossed.

Paul and Belinda left a bit early and went to see the Kyle Knight and Mistie show in the Walt Disney Theater at 6:15 pm. They said that they enjoyed it. It was the only show anyone made it to all week. I wish that Disney would change up the entertainment a bit, especially the live entertainment. Our entertainers this week were Magic Dave and Kyle and Mistie. They have been on so many of our cruises, including the one that we just did last December – 6 weeks prior to this cruise – so it gets a bit boring.

OK, grumble over…on with the sunset. Here’s the rest of the photos for the best sunset we had this cruise.

Scott took this one of me that he just thought was great. I don’t know about the rest of you but I never see a photograph of myself and like it.

We got back to our cabins and found our time change reminder for tonight. There was a bit of confusion at first because Mum and Maureen's said to go forward an hour, but we convinced them that couldn't be possible, and eventually they agreed.

Next up was 80’s music trivia that Paul and Scott had been waiting for all week. They were convinced they were going to do great at it! Of course, by now they’d had a couple of beers that boosted their confidence too!

Lots of laughs and giggles as the boys prepped themselves for their epic moment.

It was packed in O’Gills tonight too, so the noise level in there was off the charts in general. Meanwhile, this had happened with the cricket game that was on TV as it was bucketing down rain.

And then the trivia started and the boys were on a roll. It was so crazy in there though that half the time you couldn’t hear Chris, and some people got up to dance and it was a complete mess most of the time! So the answers were read, and the boys got a 100% score of 40 out of 40! Except……apparently during all the craziness, Chris had handed out bonus points for dancing…which we hadn’t heard at all. Booo…..so here ladies and gentlemen is your LOSING score card with 100% right answers. Another crushing blow for Paul on the trivia….last time it was the answer to a radio question, this time….just flat out LOST because we weren’t paying enough attention.

To be continued... again…stupid work!

 

[TestingH2O]

I could mention the older lady (relatively speaking....she was probably younger than Mum), and her (maybe?) daughter that decided that the line wasn’t for them, and just decided to skip the line and walk on right past everyone. Should I mention that? Probably not.

An older couple were a few people behind us, by the time we had curved around a bit in the loop of people they were right in the middle of us, and by the time we got to the gate, they had managed to push their way past us and got in front of us. It was funny really because we were all looking at each other wondering how brazen they were going to be with their line cutting. Yup, they cut all the way through. Then, even funnier, as we were going through security to get onto the ship, I heard the lady complaining about people cutting in line!!! You can’t make this stuff up, it’s too good!

So many line stories all in one day!I will never understand why people think they are above the procedure.

Looks like a very fun day you had!

 

[bcwife76]

Haha, yes I guess giving Polos is really just like giving sugar cubes. Except they'll have infinitely better breath with the Polos

Some fabulous sunset photos! I think that's a lovely photo of you, you look very content

 

[ukintheus]

Wednesday, January 31th – St. Thomas – continued...

With the defeat of the trivia game behind us, it was time to head to Animator’s Palate for dinner. Tonight was the Animation Magic show so we needed to be there on time.

Question? Has anyone noticed that the shelf “props” change during the course of the week? Belinda and I were both pretty sure they did and when I went back and looked at the photos, sure enough they are different!

This was from our first night in there, notice the panel beside me that has drawings on it.

And here is one from tonight, now it has figurines and shelves. It almost drove us crazy that night trying to remember what was there before though!

Everybody got very busy with designing their characters and we all managed to throw something together although nothing was a masterpiece for sure. Then it was on to the food!! The appetizer sampler isn’t my favorite, I wish they would change it up. I didn’t get one, but Scott did.

However, they made up for it by having lobster tonight, it was kind-of the Captain’s Gala menu, but a bit different. I’m always a happy girl when they have lobster on the menu.

Javed tried to step up his game tonight for the tricks and had this one for the boys to try.

Of course the clever clogs, smarty pants managed to solve it fairly easily. Javed was about ready to give up on trying to stump them at this point I think.

I tried it and didn’t do very well at all, I just don’t have that analytical type brain like they do. That’s OK though, they can’t organize their way out of a paper bag, so we all have our “thing”.

