From the Sea to the World - Holiday Edition - Completed

[Flossbolna]

It will likely be a long time before we cruise again. At some point in the not so distant future we will have to make a call on GASP Evan's last Disney trip before college. I fear we will have to go in summer. I'd prefer spring, or mid winter break but realistically, 7 days is a short trip when you lose 2 to travel and longer is better. Not to mention the crowds in mid winter are ugly. But I'll need to see what he want to do. A cruise as part of it would be nice, though I think we would all prefer a 7 day, I am not at all sure we can swing that plus WDW and Universal and we will have to include universal. So...a cruise will likely have to wait. At some point though I'll have to start crunching numbers but it is just 2 years out. GAH.

Wow, time flies!! I remember reading trip reports when Evan was just a little boy and now he is off to college in two years!!

I get your thinking about why it has to be summer. And summer cruise prices have become absolutelty crazy over the last two years. It seems that they raise the summer prices far more than the rest of the year. Why pay more for a three night Dream cruise in July than for a 7 night Fantasy cruise in November? There is a point where there just is no value in it. Also, one thing I noticed this last trip when we had only 7 days at WDW is that if you want to not rush around and if you want to spend time at Universal (and I think you are right to want to include it), you will need more than a week in Orlando! I think my perfect length of stay for Orlando is 10 days.

I am not opposed to cilantro in certain things, especially Mexican dishes. But in a drink of any sort and combined with ouzo...not remotely appealing to me. Then again in general I'm not crazy about herbs in my drinks, especially when muddled. Something about leafy green things stuck to my teeth....

I understand. I am not a fan of mojitos for that reason...

You and Jeff would definitely get along!

He does not like his picture being taken? For that you have always plenty of him and he always looks great in them!

I seem to recall the same issue with the confit and do think the temperature negatively impacted it.

I understand that cooling is necessary for hygienic reasons. But it so often really affects taste negatively if the food is served ice cold.

I wish the raspberry vinaigrette trend would end.

I rather like it! But then, it is not a trend here in Germany, so I only get it when I am in the US.

I give DCL major props on their creme brulee. It is in the correct dish, with the correct creme to brulee ratio. So often it is too much custard and not enough topping and the topping isn't carmelized just right. It is one of the better ones around, or at least for what I want out of that dish and I am not much of a dessert person.

One thing that I found interesting after my first trips to the US is that creme brulee is served differently in the US from the way it is served in France. In France it is always served warm/warmish. They prepare the creme, but the "brulee" is only added just before serving and it seems to warm up the dish quite a bit. I really like the French way much better!

That show looked adorable and a wonderful way to get in the holiday spirit.

Yes, we were really getting into the holiday spirit!

I don't get the whole Duffy, Shellie May, etc thing. Especially with adults. That said...Gelatoni is kinda cute.

Oh... I think I should tell you a secret: there is a bear living at my house that might be related to Duffy... Michael adopted him from an "adoption agency" at the Sawgrass Mills Outlets...

But I know what you mean! The idea of creating a character with the main purpose to sell more plush and then people going crazy over it is abit strange...

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

It just is impossible to capture my true essence, my true beauty with a simple photograph, so why try? (Huh??)

I love your simple comment at the end there.

Maybe me standing next to you helps you smile?!

Sounds like a good theory to me!

We confirmed that we wanted the same drinks and she immediately appeared with them, she had them prepared, but not served. I thought this was such a great way of doing that.

Yes! Agree 100%. Some people do like variety.

I think on my next cruise I will not eat any desserts on the other days, but two soufflés!

Perfect plan!

And then it started to snow in the atrium:

That looks awesome!

 

[franandaj]

Dinner looked nice, sometimes it doesn't have to be exciting to be a good dinner. I really want one of those Grand Marnier Souffles! I have to wait until the Fall unless I can find someone else to make one for me sooner!

The Winter Wonderland Ball sounds nice, I hope that they do this on the Dream again this year.

