Our WDW adventures & Magical Happy Halloween Cruise: Day 14 completed - 01/2010 pg 19

[anewmac]

the desserts looks yummy I would have been stumped too LOL

I was going to ask what kind of camera you have also, as the pics are awesome.

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Day 3: Day at Sea

I woke up to the sound of the phone ringing, and imagine my surprise when I picked it up and found out who was calling me - why it was Captain Mickey Mouse himself, who said I needed to get up because I had so much to do today. Now I am not one to disobey the Captain, so before too long I was up, showered and dressed and heading down to meet up with Helen for our DIS Trick-or-Treat bag stuffing session in the Promenade Lounge. One of our DIS cruisers, Suzie had set up a DIS Trick-or-Treat treasure hunt for the first sea day, and we had all donated sweets and treats for the bags, and this morning we were basically stuffing all of the treats into the bags - I don’t think I have ever seen such well-stuffed trick-or-treat bags!

The bag stuffers in action:

Suzie - who organised the DIS Trick or Treat:

Jenn - our official bag lady:

Unfortunately this session also clashed with our Island Jam Character Breakfast which was scheduled for 09:45, so I managed to stuff a few bags and take a few photographs before being whisked away to breakfast with Mickey and friends. Helen and Andy stayed to stuff bags a bit longer, before going to Palo Brunch where stuffing of quite a different nature took place!

So with their parents enjoying Palo, Rachel and Bethany joined us for breakfast, and it was great fun. Dennis made a bunch of hats for the kids out of serviettes

And even one for Stephen …… (and shock horror - if you look really closely he's actually smiling!)

and we got to meet with all the guys.

The food was once again delicious and I had the usual cinnamon bun and fruit combo:

while Tony had the cooked breakfast:

And Dan also enjoyed his breakfast - a small stack of pancakes and waffles:

After breakfast we wandered around the ship and chilled out until it was time to meet up with a highly stuffed Andy and Helen after their Palo brunch, which they said was amazing! Something for us to look forward to for our next cruise! We then decided to go and distribute some of our fish extender gifts, which was a great way to see some of the other areas of the ship, but also a bit disorientating wandering down all of those long alleyways, particularly as the ship had taken it upon itself to start swaying a little bit more as the day progressed! Fortunately the pink pills were keeping much of my nausea at bay, and everyone else seemed to be coping well, either with or without the pills.

At about 1pm we decided to go to Topsiders for the Italian buffet lunch, which was delicious once again - we certainly couldn‘t fault the food on this cruise so far. The kids then headed off to take some photos around the ship, and then the girls joined up with us for the DIS Trick or Treat around the ship, which had been organised by Suzie from our DIS group, while the lads went to the pool. The DIS Trick or Treat consisted of a series of clues to specific locations which were given out to teams of DIS kids and their parents. They then had to follow the clues to the next location where they were given a new clue and so on. Eventually the clues led to the Walt Disney theatre where the kids all received a big bag of treats (the bags we were stuffing earlier) Taryn, Louise and I had the clue station on Deck 9, and it was great fun giving out the clues and watching the kids work out where to go next. At the end of the treasure hunt we all converged at the final treat station where we all had a chat. The DIS Trick or Treat was a great success and everyone enjoyed it!

To be continued …..( too many photos)

 

[TotallyAngelic]

After this the girls joined up with Dan and Stephen and they went to watch WALL-E at the Buena Vista Theatre, while while Tony and I chilled out around the ship, not doing anything in particular as far as I can remember. At 4pm Tony and Andy had an appointment in Diversions for the Beer tasting seminar, which I believe went down very well. The kids had also been taking photos with Walt Disney:

and a rather strange one of Daniel sharing a moment with Zac Efron:

Meanwhile I decided to go down to the cabin and press our formal dresses and shirts ready for the evening’s festivities. Once the beer tasting was finished, Tony joined me down in the cabin and we all got glammed up for the formal night. Once we were ready we headed down to the Captain’s Reception, where we met up with Helen, Andy and family and mingled with the ship’s officers, while enjoying the cocktails which were on offer. We then all made our way to the Walt Disney Theatre to see the Golden Mickeys Show. This show was really wonderful and inspiring and brought a tear to my eye on more than one occasion!

After the show it was time for our Golden Mickey dinner, which was in Parrot Cay. I loved this restaurant in particular, as I loved the whole tropical atmosphere and the laid back vibe - but think that Lumiere’s may well have been more appropriate for the formal dinner. However that didn’t detract from a wonderful evening with wonderful company, and once again Dennis and Laura excelled themselves with the service, and the meal was truly outstanding. This evening I had Scottish smoked salmon and pear salad, followed by jumbo shrimp and porcini mushroom tagliatelle, and then the most incredible dessert - the golden chocolate chocolate award, which was to die for!

