From the Sea to the World - Completed!

[jegsnakkernorsk]

I really enjoy your trip report. Fun to hear about Florida from a European's point of view. You are wise to try Longhorn Steakhouse here in Florida. My cousins in Norway took us to the one in Oslo and I think the meal was easily 4 times as much - never mind the exchange rate. Steak is so expensive in Europe - I say eat up!

 

[jedijill]

That sundress is super cute! Looks like a good day of shopping...and eating!

I just ate lunch at a German restaurant today...I thought of you! I also managed to score some Kinder Chocolate and a Mozart ball (which is more Austrian). Yum!

Jill in CO

 

[Minnie&Nana]

Oh, I so like the Circus Train box - brings back lovely DL memories from my childhood and with my children when they were young.

Your new coffee cup also brings back wonderful memories of WDW - we did not visit until the early '80's, but that design was definitely still in use for several trips...it was around long enough that it became the WDW paper plate/cup logo to us. I still miss it now.

We never go shopping or to outlets when visiting Central Florida, but perhaps this summer we could try to stop in one on the way to the Gulf Coast.

I really like your sundress - very cute! Fun day of eating and shopping!

Shopping and eating is what we do a LOT of in Europe....but when I think of the typical American Tourist I think obnoxious. Many are incredibly rude to wait staff, shop keepers and hotel staff - it can be anxiety provoking just speaking because of fear they will think we are typical American Tourists.

On every trip to Portugal, Italy or the UK we were shocked and embarrassed at the way some Americans treat people.

Enjoyed reading about your first day! Ready for more, please!

 

[Poolrat]

Oooooohhhhhh shopping....

I think you had a great shopping trip. Love the sundress and all the Disney merchandise you saw. I do like the coffee cup and circus box.

I like Longhorn as well but I have a Texas Roadhouse closer now so that becomes the steak of choice if not Outback or a place called Hops which has their own microbrew beer and a good steak as well.

A successful restful day.

 

[Flossbolna]

I really enjoy your trip report. Fun to hear about Florida from a European's point of view. You are wise to try Longhorn Steakhouse here in Florida. My cousins in Norway took us to the one in Oslo and I think the meal was easily 4 times as much - never mind the exchange rate. Steak is so expensive in Europe - I say eat up!

Thanks! I had no idea that there were Longhorns in Norway - and I can imagine how expensive it must have been. Yes, steak is generally expensive in Europe - and food in Scandinavia is even more expensive from a central European perspective.

That sundress is super cute! Looks like a good day of shopping...and eating!

Thanks! Yes, it was not a exciting day, but I really liked it!

I just ate lunch at a German restaurant today...I thought of you! I also managed to score some Kinder Chocolate and a Mozart ball (which is more Austrian). Yum!

Jill in CO

Yes, the Mozart ball is Austrian. They used to sell them at the German pavilion in Epcot and I always was amused by that.

What did you have for lunch? We actually ate at Biergarten this trip - it was fun to go to a German restaurant abroad. Somehow I never think of German food as anything special, so I am surprised to see German restaurants abroad. But I guess that's just because to me it is everyday food...

 

[Flossbolna]

Oh, I so like the Circus Train box - brings back lovely DL memories from my childhood and with my children when they were young.

Katharina and I loved the Circus Train on our first trip to DL in 92 and they do have the Circus Train at DLP as well - in an updated version. It is such a cute attraction and I a little mad at WDW that they did not bring it there when they redid Fantasyland, it would have fit so well!

Your new coffee cup also brings back wonderful memories of WDW - we did not visit until the early '80's, but that design was definitely still in use for several trips...it was around long enough that it became the WDW paper plate/cup logo to us. I still miss it now.

I had no idea that this design stayed around for so long! They recently updated the paper cups in the parks yet again and I must say that I really prefer the current design to the two previous ones (the light blue year of a million dreams and the red celebration design). I just would love it if the cups said again Walt Disney World on them!

We never go shopping or to outlets when visiting Central Florida, but perhaps this summer we could try to stop in one on the way to the Gulf Coast.

