oybolshoi
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2004
- Messages
- 11,879
Greetings everyone! I'm back again - trying to sneak this in while I'm at work. Shhhhhh, don't tell my boss! 
Let's see, where was I? I think I finished the last post with the REAS info... and I forgot to mention that another great feature of the package is that you can request your dining rotation in advance. Knowing that formal night was on Monday we wanted to have dinner in Lumiere's that evening, so I requested the following rotation: APLAPLA - Animators, Parrot, Lumiere, etc....
It was wonderful - I can't imagine formal night in Parrot Cay with all those tropical colors and squawking bird tracks.
Anyway, I thought I'd fill you all in on our Ports of Call and shore excursions in this installment. Everyone ready??
Key West, FL (Sunday) - Neither of us had ever been to Key West before. We were up on deck 10, forward, watching the ship pull into port for about an hour before we docked. It was a beautiful day, warm but with a nice breeze now and then. There was a ton of activity - lots of sail boats, jet skis, tour boats, etc.. in the water as we pulled into port. And the water was definitely more tropical in color - lots of turquoise although not nearly as clear as the water we would see later on in our journey. We hopped off the ship around 12:15 (I think) and proceeded to wander around. We hit the Tortuga Rum Cake store - can you say, "YUM!" We bought one for ourselves that we have since demolished since coming home and we mailed one to my parents. Try the mountain coffee rum cake, you won't be sorry!!
We walked around Duvall street, saw lots of bars and t-shirt shops, and one guy sitting on a street corner making hats from green palm leaves while he was smoking pot. We also got hit up by a couple of guys in Mallory Sqaure who needed money for alcohol. After about an hour we'd had enough - we don't like to drink during the day, especially without a meal, and couldn't see the point of paying to eat in Key West when all the food on the ship was already paid for. And after you've seen a couple dozen tacky little souvenir shops you've seen them all as far as I'm concerned. I was a little disappointed that we didn't make it to the southernmost point of the island for a picture, but it wasn't that big of a deal.
We went to Topsider's for their lunch buffet - Sunday was Italian, and it was pretty tasty. DH and I shared some cooked to order pasta with red sauce, shrimp, and red and green peppers - it was yummy!.
After that we relaxed a bit before taking the bridge tour at 2PM - that was cool! Very informative and a little overwhelming when you see all the equipment being used to operate this massive floating resort.
After the tour, which took about 30 minutes, we decided the pool and then the Rainforest would be a good place to spend the rest of our afternoon. We wanted to watch the famous Mallory Square sunset from deck 10, but a bunch of clouds showed up and canceled the show. We decided to go see Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer - very cute show but a bit frustrating, too, because all the people who were selected to play didn't know much about Disney and didn't win much. DH and I are not Disney experts but we were convinced we could have walked away with about $250 in onboard credits if given the chance. No luck - sat in the audience and sucked down a chocolate smoothie from Preludes. Try one if you get a chance - they are tasty!
Overall impressions of Key West - not overly impressed, although the island itself and the surrounding ocean is quite picturesque. Maybe we should have wandered away from Duvall Street and looked for Hemingway's house and his six-toed cats, but we were tired and hungry (we'd also spent the four days before the cruise playing at WDW and I think we needed to day to relax). Anyway, it's like anything else - some people love it and some people don't. I really could care less if I ever visited there again.
Costa Maya, Mexico (Tuesday) - It's obvious that this is a port of call that Mexico wants to build up for future tourism. Weather here was almost hot - partly cloudy with some rain - you can really feel a difference in the strength of the sunshine. Costa Maya is a beautiful area - relatively unspoiled and it was cool to see so much jungle. Limited shopping area - just one outdoor plaza. The beach is very rocky and I don't think anyone was allowed on it, but the water was gorgeous. We didn't have any excursions planned here so after about an hour we were back on the ship again laying out at the pool. When it started to rain we went back to the Rainforest in the Spa - we also had our Rasul (naughty, naughty!!) treatment scheduled for 1PM that afternoon. Later that evening we went to Palo for dinner.
Overall impressions of Costa Maya - there's potential here as a future port of call, but right now the area is pretty underdeveloped - don't expect to do much shopping here unless you are desparate to spend money. It's a beautiful location and I hope they keep it as unspoiled as possible. We enjoyed our visit here just because we felt like we were seeing a side of Mexico that was more genuine than what we would encounter in Cozumel.
