thewise family's 4-day cruise 12/05-12/09 (complete in this thread!)

[erikthewise]

12/05 Sun: When You Wish Upon Two Stars/Harry Potter Festival

We had flown in Saturday morning and spent the day at Wilderness Lodge, staying at a studio in the Villas. We left for Port Canaveral at 9:50 Sunday morning. Even though I-4 was probably not too busy at that time, I couldn’t resist taking 417 to 528, a very pleasant drive. We stopped at the Publix at exit 45 to pick up some diet coke, bottled water, and sundries.

The whole process of going through security, dropping off luggage and family, and parking the rental car went more smoothly than last time thanks to experience. Walking back to the terminal there were a couple card tables with a bunch of people gathered around. I wondered what was going on but kept walking. “Sir! You have to show ID!” Really? Here? I expected that to happen in the terminal. They looked like a couple of old men who were selling T-shirts or something. For some reason they were slow and a line had built up.

When we went upstairs and tried to register, we were given Bahamas immigration forms to fill out before we could get in line! It took several minutes to fill out the same information on four different forms; I knew we hadn’t done this last time! We finally got to the registration desk about noon, and at the end of that process we were given a form for registering our children in their club. Apparently this is new procedure designed to make it more convenient by registering your children before boarding. But I didn’t want to deal with yet another unexpected form and said so. The CM apologized for the immigration forms, saying that the Bahamian government had temporarily run out of them so they could not be sent in advance. Boarding had begun during our registration so we got in line, and before long we were getting our embarkation photo!

We went straight to Parrot Cay for lunch. I felt this was the best meal of the cruise outside of Palo. The peel & eat shrimp were great, there was a killer chocolate cake for dessert, and everything was high quality. After we finished lunch, I hustled over to Wavebands to do Palo reservations. I wasn’t really aware that they started at 1:00, but even if I had been, I probably would have preferred to eat lunch with my family. By the time I got there at 1:18, the last day was already booked up. I suspect that most if not all of it went to REAS packages booked in advance. There were two lines, and no CM was able to explain clearly what each line was for (none were native speakers of English, so I don’t blame them), so I got in the right line as it was shorter. It turned out the left line was for Monday and Wednesday, the right line for Sunday and Tuesday. We couldn’t do Sunday (today) as we wanted 6:00 and the clubs would not be open for children yet. So we ended up with Palo dinner on Tuesday. DW was disappointed as that meant we would (again) miss Parrot Cay for dinner. We also got the Wednesday brunch.

I came back to our cabin (7554) but the rest of family wasn’t there yet. In our cabin I found Castaway Club gifts: a nice Castaway Cay beach towel and a couple pins. I wonder how many of these towels Barb has? Or does she donate them to charity?

I looked out our balcony, and off to the left was the behemoth RCI Mariner of the Seas. The other ship in port was the Carnival Fantasy. I had picked out this cabin when I booked 13 months out, as being close to midship stairs (but not so close as to risk any noise), and on the starboard side instead of port as we were on our first cruise. It was only a few weeks before departure when DW asked if I’d chosen 7554 because our street address is 1554. I hadn’t even noticed!

I filled out the registration form for the boys while I was waiting. The others came along after a few minutes, and said they’d been playing ping-pong up on deck 9 while I was in Wavebands. DS11 said he hit a ball over the side into the ocean. Better to do that in port I guess than in the middle of the Atlantic. But a couple days later I noticed that the ping-pong tables all seemed to be in areas that are completely enclosed by Plexiglas, so I have no idea how he did it.

We took the boys down to the Oceaneer Lab and got them registered. At ages 8 and 11, they both went to the same place, and the older one could check himself in and out. Thank goodness – on our first cruise they were 8 and 5, so they were in different rooms, and it seemed like we spent half the cruise running around checking them in and out.

I led them to the “secret room” (deck 7 aft observation). We could see in the distance the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, one of the largest buildings in the world, possibly the largest in terms of enclosed volume. It is 68% larger than the Pentagon! There were only three other people back there; one of them had a MouseFest badge on. (This was the official MouseFest cruise, though I didn’t know it at the time I booked.) He said he got it from a reception desk down in Studio Sea, so I went down there to get a pocket guide to MouseFest activities and some other paraphernalia.

When I returned the boys were watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on TV. It turned out there were five movies channels with different selections, but all of them played Harry Potter at least once a day, so at nearly any time day or night Harry Potter was playing on some channel. We must’ve seen the entire movie about three times over during the cruise. And guess what somebody’s getting for Christmas.

