If You See It: Eat It! Via Panama to Disneyland - Completed and Link to New Trip Report 2/24

[Flossbolna]

After downing all of those drinks? I should say so!

Ok, maybe I should point out that those martinis were not full size cocktails, but in tasting size. I would say, they were about 1/4 to 1/3 of a normal cocktail! And the free ones during the Captain's Reception were rather on the weak side... Otherwise I would not have been able to walk anywhere...

That's very cool. Nice that you can keep relationships going!

Yes, it's nice to make new friends on a ship!

Glad to see they're taking care of you!

There is more to come...

I think you're basically right. It's marketed here as "steak sauce".

I still find that strange. It does not tell me anything about the flavour, just what you are supposed to eat it with. I guess it is going to be my next fascination with unknown American food products - now that I found out that I am not a fan of Cool Whip...

Very unique! I love the special touches like this.

It was great and there were more things later on! That's one of the great advantages of those longer cruises, they do add little things like that!

 

[Flossbolna]

While we were at dinner, we could feel the ship slow down and turn and then we could here the helicopter come in. Fortunately the family was able to rejoin the ship in Cozumel and I saw them around a fair bit for the rest of the cruise. I think they may actually have been one of our DIS families.

That wine is probably our favourite ever wine. How nice that you got two bottles of that.

I really enjoyed the Martini tasting. I loved the Whiskey one.

Corinna

Oh, thanks for the additional info! That's good to hear that they were able to rejoin the ship!

The wine was nice, we did not end up drinking it until much later. But we found it to be very much on the sweet side.

I liked the Whiskey one, too. I think it was called Washington Apple? But I preferred the other two.

I was afraid that the woman collapsed in the atrium was going to be you, after the martini tasting and all of those free drinks!

That's great that they went on a ship-wide search for worcester sauce for Michael -- just shows how much they aim to please!

No, I was still able to stand on my own, even with heels for formal night!

And, yes the story with the sauce shows what kind of service quality you get on DCL!

We went to a martini tasting class on our Wonder cruise last April. I found out I do not like martinis very much but I had a ball trying the various flavors. I did like the chocolate one though and after the lesson, the “teacher” gave me a couple of chocolate ones to make up for the other flavors I did not drink. I gave Rob (spouse) most of my drinks after I tasted them – until he told me “no more”. We also left in a very good mood. It was fun. We plan to go again on our next cruise.

Kate

Sounds like you had a great time at the tasting despite not liking the drinks! And how nice of them to give you bonus chocolate ones!

Double post. Sorry.

Kate

Don't worry, happens to all of us...

 

[Flossbolna]

Off topic post!

But I just looked at my ticker and got very excited that Katharina and I have already counted down a quarter of the time on our ticker until our Norway cruise next summer! 9 months is still a long time, but it is so much better than a full year!!

 

[Flossbolna]

Day 8, May 5

Cozumel, Mexico
Distance from Key West: 384 Nautical Miles
Average Speed: 10.3 knots
Distance so far: 545 Nautical Miles
All Fast: 6:40am
All Aboard 4:45pm
Cast Off: 5:00pm
Dress Code: Cruise Casual
Dinner Menu: Show Dinner
Show: The Comedy and Music of John Charles
Weather: Partly Sunny, 81°F/27°C

For this day we had booked a Disney excursion. I wanted one day where we would just be lazy at a beach. There are various options for that in Cozumel. The ones that come recommended are all private beach clubs that charge an entrance fee. So, we would have to pay for taxi, entrance to beach and taxi back. All in all, it came out to about the same cost as taking the Disney excursion. With that we would have less time at the beach, but at least we would not have to worry about a thing.

When I had originally booked the excursion for the day they only had really early start times for all the excursions. The start time was going to be 7:45 am! I thought this was a bit ridiculous as the whole excursion was supposed to be only 4 hours and it included free drinks and a buffet. Who would want to drink margaritas from 7:45 to 11:45 am? Well, not happy with that choice I checked some time later and they had added a second departure time of 9:45am for our excursion. That seemed much better, so I changed to that.