Cozumel, Mexico (Wednesday) - I was starting to develop a monstser cold on this day, so I wasn't too interested in wandering around the island. There were a ton of other cruise ships docked that day, including some that had to drop out in the bay and tender their guests into the pier. We wandered through the shopping areas near the pier - did buy a cool bottle of Kaluha for $11 and some Hard Rock Cafe - Cozumel - pins. Again, after seeing the same souvenir shops over and over we decided to go back to the ship. We also had an excursion planned that left at 12:30, so we had to get our stuff ready for that. We did the Fury Catamaran Snorkel, Sail, and Beach Party - Excellent!!! I highly recommend this, both for its affordability and for the overall experience.
I didn't even snorkel and I had a blast - you sail for about 20 minutes to a snorkeling area - snorkel for about 30-45 minutes (DH got some really cool underwater pictures) - sail for another 30 minutes or so to the company's private beach where you can play around for about an hour - then it's a 45-minute sail back to the dock. There were so many people from our ship on this excursion that we took up two 65-foot catamarans. The weather was perfect - the ocean was crystal clear and bathwater warm - the catamaran crew were friendly and professional - their beach was lovely. I would take this excursion again in a heartbeat, and so would most of the people we talked to about it afterwards. A good time was had by all!!
Overall impression of Cozumel - the city itself is pretty much what you'd expect - crowded and dirty with lots of little shops all selling the same stuff. But when you get away from that it's stunning - this was one of the highlights of our trip.
Castaway Cay, Bahamas (Friday) - It was pretty obvious that the island had been visited by some hurricanes this year - lots of brown vegetation. The island was still very attractive - Disney has obvioulsy put a lot of hard work into keeping up appearances in a short period of time. Now, I am not a big beach person, and I was really feeling crappy by Friday, so I didn't really enjoy CC all that much - and the water was freezing (a big shock after Cozumel). The exception to my indifference was our shore excursion - we went parasailing!! It was a blast - kinda scary at first but then exhilarating and actually peaceful once you get up high in the air. We would definitely do this again, and I'm looking forward to revisiting Castaway Cay when I'm not sick so that I can give it a second chance. We didn't even make it over to the grown ups portion of the island because I just felt too punk.
Overall impression Castaway Cay - N/A because we didn't experience enough of it to offer an informed opinion. The parasailing was awesome - highly recommended.
That's it for now - I hope to update again this evening or sometime this weekend. Thanks for reading!!
Let's see, where was I? I think I finished the last post with the REAS info... and I forgot to mention that another great feature of the package is that you can request your dining rotation in advance. Knowing that formal night was on Monday we wanted to have dinner in Lumiere's that evening, so I requested the following rotation: APLAPLA - Animators, Parrot, Lumiere, etc....
It was wonderful - I can't imagine formal night in Parrot Cay with all those tropical colors and squawking bird tracks.
Anyway, I thought I'd fill you all in on our Ports of Call and shore excursions in this installment. Everyone ready??
Key West, FL (Sunday) - Neither of us had ever been to Key West before. We were up on deck 10, forward, watching the ship pull into port for about an hour before we docked. It was a beautiful day, warm but with a nice breeze now and then. There was a ton of activity - lots of sail boats, jet skis, tour boats, etc.. in the water as we pulled into port. And the water was definitely more tropical in color - lots of turquoise although not nearly as clear as the water we would see later on in our journey. We hopped off the ship around 12:15 (I think) and proceeded to wander around. We hit the Tortuga Rum Cake store - can you say, "YUM!" We bought one for ourselves that we have since demolished since coming home and we mailed one to my parents. Try the mountain coffee rum cake, you won't be sorry!!
We walked around Duvall street, saw lots of bars and t-shirt shops, and one guy sitting on a street corner making hats from green palm leaves while he was smoking pot. We also got hit up by a couple of guys in Mallory Sqaure who needed money for alcohol. After about an hour we'd had enough - we don't like to drink during the day, especially without a meal, and couldn't see the point of paying to eat in Key West when all the food on the ship was already paid for. And after you've seen a couple dozen tacky little souvenir shops you've seen them all as far as I'm concerned. I was a little disappointed that we didn't make it to the southernmost point of the island for a picture, but it wasn't that big of a deal.
We went to Topsider's for their lunch buffet - Sunday was Italian, and it was pretty tasty. DH and I shared some cooked to order pasta with red sauce, shrimp, and red and green peppers - it was yummy!.
After that we relaxed a bit before taking the bridge tour at 2PM - that was cool! Very informative and a little overwhelming when you see all the equipment being used to operate this massive floating resort.