Soon it was time for the lifeboat drill. The life vests were somewhat easier to figure out than last time (experience helps even three years later), and the drill seemed to take less time than before. But guess what! If you’re on starboard, you get to stare into the sun during the lifeboat drill! Bring sunglasses.

We went up on deck about 4:30 for the sailaway party, and joined a group of Mousefesters on deck 10 port side. After just a couple minutes, we noticed that the Fantasy was already moving! The boys went down to deck 9 to dance on the covered Goofy pool, and after a while we went down and joined them. Whether you’re dancing or singing along or just watching, it’s a fun party for all ages (except maybe 14-25), with good music.

When 5:00 came and it was time to get underway, the Wonder played its trademark seven-note salute, “when you wish upon a star”, and we traded several more traditional toots with the Mariner. DS8 said he wanted some ice cream, so we went back to Scoops and got some for him, then went back up to deck 10 to watch the ship move down the channel. The boys kept bugging us to return to our cabin but we didn’t. When we came to the end of the channel and headed out into the open ocean, “when you wish upon a star” was played again. On the way out to sea, we got a really good view of Cocoa Beach.

Dinner our first night was at Tritons. We were assigned to table #4 ,which (appropriately enough) was a table for four. On our first cruise we had been asked by our TA whether we wanted to be seated alone or with others, and DW chose the latter. This time we weren’t asked, but DW said it was OK being alone (whew!). Our servers were Zion-Alexander from St. Vincent, and Marina from Argentina. DW wanted to call her Martina, and I wanted to call her Maria, but pretty soon we both got it right. Alexander said he’d been working on board for five years, and that was only the second time he’d heard “when you wish upon a star” played twice. So I guess we were lucky; but I still don’t know which one was the “extra” one.

For dinner I had the Shrimp Medley and Boston Bibb Lettuce, and Braised Lamb Shank for an entrée (sans wine sauce). DW had one of the other salads and the Stack of Vegetables. DS11 had the Grilled Sirloin “Lighter Fare” from the adult menu. Lighter than a brick, perhaps, but he got a lot of food even for an adult. DS8 had macaroni & cheese from the child menu.

The Shrimp Medley was fine, including the same scrumptious shrimp as at Parrot Cay. They were pre-peeled this time, but limited in number. There were also some baby shrimp; call me a malcontent but it seems to me a "medley" should have at least three varieties!

My lamb turned out to be a disaster, badly overcooked, dried out, and the consistency of shoe leather. I would like to indulge my paranoia and imagine it was somehow related to my asking for no wine sauce, the cook saying “no wine sauce, eh! I’ll fix him!”. But in reality I’m sure they were much too busy in the kitchen for such revenge. Nevertheless it is a real problem at Triton and Palo finding entrees that don’t involve alcohol in the cooking (which I find repulsive). And when I try to ask for it prepared without the alcohol, it often leads to problems. I wish they would just concentrate on good preparation and not add alcohol to so many dishes to give a faux sense of sophistication.

But at the time I simply thought “these idiots don’t know how to cook lamb”. I almost never send dishes back, but in this case I really had no choice. The head server came along and asked about our dinners, and I explained the problem with the lamb. He was great about it, not only offering to replace it with another entrée (I asked for the salmon) but personally seeing to it himself. He even brought it with four little polenta cakes as I had said something about liking the polenta that came with the lamb. The salmon was fine though nothing special. I had two desserts, both of which I’d never had before, crème brulee and a Mickey ice cream bar! DS8 joined me in the Mickey bar, and DW and DS11 also had dessert.

After dinner the boys went to their club for open play. Guess what they did? They found that the PCs had the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban computer game! They have the first two games on the computer at home, and were anxious to investigate this new one..

DW wasn’t up to going to the show, so I went by myself to see Hercules: The Muse-ical. Of course it was similar to the same show three years ago, but I was surprised at what was different. I remembered Hades, Meg, and the Chorus completely dominating the show last time, and that was still largely true. But this time Fear and Panic just about stole the show with their antics. Meg’s role was either reduced or just not played as strongly (or both). Young Hercules gave a very strong performance of “Go the Distance”. And one of the smallest parts, “Sparky” (Phil’s assistant) for some reason really caught my attention. It wasn’t that the actress was especially attractive, but she seemed to have an unusual level of energy, and was a terrific dancer. Somehow she stole my heart even though her role was so small most people can’t even name it.