So, once I woke up at a little after 8am, I went in search for some breakfast and kind of ended up having the same as yesterday plus a pancake.

When I got to BBB, I met Renato and he enquired where “Mr Michael” was this morning. I told him that he was still sleeping and that I was going to take some breakfast down for him after I had my breakfast. He insisted that I should find him and he would help me get a tray for Michael together. I thought that was very nice!

So after enjoying the view of the sea and my breakfast, I went back into the line and Renato was all excited about helping me. But I had to disappoint him that Michael had only asked to get a banana and some bacon. But he put my tray together as requested and I was convinced to at least two pieces of breakfast potatoes to it. With that and a coke from the drink station, I went to wake up Michael who really enjoyed his breakfast.

Our meeting time for the excursion was 9:45am in the Walt Disney Theater. So we packed our stuff and headed there. We met Lisa, our German friend, again. She was working there checking excursion tickets to make sure everyone was at the right place.

That’s what our excursion tickets looked like:

However, they were not yet ready for us, so we stepped outside to deck 4 and looked around:

That’s one of the Fury catamarans, that’s the excursion we did last year.

We then walked over to the other side of the ship and there you go through some areas where you can see that this is not just a hotel, but a real ship:

They were doing some maintenance on a lifeboat:

And then we were told to take a seat in the theatre where we were told several times to not bring any food with us on land and then from there we were led to deck 1 to one of the two exits off the ship for port days. When you are embarking or disembarking at the beginning or the end of the cruise, you enter through the atrium, but on port days, you go out on deck 1. Here was also the health center:

And a look back to the exit we just came out of:

Pretty ship!!

We were all walking along the pier in a line behind a guy with a Mickey head on a stick and then out of the port area a short distance along a street and then across the street into the parking lot. Where we had to cross the street was a police man stopping the traffic just for our group. This was our guide:

In the parking lot we all boarded a bus and were told to remember our bus number as we were supposed to be on that bus for the drive back as well.

While on the bus I noticed that besides Michael and me there was only one other couple, otherwise it was all families on the bus. Not surprising for a Disney cruise, but considering this one, it was a bit surprising. I guess most adults did fancier things than just hang out on the beach…

Up Next: Playa Mia

 

[dolphingirl47]

I liked the Whiskey one, too. I think it was called Washington Apple? But I preferred the other two.

Yes, it was.

It is so nice to see the beautiful turquoise water in Cozumel first thing in the morning. I had to shake my head at the early departure for this kind of excursion.

Corinna

 

[Poolrat]

Holy Drinking day !!!! THAT'S how you enjoy a vacation.

That Martini tasting looks nice and colorful. Nice work in remembering the Captain's reception and well.... FREE drinks.


Glad you found a later time for your excursion. A nice time on the beach with drinks should not start so early.

Looks like you are getting the royal treatment after getting management involved about your room.

Hope that excursion is as good as it started...

 

[Steppesister]

Hi Magdelene!!!

Long time, no see! I am thoroughly enjoying your TR, even though I'm just not on here as much as I'd sure like to be. Someday, we will have the money to enjoy a cruise- I can definitely see the attraction.

 

[Flossbolna]

Yes, it was.

It is so nice to see the beautiful turquoise water in Cozumel first thing in the morning. I had to shake my head at the early departure for this kind of excursion.

Corinna

I have to remember the Washington Apple, I think that would be something my BIL would love if he ever goes on a Disney ship!

Cozumel is so beautiful! The waters have that amazing colour! I think it did not come out as well in my pictures this year as the weather was less sunny. But Cozumel and the Yucatan peninsular suddenly got a spot on the list of places I want to visit after our first stop there last year.

Holy Drinking day !!!! THAT'S how you enjoy a vacation.

That Martini tasting looks nice and colorful. Nice work in remembering the Captain's reception and well.... FREE drinks.


Glad you found a later time for your excursion. A nice time on the beach with drinks should not start so early.

Looks like you are getting the royal treatment after getting management involved about your room.

Hope that excursion is as good as it started...

Somehow things just all came together on that first day. I think in the future I know that I will not sign up for a tasting on the first sea day as that is always formal night, so free drinks from the Captain!

