oybolshoi
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2004
- Messages
- 11,879
Hi everybody! I thought I'd discuss on-board activities in this installment, primarily in regard to adult activities because we don't have children. Although I think, based on what I saw, that Disney does a great job of trying to provide diverse and varied activities for all age groups.
Let's get started, shall we?
Diversions - A sports bar / pub located on deck 3. We went here to watch a couple of innings of some world series games. They had a big screen TV and several smaller TVs and did a great job of trying to accomodate all viewing requests (although why anyone would want to watch college football instead of the world series is beyond me -
). Very comfortable decor and good service - beer choices are somewhat limited but this was not really a surprise. They also had a small buffet laid out each night - chicken wings, chips, finger sandwiches - good munchies to hold us over until our 8:30 dinner seating. They allow smoking in here, so that prevented us from staying as long as we might have otherwise. We did not go to the British Pub Night because it was held on Friday night - by the time we were done eating and packing it was 11PM and we had already had plenty to drink at dinner (no need to wake up early and go through US Customs with a hangover!).
Promenade Lounge - We stopped here for a drink on two different evenings before going to dinner. DH and I each had a wicked lemonello martini before dining at Palo one night, and on a couple of other evenings we would grab some champagne in the lobby atrium and bring it back to this lounge to enjoy ourselves before dinner. Sometimes they had live music, which always struck me as a little too loud for such a relatively small space. But overall we liked the location of this lounge, we loved the large portholes, and we enjoyed people watching as this is strategically located between Parrot Cay and Lumiere's.
Sessions - located at the very back of the Beat Street entertainment area - very quiet and very relaxed. Loved the little tables next to the big portholes - we really enjoyed sitting here watching the waves and they have a good selection of wine and liquor. Sometimes there was cheese and crackers and fresh fruit for our snacking pleasure.
Cove Cafe - I don't even like coffee but somehow we ended up here and now I am hopelessly addicted to mochachinos - a coffee / ice cream drink that the mere thought of reduces me to idiotic drooling. This is located near the Quiet Cove pool, and is a nice, secluded area to to relax in. There are also some tables outside of the cafe in a covered seating area - we liked sitting here quite a bit. We only saw Lourdes one time - most of our drinks were made by Ray. He did a good job but I had read so much about Lourdes on these boards that I was a little disappointed not to see more of her.
Adult Enrichment Series - Unfortunately we didn't make it to any of these, although we wanted to. Some of the offerings on our cruise included The Appetizer, Dazzling Desserts, Plate Decorating, and Napkin Folding. The Navigator Series included a documentary of the Magic's recent dry dock, and a tour of the ship with an emphasis on the artwork scattered about. No charge for this and no reservations needed - just show up at the designated time and place.
Stem to Stern Wine Tasting - DH and I love wine, and for $12 a person we thought this would be a great way to spend an hour before heading to Palo for high tea. Disney offers this on both days at sea, and it takes place in Sessions. You get to try five different wines and one glass of champagne and get a brief discussion of the elements of each wine - taste, scent, color, etc.... We really enjoyed this - and you get a special wine tasting pin when you're finished!
Bingo - There was at least one bingo session per day, sometimes two, through Thursday evening which was when the last game was played. We played one session and didn't win, but it was fun. I wouldn't repeat the experience again - I'm not really a big gambler. I hate spending $50 for a pack of cards and walking away at the end with nothing to show for it. However, I don't seem to have any problems at all spending $140 on a bottle of wine with dinner. Funny, isn't it, how we all have different standards for what constitues a "waste of money" ?
The Bridge Tour - We did this on Sunday afternoon, which is when they offered a tour without children, although I'm pretty sure one couple smuggled in a pre-teen (she was well behaved, but why advertise it as child-free if you're not going to enforce it?). We didn't mind that she was there, but when we got our tickets from Guest Services they were the ones who said, "Take this tour at 2:30PM - it's adults only." Anyway - regardless of who shows up for the tour it's a fascinating behind the scenes look at what keeps the ship operating. Highly recommend this if you get the chance - no extra charge, either!
Quiet Cove Pool - We never actually used the pool, altough we wanted to. It seemed like every time we got there it was already packed, as were the whirlpools (more's the pity). We usually took some towels and headed upstairs to deck 10 to bask in the sun for a while. We usually lasted for about an hour before I said... "Let's go to the spa!!"
Which leads me to the best part, the information you've been waiting for all this time....
The Vista Spa - Let me just say here that I love going to the spa. I am a regular at my local spa, usually for facials, but I do splurge on pedicures and body treatments from time to time. I was prepared to be disappointed - after all, how good could a spa on a cruise ship be? Put away your doubts, my friends. This spa is fabulous.
The Rainforest - This is a large suite with four heated tile loungers, a gentle sauna, a chamomile sauna, and a eucalyptus steam room. As soon as we sat down on one of those heated loungers we were sold and we each got a week-long pass. Heads up - this has increased to $75 per person for the week but we didn't mind. We were in there every day for at least an hour. We usually used the gentle sauna first and then would cool off on the loungers. What bliss! We didn't care for the steam room and the other sauna was too strongly scented and too hot. But the other stuff more than compensated. I believe if you are having a spa treatment on any given day that you can buy a single-day discounted pass for the Rainforest ($8 maybe?), but otherwise it's $15 per day. All I can say is when can I add one of these to my basement?