After the show the boys wanted to stay in their club, so DW and I went to Studio Sea to watch Mickey Mania (a Disney trivia quiz show) for awhile. When that was over we dragged the boys out of their club and back to the cabin so we could go to bed.

 

[erikthewise]

12/06 Mon: Around Nassau Town We Did Walk

I remembered on our first cruise that I had been running on a treadmill in the Spa as we approached Nassau, and what a thrill it was to have a view of the bridge and the rapidly approach landmass. Anxious to repeat this experience, I set my watch alarm for 6:30, got dressed in my running clothes, and got to the Spa at 6:50. It opened a coupled minutes early, and I got right on the treadmill. The other treadmills filled up within a few minutes of opening, as did the other aerobics equipment.

I kept straining my eyes for land in the distance, and at one point I thought I could see something, but I was wrong. I could see Nassau on the bridge computer screens, but we weren’t close enough to see it. Apparently we were a little later arriving this time. After 25 minutes I gave up treadmill and returned to our cabin to shower.

We ate breakfast at Beach Blanket Buffet. I don’t remember doing so on our first cruise as I preferred breakfast at Triton’s so I could get fresh grapefruit and Eggs Benedict. But after this cruise I’m sold on the buffet. The food is very good and it takes a lot less time. This morning I took advantage of the omelet station. We finished just as the ship was approaching Nassau. We went up to deck 10 to watch the ship dock. The boys got bored and decided to play basketball, but DW and I watched as the ship made a 180° turn and backed into port! We were parked next to the Holland America Oosterdam (pronounced, "OH-ster-dam"), a much smaller ship. Neither of the other ships from Port Canaveral were to be seen – no doubt they were going on 7-day cruises.

We dropped the boys off at their clubs, not to see them again until 3:45, and returned to our cabin to get ready for our walking tour of Nassau. This was a (free) MouseFest event led by Dave Marx, co-author of the Passporter Guide series. We met at 9:45 by the Walt Disney Theatre, then disembarked (along with many others) and regrouped outside. There was some confusion about whether someone had been left behind in the visitor center washroom, and we didn’t really get started until after 10:15.

The first few blocks involved a bunch jewelry stores (though not nearly as many as St. Thomas!) and ceaseless, albeit largely polite, solicitations for tours, cabs, and hair braiding. This pretty much ceased once we got a couple a couple blocks inland.

So what did we see? First was a very old stone church that dated from the 1600’s and had some very nice stained glass. Then a number of government buildings with interesting architecture, and the “Post Office” in a large modern building. Dave explained to us that under the British system this was also the phone company! There were so many one-way streets that we must have gone a mile before I noticed that they actually do drive on the left side there.

We must have walked at least three miles altogether, maybe more. We climbed up to the highest point in Nassau, old Fort Whatever (oh alright, I’ll look it up: “Fort Fincastle”), and enjoyed the view. You can see everything from up there, including the Atlantis resort, the nearby Comfort Suites, and the timeshares they are building next to Atlantis. Looks like they’re just about out of room for timeshares over there.

On the way back we walked down the “Queen’s Staircase” which is a set of stairs which descend through an old rock quarry. Dave told us that in the past there had been a waterfall flowing down the rock face which was really pleasant, but it was not flowing this time. At the castle and at the bottom of the staircase there were a number of vendor stands selling T-shirts, trinkets, drinks, etc. A grizzled old woman overheard Dave talking about the waterfall and offered to tell us what happened if we bought some drinks. This was a no-brainer for Dave (he’ll probably write it off as a business expense!) and several others also bought drinks from her. She fulfilled her part of the bargain, and told the story. If you want to hear it, you’ll have to buy the next edition of the Passporter! (Just kidding! It had to do with the company which paid for the waterfall going out of business, or something like that.)

When we return to the dock area, one member of our group reported diabetic stress (low blood sugar) and needed a soda w/sugar. Dave ran off to find something for her, and the group sort of broke up. DW wanted to buy some T-shirts for the boys, but we were unable to find anything suitable. The two large T-shirt stores nearest the dock were in fact run by the same company and there wasn’t much selection. She wanted to keep looking, but I said I’d had enough and was going back (it was about 12:30 now) – she came along.

We ate lunch at Tritons, which was just about empty due to excursions and the buffet. DW had the Mixed Greens and Arugula salad with chicken breast. I had the same without the chicken breast and a cheeseburger with fruit substituted for fries. I could not believe that they misspelled the Reuben sandwich (it said “Rueben”). I have a rule: “if they can’t spell it, I don’t order it”. The service was excellent almost to the point of being embarassing; hey guys, it’s only lunch!