 

[Flossbolna]

I just need a place to celebrate a little - and it is not too far off topic as it is in relation to my next Disney cruise, the 7-night cruise to Norway with @nodnol.

You might have noticed the ticker under my posts is getting closer (less than 2 months!!) and we finally found out what our stateroom is going to be! When we booked we wanted to get the cheapest stateroom. That would have been category 11C. But when we booked that category was not available. So we booked 11B.

Since we booked just after the rates were released we managed to get a popular stateroom that has a little of an usual layout, it is "sideways". This means that the door is not at the narrow end of the stateroom, but at the longer side. The reports here on the DIS about these type of rooms are very good as they are less narrow and therefore appear to be larger. Sounded good to us!

However, a few months ago I saw that now 11C was available for booking again. But at a higher price than what we paid for the 11B. But I knew that Disney has a rule that even if prices rise over time as more rooms are being booked, when you change your category, the price that was in place at the time of your original booking still applies to you, not the prevailing rates. So, I had my wonderful travelagent look into it and she told me that we could change to 11C and we would save 88$. So we did that.

However, with 11C we could not book a specific stateroom, we were just told that they would guarantee us that we would be assigned a stateroom that is at least category 11C, but could also be higher. We decided to take that gamble. And yesterday we found out what they assigned us: a category 11B sideways cabin!! Instead of our original cabin we are now on the port side of the ship, not starboard and we are about 3 cabins more foreward than the one we original had. So more or less, we got exactly the same what we had booked, but saved 88 $ in the process! I think the stateroom reports on the new one are even a bit better than on the one we had previously.

This calls for some dancing bananas!!!

 

[Flossbolna]

I thought the place setting was really cool, but I must confess, I have no idea what animal the blanket-animal is!

I think it is a floppy swan! Because the blanket is softer than the towels, it fell down a little.

Cormorant reading the magazine?

Good guess!

The "magazine" however is the daily Navigator with the schedule for the next day. Turn down service places it on your bed every night - just not the last night, so that makes last night even worse! And you also get some chocolates every night! And since it is milk chocolate @nodnol can't eat it, so more for me!!! (Actually, on the Panama Canal cruise, we brought a whole bag of chocolates off the ship with us, we were so full from all the food, that we never had the chocolates).

I've spent all day studying, and then 2 hours on an assignment. As much as I'd love staying up to read more, and comment appropriately, I need to go to bed. Seems I am STILL in recovery mode from Thursday night.

I would be so tired if I had to work through the night!!

 

[Flossbolna]

I'm FINALLY cought up! Maybe I should have stayed at home over easter to catch up with the disboards...

It was lovely to have you visit us!!

Again, I learned something for our cruise in June: let you check the weather conditions outside first, before I take my breakfast outside, as there will be lots of bacon on it!

If you hold my bacon while I check the weather, then we have a deal!! Don't want to waste even more bacon!

Me too! I like it, but more pure or only with water or ice. I think Michael's drink would be a wast of good ouzo and good bourbon.

The drink was tasty, I just thought there was a bit too much going on in it. And other drinks on the drinks menu in Skyline were much better!

You should ask my husband whether I Hulk out, he might have a different opinion on that than me.

Remind me to ask him this weekend!! (trying to find a Hulk smiley, this one is at least green and a little scary...)

What she said. I would love to show you around in Berlin, you could even camp out in my living room, but maximum occupancy for my kitchen is 3,5 persons…

So, @Captain_Oblivious when are you going to start planning the family trip to Germany???

I thought small kids in the US learned that even before speaking?

You are just still suffering from the trauma of being told that you need to smile by lovely Patty (note for the readers who are not my sister: a lovely lady from the US whom we met through a local exchange program when we were in school and who invited us to visit her for two weeks in the early 90s. She kept telling Katharina (who was 17 at that time) several times a day how pretty she is when she smiles and that she needs to smile more).

