February 2024: A MAGICAL February Vacation: Day 9, The End

Day 9: Saturday March 2, 2024

Vacation is over. Having slept surprisingly better than expected, I was still awake fairly early. After awhile I got up and started getting ready for the morning, then woke Nick up. Time for breakfast!

We went downstairs because breakfast is free and the weather was kinda gross to be walking around in. Breakfast definitely was no Mother’s or Ruby Slipper, but it was solid for a hotel free breakfast.

After breakfast we headed back upstairs and finished packing. Vacation is really over. We headed downstairs around 8:40, where we handed over the keys at the front desk, and headed for the foyer to request a Lyft. In no time a driver, with an adequately sized vehicle for the airport run, had accepted the trip, but then they didn’t seem to move on the map at all and the map showed them on the other side of the city, so even when they started moving they were probably 15 minutes away. After several minutes of this, we canceled that trip and requested an Uber. This driver came along quickly, and soon enough we were on our way to the airport.

It was an uneventful trip with a really pleasant driver. She dropped us off right by the door for JetBlue, and we were in line for the limited number of kiosks shortly after that. It took awhile to get to a kiosk, but after that check in was smooth (and both of our suitcases miraculously were under 50 pounds) and pretty soon we were at TSA, where there was minimal wait for Precheck. Nick’s boots (WHY?!) set off the metal detector again, but other than that security was uneventful. We found our gate easily, and hung there for awhile before joining nearly everyone at the gate in getting food from Chick-Fil-A for the flight.

Side note, I’m always amazed by how this airport is so big yet so small. And this is now a brand new airport terminal since we were last here. It’s SO bright and clean, with windows everywhere (including by the bathroom sinks). And it serves a big city. But it’s really not an exceptionally large airport.

All too soon boarding began, and we were fully boarded early. The flight was bumpy (no surprise), but uneventful. The snacks were the ever amazing Stellar Pretzels and some plantain chips. I texted my way across the country, obviously, because no attention span. Thank goodness for free wifi. Nick watched a movie or two. We got into Boston slightly early and were greeted with rain and temperatures in the 40s. GROSS. Back to New England Gray.

We had to wait FOREVER (basically until our scheduled arrival time) for a jetbridge driver to appear, so needless to say we all had ample time to collect our belongings and basically stampeded off the plane. It was a process to find baggage claim because the logical escalator was out of order, but we made it eventually, and then we waited, and waited, and waited, because JetBlue. I swear, they’re the slowest at getting luggage out, regardless of airport. If they had the same policy that Delta has about waiting for luggage, I’d have earned a free flight by now just in luggage wait points.

Luggage in hand, we followed the directions that Michael, the same driver we’d had for the trip down, had texted to me, and soon enough we’d located him, holding a sign with our last name. He loaded our luggage in the car, warned us that Boston had closed the Sumner tunnel again for the weekend for ongoing construction, so EVERYONE had to use the Ted Williams, so the trip was going to take awhile, and then we were off. It rained and was gross, and we were glad to not be on a bus north given the extra time the tunnel closure was adding to the trip. It ended up taking about an hour and a half to get to Nick’s parents’ house, instead of the 50 minutes it had taken to get to Boston the week before.

When we got to my in-laws’ we threw the luggage in the car and then went to retrieve the dogs, who were VERY happy to see us. Nick’s parents were trying to get out the door to some dinner with friends for someone’s birthday or something, so we were in our car with the dogs very soon after arrival, and it was an uneventful drive home from there.

Final thoughts:

I’d totally sail out of New Orleans again. Loved being able to combine cruising and our favorite city in one trip. And it’s pretty cool to sail down the Mississippi. And airfare to NOLA is way cheaper these days than airfare to Florida. Go figure.

Guest behavior on our cruise was abysmal. Our next door neighbors were OBNOXIOUS. There was that drunk parent situation. There was evidently an actual fight at karaoke one night. And sadly, I think that’s simply a reflection of our society these days, not the city we sailed out of.

Our main server was phenomenal, possibly the best we’ve had (and he’s got stiff competition). Our assistant and head servers, however, were the worst we’ve had.

I didn’t expect the Magic to feel smaller since it’s been 5 years since we last sailed, but…it definitely felt smaller than the Fantasy, and the pool deck food areas felt more disjointed. Our only real complaint about the ship itself though was uneven air conditioning. Thankfully our deck was in good shape. The elevator lobby one deck below us though was ALWAYS a sauna.

