Today was our one official excursion of the trip, the GPS Walking Tour. We met up in the Promenade Lounge at 12:15 for the excursion, and the crazy British guy came to take us off the ship. I really loved this guy, he had one of the most awesome British accents I have ever heard, so cool. We had only booked this excursion for my dad, no need to have more than one GPS. I ran upstairs to grab something from the room, as the excursion group began proceeding ashore. I met up with the group down on the pier, it is so nice being 19 and being able to take myself off the ship. Disney was doing something really cool, and using two gangways at the aft to eliminate lines. That is what I love about Disney, no detail goes unnoticed.
Crazy British guy took the GPS electric car group to the store while we waited on the pier for a few moments, and enjoyed the beautiful Key West weather. High 70’s and sunny, it doesn’t get much better than that. A few minutes later we were heading down the pier and to the GPS store. The Magic docks in the Westin Marina Pier, and the store was just across the street from the Westin, not far at all.
Our neighbors decided to head off on their own to do some shopping, while we did our excursion. Dad headed into the store to get the GPS, and then everyone was given instructions on how to use it. Once we got the GPS’s going, we were let go to explore. The unit would give you specific directions to the next site, and when you arrived it would bring up a video with information on the site. The technology was really cool, and it gave us a set path to walk around downtown, but the tour involved way too many advertisements. The majority of the stops were stores and bars, with the suggestion that you step inside these fabulous establishments. It is a really cool idea, but it would have been nice if it were more of an actual tour. If you are looking for a cheap excursion, go for it, otherwise just save the money and walk around by yourself. No matter what, we had a fun time exploring. We went by the oldest bar in Florida, Sloppy Joe’s, and headed down to Jimmy Buffet’s recording studio, after passing the key lime factory.
As we reached the gulf front we began wishing we hadn’t had such a big breakfast, as the restaurants looked incredible. The next stop was Pat Croce’s rum barrel, where a free drink was included.
We relaxed here for a while and enjoyed the cool ocean breeze. We got some great pictures of the ship from Mallory Square, and enjoyed the incredible day we were having.
I noticed something really funny that the Magic was doing. I was commenting on how funny it was that the Conch Republic flag, since Key West likes to think they are a country, was being flown on all the flagpoles. I looked up at the forward mast of the Magic, where they fly the flag of the country that the ship is in, and both the US and Conch Republic flags were being flown.
Even the Magic was in on the act, lol. The water was an incredible shade of blue, and it really felt like the Key West I had always imagined. Our one prior experience with Key West was on a gray rainy day, and we never found the downtown area, not a great visit, lol. We strolled through some of the stores and then returned the GPS. We are involved in a game called geocaching, where you use gps coordinates to find hidden containers throughout the world. We pulled out our own GPS and headed down Duval Street to explore some more and find the cache at Mile Marker 0 on US1.
After grabbing the cache we decided to head back to the ship. We had a great time in Key West and it is now one of our favorite ports. We are looking forward to being able to go back. It had a really nice, quirky, laid-back feel, without the hawking you usually find in Caribbean ports.
Happy belated birthday! There certainly seemed to be a lot of celebrations at dinner.