 

[Flossbolna]

I think the ravioli looks divine! I could eat it all day long!

Michael was quite pleasantly surprised with them. He ordered them more out of not being inspired by anything else.

The shows just look like so much fun. The venues really seem elegant and add so much to the atmosphere.

The thing I like about DCL is that they go for a bit more of a classic style with the oceanliner theme. A lot of the other cruise lines seem to have more of a glitzy hotel style that I don't like as much. I know that some of the newer ships have a more modern/clean design though which works fine for me as well.

The show was really cute and a wonderful addition to the regular entertainment!

 

[Flossbolna]

I wish I could have one of those right now. I am not normally keen on the DCL desserts, but I love this one.

I would have loved to see this.

The snow was fun! And after I posted the update I realised that I forgot to mention that of course it was Elsa who made it snow!

This sounds like a very nice event.

It really was a great addition for the holidays!

 

[Flossbolna]

Finally caught up on your TR! We've been to WDW more times than I can count, been DVC members since 2001, but have never taken a Disney cruise. Doing our first one on the Dream next May, 2016! I'm really enjoying your report. Very detailed & descriptive, which is what I like! Thanks!

I hope you will have a fantastic cruise on the Dream! I am happy to hear that you find my report useful. If you want to read the virwpoint of a first time cruiser, I can recommend my first cruise trip report: From the Sea to the World

 

[TeresaNJ]

I hope you will have a fantastic cruise on the Dream! I am happy to hear that you find my report useful. If you want to read the virwpoint of a first time cruiser, I can recommend my first cruise trip report: From the Sea to the World

Thank you so much! I will definitely read it.

 

[Steppesister]

So more or less, we got exactly the same what we had booked, but saved 88 $ in the process! I think the stateroom reports on the new one are even a bit better than on the one we had previously.

This calls for some dancing bananas!!!

Yes, yes it does!

The thing I like about DCL is that they go for a bit more of a classic style with the oceanliner theme.

I love the classic theming. Probably why I really enjoy the decor at DHS so much. Art deco is one of the theming style I have in my own home. OH! by the way, I took your inspiration, and bought 3 orange crate prints to hang in my kitchen:

(I had images here, but my links didn't work. Google Corona Lily crate label; Redlands Foothill orange label; and Idyllwild Fruit label and you can see them.)

They are all from very near my childhood home, and bring back so many sweet memories of walking out my front door on spring mornings and smelling the orange blossoms... and all the lilies in our yard.

 

[nodnol]

And yesterday we found out what they assigned us: a category 11B sideways cabin!!

 

[nodnol]

The thing I like about DCL is that they go for a bit more of a classic style with the oceanliner theme.

That's what I like about them as well!

 

[franandaj]

Congrats on the savings and score on the cabin!

 

[dizneeat]

I am all caught up - took me a whole afternoon.

First off - I love the fact that you got your sideways stateroom and were able to save some money. Those cruises are expensive enough as they are - every penny saved is another penny for Mickey anyway.

And before I get into more comments - I still have the box of coconut patties that I promised at my flat. When we got back from our trip I went back to work for just three weeks before I had to give in and go on sickleave. I will mail them out once I am back to work. I promise!

It kind of is a neat introduction to the cruise, the cruise director welcomes you and tells you a little bit about the cruise. I think especially on a first cruise, or even on a new ship it is worth it to go there. We met Clayton, our cruise director for the week. He was a lot of fun. But no, he was no Jimmy…

Just like we feel about Christiaan! He was the first CD we had and we love to see him again on board. Clayton is nice, but just not Christiaan.

I don't like Brent on the Magic. I find him to be cool and pretentious. You're a cruise director, dude, not a member of the royal family!

OMG - I could not agree more with you, Michael, when it comes to Brent! He was the biggest disappointment on our last cruise again.

