RV's March 17th, 2007 Eastern "Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic'ed" Cruise

[Babs417]

Your doing it again

 

[wilma-bride]

Really enjoying this trippy. My DH is gonna rue the day I discovered the DCL board - I soooo wanna go cruisin'

 

[curlybop]

I leave in one week. Can we get atleast one more installment before then? Pleeease?

 

[MagicMe]

Waiting....

 

[ILUVEVERYTHINGDISNEY]

Great Report! I love reading everyones reports. I am new to this and we'll be going in Aug. 07. I can't wait. Very first cruise ever!

 

[Iluvcruising]

Great report. Loving every minute of It

 

[Audiologynet]

Thanks for such a great review. I am only on the first day and I am hooked..This is just what I needed!! Take Care

 

[Disneygrl36]

Hello?????????
Where is Royal Vizier????

 

[nenner1]

Hope you're ok out there RV!

You didn't break the bed again did you???

 

[MagicMe]

Get us hooked, and then leave us high and dry???

Hope everything is okay.

 

[Babs417]

I guess he got his Dis fix

 

[RoyalVizier]

Hey all,

I am SO sorry that it's been so long. I only have the usual excuse. Just been busy, sorry... here ya go.... and more to come today:

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 4 Part 1: A Blast from the Past and Under Two Flags

This morning we arranged a wake up call for 6am with Mickey Mouse himself. So he gave us a ring and told us it was time to start our day. I went up top to Deck 10 to see where we were and I could see us approaching St. Maarten in the distance. It was so gorgeous already! We were all (all meaning DW, DD, and I) so excited about the Eastern ports. We can’t really call the ports along the Western itinerary “beautiful”. We like then, but they aren’t necessarily visually beautiful like those of the Eastern.

I ran back down to the room to gather the group, and we headed back up top once more so that they could see that there was indeed still land out there after two days at sea. I took the in-laws all the way forward on Deck 9 where it was the windiest. MIL didn’t like that much. She hung on to the railing of a stairwell for dear life thinking she would be blown overboard at any moment. So we didn’t stay put long and headed inside for breakfast. So there we were, at our usual table inside by the window enjoying our breakfast when I look at my wife sitting across from me and her eyes are wide. She has a mouthful of eggs and a silly look on her face as she gazed over near the end of the buffet line? I wondered… was she choking? Were her eggs to runny? Did she realize she forgot her curling iron?

Well I turned to follower her gaze and lo and behold who was manning the juice station but Octavian, our server from last year. My wife sorta kinda fell in the love with the guy and wasted no time in becoming all gooey all over again. We went over to say Hi. She said, “I really don’t expect you to remember me, but you were our server last May.” He looked at her… really looked at her. You could see the wheels turning in there, and I could tell he didn’t remember. I mean, who can blame him and any of the other servers. Look how many people they see over the course of their contracts. Octavian looked to me, and his face changed. It appeared that the light bulb had gone off. He said that he did remember. I don’t know that I believe him, but it made DW happy. So I took a pic of DW and him and we went back to our breakfast.

We had the Under Two Flags excursion booked so we went back to the room, got ready, collected the in-laws and headed to the Rockin’ Bar D which was our meeting spot for disembarking. Pikey was our host. He told us that we were only in the right place if we were here for the Extreme Paintball Excursion. Funny guy. We did the necessarily forms, were sorted into groups, and were on our way down to Deck 1. We were the Red Pluto group so we followed the Red Pluto Paddle. It was surprisingly similar to the Purple Pumbaa Paddle of Power we followed last year.

Once we got off of the ship, we lined up waiting to be directed to our bus. While we were waiting we did have some entertainment from some of the ship's crew.

It was terrifying just looking at them! I think they were laughing at all of us gawking at them as they beautified the ship for our return later that afternoon.

