Wandering the Gulf on the Wonder-Inaugural Bahamas-Galveston 9/28/13 - COMPLETE

[ukintheus]

Joining in.

Hi and thanks for following along.

You lucky girl, having MY adorable Minda as your server. I hope he was performing in all his sarcastic glory for you. It took him a while to come out of his shell for us, but he is full of mischief and I felt like he was one of the family by the time we left the ship. And he's pretty cute too

We had a blast with him and Maggie. It did take him a while to warm up, and I think sometimes he had a hard time with understanding us We didn't get much sarcasm from him, but he definitely loved to laugh and have fun.

 

[ukintheus]

We got ourselves showered and changed and ready for Palo and headed up to Deck 10 just before 11:30 am.

Our server was Heidi from Mexico and she talked to us briefly about our past cruises and then asked if we wanted the formal tour of the brunch items, but we decided to skip it seeing as we were both pretty sure what we wanted.

Heidi offered to take our photo & we both had a complimentary mimosa to get us started.

I was determined to NOT eat too much of all the seafood and cheeses this time. I am notorious for pigging out on those and then hardly being able to eat another thing.

This was my plate from the self-serve items, it looks amazingly full now!

This was DH’s plate, although this was one of a couple (at least).

Then I had Eggs Benedict

And DH had Eggs Florentine.

DH is a cheese-a-phobe. He can eat it on pizza and that’s about it. There’s no rhyme or reason as to why pizza doesn’t count, but he says it’s because he can’t taste any cheese on it. Anyway, all of that was to say that the Eggs Florentine was a little too “cheesy” for him, even though it supposedly didn’t have cheese.

I then had the Chicken Parmesan and didn’t take a photo of it!! DH ordered the veal without cheese, and although it took a little longer for them to prepare, they managed to oblige.

Somewhere in there we also managed to order another couple of mimosas as well. Although we were stuffed full at this point we soldiered on to dessert and tasted a little bit these.

This was mine

And this was DH’s

By this time we were stuffed to the point of no return and the last thing on our agenda for the day was awaiting us. A nap. We waddled back to our cabin and got out of the fancy duds to get into something napworthy. We spent the rest of the afternoon doing nothing except watching a movie on TV. Finally we got to the point where we were able to move outside, and so we took our quest for doing nothing to the verandah.

I had these oh-so-cute Minnie toes does before we left. I thought they turned out pretty well.

I wanted to go and see the Golden Mickeys as we had never seen them before and we got a quick drink to take in with us. The theater was packed, I would say it was probably as busy as we had ever seen it. I loved the Golden Mickeys, it is probably now my second favorite behind Disney Dreams. After the show we went off back to the room to get ready for formal night.

 

[ukintheus]

Seeing as we had some extra time on our hands, and that we had been so lazy all afternoon, we decided to go to Cadillac Lounge for Music & Martinis with Gayla. We only had time to stay for one drink but Gayla had a nice voice and she was entertaining.

Tonight we were in Tritons.

This evening both mystery man and mystery lady at the next door table were there and their table was much closer to us. Perfect opportunity for me to start being nosy – I mean, friendly. It turns out that the lady was the Guest DJ – Miss Ninja, and the guy was the Emergency Fire drill trainer for the ship who was from Port Canaveral. They were both really nice and we ended up hitting it off with both of them and enjoyed their company for the rest of the cruise.

Dinner tonight for DH was Caramelized Bay Scallops, Salad of Mixed Baby Greens, Oven Roasted Duckling and Baked Apple and Blueberry Pithiviers.









Dinner for me was Crispy Cheese Ravioli, Sangria Bisque, Grilled Ginger-Lime Swordfish Steak and The Golden Mickeys Sweet Temptations and I also had the Golden Dream for my drink with dinner.









After dinner we headed back to Cadillac Lounge to wait for for 80’s trivia to begin at 11 pm in Wavebands. Gayla was playing another set and we listened to her until it was time to go. 80's trivia is such a fun activity and we love to go. I recommend it if you can make it. I think we finally got back to the cabin around midnight.