We chose the Muppet Mystery. We then headed off to the first location and started the game and did the first clues with the plan to continue later on. We had great fun with it! We also came across the Muppet Call Board that provided clues as well:

We loved to do the Detective Agency. So much fun and it takes you all over the ship.

I had the Londinium which has gin, freshly muddled lemon, orange, mango puree and champagne. I really loved this drink!

Hm, I really need to go check my notes as I am sure I had the Londinium before, but I do not eat Mango - so that is a bit strange. And we always forget about the passport! Yikes, I hope we won't forget next time.

My trip notes say that it was the best pie he ever had on a cruise ship.

On the Wonder it seemed like the dishes were not really living up to their descriptions, but here they did.

That was the case for the Magic in Europe as well, but on our Western Caribbean it had changed for the better.

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

So, @Captain_Oblivious when are you going to start planning the family trip to Germany???

I'm ready to go now! I just need a promotion and a raise and...oh.

 

[Flossbolna]

Will do replies tomorrow from the train, but I thought you would enjoy a new update as well!!

 

[nodnol]

Will do replies tomorrow from the train, but I thought you would enjoy a new update as well!!

And now it is your fault if I can't get up tomorrow!

 

[Flossbolna]

Paradise!! - Part 1

December 2

Today the Fantasy was stopping at St Thomas, one of the islands of the US Virgin Islands. We had booked an excursion with DCL because I wanted to go to a different island in the USVI, St John. We had booked the St. John Trunk Bay Beach and Snorkel Tour. Unfortunately they had only one start time for that and this was 8am!! So, we had to have an early start.

What we do for the ones we love. 8 a.m. might as well be the middle of the night for me! I do love the Virgin Islands though. Right up with Alaska and Hawaii for parts of the USA that haven't been destroyed by urban sprawl and are like paradise!

Somehow knowing that we had to get up early for our excursions led to me not sleeping very well as I was afraid to oversleep. I had set the alarm on the telephone and it rang at 5 minutes to seven (according to the clock in the room), telling me that it was 7 am and time to get up. This caused me a short panick as I was afraid that the clock in the room was 5 minutes late. But a quick look at the TV told me that the phone system was 5 minutes fast instead.

Only a German would be so concerned with a five-minute difference in wake-up times.

Well, we say that "Punctuality is Royalty's good manners!"

After that shock I headed up to Cabana to get us some stuff to munch on before our excursion. I made Michael eat some food in order to keep him going. After all, we were supposed to snorkel and would not be back for 5 hours. And I did not want to spend the precious time on St. John hunting food for a hungry Michael (or watch him hunt for it). I am pretty sure he was not supposed to eat the fish that we would see snorkeling…

I would never eat a fish that I snorkeled with -- or didn't. Besides, having snorkeled in Trunk Bay three times previously, I know many of the fish there. They have laughed at me. To be fair, fish from Barbados to Maui have done likewise as I don't snorkel well. I hate the taste of rubber in my mouth and usually about 10 minutes in, forgo it to simply hold my breath and dive down and then back up for air. The things you learn in a trip report, am I right?

I even had some quiet minutes to enjoy my breakfast outside on the balcony:

We had a lovely view of St Thomas and the capital Charlotte Amalie in the distance.

At 7:45am we headed to the Walt Disney Theater where the excursion was supposed to meet. There was a long long line, it seemed as if all excursions where meeting there. We got in line and when we were at the desk where we checked in we were told that due to the current weather conditions the visibility would be very low of snorkeling and that we had the option to cancel the excursion and would get a full refund. That was not what you wanted to hear!! I was really torn, but Michael was not, he thought it was stupid to go snorkeling in murky waters. I asked whether it would be possible to book a different excursions and they said that they could transfer us to any excursion that still had openings. Here I was really glad that I had spent so much time looking at the options on the DCL website and had some memory of what was available. But the best thing was that I had read a lovely trip report just before our cruise by @schmass who was on the Fantasy and had taken an excursion to St John called St. John Island Tour. This tour sounded really interesting, I think the only not so good thing was that she had mentioned that they never got the chance to get close to the beautiful water. Well, I thought this sounded like a good option, I knew it was slightly cheaper than the one we were booked on. And they had still spaces available! Great! So we decided to change to that excursion.

