Our WDW adventures and Magical Happy Halloween Cruise: DAY 14 completed 01/10: pg 10

Great addition to the TR and some more fantastic pics - my favourite of which is definately DS doing his colouring in :lmao:

Some friends of ours have done a Disney Cruise and had exactly the same complaint as you. Maybe it needs someone to go and have a word with the shop owners and explain that their aggressive sales techniques are having the opposite effect of what they are trying to achieve, and that if they allow people to browse on their own they will no doubt sell more.

I also loved the decorations on the ceiling in the Senor Frogs - wonder if ebay sell them??
 
Day 12: grand Cayman (or was it?) : part 1

I woke up to the sound of the phone ringing and once again it was Captain Mickey, waking me up at 07:30am. I was really grateful for this phone alarm call every morning as otherwise I could easily have slept forever - the beds was so comfortable and with no natural light coming into the room there was nothing to wake me up other than good old reliable Captain Mickey. Tony and I immediately got up, showered and dressed and headed up to deck 9 to see if we could see land ahoy! We scanned the horizon in all directions, but there was nothing to be seen - very strange indeed. We grabbed a coffee from the machine and walked around deck 9. The sea was still quite choppy and the wind was gusty, but otherwise it looked like a clear warm day ahead. After about half an hour we headed back to wake up the kids, and get ready for breakfast and hopefully a day in Grand Cayman. Those of you who have read my pre-trippie will recall that today was the today that Helen had arranged for us to charter a boat for the few hours we were in Grand Cayman, and we planned to visit Stingray City and a few other places. I was also very excited by the fact that today I going to be the closest to Johnny Depp that I am ever likely to be - apparently his backside had graced one of the seats on the boat we were chartering during the filming of Pirates of the Caribbean, and I was planning to sit in every seat on the boat just to make sure!

We roused the kids and arranged to meet them at Topsiders when they finally surfaced - and we headed on up there for our usual breakfasts. There was still no land in sight and I was getting a bit concerned as surely we should be seeing something by now. Because of the gusty wind we chose to sit inside, and while we were sitting there an announcement came across the system: due to the inclement weather conditions, the ship was not able to operate the tenders and we would not be going to Grand Cayman. I was gutted, and gutted beyond consolation! This was the day I was most looking forward to, and it was not to be - no stingray city, no boat charter and no sitting in the seat once graced by Johnny’s backside! The CM then announced that today would be our day at sea, and they would be working on getting us into an alternative port the following day. So basically all of the sea day activities planned for tomorrow would be changed to today - so that at least gave us a galley tour to look forward to - not quite the same as snorkelling amongst the stingrays at stingray city, but I suppose the best thing to do was focus on the positives and try and make the most of today. Once I had stopped crying into my napkin I decided to do just that!. Round about now the kids appeared and the Balster family joined us and we all had a good old cry together. We spotted our evening server Dennis in Topsiders, and I asked him if he had any top secret insider information to our likely port tomorrow, and he said that it might be Key West - my inconsolability was immediately consoled because the last time Tony and I had been in Key West had been on our honeymoon in 2002, and we had loved every minute of it. The thought of revisiting some of our old haunts and sharing them with the kids immediately banished our disconsolate mood, and I began to look forward to the day after all.

The powers that be rushed to get out a revised Navigator with all of the day’s activities, and we planned our day. One of my first priorities was to finish giving out my Fish Extender gifts, and after finishing breakfast we set out to do this. I was sneaking around very quietly, trying to pop my gifts in the Fish Extenders very surreptitiously, and I soon realised it was a mistake taking Tony along with me - as every time we came across a Fish Extender he would loudly shout out - “does this one need a gift in it” or “is this one of our group” etc etc. he couldn’t have made himself any more noticeable without actually knocking on the door and saying to the occupier “hello - I am here to put a gift in your Fish Extender” I must add here that it was really good fun participating in the Fish Extender exchange - we were constantly receiving little gifts and some people had gone to a lot of trouble. I will try and write a bit more about the gifts etc given and received at the end of the report. I would certainly recommend getting involved - it certainly added an extra dimension to our cruise experience.

