Day 9: Tortola, Ziplining, Pirate Night, & Late-Night Fun in the Tube!
Sorry for the delay of the latest post, friends. It was time to take our daughter up to her first year of college and move her into the dorms. Life got a little crazy. Here we go:
For some reason, one that I have no clue about, we all woke up fairly early this morning. If I am honest, that is not a normal thing for us, especially our teenager! It did have one particular perk though…we were up not long after sunrise as the ship was approaching Tortola in the British Virgin Islands! The early morning view was very nice!
And by the time the Fantasy neared the port, the sun was up, with blue sky and some white fluffy clouds!
While trip planning, I asked my family what kinds of things they wanted to do during our two excursion days on the cruise. I read off the lists and the one that perked up our daughter the most was zip-lining! Now, none of us had ever zip-lined before, anywhere. And, my wife is not a fan of heights whatsoever, so when this came up, I totally expected her to let this be a dad and daughter thing, but to our surprise she was totally onboard!
We booked the Canopy Tour Zipline and Scenic Drive with an 8:15am departure. We chose the earlier timeslot (multiple were offered) mainly because we hoped it would be cooler (yeah, it was still mighty warm) and return to the ship with some time to check out the nearby shops afterwards. After grabbing a quick breakfast, at the appointed time and the appointed place, we met our tour group and processed off of the ship, lining up on the dock outside. Eventually, we were escorted to an awaiting vehicle, which was some sort of tropical hybrid between a truck and a van with one-sided open rows for all of us passengers to climb up and squeeze into.
The drive up to the zip-lining location took about 30 minutes, give or take, and along the way we slowed down by an extended mural that depicted the history of the island, as well as slowing down for a scenic view of a few nearby islands. The one thing that was the most interesting for us was that they drive on the left here…plus, the rules of the road seemed a bit looser than we are used to.
Finally arriving at the zip-lining location, we found ourselves atop a mountain that offered an incredible view of the harbor below:
Storing some things in “lockers” that were provided, actually they were more like closed cubbies because they weren’t locked, we signed waivers and then stood by, waiting for the staff to gear us all up. I’d say that there was about 30 people in our group and we waited patiently for our turn to get our stuff.
Interestingly, since we were the last of our group to get our gear, as others had basically started to wander off and explore the nearby area a bit, we ended up being the first to hit the zip-lines! Fine by us!!!
Unfortunately for all of you here, I don’t have any pictures of the actual zip-lining experience. Why? Because it was my first time after all and honestly, I was holding on for dear life. Not that I really needed to whatsoever, because I was completely secured each time, but admittedly I was a little concerned. It wasn’t until some of the later runs that I actually let go with one of my hands, but never both. I wasn’t that brave!
In total, there were seven zip-line runs and the last big one included a pretty tall, two-level tower climb and a wonderful view of the harbor (and Fantasy); too bad I ended up backwards for most of it! Don’t worry, they secured each person really well before they started up the tower ladders. In-between the runs, there was a pathway to follow. It certainly was not the clearest pathway that I have ever attempted to traverse, but it wasn’t horrible. Trees and other various plants surrounded us as we walked and roots were commonplace, requiring you to pay attention and step carefully.
Since we were the first in our group to finish, we unloaded our gear, reclaimed all of our stuff from the locker, and then bought a couple cans of soda and sat down for a bit. Noticing our bus driver kicking it outside, he beckoned us towards him, and asked if we wanted him to take some pictures of us with the harbor view in the background. Of course, we agreed!
Eventually, everyone finished and it was time to board the vehicle again for a return trip to the port. After getting back and tipping our driver, we thanked him kindly and walked around the shops for a little while. We saw cool little trinkets and of course my wife and daughter took a shine to some of the jewelry, but in the end, we didn’t buy anything. In fact, while walking by one particular jewelry store, we happened to run into the, not sure what to her title was exactly, but the person on the ship who led the port excursion informational jewelry sessions (and possibly worked with or for the two jewelry stores on the ship). She recognized my family from a session and beckoned them into the store. We looked around and saw many, many nice things. The store’s staff circled like sharks, but they thankfully were not overly pushy.
After posing for an obligatory picture with the famous BVI sign, we walked back to the Fantasy, which by this time had a friend docked across from it:
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If I am honest, the rest of the afternoon is a blur at this point. Knowing us and how our cruise was playing out, we most likely dropped our stuff off in our stateroom, then popped up the upper deck to grab some lunch at Flo’s (which truly, never disappointed), followed by trivia contests for my wife and me and origami sessions for our daughter. If memory serves, my wife and I won another trivia contest, just the two of us, which set a bit of a fire under our daughter, who demanded that she join us for future contests later in the cruise.
Eventually back in our room, getting ready for dinner, we found three bandanas on our bed, reminding us that it was Pirate Night! Not having brought with us any pirate attire, these wonderful bandanas would be our only accessories this evening.
Dinner tonight brought us back to the Enchanted Garden and its special Pirate Night menu. Again, I didn’t take a picture of any dinner menus, and I am sorry about that, but I can share my personal experience during this meal. First of all, I want to reiterate that the service staff were always fantastic…but again, the rotational dining room meals were less than stellar on this cruise in our opinion. The main dish that I ordered this evening was the jerk chicken. I love jerk chicken! But I didn’t love this. Ok, it was moist and well cooked, not to mention a good-sized portion, but as with other things we ordered on this cruise, it simply lacked flavor. The menu description stated that the chicken had been marinated for hours beforehand, but I swear it basically tasted like boiled chicken. Yes, the skin had a little jerk flavoring to it and some decent grill marks, but overall, almost every bite was just plain chicken. I was very disappointed.
After dinner, we made our way up to the pool deck to soak in the Pirate Night party scene and grab a spot to watch the entertainment and the fireworks!
We’ve always enjoyed these festivities when they were offered on previous Disney cruises. Once this was done, we had a decision to make. Do we call it a night and crash after a fun day or do we find something else to do?! Yeah, we chose the latter of course!
Our daughter, who was perusing the daily Navigator app, noticed some late-night activities scheduled down in the Tube. The best general term to describe these things would be games of some sort, but nothing, absolutely nothing, like any of the trivia games we had been enjoying thus far. So, we made our way to the Tube…and we were so glad that we did!!
Before I continue, I first want to make a shoutout to the absolute best public restrooms on the entire ship!
Located near the Tube, between it and La Piazza and Ooh La La, on both ends and sides of this unsuspecting hallway, sit a number of restrooms that simply need to be experienced. They are roomy, private (as long as you lock the door), and filled with fantastic art and design. I don’t want to be indelicate, but go here (and you no what I mean by “go”, right?)!
Into the Tube, we ended up arriving a little late, so the place was already pretty packed. This was certainly a good sign for some fine entertainment because apparently the word had gotten out about the Tube’s nighttime festivities! For the remainder of the cruise, we finished our evenings here and each night it was something different, except for one thing…the host; a very sarcastic, dry-witted, we believe to be a Brit, named Declan. Each night, always dressed in a black suit (which stood in direct visual contrast to the blue, red, and white standard outfits of the
DCL activity staff who worked with him), he led some sort of hilariously raucous event, which you could either choose to participate in or sit back to watch and laugh. It was such a great time and a wonderful cherry on the top of each remaining day!
Fun-time over and now very tired, we called it a day. Back to our room, again with it being Pirate Night, we discovered that our room attendant left us a special pirate-themed friend:
Up next…
Day 10: St. Thomas, Secret Sands Beach, & Rotational Dinner Gets Even Worse!
