We need a little “Magic”, right this very moment! – Completed

[dolphingirl47]

I must have wandered through Beat Street 100s of times as we always had a forward cabin on the Magic, but I never noticed the musical references. The photos with Mickey are great. I can never find a dessert I like on that menu either and tend to end up with a Mickey Bar.

Corinna

 

[Linda67]

You can never go wrong with a Mickey Bar for dessert

Nice of your server to bring you the soufflé

 

[rentayenta]

I like any update that begins with stumbling out of a bar. $15 is amazing deal for all of the booze you got.

Love the photos of your two- very good.

Dinner looks good too. Bummer you didn't have a great seat though.

I agrees it's Linda, you can never go wrong with a Mickey bar. My goal is to have at least one per day. I'm an overachiever.

Fran's drink looks really delicious.

 

[PrincessInOz]

I'm loving the updates. The pictures of you and Fran are delightful. Are you going to get any framed up?

The Mickey bar is nice; but that waiter sure earned his tip that night. YUM to the souffle!

 

[Dixielady908]

Such a great report...am really enjoying it and the pictures.


thanks for sharing

 

[Leshaface]

Wow! You guys made out fantastically on the Tequila portion of the tasting And the margarita part too! This tasting sounds and looks waaay better than the one on the Dream. Too bad you didn't volunteer. Would have loved to see pictures of that!

So cool that your waiter brought you a souffle. Very nice!

 

[jetskigrl]

OK..I have been reading all along but not posting so I had to pop in here and let you know how much I am enjoying your trip report. It is definitely helping me make it through until our cruise next month

I love the tasting reviews. I have never done one before but after reading this, I'm think I'm going to book one on the Fantasy.

 

[dgbg100106]

I love it that you can get a mickey bar for dessert.

 

[Linda67]

I like any update that begins with stumbling out of a bar. $15 is amazing deal for all of the booze you got.

Love the photos of your two- very good.

Dinner looks good too. Bummer you didn't have a great seat though.

I agrees it's Linda, you can never go wrong with a Mickey bar. My goal is to have at least one per day. I'm an overachiever.

Fran's drink looks really delicious.

That is an admirable goal

 

[franandaj]

I must have wandered through Beat Street 100s of times as we always had a forward cabin on the Magic, but I never noticed the musical references. The photos with Mickey are great. I can never find a dessert I like on that menu either and tend to end up with a Mickey Bar.

Corinna

I'm usually pretty quick with noticing musical references since we're musicians, but I guess all the beverage tastings had me a little confused.

You can never go wrong with a Mickey Bar for dessert

Nice of your server to bring you the soufflé

I thought so too!

I like any update that begins with stumbling out of a bar. $15 is amazing deal for all of the booze you got.

Love the photos of your two- very good.

Dinner looks good too. Bummer you didn't have a great seat though.

I agrees it's Linda, you can never go wrong with a Mickey bar. My goal is to have at least one per day. I'm an overachiever.

Fran's drink looks really delicious.

The tastings are a really good deal! I kept saying I was going to eat more Mickey bars, but I always ended up being so full from lunch or breakfast, I rarely even wanted to snack during the day.

I'm loving the updates. The pictures of you and Fran are delightful. Are you going to get any framed up?

The Mickey bar is nice; but that waiter sure earned his tip that night. YUM to the souffle!

I'm going to frame maybe the one where I am behind her with my arms over her shoulder and the one that I used for my Gamers meet PTR. (Which I haven't posted on this TR yet.)

Such a great report...am really enjoying it and the pictures.


thanks for sharing

Thanks! Welcome! And I'm glad you're enjoying reading it.

Wow! You guys made out fantastically on the Tequila portion of the tasting And the margarita part too! This tasting sounds and looks waaay better than the one on the Dream. Too bad you didn't volunteer. Would have loved to see pictures of that!

So cool that your waiter brought you a souffle. Very nice!

I know! They had a lot of booze there just for one person, the fact that we got double the portions was hilarious!

He was definitely trying to make me happy with the soufflé!

OK..I have been reading all along but not posting so I had to pop in here and let you know how much I am enjoying your trip report. It is definitely helping me make it through until our cruise next month

I love the tasting reviews. I have never done one before but after reading this, I'm think I'm going to book one on the Fantasy.

