Our Magical Westbound Transatlantic Voyage Sept 2010 DAY 15 & 16 ADDED PG 12 5/29/11

[anewmac]

yeah your on the boat! I can understand how you tear up hearing the horn, i do too and thats just by watching it on youtube. cant wait to see and read more. the cake looks yummy

 

[orlandothebeagle]

brilliant Sarah, I miss you guys so much.

 

[TotallyAngelic]

brilliant Sarah, I miss you guys so much.

Miss you guys loads too .... but hey, look at your countdown .. only 3 weeks till Panama Canal cruise for you guys .. and I'm not a bit jealous

 

[knewton64]

I am late! late! late i say......


just saw your tr.


will get caught up on it sat.

Subscribin'



T.T.F.N.

 

[knewton64]

all caught up!

Wonderful pics of the churches....and the detail!
Glad you had fun.

I will be up in your neck of the woods.....sorta.

Got a vacation set for Ireland - June 11th (see below blog titled "Caling all Emerald Aisle Dissers). It's a PTR in progress if ya will.

T.T.F.N.

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Thanks Kris ... you're not popping over to Wales then on your Ireland trip?

 

[TotallyAngelic]

DAY 4: Our first day at sea and formal night in Lumieres!

This is where the trip report could get messy …. unfortunately when I was on board I was so busy and so captivated by the whole experience so I actually took very few notes along the way …. so the trip report will largely be based on what photos I took and information from the Personal Navigator, alongside the snippets which may hopefully spring forth from my memory! Those of you who were there and who may well have better memories than I do, please feel free to correct me where necessary.

The first thing we did once we were up and dressed was head for breakfast at Topsiders .. where I had a fresh fruit platter and a danish pastry and Tony had his usual full works, how much food can you cram on your plate in one go breakfast! There is nothing in the world like eating your breakfast outside at Topsiders … with nothing to see but the endless ocean and the horizon, the sun shining down and this warm fuzzy feeling like all is well with the world.

After breakfast we completed a couple of decks of Fish Extender gift drop offs, which always takes longer than anticipated, particularly when I write down half the cabin numbers totally wrong.
We also had a good walk around the ship, just to acclimatise ourselves with everything and bask in that warm fuzzy feeling.

We spent a while browsing in the shops before it was time for a buffet lunch at Topsiders, although I can't remember what the theme was I can ssure you it was delicious.

Before long it was time for my jewellery class, which Corinna had kindly volunteered to host for the ladies on our cruise thread, after we had been so impressed with her jewellery making skills. The class was great fun, and I managed to successfully produce a phone charm, a bag clip and half a necklace for villains night which was to come later in the cruise. The best part was chatting to the other DIS girls and it was difficult to concentrate on the task in hand because we were just into the chatting !! Here we are in action:

(photo courtesy of Kimberly)

Tony came along at the end of the jewellery class to escort me to our next event, a presentation by Don Williams, a Disney artist. This was incresdibly interesting as he gave a talk about how he mananged to get into Disney as a artist and it was not without a lot of effort and determination. While talking he was sketching Disney characters, and the sketches were given away in a raffle at the end.

(photo coutesy of Kimberly)

Disappointingly we were not the recipients of a sketch, but it was an very interesting way to pass an hour anyways. After the presentation we popped to the shop to sign up for a personal session with Don Williams, but alas this was not to be our lucky day, as all the slots were taken. We will have to be a bit quicker next time.

We decided to go up on deck where we sat and chilled for a while with a frozen cocktail and watched the ocean, before it was time to go and get ourselves scrubbed up ready for formal night.
With a bit of time and effort we were tarted up and away to watch Twice Charmed …. a lovely Disney production based on Cinderella, which I have seen before but it was still lovely to watch, and of course good triumphed over evil and Cnderella and Prince Charming lived happily ever after as so they should.

(photo courtesy of Kimberly)

We then headed to the atrium for the Captain's reception, where we got together with a few of our DIS friends and had a couple of delicious drinks which the cast members were passing round. We took a few photos of everyone in their formal finery before we all headed in for dinner in Lumieres.

Sue and Hayley:

Lynne and Len:

Annie and Howard:

Len and Gus:

Mickey:

For dinner I had the appetiser, Princess Madeleine Salmon Royal, slices of salmon with a honey dressing, followed by radicchio and endive caesar salad. Entree was the baked fillet of turbot with garlic smashed potatoes and sauted fennel which was really delicious, and for dessert I chose the sweet temptations – miniature servings of tiramisu, lemon cheesecake and chiled chocolate souffle.