I really like your sundress - very cute! Fun day of eating and shopping!

I just wish the weather would finally be summery here so I could wear it again!!

And if you want to get a good deal on Disney merchandise, I can certainly recommend visiting the outlet store. We went to the one in Orlando later in the trip as well and I got another great souvenir there. They were also selling the little boxes there. Some of the stuff you could tell why it was at the outlet, but other things were really nice!

Shopping and eating is what we do a LOT of in Europe....but when I think of the typical American Tourist I think obnoxious. Many are incredibly rude to wait staff, shop keepers and hotel staff - it can be anxiety provoking just speaking because of fear they will think we are typical American Tourists.

On every trip to Portugal, Italy or the UK we were shocked and embarrassed at the way some Americans treat people.

I know what you mean. But I can tell you that I am also often embarrassed by how my countrymen behave abroad. And my theory is that there are two reasons why a lot of Americans appear obnoxious abroad. The first is that there exist differences in what is considered good service in Europe and in the US. So they often mistake something for bad service while it is just a different approach. And the other is that I often get the impression that a lot of Americans are uncomfortable being in an environment where they don't speak the language and they overcompensate that by trying to appear very self assured. I think the difference to many Europeans is that her in Europe the next country with a different language is never far away so most likely people have the chance to go to a foreign country more often.

Enjoyed reading about your first day! Ready for more, please!

Oooooohhhhhh shopping....

I think you had a great shopping trip. Love the sundress and all the Disney merchandise you saw. I do like the coffee cup and circus box.

I like Longhorn as well but I have a Texas Roadhouse closer now so that becomes the steak of choice if not Outback or a place called Hops which has their own microbrew beer and a good steak as well.

A successful restful day.

Shopping was really nice! I am sure if I had had more time I would have ended up with more things.

And I have been to Outback on a previous trip - in the MCO terminal before flying back to Germany. But I like the sounds of that Hops place!

 

[Flossbolna]

Day 3

For today we had planned to spend some time at the beach. It turned out that our hotel actually offered a free shuttle to the beach, so we planned on taking this as it would enable us to leave all valuables in the hotel safe and just take a room key and a small amount of cash with us.

Looking at the shuttle times I realised that if we did not want a really early start, it would make more sense to go in the afternoon as I wanted to avoid the midday sun. This was only the second day for me out in the sunshine and I have very sensitive skin. The last thing I wanted to do is getting sunburned just before I got on the cruise.

So we planned to spend some time at the pool in the morning and then take the shuttle out to the beach at 2:30pm.

In the morning we once again woke up to the sight of a cruise ship outside our window, this time the Emerald Princess:

Then we headed down to the pool, where we got another round of frozen grapes. The pool was more crowded today, it seemed that the hotel got fuller as we were getting closer to the weekend when all the cruise ships were departing from Port Everglades.

Michael had brought some left over bread from our dinner the previous evening and we walked around the hotel grounds a little bit to feed the fish with the bread. There was a spot more or less under the tall bridge we could see from our hotel room where the water was not so deep and quite clear and once Michael started to throw bread at them quite a few different type of fish came. I was amazed at how pretty these were  or fish here in the rivers and lakes of Bavaria are much less pretty, some are even truly ugly! I guess it is all the sunshine that makes them look so good!

After soaking up some sun there and hanging out in and at the water, we decided to go and find some lunch. Michael had spotted an Einstein Bagel shop next to the Starbucks yesterday and suggested that for lunch. We had decided to try to have smaller meals before the cruise as we knew we would have lots and lots of food once we would be on the Disney Wonder. And I was happy with anything anyway as all of this was new to me. So once again we walked the two blocks. I had one of my favourite American dishes there: Caesars Salad. And also added a buttered bagel.

Michael had some kind of lunch sandwich deal, which came with chips and a drink:

On the way back we past this building with a nice water feature:

I guess it was some kind of port office building. The style really reminded me of Disney Cruise Lines style.

