Trip Report for Our B2SB Cruises - Completed!

[AskAGeek]

Um, what else did we do? I'm dying to hear... Are you going to post some more, or has the vacation 'magic' faded already?

 

[BobandLee]

Um, what else did we do? I'm dying to hear... Are you going to post some more, or has the vacation 'magic' faded already?

She's just resting up. What has been written has been good. Nice report so far Trace.

Sorry for bailing out on the PubQuest. You guys probably did better without us.

 

[Hygiene99]

Waxing up the snow shovel???

 

[winotracy]

To be honest, I need my notes. Vacation was so long I don't remember everything. Maybe tonight...

 

[mississaugamom]

Tonight?? I'm enjoying the vicarious crusing so far!

 

[winotracy]

ok, ok...

On Monday we woke up with the sunlight. Ah, it was so nice to have the window and balcony. We went up to Beach Blanket for breakfast. We had a message the night before that the Scrapbook Meet would now be at 9:45 in Cadillac Lounge and that worked out great!

I got down there just as the meet was starting. I grabbed a seat. Just then Leslie and Elaine told me that I needed to go up to Preludes to get my wristband to get pins. I was hoping to find Bill too so he could get one. Just as I walked out, Bill was coming to find me He wanted to know if I wanted to go to the DVC party with Jenn and Peter after the scrapbooking. I dragged him up to Preludes and we decided to go. The guy giving out the wristbands told me we had to buy the pin by 10 p.m. or we couldn't get it. I asked him if I gave him a pin if he would make sure I got one

The Scrapbook meet was really fun. Seaulater (Linda) made up all the pieces and instructions for either a booklet or and accordian card. I was pretty quick at it so I helped others. I helped Annrae and DisneyPinDiva with their scrapbooks.

Gail (glindamood) called me aside because Lynn (ScottH) asked her about the Secret Mickey gifts she was getting. She wanted to make sure they weren't put there by mistake. Gail knew what was going on (but more on that later).

After the scrapbooking we went to the DVC party. They packed Diversions. After the DVC party, a bunch of us went to Tritons for lunch. We were at a table for 6 and then more came so we moved to a table for 8. AS a result, I was running behind. I had told the Four Wonderful Wine Women that I would help open bottles. The party was about to begin and we didn't have food yet. I asked our server to serve me everything at once and I ran up to Deck 8 to let them know. Yes, I ran up there. By the time I got up there I was exhausted! They weren't quite ready for people yet so it worked out ok. I ran back down to eat. I saw Rich Purpura by Guest Services so I ran out to talk to him. He had told me if there was someone I wanted him to pull up on stage to let him know so I went out there to tell him to pull up Peter. He said that he would I just needed to point him out.

After lunch, I went to the room to get our wine and change into my "wine chick" shirt.

The Wine Tasting was a lot of fun! Lots of people, lots of wine. It did get really warm in there though. The cheese and fruit were really good and the truffles -- OMG!!!!!!!

I don't really remember what all we did after the wine tasting, but I know we got our pins at some point. We had ressies at Palo for 6:00 so we needed to get ready for that. We went with Peter and Jenn. The meal was fabulous!!

Compared to Palo on Wonder, I did notice some differences. The food was presented different in some cases. The after dinner lemon drinks were different, though the recipe was the same. The drink was frothy. I recognized the servers and the Maitre D on the Magic. Even servers that I have never had. But not on the Wonder so I got a different feel in the room. I felt like the Maitre D was a little on the cold side. He definitely wasn't as friendly as PJ. Also, I had stopped up there on the first night to see if I could change our ressies to tables for 4. They got the dinner right but not the brunch.

After dinner we stopped in Parrot Cay to see our tablemates. We made it in time for the show. We got our morocas (sp)!

All day I was trying to get people to come to the late Cabaret show to see Rich pull Peter up on the stage. A lot of people said they were coming. As a result, they ended up having the show in Diversions as well. I talked to Rich and he said the room was too full he wasn't sure if he could pull up Peter. We ended up sitting very close to the front on the far side. He never picked on Peter. That was pretty disappointing.

After the show we went to bed.

Highlights to come....

PJ Breakfast, Trivia, Golden Mickeys, last day at sea before five days in port....

 

[winotracy]

I forgot to mention, we did Secret Mickeys on this cruise like we did on the August Repo cruise. Kind of a Secret Santa. I ended up with someone we cruised with in August, eeorelvr10 (Laura). She was original on Deck 7 like us but got an upgrade to Deck 8. As it turned out, this was a great location. She was fairly close to the stairway so I could drop something off and get back to the stairs. Peter decided to give Scott stuff even though he didn't sign up for the Secret Mickeys. This caused a lot of suspicion from Scott. Peter let everyone at our dinner table in on what he was doing and a few of them picked up some gifts for Scott and Lynn too. Now understand, the gifts were supposed to be bad gifts, but somehow they were viewed differently by Scott and Lynn. Back to the trip report.

Tuesday was Jammie Breakfast, hosted by Elaine (Mickey&JoshNut). We had over 100 DISers scheduled to have breakfast in Tritons in our Pjs. The whole back end of Tritons was filled with DISers, this was KEWL!