After lunch we did some shopping. Or more accurately, DW shopped for who-knows-what, and I stood around in the store. Thank goodness they only have two stores on the ship. They had an interesting small model of the ship that was $200 (gack!), but I would have wanted one of the big ones like they have at the WDW resorts, and those don’t seem to be for sale (unless you break one).

One other thing I crammed into the first afternoon was making reservations for a bridge tour. At first I made reservations for all four of us, but it turned out that the boys had the bridge tour scheduled as part of their club activities, so just DW and I went at 3:00. It was somewhat enjoyable and somewhat a waste of time. You don’t actually get to go on the bridge, of course. (“What does this button do?” Push! “!@#$%&*!”) You do get to walk on a secret deck 9 walkway that goes around in front of the bridge, and doesn’t appear to have any purpose other than hosting bridge tours. The crew member who was giving this tour didn’t seem very comfortable in front of a crowd, but he did a reasonable job of explaining in a humorous way the equipment on the bridge and how it is used to run the ship.

After the bridge tour we took the boys out of their club and went down to Shutters to look for our photos. We actually bought a couple. We explored the ship a little and relaxed in our cabin until dinner at Animator’s Palate.

I had the Seafood and Avocado wrapper, Creamy Butternut Squash Soup, and Maple-Glazed Salmon. Everything was good, though the soup was unusual. DW had the Chilled Gazpacho, which she thought was strange because it was pureed, no chunks of anything, but it tasted fine. She also had the Canneloni, which she really enjoyed. We both had the Double Fudge Chocolate Cake for dessert. DS11 had the adult Roasted Chicken Breast, and New York Cheesecake for dessert. DS8 always gets macaroni & cheese and ice cream for dessert. This was a good meal all around with no disappointments.

During this dinner Alexander posed a Disney trivia question: Disney has made five full-length animated films in which no human appears.What are they? I’ll give the answer (assuming I can still remember it!) in the 12/08 report. We had three families working on it!

After dinner I took the boys to see The Incredibles in the Buena Vista Theatre. They had missed seeing it as part of their club activities because they came to dinner with us, and this was the last opportunity for them to see it on board. We had seen it once at home but they really wanted to see it again. The show for that evening was Mark Nizer (“amazing juggling and hilarious comedy”), which I didn’t feel bad about missing, but DW went to see him. When we all got back we pretty much crashed. I had hoped to stay up late for the Tropical Deck Party and buffet, but it was not to be. The early morning jogging and walking tour had used up my energy reserves for the day. It was just as well as we wanted to get an early start for Castaway Cay day tomorrow.

A couple months ago there was a post on the Cruise board about dumb questions that cruise guests ask. One of them was “What time is the midnight buffet?” Well it’s not such a dumb question. On DCL, the midnight buffet is 11:00-11:45, and if you show up at midnight, you will have missed it!

 

[erikthewise]

12/07 Tue: Castaway Cay Triathlon/Hobnobbing with Captain Henry

When I got out of the shower this morning, I could already see land! I got dressed and we all went out on the veranda to watch the docking at Castaway Cay!

As soon as we were ready, we went up to the buffet breakfast. This time I got skipped the omelet station for ordinary scrambled eggs and a bagel. I also had raisin bran and a couple grapefruit sections. The grapefruit sections were sliced horizontally, perpendicular to the “dividers”. This meant that they were almost impossible to eat with silverware as it required microsurgery to extract the little section-slices. The only practical way to eat them was to put them in your mouth and suck out all the little sections at once. Of course this way was somewhat less graceful. I alternated between the two methods.

From the top of the ship we could see the whole island laid out below us. We went down to our cabin and put on bathing suits. We then slathered ourselves with sunblock, put on coverups, got our bags ready, and went down to disembark. There was a crowd, but it wasn’t too bad. We hit the island a little after 9:00.

We had booked the “Castaway Cay Getaway Package” which gave us all-day snorkel equipment and float rental, and an hour bike rental. Our first stop was the snorkel shop. We grabbed a couple beach chairs with an umbrella at the far left end of the family beach, nearest to the snorkel shop. There was no point in grabbing more than two chairs since DW is the only one of us who can lie on a beach chair for more than five minutes.