Then it was off to get on the shuttle. We were there pretty early and that was good, as there was quite a crowd and some people did not get a space on the shuttle. They dropped us off at another hotel at the beach and from there we went to find a nice spot.

The beach was not crowded, but it was also rather windy:

We walked a bit further down the beach and found a spot where there werent that many people around anymore. The water temperature was quite perfect I thought. The water was still a bit refreshing, but not at all cold. There was a little bit of a sand bar just after the beach, so there was some water that was rather quiet and about a foot deep, and then further out there were quite a little bit of waves rolling in. In some way this reminded me of the set up of the Typhoon Lagoon wave pool. I alternated to sitting in the shallow water and playing around in the surf a little further out. I think here you can see the sand bar a little bit:

Some more pictures of the sea as it was just so beautiful there:

I think it was around 5:30 when we took the shuttle back home.

After hanging around in the pool and sea water we needed some more water  this time in the form of a shower. Our hotel room actually had a lovely rain shower which was great! Unfortunately though the bath room only had sliding doors which seemed to never really close properly& Odd design for a hotel room.

We decided to go to another fast food place for dinner and I requested burger! Another American delicacy! And I am serious about this, I love good burgers!

Michael had pointed out a chain called Five Guys to me when we had driven past it and I requested to go there as he had mentioned that they do good burgers. When we got there it was rather empty and I was a bit surprised by the very industrial décor:

I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that they make the burgers fresh. So we started to order. Michael had warned me that the burgers are not small and that the small fries would be enough to share between the two of us. So we each got one burger. I liked it that I could specify exactly what I wanted to have on my burger. And we got one portion of small fries to share.

While I was still filling up my cup with some ice tea, Michael already had grabbed us a table and some peanuts! That was the moment that I fell in love with this place: free peanuts and as much as you want! Perfect!!

Soon enough our order was ready, served in a brown paper bag which had my burger, a cup with fries and then a lot of additional fries loose in the bag:

Everything was so delicious!! This place is very high on my list of places I want to revisit when I am in the US again!

The rest of the evening was spent packing as tomorrow we would start the next part of the trip!

Next: Finally  the Wonders begin

 

[Minnie&Nana]

The beach pictures are beautiful, Magdalene! I grew up on the ocean and miss it terribly - seeing your photos I can almost smell and taste the salt air. Thank you for sharing these lovely photos! :

Five Guys! Our first Five Guys experience was in Savannah (have you visited Savannah yet? One of my favorite US cities to visit...many lovely green Squares dotting the historic areas, very walkable, like Boston). A Five Guys opened here a couple of years ago - we don't go often, but that makes a visit special. I order the Little Cheeseburger with bacon..sooo yummy! The small fries was just added in March - prior to that the smallest size was enough for four people! My very favorite fries...think I will have to visit today...

I am so enjoying your TR!

p.s. We enjoyed a late lunch at Five Guys this afternoon - those photos pulled me right in! Thanks!

 

[jedijill]

What did you have for lunch? We actually ate at Biergarten this trip - it was fun to go to a German restaurant abroad. Somehow I never think of German food as anything special, so I am surprised to see German restaurants abroad. But I guess that's just because to me it is everyday food...

Knockwurst with sauerkraut, potato salad, carrot salad, and apple struedel. Yum!

There are so many people with German heritage that its not uncommon to see German restaurants especially where I'm from (Missouri). My heritage is mostly German and I had the opportunity to live in Germany so I enjoy eating German food and treats every so often.


Jill in CO

 

[OhMari]

Yes welcome to the land of Fast Food. We have an exchange student at our high school from Germany and she said she gained 15 lbs from eating Fast Food. Luckily we have girls soccer and she said she was able to loose it by eating right and no more fast food.

I never knew of that outlet mall. I would of made my dh stop last year after we dropped the kids off at the airport.

 

[Flossbolna]

The beach pictures are beautiful, Magdalene! I grew up on the ocean and miss it terribly - seeing your photos I can almost smell and taste the salt air. Thank you for sharing these lovely photos! :

The beach is truly wonderful!! I can understand how someone would miss the ocean if they grew up with it. I grew up in a rather hilly/mountainous area and I would hate to have to live somewhere truly flat!