A really nice surprise was waiting for us. I knew that the Magic had given guests gifts for the inaugural cruise from Galveston, but I wasn’t expecting it for the Wonder, so it was a really nice surprise to come back to.



And inside the box is…..



A super-cute cheese board. The wheel rotates – how cool is that??



We also had to turn our clocks forward one hour tonight, so now it was 1 am and definitely time for bed!!

 

[sullins5]

While we were there we were pleasantly surprised to meet a fellow Diser “Sullins5” who was also out doing some Wonder-watching. It’s always so nice to put faces to names and we enjoyed a chat for a little while.
We had already planned to go and eat breakfast somewhere and ended up at Denny’s on the seawall. We had arranged to pick up Sullins5 on our way back from breakfast and drop her off at the port as she was dealing with the rental car/shuttle/parking nightmare that has sadly become the bane of Galveston sailings for a lot of people flying in.

Nothing like a perfect stranger coming up to you and asking if you are "unkintheus" huh? Not sure what I would've done had you said "What are you talking about?" But it was fun meeting another Dis'er!!!

What she means by "arranged to pick up" is that they generously offered to come get me at Hotel Galvez and bring me to the port, in lieu of me grabbing a cab! They were the sweetest things, and what a kind gesture! And she is SO right! Transportation from Hou to Galveston, and arranging hotel shuttles can be a pain! Thanks Jenny and Scott for everything!

And lovin' your Trip Report!

 

[dreamcat78]

Im IN ...Cat let us know about this thread in our HalloWonder group sailing out of TX on the 26th of this month!! Great report so far Even though I am traveling with my kids i am loving your trip w/O kids it is nice to see all the things we can check out for alone adult time!

 

[ukintheus]

Nothing like a perfect stranger coming up to you and asking if you are "unkintheus" huh? Not sure what I would've done had you said "What are you talking about?" But it was fun meeting another Dis'er!!!

What she means by "arranged to pick up" is that they generously offered to come get me at Hotel Galvez and bring me to the port, in lieu of me grabbing a cab! They were the sweetest things, and what a kind gesture! And she is SO right! Transportation from Hou to Galveston, and arranging hotel shuttles can be a pain! Thanks Jenny and Scott for everything!

And lovin' your Trip Report!

To be honest I was a bit suprised! The Disboard group had been so quiet and I hadn't joined the FB group so I was expecting to not meet anybody this time. I always believe things work out for a reason - we were more than happy to pick you up seeing as we were driving RIGHT by!! We ended up giving the Firefighter a lift back to Hobby too after the cruise!! It's pretty bad when guests are having to fill the gaps because DCL doesn't have transport.

Im IN ...Cat let us know about this thread in our HalloWonder group sailing out of TX on the 26th of this month!! Great report so far Even though I am traveling with my kids i am loving your trip w/O kids it is nice to see all the things we can check out for alone adult time!

Hello and welcome! You guys have a very active group going so I know that your halloween cruise is going to be awesome!! I bet they do extra stuff on the actual Halloween cruise over and above the party stuff they did on ours.

 

[UmmGooD]

That cheese wheel is awesome!

I would need to buy some cheese when I got home just to use it or have a party or something.

 

[ukintheus]

We slept in a little and got up about 8:15 am. Our arrival into Key West was scheduled for about 11:00 am and so we had plenty of time. We also had no real plans today, except making sure we got Key Lime Pie from Kermits.

It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day.

We decided to go to Tritons for breakfast. I had the Traditional Eggs Benedict, which was delicious.



And Scott had The Big Breakfast. It looked delicious but it wasn’t what he was expecting as it was filled with grilled tomato, bacon and baked beans – he was expecting those to be on the outside – LOL He said it was good though.



We went up to our verandah to watch our arrival into Key West. The pilot came out to guide us in.