After all of that I was well and truly stuffed. I took some photos of our tablemates and our neighbours:

Lynne and Len:

Morag and Gus:

Michael and Michele:

Our neighbours: Warren, Abby, Annie, Howard, Andrea and Greg:

Us:

Lovely light fittings in Lumieres:

After dinner was over we headed to the Walt Disney Theatre to watch the cabaret which was Jimmy Tamley, and from what I can remember he was very entertaining. After the show we took our usual turn around the deck and then walked around the ship taking photographs before heading to bed.

 

[dolphingirl47]

I am really enjoying reading your trip report. It is bringing back so many memories.

Corinna

 

[TotallyAngelic]

I am really enjoying reading your trip report. It is bringing back so many memories.

Corinna

Likewise with yours Corinna

 

[dvc4life]

Loving the report Sarah. And I just have to say, Tony's tie and vest are adorable. Where did you ever get those?

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Loving the report Sarah. And I just have to say, Tony's tie and vest are adorable. Where did you ever get those?

Well thank you Chris ..... he got them from Ebay

 

[Kewz1]

Enjoying your report very much. Thanks for posting so many pictures!!

Kristen

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Enjoying your report very much. Thanks for posting so many pictures!!

Kristen

Thank you ... pictures are one thing I am not short of .... especially once we reach the ports.

 

[kj_connections]

Sorry to hijack the thread but I am considering going on the WBTA cruise in Sept 2011 but I'm not sure if I should book it yet. For those of you who went last year, did cruise prices drop as the date approached? What was the lowest price seen for an inside cabin?

Thanks

 

[anewmac]

finally catching up. ohh formal pics are adorable, everyone looks so fancy smancy!

Food looks so good and the drinks look even better .. you know me LOL

 

[TotallyAngelic]

DAY 5 : Gibraltar !!

We were quite excited about visiting Gibraltar … me because I had never been there, and Tony because he had spent a lot of time there during his Navy days and was looking forward to revisiting old haunts. We were both up early .. Tony went off to the gym and I went up on deck to take some photos .. it was still quite dark and very quiet up on deck,

so I snapped a few photos of the view

Morrisons:

I watched the sun come up for a while, before heading back to the cabin to prepare for the day ahead. When Tony returned we headed to breakfast at Topsiders, and before long it was time to head off the ship to explore Gibraltar. Our plan was to walk up to the Cable Car Station and take the cable car up to the top of the Rock, where I hoped to avoid any contact with the apes at all cost, but was going up there purely for the photographic opportunities of the view of the straits etc.

So we headed off to the cable car station, and on the way we encountered the Trafalgar Cemetary, which was very interesting.

We wandered for a while, reading the inscriptions and marvelling at hoe old and historically important this place was. It was also very moving.

While we were there I heard something rustling in the trees, and was shocked to spot an ape up there, who promtly decided to leap out of the tree and approach us … I don't think I have ever moved so fast. I managed to snap this photo using the full extent of my zoom lens!

We continued to the Cable Car station, taking photos of the architecture and anything else I found remotely interesting along the way.

continued below ..............

 

[orlandothebeagle]

Sorry to hijack the thread but I am considering going on the WBTA cruise in Sept 2011 but I'm not sure if I should book it yet. For those of you who went last year, did cruise prices drop as the date approached? What was the lowest price seen for an inside cabin?

Thanks

I think they did drop very slightly, but I honestly cant mind how much it costs, It was amazing value and half of what the panama canal cost but the ports were much much better imho.
ILOVED IT>

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Unfortunately when we arrived at the cable car station, we were informed that the cable cars were not going to be running because of high winds, so the only way up the Rock was to take a taxi or walk, neither of which we found particularly appealing, so we decided to walk into the main town and the street which was appropriately known as Main Street. We came across a shop which specialised in photographs of Naval ships and had data bases going back years, and Tony managed to find photographs of all the ships he served on in the Navy, including one photograph which showed him actually standing on the deck. We bought these and plan to get them framed up at some time. There was a shower while we were in the photo shop, but luckily by the time we exited the shop it had stopped, so we just wandered around the streets for a while, popping into a few shops along the way until we decided it was time for a coffee.