Oh you should definitely try one of the tastings! These were so much fun, but I enjoyed my tastings on the Wonder too!

I love it that you can get a mickey bar for dessert.

If I had the room, I would probably get one for dessert every night, but there are just too many choices!

 

[franandaj]

So here are the Navigators for our Third full day, which includes tendering at Grand Cayman.













Here is the Map for Grand Cayman







And here is the Tendering guidelines they left in our room



Today we have a Duck tour booked. Our tickets said to meet on the Pier at 11:45AM. We talked about these documents before going to bed, and decided that the best course of action would be to order only coffee, orange juice and chocolate milk with our Room Service order. That way we would be hungry and be more motivated to go to breakfast and get off the ship sooner rather than later.

Now at this point (Tuesday morning) we have been on the boat for almost 72 hours. I do have to say that a good half of that time we have spent in our cabin. Obviously the bulk of those hours were spent asleep, but Fran and I tend to have funny sleeping habits. Sometimes either of us will wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to fall back asleep for a while. At home we leave the television on because Fran will sometimes go the whole time from when we go to bed until 5 or 6 in the morning without being able to fall asleep. It does funny things for my dreams when her TV programs work their way in to my sleep.

On the other hand, on vacation, I sometimes can't sleep well in a strange bed, maybe it's the lack of cats! But I wake up in the middle of the night and catch a few hours of something that I've already seen (in case I don't make it to the end because I fall asleep).

Also in the mornings when I am awake and I am trying to get Fran to come to consciousness and get dressed, I’ll watch the TV. At home it is usually the news, but since there is no live news on the ship I resorted to the Disney entertainment. By this time I had already seen the last half of Men in Black III, The Little Mermaid, Pinocchio, Mary Poppins, we were able to finish Journey 2: Mysterious Island that we started on our previous cruise. By the end of the cruise, I think I also saw Ratatouille, The Lion King, all the Good Morning America at Sea Episodes, several episodes of “My Yard Goes Disney” and a program on the retrofitting of the Magic in 2010.

I know it seems silly to brag about how much TV I watched on the cruise, but we’re not folks who leave the cabin just to “be out of the cabin”. RA is a very painful disease and in addition, doing anything tires Fran out. I would rather she wore herself out doing something she enjoys than just traipsing around for the heck of it. So if we’re going to be hanging out in the room, enjoying Disney movies is a great way to pass the time!

OK, so back to our third full day on the ship. A day at Grand Cayman!

We had arrived in the bay of the Island at around 7:30AM. I was awakened with our Mickey phone call just before we were cleared for tendering. Shortly after that our coffee and OJ arrived. Sorry no pic!

We were pretty far out to sea. Oh, OK, I see it there!



So our plan was to get breakfast at Top Siders and head to the Buena Vista Theater to get a Tender boat. The sheet said to allow 45 minutes for travel time so I knew that we had to be there no later than 10:45. When we got to the buffet, we practically had the place to ourselves. They had a great spread going on. I think most of this is self explanatory.























Fran was a little annoyed with me that I took a little while getting to the table, so I could take a picture of her plate. Isn’t that sweet that she waited?



My plate.



We had a nice view out the back of the ship.





[Continued in Next Post]

 

[franandaj]

[Continued from Previous Post]

Now I don’t have a picture, but the reason that I took so long getting to the table was that they have a cooked to order station at the back of the buffet. I really wanted an egg over easy because I like my eggs freshly cooked when I eat them. Not sitting in a buffet tray for a few hours. I had one and Fran ate the other. By around 10AM we were done with breakfast and ready to go ashore.



We headed off to the Buena Vista Theater and we were directed to sit in the back row so that Fran didn’t have to do any steps. The same CM who introduced the chef at the tasting Monday, Lori, was the one keeping us entertained while we waited to go downstairs for tendering. We must have sat there for at least 20 minutes before they finally let us go down. Most of the people just took the stairs, but Fran and I were able to take the elevator along with other folks who couldn’t do the stairs.

The tendering process in Cabo looked quite challenging, whereas these boats were very easy to load and the seas were very calm.



