April 2025: A DREAM April Vacation: Day 3

Day 3: April 27, 2025

Ahh a nice, lazy day at sea. So, you know I was awake shortly after 6 am and was proud of myself for sleeping that late!

Since Disney thinks no one wakes up early on sea days and therefore opens breakfast obscenely late, I got up, got dressed, checked the bridge report channel to see if we had detoured during the night as a result of Bright Star being called to “crew mess” during second dinner the previous night (we hadn’t), stared at the ocean for a few minutes, and then went to do some picture taking around the ship, where things were definitely quieter than the previous evening, but there were also lots of people awake…both workers and cruisers.

Picture taking done, I returned to the room, where I rallied Nick and we headed to Cabanas for breakfast shortly after it opened. Cabanas was already hopping. We were honestly initially disappointed by the breakfast offerings here…and then we realized that we had missed a whole section of the buffet. Oops. But, the food we did get was decent, but not quite as good as it had been in Cabanas on the Magic last year.

Breakfast consumed, we headed back to the room where Nick promptly went back to sleep and I did a bit of ocean watching.

Shortly before 9:15, I headed down to the D Lounge, where I met up with Kim for Learn to Draw Captain Minnie. When I did a Learn to Draw on the Fantasy 6 years ago, it was led by a cast member that was doing the drawing in front of us. But this was actually a video of one of the Imagineers leading us in drawing. Kim and I got a lot of laughs out of this activity. And you can kind of tell what we were trying to draw.

 
Drawings completed, Kim and I did a bit of gift shop browsing. The stores were hopping! I picked up an ornament to continue our collection of ship ornaments and eyed the t-shirts as possibilities for later in the week. I was particularly surprised, though, to see that they had stocked Mexico merchandise on this cruise…as in Epcot World Showcase Mexico. WTF.

Shopping completed for now, we headed back to our respective rooms to rally the guys for the next activity: Anyone Can Cook (for 18+ only). The 4 of us met back in the D Lounge shortly before this started. We were treated to lobster ravioli and a wine pairing, as well as a lot of humor from the chef that led this. We all really enjoyed this. I didn’t pay attention to what the wine pairing was, other than, it was some sort of white blend, and not my personal preference.

After this, I think Nick and I browsed the gift shops, which were WAY less chaotic than they had been an hour or so earlier. After browsing, we headed back to Cabanas for lunch. We did a better job navigating for this meal, and lunch seemed better than breakfast had been.

Refueled, it was off to level 4 of the atrium to watch the character dance party. It wasn’t quite as exciting as last year, because the ship wasn’t rocking like it had been then, but it was still a lot of fun to watch…from above. We also decided while watching that this cruise seemed to have the highest toddler ratio of any cruise we’d been on so far. Wow. No wonder people on this sailing other than me are awake early.

Once the dance party ended, we met up with Kim and John who were on the side of the atrium (deck 4) opposite us. Kim and I headed back to D Lounge. Nick apparently headed outside on deck 4. John? Maybe he went to get cookies?

Why were Kim and I in D Lounge for a 3rd time today? Napkin folding. I really enjoyed the towel folding on the Magic, so I figured I’d give napkin folding a try. Kim, of course, was up for this too. This was fun (and easier than towel folding), and I actually was more successful with it than Kim. Yes, I did do a lot of Origami in the 90s, why do you ask? In half an hour, we made 5 different napkin creations.

 
Towards the end of napkin folding, my phone starting blowing up. Turns out the excursion Nick and I were scheduled for the next day (Kuza Beach Club and Jungle RZR Adventure) had been canceled due to “operational difficulties”. I wasn’t entirely surprised, since my research had suggested that Kuza Beach Club, which was supposed to open in February, hadn’t actually opened until the week before. But…now we had to figure out something else to do…with no internet access for research.

So, when napkin folding ended, I reminded Kim what time to meet for Pirate Night pictures, and then I headed outside to find Nick. He had told me which assembly station he was near, but obviously, I headed outside exactly opposite where he really was, and apparently there’s some sort of even/odd thing going on with assembly stations, so I walked outside about exactly opposite where he was. So, I did a lap around the ship, and found him. We set to work looking over the excursions that still had availability for tomorrow. I found several that were interesting to me. Nick initially was like “meh, we’ll stay on the ship”, but when I pushed a little harder, we decided to go with the Isla Pasion all inclusive beach day by power catamaran. I was pretty sure I had read good things about this one, and it seemed like a good balance for what we both thought sounded good. As an added bonus, this excursion was significantly cheaper than what we’d originally been signed up for. We booked it through the app, and we were set.

We then relaxed on the wonderful deck 4 loungers a bit longer, and then went up to the pool deck for ice cream. I got strawberry chocolate twist, and confirmed that I still need more practice serving up soft serve. Good thing there are a few days left on the cruise!

Ice cream consumed, Nick and I headed down to Evolution. Time for Disney Tunes Trivia. I had zero expectations for our performance, but we got…some…right. This was really enjoyable though. One of the pianists on board, Daniel Richardson, played the music for this, and he was phenomenal. Nick and I both agreed that we would need to listen to him in a lounge at some point on this cruise. The trivia host was fun too. I’d absolutely do Disney Tunes Trivia again.

After trivia, we headed back to the room to get ready for pirate night. This mostly involved me getting frustrated with my bandana. These ones are definitely bigger than the ones DCL used to give out, and apparently my head is smaller than I think. But, we eventually got it situated and then we headed down to the atrium to get the picture taking started.

We started by being first in line for pirate Goofy. As luck would have it, Kim found us just before Goofy appeared, so she was able to join in on the picture taking. Then we located John, who was listening to the music (Soul something), and we got some backdrop pictures.

Pictures taken, John headed off to the Walt Disney Theater to see the magician that was performing tonight. The rest of us aren’t into magicians, so we headed for the pool deck. More ice cream was consumed, and we attempted to consume a frozen drink that was supposedly dole whip, pina colada and rum. Unfortunately cruise dole whip just isn’t good, so this drink was just wasted calories. But, we enjoyed sitting in the quiet cove area, watching the ocean pass by with various frozen treats.

 
Eventually we headed up to deck 12 for pirate party one of the night. The Dream does pirate night totally different from the Magic. There were two deck parties tonight…one at 7:30ish and then the Buccaneer Blast with fireworks at like 10:30. This first one was basically a character dance party where we were taught about pirate rules or something like that. It was cute, but probably won’t be a repeat for me if I sail on the Dream class again.

 
When this pirate party ended, we were able to catch part of a decent sunset at sea.

And then it was off to dinner in Royal Palace. This always feels like the wrong venue for pirate night. But, here we are. Our serving team continued to absolutely kill it, we all attempted to listen to John express his amazement with the magician, and we visited with the table next to us in between courses. I think I had the samosa appetizer, skipped the soup course, and had the chicken entree. And of course, I had the caramel macadamia cheesecake tart for dessert…which didn’t actually seem to have any macadamia nuts in it?? Overall dinner was tasty though.

After dinner we headed back up to deck 12 for Buccaneer Blast. This was way too drawn out considering there’d been a character pirate dance party earlier, but eventually they got to the fireworks, which were fun. It’s always mind blowing to think about the fact that I’m standing on one of the higher decks on a ship on the ocean, watching fireworks.

When the fireworks ended, we headed back to our room, where we found what I’m convinced is the standard (traditional?) pirate night bed runner creation. I still have no clue what it is.

 
Not knowing what my phone would do with the time change while in airplane mode, I carefully set an alarm and then we crashed for the night. It would be a relatively early start the next morning.