We found a coffee shop / bar in one of the back streets, as as we were sitting there we spotted Warren and Abby passing by, and they decided to come and join us, so we had a lovely coffee and a chat. We then continued wandering aimlessly around the streets, taking lots of photos,

and then Tony set out to try and find a bar he used to frequent in the Navy, a place called Charles' Hole in the Wall. He was thrilled to find it was still there, although it was closed, and the actual “hole in the wall” had now been bricked up and it had a regular door.

By now we had seen most of the main area of Gibraltar and so we decided to head back to the ship via Morrisons supermarket, as I needed to buy chocolate bars for the candy swap and other gifts, fizz for the champagne girls party, toiletries I had deliberately left at home because of the weight allowance, and a few other bits and pieces. It was amazing how many cruisers and cast members were in Morrisons … we bumped into people we knew in every aisle!

Shopping completed we headed back to the ship …. it was a relief to get back to the air conditioning and get rid of the shopping bags.

Once on board we decided to get some very late lunch, and because the buffet was closed we opted for chicken strips (me) and burger ( Tony ) followed by soft serve ice cream. We then sat up on deck and relaxed and watched the world go by for a few hours.

The show that evening was a Beatles tribute act, so we decided to give that a miss. I hate to admit it but I am not a big fan of the Beatles music and Tony wasn't fussed either.

continued below ............

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Dinner was in Animator's Palate,

where I had wild mushroom risotto, followed by smoked salmon, trout and goats cheese salad, penette pasta and apple crumble …..

all of which were totally delicious. A few photos were taken at dinner:

When Lynne answered “me too “ for her dessert, she didn't realise it would be taken literally:

After dinner we decided to go for a night cap with Michael and Michele in Diversions,

and on the way there we got a bit distracted by the Magic Quest game which was going on in Rockin Bar D so we watched that for a few minutes. The host was the lovely David:

Lets just say it was quite entertaining, particularly the guy on the far right in the white bra, who eventually won the game by dropping his pants to the tune of “I'm too sexy for my shirt”

in Diversions we met up with Jodie and Mike who were concocting their own cocktails with the bartender Nur:

Jodie had invented this cocktail called “Klondike” and although I can't remember what was in it it was totally delicious.

We ended up having a couple of nightcaps and then on our way to the cabin we bumped into Angie, Dennis and PJ so that called for a photo moment !!

a few more photos on an empty Deck 4:

Overall it had been a really interesting and enjoyable day, and I was really tired buy the time my head hit the pillow ( nothing to do with the nightcaps of course !! ).

 

[TotallyAngelic]

DAY 6 : DAY AT SEA

Woke up early with a lovely relaxing day at sea to look forward to. Tony did his usual gym visit and I paid lip service to exercise with an invigorating walk on Deck 10.Breakfast was in Topsiders, we are creatures of habit without a doubt, but there was something so very special about sitting up there with the sun shining surrounded by nothing but the ocean. My memory has deserted me with what exactly we did after breakfast, but I know before lunch we went to a DVC presentation, mainly because I just wanted to know exactly what being a member of DVC involves. It was quite interesting and if I had the spare money up front I might have been tempted, but it is probably not right for us right now, and I have always been advised to buy re-sale DVC points anyhow. At least I now knew exactly what the deal was. Tony disappeared off to DIS wine tasting at some point, while I headed of for the scrapbooking class, which was basically a bit of a let down, other than an opportunity for a chat with some ladies from our DIS group.

We were given some scrapbooking pages which will come in useful should I ever get around to completing a scrapbook, but that was baiscally it, and I don't think I would rush back.

Lunch consisted of fast food from Plutos again .. as you can see we are really sticking to the healthy lunch ethic we planned before joining the ship.

The afternoon was taken up with reading and relaxing on the upper deck, before it was time to get ready for the show. The ocean this evening was absolutely stunning … so flat calm it was surreal. I couldn't stop taking photos of it.

The show was a Spanish Flamenco show, Los Mulero, which was excellent.

Dinner this evening was in Parrot Cay and the wonderful island dinner. I ordered Jamaican chicken tenderloins, Parrot Cay salad, caribbean roast chicken and for dessert, the sweet temptations platter of crème brulee cheesecake, lemon merigue pie and s'more vanilla cake.

After dinner we walked on Deck 4, took some photos:

and then headed off to see the late show which was Mark Nizer who did some juggling and cabaret type entertainment which was ok, but nothing special really unless you really love juggling.

I think we took another walk around the deck after the show before heading to the cabin and to bed. For some reason I didn't take many photographs today.