She said it wouldn't be boring!-WONDER WB Caribbean cruise - Bonus Posts Wrap up

[Pinkocto]

Beautiful sunrise pictures!!!

Still haven't had room service after five cruises. One day I'm sure.

You, Anna, and Elsa really do look like you're having a serious conversation. Too cute!


Yep, we'll have to grab you and Fran for a funnel vision. There's just something about it

I'm loving all your photos around the ship!!!

And how did I not know Goofys Galley had all those options

 

[mvf-m11c]

Very nice pictures of the sunrise. I am very impressed with your pictures. That lens that you used during your DCL trip is coming in handy.

Walking around Wonder is amazing and seeing all your different pictures.

Nice photos with Anna and Elsa.

 

[Luvchefmic]

Good Grief I missed all the planning but now I get to read all about it sorry but now I'm here

 

[franandaj]

I am catching up!

Totally laughing at Jim. My tummy is sore from my recent bout of sickness and the laugh is not helping matters!!!

The treatments have me green with envy.

Love the food porn.



And Alison!!!!! I think you're hooked on the photobabble.
Great shots of sunset. I can't wait to see what else you've been taking with your new lens.

I hope that you and DS are feeling better. Didnt mean to make you laugh and cause pain. The food porn gets better for a bit! I'm surprised I didn't come back with a lot of extra pounds!

Slowly but surely my Jr. High photo journalism skills are coming back. I dont know if I have many other artsy photos coming. We did a lot of eating and drinking!

Lovely sunrise shots, especially the last two.

I sooo miss reading through the Navigators at night, planning out our next days activities.

What a fun meet with A&E! I love the one of you looking at Elsa over your glasses

Oooh a date with a chef?!

Thanks on the sunrise compliments. I know reading through the Navigators is one of the funnest parts, planning your schedule for the next day. I need more sea days!

I have no clue what I was saying in that pic you liked. I love it when Fran just shoots the pictures before we start posing. Those are usually the funniest shots!

Well me and about 10 others had the date with the chef.

Those sunrise photos look amazing as I'm sitting here freezing my rear off (I wish I could *literally* freeze my rear off!).

Even on days I can sleep in, I can rarely sleep past 7. It's terrible!

Disney's room service breakfast isn't that great. In fact, I really don't love any of their breakfasts.

I'm pretending I understand the photobabble!

Love love love the pics of you guys with A&E. I want Fran's shirt!

Jill in CO

It was actually fairly cool on this trip. I was glad I had some T-shirts and not just sleeveless tanks. Room service doesn't have a lot of choices, but the cereal tides me over when I want a nice lunch.

The photobabble is rather basic. Yes, Elsa rather liked Fran's shirt!

Love, love, love, the sunrise photos!

Thank you very much!

 

[Chenza]

Love the photos! We were the couple (adults) that were behind you for Anna and Elsa and the mixology class!

 

[franandaj]

That is great news that you have restored your morning vitality. I'll have what she's having lol..

I love your sunrise photos. What a morning delight! Now you def have need to upgrade to conceirge on The Fantasy or The Dream. That 20,000 coffee machine will have you as happy as clams.

I love the fact A & E were on your ship. What a great bonus. Great photos of you. Fran not tempted? I know you said she's not super keen on photos of herself. Not even with the princess A & E?

Looking forward to hearing about dinner tonight! Sounds like you might have Palo's or something equally as great....

Somehow, I don't think it was anything I ate or drank! I bet the $20K espresso machine they have on the Dream is the same one that they have at Concierge at the Grand Californian. If so, I love that machine! But we can't upgrade, not with three more cruises to pay for. We decided that we can do more cruises if we don't go Concierge.

Fran did get in the picture, she was in the last picture, but she always takes pictures of me and lets me go take pictures first since I enjoy it more. We might have Palo.

Beautiful sunrise pictures!! That's one of the best parts of a veranda on a cruise.

The Anna and Elsa Meet looked fun. I just love Elsa's dress.

Thanks! This was the only morning that we had a view of the Sunrise, so I'm glad I took advantage of it. I do go out on the Verandah every morning, and a few more times each day.

They both loved my dress and asked if I was going to a Coronation or a Ball that day.

Love your report so far! Your cat man story had me giggling! what a sight! The sunset/sunrise pics are really beautiful!