The Rasul aka Naughty Mud Treatment for Two - This was something that piqued my interest when I read about it on Disney's web-site. Then I started reading about it on these message boards. I was determined that if nothing else, this would be the one spa treatment we'd try on this trip. My DH is pretty open to things like this, which made it easy for me to say, "we're going to the spa for some shocking body treatment - come on!" It was $89 for an hour, although we ended up going longer than that (it's hard to hear them knocking on the door when you're in the stream room!). The attendant shows you to a suite of rooms - a sitting area with a tile bench, a little table full of spa products, and two bowls, there's a shower to your left, and a steam room to your right. In a nutshell, you take a shower using the exfoliating scrub they provide, once you've rinsed off it's time to slather yourself ( or each other ) with mud. Then you go sweat in the steam room where the heat is supposed to draw out impurities from your skin. No one can enter the suite from the outside - the door locks automatically from the inside - so you've got at least 60 minutes to do, well, do I need to spell it out for you???
This was one of our favorite experiences on the cruise and we're looking forward to trying it again next year. It's both very sensuous and very relaxing. Ladies, if you can get your husbands to try something a little new, then I strongly urge trying this. It was wonderful!!
Spa Taster (part of REAS package) - We chose the spa taster for our REAS experience and paid an extra $50 to upgrade it to include a well being massage. This meant that we got a mini-facial along with a full body massage and a scalp massage. Very nice experience - we saved it until Friday afternoon because we thought it would be a nice way to end the week. I might have enjoyed it more if I'd been able to breathe out of my nose (stupid cold virus
). The scalp massage was heaven.
Hair Salon - I splurged on formal night and paid for an up-do. I was pleasantly surprised by the results the stylist was able to achieve - my hair is nothing if not difficult. I thought the price was a bit high ($45 - my hair isn't quite shoulder length) but it was still fun to glam it up for one night.
The exercise room was small, but not bad. We had every intention of using it, but loafing and drinking always seemed to get in the way. They also offered some exercise classes that we were interested in (no fee for these, by the way!) but sleeping and eating distracted us.
What can I say? We're both lazy - we've raised lounging to an art form! I'll post later about the restaurants and I think that will cover it. If I've left something out that you're interested in just ask and I'll try to answer your question as best I can. Really quickly about the shows - we only went to one the whole week, so I really can't comment much about them. Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer was really fun, though!
See ya later, and thanks again for reading!
Brenda
Let's get started, shall we?
Diversions - A sports bar / pub located on deck 3. We went here to watch a couple of innings of some world series games. They had a big screen TV and several smaller TVs and did a great job of trying to accomodate all viewing requests (although why anyone would want to watch college football instead of the world series is beyond me -
). Very comfortable decor and good service - beer choices are somewhat limited but this was not really a surprise. They also had a small buffet laid out each night - chicken wings, chips, finger sandwiches - good munchies to hold us over until our 8:30 dinner seating. They allow smoking in here, so that prevented us from staying as long as we might have otherwise. We did not go to the British Pub Night because it was held on Friday night - by the time we were done eating and packing it was 11PM and we had already had plenty to drink at dinner (no need to wake up early and go through US Customs with a hangover!).Promenade Lounge - We stopped here for a drink on two different evenings before going to dinner. DH and I each had a wicked lemonello martini before dining at Palo one night, and on a couple of other evenings we would grab some champagne in the lobby atrium and bring it back to this lounge to enjoy ourselves before dinner. Sometimes they had live music, which always struck me as a little too loud for such a relatively small space. But overall we liked the location of this lounge, we loved the large portholes, and we enjoyed people watching as this is strategically located between Parrot Cay and Lumiere's.
Sessions - located at the very back of the Beat Street entertainment area - very quiet and very relaxed. Loved the little tables next to the big portholes - we really enjoyed sitting here watching the waves and they have a good selection of wine and liquor. Sometimes there was cheese and crackers and fresh fruit for our snacking pleasure.
Cove Cafe - I don't even like coffee but somehow we ended up here and now I am hopelessly addicted to mochachinos - a coffee / ice cream drink that the mere thought of reduces me to idiotic drooling. This is located near the Quiet Cove pool, and is a nice, secluded area to to relax in. There are also some tables outside of the cafe in a covered seating area - we liked sitting here quite a bit. We only saw Lourdes one time - most of our drinks were made by Ray. He did a good job but I had read so much about Lourdes on these boards that I was a little disappointed not to see more of her.
Adult Enrichment Series - Unfortunately we didn't make it to any of these, although we wanted to. Some of the offerings on our cruise included The Appetizer, Dazzling Desserts, Plate Decorating, and Napkin Folding. The Navigator Series included a documentary of the Magic's recent dry dock, and a tour of the ship with an emphasis on the artwork scattered about. No charge for this and no reservations needed - just show up at the designated time and place.
