Deemarch
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2003
- Messages
- 1,413
Day 2- Got up early and ate at BBB. Really not bad for a buffet & comparable or better to other cruiselines. I LOVED the lox with all of the trimmings, including capers and REDonion! The only way to go! And the fresh fruit was my favorite part of the snacks. You could get fresh fruit almost all day, right next to Scoops, the ice cream place. We did the catamaran sailboat - snorkle excursion. Though they didn't hoist the sail till we were on our way back, the ride out to a very private & protected cove (about 1 hour each way) was great. They decided on that cove since we had so many kids on board. Oh, by the way, I haven't mentioned the kids yet. You see, there was really no reason to mention them 'cause as far as my DH & I were concerned, they weren't there!! We are both 53, with 5 grown kids (2nd marriage, 3 are his and 2 are mine) and 2 grandchildren. We almost always do Disney, just the two of us, but we like seeing all of the kids and how excited they get. Actually DH is as bad as any kid I know. But having been on a few other cruises, we'll take kids over a cranky adult any day!!! The kids were happy and entertained and rarely did you even hear someone crying. I guess they loved it as much as we did. Anyway, back to the ship after a quick, 1 aisle, browse through the Straw Market...You can keep it, as far as I'm concerned. We had an invitation to go to a DVC meet and greet your fellow DVCers thing and were waiting for a sales pitch to buy more points. Boy, were we wrong!! We played trivia, won great prizes, got free gifts (hats, luggage tags, lanyards) and dessert. We were there about 1 1/2 hours and found out some many neat things about DVC. Oh, I forgot, when we got back to our cabin the first day, there was the DVC magnet on our door and the invitation to this gathering. We really feel like we belong to a DVC family!!
That night we ate at Tritons. I was surprised to find that this was my least favorite of the restaurants and menus. But it was not terrible. The show that night was "Hercules - the muse-ical" and we loved it! We have never seen "Hercules" and now it is on our list of must buys. Hit the Cadillac Bar to see Dan Vass again...Not to mention those martinis...And fell into bed around 1am.
Day 3 - Welcome to Castaway Cay!! Watched the ship pull into the slip and just fell in love with the place. DH wants to know why we couldn't have skipped Nassau and stayed at CC for 2 days!! We ate a leisurely breakfast at BBB and got off the ship around 11. We had prepaid for the shore package that included a bike for 1 hour, float or tube for a day and snorkel equipment for the day, for each of us, but there were so many of all of those things to go around and it wasn't necessary. Oh, we bought our own snorkel masks & tubes (the thing that goes in your mouth) a few years ago and now we always bring them with us. I just can't seem to get past putting that in my mouth after some unseen person just did the same thing!!
Anyway, eventhough it was warm there was a nice breeze, so we decided to bike first. What a great job they did with the bike path...We had a great time. And they didn't actually TIME your trip, for anything really, including the Hobie Cat sailboat rental, so we didn't feel rushed. Went in the water to cool off before hitting Cookie's Bar - B - Q and boy, were we surprised!! It was really good. Besides the ribs, burgers, chicken and salads, they had a great mahi-mahi sandwich that I was wishing for today at lunchtime!! 
They even had ice cream!!! We hit the store and then decided to rent the sailboat. That was really fun. We are sailors, but a couple of guys that were out on the water the same time as us, never sailed and they did just fine. The water is very shallow and it is a protected spot, plus with the lifevest, I'd encourage anyone who can swim to try it! Dinner that night was at Palo. It knocked our socks off! The service was spectacular, for our standards. We are not stuffy types (would we be on a Disney ship if we were??) and the server was fantastic. Her name was Agnes and she was from Transylvania, Romania. She was a doll, telling us a bit about her country, when we asked. I can't say enough good things about the food, it was all very, very good. And they had this Lemoncello Martini...