Up next was the animation show and these are some of the photos we managed to snag of our characters. It’s a cute show, I always enjoy it and it's funny to see what people manage to do with their designs.

These got zoomed in and so it looks like the lady at the next table was super close…

I didn’t get any photos of dessert, so I’m guessing we either didn’t get anything, or we were too quick to eat it! We also decided to skip the show with Dale K in The Tube tonight as we were all feeling a bit tired and so it was a very low key evening as we were back in our cabin by just gone 10 pm. This was the towel animal waiting for us tonight, I think it was a frog...maybe.

Coming up: Star Wars Day at Sea

 

[ukintheus]

Thursday, February 1st – Star Wars Day at Sea

Background on today is that Scott and I aren’t Star Wars fans at all. I had seen the first one when it originally came out, and Scott had seen the first three. We decided that we would try and see the entire series before we left on the cruise and ended up cramming it in over the New Year holiday. We saw all of them except the latest one. I still didn’t know half of the characters but at least we’d seen them! Belinda and Paul know quite a bit about them as their oldest son is a Star Wars fan, so they definitely had the advantage going into today.

We had a busy day lined up and so none of us really lazed about too much, although losing the hour of sleep last night had us all a bit groggy. Scott and I got up at just before 7:00 am and the sun was already up and bright and it looked like it was going to be another beautiful day.

This was part of the navigator package left last night and it gave an overview of the activities today.

We ordered the usual breakfast from room service at about 8:30 am, nothing too exciting here but it hits the spot and it means we don’t have to deal with people, so it’s perfect!

We got dressed as Star Warsy as we were going to get, which was the new T-shirts I had bought in the gift shop on the first night.

I had got us meet and greet slots for the three characters that you could book ahead of time online, so our schedule this morning was C3PO and R2D2 at 9:30 am, Chewbacca at 10:00 am and Darth Vader at 10:30 am. All of this excitement and general busyness was going to be rounded off with Remy Brunch at 11:30 am. Busy, busy, busy!!

Our first meet and greet was in Animator’s Palate. Not really having any clue what we were in for we got there a little bit early and stood outside inline for a short while, maybe 5 minutes, before they let us in. There were lots of people in costumes but not as many as I thought there would be. I'd say 25%.

The line once inside Animators moved OK. There was a bit of a wait as most groups wanted at least 2 or 3 different formations of their group in the photographs. We were only a few from the front when C3P0 left for a short while. R2D2 got to hang out.

C3P0 arrived back and we had to wait a bit longer as they straightened out the carpet. I’m assuming it could spell disaster for the Force if those two are felled by an errant carpet!

We decided to do one group shot for each of the characters so that it was fairly easy and painless. They will take photographs with your own camera after the official photo has been taken. Of course with the attention span of a fruit fly with our group, we didn’t always get a good one with the second batch of photo taking. I ended up buying one of each from Shutters, the border was a nice touch and they seemed just a little better composition wise. I’ll leave you to decide.

This was from our camera.

And the official one.

Next up was Chewbacca, and he was in the opposite side of Animators so they had it planned out perfectly. We didn’t have long to wait for him, they had made a pathway between the chair in Animators to funnel the line around.

His costume was great. We haven’t seen him at the parks but the photos from there always look good too.

Unofficial group photo wasn’t awful.

We even got two good ones!

Shutters version.

Next up was Darth Vader and he was going to be in the Tube. We ambled down there and didn’t have to wait long outside at all. The inside wait wasn’t too bad either. It was about 10:15 am when we got inline, they didn’t seem to be checking the times for Darth Vader. They had Star Wars branding just about anywhere they could stick it.

Mr. Vader was pretty strict about how he wanted you to line up and it was fun to watch the interactions with the groups in front of us.

And then it was our turn – Mr. Vader decided to try and give Mum some grief about why she was there and who she was with, she just pointed to us and hurried to her spot!

I’m putting both of these in because the one that is wonky has better color.

And the Shutters version.

We got back to our cabin at about 10:30 am and found our rooms had already been cleaned and we had this runner on the bed. We could have kept it, but we have so much junk at home already that we elected to leave it behind when we were packing.

