April 2018: A MAGICal April Vacation: Day 7, Part 3

Friday April 28, 2018, part 3

Once we were ready, we met Kim and John in the atrium for pictures. While Nick and I had been having pictures taken frequently, this was the only night we pushed for group pictures. And since we all had matching t-shirts, they willingly agreed.

Upon our arrival, we heard John’s joke of the night for the first (of many) time. It went like this: John would ask “What’s a pirate’s favorite letter”. A poor unsuspecting soul would respond: “r?”. And John would respond (in pirate accent), “you think it’s r, but actually it’s the c they love”.

Joke endured, we started posing for pictures. This is where we really noticed that John was indeed enjoying this cruise.

While posing for pictures, we also were enjoying the music. While this was not our favorite of the 2 couples we saw performing regularly on board, they were very good. There’s just something so nice about music being so widespread.

After pictures, Kim and John went to the show of the night. It was a magician. Nick and I skipped in favor of doing a bit of shopping while most people were at the show or dinner. No lines and no tripping over people!

Several purchases made, we headed back to our room to drop those off and adjust bandanas in the mirror. We relaxed a bit, and I spent some time on the balcony watching the...RAIN.

You can’t tell from these pictures, but it was POURING. I was particularly impressed, though, with how blue the water was, despite the clouds. Every time the ship turned (which was frequently, since we were quickly approaching Pirate Party time and they were trying to find a break in the weather), the water absolutely poured off the side of it. It was fascinating to watch. Yes, in addition to having an engineer for a father-in-law, I have a father who is an engineer too, how did you guess?

The other thing you can’t tell from the pictures is that one deck up, and one room over, the kids and THEIR MOTHER were throwing popcorn over the rail to feed the fish. UGH!

As it got closer to 8, we headed for the pool deck, since there had been no announcements about the status of the party yet. As we got out on deck, it was evident that it was still raining. However, right then they made an announcement that in about 7 more minutes, we would be out of the rain, so they would start “swabbing the decks” as soon as that happened, and the party would go on, with just a 10 or 15 minute delay. They also made it clear that we should stick around and enjoy the party; they’d notified the theater and dining rooms of the delay. Alright then!

So Nick and I did what any good Disney cruiser would do; we found the soft serve ice cream and got ourselves some cones while waiting for the weather to clear. Within a few minutes there was a stampede upstairs, which was our cue to get moving. Sure enough, the rain had basically stopped, and we found his parents along the rain on deck. We watched the action as the decks were swabbed, and we did our part as a beach towel was passed down the railing to dry that off too. And we got ready to enjoy the party.

Partway through the party, it started raining again, and lightning could be seen in the distance. As an added bonus, we were rocking! Pretty soon, I saw cruise director Darren appear and start talking with the music booth staff, and within minutes we heard, “how about some fireworks!”. They cut a bit out of the party, but they got the fireworks set off!

The rain really picked up as the fireworks ended, but we took our time heading downstairs. No need to be trampled on wet wooden stairs! Kim and John had clearly enjoyed the party, and we had too!

Dinner was in Animator’s Palate again tonight, and the photographers were out in force again. 

So...the pirate menu changed since our last cruise. I had been in the minority (as had Nick) in liking it on the last cruise. I was not overly excited about anything except dessert on this menu. This menu has a lot of shellfish on it, which I don't do. So this was a tough menu. But, I tried.

For an appetizer I had the Smoked Saucisson Baked Brie Brioche and Honey. This was just weird. It was kind of like an egg souffle. Kim also had this, and she wasn’t wild about it either. It was ok, but neither one of us finished it. Nikola, of course, teased that we should have listened to his recommendations, as he hadn’t seen us not finish an appetizer yet this cruise. I did better with the soup course, with the chilled mango soup. This was really tasty, and I think I finished it all. Kim wasn’t as crazy about her carrot soup. For the entree, I had the jerk chicken, which was very good. It wasn’t overly spicy, just flavorful, which was perfect. And for dessert, I had the caramel macadamia nut cheesecake tart. This was amazing. I really don’t remember what else everyone got to eat. Oh well. 

The dining room was quite lively tonight. Around dessert time, the servers did a bit of a parade and then set up limbo for the kids, complete with servers using the metal plate covers to create a little extra noise. It was fun. 