While we were waiting to get in to Tritons, Laura (eeorelvr10) gave me a gift but told me not to open it in front of everyone because she gave one to her Secret Mickey too. I asked Bill to take it back to the room because he was going to get our camera and deliver another Secret Mickey gift because she wouldn't know who it was because we were at the PJ breakfast with her when a gift arrived. Leslie got caught in the hall (I believe she was delivering a Secret Mickey gift to Lynn and Scott at the time) by an officer who said “Your late for the pajama breakfast in Tritons”. It's amazing what they all knew we were doing.

After breakfast we went back to the room and changed for the day. At 11 was Tom McAlpin's speech. After last year, we knew we needed to get there early to get a good seat. A number of the things he spoke about we had heard in previous speeches, press releases, etc., but some of it was new and interesting. Mr. McAlpin mentioned the changes to the Castaway Club, starting with the reception to make it more interactive. The lanyards and pins were meant to be a gift for each repeat cruiser, regardless of how many were in the room, rather than one gift of a towel or bag that people had to agree who would get. The gift they are giving in the room has a bunch of things in it so that everyone can get a little something. We liked the new gift a lot as it had some mesh bags, sunscreen (for faces!), a note pad, a magnet and a lot of other things. He was asked about an announcement for 2008 and he said in the same time frame as the Med cruises were announced (March-April). He was also asked about a new ship, but didn't answer the question with the usual response about the cost of the Euro vs. the dollar. We had heard some rumors about space for two ships opening at Fincantari (sp?) and a deal to offer the space for the dollar rather than the Euro. The funniest thing happened when Mr. McAlpin said if we wanted to know what was happening with DCL to check the DISboards. That got a roar from the crowd. At one point, he couldn't answer a question someone asked and said that they should leave their cabin number and he would get an answer to them. He said if anyone else wanted the answer to also let Guest Services know and someone said “Just post it on the DISboards!”. He laughed!

After the presentation, Regina (WebmasterRegina) wanted to introduce me to someone so I hung around. She introduced me to Donna from Dreams Unlimited Travel. It was really nice to meet her and her husband, but I didn't have long to talk because we were planning to go to the DVC presentation starting about 5 minutes before that time! We ran into Donna a Joe a number of times over the course of the cruise.

Next we went over to the DVC presentation in Diversions. There were a bunch of DISers in one of the corners. I ended up sitting on the floor with Leslie, Elaine and Elizabeth (MyFairyGodmother). During the presentation, a child (probably around 8-10) started playing a video game with the sound on. When his parents tried to take it away, he threw a fit! So what did they do? They let him continue to play. This was about 1/2 way into the presentation. A number of us were about ready to go say something to the parents. Finally, just before the presentation was over, they left. We cheered. I can't understand parents who let their children disrupt everyone else. It was very distracting. We decided that the time is not right for us to buy DVC, but may do so in the near future. After the presentation, we got some lunch. Today was also the Bobs' Cigars & Scotch get together. We had lunch at Pluto's Dog House. I got a brat because I had heard that they were good the last time on the Magic. That was wrong! It was the worst thing I had eaten on both cruises combined (and that includes the lumpy creme brulee). It was so bad that when I was trying to describe to Bill what it tasted like, I figured it would be better to try it again, but I just couldn't. We swam for a while. Then we decided to go to the Cruisin' Trivia. We joined Stephen (Corwin17) in the Promenade Lounge and played as a team. We ended up tying for first place!! We won a DCL logo backpack thingy. And of course Pub Points! The sports trivia started 1/2 hour after the Cruisin' Trivia started so at the end while we were scoring our trivia, Bill left to get to Diversions for the Sports Trivia. By the time I arrived, it was done and we did very badly at that! Regina and Gary's team won! It was all about baseball and Bill, Bob and Cheryl aren't baseball diehards.

After this, it was time to get ready for the Golden Mickeys and formal night. It was also the Captain's Gala. We left Diversions and grabbed a cocktail in the Atrium. We got dressed for the show and found out that the tuxedo shirt that I borrowed from Leslie's Joe did not fit Bill (sleeves were too short), so he went back to wearing the same shirt he wore on the Magic. We just made it to the Golden Mickeys before it started. The show was as good as usual. After the Golden Mickeys we went down to Diversions for what then became our nightly ritual of Pub Quest and veggies and dip and guacamole! I think this night was the full contact thumb wrestling, or maybe it was the random card number game, but I know it wasn't the cup stacking game (that was on the next formal night). It may have been connect four, full contact of course. No wait, it was full contact Uno.

We had dinner that night in Tritons. I think I like Lumieres atmosphere better than Tritons. When they dimmed the lights in the room and increased the blue lights, I thought it made my food look weird and everyone looked weird because of the coloring. This was the night that we decided to celebrate my birthday. Turns out on the first night when Charlie was going around asking about celebrations, he made it sound like we could pick a date to celebrate anything so I chose Tuesday in Tritons for my birthday celebration since it was only 3 weeks prior. I had told Bob (BobandLee) that I would get him a Key Lime Pie like we did on the Magic last year so I told our head server Michelle on the first night I would like one for Tuesday night. In the meantime, Leslie and Elaine were planning a party for me. They had hats and horns and Elaine had them on the table when we arrived. We had lots of fun with the horns, even though they didn't make a sound, and the hats (right Leslie and Jenn?). They brought out two Key Lime Pies. Two couples were not there for dessert so we ended up only using one of the pies and saved the other for the next night. Elaine gave me a gift with some scrapbooking stuff and a couple little bottles of Ice Wine!!!! Thank you Elaine!!!