We still love New Orleans and we still have a list of experiences to save for a later date there, even after having now been 3 times. And the Eliza Jane is our new favorite New Orleans hotel. Will definitely be saving up my Ultimate Rewards points to transfer to Hyatt to stay there again.

I’m so glad we ignored all the warnings that “the bus ride is too long for it to be worth it” and did the excursion to Chichen Itza. Such an incredible experience. And I’m really glad we had a tour guide leading us through the chaos that existed there. It really was nutty just how many people were everywhere, especially in the entrance area. Once in the complex, it was much less chaotic. But I think if we’d shown up on our own (not sure when that would ever happen, because Mexico, but…), we would have turned around and left.

We felt the excursion was pretty fairly priced. I’m not actually sure what entrance into Chichen Itza costs, because Spanish, but nearly 5 hours on coach buses, 2 tour guides, lunch, tolls (and THOSE I understood the signs for and they were expensive) and entrance into Chichen Itza…it checked out as fair.

I got Nick an AirFly for Christmas, which allowed him to pair the in-flight entertainment system to his bluetooth headphones. He was a fan. It’s a small gadget, so you have to be careful to remember to take it with you, especially if the headphone jack is in the armrest, but it worked perfectly and it's pretty inexpensive.

Our haul:

I’m chomping at the bit to get another cruise on the books.

We prefer February vacation weather in New Orleans to April. Much more comfortable temperatures.

It was another awesome vacation!!!

February 2024: A MAGICAL February Vacation: Day 8

Day 8: Friday, March 1, 2024

It was a short night. End of story.

Around 2 am I woke up with significant heart burn, because I’m old now. Also because I had that cranberry and lime based drink, pasta with tomato sauce, and lemon pie for dinner at like 9 pm. So I went hunting for Tums. And then Nick woke up, also with heartburn. And then the light show started.

Remember those choppy seas? Yeah, there was a bit of a front, and we had found it. We were treated to quite the thunderstorm while sailing up the Mississippi. Thankfully, because we were on the river, the water was remarkably calm. The storm? Not so much. Think sheets of water just blowing by.

And then when the storm ended, there were things to see, because we were, you know, sailing up the river. Nick went back to sleep. I tried, but SQUIRREL.

Around 6, I caught sight of New Orleans, so I took some pictures.

 
And then I turned my phone off of airplane mode, attempted to catch up with the world, and then got up and got dressed. Yeah, my 8th grade English teacher is rolling in her grave with that run-on.

Then it was off to do some picture taking around the ship, because I wanted a view of the city at this hour, and I decided to snag pictures of details I’d learned about on the tour, and take pictures I hadn’t yet taken. This ship is getting old, who knows if we will have the opportunity to sail on it again.

 
Picture taking complete, I retrieved our contraband from Keys and returned to the room to pack up what was left and take in our current view. This was a bit disrupted by the kids next door (and their redneck…no really…mullet and fluorescent pink swim trunks…father) who were screaming at passing cargo ships to blow their horn, but, the view wasn’t terrible.

Soon enough it was time for the final walk through to make sure we hadn’t forgotten anything, and then we were back in Animator’s Palate for breakfast. We were the first to arrive by a longshot, but Stephanie and Jesse, and Irene and Josh showed up eventually. Breakfast was good. I had the egg for the road, with ham, and Nick had french toast. Jelena visibly examined her tip envelope for signs of additional money, confirming our thoughts about her. Sompong continued to be awesome. We all chatted at the table until they all but threw us out.

Then we headed for the exit. There was basically no line to scan off the ship. Irene and Josh had had to go to guest services, but Stephanie and Jesse were with us right up until luggage collection. We continued chatting with them. Debarkation was easy, luggage collection was well organized with different tags in different rooms and reasonable signage (and a small army there to direct us). The passport check was quick, and pretty soon we were in the holding pen waiting for a Lyft to our next hotel. I did a Lyft XL, so we were picked up in a Highlander, and this worked out great. We were very grateful we were on the later end of folks exiting the ship, because the rideshare holding pen is NOT large, but this was really the only negative we found about the New Orleans port.

It was a quick drive over to the Drury Plaza. We hauled our luggage into the front desk, and, surprisingly, a room was available, even though it was before 10 am, so within a few minutes, we were in room 900, a pretty big corner room that I had paid only points for.