 

[ukintheus]

We had about an hour to get ourselves ready for Remy. I thought I’d made the reservation for 11:00 am so it was a nice surprise to find out that I am an even better holiday planner than I give myself credit for! We got up to Remy just before 11:30 am and they seated us in Meridian for a few minutes.

Dressed up and ready for food!

In the past they have had everyone on the same seating wait in Meridian and then take you all in at once for a short presentation. That didn’t happen today and we were seated as soon as we got in. Scott got this quick photo of the crystal Remy on the way to the table.

This was the menu for all of us except Mum and Maureen who don’t like shellfish, and would rather not have fish (unless it’s fish and chips ).

The first course for us all was the ham, or Jamon Iberico Pata Negra, if you wan’t to call a pig by it’s super-fancy name.

Fancy napkins (unless you had black on and then they switched them out.)

We all got the Collette cocktail to start off the beverage festivities. Yum! They did bring Mum a non-alcoholic cocktail but she didn’t care for it.

First course was pea soup with pea ice cream. It was SO good, I can’t imagine the amount of work that went into making that dish but it was a perfect pea flavor and the ice cream was delicious.

Next up was the fish course, I believe Mum and Maureen got chicken or pork substituted for the Halibut. It was good, but the pea soup was still my favorite so far.

Oh, go on then, twist my arm!

The tortellini were filled with finely chopped ham, the little yellow circles are cheese (I’m forgetting which kind). I had also forgotten to mention to them ahead of time that Scott didn’t like cheese, but they were able to leave it off this dish easily. It was a little rich for me. Pea soup is still in the lead.

Up next…more food... …chicken breast with a piece of lobster and the ball was crab meat if I’m remember correctly.

And last, and definitely delicious, was the chocolate desert. It was super chocolately and the white in the middle was key lime. It was really good. Hard to decide between dessert and the pea soup so they are both winners!

Do you see it?

A photo of all of us, fatter than ever and very happy. They had also plonked down those little sponge things that are served at the end of the meal. It’s weird because I don’t think I really like them and yet I try them every time, and usually it takes two before I decide that I definitely don’t like them.

We managed to hoist ourselves out of our chairs and get ourselves down to our cabins to get the fancy duds off and change into something a bit more comfortable. I had been keeping an eye out for the Pool Patrol times and it worked out pretty well that one was going to be happening at 1:30 pm. I know that Mum, Scott and I went – I’m not remembering if anyone else did. Paul and Belinda went to the Buena Vista theater and caught part of one of the Star Wars movies, but I don’t remember when that happened in the sequence of events this afternoon though. Anyway, back to the pool deck and we are waiting for the Pool Patrol to happen.

I know I should know who this guy is, but I don’t.

Scott had managed to get pretty close to the stage to begin with and got a good couple of photos.

Once they got ready for the Storm Troopers to make their way off the stage they booted you off there though, so back to normal photos from me.

I thought the patrol was great, it was fun to have them coming around and interacting with people.

Even Mum got into the photo taking.

 

[ukintheus]

The pool patrol don’t hang around long, they stopped and asked people a couple of interrogation type questions and then moved along. We went back down to the cabin to laze about for a little bit. The navigator listed times with “Look out for some of your favorite Star Wars Characters on Deck 3 and 4” and it was a random type thing and I wanted to go and check it out so I decided to stop being lazy and go and see. Scott wanted to hang out in the room and on the verandah so I went on my own. It was fairly busy, but not crazy-busy. No idea who this is….no Star Wars trivia winners here!

And while I was walking around and looking to see everything I came across this, so I had to have a go on it. The ship comes to life and you can steer it with the ship’s wheel. Either I didn’t know how to do it right, or all it does is go around the lagoon are in the picture.

Boba Fett (yay, I remembered one!) made an appearance as I walked around the corner, he looked over the balcony and then strode off as if he was on a mission to get somewhere…not sure what the outcome of that was! The iphone pics didn’t come out great with the lighting and the fact I wasn’t getting too close. I don't know what I thought they were going to do to me, but being a true pack animal, I wasn't taking any chances on my own!

Around the corner I ran into a couple of Jawas who were doing some trading. They didn’t take everything offered to them though, they appeared to be somewhat picky.