I'm glad you got a kick out of his story! He is quite the character. I'm just relearning the camera, so I'm glad the pictures came out well.

I want to thank you for the photobabble! I am taking a photography class right now to try to learn how to better use my DSLR. Until now I stuck with the automatic settings, and it's pretty amazing to learn how to get better pictures! So thanks for the discussion on ISOs (just learned that this week!)and please continue the babble (that's the closest to a camera I could find!)

I'm glad you enjoyed the photo babble. For me it's funny. I knew this backwards and forwards in 7th and 8th grade, but stopped taking pictures with the good camera until recently, and I used the "Auto" setting. But I got frustrated seeing the pictures that PIO and Bret post on their TRs and knew I could take Dark Ride pictures and long exposures, so I just started playing with it and slowly it started to come back to me.

The best thing to do is just play with the settings and keep checking your pictures after you click the shutter, and adjust accordingly.

Fantastic sunrise photos! If I wake up that early on my next cruise I might have to play with the camera.

Some of the best shots you get are in the morning on the ship!

Geez - a M&G with Anna and Elsa with no real wait? Almost worth the price of the cruise!

That was really cool! I hear it's like 5-6 hours at WDW and now DL has a FP system that you can get a return time in the morning as long as they still have them. Rumor is the passes are gone by 10:30AM. I never get out there that early because I'm just not motivated to get up and have DL day unless we stay at the VGC.

My upcoming vacation is truly the only thing keeping me sane......as I post this from work. I am SO excited for our day!

Love the room service too but how do you make the coffee drinkable? I tried for 5 mornings but couldn't figure it out. Its just terrible.

LOVE LOVE LOVE your sunrise photos. They are stunning. Can I steal one? May have to use one for my FB cover photo.

No FunnelVision? No worries between Pam and myself, we'll catch a movie with you in October. Its one of my favorite things to do.

Cute A&E pics.

You will make it to your trip and we will have a blast! If I can keep up with you all! Didn't you read? I couldn't make it drinkable! I gave up after the first day. Sure you can steal away!

We just had so many other things going on (all the drinking sessions, spa treatments, dinners, we like sit down lunches and dinners). We barely had any time that we just chilled in the room. I think Fran got tired towards the end of the cruise with how much we did.

beautiful pictures, I like the jack of all trades lens also, I have an 18 -200mm that I lug along for most things.

your character meet looks like fun, I wonder what you were saying with that look over your glasses?


I like Fran's "let it go" on her shirt, it matched your met up.

I know they were telling me that they come to the Kingdom of Disneyland often, I did ask Elsa to make it cool there. I think she did because it has been much cooler since we got back!

I picked that shirt for her that morning, it was convenient, but also I thought it would be appropriate.

Just wanted to say hi and thank you for your TR. I love reading them - helps during long boring days at work (don't tell the boss )

Its all looking WONDERful so far, cant wait to read more

TC

I'm glad I can help you through boring days. I'm glad the DIS wasn't around when I was working, the Internet was still pretty new and social media hadn't hit yet. I would have been in trouble at work!

Love the photos! We were the couple (adults) that were behind you for Anna and Elsa and the mixology class!

I'm glad to see you joining in! If you do a trip report, post a link, I love following other reports of folks on the same cruise and see how their trip works out! I don't think we ran into each other after that day. It almost seemed like I was stalking you, we did so many of the same things that first day!

 

[Chenza]

I saw you around the ship a few times! I also love reading trip reports, and decided to do my very first one from this cruise. We did a back to back.

Here is the link if anyone is interested.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3351545

 

[franandaj]

I saw you around the ship a few times! I also love reading trip reports, and decided to do my very first one from this cruise. We did a back to back.

Here is the link if anyone is interested.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3351545

Hopped over and signed on!

 

[franandaj]

The Art of Entertaining

On this day at sea, they were doing a Chef’s demo of one of the ship’s appetizers. I still had a few minutes before the demo began. It was in Studio Sea which was on Deck 4 so I stopped into the gift shop. The night before we had only made it to the Treasure Ketch, the store that sells the D&B purses, fine jewelry, Adult merchandise and other such things. I thought I would take a look around at Mickey’s Mates which sells more whimsical wares, stuffed animals, kid’s clothes, garb for Pirate night and other such items.

I loved this baby Marie, I ended up getting one.



Captain Mickey decorates this establishment.