We chilled for a little bit and then headed for Royal Street. Our first stop was a new one for us: the Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone. We (intentionally) got there about 10-15 minutes before it opened, and got in line. I was pretty sure from the size of the line that we were not going to get seats at the carousel part of the bar, but what the heck, we’re here, let’s at least experience the place.

At 11 the doors were opened and we snagged a small table right next to the main bar. The carousel bar, like its name implies, rotates and is pretty elaborately decorated. It was pretty cool to see, and we quickly decided we actually preferred not sitting at the rotating bar so soon after a cruise, because we were swaying pretty good on our own. We also liked being able to see all of the painted chair backs on the “carousel”. We each had a drink (an Old Fashioned for Nick, a Pimms Cup for me), and enjoyed the experience. Nick said he hadn’t had any idea that this was here. But honey, this place is an institution!

Drinks enjoyed, we decided to go to lunch at the Gumbo Shop, since it’s delicious and was only a few blocks away. I had the chicken gumbo again and Nick probably had crawfish etouffee. It was another delicious meal.

After lunch we headed towards Jackson Square. By now it was raining again, but not torrentially. We attempted to go to Cafe du Monde, but even the line for takeout stretched down the sidewalk, so we turned around and headed back to Royal Street, where we found Cafe Beignet this time. We got 3 beignets, and then when we discovered that all the tables had been snatched up while we were ordering, we packed them to go…after I got a picture of those beauties.

 
Beignets in hand, we walked back to the Drury, where we enjoyed our beignets and Nick grabbed a jacket, before we headed back out to our next destination, the Sazerac House.

From a location standpoint, the Sazerac House would have made more sense when we were staying at the Eliza Jane, since it was only about a block from there, but we suspected (accurately) that we might want to buy some alcohol here that isn’t sold in NH, and we didn’t want customs issues. So we walked a little further today. But it still was less than a 15 minute walk.

The Sazerac House is a free museum (or boozeum depending on who you talk to) about the Sazerac, the cocktail of New Orleans. They also have a small distillery there, where they make Sazerac Rye. We had made reservations online before the trip. We’d learned about it during our tasting at the Buffalo Trace Distillery last year in Kentucky. They’re all part of the same company.

It was pretty interesting. We also got to sample multiple different cocktails, plus the bitters that make a Sazerac a Sazerac. We enjoyed the experience. And yes, we picked up some alcohol that we can’t get in NH. Yes, we had packed bubble wrap for this trip.

Once our shopping was done, we headed back to the hotel, noticing just how cold it really was. I think the temperatures had dropped or something. The forecast had called for it to be in the 60s today, but it actually never made it out of the 50s. Add in the rain and it was pretty raw. And, having not expected this, we really weren’t dressed for it.

Back at the hotel, we chilled for awhile and did some initial packing. Eventually we decided to head downstairs for the 5:30 kickback. If you’re not familiar with Drury, every evening they do the 5:30 kickback. During this time (from 5:30-7) every adult is entitled to up to 3 adult beverages (each evening). They also put out a buffet of appetizer-type foods which are sometimes sufficient to make a dinner out of. Nick and I got beverages and then scoped out the food and decided to make dinner out of it. There were swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes, and basic nacho fixings, as well as other options on the buffet. Not the healthiest (but is anything we eat?), but it beat going back out in the weather or trying to pick a restaurant. And free is nice too.

Once we’d eaten, we headed back to the room to finish packing, shower, and attempt to crash for the night. Being a corner room, this one had a lot of road noise. But I was tired enough from the night before that I managed to get a reasonable night’s sleep.

February 2024: A MAGICAL February Vacation: Day 7

Day 7: Thursday February 29, 2024

You know the drill…I was awake just in time for sunrise, which, I realized about as soon as I walked out onto our balcony, was viewable on the other side of the ship today. As it turns out, Progreso is pretty much directly south of the end of the Mississippi, so the ship was no traveling pretty much straight north, and we were now on the west facing side of the ship. But the sky was pretty!

I watched the bridge report and the Good Morning Disney Magic show and then Nick thankfully woke up, so we got ready and headed for the buffet. It was churro waffle day!!