They were treating us very nicely! And there will be more....

For some reason this seems to be a trend with DCL excursions, they all start as soon as the ship gets into port. And the ships tend to be in port early, but also leave early. Other lines arrive much later, but also stay later. I guess it has to do with the family clientele DCL is after. But heading out to a beach before 8am seems a bit silly to me.

 

[Flossbolna]

Hi Magdelene!!!

Long time, no see! I am thoroughly enjoying your TR, even though I'm just not on here as much as I'd sure like to be. Someday, we will have the money to enjoy a cruise- I can definitely see the attraction.

Liesa, so great to see you here! And I hope that one day you will have all the money for as many Disney trips on land and on sea as your heart desires!!!

 

[franandaj]

Wow! So much to comment on. You have been very busy while I've been off the DIS.

The Cruise Director's Morning show sounds like a lot of fun.
We've never made it to a DVC meeting. It sounds like fun and especially the free Mimosas!
I've always enjoyed lunch at Tritons, I think I will pencil that in for our first day at sea.
We both love strawberry soup! And the meatballs with pasta look like my kind of lunch!
I love the Martini tastings! Those and the tequila tastings are the best!
How nice of them to give you a bottle of wine, and a second one!
I too am amazed by the difference in people's ideas of "dressing up". When we took our cruise on the Magic out of Galveston, the Texans wore their dress cowboy hats with their tuxes.
The Captain's reception sounded very nice. Both your entrees looked good, but I agree the crispy ravioli sounds not as good.

I'm interested to hear about your day in Cozumel. We are thinking of following Corinna's lead and "creating our own excursion".

 

[Steppesister]

Liesa, so great to see you here! And I hope that one day you will have all the money for as many Disney trips on land and on sea as your heart desires!!!

 

[nodnol]

I learned something: the longer you Don't have time to comment on updates, the more unlikely it gets to ever comment... So I decided to just hop in and start with the last update, and then try to keep up and maybe try to get to some of the older ones as well. We'll see how that works out...

Off topic post!

But I just looked at my ticker and got very excited that Katharina and I have already counted down a quarter of the time on our ticker until our Norway cruise next summer! 9 months is still a long time, but it is so much better than a full year!!

I wanted to post my beloved dancing bananas, but they seem to have disappeared

I have to remember the Washington Apple, I think that would be something my BIL would love if he ever goes on a Disney ship!

Good luck with that one! BUT last weekend we bought some lottery scratch tickets and he told me to get a decent amount of money so we could go to Disneyland Paris in autumn?!

Year breakfast looks nice, especially the view, except for the coke. I will never be able to drink coke with breakfast!!!

I can't remember, what you told me about this excursion, so I'm looking forward to the next update. Having to fight for my way through groups of tourist following not a Mickey head but another sign or an umbrella nearly every day, I think I would feel extremely uncomfortable to do that. I'm glad we will design most of our excursions ourselves...

 

[Flossbolna]

Something totally not related to this trip report, but to something that is very important to me. Those of you who have known Katharina and me on the DIS for some time know that we both are active volunteers for a youth exchange organization that organizes exchange programs for teenagers to go and spend one year in a host family in another country. While this exchange started between Germany and the US, it is by now world wide. Katharina spent one year as a host student in Czechoslovakia and I was in Denmark. My parents were host parents to several young people from various countries.

The reason why I am writing about this is that I got an email today from the president of the German branch of the organization asking for help. It appears that there is a shortage of host families in the USA this year and that there are several students who are excited to board a plane next week to start their year in the US, but maybe can't because they don't have a host family yet. So, I thought it would be worth a shot to ask if any you could imagine to spontaneously host a student - and even if it is just for a few weeks until a family for the rest of the year can be found!! I know I have plenty of American readers! There is no necessity of having kids of a certain age, every type of family can be a host family. If you are interested, send me a PM! I will happily tell you more about it. My whole family loved our exchange experiences, going away as well as hosting and having a different country come and stay with us!

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

Nothing wrong with a relaxing beach day...sometimes I forget to build those relaxing days into the trip!