Moment of honesty (which I guess means everything I've written thus far would be lies?): but I wasn't thrilled with the idea of doing this excursion, but did so because M. wanted to. It is beautiful there, but, for me, it had been a 'Been there numerous times, done this numerous times, would like to try something different. But I was playing good soldier. I guess I was rewarded with lousy snorkeling water. The water wasn't rough at all, but I guess it had been and stirred all the sediment and sand around, and if you can't see much or anything, then what's the point of going?

The only problem was that I had a huge bag with 5 towels in it (one to sit on for each of us, one to dry off for each of us and one reserve towel, in my opinion the only sensible amount of towels to bring for the beach!) and both of us were wearing our swim suits under our clothes. Not the most comfortable things to wear when you are planning to sit for hours in an open air truck. We had to wait for a little while for our excursion tickets to be exchanged and I ran up to the room to get a different bag and get rid of the towels. And somehow we took turns in changing out of our swim suits. For some reason that I cannot recall now I ended up changing in the ladies room nest to the Walt Disney Theater, this time really appreciating how spectacularly clean the public restrooms on DCL always are! Michael made it back to the Walt Disney Theater just in time before it was start time for our excursion!!

It turned out that all the excursions to St John were going on the same boat, we left the Fantasy and walked towards the end of the dock (away from land):

Behind us there was a Celebrity ship:

People from this ship ended up joining our Disney group for their excursions through the same vendor.

It was about a 50 minute boat ride to St John. The boat captain was telling all kind of stories about the islands as we sailing past St Tomas. He was quite entertaining.

He is living the life I think I am ready for now. He apparently came down in 2007 from Miami and never went back. You do see folks like this. I am convinced they are either living on trust funds in most cases or sold every thing they own and are living in one room with a bed and AC to live the 'Great Escape'. ... I did like how he pointed out a $10 million plus mansion on the water owned by Madonna. Apparently, she hasn't been to the home in over a decade. She just pays people to maintain it. It must be nice to be able to do that, although if I hadn't been to a property I owned in a decade, then I wouldn't own it!

Once we arrived at St John, there were a number of open air trucks waiting for those who had booked the same tour as us. We walked over to that area and were assigned one of the trucks:

Once the truck was filled, we took off with our driver and guide.

The special thing about St John is that some very rich guy bought up a lot of land on the island and donated it to the USA to be a National Park. So today most of the land on the island is part of the National Park and therefore is still very pristine and not filled with expensive vacation homes for the rich and famous.

The rich guy would be Rockefeller. Not sure if it was Nelson, the one-time Governor of NY and one-time VP under Gerald Ford, but definitely his family. Nope. It was Laurance Rockefeller. The land was deeded to the US government under the condition that roughly 70% of the island be part of a National Park. That's why if locals (luckiest people on earth as far as I am concerned!) want a Big Mac or a Frapuccino they must hop on a boat for a quickee run over to St. Thomas as none of the typical chains are on the island beyond a highly rated Westin resort. No more history lessons for today.

I am really happy that Michael obviously paid far better attention to the tour than I did and is able to provide all the interesting tidbits of information!!

We soon stopped at the first overlook:

And then the next one:

This is the beach that belongs to the only luxury resort on St John. I really really want to vacation there!! I think this is Caneel Bay.

I think this is the overlook over Trunk Bay:

This is where we were supposed to snorkel. However, you can also see the surf. Seas were still a bit rough and if it had been windy the days before, we could imagine how cloudy the water would be.

Me in front of Trunk Bay:

You can see how those hills look different from those pictures of St Thomas: Just green, not white specks caused by houses inbetween.

