Day 5
We were awake bright and early again. Once we had our wake up call from Mickey, we got up and headed for the gym. We were hoping that doing Pilates indoors the previous day was an exception due to high winds and decided to give it a go again. Unfortunately they were doing the class indoors again. I had also spotted in the Navigator that there would be Aqua Aerobics in the adult pool half an hour later. This is something that I always had wanted to try. So I decided to have a go at this. Graham was not too sure about the idea at first, but decided to have a go as well. We both thoroughly enjoyed it and I dont think I have ever had such a good workout. I could not touch the bottom for the most part so had to tread water while doing the exercises.
After this, we had definitely deserved some breakfast. We spent a little while working out what the different dishes on the menu are. On the Magic, a lot of the items on the breakfast menu have names that are linked to Beauty and the Beast, whereas on the Wonder, the names are inspired by The Little Mermaid. So Graham ended up with Chef Louis Kick Off (fresh fruit, plain yoghurt, Granola) followed by Scuttle on the Run (Ham, Bacon, Sausage, Grilled Tomato, Scrambled Egg, Hash Brown). My breakfast was easier. I had a Mango Mountain Hike (Mango Smoothie with Muesli), which was the same on the Magic followed by Eggs Benedict. This was a bit of a leap of faith for me as the last time I had Eggs Benedict on the Magic, it was horrible and I had not enjoyed this dish since. However, the Eggs Benedict on the Wonder were delicious.
All fed and watered, it was time to work some of this off. So we headed up to deck 4 to do Walk a Mile. This was not quite such a leisurely proposition as it had been on the Magic last year. It was more on a power walk and by the end of the 2nd lap, my calf muscles had gone into cramp. This might well have had something to do with the unusual exercise earlier on. I still carried on, but just slowed down a little. I met Graham back at the starting point. He had jogged most of the three laps. He said that the rest of the group had got confused and were going round again even though they had already done 3 laps.
Graham and I agreed to meet up for lunch around 13:00 and I headed down to Wavebands for the DVC Member Celebration. This is usually great fun, but this time I got more than I had bargained for. When I got to Wavebands, I found a huge line that snaked all the way from deck 3 forward past the midship elevators and clear across the atrium. As I had only brought one baseball cap for the two of us expecting to get new ones during the DVC Member Celebration, I decided to brave the line. I was just approaching the end of the line, when somebody came out of nowhere and grabbed my arm hard to push me out of the way just so that he could get one person ahead. He can thank his lucky star that there was no crew member nearby as I would have created a bit of a stir.
When I finally got to the front of the line, I was handed a couple of baseball caps and a nice document folder. The baseball caps are a different style from those that I had received on previous cruises. They were white and have a red Mickey silhouette on them rather than the DVC logo. I have never seen so many people in Wavebands before. Fortunately some people who I knew spotted me and waved for me to come and join them. As soon as I was sitting down, I was handed a glass with a Mimosa. I could get used to this! Normally there are all kind of ice breakers and games, but there were simply too many people for this. So they just did a raffle and I won a nice beach bag. Once I had collected my prize, I left as I wanted to catch Lilo and Stitch up on deck 9.
Stitch has over the last couple of years become my firm favourite and on past cruises, I had some fantastic interactions with him. So I was more than a little disappointed that they did not bring him out during the day of over unplanned sea day especially as we was scheduled to be out and about on the island. He was out for photos during late dinner the previous night, but I missed him as I was still eating my dinner.
This also turned out the only opportunity to have a professional photo taken with Stitch. To say that I was gutted would be the understatement of the year. Anyway, I knew that Lilo and Stitch would be up at the Gazebo on deck 9 at 10:30 so I made sure that I would be there. I was very disappointed that there was no photographer with him, but I got a nice hug and the character escort took a photo with my camera.
Once I had my brief quality time with Stitch, I headed back down to the Walt Disney Theater. Don "Ducky" Williams was on board and he was doing his talk for adults that morning. He was also on our Transatlantic cruise and I had a brief opportunity to talk to him. He is a genuinely nice person. I was sad that I had to miss both of his talks then and promised myself that I would make at least on talk during the Panama Canal Cruise.
As people entered the theatre, they were given a raffle ticket. Throughout the talk, Ducky Williams was drawing characters, which were then raffled off at the end of the talk. I then spent a very interesting hour watching Ducky Williams draw and listened how he sent a letter and a character drawing to Walt Disney as a child and that he wanted to work for Disney ever since. It took him years to get there and listening to his story of what it took to be finally hired by Disney as a character artist was fascinating. He is now the only character artist working out of Disney World and is doing all the character drawings for maps, flyers, etc. He also did all the artwork for Tony's Town Square restaurant at the Magic Kingdom. He said that at the moment most of his work is for
Disney Cruise Line as he is doing lithographs for all the special cruises and whereas before there would be one lithograph for both ships for holiday cruises, he would now have to produce one for the Magic and the Wonder and a different one for the Dream. Unfortunately I did not win any of the drawings, but two of our tablemates were lucky enough to get a drawing of Donald Duck.