Tony also tried scallops for the first time ever and was pleasantly surprised and he chose the Beef Wellington for his entrée.

Taryn and Louise both decided to be brave and tried something new - the cheese souffle, and they both enjoyed it, and when all the girls opted for the plain chicken entrée Dennis persuaded them to try the swordfish, which Taryn and Rachel both tried and they both liked it. I was really pleased they were having an attempt to try new things, as they are all so reluctant to do so normally. Dan opted for the lamb, which he also enjoyed and I can’t recall what Stephen decided upon.

Taryn and Rachel couldn’t decide between desserts - so Dennis brought them 3 to share:

and somebody at the table had the Passion Fruit Napoleon:

After the meal was finished Dennis amazed us all with his crayon puzzles….

Andy was wearing this amazing formal shirt which had pirate figures on the sleeves:

Following dinner we wandered around and took photos of our kids in their formal attire - marvelling at how smart and mature they all looked!

For some reason I don’t have a photo of Tony and myself or Helen and Andy in formal gear, which is a shame, especially as Tony was wearing a really cool Mickey Mouse waistcoat and bow tie. We also had a visit to the art gallery to see John Rowe and bid him farewell, as he was leaving the ship the following morning (or throwing himself overboard in desperation after having been stalked by Taryn for the past 2 days!).

We then headed back to the cabin planning to change out of our formal wear into something more casual, but in the end we were so tired we decided to stay in the cabin and go to bed. I’m afraid we were rather lacking on the stamina front some nights!I remembered to set the alarm call for the morning, we were looking forward to our visit to Mexico the following day!

 

[diberry]

Ooooh Sarah, you're really spoiling us! I do love your trippies and all those amazing photos with the characters - looks like a fabulous occasion!
The trick or treat hunt sounds great fun.
I really love the photos of the "kids" with Walt - lovely pics! But poor Zac Efron - Rhiannon adores him and would have had a very different response to a life-sized model of him!!!
This photo is absolutely gorgeous

- what a shame there aren't any of you and Tony though!
Great reading as always!

 

[anewmac]

The treasure hunt sounds so fun! Great idea!

Your formal wear all looks great the kids look amazing! To bad theres not one of you and hubby to complere the night!

 

[JDBlair]

Such a fun report! I am really enjoying it.

 

[Disneygrl36]

Sarah,
So glad to see you are back writing again!!!!!!!!
I am all caught up now & must comment on several things.
I loved your pirate costumes for MNSSHP & am so glad you enjoyed it.
Yippee you are on the ship now!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so wishing we were there with you guys while you were cruising as we had so much fun the year before.
Great 1st day at CC----I loved how deserted the beach looked after the rain. I need to book another cruise to get back to CC & finally try to get my nice day there as after 3 cruises I have yet to have a nice sunny day.
Beautiful formal night photos although I am disappointed not to see one of you & Tony.
Keep it up............can't wait to hear about Halloween.

 

[suziemva]

And we were right behind the heckler that night in Rockin Bar D - not fun!

Can't wait to read more. It's ridiculous how pleased I was to be mentioned! I really need to get a life

Valerie

Val, too funny! Yes, Sarah, the ventriloquist was atrocious and as we were right next to Val and Brian, we could NOT escape. If we'd gotten up to walk out that drunk would have gotten us both. As it was we had to move our chairs back to get out of the way!! SO glad he got cabin confinement for 3 days - although I felt sorry for the performer, looked like she was going to cry.......

Keep 'em comin', Sarah!!!! Loving this!!!

 

[suziemva]

Suzie - who organised the DIS Trick or Treat:

Oh, yes...thank you SO much for posting this picture of me.....I was so frazzled that day and for the actual ToT!! BUT it was great fun and I'm so happy that everyone had a good time!!!!!

 

[wilma-bride]

Sarah, I have been absent from this trippy for a while so, imagine my surprise and delight to find I have got nearly 3 cruise day reports to read

Wonderful writing, as usual. Can't wait to read more

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Day 11: Cozumel - Part 1

I was woken up by Captain Mickey again and straight away jumped up out of bed and got ready for the day ahead - today we were in Cozumel, a place I had never visited before, so I was really looking forward to going ashore and checking it out. A quick phone call to the kids cabin made sure they were at least awake and hopefully give them a nudge in the right direction. In the meantime Tony and I headed up to Topsiders for our usual breakfast, and as we were eating we were joined intermittantly by one or other of our offspring, until we were all sitting there enjoying the morning sun. We had booked the Fury Catamaran Sail and Snorkel trip for the afternoon, but for the morning the plan was to just have a wander around the town and buy a few souvenirs. As we were enjoying breakfast, an announcement came over the speaker to tell us that because of rough seas our catamaran trip was cancelled, as were a few other of the water-based excursions. I was really disappointed as I was looking forward to this, and it seemed a bit strange as the seas appeared anything but rough at that moment in time, but maybe the powers that be knew something we didn’t!