After dinner we went to the end of the balloon drop. We were there after the balloons dropped, but before the confetti. We were dancing in the atrium. I took off my shoes and my feet got plastered with the gold confetti. After the show, we went to bed.

 

[Mackey Mouse]

Hey.....is there any more of this trip report to come????

 

[winotracy]

Hey.....is there any more of this trip report to come????

of course there is... I just need to write it

 

[winotracy]

One thing I haven't mentioned so far is that we like having the balcony because we do spend time out there and spend more time in our room. I enjoy waking up with the sunrise. Every evening we would go into the room and open the outside curtain so the morning light would come in. The problem was our neighbor's light had a problem and would start blinking, as if they were sending morse code. So we had to keep our drapes closed.

We got up early on Wednesday as we were heading into dock. I just love how the deep blue water looks with the black mountains extending out of the water up towards the sky and the sun coming up on the other side. So different from the afternoon, but yet just as beautiful! I stood on the verandah taking a few pictures when our neighbor came out. I mentioned to them that I wasn't sure if they knew but their verandah light was on all night long. Turns out they noticed the blinking and figured they would leave it on all night rather than it blinking on and off. I mentioned that they should tell guest services and maybe it would be fixed. They said they would. We went up on deck and had a little something to eat.

We got our stuff together for a day on St. Thomas and then met up with Peter & Jenn. They hadn't gone up for breakfast yet so we joined them and had a little bit more. After we ate it was time to head ashore! Our plan was to take the ferry to St. John's and rent a car. The ferry from Charlotte Amalie left at 9:00 and it was still fairly early so we decided to take a taxi to Red Hook and the ferry from there. The price worked out to be the same. We found a taxi driver fairly quick but she said we wouldn't make the next ferry as it was too soon so she wanted to wait for more riders. That was fine with us. Shortly, a family of three came and joined us. It was Celeste, Robb and Noah!! (icunurse_celeste). They were going to St. Johns and going snorkeling at Trunk Bay on their own. We chatted with them on the ride to Trunk Bay and then while we waited for the ferry and then on the ride to St. Johns. When we got to St. Johns, we picked up a car and decided that Peter could drive. Jenn, Bill and I didn't want to. We drove around the island, by Trunk Bay and on further around, stopping along the way for pictures. We saw a deer in the road at one point.

We ended up over at Great Salt Pond. The sign said it was 2 miles to the water from the parking lot. It wasn't. We were the only ones at the beach! It was beautiful. We set our stuff down and Bill and I grabbed our snorkel equipment and went in the water. There wasn't much to see. Jenn walked down the beach. Peter swam. I started to follow Jenn down the beach, though I was in the water and snorkeling and I started to find some fish and other sea creatures. All of a sudden, I saw some sea turtles!! There must have been 3 or more there. I was swimming toward them, a little cautious because I wasn't sure if they would bite or be aggressive. I happened upon a lot of coral and a lot more sea life! It was beautiful!! We lost the sea turtles, but I still got a lot of good pictures!

Soon there was another couple on the beach snorkeling on the other side of the bay. I walked over and saw the Great Sea Pond. Nothing much, just water. Then I went over to where the couple had been snorkeling because they said they saw a stingray. I didn't find the stingray, but found a lot of interesting sealife. Then I came back closer to Bill, Peter and Jenn and found a small area with coral and fish. I found one that had turquoise blue on him and Peter said his name was "cousin Vinny" so I started talking to him through my snorkel. Then another fish came along. He was white with some tan stripes. Peter said his name was Jack. So I talked to Jack as well. Jack was looking at my toes with the Mickey on the big toe nails! So now we figured, I talk to fish and Jenn talks to cows LOL. We hiked back up to the car and made our way back around the island. On the way back to Cruz Bay we saw many animals. First there was goats. Then a single cow. Then a cow and a bull, uh, in an intimate moment and then around the corner there was a calf. We figured it was a pictorial of the bird and the bees LOL. Then we saw a huge pig! We dropped off the car and we went to check out the ferry dock to see if we could get our tickets. We had a bit of a scary moment. The ferry times were not listed anywhere that we could find. The only thing listed was changes to the schedule, which made it sound like the only ferry left that day was 3:45!! We needed to be onboard by 4:00!! There was no way we were going to make it! On top of it, we were short on cash. Good thing Jenn had a credit card and knew the PIN number so she could get money. Bill and I had enough to get back on the ferry, but not the taxi after that. We had gotten the taxi there so Peter and Jenn got it home. And we bought a round of drinks -- BBCs and Bushwackers!! Yummy!! We knew it was getting close to ferry time so we asked for the drinks in To Go cups. The game them to us that way without a problem. We paid and left. Shortly after getting our tickets, the ferry was there for us and we proceeded to get on. Only one problem. We couldn't take our drinks with us. So we had to quickly drink our frozen drinks before going back. We ended up on a taxi with a family that was on the Mariner of the Seas. We told them how great Disney was and they thought about trying Disney in the future. We got off by the Royal Caribbean ship because it was closest to the shopping. Bill and I wanted to go to Al Cohen's for rum. After getting the rum and my charms at Diamonds International, we pretty much headed back to the ship. We ran into Celeste, Robb and Noah again.