After the tour, which took about 30 minutes, we decided the pool and then the Rainforest would be a good place to spend the rest of our afternoon. We wanted to watch the famous Mallory Square sunset from deck 10, but a bunch of clouds showed up and canceled the show. We decided to go see Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer - very cute show but a bit frustrating, too, because all the people who were selected to play didn't know much about Disney and didn't win much. DH and I are not Disney experts but we were convinced we could have walked away with about $250 in onboard credits if given the chance. No luck - sat in the audience and sucked down a chocolate smoothie from Preludes. Try one if you get a chance - they are tasty!
Overall impressions of Key West - not overly impressed, although the island itself and the surrounding ocean is quite picturesque. Maybe we should have wandered away from Duvall Street and looked for Hemingway's house and his six-toed cats, but we were tired and hungry (we'd also spent the four days before the cruise playing at WDW and I think we needed to day to relax). Anyway, it's like anything else - some people love it and some people don't. I really could care less if I ever visited there again.
Costa Maya, Mexico (Tuesday) - It's obvious that this is a port of call that Mexico wants to build up for future tourism. Weather here was almost hot - partly cloudy with some rain - you can really feel a difference in the strength of the sunshine. Costa Maya is a beautiful area - relatively unspoiled and it was cool to see so much jungle. Limited shopping area - just one outdoor plaza. The beach is very rocky and I don't think anyone was allowed on it, but the water was gorgeous. We didn't have any excursions planned here so after about an hour we were back on the ship again laying out at the pool. When it started to rain we went back to the Rainforest in the Spa - we also had our Rasul (naughty, naughty!!) treatment scheduled for 1PM that afternoon. Later that evening we went to Palo for dinner.
Overall impressions of Costa Maya - there's potential here as a future port of call, but right now the area is pretty underdeveloped - don't expect to do much shopping here unless you are desparate to spend money. It's a beautiful location and I hope they keep it as unspoiled as possible. We enjoyed our visit here just because we felt like we were seeing a side of Mexico that was more genuine than what we would encounter in Cozumel.
Cozumel, Mexico (Wednesday) - I was starting to develop a monstser cold on this day, so I wasn't too interested in wandering around the island. There were a ton of other cruise ships docked that day, including some that had to drop out in the bay and tender their guests into the pier. We wandered through the shopping areas near the pier - did buy a cool bottle of Kaluha for $11 and some Hard Rock Cafe - Cozumel - pins. Again, after seeing the same souvenir shops over and over we decided to go back to the ship. We also had an excursion planned that left at 12:30, so we had to get our stuff ready for that. We did the Fury Catamaran Snorkel, Sail, and Beach Party - Excellent!!! I highly recommend this, both for its affordability and for the overall experience.
I didn't even snorkel and I had a blast - you sail for about 20 minutes to a snorkeling area - snorkel for about 30-45 minutes (DH got some really cool underwater pictures) - sail for another 30 minutes or so to the company's private beach where you can play around for about an hour - then it's a 45-minute sail back to the dock. There were so many people from our ship on this excursion that we took up two 65-foot catamarans. The weather was perfect - the ocean was crystal clear and bathwater warm - the catamaran crew were friendly and professional - their beach was lovely. I would take this excursion again in a heartbeat, and so would most of the people we talked to about it afterwards. A good time was had by all!!
Overall impression of Cozumel - the city itself is pretty much what you'd expect - crowded and dirty with lots of little shops all selling the same stuff. But when you get away from that it's stunning - this was one of the highlights of our trip.
Castaway Cay, Bahamas (Friday) - It was pretty obvious that the island had been visited by some hurricanes this year - lots of brown vegetation. The island was still very attractive - Disney has obvioulsy put a lot of hard work into keeping up appearances in a short period of time. Now, I am not a big beach person, and I was really feeling crappy by Friday, so I didn't really enjoy CC all that much - and the water was freezing (a big shock after Cozumel). The exception to my indifference was our shore excursion - we went parasailing!! It was a blast - kinda scary at first but then exhilarating and actually peaceful once you get up high in the air. We would definitely do this again, and I'm looking forward to revisiting Castaway Cay when I'm not sick so that I can give it a second chance. We didn't even make it over to the grown ups portion of the island because I just felt too punk.
Overall impression Castaway Cay - N/A because we didn't experience enough of it to offer an informed opinion. The parasailing was awesome - highly recommended.
That's it for now - I hope to update again this evening or sometime this weekend. Thanks for reading!!