We really enjoyed this excursion. If you remember (I know it’s been a long time, sorry), this was not the original plan for St. Maarten, but it really did work out. I’m going to have to give a really high level overview of our travels, because I am not one who remembers all kinds of facts, dates, and figures. We learned A LOT about the island. Our bus driver Jimmy shared A LOT with us, and he was an awesome guide. It was a beautiful day to be tooling around St. Maarten. We stopped at an overlook where we could get off the bus and wander around just a bit and take pictures. It rained just a bit here, but nothing major. Overall the weather was fantastically beautiful. One thing I couldn’t help but notice as I stared with my face pressed against the window was that I didn’t see a single stop sign anywhere. I could have missed them of course, but it appeared to me that everyone driving would just sort of share the duty of stopping at intersections and deciding who got to go next. Everyone was so friendly and nice and there was no shouting or honking or crazed drivers. A foreign concept to me. Our tour ended up in the downtown area where we had 45 minutes of free time before having to return to the ship. Jimmy told us that there was a flea market “over that way a bit” and gestured with his hands. Well, that’s where we wanted to be so he headed off in the direction that we thought he had indicated. This was a very interesting time for us. On last year’s Western cruise when we visited Key West, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel, we never ventured anywhere on our own. We were always in smack in the middle of tourist areas of shopping. So here we are in the middle of a downtown area and we’re walking in the wrong direction. Obviously. The streets are crazy narrow. There are islanders everywhere. There are sidewalks (if you could call them that) on the side of the road, but you must walk single file. Side by side just doesn’t work on these… curbs. Let’s call them curbs. Plus we have the in-laws in tow. Now if it had just been DW, DD, and me, I wouldn’t have cared in the least. Get lost, explore, have fun… experience the island, but with them… I was starting to get a little worried, because I knew that they wouldn’t put up with this wandering aimlessly thing. So I asked someone walking by. They didn’t speak English. We turned and went another direction… then another, then headed back the way we came towards the bus. On the way I asked a lovely young lady bussing a table in a small outdoor diner. She didn’t speak English either. It was a very strange feeling. DW and I are big fans of the Amazing Race on CBS, and we kept comparing this experience to what those teams must feel as they attempt to communicate and find their way around the globe. I’d be eliminated in nothing flat, let me tell ya. I don’t know how they do it.

Anyway, we got back to familiar territory where the busses drop and pick up, and well looky there… not a couple yards away pretty much in plain site is the flea market; a sea of blue tents.

Ah well, a little exploration never hurt anyone. I thought it was enlightening. The others were pretty much annoyed. So we looked around the flea market for awhile. There were unique items to explore, a lot of art and carvings, t-shirts, bags… DW and DD picked up a few things. Here's another one of my attempts to be artsy with the camera :

Soon it was time to get back on the bus. Jimmy drove us back to the ship. There were a few times we had to stop in the road to let goats pass (which was cool)!

The tour really was fantastic. I would highly recommend it to anyone who would like a leisurely, educational excursion on St. Maarten.

Up Next: I See Stars and Self Mutilation

 

[NHdisneylover]

Hurray--you posted! Hoping I get to see at least one more installment before I leave for the repo (leaving May 11--sailing May 12). PLEASE?

 

[curlybop]

Great installment! The part about waiting for goats had me cracking up though.

 

[RoyalVizier]

RV’s March 17th 7-night Eastern “Sharing the Magic with the Unmagic’ed” Cruise!

Cast of Characters:

Me – age 30
DW – age 34
DD – age 14
Father in Law (we’ll go with FIL on that one) – age 59
Mother in Law (we’ll go with MIL on that one) – age 59

Day 4 Part 2: I See Stars and Self Mutilation

So it was about 1pm when we got back on the ship. The plan was to have some lunch (because we were starving) and then get back off and go do some hefty shopping. DW and I wouldn’t have minded spending the entire day on the island without a ship-break in between, but the in-laws had had their fill of island life and were ready to go back to the room. So we boarded, had some lunch (chicken fingers!), DD headed off to the Stack, and DW and I got back off the boat.

DW and I were really excited about this leg of the journey, just the two of us. We wanted to end up on Front Street, but we weren’t quite sure how to get there. We decided to forgo and taxi and hoof it instead. We were up for the walk. Along the way we found a Mr. Tablecloth store (which we’d heard about from Martin during the shopping presentation the day prior). It’s an interesting little store. If you’re in need of some linens/tablecloths, it’s a must see attraction for sure. While we were in there it started to pour down rain, and we got a bit worried about walking, but it quickly let us to a near non-existent drizzle. We weren’t too worried about getting wet.

It was quite a walk to Front Street. A bit further than we imagined, but no big deal. It didn’t help that there was construction going on and we had to take a longer walk around than usual. We finally got to the Front Street area and as we were approaching (we hadn’t even walked onto the street yet) we were approached by this guy. He handed us two scratch off lottery type tickets and said we could win a fabulous prize. I pretty much immediately became a little uncomfortable because I never know exactly what to say or do in these types of situations. We figured what the heck, we’ll scratch the tickets and let him do his thing and be on our way. DW did her ticket and… nothing. Then I did mine... scratch…. A STAR …. scratch scratch… ANOTHER STAR … scratchity scratch scratch… THREE STARS! The guy completely flipped out. He told me that I should be jumping up and down raising a ruckus as I stood there with a deadpan look on my face. The guy said that he only had like three winning cards on him today and three stars meant the GRAND PRIZE!! I could choose from three fabulous prizes. I’m sorry, but I don’t even remember what they were. A cruise and a trip around the world and a trip to Mars or something like that. The guy then explained that all I had to do was go with him to their “company headquarters” which was right down the street, listen to a timeshare presentation, and then I could claim my prize. My uncomfortableness settled in just a bit more. Again, I just don’t know what to do in these situations. Do you believe them? Do you not? Is it really that easy? So he was practically begging us to go with him, because if we didn’t go, then he didn’t get HIS prize for handing out a winning card. We actually started to walk with him, but then I just piped up and said that we just didn’t have time for this, sorry, and I grabbed my wife’s hand and we just walked away leaving him standing there. Maybe one of you fine readers can tell me if I’m a stupid person… did I pass up a trip to Mars? Who knows? Ah well… I didn’t have a trip to Mars prior to the cruise; I’m no worse off now.