One thing I should mention about Palo...Give yourselves about 2 1/2 hours for dinner that night. We didn't want to miss the show that night and had to rush with only 2 hours. I ate my chocolate souffle so fast that I burned the roof of my mouth! 
The show was "Golden Mickeys" and my DH really loved this one. Our piano player was off that night so we hit the Karaoke thing at Wave Bands around 10:30 and DH (who happens to have been in a band in a former life, and a vocalist) did his first time ever karaoke song!! I was in love again!!!
I'm such a groupie. He sang "My Baby Grand" (Billy Joel & Ray Charles...Yeah, he did both parts) and I sang "Dream a Little Dream of Me" by Cass Elliot. We had a ball.
Day 4 - We decided to order breakfast to eat on the balcony and slept a bit later that day at sea. Walked around the ship, shopped and napped in the deck chairs (deck 4) and hit the pool for a bit, too. For lunch that day we chose Parrot Cay, 'cause they had a seafood buffet. Had a great server from Australia, David, and sat alone at a table for 4, it was that empty. That afternoon we decided to see the Matinee show...It was "Disney Dreams" and the set was just spectacular!! We live 10 miles from Manhattan and have seen many Broadway shows and Disney is the king of finding the best talent out there! These people are as good, or better, than anyone we've seen on Broadway. Dinner was at Animator's Palette that night. It is such a great place to see! All of the people, including us, at our table were so done with eating by then. We had salad and picked at our food which was very good and skipped dessert, for the most part. Our server was upset but we were really at maximum capacity!!
We finished our cruise with a night at the CB with our beloved piano player and new friends from the DISBoards! I've been talking with Maistre Gracey for a few years and had the great pleasure to meet him and his wife...Two of the nicest people that we'll ever meet. We truly hope that our friendship can continue on land!!
Disembarking Day - All I can say is WOW WOW WOW WOW!!!!
We have sat for as long as 2 hours on other cruise lines...HONESTLY!! We ate breakfast, took a tour of the Roy Disney Suite (OMG...Nuf said?) and then asked a CM, what do we do next? "You just leave", she said...What??? It was the best disembarking of all time!! And we were out of the terminal, a bit sad, but taking some of our best memories from a vacation, with us. We took the shuttle, which was waiting for us, back to Budget and picked up our rental car and we were off to Disney's Vero Beach Resort for a few more days.
We read some not so glowing reports before we left and got a bit nervous about this cruise, but being the total Disney Nuts that we are, we were not one bit disappointed. Like I said, we love the feeling of the Disney treatment and we definitely got it aboard this ship. I was waiting for that proverbial "other shoe" to drop but it never came. And my DH, who had said that he didn't want to go on another cruise again (before this one) let me book a 7 night, western Caribbean itinerary on the Magic in November 2007. We are not major cruisers, we like our little 32' sailboat, but this was a truly wonderful experience.
Hope I didn't put anyone to sleep
That night we ate at Tritons. I was surprised to find that this was my least favorite of the restaurants and menus. But it was not terrible. The show that night was "Hercules - the muse-ical" and we loved it! We have never seen "Hercules" and now it is on our list of must buys. Hit the Cadillac Bar to see Dan Vass again...Not to mention those martinis...And fell into bed around 1am.
Day 3 - Welcome to Castaway Cay!! Watched the ship pull into the slip and just fell in love with the place. DH wants to know why we couldn't have skipped Nassau and stayed at CC for 2 days!! We ate a leisurely breakfast at BBB and got off the ship around 11. We had prepaid for the shore package that included a bike for 1 hour, float or tube for a day and snorkel equipment for the day, for each of us, but there were so many of all of those things to go around and it wasn't necessary. Oh, we bought our own snorkel masks & tubes (the thing that goes in your mouth) a few years ago and now we always bring them with us. I just can't seem to get past putting that in my mouth after some unseen person just did the same thing!!