A Carnival ship was already in port, we figured it would be pretty busy in town today, and while the center of town was busy once you got away from the Mallory Square area it thinned out.




This was the screen shot right as we were heading into the channel. We were docking at the Navy Pier.



We had to do a turn maneuver to dock, which was pretty interesting and looked like an amazingly close call at times.



And we officially arrived!



The Navy Pier is a secure area and so DCL provide transportation into the center of town, dropping you off right by the Shipwreck museum close to Mallory Square. We waited a little after the announcement that we had been cleared to disembark. Everyone over the age of 18 needed their KTTW card and photo ID. They had one gangway open on Deck 1, aft. We hoped that waiting a little would help ease the amount of people trying to get off. The line to swipe your KTTW card wasn't long, but once we got off the ship there were fairly long lines for the trolleys into town, much longer than we had experienced back in April. The line moved, but my guess is it took about 20 minutes to get onto a trolley.

On the trolley, heading into town.





I needed to pick up a couple of things from CVS (I already had heartburn and it was only day 3). The CVS was close to Mallory Square and I found it easily with Maps on my iphone. It is only about 5 mins from where the shuttle drops you off. Weird thing was that all of the pharmacy stuff was upstairs, so it took us a while to figure that out. From there we decided to take a stroll down to the marina and get to Kermits for a bite of pie (or two).



This is their regular pie.



And this is Frozen on a stick covered in chocolate and is AMAZING! I could make myself sick eating these things. If you think you can’t make your mind up then have both – seriously! LOL



Kermits has a very nice garden with a Koi pond and lots of shade. It was pretty steamy just because of the humidity, but that’s just Key West and their wonderful tropical weather.



So having duly stuffed ourselves with pie, we ambled back towards Mallory Square.



We were trying to decide what to do and Sloppy Joe’s was right there and we’d never been in there, so we went in and sat down and had a beer. There was a good lunch crowd in there eating, but we plonked ourselves down on the first two chairs we could find, which coincidentally happened to be at one of the bars. Our bartender was a very interesting person. Early 30’s, good looking and looking for wife #4, even though wife #3 was still at home (his words, not mine!) It was easy to mess with him, and he was a good sport about it. I convinced him that next time he needs to marry for money seeing as he was broke from having 3 wives already! He was like a bad country and western song, even his dog had died! LOL (Note: no picture of the bar tender, I refused to stroke his ego by taking a photo – he was already bad enough!)



Having had our fill of the goober behind the bar, we went into Hog’s Breath and stayed there for a couple of hours having all kinds of fun. We ran into Heidi from Palo – I’m sure she just LOVED running into a guest on her few hours off! We met a group of folks from Jersey Shore who were a RIOT – and we spent way more time in there than we should have.
At about 3 pm we decided to go and get the trolley back to the ship. Heidi had told us that the lines would be fairly long, and she wasn’t kidding! We later heard that they are going to do something different on the next stop, as the lines really were long and there was no shade. The place to board the trolley back to the ship is where they drop you off.



Coming back to the ship.



The lines to get back on the ship were also REALLY long. Again, they only had one gangway open at Deck 1, Aft, which was probably most of the problem. It felt like we waited forever and by this time the drinks + no real food were starting to take their toll on me. I was tired and ready for a nap!

Some pics of the port once we finally got back to our cabin.





These are pics that Scott took of the sunset. I was zonked out and fast asleep and missed it all! He also decided not to wake me and so we missed dinner that night. I woke up at about 11 pm starving hungry though! Thank goodness for the CC gift of the Cheesy Mickey Puffs!!





We got another gift this evening, and I need to take a picture of it and post it. It was a lithograph of Minnie in her Cowgirl costume with the Wonder in the background. Coming up...Castaway Cay.

 

[ukintheus]

So I was up bright and early – imagine that! We ordered cereal from room service and watched us dock in Castaway Cay. We had decided to rent bicycles as we had never done that before and so as soon as they said we could disembark we started our way off the ship. The gangways were situated on Deck 1, forward and aft. (FYI – I will go and add this to yesterday, but in Key West they only had one gangway open on Deck 1, aft, which is why the lines were so long I am sure).