After back onboard, we went to our room to drop off our snorkel gear. We had a message on our voice mail. It was so weird I had to listen to it twice. It was Andy and Ray from the Magic (cruise director and assistant cruise director), calling to wish us a magical cruise on the Disney Wonder!! It was so funny that I recorded it on my camera. That was so sweet for them to do that! We got something to eat at Pluto's Dog House and then went in the water for a while. It was nearly time to sailaway and I had not seen a rainbow yet. For those that know me, there is a significance to me seeing a rainbow in St. Thomas. It has always happened since the day I had to get off the Magic in St. Thomas and fly home when my dad passed away. Well this time the weather was perfect. There was no way we were going to have a rainbow. I was talking to Scott and Lynn and Scott said "no rainbow today". About 1/2 hour later as we were pulling out, I looked to the port side of the ship and there was a faint rainbow!! I got out my camera and took pictures. The further we went, the more pronounced the rainbow!! We stood around with Scott and Lynn and Leslie and Elaine for a while and chatted while having the drink of the day, a Tropical Depression. It was cool because it was purple!

We did make it to the show that night, which was On the Nose. This game show may have potential, but I didn't really care for it the way it was organized. They divided the theater in six parts, basically by where you were seated. My group was the Happy group. We were not encouraged to sit near each other or anything. We had to pick one person from our group to be on stage and answer the questions. We had a CM who was asking us for the answers to relay them to the person on the stage. This really worked poorly. Our group was very spread out (middle section front). It was hard on the CM, our person on stage couldn't hear us and just didn't work well. I can imaging that the ones in the back had a much harder time. They also had the people on stage answer in the same order each time so theoretically, the ones answering last got the benefit of everyone's answer. It didn't end up that way, but it was weird. Of course then we went to Pub Quest with Bob and Cheryl. I think pretty much Bill and I made it to all remaining Pub Quests. We had a hard time making the early one, but always made the 7:30, except the night we were at Palo.

Dinner that night was in Animator's Palate. As usual, it was freezing in there! Of the three restaurants, Animators gets used the least and it is definitely the coldest!! I don't care for the menu in Animators, but I like the show. At the end of dinner, Michelle said she would have a surprise for us in the days to come. Then she brought us out a tray of mini creme puffs, chocolate dipped strawberries and other treats. But this wasn't our treat! After dinner, we pretty much called it a night. Once again, our neighbor's light was blinking and then on all night.

 

[winotracy]

I woke up extra early this morning and decided to do laundry. Bill was sleeping soundly. I got things started and then roamed around the ship. I stopped down by Guest Services and told them about our neighbor's light. I gave them the room number and they said they would check it out. A little later, there was a knock next door and it was maintenance. I went up to Deck 10 and was walking around and ran into Scott and a little later Bob (BobandLee). It was such a nice morning! Scott said that he and Lynn were going diving in St. Lucia. Our excursion had been cancelled so we didn't know what we were going to do.

At 9:30 DCL had the Castaway Club. By the time Bill and I got there, it was packed. We found Leslie, Elaine, Bob and Harry (Harry from MI). We stood by them and filled out our cards and turned in the entries for the drawing. They showed the films and we just chatted. Captain Henry talked about where DCL has been, will be and talked about the future, without giving anything away of course! Then they did the drawing for the clocks. After it was over, we followed Leslie and Elaine to the Steerage Bar. We had Strawberry Daiquiris and chatted for a while. Before we knew it, we were pulling into St. Lucia!!! We all went up on deck 10. We sat up there as others joined us. We ran into Jenn and Peter up there and all decided to go get some lunch before heading out. We figured we would just go into town and shop.

We ate at Beach Blanket Buffet and then decided it would be a great time to put a poster in Scott's room from his "secret mickey". Jenn autographed it from Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom and then wrote in the middle "From you Secret Mickey". As we were putting it on his verandah door, I started thinking about Scott being an investigator and wondered if he would save the tape which now had my fingerprint on it.

We then headed out to St. Lucia. We stopped at Diamonds International and I got my charms. Then we got a cab to go to town. It was only going to be a couple bucks each. As we were leaving, the driver said how about a tour of town and the outlying area for $60 total. So we said ok, since we had nothing planned. Turns out this was the "shopping tour". We kept stopping to see scenic things and there were always locals there ready to sell their goods. We did go up to the highest spot in Castries from which we had beautiful views! As we were coming back to downtown, we decided just to go back to the port. It was hot and we were worn out. We shopped at the port. I bought a couple t-shirts for Bill and my DS Deb since it was her birthday next week. I found a linen and glass place and stopped in because Deb collects colored glass items. I found a really pretty candy dish that had an octopus under it. They had it in a number of colors. I'm not good at negotiating for a better price so I asked Peter to help me. They wouldn't budge on the $59 price. I just thought that was way too much for a candy dish so we left.

Scott had said that it would be difficult to see the Southern Cross on the cruise because it would be visible only at around sundown at the horizon. We went to the pool for a while, but then at sundown we walked up on Deck 10. We got some nice pictures of the sunset, but did not see the Southern Cross is it was too cloudy near the horizon where it would be.

Tonight's show was Hercules!!! I love Hercules!! I was sad to see it go. I did mention to a DCL entertainment from Celebratin that I met in St. Kitts that I wish they could do Hercules AND Twice Charmed. The big problem is the space they need for all the sets. It's not possible to do 4 big productions like they do. He said they are seeing if there is a way to do a scaled down version of Hercules without all the set props. I thought that would be cool!