And then our driver explained that we were going to stop at Cinnamon Bay for a 15 minute break. We could use the restroom and/or head to the beach. I was so happy to hear that as I had sadly settled on not being able to get to one of those beautiful beaches. But now I had a chance!!

One side of the beach, it extended behind us as well:

View out to the ocean:

I was going to get Michael to take a picture of me, but then a guy on a beach chair shouted out to us if we wanted him to take a picture of both of us. And he took to really great pictures of the two of us standing in the water grinning like mad. These pictures are one of my favourite souvenirs from that trip. This place was just so incredibly beautiful!! And perfect! If you thing that Castaway Cay is a beautiful beach, this one beats it by far!

Castaway Cay is a lovely little island for what it is and where it is located. It in no way compares to almost any island I have been to in the Caribbean. It's almost Florida-like, just without the cars and traffic and high-rise condos and hotels. So many islands, so little time ... and why waste it riding Pirates of the Caribbean (the worst version of all) for the 876th time? ... Sorry, just thinking out loud. I do that!

Since very few of us "normal people" writing and reading this trip report did not grow up in Florida, I am sure you are holding the record with your 876 times on Pirates. Or are you up to 877 already by now??? ;-)

Sadly, the short break went by far too quickly and we headed back to our truck. The dark one is ours:

They all have their own individual design and name.

I just recall stopping in the NP where the water and mangroves almost came up to the road. Indeed, I am sure they do during high tides or storms, and seeing a couple just sitting in beach chairs in about eight inches of water looking across at what I think was St. Thomas and thinking that it's time for M and I to retire there now! It was like I wanted to switch places with those people and let them head back on the ship (even though I am rather fond of it!)

We drove by an old sugar plantation:

And then stopped at yet another overlook:

From the bus we saw quite a lot of termite nests:

Continued in Part 2

 

[Flossbolna]

Paradise!! - Part 2

And then we stopped at another old sugar plantation where you could take a little bit of a walk through the ruins and once again enjoy the view:

We had to walk downhill close to the water where we were picked up. Here there was no sandy beach:

After the sugar plantation we drove back to where the ferry would pick us up. We drove along the street that took us all the way into the mountains:

Once we were back at the starting point we had about half an hour of free time to explore. There was a rather neat development with lots of souvenir shops quite close to the ferry dock and we browsed there for a little. We also got a snack, I got some ice cream and Michael some kind of slushie. Both were really refreshing and just want we needed. It was a really warm day, but the open air vehicle was really nice as long as we were driving as there was a lovely cooling breeze.

Then it was time to board the boat back to St Thomas. On the way back we both nearly fell asleep on the ship… We were glad when we docked back at St Thomas and headed back onboard via the front entrance (everyone else from our boat tried to get on the back entrance as that was closer, but since we were forward, this made more sense for us!).

All in all, we were really glad that we changed our plans. At Cinnamon Bay we saw how murky the water was and how there were quite some waves. Snorkelling would not have been so much fun. And while we could have just sat at the beach, we knew that we would have a beach day at Castaway Cay. So, this was the perfect excursion for us. St. John was so wonderful, I really would love to come back there for longer!!

Yes, it was very, very nice. A great morning. In hindsight, I do feel bad the snorkelling conditions were so bad because I thought M was coming at a perfect time of year to enjoy beaches (or at least pools and swimming). Thanks to global climate change, I was wrong. Other than a few days in February, we really didn't have any winter (yes, even by SoFla standards) this year. BUT ... when she was here in late fall, we had early winter from the Wednesday before Turkey Day to us leaving on the cruise. And, as you'll see when she gets around to writing it, the weather for mostly the entire week we were in O-Town was sunny but cold with lows in the low-mid 40s and highs in the mid-60s to maybe 70. In other words, we didn't spend much time in H20.

Up Next: Some History of Denmark