As we got off the ship the 5K participants were also leaving.

Minnie was already out on the beach.



Scott began to wish that he was doing the 5K, although the longer we walked the more we could hear people asking “how much further??” LOL It is a decent walk from the ship to the 5K start, which is right where the bike rental place is. We signed our consent forms and paid the $12.00 for the bikes. They showed us the bike path, but once you get going it is easy to follow. They have men’s, women’s and children’s bike, plus bikes with stabilizer wheels and adult bikes with children’s seats on the back, so they have something for everyone. We got going but were soon caught up by the first of the 5K runners so we decided to keep on going down the airstrip towards Serenity Bay so that we could avoid them and/or running someone over. Once you get to Serenity Bay the bike path goes in front of the cabanas and on to a lookout point. Again, this was something we’d never done, and a part of the island we’d not seen before.







It’s amazing to think how much work has gone into CC to get it to the tropical paradise that we all love now. I believe that pretty much the entire island looked like this.

We went back down to the entrance to Serenity Bay and then left back down the airstrip to take the left hand turn onto the 5K/bike loop that goes to the observation tower. We ran across a family with a little one with stabilizer wheels and he was already worn out. It is quite a long way if you have little ones that aren’t used to riding that much. We made it to the tower and took these photos from the first level of the metal art pieces they have dotted around.







One more level up and you got a good view of the ship.



This is zoomed in all the way with my point and shoot.



And this is facing the opposite direction from the ship – I have no clue if it is north, south, east or west…it’s just “the other way”.



We decided that we had seen everything we wanted to see and the temperatures were climbing nicely so that a dip in the beautiful blue water was extremely appealing. Off we went to Serenity Bay and dropped our bikes off at the “bike place” at the entrance and then found a spot along the beach. The yoga class were close by doing their stuff. In the past they have always been at the very far end of the beach but this time they were closer. I’ve never done yoga and I think I would be intimidated trying it in front of a bunch of people. Not to mention the sand sticking to you didn’t look very relaxing!

The beach wasn’t crowded at all. We think that Serenity Bay on one of the Classic ships is the way to go – way fewer people.





This is the remainder of the yoga class dusting off.


We got into the water, it was the perfect temperature and we swam around a little bit before Scott saw this in the distance.



With all of our activity going on this morning, we had completely forgotten that they had announced that the Dream would be coming by at approximately 11:45 am to welcome the Wonder back from the west coast. Sure enough, there she was in the distance. So, we packed up all our stuff to get back to the family beach area as I figured that’s where the best photo opportunities would be.

We stopped back at the bike place and the guy was happy to let us take our bikes again and ride them back to the Bike Rentals location. It was just before 11 am when we got there, so we decided to grab a quick drink at the Conched Out bar before Cookies opened for lunch.



So, for anyone that knows me, or has read previous trip reports….brace yourselves for a never before moment. Here’s the picture of our drinks….note the Konk cooler, my favorite CC drink, I love these things.



Guess where this one ended up? (Mandymouse - hold onto your hat!) In the trash – and I’m not kidding!! It wasn’t good. I don’t know what was wrong with it. I asked the bar tender to put more ice in it as it was so thick, and sweet and just cloyingly nasty. I consider it a few hundred calories saved, but it was a big disappointment. I’ve never had one before where it came out of a machine and that’s (I think) the difference. Next time I will be sure to ask!

Up next... Castaway Cay - Part 2.

 

[ukintheus]

We decided to go to Cookies for lunch as we’ve never eaten there (we’ve always had lunch up at Serenity Bay) and it was literally right across from the bar.



I had swiftly deposited the not-great Konk Cooler in a trash can as soon as I felt the bar tender couldn't see me. The only difference we could see between Cookies & Serenity Bay is that they have steak at Serenity Bay. I got ribs, potato salad and coleslaw and Scott got a hamburger, hot dog and ribs – I guess he was starting to really miss not having dinner last night!