While we were waiting for the show to begin, I asked Peter and Jenn (loud enough so Scott could hear) that I was wondering when the Secret Mickey reveal party was going to be. Scott started saying how he was getting stuff and didn't know why. He told us about the poster and said he found a fingerprint. He said he could run it through AFIS. OMG! I was trying to hard not to laugh! Good thing I have never been fingerprinted!

That night was also Tropical night! We were in Parrot Cay for dinner. Peter made hats for all of us out of our napkins. Leslie and Elaine had straw hats. We all looked festive!

After dinner we went to get Bill's grass skirt for the deck party. He hated his grass skirt because it stunk like flame retardant or kerosene, even after hanging it outside on the verandah for 4 days! He wore it nevertheless. We also brought a bottle of Caramel Baileys. They were selling these in Wisconsin during the summer as a trial market and supposed to release them to the general public in the fall. Let me tell you, it was yummy!!! Bill didn't last too long in the grass skirt though because Peter came up to him with a lighter and said "how about a little fire Scarecrow?" ROFL! Hollywood came up on Deck 10 at one point and Bill quickly volunteered his skirt for Hollywood.

Bill and I went to get online and see if I kept my instructions for the excursion in Barbados, but I hadn't. When we got back, everyone had left. We decided to call it a night anyway.

 

[winotracy]

When we got up this morning we were approaching Barbados. OMG what a beautiful island! We planned to do the Thriller Snorkel with the Turtles. Peter, Jenn, Bill and I signed up quite a while ago. When Ivan (Let's Go Steelers) saw we had signed up for a snorkel with the turtles, he asked me about it. His family of five signed up and they changed our time to noon instead of 11:30. We didn't think this would work out very well because we wanted to go to the Malibu Rum Distillary. Ivan asked the tour operator how many spots he had left on his boat. We needed to get 6 more to join us and then we could pick our own time! We got Gail and David (Glindamood), Vicki & Stephen (Kitster & Corwin17), Leslie (DisneyPinDiva) and Elaine (Mickey&JoshNut) -- Yes, I did say Elaine!! This would be her first snorkeling experience. I got a hold of Ivan and he had the directions with him. We met everyone at the Promenade Lounge and left as a group. It cost us $2 per person to go to where the boat would pick us up. We took two cabs there and met up with Stephen from Thriller. We all paid and then got on the boat. We had soda, water, beer and after the snorkeling rum punch. That was the best Rum Punch we had all cruise!

Because some of us wanted to be dropped off at Malibu at the end, we did the tour in a different order. We started at 9:30. This worked great! First we went to a site of a couple shipwrecks. One was almost 100 years old, the other only 4-5 years old. We saw a lot of a fish that I had also seen in St. Thomas -- a needle fish. It was really neat. They swim near the surface of the water and look like baby swordfish. As I was getting in the boat, I noticed a baracuda under the boat. I made sure I didn't tell Elaine until she was in the boat too.

From there we went over to a site where we could swim with sea turtles! On the way we passed Malibu. All you could smell on the way was RUM!!! YUMMY!!! They were incredible. We got some great pictures of the turtles while our guide fed them. There were a number of boats around and this is where we ran into Scott and Lynn who were on a diving excursion. We also thought that Adrienne and Tony (aphoenix) were on the Disney excursion doing the same thing as us so everytime we came to a boat with a lot of people on it, we screamed "Adrienne!! Tony!!", but no one looked. Later, they said they never heard us and their boat wasn't near other boats. LOL.

From the turtles we went to another site where we could look at coral and fish. This was really neat too. Saw lots of schools of Dorys. Saw Trumpet Fish. It was starting to cloud up so the snorkeling wasn't as nice. We got in the boat and the rain started! Good thing we were already wet! The rain passed in no time and we were off to our beach break. Talk about a beautiful site!! I've never seen sand whiter and water and sky bluer. Incredible!! We also got our rum punch when the rain started. When we got to the beach, we were anchored a little ways away from shore. We learned quickly how to get in the water without getting ocean in our rum punch. The snacks we had were chips and salsa. We spent quite a while on the beach and in the water. Jenn collected shells while Leslie pretended to be Ariel on one of the rocks.

Bill discovered a new Olympic event while floating in the water. He learned to balance his glass of rum punch on his stomach! David then started to do it too. I tried too, but it was hard to do it on my stomach so I tried for the chest, but this was worse. LOL.

We got back in the boat and were off to Malibu!! Stephen brought the boat in as far as he could, but it was still deep. We needed to jump into the water and then they handed us our stuff. We swam in with everything above our heads until we could reach and walk in. From there we went up to Malibu! We rinsed off our feet and used the bathrooms then went into the visitor center. We saw Neal and Liz (Pappy) there. There were many cab drivers trying to get our business. We told them all we just got there and to leave us alone. In the Visitor's Center they had t-shirts and rum, plus a few other things. I looked at the prices for the tour. It was $10 and we only got one drink each. We could also get a beach chair, umbrella, etc, but we weren't going to do that. I asked if we could do something without the beach and they told me the price with just the beach. We decided again doing anything. The rum was not that cheap so we just got a couple shirts and left. We decided to walk back.

Now it depends who you ask, but I know we were walking a minimum of 45 minutes, probably more than that. It was very hot, and humid. We all were a little sore after that. Note to self, if you can barely see the ship, it is a long ways away!! Take a cab!