In the hall outside the stores.







I love the classic styling of the hallway here.



At least one of the ships still has a beautiful chandelier hanging over the atrium.



Here’s a better shot of that Halloween decoration from the previous day.



Goofy came by while I was waiting



The Princess gathering was going on downstairs, I could have gotten a ticket for that too if I wanted.



Here’s where I was headed





The stage was all set



I was a little early





They passed out these recipe cards





Our chef was the Chef de Cuisine from Animator’s Palate



While the risotto itself cooked, he peeled the Portabello mushrooms that would make up the garnish for the rice.



There were many components to this dish, there was the risotto itself, the mushroom garnish, a tomato salsa garnish and a sauce the goes on the plate before plating. This sauce required flambe which he performed for us.



One of my favorite parts of these cooking demos, is that they bring you a little taste of the dish along with a wine pairing. It appears that we didn’t get any of the special sauce or the tomato salsa with ours, but it was still very good!



One of the wine stewards took us through a quick tasting on the wine, and let us know the winery and varietal. It was not all that special for me, a Beringer Chardonnay. Being from California that comes a dime a dozen, but it was still tasty.



This was the Chef’s final version of the dish.



After the demo, I headed back to the spa to meet up with Fran. On the way I took this picture of the map outside the Walt Disney Theater. At this point, we were just passing Cuba and you could see it from the boat.



I went to the spa, and found Fran’s scooter parked in the entrance, so I knew that she was still working on her treatment. It was supposed to be a 50 minute treatment, and once it had been about an hour and a quarter, I started to call her on the wave phone. Well neither of us seemed to know how to use it. I was calling, but she didn’t know that it was her phone that was ringing. The gal next to her had to tell her what the noise was, and I don’t even think she heard it.

After a series of calls and hang ups, one of the gals from behind the front desk saw both of us trying to use the phone and figured out we were trying to get in touch with each other. She took me back to the treatment room to see Fran. She was almost done, but evidently her feet were so bad that her technician had to spend extra time scraping off all the dead skin. She prescribed her all kinds of foot creams and a regimen for me to perform on her feet so that they don’t get as bad as they were. Circulation was inhibited and all kinds of other things detrimental to her overall health. Happy feet and all, we headed off to the cabin.

[Continued in Next Post]

 

[franandaj]

[Continued from Previous Post]

Before we could hand out the FEE gifts, I needed to assemble the last bit of them. I wasn’t very creative and I vow to do better on the next cruise, I got some great ideas from this ship. But I had found some little Princess coloring books with crayons at the Disney store for the girls 3-8, I had some Mickey cameras that talked for the young boys (there were no older ones) and princess nail polish for the older girls.

I drew a complete blank on the adults and short of making them items out of duct tape (that was inspired by Captain Oblivious’s daughter), I decided on food items. I found some packages of shortbread cookies with jam from Knott’s and Ghiradelli Chocolates individually wrapped. I bagged those up with a tag that read, some treats from California for you!

What I had to assemble on the ship was I had purchased some little chocolates in the shape of liquor bottles and they were filled with booze like Sauza, Frangelico, Cointreau, Jim Beam and four other liquors. Since I thought Disney might consider these as “beverages” I didn’t want to take a chance, so I carried the box on with our other booze. I had little burlap bags intended for wedding favors that I had picked up at Walmart and I had printed tags that read, “some treats for the adults” Everyone got about half a dozen of these for every two adults in the room, and more if there were three adults in the group. Once these were assembled, we headed out to lunch. I brought all the FEE gifts along so that if we had time we could distribute them. We had already received quite a few in our FE. Here are some of the gifts that we had received











This is another one that I got from Magdalene, she mentioned on her TR that having lunch at Triton’s was a nice way feel like you were relaxing on a cruise. Since it had been a year and a half since my last cruise, I was SO ready to feel pampered. With a mixology class at 2PM and Palo Dinner that night, lunch at Triton’s sounded like the perfect way to go.

While assembling my chocolate boozes, I also put together a tip that I picked up from Karin and Tom. On their cruises, because they come from Austria, they are always bringing the chocolates from Europe that many of the CMs miss and love. While we can’t get European chocolates at an affordable price, we did purchase bags of Ghiradelli at either Sam’s or Costco, Fran picked up some marked down Hershey bars, and we got some Nutella snacks, and individually wrapped Godiva Truffles.