My whole family loved our exchange experiences, going away as well as hosting and having a different country come and stay with us!

This sounds like such a neat experience. With the new baby and going back to being a single-income family, it's probably not in the cards for us again this year. But I hope someday it works out.

 

[Flossbolna]

Wow! So much to comment on. You have been very busy while I've been off the DIS.

The Cruise Director's Morning show sounds like a lot of fun.
We've never made it to a DVC meeting. It sounds like fun and especially the free Mimosas!
I've always enjoyed lunch at Tritons, I think I will pencil that in for our first day at sea.
We both love strawberry soup! And the meatballs with pasta look like my kind of lunch!
I love the Martini tastings! Those and the tequila tastings are the best!
How nice of them to give you a bottle of wine, and a second one!
I too am amazed by the difference in people's ideas of "dressing up". When we took our cruise on the Magic out of Galveston, the Texans wore their dress cowboy hats with their tuxes.
The Captain's reception sounded very nice. Both your entrees looked good, but I agree the crispy ravioli sounds not as good.

I'm interested to hear about your day in Cozumel. We are thinking of following Corinna's lead and "creating our own excursion".

The DVC meetings are fun. They are still sales presentations, but done very low key. They also showed some fascinating videos about all the new things happening in the Disney "empire" including Tokyo and Shanghai, which normally are never featured. And you might end up winning the shipboard credit!

I have been thinking about doing a tequila tasting on a future cruise as that is a spirit that is not very common here in Germany. It would be nice to learn more about.

I was thinking of going to the same place where Corinna was going to as I had read very good things about it and it sounded nice. But I wanted to be lazy and just hang out at the beach. Since we did not stop at Castaway Cay this cruise, I decided that Cozumel was going to be my replacement.

I learned something: the longer you Don't have time to comment on updates, the more unlikely it gets to ever comment... So I decided to just hop in and start with the last update, and then try to keep up and maybe try to get to some of the older ones as well. We'll see how that works out...

Yes, I know what you mean. Happy to have you back, whether you manage to go back to the old stuff or not. Maybe I should have added some nasty things about you in those updated so you would feel like you need to set things right by responding to them...

I wanted to post my beloved dancing bananas, but they seem to have disappeared

You mean these guys? Two tricks: in the smilies box there is a link to "More" on the bottom. That opens a new window with a whole new world of smilies. Sometimes they banish some from the regular list into that expanded list, I have no idea why. The other is to learn the code which is really easy for the banana, you just add a colon ) in the front and the back of the word banana!

BTW for anyone who might be interested in how we say things so much easier in Germany, the world colon is a good example. In German we just call it "double dot" as it nothing else than two dots on top of each other. There is also no danger of people confusing the print colon with the anatomical one... Why the hell do you use the same word for both???

Good luck with that one! BUT last weekend we bought some lottery scratch tickets and he told me to get a decent amount of money so we could go to Disneyland Paris in autumn?!

Did you follow his instructions?

Year breakfast looks nice, especially the view, except for the coke. I will never be able to drink coke with breakfast!!!

I can't remember, what you told me about this excursion, so I'm looking forward to the next update. Having to fight for my way through groups of tourist following not a Mickey head but another sign or an umbrella nearly every day, I think I would feel extremely uncomfortable to do that. I'm glad we will design most of our excursions ourselves...

I know what you mean! But one feels less guilty in a place where you know that the whole economy is built on the tourists. #

You can go and look for groups with Mickey heads next year again as Warnemünde is going to be a stop on at least one of the Baltic cruises.

Nothing wrong with a relaxing beach day...sometimes I forget to build those relaxing days into the trip!

Oh? But then you are on a mission to drag all of your kids through 50 states! Who has time to relax with that kind of program!

This sounds like such a neat experience. With the new baby and going back to being a single-income family, it's probably not in the cards for us again this year. But I hope someday it works out.

We really enjoyed it, but I do understand very well that the circumstances have to be right!