We hurried through lunch so that we could get to the beach before the Dream go there. By the time we finished eating, she had arrived.



The Wonder sounded her horn and the Dream replied back, although the Wonder was SO loud compared to the Dream – you could barely hear her horn. I know that the Dream was further away,but it still gave a certain sense of satisfaction that despite being older, and nowhere near as fancy with all those different horn sounds, the Wonder was still able to hold her own (at least that’s the way we saw it. )



The Dream turned around and sat out in the water for a little while. I’m guessing that we watched for about 20 minutes before she started to sail away. It was REALLY cool to get to see the two ships close by like that.













So now we had a really hard decision to make. Would we venture ALL the way back to Serenity Bay (it felt like it was 100 miles away – LOL)? After a bit of retail therapy to help us make the decision we ended up going back to the ship. That’s how lazy we are folks! We decided to walk back to the ship and snapped these pics along the way.





Here’s another of the Dream sailing off into the distance.



And our first real chance to get a good photo of the back of the ship. Remember we were with the 5K runners this morning being swept away in a tide of enthusiasm - we probably couldn't have stopped to take a picture if we'd wanted to!



We ran into Maggie (our server) who was about to start her shift for the afternoon on the island and told her all about the Dream being there. She had no clue any of it was even going on and they can’t hear the ships horn in their rooms. I think she would have liked to have seen it, but I’m sure she enjoyed a few hours in bed too.

There was, of course, no line to get back onto the ship and we got on quickly and dropped our stuff back in our cabin before venturing up to the Cove pool. It was nice and quiet onboard, and in fact, it was way less busy than it was the day we were in Nassau. We swam a little and had a couple of drinks while lounging in the shade.

In an effort to be somewhat active, we went up to deck 10 above the adult pool and took these.













We loveto sit on our verandah and watch people coming back to the ship. Today they had divers down doing some inspections of the ship’s hull, so that added to our viewing pleasure.



There was a good rain shower right before the last people got back to the ship. I don’t have photos but a lot were huddled under the DCL canopies that are put up by the gangway. We had to laugh (with them of course) as the crew started packing everything up, and literally took the cover off these poor people that were trying to shelter. So, be warned, if you get back to the ship later and it’s raining, they WILL make you get wet!!

The resulting double rainbows were very pretty.

 

[ukintheus]

We pulled away from CC right at 5 pm.



The Captain came on to say that we would basically be bobbing around for the entire night as the distance to Nassau was so short and that there were some storms and rain bands that were resulting from a tropical disturbance in the Gulf. They weren’t kidding about bobbing about!! We did about 5 kts for the remainder of the evening. We had to chuckle as every time we went out onto the verandah we could STILL see CC s-l-o-w-l-y disappearing, very, very slowly

Tonight was Pirate Night and the Captain had told us that they had plenty of time and that they would skirt around any bad weather to make sure that they could do the fireworks. Not being very good pirate material, we had made reservations in Palo for tonight at 7:30 pm. We hung around in our stateroom until it was time to get ready.

Heidi was our server again. We had a really nice time in Palo and the food was excellent. I’m doing a complete disservice to the Manager, as he was funny and very engaging and we had a good time chatting to him, and I can’t remember his name! He even showed us a photograph of the manager of Palo from the Magic, Francesco, who was in a blue jump suit and working the dry dock in Cadiz. We love to interact with the crew when they drop a little of the “official” side and start to show their real personalities. Again the nosey in me comes out, because I love to hear about how they started working for DCL and about where the come from etc.

So, food for the evening was:

Breads and antipasto.





Scott had Tuna Carpaccio and Lemon Oil Dressing.



We both had the palate cleanser.



Palo Beef Tenderloin with Barolo Red Wine Sauce.



I had Sicilian Pesto Marinated Grilled Shrimp.



Oregano and Parmesan Crusted Rack of Lamb – delicious (if you like lamb of course).