Anyway, back to our revised sea day. Tony and Stephen decided to try their hand at the “chip it” golf and Louise went along with them, while Taryn, Daniel and I decided to have a go at making origami flowers in the Promenade Lounge, after which we all planned to meet up for the Disney Tunes Trivia. The origami flower making was very interesting, and unbelievably we all managed to make something which resembled a flower. In the meantime, Tony arrived flushed with success from winning the golf game, and with a winners medal to prove it! It was now time for Disney Tunes Trivia, and this was really good fun, and fairly easy to be honest, and we ended up tying for first place with a team who were also members of our DIS group - Shoshie and her team. So that meant the dreaded tie-break for Shoshie and I - we were called up into the middle of the floor, and I expected a really difficult Disney tunes question, but was completely floored when the CM asked us how old we thought she was. The one who was closest would win the quiz. I didn’t want to offend the CM who was obviously in her early twenties, so I guessed 21, and Shoshie I think guessed 25, and guess who was closest - Shoshie. So much for trying to be kind to the CM. So we came second and won a very useful and surprisingly good quality DCL mini torch, which is great for checking on sleeping patients on a night shift.

By now it was time for lunch, and we met up with Andy, Helen and family and headed for the Topsiders buffet for another delicious lunch. During the lunch an announcement came over the ship to say that we were indeed going to be calling at Key West the following day, which was fantastic news.foo After lunch we headed off for our galley tour, where we met up and chatted with Woody, another one of our DIS group. The galley tour was interesting and informative - I couldn’t believe how small a space all of those meals were prepared in, and particularly amazed by how few pastry chefs they employ for all of those wonderful desserts. We were shown where our orders are placed when they are brought in by the servers, and I took a photo of table 50’s order slot.

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The galley was incredibly clean and very shiny!

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At the end of the galley tour, which only lasted about 20 minutes, we were given a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie, which was delicious, but having only just eaten lunch I shared mine with Tony. While we were enjoying the galley tour, the kids headed to watch the High School Musical 3 premiere which was being held on the ship that day, but I think Dan had the intention of making fun of the film, and Zac Efron in particular, but after about 20 minutes he was getting that many evil glares (and well deserved too) from the HSM fans that he felt compelled to leave and abandon his mission to take the mickey out of Zac and friends. I think they all headed for the pool after the movie finished.

After the galley tour we decided to wander a bit and went for a drink in Diversions, where Andy and Tony were very reluctantly persuaded by a CM to do battle in the Wii Tennis tournament. Needless to say they both gave a very poor performance and didn’t last more than five minutes in the tournament. We also did a bit of shopping in the stores, and I bought some DCL pins and a DCL pirate themed scrapbook. We then wandered by StudioSea, and we were accosted by a pair of scurvy pirates, who persuaded us to take part in the “Pirate’s Life for Me” game. I think this was aimed at the younger crew members but for some reason Tony was selected as one of the pirate captains and took great pleasure in leading his team to victory.

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I took equally great pleasure in taking his photo with a hat with a monkey’s rear end on it, although the photo only shows the head end of the monkey as a matter of decency:

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Before too long it was time to get ready for pirate night, so we headed back to the cabin to get into our costumes. Try as we might we could not persuade Stephen to dress up in his pirate costume - maybe he was still traumatised by his experiences at MNSSHP, but no amount of persuasion, bribery or poking with a plastic sword could make him change his mind. We had arranged to meet back up with Helen, Andy and family at the lobby, as we wanted to get some pirate photographs taken before dinner.

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There was quite a long line for the professional pirate themed photographs, but it was definitely worth the wait as these were the best photographs we had taken all cruise.

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I managed to get a couple of photos of Pirate Mickey:

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We decided against having a photo taken with Captain Jack Sparrow, as to my intense disappointment and to be perfectly honest he didn’t really have the look or the mannerisms of the great man himself, and I am very particular about my Captain Jacks. There was also another very long line which I was not prepared to wait in.
 
Day 12: part 2

We then headed into dinner - and it was one of the best dinners we had during the cruise. The atmosphere in the restaurant was amazing, Laura and Dennis looked great:

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and the food was once again phenomenal - in fact I had my favourite entrée dish of the whole cruise. The menu was made out like a pirate treasure map:

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My choices were buccaneer’s sun ripened pineapple, hideaway bay salad, and macadamia dusted mahi mahi (divine) and Tony opted for the Caribbean spicy vegetable gumbo soup and the black pearl oven roasted beef tenderloin.