We went up to the pool when we got back. We didn't stay long in the pool because it was adult night in the kids club!! Bill decided to nap so I went by myself. I sat with Stephen, Vicki, Tony, Adrienne, Leslie, Elaine, Regina and Gary. Peter got picked on there and he ended up singing "I'm a Little Teapot" with the professor. We made flubber then!

The show tonight was a new one. It's called The Art of the Story. Now I liked this show for the most part, but I felt that the title didn't fit. In the beginning, Ducky Williams and someone else talked about taking a movie or a story and turning it into a show. Then they showed part of what would be a total picture by Ducky and had a one word title on it like SONG. Then there would be a performance on stage. The first one was from the Hunchback, then Mulan, Tarzan, Beauty & the Beast and then I think the Lion King. The performances were great, the music was great, but the story didn't make sense. I talked to the DCL CM from Celebration about this and he said they were going to put in voice overs when the one word titles came up on the screen. That I thought would make all the difference in the world. Just explain how the words and concepts go together to make the story.

Tonight we were in Tritons. This would be a similar menu to Lumiere's rotational menu so I was looking forward to it. The escargot was not as good as it was on the Magic, but the creme brulee was great!! I did mention to Charlie that I hoped there was a crust on the top and I don't know if he grabbed on that was better than the others or if they sprinkled more sugar and cooked it again, but it had a better crust (though it did have some sugar that was not carmelized on top too), but there were NO LUMPS!!!!!!!!!! We were entertained by Ariel, Sebastian and the turtles tonight. After dinner we were going to go to the late showing of The Art of the Story, but we were so tired we decided against it and went to bed early.

Tonight's towel "animal" was a leaning tower of pisa with a note that said that the Magic was going to the Med next year and there would be new towel animals too! I thought this was a very clever marketing tool!

 

[winotracy]

The next morning we arrived in Antigua. I was up early again and watched the sun come up, complete with another rainbow. I took lots of pictures around the ship today. I stopped by Guest Services again and told them again that our neighbor's light has been on continuously at night because if it's not on, it flashes on and off and drives them crazy. They said they would check it out. This time I think they got it right because we had no more problems the rest of the cruise. We did notice a light still on, but it was two rooms away so it didn't bother us as much. It was actually like being at home LOL.

Our excursion didn't leave until after noon so we met up with Peter and Jenn on Deck 10 and then decided to go into town and shop for a bit. There were many taxi operators asking if we needed to go to a beach. That kind of thing drives me crazy. I wish there was some way to let them know we have an excursion already, leave us alone! We finally got into the shop that Jenn wanted to go to for her perfume, but they didn't have it yet. Too early in the season. We didn't shop very long, but ran into Amber and Rob (Rob_b), Marsha and Tom (Mackey Mouse), Regina and Gary (WebmasterRegina), Dianna and Lamar (Tigger&Bubba) and Tim and Bill (TDE1969). We went back onboard and got ready for our excursion. We were doing the Seafari! This was on a rigid inflatable boat.

This boat was interesting because you straddled the seat. It was a fun excursion, but got rough for a while (when over in the Atlantic Ocean) and seemed to be too long. We started getting sore and tired. But we did get to see Hell's Gate and Devil's Bridge. We also saw Eric Clapton's and Oprah Winfrey's homes. I thought we would get off the boat at Nelson's Dockyard, but we didn't. I think a stop there would have made it a little more enjoyable on the second half of the trip and would have meant we would hurt a little less from the seats. We did get to stop at a deserted beach, snorkel, swim and have rum punch. Though there wasn't enough rum punch if you went snorkeling first.

At this stop I did see a clown fish!! Not the same as Nemo, but it was a clown fish! We got rained on when we were 3/4 of the way around the island but it was still very enjoyable. CM Ian and his friend Lucy were on the excursion with us. Ian admitted that the CMs do read the DISboards. When we got back to the ship, it was time to get ready for the show. Tonight was Muppets Ahoy! This was a different show from last year for the most part. It was a little weird because they showed the puppeteers. They did Manamana which ended up being sung many nights at dinner. The premise of the show was that Ms Piggy wasn't going to come and do her part of the show, she was having too much fun on the ship, and Kermit was trying to find acts to go on. Then Rudi Macaggi came on. I don't like being totally mean, but this was not a good choice. The things that Rudi can do and did do on America's Got Talent are amazing, but he doesn't have a good act. He needs more than just his comedy, because it wasn't funny. I was actually sad that we were sitting so close to the front because I would have left if we were in the back. Apparently, Rudi wanted to have a whole hour, but DCL said no. For the late show, they cut him back even more. The skit at the end with the Muppets running all over the ship is good and was the same as last year, but was very good. At one part in the show, they had CD Brent dress up as a chicken. This prompted days of everyone calling him Chicken Boy! That is, until the Crew Talent show, but more on that later!

Dinner was in Animator's Palate tonight. When we went in, Jenn gave Michele a t-shirt that she picked up in Antigua. I can't remember what the menu was though LOL. I do remember that we got our surprise from our head server! After dinner she brought us all Chocolate Souffles from Palo!! We were really stuffed after that!

We did make it to the second episode of Match your Mate. This was no where near as funny as the first one. They did change all the questions. Afterwards, we went to bed.