I don’t know if this is a fleetwide thing or a Disney Magic thing, but the last sea day brings with it churro Mickey waffles. And I wasn’t missing that, especially since Sompong even reminded us of it the night before! Thankfully people seemed to have slept in SLIGHTLY more than the previous sea day so the buffet wasn’t quite as hectic. We found the churro waffles (and plenty of other goodness) and grabbed a table that had a decent view of the water. The churro waffles were delicious! Don’t skip the buffet on the final sea day! Get the churro waffles!

Then we went back to the room for a bit before our first activity of the day. Nick probably took a nap, and I, of course, sat on the balcony marveling at that blue water.

First sea day activity of the day was for me. Just before 9 I headed up to Palo for the Art of the Theme tour. This is something that I’d wanted to do on at least one of our previous cruises, but hadn’t. So this time I made it a point to. A decent sized group gathered and Hanah arrived promptly at 9:00 to start the tour. The tour was filled with history and explanation about various decor on the ship. We worked our way from deck 10 outside of Palo down to deck 3 in the After Areas section. We talked about carpet choices, wall art choices, the shape of the glass in the After Hours logo, and the color choices for the exterior of the ship itself. It was really interesting, and I’m so glad that I did it.

When I returned to the room, Nick was conducting his one man orchestra in snore major, so I woke him up to get ready for activity number 2 of the day. After all, it’s the final day of the cruise! Have to squeeze in all the stuff!

Once Nick was ready we headed for the D Lounge for Anyone Can Cook. Today’s (and the only one offered on this sailing) was apple strudel. We’d attended this on the Fantasy too, but it was fun then and…free food! So we went again. And we enjoyed it again.

 
After Anyone Can Cook, we went back to the room for a bit, where I think even I managed to nap for 10 minutes on the balcony and Nick napped for longer than that. Then it was off to lunch at Cabanas. We saw Sompong outside the entrance and he greeted us by name (something I found very impressive, given he only had us at his table for a couple of nights and we were one of many couples he was serving on that cruise alone) and told us excitedly that it was Indian food day. When we got inside we filled our plates and then found seats outside (in the shade). I neglected to take pictures, but all of the food was delicious, including some pulled pork and corn soup that they had. The sit down lunch in the main dining room is nice, especially once on a longer cruise, but honestly, Cabanas was producing great food!

After lunch we headed for the atrium, where we found that we had already missed watching Jack Jack’s Diaper Dash. Clearly we should have tried to see the baby races first and then gone to lunch. Rookie mistake! So we found a comfy couch on deck 4 of the atrium and parked it for a bit to wait for the next thing on my agenda: the character dance party.

Now many of you know that dancing is totally not my thing. But we’d discovered on the Fantasy that the character dance party is pretty amusing to watch. So watching this from one deck above was definitely on the agenda. And it didn’t disappoint. First off, by now we had hit some choppy water and we were rocking, mostly side to side. So everyone on board was walking like they were drunk, whether they were or not, and the characters were busting some impressive dance moves in those giant shoes. Also, less amusing, but still awesome, I work in a school, in a district that aligned fully with CDC guidelines through the pandemic. I lived through a school year of kids being socially distanced even at outdoor recess. Think structured recess activities and off limits playground equipment, because recess was a “mask break”. Watching the character dance party, I saw kids being kids…joining each other to dance in groups with the characters. In special ed I deal, daily, with the impact of kids having been isolated for, in some cases, years. So to see this was awesome.

 

Once the dance party had broken up, we headed back to the room where we found the worst luggage tags at all. We were orange Goofy for this bummer delivery. I finished packing so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it later in the afternoon, and then I headed out, having given Nick directions to enjoy the ice cream that I’d discovered he was carrying a spoon in his pocket from the buffet for, and to finish packing.

Where was I headed? Fathoms for towel folding. This was led by one of the members of the housekeeping team, and there was a small army of more members of the housekeeping team spread around the room to help us all. The woman leading the class(?) was full of energy and fun. In approximately half an hour she led us in making an elephant, a dog (I needed help for that), a monkey, a ghost, and a dinosaur. This was a lot of fun.

 
Then it was back to the room to make sure that Nick had actually finished packing (he had, thankfully) and rally him for one more activity of the day. We headed down to After Hours, where we waited a few minutes before being let into Keys.