So we wandered around for quite a while. We enjoyed this shopping experience very much. I made the mistake of taking my wife into Columbian Emeralds International. We were there for a long while. A lovely woman named Sandy helped us and yes, eventually sold DW a ring. It needed to be sized so we wandered around a bit more waiting for that to be done. We ran across a catholic church which had character. Again, I went crazy with the camera:

As we wandered we saw David, our server, and Mario, our room host. They deserve their days off, that’s for sure! Actually, they don’t even get days off do they? More like time off. After we picked up DW’s ring and thanked Sandy, we were pretty beat so we started our trek back. We took a bit of a different route on the way back. We walked along a beautiful street along the water. We could see the Magic over there in the dock, the water was gorgeous, and there were atmospheric bars and restaurants. I don’t know the name of the street but it’s the street in front of Front Street. It was great.

By the time we got back to the ship, we were pretty beat! But… we needed ice cream! It was SO necessary! We enjoyed some ice cream while lounging near the Cove Café. We popped into Shutters and were disappointed in our portraits from the previous night, and went down to the room to rest. No flopping involved this time.

Tonight was Pirate Night! I decided to get gussied up pirate style:

Hey, that’s as gussied up as I get, folks… at least for pirate night.

Yes, that is a Pirate Mickey tattoo on my cheek… pay close attention to it as it will be the focus of a segment forthcoming. I warn you now: It is not for the faint of heart. Small children should be escorted from the room.

Pirate Night really is a blast. We headed down to the lobby. The entertainment staff was down there wandering around in pirate garb. We surprised Pikey with a photo:

Dinner was in Parrot Cay this evening, perfect for Pirate Night. I had a delicious pork dish with some banana concoction for dessert.

After dinner, we trucked our stuffed selves back to the room… sorry, no Pirate Party this time, no deck dessert buffet. We’re just such boring, tired people all the time.

When we got back to the room we got into our jammies and I wanted to get the tattoo off of my cheek. I have never worn a temporary tattoo before and wondered… how does one remove this thing? Aha! The directions. Yes, I am a male that reads directions, call me crazy. It said to wipe gently with baby oil or use scotch tape to remove it. Uh… well… by golly I just didn’t pack either of those things. So for those of you keeping track of and updating packing lists… evidently tape and baby oil are must have items. I figured that surely this could not be a difficult thing; it’s a temporary tattoo on my cheek! It’ll wipe right off. So I go into the bathroom and soak a washcloth in some surprisingly scalding water and start to rub. I rub and rub and Pirate Mickey is still there… perfectly intact, staring with that swashbuckling look of his. So I rub a bit harder, not to the point of pain, but I’m applying some pressure. Hmmm… he’s still there. I apply some soap to the wash cloth and lather it up and start to rub some more, but all that appeared to do is make Pirate Mickey mad. And bubbly. So I swear to you that Mickey fought back, and I rubbed and scrubbed and then the pain began to set in, but did I stop? Nope, not at all. He wasn’t going to win this one. He had to go! So as the very cells of my face began to peel away… as the softness of the wash cloth began to feel more like sandpaper, I just rubbed and rubbed. Finally I began to win the fight as Mickey started to dissolve away, from the ears down until he was gone. I was triumphant!! And my cheek was a red, raw, flaming red mess. So…

Am I the stupidest person on the planet? Quite possibly. I needed you all to hear this so that you won’t make the same mistake. The moral of the entire day: Pack transparent tape and baby oil.

Up Next: A Battle for Breakfast and More Stars

 

[anty30]

Great reading. Keep it up.

 

[firstmickey]

Im sorry but....





Im sure I'll have more to say when I'm done laughing at you, you lunatic.



and hey..Mars, Pa is a couple of towns over from me...you should have taken the trip!

 

[curlybop]

Note to self: Do not apply temporary tattoos unless baby oil is present. That is so funny. Thanks for 2 great installments today! I'll check back when we return to see if you've updated

 

[RoyalVizier]

I'll check back when we return to see if you've updated

Ohhhh ouch... that hurt!

 

[pppiglet]

Thanks for the tip on baby oil. I packed some tattoos for our trip, but no baby oil! (of course I wasn't going to put them on my face!!!)