After the talk, I went up to deck 9 to see if I could get my hair braided. They did not seem rushed off their feet, but were extremely reluctant to fit me in. In the end we agreed that they would get started and if their appointments turned up, they would have to stop and I would make an appointment for the next day to finish it off. Well, this was not necessary. At one stage, I had both of them working on my head. One did the corn rows and the other added the beads. They were just going to start on the last braid when the first appointment turned up. One person finished my braids off and the other got started on the other person. The other person that had an appointment still had not showed up when I was done and had paid.
Once I had my hair done, I found Graham by the pool. We briefly headed back to the cabin so that he could get changed and then we went to Parrot Cay for lunch. They had a Steak House Buffet that day. Graham had Salad, Peel and Eat Shrimp, Pork Ribs, Roast Beef, Grilled Pork and Rice and Fruit Crumble for dessert. I had Oxtail Soup, Scalloped Potatoes, Sautéed Asparagus, Sautéed Mushrooms and Garlic, Roast Beef, Pork Rib, Beef Medallion with Fried Onion. For dessert I had Profiterole and Pecan Pie.
After lunch, we went to the Walt Disney Theatre for a lecture on the history of the Panama Canal. The lecture was given by a retired Panama Canal pilot. This could have been very dry and boring, but was both interesting and entertaining. Apart from the history behind it, we also learned that the Panama Canal is the only place where the pilot assumes navigational control over the ship. Normally pilots just act in an advisory capacity and the captain and the officers remain in control of the ship. The lecture ended with a time lapse video of a Panama Canal crossing, which was a nice preview of things to come.
After the lecture, I went upstairs to the Cove Cafe, where I had arranged to meet with the participants of my first jewellery workshop. I had arranged three workshops this time round and contrary to on the Transatlantic cruise, the groups were smaller and every group did a different project. For that first session, I only had 2 people and we were making a set consisting of a choker, bangle and a pair of earrings for formal night. Everybody had chosen their colour scheme and we used semi-precious stones, crystals and pewter beads with a stardust effect. One of the people participating in this workshop had done one of my workshops on the Transatlantic cruise. She had brought one of the pieces of jewellery that we had made on that cruise, which she had not quite managed to finish. She was working on this while we were waiting for the second person to arrive. Shortly afterwards, the second person arrived and we started on the jewellery sets. Everybody got a great result. This is my idea of a perfect time: sitting out in the sunshine, surrounded by water and making jewellery with other people.
A friend of one of the participants had joined us and sat with us during the workshop. We ended up staying behind and chatted once the others had left. It was nice to just sit and talk. Time was positively flying. I suddenly noticed that it had gone dark. I looked on my watch and it was 18:15.
I felt a little guilty as Graham had mentioned earlier on in the day that he was considering going to the show. He had only ever been to one show during all the cruises that we have done. So I had intended to go with him even though the show was the Golden Mickeys, which is my least favourite of the shows. By the time, I realized what the time was, the show had already started. In the end, Graham had decided against the show as well and I found him in the Rainforest Room.
I spent about an hour just chilling out in the Rainforest Room and then got showered at the spa. I then headed back to the cabin to get changed. Graham arrived back in the cabin shortly afterwards.
Once we were both changed, we headed down to the atrium. This evening was the Captain's Welcome Reception. Our previous cruise on the Wonder was the only cruise where we did not get a photo with the captain. I wanted to put this right this time round. When we got there, it was hard to get even to the atrium. The line for the photo with the captain was huge and he had not even arrived yet. I decided to join the line, which mercifully moved very quickly once the captain arrived. Graham had stayed in the area by the midship elevators when I joined the line, but he came and joined me when I was nearly at the front of the line. We got our photo and then just wandered around for a bit. Graham managed to get a couple of the free cocktails, but I was not so lucky.
Soon it was time for dinner. Unfortunately two of our table mates did not come to dinner that night as it was formal night. Dinner that night was the Golden Mickey Menu. Graham had Caramelized Bay Scallops on Tomato Risotto, Broccoli and Maytag Blue Cheese Soup with Crushed Walnuts, Swordfish with Rice, Red Pepper Sauce and Braised Swiss Chard, followed by Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee with Honeyed Raspberries. I opted for Fried Cheese Ravioli with Tomato Sauce, Broccoli and Maytag Blue Cheese Soup with Crushed Walnuts, New York Strip Steak with Sauteed Asparagus, Baked Potato and Spiced Butter. For my dessert, I had the Sweet Temptations (Triple Chocolate Award, Raspberry Cake, Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee).
After dinner, I managed to get a photo with Pluto and we both had our photo taken against a backdrop of the ship at night. I then let Graham go back to the cabin while I had some photos taken against a black and white backdrop.
After this, I headed back to the cabin. I could not quite figure our what our "towel" animal was supposed to be. It was made out of a napkin and vaguely looked like a tuxedo. I took a photo anyway and then went to bed.