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On this very rare occasion we bypassed dessert in lieu of the pirate night buffet, although I was highly tempted by the white chocolate cheesecake. We took lots of photos at the table,

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and we also had a professional one taken which turned out very well - if you turn a blind eye to the boring non-costumed member of the group!

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Once dinner was finished we headed up to the Pirates in the Caribbean Deck Party and staked out a spot on Deck 10.

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It was very very windy and even for us Brits it felt cool, certainly a lot cooler than you would expect in the Caribbean. The party was great fun, lots of dancing on stage, although unfortunately Mickey was unable to fly down the zip wire and save the day because of the wind. Instead he appeared out of thin air up on deck 10 and saved the day from there. The fireworks were great, not on a Wishes or Illuminations level but very good considering the fact we were on a ship and it was very very windy. We grabbed a few bits from the buffet, and admired the spectacular ice carvings:

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and then started watching The Curse of the Black Pearl on the ariel-view screen, but in the end it was so cold that everyone up on deck ended up wrapping themselves in towels. It was great to be able watch it up there on the big screen in the middle of the open ocean, but having already seen the film about fifty times I was not prepared to sit there shivering to watch it again, so once Captain Jack and Will arrived in Tortuga, those of our group still up there, ie. Tony, Dan and myself decided to call it quits and headed down to the cabin, grabbing a hot coffee on the way to warm us up!

So despite initial disappointment it had been a great day, and we went to bed knowing that tomorrow we would be re-living our honeymoon (well some of it at least) in Key West, and I was really looking forward to that!
 
Another fantastic report - and a great couple of days.
So pleased you managed to get over your initial dissappointment and looked on the positive side.
The photo's all looked fab and what a great job you all did of dressing up and adding to the atmosphere (well most of you anyway :lmao:)

Looking forward to the next part - and finding out about those fish extenders.
 


Thanks Sarah for posting, I am very much enjoying reading your reports.

I would hate to be hassled by shop keepers. I think Nassau is supposed to be the same from what I have read.

Loved all the photos and descriptions, again it is nice to 'experience' a cruise whilst not having been on one.

I am looking forward to your next day, when you get a minute.
 
Loving your reports as ever sarah, they are just so detailed. :hug: I love the fact that you are so serious about your costumes, they always look absolutely fantastic. :thumbsup2
 


Nothing annoys me more than pushy sales people - I feel your pain!

The Pirate night looked amazing, you've got some great pics of it too :)
 
Another fantastic report - and a great couple of days.
So pleased you managed to get over your initial dissappointment and looked on the positive side.
The photo's all looked fab and what a great job you all did of dressing up and adding to the atmosphere (well most of you anyway :lmao:)

Looking forward to the next part - and finding out about those fish extenders.

Thanks - we all really enjoy the dressing up - well all but one of us !!!

Thanks Sarah for posting, I am very much enjoying reading your reports.

I would hate to be hassled by shop keepers. I think Nassau is supposed to be the same from what I have read.

Loved all the photos and descriptions, again it is nice to 'experience' a cruise whilst not having been on one.

I am looking forward to your next day, when you get a minute.

Thanks :goodvibes I have't been to Nassau so I don't know if that is the same.

Loving your reports as ever sarah, they are just so detailed. :hug: I love the fact that you are so serious about your costumes, they always look absolutely fantastic. :thumbsup2

Thanks Verity xxx I suppose "sad" could be another way to describe it!

Another fab day - looking forward to Key West! Don't leave it too long.

Sharon

Thanks Sharon - I will be as quick as I can with Key West - but it will be a long one I'm afraid - lots of photos!

Nothing annoys me more than pushy sales people - I feel your pain!

The Pirate night looked amazing, you've got some great pics of it too :)


I know what you mean - but why on earth don't they realise that it has the opposite effect and they actually push people away. Pirate night was so much fun. I can't wait till our next one!
 