Aziz also chatted with us for a bit tonight, inquiring about our service. When we told him that Nikola is awesome, he shared that this is Nikola’s last regular service rotation. On the next cruise, Nikola would be starting as a server in Palo. Aww. Nikola will be a great server wherever he goes, but we had been observing him working pure magic with the kiddos, managing to trade food for game systems that they were glued to, and convincing them to actually eat. This is a gain for Palo, but a loss for the main dining rooms for sure. We are very grateful that we got to have Nikola as a server. As fantastic as our serving team was on the Wonder (and they were AMAZING), he single-handedly blew them out of the water.

At some point during this dinner, we got to talking about how much fun we were having. Kim made it very clear she was considering doing another cruise some day (“How about a Thanksgiving cruise some time?!”), and when she asked John if he’d do another one, the response was a very quick “yup”. That’s about as good as you get with him, or so we thought.

Kim also shared stories and pictures from their excursion. Overall, they really enjoyed it and said it had been a good use of their afternoon.

After dinner, Kim and John headed back to their room, and Nick and I headed for Shutters, for our routine of checking out our pictures. We then decided we needed to go down to Keys, as we hadn’t really spent any time there yet, and this cruise was quickly coming to an end.

I didn’t last very long in Keys. I really noticed as soon as I got into that dark, peaceful bar just how tired I was. We settled in to seats to listen to the really good music, and Nick ordered himself a drink (some whiskey or bourbon), but within probably 15 minutes, I was on my way back to the room to crash. Nick stayed a bit longer, and apparently had a glass of the Jack Daniels Sinatra version, in addition whatever his first beverage was. He returned to the room gushing about the great music, the wonderful bartender (Mary Ann from our Mixology class) and the beverage selection.

We both fell asleep quickly, listening to the sound of pouring rain hitting the ship. We both were quite surprised that the ship was not rocking, in light of the apparent weather.

April 2018: A MAGICal April Vacation: Day 7, Part 2

Friday April 27, 2018: Part 2

When we emerged from our room to head for Palo, Fermin was in the hallway. He was very excited to meet Nick, and they chatted about the movie for a few minutes. Then we were on our way.

We got to Palo a few minutes early, but we were seated right away, at a table right next to a window. Our server, Roberto, appeared almost immediately. One bubbly beverage is offered per person. We were offered a mimosa, a peach bellini, or non-alcoholic sparkling cider. I ordered a mimosa, and Nick requested the sparkling cider. Still drying out from Mixology hun?

After taking our drink orders, Roberto took us for a tour of the buffet. All I can say is wow. Nick and I each put together a plate of assorted pastries, arancini, meats, cheeses, and other random things like salmon mousse and Nick probably had some shrimp.

We returned to our table just in time for our drinks to arrive. We ordered our entrees (chicken parm for both of us), and then toasted before digging in. Nick has a rule about what drinks he’ll toast with, so I gave him crap about toasting with a non-alcoholic drink. 

I didn’t take a picture of this plate of food, but it was delicious. My personal favorite parts were the arancini, and prosciutto wrapped parmesan and honey. The parm and honey were Roberto’s recommendation. I added the prosciutto. It was good! The salmon mousse was surprisingly tasty, but not something I’d eat in mass quantities. Nick enjoyed everything on his plate.

Our chicken parm arrived pretty quickly, and we both loved it! The chicken was so incredibly tender, and the risotto it was served with was amazing. We both cleaned our plates.

As we were eating, we were chatting about future vacations. We’d been working hard at deciding what to do for next April vacation. We were tossing around a few ideas, and knew we needed to act on them soon. But what we really knew was, as pricey as another Disney cruise would be Easter week, it was what we wanted to do, particularly in light of the summer and school year I’ve got coming up at work. They’re not conducive to planning a productive trip to Arizona for example. We decided to go to the Future Vacations desk when it opened that afternoon.

Once we had finished our chicken parm, it was back to the buffet, for the most important part of any meal: dessert! We had no issues putting together good looking plates!

Roberto re-appeared to clear plates right after we finished eating. He had this really impressive presence. He didn’t hover and half the time he wasn’t really visible. But he continually appeared at exactly the right moment. Very personable too. It was very obvious to us how he had gotten a role in Palo.

Brunch complete, we took a few pictures of the entry and from deck 10, before heading back to the room. 

Once there, we got ready, and then about 10 minutes later, we were headed for the deck 1 gangway. Kim and John had gone on an excursion to Ardastra Gardens, but we had really wanted to experience Palo as it’s intended to be experienced. So we had the afternoon to ourselves. We decided we might as well go wander the main street and see if there was any interesting shopping.

I think we were off the ship less than an hour. It was long enough for Fermin to clean our room, Nick to look at (but thankfully not buy) several different watches, and for me to buy a Bahamas charm for my Pandora bracelet. Figured it was fitting, since we’ve been to the Bahamas twice now.