Once breakfast was finished we headed back to the cabin to prepare to leave the ship for the morning. We wandered into town, along a very long jetty, which led into a outdoor shopping centre, mostly consisting of souvenir type shops.

View from the shopping centre:

There were also a few living “statues” which were quite interesting to look at but who were charging 10 dollars to take a photo - they weren’t THAT good! However as soon as we arrived there we were hassled by every shop owner to enter their shop, and by car rental guys trying to get us to rent vehicles - I know the local people have to earn a living, and I’m sure a lot of it comes from cruise ship passengers, but to be honest it was really off-putting and actually had the opposite effect on us - we avoided the shops with pushy salespeople and tried to whizz through the shopping centre area as quickly as possible! The kids were really freaked out by all the hassle from the locals, as this is something they had never experienced before. Unfortunately, and this is entirely our own fault, they have always spent their vacations in Disneyland Paris or WDW, and therefore have a rather Disney-fied and therefore sanitised and unrealistic view of the rest of the world. This was real Mexico as opposed to the Epcot version, and they were certainly not used to the hassle we were getting while just walking about and minding our own business. Once we were down in the streets we were offered all sorts of things by the guys we passed, and not all of it was legal, and the girls began to complain that they didn’t feel safe and wanted to go back to the ship.

I was determined to show them something of the real world, to make them appreciate a different culture and way of life, so we walked around the streets for a while and looked at the architecture and took a few photos.

Some interesting local art work:

They were still desperate to return to the Magic, and in the end we gave up and headed back. On the way back we bumped into Andy, Helen and family in the shopping area, and they were headed back to the ship for the exact same reason. So we took all the kids back to the ship and then decided to come back and have another look around ourselves.

A welcome sight for the girls….

Great place to make a call:

My happy family waiting for me to stop taking photos!

Goofy hard at work:

At the last minute Stephen changed his mind and decided to come along, as I think at 19 he was a bit fed up with the US licensing laws and he knew he could at least have a beer in Mexico!

So Tony, Stephen and I and Andy and Helen headed back into the town along the sea front, stopping off at a Tequila tasting shop so that the guys could taste some tequila,

while Helen and I gave it a miss - I was very put off by the horrible larvae in some of the bottles. After the tequila experience we wandered for a while before stopping for a Mexican beer experience, corona with the lime in the neck of the bottle, at a bar called Fat Tuesdays!It was actually very pleasant sitting in the bar, which was located on a wide square.

After enjoying the rest we decided to walk back to the ship via Senor Frogs bar, as this was somewhere you had to visit when in Mexico. Senor Frogs was always a notorious hang out for ships crew when I worked for Princess Cruises, cruising on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, so I owed it to my illustrious past to pop in for a look around.

The Hard Rock Café:

The local transport:

On the way back there we noticed that the sea was getting really rough in the bay, waves were coming over the sea wall and a boat had been lifted over onto the road and smashed up. Seems the powers that be had been correct in their assessment of the weather conditions, and for that we can only be grateful!

We arrived at Senor Frogs and went upstairs …..underneath some very strange ceiling décor…

But when we reached the bar area it was all very quiet and when we sat down at a table, no one came near to take our order, so we decided to give it a miss and after a quick photograph on the swings

we headed out and decided to visit Margaritaville instead.

Margaritaville had a much better atmosphere and location and we grabbed a table near the ocean and ordered margaritas as it would be silly not to really considering we were in Margaritaville!

The margaritas were wonderful, but on an empty stomach it really went to my head, and one was certainly enough! The guys got really brave and decided to get a tequila shot off one of the girls going around. This was caught on video by myself and was really funny! Even Stephen had a go, and after the tequila tasting in the shop, a couple of beers, a margarita and now the tequila shot, we even got him to smile for the camera, although it was the video and not the still camera so I have no proof for you all to see!

Apart from Margaritaville, which to be honest could have been anywhere, I was not overly impressed with Cozumel, mainly because of the pushy salespeople everywhere, and I certainly would not be wanting to rush back there anytime soon.

to be continued (too many photos)......

