just off the magic, march 22

[luv that cruise]

what did others think? water was rough toward the end. we have sailed a few times and enjoyed the empty venues in addition to the thrill of the motion. how about others?? hey - how about those whales spotted before st. maarten? did anyone else see them? it was only for a few minutes as they were traveling the opposite direction but what a site to see!

 

[Toddymae]

I was on the same cruise. I stayed in the cabin during that rocking sea. It was bad about 1:30 am and again around 3 am. It was my 18th cruise so I'm getting use to having some bad weather and seas. Don't mind though just love being on the ship.

The weather was great wasn't it. CC was nice - a few people got really sunburned.

Christiaan always makes it a great cruise. Loved his Sean Conrrey (sp) and his Dr. Evil. Plus he sang in Sessions almost every night. Mark Farris is a great piano bar singer. Love it when he's on board.

 

[Toddymae]

Yes, I saw the whales - some people didn't believe me. They were beautiful.

 

[Reagan&Co.]

Anybody know what was up with the ocean? I just got back from a non-Disney cruise in the Gulf of Mexico. The evening of the 20th, the whole boat was seasick, even the staff. The captain apologized, saying he tried to find smoother water for us.

 

[nlm]

what did others think? water was rough toward the end. we have sailed a few times and enjoyed the empty venues in addition to the thrill of the motion. how about others?? hey - how about those whales spotted before st. maarten? did anyone else see them? it was only for a few minutes as they were traveling the opposite direction but what a site to see!

We saw the whales - very impressive!

Did anyone else see the sub on Saturday night around 5:45pm or so? We were heading to Animator's Palate when we saw it. The ladies at the hair braiding station the next morning said they had never seen one before - except in movies!

 

[luv that cruise]

didn't see the sub but that would have been cool. on st. maarten day we were on a private catamaran that we booked on our own. husband/wife team who had just leased it in december. wife worried all day because of "swell" warnings that had been issued and she was trying to decide where to take the boat that night. Leaving at the dock is bad because it gets banged up against the dock and other boats. Usually they find a protected inlet where the boat can move around with the water a bit. by the way she was talking it was going to be at least a 20 foot swell that would last more than a day. she ended up being right. i heard it was triggered by a cold front. am guessing it was something to do with the system that caused all the bad weather in the states a few days before. or we could believe cruise director christian who said he would talk to Ariel and see if he could round up some better sea conditions! Regardless of a few rough nites - it was a great trip.

 

[gfolchick]

Did you Eastern sailors have the regular dining rotation and Pirate night after St. Martin or did they repeat nights 1 and 2 or 2 and 3? We are on the April 12th sailing and have been getting mixed replies. Do you know if they were trying out any new menus?

 

[luv that cruise]

it was the regular first 3 nights, then 4th night was pirate, 5th night we did palo so not sure of theme, 6th night was captain's gala (lobster) and 7th night was tribute to countries of our dining room staff with flag ceremony and flaming alaska. The menus seemed about the same but there were new items added to most (as pointed out by our server - i didn't notice). As always, some things good, some things average. Nothing ever bad. Palo's food superior to food in dining rooms.

 

[happymommy]

My DH saw the whales, as did our server at Palo.

Palo brunch on Thursday was absolutely empty!

Sunday night's dinner was in regular rotation restaurant, but it was the "Master Chef" menu.

It was fun!

 

[gfolchick]

Thanks for the dining info.

Really cool about the whales

 

[DiszyGram]

Hi Nim, nice meeting you on the cruise. Someone needs to go back to the old pre-cruise thread and get everyone over here. I did post a link over there to the pictures my daughter took.

LOVED the cruise!

Adding that I did just go back and let the others know to come over here.

 

[DiszyGram]

I am transferring my last post onto here and left a message for the others to come on over.

We all had a magical time on the cruise. It was so nice meeting some of you and especially meeting wonderful Liz and family. It seemed everywhere we went around the ship, I would turn around and there was Liz.

My daughter made a slide show of our trip. I'm going to post the link here and hope it works. She is a good photographer. Seeing them, some of you we didn't meet in person, might recognize us. Especially since we all three dressed up for pirate night. Hope you enjoy them.

One of the days, when the ship was rolling with the waves, we met a woman who was getting seasick. She saw my daughter was wearing blue cloth wrist bands. My daughter told her what they were and suggested she buy them. The next day we met her again and the woman was ready to hug my daughter. She had them on and did not get sick.

I had to laugh at myself on the last day. My voice sounded just like Minnie Mouse. All I could do was squeak out my words. I literally could not speak normally as hard as I tried. It was really funny when my sister introduced me to some friends after the cruise. I squeaked out my hellos. It's back to normal now.