Once we returned to the ship, we headed straight for deck 9. It was time to try some Dole Whip with vanilla rum. We found a comfy spot in the quiet cove area to consume those. Sadly, they weren’t as good as they sounded. 

From there, we went back to the room for a brief nap. Thankfully, I set an alarm when I laid down, because I did fall asleep. I woke up to the alarm and it was nearly time for the Future Vacations desk to open, so we headed there to get in line. Thankfully, the lady ahead of us was quick, and pretty soon we were sitting down for pricing. Nick was leaving the decision up to me, because he was cool with either option, he knew I needed to wrap my head around the idea of sea days, and I deal with the bulk of the financial stuff in our relationship. I ended up making the decision quickly between the two options we were considering (Bahamas 4 night on the Dream, or an Eastern Caribbean 7 night on the Fantasy), and within minutes we were booked for next April on the Fantasy. Nick looked a bit surprised that I chose that option, as I’m not known for agreeing to spend THAT much money that quickly, but hey, go big or go home, right? And I knew if we booked the trip on the Dream, we’d end up tacking on extra things to the vacation like we did with this one, and the trip would end up costing just as much. And Disney Cruises aren’t going to get any cheaper. So let’s go big now. And Nick didn’t seem to be complaining!

Next vacation booked, we walked a super long distance, outside, where we watched the happenings on the pier for a bit, and then settled into some of the comfy cushioned lounge chairs, where we stared at the Carnival maintenance guys who were still staring at our ship. We were surprised by how quiet this deck really was. We hung out here for quite awhile, alternating between just chilling in those chairs, chatting about this vacation and our next vacation, enjoying each other’s company, and watching the action on the pier. Another Disney difference that we noticed was that as the masses were returning, Disney had set up a table with 4 different types of infused cold water, and cold towels for those returning. We knew when it was almost time to leave, when they started hauling all of that back on board.

The Carnival ship right next to ours left first, followed almost immediately by the other Carnival ship in port, and all kinds of horns between the ships sounded. I was honestly a little surprised that we didn’t sound the “Mickey horn”. We then watched the pier runners for a bit, including one family being laced out by our assistant cruise director (Carly?), for being late.

We headed back to the room before we actually sailed away. It was time to get ready for pirate night! Unlike on our previous cruise, we had received bandanas in our room, so we didn’t have to resort to the ones we had purchased on the Wonder. Although that one might have fit Nick slightly better. He had to wear this one differently.

April 2018: A MAGICal April Vacation: Day 7, Part 1

Day 7: Friday April 27, 2018

You might think that we slept in this morning, in light of Nick’s late night. We didn’t. I was still awake fairly early, although this morning was probably closer to 7, rather than 6.

I spent a bit of time on the balcony relaxing and just enjoying listening to the water. It was obvious that it had rained at some point overnight, but it wasn’t actively raining right then. 

Pretty soon I woke Nick up, because we were meeting Kim for breakfast relatively early. Like 8:15, I think.

Prior to the cruise I had seen the breakfast menu for the sit down restaurant. I had also seen a picture of the item that had caught my eye on the menu, the pineapple stack. It’s French toast and pineapple, in a stack, with strawberry sauce. What’s not to like about that idea? I knew I needed to try it, and Nick was, no pun intended, on board with that concept too.

Nick and I had decided this would be a good morning to have a plated breakfast, because we were doing brunch at Palo at noon. Kim and I had tickets to meet some princesses at 9:15, so an early breakfast today just made sense.

We met Kim outside her room. John was still sleeping on the couch. Side note, John has a CPAP. Despite suggestions to either ask his stateroom host for an extension cord, or to turn down the couch bed, John just slept on the couch, as a couch. He said it was comfortable, so I guess that’s ok. I’d hate to think about what he would have done about distilled water if I hadn’t called DCL and requested it for him. Side note, if you use a CPAP, Disney will have a gallon of distilled water waiting in your stateroom for you. You just have to call them.

So...anyway. We met up with Kim, and headed for Lumiere’s for breakfast. We were seated immediately. The restaurant was pretty quiet at this point. Shortly after we ordered our beverages, we heard “morning guys, anyone want to mix some beverages?”. It was one of the people that had been seated near us at mixology the day before. We all chuckled, and he rejoined his family.