 

[Flossbolna]

It was about a 15 minute drive to the Playa Mia, the beach club where we went. On the way there we drove past the other cruise dock where a Carnival ship was docked. This is far further out of the city and has a shopping mall attached to it. From our cruise dock you could have just walked into the town to explore. I think I liked our location better. However, for the beach excursions, they had an advantage being docked further out.

At Play Mia we entered through a walk way with shops on both sides. Most of the shops appeared to be closed when we were there. Maybe because it was May 5, which appears to be a holiday in Mexico? But it was also not really good weather, rather cloudy and it looked like it was going to rain any minute. The beach was not crowded at all!

This is the entrance way:

Playa Mia not only has a beach, but also a large pool with a large play area for kids and water slides:

But I came for the beach:

We settled in and since our package included unlimited drinks I went in search of a margarita:

It was yummy and I might have had a few of them… They also had free soft drinks, so Michael indulged in Mexican coke (which is made with real sugar, not with corn, so supposedly preferable. I did not notice and difference…). We also got plenty of bottles of water.

Unfortunately the sea was rather rough, so we did not spend that much time in the water. I still did quite a bit of swimming. The water was really lovely in temperature. But due to being so rough, it was not nearly as clear as it had been the last time. I also missed the sunshine that we had last year, even tough it was still very warm. At least I was less in danger of getting sunburned that way…

At some point we went to check out the pool area and tried the water slide which was fun, but nothing special. The pool area had a pool in the middle which looked like a hot tub. But it was just a normal temperature pool with bubbles. Michael loved it in there, but I preferred the beach and the sea. I can get nice pools here where I live, but not a beach! I spent a lot of time that day to catch up with my trip notes and reading my book. It was wonderfully relaxing!

I also saw the Fury catamaran sail past us:

They were just one beach down from us, so we were really close to where we had been the year before!

At some point we had lunch, but the buffet was nothing special. It did not have a lot of choices. I was disappointed that there was no guacamole to go with the chips, just salsa.

What was great about the beach though was that they had very spacious and extremely clean bath rooms! They had someone in there cleaning constantly!

Our bus back was at 2:45pm and it took us back to the little parking lot where we had started out.

I saw some interesting sights from the bus:

And real life coconuts:

To get back to the ship we had to make our way through a shopping center that was selling all kind of touristy stuff:

I kind of liked these colourful glasses:

They were selling lots of spices there and I was thinking of getting some for myself and as a present for my sister. But then I worried about what US customs would say if I brought them back as they are usually very strict about not bringing any plant material into the US. So I did not buy anything…

In order to get back to the ship we had to go to the security check that was on the upper level. From there we had a great view of the Wonder:

And walking back there I could not resist getting another close up of her artwork:

Up Next: The BIG Change!!!!

 

[nodnol]

The other is to learn the code which is really easy for the banana, you just add a colon ) in the front and the back of the word banana!

That's easy, I should be able to remember that

BTW for anyone who might be interested in how we say things so much easier in Germany, the world colon is a good example. In German we just call it "double dot" as it nothing else than two dots on top of each other. There is also no danger of people confusing the print colon with the anatomical one... Why the hell do you use the same word for both???

But we have a Semikolon, which does not make any sense at all, if kolon would be two points...

Did you follow his instructions?

I think you would already know!

The beach was not crowded at all!

Seeing how close those beach chairs are positioned, I think it was very good that it was not crowded at all!

At some point we went to check out the pool area and tried the water slide which was fun, but nothing special. The pool area had a pool in the middle which looked like a hot tub. But it was just a normal temperature pool with bubbles. Michael loved it in there, but I preferred the beach and the sea. I can get nice pools here where I live, but not a beach! I spent a lot of time that day to catch up with my trip notes and reading my book. It was wonderfully relaxing!

I agree with you and I admire you for catching up with trip notes, I didn't manage very well again this year. But then I don't write a trip report

In order to get back to the ship we had to go to the security check that was on the upper level. From there we had a great view of the Wonder:

I like the contrast between the Wonder and the other ship (ferry?)!

Up Next: The BIG Change!!!!

I think I kknow what this is about...