We both had the Chocolate Soufflé.

His.


Mine.


Spot the difference? Me, either.

We finished about 5 minutes before the fireworks were due to go off and stood outside Palo contemplating fighting our way out to try and see them, but sleepiness and fullness won over and we just headed back to our cabin instead. I could tell when the fireworks were over as you could hear everyone coming back to their cabins with lots of appropriate pirate noises. We were snug as bugs in bed already, which, even as I’m typing this makes me think that we really are becoming old and boring! We didn’t even take a photo of the towel animal!!

Up next...Nassau.

 

[ukintheus]

Can you tell I am on a mission to try and get as much done as possible. It will go a little slower from here out as I don't have my photos numbered or loaded into photobucket yet for the remainder.

I will tell you ahead of time that we didn't get off the ship in Nassau, so no real great stuff there, but of course it was the Halloween Party, and I know some that are following along want to know about that. If I can, I will try to get that posted tomorrow.

 

[mecllap]

Loving your trip report -- great photos, thanks!

 

[krissy2803]

Love the report! We will be on the Wonder Nov. 9th, sailing the same itinerary.

 

[UmmGooD]

Thanks so much for the update. Last time we were on the Wonder I had that steak at Palo. I had to book dinner just for that steak or I would have booked only brunch.

 

[ukintheus]

Loving your trip report -- great photos, thanks!

Thank you - some are taken by my DH, so I have to give credit where it's due.

Love the report! We will be on the Wonder Nov. 9th, sailing the same itinerary.

I wish I were going back! There are so many things that we didn't get to do - mostly because of laziness on our part, but now I wish we had.

Thanks so much for the update. Last time we were on the Wonder I had that steak at Palo. I had to book dinner just for that steak or I would have booked only brunch.

DH loves the steak. I really like to get the lamb as it's not something I ever make at home.

 

[ukintheus]

Today we were due to arrive in Nassau early, by about 7:00 am if not earlier. All Ashore was at 7:15 am! We had contemplated going ashore before our trip, but then decided to just use it as another lazy day. We have been to Nassau before and did a walking tour. I did at one point book a snorkeling excursion, and then cancelled it as I HAD promised not to book anything. So today we were going to stay onboard.

We were already docked before we even got out of bed, so we decided to go and grab a coffee from Cove Cafe and wait a little while before heading up to Beach Blanket Buffet for breakfast.

The morning fix.


They had decorated BBB for Halloween - it was very cute with carved pumpkins at the entrance and black spider webs hanging as you went down the line.



The spider webs were hung pretty low and so we had to readjust a couple of them on our way through as DH was walking through them and they kept tickling his bald head.

This was breakfast for me, a random selection of things.


We took these photographs up on Deck 10. There were 2 other ships in port that day.





Atlantis.






We spent the rest of the morning hanging out at the adult pool. I had managed to get sunburned from when we were riding the bikes at CC yesterday (note - moisturizer with sunblock is NOT sweat proof) and so I was trying to avoid too much sun today. The loungers around the adult pool are only in the shade for a certain portion of the day, so as soon as we weren't able to be in the shade any more, we headed down to our cabin. That's when we really got wild and crazy and decided to watch movies on TV!! I know everyone is just enthralled by all of our escapades so far today.

Here's a couple of token photos taken from our verandah, just so you get a sense of the excitement.





The Halloween festivities for the evening included dinner being Cruise Casual or Halloween costume. We had brought costumes with us, but began to have cold feet that we might be the only ones dressed up, so at about 5:30 pm we headed down to Deck 4 to look over into the atrium and see if anyone was wearing costumes. The lobby was filled with people waiting for photos and LOTS were dressed up. We watched for a while, enjoying seeing everyone having fun with Mickey & Minnie. Goofy was dressed as Tutankhamun and did a good zombie impression as he came up the stairs.