Day 13: Key West - part 1

We were really really excited about waking up in Key West, or approaching Key West as it turned out, as we weren’t due to arrive in the port until 09:30, and we were awake way before that. Tony and I had spent five days of our honeymoon in Key West and this would be a very unexpected but very welcome return visit, and I wanted to re-visit all of the memorable places where we had spent time on our honeymoon trip 6 years previously.
In fact we were so excited that as soon as Captain Mickey woke us up with the alarm call we were up out of bed, showered, dressed and up on deck. It was about 07:30, and the ship was deserted, so not one to waste a rare photo opportunity, we grabbed a coffee and wandered about taking a few “empty ship” photographs!

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Key West was still away in the distance so we woke up the kids and all went for our customary Topsiders breakfast. There was also the US immigration to attend to which was quick and painless, before we were able to disembark. The ship had arrived at a dock a way from the usual dock in the Mallory Square area, probably due to the last minute decision to visit Key West and the usual dock being taken up by other cruise ships, but DCL had laid on complementary transport in the form of trams and trolleys to take us from the ship to Mallory Square. We hopped on one of the trams, and before long we were wandering along towards my favourite spot in Key West, the Schooner Wharf. We had spent a few pleasant evenings in the Schooner Wharf bar during our honeymoon, and we had also enjoyed two wonderful cruises on the Western Union (Key West Flagship), a sunset cruise and a stargazing cruise, both of which were highlights of our honeymoon.
I had this photo taken in exactly the same spot on my honeymoon, although clearly I have found a few pounds since then!

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Me in the same spot on honeymoon in 2002:

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It was wonderful to see the old familiar sights where we had so many special memories from our honeymoon and to be able to share them with our kids. The Western Union was still there, although for some reason she had been painted white - not the best decision in my opinion as she looked much better before with a black hull!

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Here is the Western Union back in 2002:

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We then wandered back to Duval Street and went for a drink in the Hard Rock Café, another of our honeymoon haunts, and we sat up on the balcony overlooking Duval Street and watched the world go by, while enjoying a very welcome cold drink.

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We continued on our way and soon after this we bumped into Helen, Andy and the girls, who had been jewellery shopping, and they showed us a really lovely costume jewellery store on Duval Street where they were selling really stunning jewellery items for $10. We spent quite a while in here buying gifts for family and of course a few bits for ourselves, while the male members of the group sat around looking bored. I am not the most decisive shopper at the best of times, but faced with so much choice, it was very difficult to narrow down my selections. But to the relief of the chaps, and probably the despairing shop assistants we eventually made our purchases and departed the store in a quest to find and photograph the Southernmost Point. After a long walk up Duval Street we arrived at the Southernmost Point and took the obligatory photograph, and we also showed the kids where we stayed on our honeymoon, the Southernmost Hotel, which hadn’t changed a bit since the day we left it!

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We walked back towards Mallory Square, taking some interesting photos along the way.

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I absolutely love the architecture of Key West and could wander around all day, just absorbing the atmosphere of this amazing place. We spotted this house all decorated for Halloween:

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We popped into the Wyland Gallery to look at the art work, which was truly stunning,

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Took a photo of the Denny’s where we has our first breakfast in Key West on honeymoon - nothing at all seemed to have changed in this wonderful timeless place:

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and we then stopped off for what must be one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted - soft whip peanut butter ice cream dipped in liquid chocolate, which then set hard in contact with the ice cream. It was truly divine. I loved this sign outside one of the houses on Duval Street:
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We had to duplicate another of our honeymoon photos: Tony outside Captain Tony’s Bar - again with a few extra pounds found since the honeymoon photo!

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Tony on honeymoon in 2002 outside Captain Tony’s bar

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The inside of Captain Tony’s Bar was very interesting:

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wow, what an amazing day! I LOVE your reports and the piccies of you all at the pirates bash are wonderful...you have some really fab memories to cherish.:cloud9:
 
Thanks I enjoyed reading your report and seeing the photos. I look forward to the next one.:thumbsup2
 
wow, what an amazing day! I LOVE your reports and the piccies of you all at the pirates bash are wonderful...you have some really fab memories to cherish.:cloud9:

Thanks I enjoyed reading your report and seeing the photos. I look forward to the next one.:thumbsup2

Thanks so much for your kind comments. I hope to finish this trip report before my next trip in July - otherwise I will have 2 on the go at one time and this is already the most long-winded trip report in DIS history (I think), it now being 7 months since I took the trip!
 