I had a resuable shopping bag that I had placed all my extra candy inside the suitcase, so I opened all the various bags and dumped all the loose candy into the shopping bag. Everything was individually wrapped so it was safe from germs and stuff. We carried this bag with us in the back of the scooter and gave handfuls of it to servers, photographers, character handlers, any CM that we encountered throughout the cruise. It went over splendidly!

Armed with our gifts, we headed off to lunch. I love this mural and it was put together by hand by about half a dozen ladies who are artisans.



The lunch bread service



The Menu







They know their clientele, the Angus Chuck burger is on every menu, while the other selections change daily. Evidently on the Panama Canal Cruises they offer a different menu daily. That’s pretty good for a 16 day cruise (or is it longer?)

We both got the Assorted Seafood Sampler



She got the Chilled Mango Soup, evidently chilled fruit soups are high on Fran’s list, so I did good choosing this place for lunch!



As a creature of habit, she got the Angus Chuck Burger. She gave me half of it, but in the end I ended up giving her back half of what she gave me, so I actually ate a quarter of this. It was really good. I would recommend it as a good solid burger.



I went with the meatloaf. It was very tasty, but even this small portion was too much for me!



For dessert she went with the Key Lime Pie and proclaimed it delicious!



I didn’t really fancy anything on the regular menu, so I went with the default that is always on the menu, a Mickey bar!



I’m pretty sure I had a glass of wine with lunch, but only one. With the Mixology class at 2PM, I wanted to be able to walk for the rest of the day. As they took care of the check and made sure we were happy, we gave them some of the candy, they were thrilled. On the way out, we gave the gal who provided us with wipes a couple pieces of candy and she got so excited that she hugged us both. This candy thing was proving to be a hit!

 

[PrincessInOz]

I LOVE the Marie. How gorgeous!
Seems like Fran got a great foot treatment. Did it help relax her as well?
Great cooking class. That risotto looks great.
And your FE gifts looks exciting. Did you like them? I would have loved those chocolate chips.

Tell Fran that I picked exactly the same 3 dishes she had for lunch. I hope that Mango soup was good.

 

[jedijill]

Fun FE gifts! I bet you were very popular. Glad Fran got a great treatment and hope her feet enjoyed it as well! Lunch looks tasty.

Jill in CO

 

[franandaj]

I LOVE the Marie. How gorgeous!
Seems like Fran got a great foot treatment. Did it help relax her as well?
Great cooking class. That risotto looks great.
And your FE gifts looks exciting. Did you like them? I would have loved those chocolate chips.

Tell Fran that I picked exactly the same 3 dishes she had for lunch. I hope that Mango soup was good.

Marie will be an easier travel kitty than Lucifer and fits better in the suitcase! I think Fran felt a lot better after the foot treatment. I liked our FE gifts, later we got some even nicer ones.

She really liked the Mango soup. The burger was really good, should have just split it and we would have been plenty full.

Fun FE gifts! I bet you were very popular. Glad Fran got a great treatment and hope her feet enjoyed it as well! Lunch looks tasty.

Jill in CO

I hope people liked my gifts! Some people gave us some really nice ones, I felt a little bad. Maybe next cruise I will be craftier. I need to keep up on her feet, she bought all the stuff to keep them nice and soft and healthy.

 

[Pinkocto]

Oh those steak fries are sooooooo good! It's fun doing the sitdown lunches.

Your risotto semimar looked great. Mom would love to do that.

Your FE gifts look great, and what a cool idea about the candy for the CMs

There were a few times Jenny was calling me on the wave phone and I swore it sounded like somebody elses phone ringing! How nice the CM saw what was going on.

 

[skier_pete]

DW did that culinary demo on the wild mushroom risotto. She really raved about it to the point that she ordered an extra portion when we went to Palo. (A third meal that we couldn't possibly finish!)

We never did get to Triton's for lunch, though I wanted to.

 

[rentayenta]

Joshua got the same lunch as Fran at Tritons minus the burger. He loved the chilled soup.

I read, I spaced, I'm fried.

I think the shops are just darling. Dd the other ships get rid of or never have those chandeliers like the Wonder's? I think it's just magnificent.

Thank you for permission to snag a pic. Simply gorgeous.