As soon as we boarded they directed us to the first seats.



There were two other boats docked in the harbor. You can only see one of them in this picture.



The boat was fairly packed, and pretty soon we were on our way.













We wondered if these people would be stranded, or worse yet, lose passengers!



There was a pirate ship in the bay.



And then we saw our boat/bus.





Looking back



When we arrived on land there was a fenced in area where only cruise passengers and other properly credentialed folks could enter. I guess that cuts down on the pickpockets and other riff raff hassling the tourists until they decided to leave the area. There were still plenty of people trying to sell us taxi rides to 7 Mile Beach and other locations.









We had about 45 minutes to kill before our tour, so we decided to venture out. Fran had seen a Harley store on the way tendering in, and knew she wanted to hit that. It was a bit of a ways away so we decided to go there after the tour. There was a mini Harley store inside the cruise complex, but she didn’t find anything she wanted there. We ventured out into the street and saw a “Diamonds International” store. They get big press on the Disney ships and so we thought we would go have a look.

On our way crossing the street the 10AM duck boat tour was making it’s way back to the station.



Nothing in there really caught my eye. I’m plenty happy with all my Disney jewelry, so we started back to the cruise area. It was really hot and humid and Fran was starting to hurt and needed to sit down. We waited a few minutes in the shade and then I saw a guy with a paddle and a Parrots of the Caribbean shirt. I talked to him and found out that Disney would have a table set up near the gate where we came out and would start checking people in shortly. I went back to tell this to Fran and by the time I came back, the line was HUGE!

I got everything squared away, and soon our group was assembled. Fran was able to wait in the shade because our guide said that we would walk right past her on our way to the bus. Once our group was assembled we started to leave the area. We had to wait an extra five minutes or more for a couple who had to go to the bar and get strawberry daiquiris. Did you bring enough for everyone?

I took this shot because I thought it was funny that “Gaybrew” is the beer of the Cayman Islands.

 

[Pinkocto]

All that delicious food and here I'm starving waiting to go to dinner

Tendering doesn't look too bad. I'm surprised they waited for the couple who went off.

 

[Dixielady908]

So this year will be my 3rd attempt to see Grand Cayman...2008 could not tender, waters to rough, 2011 Hurricane Rina, ended up with a Eastern Caribbean last minute...this year keeping my fingers crossed and hoping we can tender.

so I am looking forward to seeing your pictures from there.

thanks for another installment

 

[franandaj]

All that delicious food and here I'm starving waiting to go to dinner

Tendering doesn't look too bad. I'm surprised they waited for the couple who went off.

I would love some never ending buffets filled with fruit, and other goodies right now!

I guess they told the guide they would be right back, but it was rather annoying to wait and find out that they had gone for cocktails!

So this year will be my 3rd attempt to see Grand Cayman...2008 could not tender, waters to rough, 2011 Hurricane Rina, ended up with a Eastern Caribbean last minute...this year keeping my fingers crossed and hoping we can tender.

so I am looking forward to seeing your pictures from there.

thanks for another installment

I really hope that you get to see it. Our impression of the place is that it would be a nice place to some stay for a few days. I'll elaborate more on some of the things to do once I post the stuff they talked about on the tour which will be tomorrow morning.

 

[dolphingirl47]

I am glad that the sea was calm for you and that the tendering was a smooth process. That little port area must have been manic with three ships in port.

Corinna

 

[Linda67]

I think its great that you use your cabin as a place to relax and unwind - that's what vacations are for
Looks like the tendering process was really straightforward for you both
Isn't it cool to look back at the ship from the tender boats?
Looking forward to hearing all about your Duck Tour

 

[PrincessInOz]

Glad that you got to Grand Cayman. Hope that Fran didn't hurt too much.

Buffet looked great!

 

[rentayenta]

Nice update! What a beautiful blue sky. Looks like a perfect day to explore Grand Cayman. The tender looks well organized and like a nice smaller boat ride.

Breakfast looks yum and that was nice of Fran to wait so you could grab a photo. Looks like the butter was hard. That's good news for me because I can't resist room temp butter.

 

[dgbg100106]

If I had the room, I would probably get one for dessert every night, but there are just too many choices!

you say that like it is a bad thing....