Five Guys! Our first Five Guys experience was in Savannah (have you visited Savannah yet? One of my favorite US cities to visit...many lovely green Squares dotting the historic areas, very walkable, like Boston). A Five Guys opened here a couple of years ago - we don't go often, but that makes a visit special. I order the Little Cheeseburger with bacon..sooo yummy! The small fries was just added in March - prior to that the smallest size was enough for four people! My very favorite fries...think I will have to visit today...

I am so enjoying your TR!

p.s. We enjoyed a late lunch at Five Guys this afternoon - those photos pulled me right in! Thanks!

How funny that my trip report made you go there!

Michael actually said that he thinks that while the burgers are very good it is the fries which make the place so outstanding. And I agree, they were delicious.

Knockwurst with sauerkraut, potato salad, carrot salad, and apple struedel. Yum!

There are so many people with German heritage that its not uncommon to see German restaurants especially where I'm from (Missouri). My heritage is mostly German and I had the opportunity to live in Germany so I enjoy eating German food and treats every so often.


Jill in CO

Sounds delicious! I do find that aspect of the culture that was brought by the German immigrants to the US very fascinating. I talked quite a bit about it with Wendy (lovealldisney) who is from Milwaukee and there is a lot of German influence there as well.

Yes welcome to the land of Fast Food. We have an exchange student at our high school from Germany and she said she gained 15 lbs from eating Fast Food. Luckily we have girls soccer and she said she was able to loose it by eating right and no more fast food.

I never knew of that outlet mall. I would of made my dh stop last year after we dropped the kids off at the airport.

We do have fast food here as well, but the number of different chains and offerings in the US is really something else!

I noticed that quite a few restaurant actually had calories on the menu boards, that helped a lot with making sensible choices!

My sister Katharina and I both volunteer for an exchange organisation and the experience is that a lot of people are prone to put on weight during their exchange year. It is a lot of stress to go and live in a foreign country, so many people tend to eat more. Also you want to experience all that foreign food. But I think the kids going to the US are the most in danger, while on the other hand it is not so uncommon for kids from the US to come to Europe and drop quite a bit of weight - just because they have to walk or cycle to school every day.

 

[Flossbolna]

Somehow the DIS was not cooperating when I tried to post my update - so this was a double post. Please ignore and move on to the next post!!!

 

[Flossbolna]

Day 4:

Today I would board the first cruise ship of my life!! I was so excited. I had been wanting to go on a cruise for ages. Here in Germany we have a long running TV series (more a series of TV films) called Das Traumschiff which means The Dream Ship. It is kind of loosely based on the US series Loveboat but is more of a travelogue. It is filmed on an actual cruise ship, a very luxurious one. I loved this series as a kid. And I still remember that once when I was sick at home I asked my mother to bring me some travel brochures as reading material and I ended up with one about cruises. I spent days pricing out trips for my family and tried to convince my parents to take us on a cruise.

Well, now I am grown up, so I just decided it was finally time to do something about that dream. First I had booked a cruise on the Fantasy for about the same timeframe, but then the Wonder was relocated to Miami and they had started to offer those 5-night cruises. While only two nights shorter, the price was considerably cheaper. I also liked the look of the two classic ships. And since I am not a fan of crowds and was not sure how I would like that aspect of the cruise, I decided that starting out on a smaller ship made a lot of sense. So we changed the reservation to the 5-night cruise out of Miami which included a stop in Cozumel, Mexico and a stop at Castaway Cay. In between we would have two days at sea.

And today it was finally time to board the ship!!!

A friend of Michael was so nice to give us a lift to the port, so we would not have to bother with parking fees. I used the car ride to take silly pictures of the port and the ship from the car!