 

[Flossbolna]

That's easy, I should be able to remember that

But we have a Semikolon, which does not make any sense at all, if kolon would be two points...

This is true, but then you can call the Semikolon also dash dot!!

I think you would already know!

Well, you should follow your DH's instructions better next time!

Seeing how close those beach chairs are positioned, I think it was very good that it was not crowded at all!

I agree. Having seen pictures of that beach I was a bit concernec about just that. But since it was not crowded at all, it was fine.

I agree with you and I admire you for catching up with trip notes, I didn't manage very well again this year. But then I don't write a trip report

Keeping good trip notes is a lot of work. You need some real motivation to keep it going and knowing that my DS expects to read a trip report definitely helped. Also Michael kept telling me that I need to work on my trip notes - I think he likes reading along as well. And I have to admit that towards the end of the trip the motivation just kind of left me...

I like the contrast between the Wonder and the other ship (ferry?)!

Yes, it is a ferry.

I think I kknow what this is about...

Yes, your guess is correct!

 

[Flossbolna]

This will be an update with many words. But there is a story to be told...

Once we got back to the ship and into our stateroom we were curious to see what they had done to repair the issues we had told them about. However, the first thing we noticed when we got into our stateroom, was this on our table (the wobbly one):

It was accompanied by another card from guest services saying sorry for our inconvenience and that they hope that we enjoy the enclosed arcade card. Well, there was no arcade card, but lovely chocolate covered strawberries! That was very nice, and I preferred it much over an arcade card!

However, we noticed that they had touched up a few things and even had re-grouted some of the bathroom floor, which we had not even complained about. So, it seemed that they found other things to take care of in the cabin besides what we had noted. It was great to see that things were improving. However, there were still things that just were not good. The furniture had quite a lot of dents, there were strange marking on the wall (like little drops of coffee had hit the wall). A lot of minor things that in itself would not have bothered us. But because of the bigger things we just became far more aware of our surroundings and noticed them.

Once back in our stateroom I wanted to do some laundry. I had been in the US for a good week by now and wanted to wash some clothes. Luckily the laundry room was not far from our stateroom, so I got it started and then jumped into the shower. Out of the shower, I decided that my nails needed new polish. I had gotten a manicure at the W in Fort Lauderdale and with all the water time the nails really were not in great shape anymore. So once I had gotten the old nail polish off, I decided to re-apply the colour. Something I normally don’t do in daily life, but I thought it added something festive to the cruise. So I got the painting started and then it was time to get the laundry from the washer to the drier. Well, not easy to do if your nail polish is not totally dry yet!! Arg! It was quite stressful as I was afraid of staining the laundry! Somehow I managed. Lesson learned there: Use downtime either for laundry OR nails, never both at the same time!

In the laundry room I started to chat with a guy ironing his shirt. He told me that he had been on the Secret River excursion in Cozumel which takes you to the mainland and then through some caves with an underground river. It sounded great and we had considered it, but had decided that getting to the main land sounded like so much hassle (there are reports here on the DIS of how bothersome it is and that often people get seasick on the ferry ride). But this guy said it was not bad at all. It turned out that our pool friends had done that excursion, too. They highly recommended it as well. I think when I get back to Cozumel that excursion is going to be very high on my list!

While I was continuing with my nails Michael reappeared out of his shower and the phone rang. I told him to go and pick it up as I did not want to put my nails into any danger. It appeared to be guest services asking about what was done to our cabin and he mentioned that we noticed that there had been done some touching up, but that somehow we had the overall feel that this stateroom just was not in good shape and then they seemed to tell him some more and then he turned over to me telling me that guest services was offering to move us to a different stateroom, a category 10A on deck 5. That would still be an inside stateroom, just a different deck. They said that this room had become available today – which we found a bit odd, but then things happen. We agreed that we would have a look at it at least and arranged with guest services that we would come to the guest services desk before dinner as we were currently still busy and had plans to watch the ship sail away from Cozumel while getting a coffee at the Outlook Café.

We were kind of torn. We did appreciate the offer of a different stateroom, but then were not keen on packing everything and unpack in the new stateroom. But neither did we feel really comfortable in our old stateroom. There had been improvements, but it somehow just seemed so battered and slightly old.