 

[winotracy]

The next morning we woke up approaching St. Kitts. What a pretty island!! Though this was the first time all vacation that we were outside sitting having breakfast and we had to get up and move so we didn't get wet. Any other time we were either inside or already wet so it didn't matter. Today we had planned to go on the railroad trip with the Brimstone Fort tour. The ship docks very close to town. They are building new shops by the port and it looks to be very nice in the near future.

Scott and Lynn were on the excursion with us. We met in the Promenade Lounge bright and early. After they were ready for us on the dock, we left. They had taxis waiting for us (basically minivans). Ours held six and it was Bill and I, Scott and Lynn and two other ladies. The taxi took us to the train. St. Kitts has a lot of sugar cane. That used to be their main source of income. Now they are trying to sell the sugar cane to an American company to try to make Ethanol out of it. Kind of interesting!

We got to the train and it was a double decker train with five cars for passengers. You could sit on the first level and be in airconditioned comfort or sit on top in the open air with a cover. Soon after we started moving, a waitress offered us pina coladas, rum punch, soda or water. I had a virgin colada to start with then a rum punch. It was only 8:30!! Bill and Scott had rum punch as well. Later they brought around sugar cane juice. I was not impressed by this. It was very sweet, but tasted weird. Then they gave us sugar cakes. Those were really good!! Coconut, sugar, sugar, and sugar!! Lynn got to hold a baby monkey before we got off the train.

It was on the train that I met the CM from Celebration. It was very interesting talking to him. His department is responsible for all of the entertainment on the cruises from the stage shows to the cruise staff to the music. We talked about the shows on the cruise thus far, the Panama Canal cruises and the Mediterranean cruises next year. He will be on the repo and the first Med.

After the train we got back in the same taxi and drove to the fort. The beaches on St. Kitts were so cool. They had black sand! We got over to the fort and immediately saw a couple monkeys! As we made our way up the mountain to the fort, we passed a taxi coming down. In the taxi was Bob and Cheryl! Scott rolled down the window and said hello to them. When we got up to the fort base and then had to walk up to the fort. What a climb! But it was well worth it!

Absolutely gorgeous view from there. We could see St. Eustatious (sp?) very well from there. I went down to the gift shop to buy a t-shirt for Bill, some rum and a sugar cake. They had a problem running my credit card. Luckily I had some cash, but Bill had it by the taxi. I had to run out and yell for him to come back with the money. Once back in the taxi, we continued the rest of the way around the island. When we got back to the port, we decided to do a little shopping. I still hadn't found something for Deb. Since it was Sunday, not many shops were open. We did find a glass place that was open. Turns out it was one of the few places open and it seems everyone went there! I found a cute dish shaped like a clam shell that had a dolphin in it. It was very pretty. I got it for Deb. We then went back on the ship, but first stopped at Diamonds International

Once onboard we ate lunch and then went to the pool! Peter and Jenn went out shopping and Jenn finally found the ring that she wanted. She was so excited!!

That evening before the show we went to the kid's club again to paint Cells! That was a lot of fun! I sat at a table with Leslie, Elaine, Marsha, Tommy and two others who never spoke. Then another lady came and joined us. She was mean. She kept taking the picture for herself so we couldn't see the colors.

Bill took a nap again during the kids club. That night, the regular show was a movie. We did not go and see it. This was pirate night. Instead we took our time getting ready and then went to Pub Quest and then off to dinner in Parrot Cay. After dinner was the Pirate deck party. We did get up there in top for the show and it was great. We did a conga line around Deck 10. We just didn't get enough people so ours was pretty lame compared to the one on Deck 9. Right after the party we made our way to Wave Bands to see Taylor Mason. Taylor is still our favorite caberet act on the ships. His act was funny as usual. Afterwards, we went to bed.

 

[winotracy]

Another day at sea!! If there was one downside to this cruise it was the limited days at sea. I really enjoy days at sea. But the ports of call were outstanding! We had brunch scheduled for today. But this was also Character Breakfast. Bill and I went to the pool early and then went to get ready for brunch. We were ready early so we went to the end of character breakfast. We missed Mickey and the gang, but were there for Minnie.

We then went up to Palo for brunch. We took Peter and Jenn with us. This was also the DISers group brunch. A 1/2 hour after we got there, Scott, Lynn, Elaine and Leslie came for brunch and sat near us. This was one thing I didn't like on the Wonder. They made a point to make sure you got the same server for dinner and brunch. I don't like getting the same server unless they are superior and to be honest, I have really liked a lot of my servers at Palo, but there isn't anyone that I have insisted on having. I like having different servers because you get to know more people. On the Magic, we met a lot of the servers when we were sitting at the bar. Every night they all said hello. Brunch was good. It was different than the Magic. In some ways good, in others, not so good. They had menus. The desserts were larger on the Wonder. We had to order our free champagne drink rather than picking one up at the bar on the way in. This wasn't entirely clear that one was included.

Peter figured that this was a good time to deliver another Secret Mickey gift since we were all at brunch. I left to make a call and get Leslie, Elaine, Jenn and I signed up for the mixology seminar that afternoon. Peter made his way out too and had a poster delivered.

We asked about the dress code for tea since Jenn and I were going that day. We needed to dress up so I would wear the same dress again. After brunch, I went to the room and changed into my swimsuit. Then I was going to Guest Services to pick up our tickets and then to shop. I ran into Elaine and she told me Leslie was in their room. I had something to give to Leslie so I left and went to our room to pick it up and go down to her room. Elaine came with because the internet was down.