I see a lot of you saw the whales. My daughter saw one spouting in the distance but never saw any up close. The sea was pretty calm then and the spouting was obviousy not just a splashing wave. She was pleased to see it.

Here are the pictures.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=...&x=0&y=-fo55ps

 

[staceys0513]

My son said he saw whales but I didn't believe him! Now I know he really did! Is anyone else feeling the post-vacation let down? I keep coming on here to check things out and my husband is giving me a hard time!

 

[limati]

We had a fantastic time! We didn't spot the whales, but we did see the sub. That was pretty neat. Early Sunday my dd got up early and watched the sunrise together. From that point on many "magical" moments happened. My dh and ds13 had a great time.

The rough seas took a toll on ds and dd but they got over it pretty fast. Weren't the fireworks great. I felt a few sprinkles, but not enough to disrupt anything. DH and I were fine with the rough seas.

We didn't book excursions. We ventured out on our own and had a great time.
Paradise Point in St. Marteen was wonderful. The kids loved the tropical birds and the show.

Castaway Cay - PERFECT! Need I say more?

Lisa

 

[pop5]

We saw the sub too. That was awesome. Great cruise. We are already looking foward to the next one. Paige

 

[arabians207]

Aww man! I wish I would have gotten to see the whales That would have been awesome..

Overall it was a GREAT cruise though! I wouldn't have minded having the weather a bit warmer, especially at Castaway Cay.. It wasn't bad, just a bit windy. It would have been better with a little less rough seas though. Did anyone go swimming on a beach in St. Maarten? We went and man, they were rough waves! They easily would knock you over, and the rocks/shells on the bottom didn't make it any easier

DiszyGram, we went on that same submarine ride as you! I don't know if it was the same time or not though, but wasn't it neat??

 

[jns]

any photos of the whales or the sub

 

[Experiment-626]

Aww man! I wish I would have gotten to see the whales That would have been awesome..

Overall it was a GREAT cruise though! I wouldn't have minded having the weather a bit warmer, especially at Castaway Cay.. It wasn't bad, just a bit windy. It would have been better with a little less rough seas though. Did anyone go swimming on a beach in St. Maarten? We went and man, they were rough waves! They easily would knock you over, and the rocks/shells on the bottom didn't make it any easier

DiszyGram, we went on that same submarine ride as you! I don't know if it was the same time or not though, but wasn't it neat??

At St Marteens we took the Golden Eagle Catamaran in the AM to a secluded beach on the far side of the island. There the cast and crew aboard were able to swin and snorkle with little or no impact from wind or waves. I still cant get over how clear the water was at the beach. Even on the ride there and back we could see to the bottom of the seas sine the depth did not appear to get any deeper than about 10/15 feet. Some of us on the catamaran saw a few sea turtles and a sting ray swiming along the bottom. Between the whales, the submarine and the wildlife at St Marteens, the sightseeing on the seas was awesome. At Castaway Cay, we (DD and I) were fortunate to be the first group to go out parasailing and actually got to do it. In addition, due to the high winds, we also got a great boat ride from one side of the island to the other while they tried to find a location where the parachute would not be wind swept while trying to get riders attached. Almost as good as the jet ski excursions offered on the island. We heard later on board that those that had afternoon reservations were not able to go due to the high winds in the afternoon. If you ask me, I beleive the winds were stronger in the morning than the afternoon.

 

[DiszyGram]

The submarine ride was great fun! My grandson kept yelling out how deep we were. It got to be over 80 feet at one time. Our ride was early, I think around 9:30 am. The sky was cloudy for about half of the ride but we could still see everything out our portholes. Some of the fish we saw were shy. Others came right up to our porthole and said hello. It all became prettier when the sun did arrive. Someone saw a shark.

How about that little bathroom on the boat that rode us to and from the submarine location? The flush was strong enough to suck you into the ocean.

 

[arabians207]

haha that bathroom was great *sarcasm* And I thought the bathrooms on the ship were small.. (actually, they aren't bad lol. Especially compared to that one!)

DiszyGram, I'd bet we were on the same ride as you!

I also really liked being able to ride out in the front on the way back, I got some really good pictures.

My brother and I went jet skiing in the afternoon.. around 3:30-4:15ish it wasn't too bad wave wise .. (although we were both getting sprayed in the face with sea water.. not too pleasant, but that might happen anyway..) until we got back haha. Right as we were going to get off, right next to shore, a pretty big wave came and made us tip over It was a great ride except that part.. it was kind of scary tipping over! Especially since I wasn't driving (my brother and I shared one, he drove) Apparently as we were going over i told him to slow down! At first I did not realize it was a wave..