Well, first we went to get out coffee!

On our last cruise we had loved the Outlook Café. Only the Wonder has this, it was added for the Alaska cruises. It is an enclosed space on the top of the ship that is an extension of the Cove Café in the adult area selling coffee drinks. You have wonderful views of the sea from there! I know I am really going to miss it on our Norwegian cruise on the Magic next year, it would be perfect for those cruises. But it is also wonderful for hot weather cruises as it is air conditioned and you can sit in a very bright room with views, but it is nice and cool.

Here is a general overview of one half of the café:

It seemed that they had added more chairs as compared to our last cruise and the place was often filled with people. With all the adults on this cruise, it was extremely popular!

The cabinet on the wall in the back is a self serve station which has breakfast pastries in the morning, little cakes in the afternoon and olives, cheese, carrots, salami in the evening. The Cove Café has the identical offerings and is just down the stairs from there.

After we had enjoyed our coffees (mine was free as I had a Cove Coffee Card from the last cruise and brought that to collect more stamps, I think I went through one more on this cruise…) we went down to Guest Services. We had to wait for someone to get the CM responsible for us and while we were waiting another Guest Services CM chatted with us and asked us whether we had signed up for a galley tour. They were offering these for free, but you had to sign up for them. We thought that that sounded interesting and arranged for a time later in the cruise. Afterwards I did find a note in a previous day Navigator about it, but I had totally missed it. There was another incident when we did not read the Navigator as well as we should have and consequently missed something. Just because it often appears to be the same stuff over and over again, be careful to still read it properly if you want to make sure to not miss the interesting stuff!

Once they had gotten the correct room key, we were led up to deck 5, walked past the forward elevator lobby and then at the second room our nice CM stopped and said that this was the room. I immediately realised what kind of room this was as he turned to the side that was towards the hull of the ship: a secret porthole room! And yes, once he opened the door, there it was at the end of the room: a porthole! There are a few rooms on deck 5 which have portholes, but there is equipment in front of these windows, so your view is slightly obstructed. They are therefore qualified as “inside cabins”. We both had not expected that at all! So this was already a big plus for this stateroom. But then we walked into and it became clear immediately that this room was just in so much better overall shape. The colours in the carpet appeared to be brighter, the furniture only had minimal dents, the walls were in great shape. We really liked this room so much better and said that we would move tonight. We agreed with the Guest Services CM that we would head to our show and dinner first and then after dinner we would give them a call and then they would help us move everything to the new room. Wow, our cruise just got a totally different perspective again!! Or as Michael put it: After a three night cruise that was not totally perfect, we now embarked on a 12-night cruise where everything would be better!

After a quick stop in the shops we headed to the show. Tonight John Charles was performing. He was the guitarist who had a short appearance on the first night. This was a very good show, he is very talented! And funny! However, this morning when we were heading to our excursion, Michael had seen him in the hallway and had commented on that he had never seen a person looking so miserable on a cruise ship. That made me wonder whether this is not a job that after a number of years becomes very draining.

Between dinner and show we started the packing process. Since we were going to unpack quickly after, we did not take the greatest care and used all kind of extra bags as well (including the nice one that DCL had given us).

Then it was dinner time, today we were back in Animators’ Palette. Our rotation was starting to repeat itself. Tonight we had the normal rotational dinner that is on every cruise on the Wonder – at AP it is called the “Show Dinner” as it comes with a light show on the walls and screens in this room. The AP dining room is all black and white and during dinner it suddenly starts getting colour. It is very neat! And has a surprise guest coming in!

We had missed this dinner on our last cruise as that was the night we had our meal in Palo. Also, tonight would be the first time at or own table in this restaurant. So at the entrance we had to ask Josip where our table was. He showed us the table and was rather apologetic as it was a round table stuck into a corner where there was a door in the wall. It really looked like there was no table supposed to be. I wonder whether they had added more tables to the dining room to be able to break it up into smaller tables? When I am going to be on the Wonder again, I will certainly have to look for our previous table and see how it is arranged on a “normal” cruise!