DW and I had been snorkeling at Trunk Bay on St. John during our honeymoon in 1990, and on Oahu in 1991, but not since. The boys had never been snorkeling. So it took awhile to get the equipment organized and down into the water. Most of the problem was the flotation gear. Since adult snorkel rental is $25, I had expected the snap-together vests like they have over at the boat rental, 100 yards away. I was disappointed with the cheap flotation gear they gave us at the snorkel shop, which you had to blow up yourself.

DS11 and DW went off together and soon were far offshore. DS8 and I had a more difficult time. It took some time and several mouthfuls of seawater for me to relearn how to snorkel, but before too long I was ready to go. But using my flippers was difficult. I simply could not walk forward in them as they dug into the sand and nearly broke my ankle a couple times. DS8 struggled quite a bit with his mask. He would become frustrated and twist his mask off in such a way that you couldn’t move it without pulling his hair and making him scream, so it was impossible to help him. He eventually went back to shore and was helped by a kind CM. After that he seemed to do better and we went out about halfway. Then he had further problems with his mask and completely went ballistic. I had to tow him back to shore, which took several minutes, as I couldn’t help him with his mask. He really wanted to snorkel, but it just wasn’t working, so he was crying for about 15 minutes until DW and DS11 came back to shore. DW took him over to the club area and checked him in.

While she was gone I just sat on our beach chair under the umbrella. I overheard a family near us, with a 15(?) year old girl who was saying she was given adult snorkel gear for the children’s price. This was a little annoying because DS11 was charged adult price for the getaway package and given children’s snorkel gear. But then she was really cute; if I had been in the booth I probably would have given her the stuff for free.

DS11 decided to spend the rest of his life playing on a large sandpile near our beach chairs, and when DW returned she wanted to just relax for awhile. I wanted to do a paddleboat, but no one would go with me, so I went by myself. For an $8 boat rental I finally got the good flotation gear that I couldn’t get with a $25 snorkel rental, even though (with any luck) I would not be going in the water.

Since I hadn’t had any exercise that morning, I really cranked up the paddle boat and went most of the way over to the ship, then turned around and looped back toward shore. I realized I was getting a lot of sun and though I had my shirt on, I forgot to take my sun hat. Fearing a sunburn on the top of my head, I headed back and returned the boat a little early. DS11 continued to play in the sandpile, but soon he got hungry, and it was about time for lunch.

We went to get DS8 out of his club, and were glad to see he had calmed down and was having fun playing a word game with his group. He was ready to leave and eat lunch with us though.

Lunch at Cookie’s is just about my favorite thing on Castway Cay! This cruise I made sure I got some fruit from the fruit stand as part of my lunch. I had both a cheeseburger and a lobsterburger. But while the cheeseburgers came already assembled, the lobsterburgers were just patties sitting in the pan, with no extra buns or anything to make them into actual burgers. So I just ate mine plain, thinking that was how it was supposed to be. But later I saw people who had buns around theirs. Were we supposed to ask for the buns, or what? But it was still a great lunch, second only to the embarkation buffet at Parrot Cay.

After lunch we used our getaway package tickets to rent bicycles. When we got to the end of the runway one of DS8’s pedals fell off. I screwed it back in but a short time later it fell off again. There was nothing we could do but try to ride back to the rental stand and get a replacement bike. I screwed it back in, but it fell off a third time. This time I thought I got it all the way back on, but we continued back to exchange the bike. By the time we got it exchanged, DS11 and DW had been all the way to the end of the path, and we met them coming back at the end of the runway. DS8 and I continued to the end of the path, then turned around and came all the way back.

We returned to our chairs, and the boys played on the sandpile some more. I suggested getting floats, so we used our getaway package tickets one last time to get four floats, and we went out in the water for a while. Soon it was 3:30, and time to head back to the ship. We returned our snorkel gear and floats, but our water shoes were still covered with sand. What to do? I had first approached the snorkel shop to return the gear, but when I saw it was empty I found the return bins to the right. In doing so I completely missed the chlorine tank that I was probably supposed to dunk the equipment in before returning, as I now noticed everyone else doing. Oh well. But I had the bright idea of dipping our water shoes in that tank to rinse the sand off. They stunk for the next week!

We were pretty tired puppies but we had made good use of our Getaway Package. Next time though I don’t think we’ll do the snorkeling; much as I hate to do excursions that’s probably the best way to do snorkeling.

We got cleaned up and got the boys into their club by 5:00 so they could have dinner with them tonight.