Anyway, eventhough it was warm there was a nice breeze, so we decided to bike first. What a great job they did with the bike path...We had a great time. And they didn't actually TIME your trip, for anything really, including the Hobie Cat sailboat rental, so we didn't feel rushed. Went in the water to cool off before hitting Cookie's Bar - B - Q and boy, were we surprised!! It was really good. Besides the ribs, burgers, chicken and salads, they had a great mahi-mahi sandwich that I was wishing for today at lunchtime!! They even had ice cream!!! We hit the store and then decided to rent the sailboat. That was really fun. We are sailors, but a couple of guys that were out on the water the same time as us, never sailed and they did just fine. The water is very shallow and it is a protected spot, plus with the lifevest, I'd encourage anyone who can swim to try it! Dinner that night was at Palo. It knocked our socks off! The service was spectacular, for our standards. We are not stuffy types (would we be on a Disney ship if we were??) and the server was fantastic. Her name was Agnes and she was from Transylvania, Romania. She was a doll, telling us a bit about her country, when we asked. I can't say enough good things about the food, it was all very, very good. And they had this Lemoncello Martini...
One thing I should mention about Palo...Give yourselves about 2 1/2 hours for dinner that night. We didn't want to miss the show that night and had to rush with only 2 hours. I ate my chocolate souffle so fast that I burned the roof of my mouth! The show was "Golden Mickeys" and my DH really loved this one. Our piano player was off that night so we hit the Karaoke thing at Wave Bands around 10:30 and DH (who happens to have been in a band in a former life, and a vocalist) did his first time ever karaoke song!! I was in love again!!!
I'm such a groupie. He sang "My Baby Grand" (Billy Joel & Ray Charles...Yeah, he did both parts) and I sang "Dream a Little Dream of Me" by Cass Elliot. We had a ball.Day 4 - We decided to order breakfast to eat on the balcony and slept a bit later that day at sea. Walked around the ship, shopped and napped in the deck chairs (deck 4) and hit the pool for a bit, too. For lunch that day we chose Parrot Cay, 'cause they had a seafood buffet. Had a great server from Australia, David, and sat alone at a table for 4, it was that empty. That afternoon we decided to see the Matinee show...It was "Disney Dreams" and the set was just spectacular!! We live 10 miles from Manhattan and have seen many Broadway shows and Disney is the king of finding the best talent out there! These people are as good, or better, than anyone we've seen on Broadway. Dinner was at Animator's Palette that night. It is such a great place to see! All of the people, including us, at our table were so done with eating by then. We had salad and picked at our food which was very good and skipped dessert, for the most part. Our server was upset but we were really at maximum capacity!!
We finished our cruise with a night at the CB with our beloved piano player and new friends from the DISBoards! I've been talking with Maistre Gracey for a few years and had the great pleasure to meet him and his wife...Two of the nicest people that we'll ever meet. We truly hope that our friendship can continue on land!! Disembarking Day - All I can say is WOW WOW WOW WOW!!!!
We have sat for as long as 2 hours on other cruise lines...HONESTLY!! We ate breakfast, took a tour of the Roy Disney Suite (OMG...Nuf said?) and then asked a CM, what do we do next? "You just leave", she said...What??? It was the best disembarking of all time!! And we were out of the terminal, a bit sad, but taking some of our best memories from a vacation, with us. We took the shuttle, which was waiting for us, back to Budget and picked up our rental car and we were off to Disney's Vero Beach Resort for a few more days.We read some not so glowing reports before we left and got a bit nervous about this cruise, but being the total Disney Nuts that we are, we were not one bit disappointed. Like I said, we love the feeling of the Disney treatment and we definitely got it aboard this ship. I was waiting for that proverbial "other shoe" to drop but it never came. And my DH, who had said that he didn't want to go on another cruise again (before this one) let me book a 7 night, western Caribbean itinerary on the Magic in November 2007. We are not major cruisers, we like our little 32' sailboat, but this was a truly wonderful experience.
Hope I didn't put anyone to sleep
Denise,