I ended up sitting down by Leslie and chatting for a long time.... Before I knew it, it was 2:50!! Tea was at 3:00!! I was down on 2 and needed to go up to 10, but it couldn't happen that easily. I was in my swimsuit! Also, Bill was going to the pool earlier, so I thought I better go check on him. I went all the way to the other end of the ship and up to 9. Bill wasn't there. I walked back to the aft and saw the end of Mouse 2.0, a new deck party. I really wanted to get an airbrush tattoo, but I missed it. I asked if there was any way to still get a tattoo, it was now 2:54. They said they could do it, but I would have to wait for one other person to finish. I waited a couple minutes and realized, I really had to go. I said sorry, I didn't have time and left. I went down to 7 and found Bill, napping. Then I changed and went up to 10. I got there just as they were going to sit. Tea was fun! It was Cheryl, Lee, Jenn and I. This was my first tea.

After tea, we had the mixology seminar. I had to change before going down, but I just made it. Bill was still napping LOL. I joined Jenn, Elaine and Leslie in the Promenade Lounge. We got to try BBCs, Cosmos, Long Beach Ice Teas and then they were looking for a volunteer. I shot my hand up and was chosen first. I had to go behind the bar and make a B52. They told me the wrong order to put the alcohols in so I had to do it twice. After I finished, they told me I had to drink the B52. Leslie did one next and drank hers too. After the seminar, we had a chance to ask questions. I asked if I had to drink the mistake that I made. They said yes!! LOL.

After the seminar, we sat there and had a martini. Bill joined us. I talked with one of the officers that I recognized from the Magic. Nick the Assitant Beverage Manager. He helped me get a hold of a bar tool that Leslie was interested in. Thanks Nick!

After that we decided we needed to find all the two for one drink specials. The Navigator said that it was at the Cadillac Lounge, but didn't say a time. So we went there and found out it was from 8:30 to 10:30. Right during dinner! We stopped to shop for a bit, but didn't buy anything. Then we went to see Susan Egan. Her show was great!! I really loved her last year and this year was the same story. After the show we went down to Diversions for Pub Quest. Today was putting. Elaine and Leslie were our cheerleaders! We made it to the finals, but lost. After Pub Quest, we went back to the Steerage Bar.

We had daiquiris again and then went up to Pluto's Dog House for dinner. After dinner, it was back down to the Cadillac Lounge for two for one martinis! We filled up our Castaway Club glasses with our martinis and went down to the Crew Talent Show.

We were at the first crew talent show on the Panama Canal cruise and now they were doing it on the Wonder! The performances were good and great. What was amazing is the talent that the maintenance workers, stateroom hosts, engine room guys, etc., etc. had. I think my favorite was Voltare from the engine room. As a finale, the cruise staff did the skit If I Were Not Upon the Sea. OMG!! We laughed, and laughed!! The best part was Brent, Cruise Director, was a ballerina! Complete with a pink tutu!!

After the show, it was time for bed. I decided to do laundry in the morning if I woke up early. So I got everything ready. Just as I was about to go to bed, I noticed something was put under our door. It was the MouseAdventure on the High Seas II: The Curse of the Mickey Bar! I started to read the scavenger hunt clues and decided I would work on that in the morning too. We could team up with one other room max.

 

[Minniespal]

Excellent ~ Thanx for sharing.

 

[Mackey Mouse]

Great reporting Tracy......we did have fun!!!!!

 

[mississaugamom]

Great report ~ looking forward to the rest of it!

Question: What are "pub points" and what can you do with them?

 

[winotracy]

Pub Points:

Pub Quest is something that they do in Diversions. Something to get people in there, playing games, interacting, etc. Pub Points are what you earn at Pub Quest and other interactive events -- though not drinking events We competed in a couple trivia things and got pub points for participating. Other events were in Diversions a couple times a day. We played Uno, golf, ring the bull, wango tango, just to name a few. It was a lot of fun! The pub points by themselves are just cards each worth one point. The team with the most points at the end of the cruise wins! Actually the top three teams win something. Don't know if I would do this again with so many ports. This is better when you have more days at sea. But we had a blast! The best part of it was meeting other cruisers (including one couple that also did the Back to Sorta Backs!) and the Landlord, Rich. Rich was the best!! We had so much fun interacting with him in Diversions and all around the ship.

 

[Hygiene99]

we went back to the Steerage Bar.

.

Where is the Steerage bar?

We ate at Beach Blanket Buffet and then decided it would be a great time to put a poster in Scott's room from his "secret mickey". Jenn autographed it from Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom and then wrote in the middle "From you Secret Mickey". As we were putting it on his verandah door, I started thinking about Scott being an investigator and wondered if he would save the tape which now had my fingerprint on it.

Thanks to Scott's stateroom host!!

Once onboard we ate lunch and then went to the pool! Peter and Jenn went out shopping and Jenn finally found the ring that she wanted. She was so excited!!

This island had not seen a cruise ship in several month's
this guy was ready to Deal.
When he whipped out his little calculator, we thought he had made a mistake!
But I still said the price was to high and Got him to split the difference.

Great job T.


Here is the photo of me doing little teapot..
Jenn and I sat in the back of the room furthest away!
Professor decide to pick that person!