We even spotted a real life pirate coming out of Captain Tony’s, complete with a parrot and a peg leg, although the mobile phone he was using sort of shattered the illusion somewhat.

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Not long after this we bumped into Helen and Andy again, and their girls were heading back to the ship. Our kids decided to join them and we loaded them onto the tram back to the ship.

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Our server Dennis was on the same tram, heading back to start his shift, and it was great to see him enjoying some free time - those guys work so hard!

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While waiting for the tram to depart back to the Magic I took a few photos in the Mallory Square area:
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Once free of our kids we decided to show Andy and Helen the Schooner Wharf Bar, and of course we had to sample a few of their wonderful cocktails! We happily sat here reliving some happy honeymoon memories with our new friends, and it was an idyllic way to spend a couple of hours in Key West, chilling out with a few drinks, with great company listening to the live music and watching the boats bobbing about on the harbour.

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We all agreed that this had been the best day of the cruise so far. Before too long though it was time to return to the Magic so we wandered back to Mallory Square where we jumped on the tram and headed back to the ship.

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Before I go any further, to avoid any confusion I must tell you that DCL had chosen to celebrate Halloween on 30th October, which was originally planned to be a sea day, and I suppose because the official Halloween fell on the last day when we would be in Castaway Cay, this made sense really. However with the change of itinerary the DCL Halloween now fell on the day we were in Key West, so those wishing to take part in the trick or treating would have needed to get back to the ship mid afternoon. The ship had been decorated with pumpkin displays and cobwebs in the lobby and it was really effective, if a bit understated for what you might expect at Disney. The Halloween trick or treating was in full swing on the ship, by the time we arrived back, with all the young kids wandering about in costume to the various treat locations, where cast members dressed in High School Musical graduation costumes were giving out candy. Tony and I grabbed some snacks from Plutos and watched them for a while. Our kids were planning on dressing up for Halloween, and so we went back down to the cabin to check on the preparations - and help Taryn paint herself blue!

Taryn and Louise had decided to go with a Tim Burton theme, and were dressing up as Emily the Corpse Bride and Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas. Daniel, had originally planned to dress in with the theme as Jack Skellington, but after a last minute change of plan after seeing the latest Batman film he was now going to dress as The Joker.

This last minute change of plan was not the most welcome thing in the world, as I had had to spend the month prior to the cruise searching out Joker costume items such as green waistcoat and purple trousers, when we already had a Jack Skellington costume for Dan to wear. Still , I must admit, when he put it all together it looked ok, and he did all of the make-up himself, which is always good. Taryn, on the other hand needed help with the body and face paint, which tends to go everywhere during application, and we ended up with the bathroom of stateroom 6090 decoratively splattered with a vivid shade of blue, which to my intense relief fortunately washed off, as I didn’t relish sharing that dilemma with poor Erwin who already had a job and a half on his hands looking after 4 messy teens! Needless to say, Stephen declined to dress up.

So eventually they were all dressed up and raring to go.

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Tony and I had brought along costumes for Halloween, but decided last minute not to wear them as they both involved wigs and heavy fabrics and it was far too hot. They will keep for another occasion - more than likely a Halloween night in Disneyland Paris, when it will be much cooler. So we opted to dress in our semi-formal outfits.

Unfortunately, because of all the faffing about with costumes we missed our slot for Disney Dreams and I was totally gutted! Especially when Helen, Andy and family told us it was the best Disney Show so far! Still, looking on the bright side it will be something new to look forward to on our next cruise!

Before dinner, the kids decided to have a wander about in their costumes, meeting up with Rachel and Bethany who were dressed as a gothic Tinkerbell and a gothic ….erm, a gothic young lady:

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In the meantime, Tony and I wandered into Sessions where we had a glass of wine before dinner. The wine came with some interesting little snacks which were intended to compliment the wine, which was nice, but I probably shouldn’t have indulged so close to dinner! We also bumped into Captain Mickey looking all spooky in his Halloween costume:

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Dinner this evening was the Captain’s Gala Dinner and we were once again dining in Animators Palette.

