continued....
We even spotted a real life pirate coming out of Captain Tonys, complete with a parrot and a peg leg, although the mobile phone he was using sort of shattered the illusion somewhat.
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.
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!
While waiting for the tram to depart back to the Magic I took a few photos in the Mallory Square area:
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.
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.
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 didnt 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.
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:
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 shouldnt have indulged so close to dinner! We also bumped into Captain Mickey looking all spooky in his Halloween costume:
Dinner this evening was the Captains Gala Dinner and we were once again dining in Animators Palette.
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.
All plans to abstain flew out of the window Im 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:
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:
and the witch you can see behind her in the following photo:
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 horses rear end, the best group by a group of castaway cay santas, and most disney by a very effective Ursula:
Infortunately I failed to get photos of the Santa group and the horses 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.
to be continued ..... (too many photos)
.
I will have to find our photo of it from 2002 and see what it looked like then....
but it's great to catch up. Love the photos! That one of Danny in the sea with the ship in the background is great - really shows how enormous it is!! That was a welcome bit of sunshine in the midst of all this snow!! More please!
I am getting on with the next bit but photobucket is being unpredictable this evening.