The special bread today was Garlic and Herb Foccacia with a Rosemary Virgin Olive Oil:

If you look closely you can see that today there were two of the special bread. It turned out that this is a bread that was also on the embarkation day lunch buffet and I had really liked it then.

Michael started dinner with the Tomato Tarte with Glazed Goats Cheese and Radish Salad:

I think this was the point in the cruise where Michael was getting a bit frustrated by the amount of goats cheese on the menues. It seemed that a lot of the non-seafood dishes would have goats cheese added into it. On a 15 night cruise you can get a little bit fed up with it. I would say that in general if you don’t eat any seafood, you will find your menu choices a bit limited.

I had the Smoked Salmon Tartar with Dill, Capers, Onions, Pickles and a Horseradish Cream:

This was wonderful. I ordered it not being totally sure about whether I would like it as I am not big on dill nor on onion. But ti was a lovely dish and quite a sizeable portion!

Then I had the Creamy Butternut Squash Soup garnished with Chives and drizzled with Sour Cream:

I think this was the most disappointing dish I had the whole cruise. It was thin and watery and did not have a lot of taste besides being salty. I was expecting something like the soup from Boma, but I make a much better soup at home than this.

Michael got the Roasted Red Bell Pepper, Zucchini and Red Onion Salad with chopped Cilantro and Aged Balsamic Dressing.

I am sure he liked it, it looks like the kind of salad he likes.

Michael was really at a loss as to what to order for his main course here. We had had quite a bit of steak the previous nights, he does not like to eat veal and did not feel like chicken. So he got something not so typical, the Pennete Bolognese – Pennete Pasta mixed with a rich Bolognese Sauce garnished with Shaved Parmesan Reggiano and Toasted Garlic Ciabatta.

This was a really big portion! And he said it was ok, but was not overly excited about it.

I had the Lemon-Thyme Marinated All Natural Chicken Breast with Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes, Roasted Root Vegetables and Grain Mustard Jus.

The chicken was wonderful and I even ate the root vegetables even though I normally don’t like them. But the jus was not what I would have wanted with my dish, it tasted far too much like a basic sauce from a package. However, I did suffer from food envy when I saw what other tables were being served. On the menu there was a beef tenderloin. I had seen pictures of it on the DIS and there it appeared to be slices from a larger piece of beef. This night however, the dish was being served as single steaks and they looked delicious!

Dessert menu:

Michael had the White Chocolate Fudge Cheesecake with Whipped Cream and Raspberry Coulis:

I had the Cookies’n Cream Sundae – Cookies & Creem Ice Cream with Chocolate Sauce and Chocolate Chip Cookies.

This was nice, but not really something special.

After dinner we headed back to the room to finish packing. Then we called Guest Services that we were ready to move and they sent two CM to help us. Michael went with them and out luggage to the new room while I headed to Guest Services to get our room keys reissued. That was quickly done and then it was off to the new room to settle in!

Getting back there Michael told me a fun story of how they all got into the elevator with some other people and all our luggage and these people were obviously really confused why Michael had so much luggage with him on a ship that just left Mexico a few hours early and won’t see land for the next two days until we would arrive in Colombia. He then told them that yes, he was getting off the ship now, with which their eyes got even bigger. Of course, he told them that we were just moving to another stateroom. Which the other people found fascinating enough!

Settling into the new stateroom was really nice, it did feel like we could leave that bit of sour taste that the old stateroom had caused behind us and fully relax. When I got ready for bed and walked barefoot through the room I suddenly noticed how soft and plush the carpet felt on my feet. It had never done that in the old room. I took that as a sign that there was indeed a difference in quality between the two rooms and that that was neither the location nor the “secret porthole”. Of course during the next 12 days, we did notice small things in the new room as well. There were some dents in the furniture, a cracked tile in the bathroom, but it had otherwise such a sparkle about it that those were just things that are normal, not a sign of too much wear and tear!

Up Next: Spa Bliss
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[jedijill]

I'm glad you were able to move to a better room although I'm sorry you had all the hassle.

Jill in CO