Convinced that we wouldn't be the only ones in costume, we headed upstairs to get ready. We wanted to get our photo taken down in the atrium, so headed that way and ran into Sullins5 at the bottom of the stairs, who was kind enough to take this photo. It's just as well because the photopass photos of us were horrible.



If people asked DH what we were - he would say "Dead People" We were a dead bride and groom for the record.

 

[ukintheus]

After having our (horrible) photos taken with the Halloween back drop, we headed up to the Family Deck party that was taking place at 7:30 pm on Deck 9. They were playing music and the characters came out to dance around in their Halloween costumes. There wasn't any trick or treating going on though for the kids, but I assume that they do that for the actual Halloween sailings.













We ran into our cute server from Cove Cafe. Unfortunately my sun burn was burning through the white make up so my ghostly ghoul was a tad on the pink side.



We were too early for dinner and there didn't seem to be an appropriate place for ghosts to haunt, so we went and sat in the Promenade Lounge and had a drink instead. We just loved this guy and his kids.



Tonight we were back in Tritons for dinner. They were decorated in the entryway.



Miss Ninja (DJ) took this of us at the table.



Scott had Duck Confit, Avocado and Citrus Salad, and Creme Brulee. I am sure he had an entree, we just didn't take a photo and I don't remember what it was!







I had the Applewood Smoked Bacon and Wild Mushroom Tart (which was wondeful), “Chef Louis” French Onion Soup (also delicious), Slowly Braised Lamb Shank, and Sweet Temptations for dessert.









It seemed that dinner went by quickly this evening, the servers all seemed to be having a great time with everyone dressed up. I'm sure it's a nice change of pace for them, and they got into the "spirit" of it.

(Disclaimer: Coming up are pictures of several families/groups/people that we thought had great costumes, I hope if any of them are DISers that they don't have an objection to me posting them. If anyone recognizes themselves and would like me to remove their photo, please send me a PM.)

 

[ukintheus]

On our way out of Tritons, the Queen of Hearts was holding court with the Mad Hatter - such a great costume.



We were too early for the adult costume contest in Wavebands that was due to start at 10:30 pm, but we didn't really want to go and sit anywhere else, so we ended up getting there early. The Family Halloween Bash was just starting in Studio Sea at 9:45 pm, and we didn't want to go there either. As we arrived at Wavebands one of the CMs handed us a card to be included in the competition. We were put in the group "Most Original".

It was empty when we got in there.



Here are some of the others from Wavebands that evening. We thought everyone's costumes were great!











This one is hard to tell because of the flash, but he's the headless horseman.




This was one of the groups for "judging" by the crowd. There were 5 in each category, and I don't remember which category was which now. It was a bit random, and probably not as well thought out as it could have been. Hopefully this weeks cruisers will have better things to report about the organization.






Awesome...and at dinner there were about 12 of them.


We won our category and were awarded the standard black mickey medal on a red band, but also got a couple of really nice key chains (not the CC gift either! ). We had a great time and stayed around until about midnight when we were a) tired and b) wanting to get all that makeup washed off!

So the hit and miss was. The hit - It was a bonus party and if you like to dress for Halloween it was a fun opportunity to throw on the costumes and have a great time. The miss - the organization was a little off for the parties as the Family Party started in Studio Sea at 9:45 pm and the Adult party at 10:30 pm in Wavebands. This led to people that had been with their kids, showing up right at 10:30 pm for the adult costume contest, only to find out that all the cards to participate had been handed out. It was a shame because there were some great costumes that were left out of the competition. Hopefully they will remedy that on the future cruises.

I believe that the kids were left a trick or treat bag in the cabin that evening with a couple of pieces of candy, but apart from that, there was no candy handed out on this particular cruise.

I think by the time we'd washed off makeup and I'd washed the spray paint out of my hair it was about 1 pm. Another late night and another day of exhaustion from doing almost nothing.

 

[dreamcat78]

I love all the costumes thank you for sharing!!! Who won and which costume for the disney category? One more question how hot were your temperatures? You said you got sunburnt? Sorry that really stinks