Breakfast in Lumiere’s was the polar opposite of breakfast in Cabanas. The food was still fantastic, and the service was still great, but that’s where the similarities ended. Breakfast at Cabanas at this point in the day is hectic. Lumiere’s was anything but. It was quiet and peaceful. I really enjoyed it. And, as an added bonus, we were seated in a location where we could watch Nassau coming closer into view. That’s always fun to watch an island go from a dark spot onto the horizon to something recognizeable.

We all ordered the pineapple stack. While waiting for our meals to come out, a server came by with a plate of danishes, muffins, and other pastries, for us to select from. We all got some pastry or another. Of particularly interesting note, the server held two forks as tongs to serve them with. From there on out, Kim tried to figure out how to replicate that move to serve food. I believe she’s still trying.

The pastries were really tasty, and quickly enough our meals arrived. The pineapple stack was delicious! Nick thought it was a bit small, but since we were going to Palo in a few hours, that was ok. I thought it was perfectly sized. 

We finished breakfast earlier than we had expected, so we went back to the rooms for a few minutes. By now, we had entered the ship channel in Nassau, so I headed straight to the balcony to watch docking. 

While I was taking pictures, a stateroom host emerged on the balcony next to ours. I said hi, and he quickly introduced himself. Turns out he was our stateroom host, Fermin, and had been hoping to meet us since arrival day, but hadn’t crossed paths with us yet. We chatted for a couple minutes, and he instantly reminded me of Sentana, our stateroom host on the Wonder. This is a good thing.

Pretty soon, it was time to go get Kim for the princess meet and greet. When I emerged from my room, Fermin was in the hallway. He greeted me by name, and asked where Nicholas was. I told him he was napping, because he’d been at the movie the previous night. Fermin’s eyes lit up, and he immediately said “yes, very late night. I was there too”. He asked how Nick had liked the movie, and then I was off and running.

Kim and I headed to the atrium, where we joined a line of about 15 people to meet the princesses. This was mostly for Kim’s benefit, so I told her I’d snap a picture of her on my phone, and then jump in for a picture of the two of us with each princess. While waiting, we enjoyed the music, which I noticed was being played by one of last night’s Tangled Thugs. 

Pretty soon it was our turn. First up? Cinderella. When I joined Kim with her, she promptly complimented me on the color of my “gown”, and then asked if I was going to a royal ball. When I said “no, just Palo”, she didn’t miss a beat, and responded that “Palo is just as good as going to a royal ball”. NICE!

Next princess was Tiana. From the looks of the pictures, she and Kim had quite the interaction. I was once again complimented on the color of my “gown”. I’m sensing a trend here!

The 3rd princess was hands down, the best character interaction Kim or I have ever witnessed or been part of. Belle was terrific. In hindsight, she should have been mentioned on my comment card at the end of the cruise. She and Kim chatted for a few minutes, and then when I walked over, she chatted with me too. Again, a compliment on the color of my “gown”, but she also asked me about what book I was reading, and asked me about it, making it clear she’d had a similar conversation with Kim, and staying very much in character. She also encouraged a picture with just me. 

Last up was Rapunzel. She and Kim seemed to have a good chat, and proving that the princesses receive consistent training, I heard about my “gown” again. 

Soon enough we were back on deck 7. As Kim and I parted ways, Fermin noticed. He was a bit confused, because he was the stateroom host for both of our rooms (no wonder both rooms are getting the same bed runner creations each night!), but, hadn’t yet discovered that we were traveling together. Once it was all clarified, we got a big grin and “nice!”.

I returned to the room where Nick was out cold. I decided to be a good wife and let him sleep and went wandering to do some picture taking. This was easier said than done, as part of the deck 4 outdoor deck was closed for what appeared to be resurfacing. 

After a fair amount of wandering, I went back to the room, where Nick was still sleeping. I hung out on the balcony, reading, and watching the action on the pier and on the Carnival ship next to us. I couldn’t help but notice that Disney had set out tables of bug repellant goop and sanitizer. Carnival? Not so much. Disney was also doing constant maintenance: resurfacing, pressure washing, work on lifeboats, etc. The Carnival maintenance guys were noticed every time I was on the balcony sitting on deck staring at our ship. Now I’m more willing to eventually explore other cruise lines for very particular ships that look like they have enough to keep me occupied than Nick is, but Carnival is not on that very short list.

Eventually it was time to wake Nick up to go to Palo. We were very much looking forward to the full Palo brunch experience, as two years ago, all buffets were on lockdown, thanks to a norovirus outbreak, so, while we loved the brunch, we didn’t have the full experience. So far, the buffets were not on lockdown, so Palo should be a “normal” experience this time!