I didn’t stick around long and was only down there for 10 or 15 minutes, but it was fun to see what was going on. I went back upstairs and managed to coax Paul, Belinda and Scott into going down to see the BB8 races at 4:00 pm. Mum and Maureen were watching a movie. One of them was managing to watch it with their eyes closed – impressive!!

We found a corner to stand in on deck 4 (or it could have been 5) and there were lots of people waiting around us. Two Imperial Officers were down on Deck 3, looked up at the two teenagers that were standing next to us and immediately turned around and took off towards the stairs.

Here they are interrogating them, it was so funny. They ended up telling the two teenagers that they needed to go into custody for more interrogation and marched them both away! Ha ha. When they came back later they told us they’d been “put in jail” and the "officers" had put them in an elevator and sent them to another floor!

The BB8 races were fun, especially because BB8’s head came off very easily and so there were lots of people on the sidelines trying to help stick the heads back on.

The Jawas were still trading around the corner.

And we ran into more Imperial Officers as we made our way back to the stairs.

Paul and Belinda were up for going to see the pool patrol at 4:30 pm and we had a bit of time to kill….perfect time killer!

The pool patrol entrance was no different from the earlier one.

Except this time I got interrogated as to why I was there. I told him it was because we were beside the drink’s cart….he told me that my mission was going to fail and to move along!

Back to the cabins for a bit of R&R. Ahhh… It's been a busy day so far! The trivia session tonight was going to be held later and so it wouldn’t have worked for us with our dining time, but we all agreed that there is no way we could even come close to competing with the true Star Wars fans on board. There was an event in the Lobby Atrium at 7:15 pm that we decided to go to called Celebrate the Saga. It was fun to watch everyone in costume hanging around.

Most of it was done on the TV screens and it was a compiliation of video and clips from all of the movies.

Not being major Star Wars fans this was OK, but not thrilling. It was immediately followed by the costume party (I think this was the second one of the day.)

The kids were really cute, and it was fun to see how much work some people had put into their costumes.

This lady had made her costume, they interviewed her later. She looked great!

So stinking cute!

They were interviewing people on decks 3 and 4 for more details on their costumes and where they were from. These are random people that I don’t know but they had great costumes.

Doesn’t this make you smile?

And this was one of the guys from our Facebook group, so funny…I have no clue who he was supposed to be, but he played the part of a shifty villain really well, so I’m going with that.

They had a dance party start right after the costume party but we needed to be getting to dinner so we had a slow walk back to Animator’s Palate.

 

[ukintheus]

Tonight was the special Star Wars menu. I’m always happy to have a new menu so I was looking forward to seeing what there was. The menu was pretty large, and very shiny so the photo didn’t come out well.

The inside was hologram-like so again it didn’t photo well, but here it is anyway. There were lots of choices tonight.

Scary stuff when they leave you masks on the table.

Unless you are Belinda, and then you manage to stick your nose through the eye hole while you are posing for the photo.

Javed looked good in his costume tonight – it was fun to see something different in the dining rooms.

There was a lot to tempt us on the menu tonight and so we ordered almost every course (which we normally don’t) and Scott got two entrees just to try something!

I got the empanadas, they were pretty good and the chimichurri sauce was really nice.

For my entrée I got Yoda’s Parpadelle Pasta with scallops. The scallops were nice and large, I was quite surprised and it looked really good.

Scott ordered this vegetarian dish Obi-Wan Shroom Steak, which was a portabello mushroom with curry.

We were about one bite into our entrees when Javed arrived with these….wow! Where are we going to put all this food? Not only where on the table, but where in our bellies??!! This is the “world famous” butter chicken that one of the chef’s in the crew mess makes. Let me tell you, it was absolutely delicious…unbelievably good and nothing like a butter chicken you would get in a restaurant on land.

He also bought a vegetarian curry, rice and chapatis. *picture exploding stomach*

I ate all the scallops off my pasta and quickly ditched the pasta. We all tried to make a dent in this food, but there was no way we could eat it all. We should get medals for trying though! And then we ordered dessert!! It was a new menu to me, what’s a girl supposed to do???

Cute looking Princess Leia dessert, didn’t taste good though, it was a bite and done.

