Day 4, Part 2: Thursday April 28, 2016
After lunch, we headed back to the beach for a few more pictures.
Picture taking done at Serenity Bay, we decided it might be time to get out of the sun. We slowly made our way back to the ship, marveling at the theming of the island, the beauty, the amazing weather, the energy of the CM running the crab races (He had also led the sail away party the day before) and how empty the family beach was. Hmm… I also took some more pictures along the way.
Eventually we made it back to the ship, where we swiped our Key to the World (shouldn’t it be Key to the CRUISE?) cards, and made it through the metal detector after a couple tries. Apparently the water bottle and sunglasses needed to go through the x-ray and not stay with us…
Sentana was a bit surprised to see us when we appeared in the hall. Again, we were greeted by name, and he asked us all about our morning on the island. He seemed genuinely concerned with whether we had enjoyed our time there, since we returned to the ship so early. We assured him that we had; we simply hadn’t seen that much sun, basically in the last year and it was time for a break.
Once back in the cabin, I changed while Nick showered, and then I took a few more pictures from the balcony.
We then decided to explore the ship a bit, since Sentana hadn’t had a chance to get into our room yet. We ended up up on deck 9, eating ice cream (mango and vanilla for me!) just relaxing, staring out at the island. Such a beautiful spot. Eventually we wandered into Cove Cafe to check it out. When the CM in there discovered we had never been there before he insisted that we couldn’t leave empty handed with that bakery case right there. Well if you insist…
The carrot cake was pretty good. I didn’t try Nick’s brownie, but he seemed to have no problem eating it. We then hung out on those chairs for awhile. I think we found our new favorite spot! Super comfy chairs, and a great view!
Eventually, we decided it was probably safe to return to the room. We were correct and returned to find the room had been made up. Nick promptly fell asleep. I showered, and then even I managed to fall asleep for a bit.
Nap complete, it was almost time for the ship to leave, so I headed out onto the not-so-secret “secret” deck 7 aft deck, for that view of the island, and to watch the happenings as we set sail.
As we left the island, the captain made all kinds of announcements, and blew the “Mickey horn”, as he called it, multiple times since this was the last stop at Castaway Cay for the Wonder until fall. He also told us that we would be met by the pilot in Nassau a little after 10 that night and would dock around 11, so that some routine, scheduled maintenance to some engine filters could be conducted. We would be free to go onshore as early as 7 am the next day. Interesting.
I checked back in the room where Nick was still sawing wood, so I decided to wander the ship a bit. I checked our pictures at Shutters and then did some shopping at Mickey’s Mates, glad that I hadn’t listened to Nick when he said (after glancing in the window) that “it’s all kids stuff in there”. As I was walking back to the room, I felt my phone leave my back pocket. Umm…’scuse me?!
It was Captain Jack Sparrow. True to character, he played innocent when I asked him for my phone, but, gave it back after a minute or so (“oh...this?”). Gotta love Disney. And side note, this whole characters wandering around thing is so much cooler than in the parks (even though, realistically, they’re just wandering to their next photo shoot. They interact on the way).
Nick woke up when I returned to the room, and we quickly placed a room service order (another pizza and cheese platter), then got ready for pirate night. The elementary school I work at does a program called Story Pirates, where the kids write stories based on a provided theme, and then a couple teachers “pirate” the story and modify it so that it can be acted out at an all school assembly by the staff. Most of us on staff have Story Pirates shirts in case we ever end up acting out a story, so that was the main part of my outfit for the evening. I had read all over the internet that you receive bandanas on pirate night, but there was no sign of them, so I headed back to Mickey’s Mates for a couple bandanas.
Tonight we had lots of time to kill, since we were not going to the ventriloquist show. We ate our snacks and figured out how to tie our bandanas, while watching the ship’s progress on the TV. Being a dork, the map channel was by far my favorite.
Eventually it was time for the Pirate Party. We joined the masses heading upstairs. We went straight to the 10th deck, to observe from above. The party was...interesting. The first half hour or so is kids playing a giant video game, kind of Disney Quest style, followed by a pirate themed dance party with characters, and then our favorite Mouse saves the day and brings us a party in the sky.
Because only on Disney would an individual with almost no visibility zipline across the top deck of a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean! The last 10 minutes where why I was there, and we both were VERY impressed. We were also really impressed (again) with the energy of the CMs. That’s an amazing crew on that ship!
After the party, it was straight down to Animator’s Palate for dinner. Alexandra and HR guy were both there already, and Sergei and Vavara joined us shortly thereafter. Andy and Jackie were dining in Palo tonight. The Pirate Night menu gets a lot of bad publicity and I couldn’t really figure out why. I found myself wishing I had a big enough appetite to order several things on the menu, because there were several really appealing options. In the end, I went with pot stickers for my appetizer, the honeydew and watermelon soup, and the macadamia crusted mahi mahi. Nick had the conch chowder, crab cake and mahi mahi. We both were very happy with our choices, and we were blown away by how much macadamia nut is used on that fish. That had to be about $20 worth of macadamia nuts!
Dinner was lively, conversation flowed freely, and the photographers made an appearance.
For dessert, I had the fruit cobbler. Nick probably had the sampler again. It was all good. I have no pictures of food from this meal.
After dinner, we headed for the lobby for some pictures with the pirate backdrops.
After we’d been sufficiently photographed, we retreated to our room, where we found this creation waiting for us.
After checking out the creation (and Nick catching on to the whole pirate coin thing from the day before) we headed to the balcony, where the lights from Nassau and the pilot boat were appearing. We stayed out there, watching Nassau grow closer, and then watching Atlantis come into view as we backed into the dock. After that, it was time to collapse into bed, knowing we could sleep as late as we wanted, since we would not be woken by the engines in the morning.
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