At 5:15 there was a Castaway Club reception, I think it was at Diversions. As we were getting ready to head down, the ship was already pulling away from Castaway Cay. We didn’t get to the reception until about 5:30, but I’m glad we went. We got to talk to Jennifer Watson, the better half of the Passporter author team; she and Dave Marx are married. Jennifer had their two-month-old baby Alexander with her. I had seen the baby in passing a couple other times during the cruise, and he always seemed to be asleep, as he was now. Jennifer said that’s how he deals with crowds and noise. A very lucky mom you are, Jennifer!

We also got to talk briefly with the Captain of the Wonder, Henry Anderssen. (Please forgive spelling if wrong.) I asked him about Matt Ouimet (former prez of DCL, now runs Disneyland) and we talked about the west coast sailings next summer. There was a nice spread of hors d’oevres, etc. at the reception, but as we were going to Palo at 6:00 we didn’t eat much here.

We arrived at Palo a couple minutes before 6:00, and were seated immediately. We were the first people seated! So of course we got a window table, though it doesn’t mean much on the open sea! Last time we had a window table in port at Nassau, and had a great view of the Atlantis resort all lit up.

Our server was Dragan from Croatia. He is a lot of fun and we enjoyed talking to him, but he has his own style of presentation and you sometimes have to negotiate with him a little (which just makes it more fun).

DW ordered a salad and the Pizza del Levante (as an entrée) with roasted peppers, wild mushrooms, and pesto sauce. I ordered the Warm Shrimp Salad and the Filet Mignon without the sauce. I have to distinguish between what we ordered and what we ate, because Dragan’s style involved bringing us a “surprise” with each course. Along with the ordered appetizers he brought some of the Carpaccio of Grilled Eggplant, Shaved Bresaola with Truffle Oil Dressing. And with our entrées he brought some of one of the specials of the day, a Lasagna, the details of which I have forgotten, but we were glad he brought it!

He had tried to talk us into sharing a chocolate souffle, but we were able to convince him that wouldn’t fly, and we each needed our own chocolate souffle. He brought us some panna cotta to go with it. Which was well because if he hadn’t, I would have ordered a second dessert anyway! Altogether an excellent meal.

The boys did not want to leave their clubs to see Golden Mickeys, so DW and I went to see it by ourselves. This was enjoyable, but strangely I remember only bits and pieces of it. Though I didn’t have a problem with it, I would have to say it was the weakest of the three shows I saw. But still well worth going to.

After we returned to our room, I looked at the kid’s navigators and discovered that DS11 was scheduled to have a pool party at Mickey’s pool. I made the brilliant deduction that he would need a swimming suit! I ran up to the pool with one of his suits and waited for him to arrive.

After that was taken care of, I went exploring in the adult clubs on deck 3. There really wasn’t much going on (hey it was only 10:00!), but I settled down in the Cadillac Lounge for a while to listen to piano player Nancy Ruth. She was very good and easy to listen to, and there was no cigarette smoke and no pressure to buy drinks! We never ever go to lounges or bars at home, but this was nice.

I had to leave to pick up DS8 from his club at 11:00. He had just finished making “flubber” and really enjoyed it! Back to the room and lights out!

 

[erikthewise]

12/08 Wed: Locker Luxury/Double Dreams

Day at Sea! Freedom to do anything you want! We started with the usual breakfast buffet on deck 9. I could eat breakfast there every day for the rest of my life.

The common wisdom is that the day at sea is when the pools are most crowded. But today was DS8’s last chance to do the Mickey pool. I figured the best bet was to go right after breakfast, so we did. We got there shortly before 9:00, when the slide opened. The pool wasn’t very crowded, so DS8 got to go on the slide four or five times with little wait.

Though the pool wasn’t crowded, the deck lounges were already completely covered with towels and personal items, and not a single one of them was being used. I had to laugh as the Navigator says every day, in bold print right below the pool hours, “As a courtesy to fellow guests we kindly remind you that the reserving of sun lounges in not permitted.” So don’t feel the least bit guilty about setting aside towels and personal items alike if you want to use deck lounges. In fact I encourage you to feel a twinge of pleasure in doing so. I took the towel that someone had so thoughtfully placed on the lounge chair for me and gave it to DS8 whenever he came by to dry his eyes. (Whenever he gets his eyes wet he has to run for a towel!)

After we returned from the pool I filled out the gratuities form and took it down to Guest Services; the line wasn’t too long yet and I got processed quickly.