He dropped us off at around noon and as soon as we started to unload our bags, there was a porter ready to take them away from us. So that first step seemed rather seamless. Next we had to pass the CMs standing at the entrance door. Showing our cruise documents was the magic trick there! Then there was a short line for the security check and then off to the check-in line. This is a general picture of the check-in area at Miami:

Michael had been on previous cruises with DCL, so he is a Castaway Club Member (another bonus for taking him along!) and we got to go in the Castaway Club check-in line which was considerably shorter than the other line. It seemed that there were a lot of first time cruisers on board (or first time DCL cruisers). I guess that is what they want to achieve with having the ship at other home ports than Port Canaveral. So we only had a short wait.

Unfortunately the CM checking us in was not very magical. Also, at the position next to us was a group of 8 people checking in and they seemed to think that they needed all to be right up at the counter at the same time. So there really was nearly no space for Michael and me.

Thanks to the Florida resident deal we had been able to upgrade from the 11B inside stateroom that we had originally booked (it would have been on deck 6 and was an sideways cabin, supposedly those feel a little roomier than the standard inside stateroom) to a 9B oceanview on deck 2. While I liked having a window (and a larger cabin with a split bathroom), I was not too thrilled about being on deck 2. And I hoped to maybe get an upgrade at the port to a stateroom with a veranda. It was strange that until about one week before the cruise a lot of staterooms were available online for our cruise and then the cruise just disappeared from the website, seemingly sold out. I thought that was strange and still had hope. But it turned out that there werent any upgrades available at the port (at least not when we arrived there) which for me made for a little less magical start in that moment even though I had tried before not to get my hopes up too much.

Our not so magical CM also forgot to give Michael his silver Castaway Club lanyard  which we only realised some time later on.

Once we were checked in which seemed to take quite some time while the CM was staring at his computer, I thought since I had done online check in it would be faster, we were given our Key To The World card and a little piece of paper with our stateroom number and a field for our boarding number. But just before we got this they had announced open boarding, so we did not get any boarding number.

This is my Key To The World (or KTTW):

The picture is edited, the original has my family name after my first name (just in case you wondered&). This is the only thing you need on board, all purchases are tied to your onboard account by presenting this card, it is also your room key and your identification when getting off the ship and back on the ship. They take a picture of you when you check in that is tied to your card and shows up for the security person when you get on or off the ship.

As you can see, the print on my KTTW already started to fade after a 5-day cruise, I guess if I had been on a much longer cruise I would have had to get a replacement& The KTTW also had our dining information, that we were the second seating at 8:15pm and our rotation was TAAPT which meant that the first and fifth night would be in Tritons, the second and third in Animators and the fourth night in Parrot Cay. And the large K was the letter for our muster station.

Next stop was the ship then! On the way there they took a picture of the two of us, but it did not turn out very well, so I did not buy it. I would have liked to get it, but unfortunately the ship photographers were not good at all at taking good pictures of the two of us&

I was so excited when we got into the walkway alongside the ship and started taking pictures:

Lots of drinks for the cruisers!

And then it was time to finally enter the gangway onto the ship:

view from the gangway:

At Miami you get onboard on deck 4  so you dont enter through the main atrium doors as I have seen on pictures from other cruisers. Instead you get on the open deck on deck 4, in through a door (forward of the atrium) and then enter the atrium from up there. There were CMs standing there asking for our name and then announced us. We then walked halfway around and down a flight of stairs into the atrium along some CMs welcoming us onto the ship. This is what it looked like:

So finally on board and everything was new and different, I suddenly started to feel a little bit at loss. Michael and I had requested a specific dining rotation and I had seen on the KTTW card that we had gotten upon check in that we had gotten that. But we had also requested a table just for the two of us. So I wanted to check whether that request had been granted and the Navigator listed that Studio Sea was the place to do that, so I needed to head there. Somehow all these new experiences paired with my desire to make everything perfect, I suddenly was very stressed. Now I dont even know why and about what. But we were assured that so far we were at a four top with only the two of us seated there.