You'll be able to keep up. I've seen your recent park meet pics. Maybe bring your scooter but I think you'll be fine. It'll be our 3rd park day and I don't think we'll feel the need to see it all as usual. This trip is five days parks and our last have been 1-2. It'll be at a much more relaxed pace.

 

[OurDogCisco]

All caught up, I love the trip report. I even added Kelly's Landing to my tripadvisor. Jim is a hoot. I love how the ship is decorated for Halloween. Can't wait to read the rest.

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

I don’t know what has come over me this year, for a long time I couldn’t wake up before 9AM.

That all changed on the trip to Monument Valley this year. I was up every morning at Sunrise taking photos and generally just restless and unable to sleep any longer. Since moving into the new house, I no longer cringe at the morning sun creeping into the bedroom and I’m generally up and atem before 9AM even though there is usually no compelling reason to get up, other than I need to get up to start my day.

Being an early riser is a good thing! You can miss out on a lot when staying in bed.

For those who don’t know Fran recently bought this new lens, a Sigma DC 18-250mm.

We have the same one on our camera!

As I said, I have limited my pictures to the best of pre sunrise, sunrise and sun rising.

Beautiful pictures!

Then I was back to the verandah for more pictures.

Stunning!

This worked out really well. Everyone pretty much showed up at their appointed times and we didn’t have to wait long at all. I have no idea what we’re all chit chatting about here, but we seem to be having a marvelous time!

Wondering why Elsa is hanging out in the Caribbean?

I drew a complete blank on the adults and short of making them items out of duct tape (that was inspired by Captain Oblivious’s daughter)

You can do awesome things with duct tape!

 

[franandaj]

Oh those steak fries are sooooooo good! It's fun doing the sitdown lunches.

Your risotto semimar looked great. Mom would love to do that.

Your FE gifts look great, and what a cool idea about the candy for the CMs

There were a few times Jenny was calling me on the wave phone and I swore it sounded like somebody elses phone ringing! How nice the CM saw what was going on.

I need to take longer cruises! There wasn't enough time to do things twice! Well maybe twice, but I would like to have those steak fries again!

Yeah, we never really did get those wave phones down.

DW did that culinary demo on the wild mushroom risotto. She really raved about it to the point that she ordered an extra portion when we went to Palo. (A third meal that we couldn't possibly finish!)

We never did get to Triton's for lunch, though I wanted to.

The risotto in Palo is good, but they are slightly different, the one from AP had a Pinot Noir base and I think the one Palo was a port sauce. Triton's is by far my favorite lunch!

 

[franandaj]

Joshua got the same lunch as Fran at Tritons minus the burger. He loved the chilled soup.

I read, I spaced, I'm fried.

I think the shops are just darling. Dd the other ships get rid of or never have those chandeliers like the Wonder's? I think it's just magnificent.

Thank you for permission to snag a pic. Simply gorgeous.

You'll be able to keep up. I've seen your recent park meet pics. Maybe bring your scooter but I think you'll be fine. It'll be our 3rd park day and I don't think we'll feel the need to see it all as usual. This trip is five days parks and our last have been 1-2. It'll be at a much more relaxed pace.

So no main course? The Magic used to have a similar chandelier, but has since removed it. The one that they put in the ship pales in comparison. I'll have to bring my scooter, and still I think you guys will wear me out!

All caught up, I love the trip report. I even added Kelly's Landing to my tripadvisor. Jim is a hoot. I love how the ship is decorated for Halloween. Can't wait to read the rest.

I may be spoiling a future update, but we went back to Kelly's Landing the day we got off the ship. Fran had bad food poisoning that day. She says it was from the Fish & Chips, but I ate all the same things she did. We had a number of other dishes there as well, not just the fish and chips. I think it could have also been the breakfast on the ship, we didn't eat the same things there. Other people from our conference ate at Kelly's with no ill consequences, so who knows what actually did it.

She also got a diet soda from a Burger King that day. We will never know what actually did it, but she thinks it was the Fish & Chips.

Being an early riser is a good thing! You can miss out on a lot when staying in bed.

Now if I can just get Fran onboard with the program!

We have the same one on our camera!

I'm assuming that you and Julie like it?

Beautiful pictures!



Stunning!

Thank you!

Wondering why Elsa is hanging out in the Caribbean?

You can do awesome things with duct tape!

So I've learned. They even have duct tape with Anna and Elsa on it!