We had reservations for the Palo Brunch at 11:00. It was a wonderful meal but it’s hard to remember much of what we had. We were first given a tour of the buffet by our server (whom I wish I could remember). It was impressive, and you couldn’t even realistically eat “a little of everything”. You could order breakfast or lunch entrees as well as visiting the buffet. I ordered Eggs Benedict, and DW ordered some pizza. I ate quite a bit, as much as I could without making myself uncomfortable. We got to talk a little more with Dragan from last night, and also had our picture taken by Deb Wills, the head organizer of Mousefest and the webmaster of allearsnet.com. We had actually run into Deb several times earlier on the cruise, and she actually remembered my name! She was clearly enjoying herself on this cruise even though she had a lot of obligations to attend to.

After brunch, I finally found time to go to the spa for exercise. This time I packed a change of clothes in a gym bag, and stopped at the front desk to ask for a locker key. This is a free service that doesn’t get used very much. I locked up my gym bag, and ran two miles on a treadmill. Getting a treadmill is apparently only a problem in the morning. Then I grabbed a towel and retired to the luxury of the locker room. It has kooshy benches to sit on, lounge chairs to relax in, of course toilets and sinks, robes and huge bath towels, and two interesting showers. I chose the one that had a shower head as big as a pizza. (I kid you not!) There was a hand dispenser that gave liquid soap, shampoo, and conditioner; this was very welcome as I had not brought any. My memory of the other shower is fuzzy but I think it was supposed to have a directed stream of water like a massaging shower head. I’m pretty sure there was even a sauna in there. All in all the locker rooms are a way to enjoy the luxury of the spa at a bargain price (zip!).

For those who wonder where the ship goes on a day at sea, when I was on the treadmill I could see the maps on the bridge placed us just south of Freeport (which used to be a destination on some 4-day cruises). We spent much of the day near Freeport, moving about 1 mi/hr.

I decided to go to the 2:00 matinee of tonight’s show Disney Dreams. I had seen this on our first cruise three years ago and was a little disappointed; in fact I thought Hercules was the better show on that cruise. But I wanted to give it another chance, and I was afraid that DW and the boys would want to do other things tonight. The problem on our first cruise was that the performance by Ann-Marie was unconvincing, so the show wasn’t held together well and came off as just a revue of musical numbers. To be sure the role of Ann-Marie is a difficult one. An adult actress must convince the audience she’s ten years old, that she’s unsure about her own magic, and then later that she truly believes. And she’s not given much to work with; the dialog is pretty basic, and much of the time is spent on the musical numbers. But without a strong performance in this role, the show falls apart like a wet paper bag.

Since I was alone and the matinee wasn’t crowded, I was able to get a nearly perfect seat center stage in about the fifth row. When I first saw Ann-Marie, it struck me that this was the same actress that had caught my eye playing Sparky in the Hercules show! And Peter Pan was played by the same actor that played young Hercules. The show itself has been improved by more special effects and reworked musical numbers; “Prince Ali” in particular was impressive. But Peter Pan and Ann-Marie provided the real magic, and this time the show worked to perfection! Ann-Marie in particular was wonderful. I wanted to thank her in person, but of course had no opportunity, so I’ll do it here.

THANK YOU, “Ann-Marie”, for making this show what it was always meant to be, and for bringing true Disney magic to life on stage! You are a Dream come true!

Dinner was at Triton’s (again) tonight, the “Best of Master Chef” menu. DW and DS11 both had the Grilled Beef Tenderloin. I chose the California Rolls and Chilled Split Pea Soup as per the chef’s selections. No problems, but I would have enjoyed a normal heated split pea soup more.

I had little choice on the entrée. Three of the five selections involved alcohol, and there was no way I was going to order another lamb dish at this restaurant after the first-night disaster. So I chose the Seafood Linguini Pasta. Ordinarily I enjoy seafood pasta dishes, but this was an exception. The seafood was boiled/broiled, then dumped on a plate of naked spaghetti. No preparation, no sauce, no seasoning, no nothing. At the least they could have opened a jar of Prego or something. Very disappointing, and the worst seafood pasta dish I can remember; but I ate it as I was just about out of choices. Once again I have to wonder, with specialty cocktails, wine pairings, specialty coffees, dessert wines, and after dinner liqueurs already on the menu, what is the need for most of the entrees to be alcohol-flavored?! They need to get some “Master Chefs” who can actually cook, without using alcohol as a crutch.