I think we also both needed a bathroom and finding one really stressed me out. Somehow I felt that I had to figure everything out immediately and forgot that Michael had been on the Magic, so kind of knew his way around much better than me. Well. After using the bathroom, we headed to get some lunch. Here I could use some of the Disney knowledge I had acquired on the DIS. I knew that we wanted to head to Parrot Cay as we did have quite a bit of carry on luggage (including a clothes bag which had Michaels suit in it). Michael agreed with my thinking, so we went in that direction.

I can tell you that I am good at reading maps and I had literally spent hours looking at the Wonders deck plans. It is still different in reality and at least the first 24 hours it was not that easy to find my way around. So after we had walked the hallway down for quite a bit, there was suddenly people standing there and there were drinks set up, so I thought this must be the entrance to the restaurant and stopped. Michael was surprised and told me to move on  it turned out that this was the entrance to the Promenade Lounge, which we had to walk through, and it was only a display for the drinks packages you could buy for the cruise. Ahem& There you think you are an expert from reading the DIS and then you mistake a lounge for a restaurant.

But we did get to Parrot Cay despite meeting a CM in the Aft elevator lobby who wanted to send us up to the Buffet on Deck 9, Beach Blanket Buffet. We insisted on continuing on to Parrot Cay and were directly led to a table for 6, which we just had for ourselves. So we had plenty of space for our luggage. We ordered drinks from our server and then took turns going to the buffet while the other was watching the bags and had some time to read the Navigator. The Navigator is the daily programm which gives you all kind of info about entertainment offerings, but also has the weather, sunrise and sunset, infos about the port of the day, opening times for restaurants and other services. It is really very useful!

This is a little bit of a general overview of Parrot Cay (pronounced like key) that I took after the meal:

You can see the buffet line in the background. Somehow I had expected the buffet to have more choices. But I did find enough things that I wanted to try. And once I was through the line (there was literally nobody there besides me) I discovered that there was also a special soup stand.

So I ended up with these selections:

Grilled chicken breast, a pork schnitzel (with a lemon on top), a focaccia bread, a brioche filled with chicken salad and some salad (mainly spincach, carrots, chick peas and cheese with ranch dressing). The cup in the background is chilled pineapple soup  which was delicious! I had quite a few of these cold fruit soups they were offering during our cruise and liked them all! I later went back and had the other soup they offered as well which was a pumpkin soup and very good, too.

I was actually surprised how good the food was! Even though the selection was not that large there were plenty of different things going on and I could have found much more which I liked.

This is Michaels salad plate:

He also got some beef from the carving station, but I seem to be lacking the picture of that. He was very happy with his beef as it is his tradition to start every cruise with beef and thought that the one they served him on the Wonder was very nice.

They also had a very nice selection of desserts  but we werent really hungry enough to try them all. They also had an ice cream station where you could get vanilla or chocolate ice cream and they also had chocolate sauce and caramel sauce and sprinkles. I decided to get some ice cream and got a little lemon cream puff as well:

Michael got ice cream, too and an interesting looking mouse:

This was not so good&

Lunch was a success and really helped me settle in! And by the time we were done with lunch, the staterooms were available. So we headed to our stateroom 2564, starboard on Deck 2.

Next: Our Second Home

 

[dizneeat]

Ah, getting on board the WONDERful Disney WONDER!

Memories ........

Miami looks so different to getting on board at PC. I was kind of looking for things and they were not there.
Hm, boarding on deck 4 .... well, I like the Atrium better, guess, because I am so used to it.
And here is something for you to smile about. When I saw your KTTW card I was like ..... "what restaurants is she going to? Have they renamed the restaurants?" until I remembered that you were on the WONDER. Different ships, different restaurants.

I love that you tried the "Viennese" style Schnitzel. I tried it too on our cruises and always found them far too dry, but they were a bit of home anyway.
Can't wait for more. (Off now to have lunch ..... Wiener Schnitzel! )

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Hurrah! We're on board the Wonder! I have absolutely zero sense of direction so I have a feeling if I ever go on a cruise I will spend 50% of it lost.

Glad you had some fun hotel and shopping time before the cruise. Your hotel looks great. Love that they came around with snacks and drink samples! Your sundress is so pretty!!