Stem to Stern Wine Tasting - DH and I love wine, and for $12 a person we thought this would be a great way to spend an hour before heading to Palo for high tea. Disney offers this on both days at sea, and it takes place in Sessions. You get to try five different wines and one glass of champagne and get a brief discussion of the elements of each wine - taste, scent, color, etc.... We really enjoyed this - and you get a special wine tasting pin when you're finished!
Bingo - There was at least one bingo session per day, sometimes two, through Thursday evening which was when the last game was played. We played one session and didn't win, but it was fun. I wouldn't repeat the experience again - I'm not really a big gambler. I hate spending $50 for a pack of cards and walking away at the end with nothing to show for it. However, I don't seem to have any problems at all spending $140 on a bottle of wine with dinner. Funny, isn't it, how we all have different standards for what constitues a "waste of money" ?
The Bridge Tour - We did this on Sunday afternoon, which is when they offered a tour without children, although I'm pretty sure one couple smuggled in a pre-teen (she was well behaved, but why advertise it as child-free if you're not going to enforce it?). We didn't mind that she was there, but when we got our tickets from Guest Services they were the ones who said, "Take this tour at 2:30PM - it's adults only." Anyway - regardless of who shows up for the tour it's a fascinating behind the scenes look at what keeps the ship operating. Highly recommend this if you get the chance - no extra charge, either!
Quiet Cove Pool - We never actually used the pool, altough we wanted to. It seemed like every time we got there it was already packed, as were the whirlpools (more's the pity). We usually took some towels and headed upstairs to deck 10 to bask in the sun for a while. We usually lasted for about an hour before I said... "Let's go to the spa!!"
Which leads me to the best part, the information you've been waiting for all this time....
The Vista Spa - Let me just say here that I love going to the spa. I am a regular at my local spa, usually for facials, but I do splurge on pedicures and body treatments from time to time. I was prepared to be disappointed - after all, how good could a spa on a cruise ship be? Put away your doubts, my friends. This spa is fabulous.
The Rainforest - This is a large suite with four heated tile loungers, a gentle sauna, a chamomile sauna, and a eucalyptus steam room. As soon as we sat down on one of those heated loungers we were sold and we each got a week-long pass. Heads up - this has increased to $75 per person for the week but we didn't mind. We were in there every day for at least an hour. We usually used the gentle sauna first and then would cool off on the loungers. What bliss! We didn't care for the steam room and the other sauna was too strongly scented and too hot. But the other stuff more than compensated. I believe if you are having a spa treatment on any given day that you can buy a single-day discounted pass for the Rainforest ($8 maybe?), but otherwise it's $15 per day. All I can say is when can I add one of these to my basement?
The Rasul aka Naughty Mud Treatment for Two - This was something that piqued my interest when I read about it on Disney's web-site. Then I started reading about it on these message boards. I was determined that if nothing else, this would be the one spa treatment we'd try on this trip. My DH is pretty open to things like this, which made it easy for me to say, "we're going to the spa for some shocking body treatment - come on!" It was $89 for an hour, although we ended up going longer than that (it's hard to hear them knocking on the door when you're in the stream room!). The attendant shows you to a suite of rooms - a sitting area with a tile bench, a little table full of spa products, and two bowls, there's a shower to your left, and a steam room to your right. In a nutshell, you take a shower using the exfoliating scrub they provide, once you've rinsed off it's time to slather yourself ( or each other ) with mud. Then you go sweat in the steam room where the heat is supposed to draw out impurities from your skin. No one can enter the suite from the outside - the door locks automatically from the inside - so you've got at least 60 minutes to do, well, do I need to spell it out for you???
This was one of our favorite experiences on the cruise and we're looking forward to trying it again next year. It's both very sensuous and very relaxing. Ladies, if you can get your husbands to try something a little new, then I strongly urge trying this. It was wonderful!!
Spa Taster (part of REAS package) - We chose the spa taster for our REAS experience and paid an extra $50 to upgrade it to include a well being massage. This meant that we got a mini-facial along with a full body massage and a scalp massage. Very nice experience - we saved it until Friday afternoon because we thought it would be a nice way to end the week. I might have enjoyed it more if I'd been able to breathe out of my nose (stupid cold virus
). The scalp massage was heaven.Hair Salon - I splurged on formal night and paid for an up-do. I was pleasantly surprised by the results the stylist was able to achieve - my hair is nothing if not difficult. I thought the price was a bit high ($45 - my hair isn't quite shoulder length) but it was still fun to glam it up for one night.
The exercise room was small, but not bad. We had every intention of using it, but loafing and drinking always seemed to get in the way. They also offered some exercise classes that we were interested in (no fee for these, by the way!) but sleeping and eating distracted us.
What can I say? We're both lazy - we've raised lounging to an art form! I'll post later about the restaurants and I think that will cover it. If I've left something out that you're interested in just ask and I'll try to answer your question as best I can. Really quickly about the shows - we only went to one the whole week, so I really can't comment much about them. Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer was really fun, though!
See ya later, and thanks again for reading!
Brenda