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Day 11 - Cozumel - part 2

We then decided to head back to the Magic to get some lunch, and check on the kids, so we wandered back through the shopping area and I picked up some hot chilli sauce for some friends and ourselves and a bottle of Kahlua and some ridiculously low price, about one tenth of the price in the UK!
By the time we got on the ship I was still feeling a bit light headed after the margarita so I decided to have a rest on the bed for a wee while the others went for some lunch. After about an hour I met up with Tony at the Goofy pool and grabbed some chicken fingers and fries. We then went up on the deck and filmed us sailing away from Cozumel on the videocam, before going down to the cabin to get ready for the show and dinner.

This evening’s show was Twice Charmed, and it was really enjoyable and well-presented. By now the seas were quite rough and it was amazing how the dancers managed to dance so well and appear so graceful when the passengers were having trouble walking in a straight line! After the show we stopped by to watch the new artist Trevor Carlton, paint a picture in 30 minutes.

This was truly a sight to see - he was incredible and I have never seen anyone paint a picture in such an entertaining way. No doubt Taryn would be making her way to the art gallery later to commence stalking Trevor!

Dinner this evening was the island dinner in Parrot Cay and I had really been looking forward to this one after checking out the menus on-line!Tonight was the island dinner, and Laura looked lovely in her costume!

While waiting for dinner we caught Stephen colouring in the pictures on the kids menu!

The warm banana bread with banana butter dip which came with this dinner was absolutely divine and we had demolished a few servings of this before the entrees arrived. Most of us had the smokey chicken, vegetable and cheddar cheese fritters for our appetiser and these were really nice. I followed this with a Caesar salad. For entrée I chose the Caribbean roast chicken, which again was delicious, while Tony opted for the Island roasted rib eye of beef, which he really enjoyed. Dessert this evening was the wonderful Crème Brulee Cheesecake.

I certainly could not fault the food on the cruise so far, every single meal had been beyond even our high expectations. I forgot to say that Tony and I had ordered wine on our first evening as we do like a glass or two with our meal, and I was enjoying a delicious glass of Pinot Grigio with dinner every evening while Tony had a Shiraz. Our servers took the bottle away after dinner and brought it back out each evening until it was finished. Over the week I had 2 bottles and Tony had 3 - and it worked out really good value - well at least on a par with a decent restaurant over here. At the end of the meal Dennis amused everyone with some balancing cutlery:

After dinner we had our customary walk around the ship before going to bed. We also popped along to check out the Art Gallery and to our surprise found Taryn, and the others chatting to Trevor Carlton. Rockin Bar D had some Spring Break thing going on which didn’t really appeal, and the sea was getting a bit too rocky for me to sit for long in Sessions or Diversions. Tomorrow we were in Grand Cayman and I was really looking forward to our trip in “Johnny Depp’s” boat with Helen, Andy and family. Tomorrow was also Pirate Night, and as I am a Pirates of the Caribbean obsessive I had looked forward to this event since booking the cruise!

 

[anewmac]

Loved it!, man I wish we would have gone in to Senor Frog now to get pics on the swings LOL

 

[diberry]

What a shame the snorkelling was cancelled – that sounds like a lot of fun – next time maybe!!

The “real” world can be a bit of a shock – if only everywhere was like Disney! But it probably made the girls appreciate Disney even more!!

Love the “ceiling décor” in Senor Frog’s!

Margaritaville looks great right by the ocean – we love the one at Universal in Orlando – Dave’s a big Jimmy Buffett fan so we always go there.

Another great installment thank you Sarah!!

 

[knewton64]

Day 11: Cozumel - Part 1

....out in my backyard and wow! Are they ever comfortable......with a margarita.

Loving yer trip report!



**** 184 more days ****

 

[dvc4life]

Great update Sarah! Can't wait for your next post because the next port was my favorite of the trip!

 

[Disneygrl36]

Great update Sarah.
I have only been to Mexico once & I really have no desire to go back because of the very things you were talking about in your posts. I have never experience harassment like that ever anywhere & it does make you uncomfortable.
Loved u guys Wastin' away in Margaritaville.............

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Cruise Day 5: 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.

The galley was incredibly clean and very shiny!

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.

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:

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.

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.

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

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.

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:

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:

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.

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,

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!

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Cruise Day 5: part 2

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

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:

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!

 

[diberry]

WOW Sarah – you’re really spoiling us! How great to see so many brilliant photos and read so many details of your trip – the next best thing to being there!!

“apparently Johnny Depp’s 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!” You do of course realise that you are seriously loopy!!!

What a shame about missing that wonderful day you had planned – good to see you soon banished the disappointment. Love this: “my inconsolability was immediately consoled”. You have a great way with words!!

I love those professional photos too – they’re brilliant. So glad you had a good day after the initial disappointment!