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My choices this evening were garlic and herb sautéed shrimp, and a garden salad, followed by fettucine with parmesan crusted chicken. All absolutely delicious. The plan was to waiver dessert this evening in view of the temptations of the midnight dessert buffet later on, but once I spotted warm chocolate lava cake on the menu I was gone.

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All plans to abstain flew out of the window I’m afraid ….but it was worth it! The chocolate lava cake was out of this world! We took some photos at the dinner table - a bit strange with the mix of Halloween and Semi-Formal costumes, but what the heck:

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Following dinner we headed down to watch the costume competition, and I was amazed by how many adults had made so much effort. The cruise staff chose 3 entrants per section, and the sections were “Most Disney” “Best Group” “ Most funny” and “Most Spooky”. To our surprise Taryn was selected as one of the entrants for the “most spooky” costume section and she was up against this very scary chap:

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and the witch you can see behind her in the following photo:

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Basically each entrant was introduced and the places were allocated according to how loud the cheers / applause were for each entrant.
The “most funny” costume was won by a guy dressed as a horse’s rear end, the “best group” by a group of castaway cay santas, and “most disney” by a very effective Ursula:

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Infortunately I failed to get photos of the Santa group and the horse’s rear end, so apologies for that!

Then it was time for the “most spooky” category, and when they introduced Taryn as the Corpse Bride and we all cheered and shouted as loudly as we could, and it must be true that the Brits make a lot of noise because to our amazement she won first place! The prize was a Jack Skellington pumpkin head trophy which said “Disney Cruise Line Halloween Costume Contest Winner” on it, which made a lovely souvenir from the cruise.

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After the contest it was time for the midnight (actually 11:30pm) dessert buffet, although I was not able to do this justice in any way as it was only an hour and a half since we had left the dinner table. It was such a shame. The cakes and desserts looked beyond divine, and all I could do was photograph them. There now follows an excessive amount of photographs of desserts, so those of you on a diet please look away for the remainder of this post…… it will not do you any favours whatsoever to feast your eyes on such delicious delectations:

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There was also an impressive ice sculpture on display:

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and an incredible chocolate fountain will all sorts of fruits for dipping, and I managed to eat a few chocolate dipped strawberries, and that was all. I was so disappointed, but there was no point in taking a plate of desserts and not being able to finish it. We also had a very nice coffee.

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After the dessert buffet we wandered about the ship a while before retiring to our cabin. So it had been an amazing day, and even though tomorrow we were to be having our second visit to Castaway Cay, I was not looking forward to it, as it was also to be our last full day on the Disney Magic, and the thought of leaving the ship was already filling me with despair.
 
Thank you for bringing back some great memories

We were one of the ones shouting for her to win too
she was by far the best out of the 3

as for the dessert party
could only have some of the fruit in the chocalate too
DH and DS both had died and gone to heavan
DS had chocalate from ear to ear
 
Thank you for bringing back some great memories

We were one of the ones shouting for her to win too
she was by far the best out of the 3

as for the dessert party
could only have some of the fruit in the chocalate too
DH and DS both had died and gone to heavan
DS had chocalate from ear to ear
 
What a load of fantastic pictures.
Jimmy Buffets is one of our (very long list) favourite places to eat in Florida so it was nice to see 'the original'
And I have made the decision that if I ever find myself likely to go to a dessert party I will not be eating for 2 days beforehand - just so I can do all those desserts the justice they deserve.
Thank you for this report - I really enjoyed reading it.
 
Thank you for bringing back some great memories

We were one of the ones shouting for her to win too
she was by far the best out of the 3

as for the dessert party
could only have some of the fruit in the chocalate too
DH and DS both had died and gone to heavan
DS had chocalate from ear to ear

thanks for shouting for her :hug:- it made her cruise winning that award! next time we have booked early dining just so we can do justice to that dessert buffet!

What a load of fantastic pictures.
Jimmy Buffets is one of our (very long list) favourite places to eat in Florida so it was nice to see 'the original'
And I have made the decision that if I ever find myself likely to go to a dessert party I will not be eating for 2 days beforehand - just so I can do all those desserts the justice they deserve.
Thank you for this report - I really enjoyed reading it.

Thank you for enjoying it.:goodvibes
 

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