Five Guys. Yum!! And thankfully there are no calories when on vacation.

 

[Poolrat]

So finally on board and everything was new and different, I suddenly started to feel a little bit at loss. Michael and I had requested a specific dining rotation and I had seen on the KTTW card that we had gotten upon check in that we had gotten that. But we had also requested a table just for the two of us. So I wanted to check whether that request had been granted and the Navigator listed that Studio Sea was the place to do that, so I needed to head there. Somehow all these new experiences paired with my desire to make everything perfect, I suddenly was very stressed. Now I don’t even know why and about what. But we were assured that so far we were at a four top with only the two of us seated there.

I totally understand this feeling. A place familiar through research but not familiar in person. Perhaps entering a different way than you though threw everything off? Or just the general sensation that you are unsure of things.

I get a little of that when I am travelling with the kids at a new resort. I feel I need to be the one to lead them, because they are younger and I know they have no idea of the way around, and I am their mother.

Now the last trip with Chris he has a better sense of direction than I do, and I think I do pretty good but he had the layout of SSR down in one pass.

Glad you settled in and got some good eats!!!!


Beautiful beach pictures. I need a bit of that right about now.

 

[nodnol]

Michael had brought some left over bread from our dinner the previous evening and we walked around the hotel grounds a little bit to feed the fish with the bread. There was a spot more or less under the tall bridge we could see from our hotel room where the water was not so deep and quite clear and once Michael started to throw bread at them quite a few different type of fish came. I was amazed at how pretty these were  or fish here in the rivers and lakes of Bavaria are much less pretty, some are even truly ugly! I guess it is all the sunshine that makes them look so good!

But do they taste as good as ours????

After soaking up some sun there and hanging out in and at the water, we decided to go and find some lunch. Michael had spotted an Einstein Bagel shop next to the Starbucks yesterday and suggested that for lunch. We had decided to try to have smaller meals before the cruise as we knew we would have lots and lots of food once we would be on the Disney Wonder. And I was happy with anything anyway as all of this was new to me. So once again we walked the two blocks. I had one of my favourite American dishes there: Caesars Salad. And also added a buttered bagel.

How was the bagel - compared to our favourite bagel bakery here in Berlin?

This would be me - looking for the only spot with shade and then moving my towel every 20 minutes...

Soon enough our order was ready, served in a brown paper bag which had my burger, a cup with fries and then a lot of additional fries loose in the bag:

I miss good burgers!

Our not so magical CM also forgot to give Michael his silver Castaway Club lanyard – which we only realised some time later on.

What do you need the lanyard for?

Next stop was the ship then! On the way there they took a picture of the two of us, but it did not turn out very well, so I did not buy it. I would have liked to get it, but unfortunately the ship photographers were not good at all at taking good pictures of the two of us…

Well, I guess that they sensed only one of you likes to get her picture taken at every possible opportunity...

This is a little bit of a general overview of Parrot Cay (pronounced like key) that I took after the meal:

So I ended up with these selections:

The restaurant looks very cheerful, but the cheese frightens me.

I'm starting to get a feeling, you only agreed to writing a TR so that you would convince me I had to go an a cruise...

 

[glennbo123]

Looks like you had a nice time enjoying our fast food franchises before you set off on your cruise. I remember my grandparents taking me to Arby's, but I haven't been to one in a looong time. Yes, Five Guys is good, but I think it's rather expensive so have only been to one a couple of times.

It's always good to start off a cruise with a buffet meal!

 

[heaven2dc]

Loving your TR! I feel like I'm right there enjoying your trip with you Great hotel and what a great beach day! Your style of vacationing sounds perfect - I'm taking lots of notes as to how to really enjoy my next vacation

 

[wvgoofyfan]

I was delighted to find your trip report today. You have a very good direct style of writing which is easy to follow and allows the reader to imagine him/or herself along "for the ride". I could not resist and also read your 2010 and 2011 reports.
So looking forward to traveling along with you on the rest of your vacation. Hope that you quickly find the ship wonderful to navigate and looking forward to your dining reviews also.