Time for Mixology! I think this was our best one yet. Definitely higher end than previous ones, but also quite the history and bartending lessons. The drinks were entirely made by the bartenders, no audience participation. But it was really enjoyable. There was a Kir Royal, a spin on a mojito made with Kraken rum, mint, lime, agave and Sprite (SO refreshing), a sangria made with Malibu, peach schnapps, Cointro, pinot grigio and some orange and pineapple juice, a spin on a martini made with gin, POG juice and pomegranate liqueur, and a shot made with Bailey’s and Chambord. We liked all the drinks. I also liked that the bartender lined up all of the ingredients on the bar so that we could see exactly what he had used. Oh, and with the higher cost, we got our own bottles of expensive water, instead of glasses of water like in previous seminars.

After Mixology we headed back to the stores for one last shopping opportunity before they closed. I got a DCL Tervis. We headed back to the room to stash that (and have a slight breathing break) and then headed up on deck for some food to absorb the alcohol. Nick got a burger or a sausage and I got chicken tenders. We brought the food back to the room to eat and to marvel at how well the weather now aligned to the mood of the last night of the cruise. Having done a 7 night cruise, 4 nights now definitely seems too short. I wish my school vacation week more frequently aligned with the 5 night cruises, because it's really hard to time the flights these days for the Saturday departure 7 night cruises.

 
Pretty soon it was time for one more evening of picture taking.

 
Picture taking done, we headed back to the room for a bathroom break and to put the luggage out. We (I) hauled the luggage out into the hallway, and then we headed to the Walt Disney Theater for the last time for this cruise. It was time for Disney Dreams an Enchanted Classic.

We got to the theater a few minutes later than we had the first night, and it showed. We love the first row of the second level, but that was full all the way around, so we grabbed seats on an aisle a few rows up. The show was excellent. The audience behavior was not. How many (adult) drinks do you really need to get up to retrieve in an hour long show?! Take the screaming baby out! And for the love of everything, cruise director Matthew very nicely asked you to put the cell phone away and enjoy live theater as it’s intended to be enjoyed.

But really…the show WAS excellent! When it ended we headed down to Fathoms for Songs for Everafter! Turns out the person playing Mother Gothel and another role this week (and for awhile from the sounds of it) was Vivienne Carlyle, who had at some point been a performer on London’s West End. This show was her performing a whole lineup of various Disney songs. It was excellent…to the point where my husband, who is anti-clapping-along-with-music because "no one gets the beat right", was noticed to be clapping along during her final song. So, it was a pretty perfect way to wrap up the evening before dinner!

And then it was dinner time. We headed to Animator’s Palate, which was, I think, a great spot to finish our dinner rotation. I really do love Animator’s on the Classic ships. It’s truly special. Dinner was great again, even if I was still too full from those chicken tenders earlier to eat as much of it. Sompong was quite concerned that I might be seasick. Nope, that’s Jenna, who was making a valiant effort to not vomit at the table. Thankfully towards the end of dinner, we must have entered the Mississippi, because we went from rocking quite a bit to a totally smooth ride again. For dinner I had the potato soup, the pasta appetizer, the pasta entree, and the lemon ice box pie. I also had the drink of the day, which, ironically, after we’d had a tablewide discussion the night before about how the drinks of the day were always fruity rum drinks, was tequila based with cranberry and lime juice. The pasta entree was pretty dry, but everything else was excellent. The light show was great, and Mickey’s appearance was fun. But we were bummed to see that the servers no longer have the reversible vests. We enjoyed our time with our tablemates, got Jelena to take group pictures, and said goodbye to Dana and Jenna, who had an early flight and would be doing express walk-off the next morning. The rest of us would see each other at breakfast.

 
We were among the last tables to leave again. And then Nick quickly retraced his steps realizing that Jelena had forgotten to give him his key back from the drink ordering. I guess that’s how she balanced out finally remembering to bring him the Sprite he’d ordered as his second drink round for the first time all cruise. While he was retrieving his key, I did some picture taking.

 
Then we headed to the photo kiosks to make sure all of our pictures were there, before moving to the atrium for See Ya Real Soon. Along the way we found Jesse and Stephanie, so we all watched together from deck 5, where we were able to find a small amount of real estate along the rail. I think Josh and Irene actually found us too, so we had a Table 23 viewing (minus Dana and Jenna). This was fun to watch, but also bittersweet.

 
And then it was back to the room to attempt to crash after finding our final towel creation of the trip. We were definitely back on the muddy Mississippi and passed one of the Carnival ships shortly after returning to the room.