I drowned my sorrows in the dessert menu, ordering both the Chocolate Decadence Cake and the Baked Alaska. DW also had the cake and DS11 had a sundae. But with two major disappointments out of two entrees at Triton, I would have to say all is not well at that restaurant.

However I am happy to say there were no disappointments in service. We were very pleased with all four of the tipped positions. Alexander and Marina not only gave good service but were warm and friendly without being overbearing. Our head server Kapoor (India) oddly enough never identified himself as such but was very helpful, not only in taking care of my entrée the first night, but on other occasions came around and cut meat for our children and in general spread good cheer. Our cabin steward Tara (Thailand) made us a different towel animal every night. All of them earned a tip above the suggested amount.

I stayed after the rest of the family left tonight to give our servers their tip receipts. Marina was still there but Alexander was nowhere in sight. So I gave Marina both receipt envelopes and asked her to give Alexander his. She started to give me “the speech” about guest comment cards and ratings, with a pained expression on her face as though she hated giving that speech. I just hushed her and said “Don’t worry. You (meaning both of them) will get an excellent rating because you ARE excellent. I won’t have to lie.” She is going home in early January and may not come back as she hopes to get married and raise a family; I hope she does too!

Answer to the 12/06 trivia question, in chronological order: Bambi, Robin Hood, Lion King, A Bug’s Life, Dinosaur. The family at the other table got Bambi and Lion King, and I got the last two, but none of us could get Robin Hood in spite of several hints, and eventually Alexander had to give us that one. Perhaps it was difficult because it was named after a human!

On my recommendation the whole family went to Disney Dreams tonight. I enjoyed seeing it for the second time – no regrets. What was a little strange was that the cruise director gave a friendly little speech after the performance that sounds so unrehearsed, but it was exactly the same after both performances. I guess if you do something 100 times, you tend to fall into a rut.

We returned to our room to realize we had 90 minutes to get all our luggage out into the corridor. Isn’t it funny how tasks expand to fill the available time? After a certain amount of stress, we got the last bag out at 11:02. Zzzzzzzzzz.

 

[erikthewise]

12/09 Thu: Riding Off Out of the Sunrise
Well nothing left for this cruise but to eat breakfast and disembark. We ate at Triton’s this morning; we didn’t really think about it but it was a good idea because we had a lot of hand luggage with us, and it’s easy to store at Triton’s. We also got to see our servers one last time, though they were really dragging this morning. There are no days off for DCL staff. As we were finishing breakfast the line to disembark was building outside the restaurant. In fact we weren’t allowed to leave by the front door, but had to take the back exit! This was different than last time, but the line moved quickly, and before long we were claiming our luggage. We found all 6 checked bags in short order, and a baggage handler earned a nice tip by taking it all out to our rental car for us. We were on the road back to WDW before 8:00! Beach Club Villas here we come!

<link to WDW trip report to be placed here>

 

[glindamood]

Thanks for posting and I am looking forward to the rest of the reports. I am going on the Wonder in February for the first time (4 times on the Magic but still must be different) and enjoy your comments.

 

[Hopkins]

I enjoyed reading your trip report. I've absorbed the comments for our 4-day cruise in late January with hubby.

Thanks for taking the time to post your experiences and comments.

Tina

 

[PURTYPAT1]

"great Report"

I Really Enjoyed Your Report.

I Agree With You About Ann-marie & Peter Pan. The Really Made The Show.

My Daughter Loved Making The Gack Lol It Was One Of Her Highligths Of The Trip.

Your Report Bought Back Many Of My Memories From My 11/04 Cruise.

Did You Rebook?

Thanks For Sharing.

Happy Holidays.

Patricia

 

[RobinMarie]

“no wine sauce, eh! I’ll fix him!”.

Great report, thank you!

 

[jdm]

Great report, thanks for posting. Wasn't Robin Hood a human? I'm trying to remember that movie.........

Thanks again,
Jenn

 

[erikthewise]

I haven't seen Robin Hood, but all the parts are played by animals. I think the lead is played by a fox.

PurdiPat1, no we didn't rebook. We don't go every year and probably won't go again until Dec 2006. For 3 and 4-day cruises, the onboard bonus is not so tempting, just a $100 stateroom credit. This time I got $75 from our TA! So I'm not inclined to have them hold $1000 of our money for 2 years.

I'm not interested in a 7-day cruise as that would leave us almost no time at all at WDW.

 

[DiaLady]

Sounds like you had a great time. We can't wait for our trip next December!

Have a great day!

Theresa