Berries and a type of mousse I think….I don’t remember now and I don’t think I was the one that ordered it.

But I did order this! It was a raspberry macron and it was good, the pieces of fresh raspberry in it really gave it a good flavor.

So you can imagine that we are waddling by now, and we needed to get up to watch the fireworks so we got ourselves moving. Cabanas was decorated for the buffet after the fireworks – we all groaned to even think about eating anything else.

Inside had a few things that we could see as we walked through.

The decks were packed with people waiting for the Summon the Force deck party and fireworks.

We got ourselves up against the outside rail so we couldn’t see the deck but we could see Funnelvision.

It was a good show and the fireworks were great.

Here’s a short video of the finale.

We tried to make our way back downstairs, it was a little chaotic as they had the upper deck blocked off in one direction, so you could only go one way and everyone was trying to get down the small flight of stairs. Then we were told they’d opened the other way up, so we ended up doubling back through the crowds to get to the staircase and elevators. It had been a really fun day. I’m glad that we ended up being on this cruise just so we can say “been there, done that” and I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. It was a welcome sight to see this guy though, we were tired tonight.

Coming up...Castaway Cay.

 

[Lesley Wake]

Star Wars day seems like so much fun! I really want to go on one of those cruises someday!

For characters, let me help you out a bit

I know I should know who this guy is, but I don’t.

Probably just some random Imperial commander in charge of the Stormtroopers.

No idea who this is….no Star Wars trivia winners here!

This is Ashoka. She's actually from the Star Wars tv shows. Yup, they have SW tv shows! They are all CGI and on Disney channel/Disney XD/etc. First was Star Wars: Clone Wars, which took place between Episode 2 & 3, and follows Anakin and Obi-Wan during the Clone Wars. Ashoka was Anakin's Padawan, but she left the Jedi at the end of the series due to some scandal that wasn't her fault. But she was a great strong female sassy character! Started out as a little kid and worked into a teen.

The second tv series was Star Wars Rebels, and it took place in the 5 years before A New Hope (so when the Rebellion is starting up). It follows a ragtag group of smugglers turned rebels, including a Jedi in hiding and a kid who became his apprentice. Ashoka showed up in that series too, because she had gone into hiding after all the Jedi were killed, and she was a big resource for them-again a strong female hero. She was thought to have been killed by Vader, but again, complications, so she showed up at the very end of the series (which ended about a month ago after 4 years on the air), and now there are rumors she could get her own series that takes place after Return of the Jedi.

So, she's one of those characters that big fans will know about, as well as little kids, but casual fans probably aren't that acquainted with!

And this was one of the guys from our Facebook group, so funny…I have no clue who he was supposed to be, but he played the part of a shifty villain really well, so I’m going with that.

Ok, this one is hilarious! This is actually from an SNL skit, and is Matt The Radar Technician. Basically it is Undercover Boss: Star Wars version, so it's Kylo Ren who has gone undercover with all the stormtroopers and workers. You can find that skit on youtube, and it is HILARIOUS!

 

[TestingH2O]

They've added some new things to SWDAS this year. It looks like a lot of fun!

 

[lizzyb]

Star wars day looks neat. I am not a fan but my ds is and would absolutely love that.

 

[ukintheus]

Star Wars day seems like so much fun! I really want to go on one of those cruises someday!

It was a fun day, even for those of us that aren't Star Wars fans. Thanks for the help on identifying the characters! I have to admit that Belinda told me who they all were and it went in one ear and out the other!

 

[ukintheus]

They've added some new things to SWDAS this year. It looks like a lot of fun!

I hadn't done a lot of research on it ahead of time, I knew about the pool patrol and the random characters but there was a lot more to do than I thought there would be.

Star wars day looks neat. I am not a fan but my ds is and would absolutely love that.

I'm not a fan either and I really enjoyed it, it was a fun day.

 

[bcwife76]

I think you did well on SWDAS considering you are not huge fans; neither are we (for the most part) so yeah, there were a few characters wandering around that left me thinking "who the heck are you?" And yes, looks like they have added some new things to this years' cruises.

Still very cool though and I wouldn't hesitate to book another one in the future.