piginmud
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2002
Thursday was another day at sea. This was the morning of our character breakfast. The breakfast was okay but not as good as the character breakfasts at WDW. It was fairly rushed and then Minnie was apparently going to leave but we said that we wanted to see Minnie. So she did wind up coming over, but I think we were the last couple tables to leave the breakfast. For those of you who dont know this, the Disney Magic has 3 restaurants that you rotate around to every night. The first night we were at Parrot Cay. The second night was Lumieres (the more elegant restaurant) and the 3rd night was at Animators Palate. This was the best rotation of restaurants. Because on the first night, it was casual (which you want to be casual on your first night at dinner after traveling all day). The second night we were in the elegant restaurant for the Captains Gala dinner. And the 3rd night was in Animators Palate which also is fairly casual. The 4th night we were back at Parrot Cay for Island Wear night, where you showed off your island clothes (lots of Hawaiian shirts that night!) The 5th night was the semi-formal night and we were once again back at Lumieres the more elegant restaurant. On any given night I saw ladies all dressed up in gowns (not just on the formal nights) and I saw ladies in sundresses. Most of the time I saw the men dressed up in nice shirts and a few tuxedos on the formal night. I liked Parrot Cay the best because it was tropical and you heard the sound of birds when you walked into the hallway of the restaurant.
We did the autograph session that afternoon with the characters. Basically all the lady characters were there (Cinderella, Wendy Darling, Snow White, etc, etc) Oh another thing I did that day was to get our t-shirts autographed. I was lucky enough to have a lady at our table who had read the Disney boards and newsgroups before she left. So she knew a lot of the inside information. This was something that I didnt do for this vacation. Normally Im very good at researching everything and going on the newsgroups to read, but I didnt this trip. It was sort of a spur of the moment trip and just very spontaneous. Anyway, I had heard that if you brought a t-shirt to the Guest Services desk, they would have all the characters sign it for you. I brought them one t-shirt for me and one for my daughter to be autographed. Sure enough the very next day our t-shirts were signed and ready for us. I was very impressed!
That evening was the show Disney Dreams, their award winning show. Apparently this show has won the top award of all cruise ship shows. I thought it was a great show, although Im not sure if I enjoyed it more than any of the other shows on the ship that week. I cant remember what we exactly did that day, but I do know we had fun! Oh I do remember one show that we saw that evening was a little comedy/ventriloquism show by a guy named Michael Harrison. He was hilarious! He had both the kids and the adults cracking up. I noticed when we walked into the show that the captain was actually standing near the door taking in the show himself. In fact, we saw the captain on a number of different occasions. I thought this was very special, since I had never experienced that on other cruises. Since I had enjoyed that guys show so much, after I put my daughter to bed that evening, I came back for his adult show. He was equally hilarious in that show too. Although after the show was over I ran out of the bar because they were dancing to songs of the 80s and I didnt want to relive that ;-)
Friday was Castaway Cay, the private island. My daughter wanted to see what the island looked like so bad. When we went up for breakfast we werent at the island yet. After breakfast we looked and she was so amazed. She said thats the island that I dreamed about mommy! At that very moment, the crew came on the loud speakers to let us know that the immigration check was complete and we could debark. We quickly ran to the room and got our stuff and got off the ship. I had packed everything that we needed the night before so that we could just get right off at a moments notice.
I know from previous cruises that you have to get off early and claim your beach chair on the private island. We had a blast on the island. We rented bicycles and a float. Its just a great beach day. The bicycle trail was pretty cute. They even have cold water (actually ice cold water) at a couple different stopping points. I did the snorkel trails while my daughter played on the beach with her friend Spencer. She came into the water to snorkel, put her head in the water, realized that all the fish were swimming around her, and then ran off. It was just a little too much for her. And I think by that time in the week, she was just so tired and over-excited that she couldnt physically or mentally handle it. So I didnt push her. I was happy that she was willing to go back to the beach and play in the sand while I snorkeled. We bought a chip and dale t-shirt for her and a Castaway Cay pin to commemorate the day.
That evening she was so tired at dinner that she said she was going back to the cabin to go to sleep. After I ate I went back to the cabin she wasnt sleeping, she was watching tv (which is a full set of tv stations due to the satellite tv). I told her I would get her ready for bed (it was about 7:30ish at this time). All of a sudden she got a 2nd wind and wanted to run off with me. So we did the farewell show (which had our favorite comedian/ventriloquist in the show). That was a fun show. After that I think we headed back to the room. I needed to pack everything since they wanted all the luggage out of the room by 11pm. While I was packing everything she just fell asleep. This is a child that doesnt fall asleep that easily. I think the weeks worth of fun took its toll on her. In fact that afternoon she was asking me what we were doing the next day. I said oh, thats the day we have to get off the ship! She said, NO WAY! We just got on the ship! I said yeah .a week ago! She couldnt believe that the week had flown by so fast. I agreed, it really did.
We did the autograph session that afternoon with the characters. Basically all the lady characters were there (Cinderella, Wendy Darling, Snow White, etc, etc) Oh another thing I did that day was to get our t-shirts autographed. I was lucky enough to have a lady at our table who had read the Disney boards and newsgroups before she left. So she knew a lot of the inside information. This was something that I didnt do for this vacation. Normally Im very good at researching everything and going on the newsgroups to read, but I didnt this trip. It was sort of a spur of the moment trip and just very spontaneous. Anyway, I had heard that if you brought a t-shirt to the Guest Services desk, they would have all the characters sign it for you. I brought them one t-shirt for me and one for my daughter to be autographed. Sure enough the very next day our t-shirts were signed and ready for us. I was very impressed!
That evening was the show Disney Dreams, their award winning show. Apparently this show has won the top award of all cruise ship shows. I thought it was a great show, although Im not sure if I enjoyed it more than any of the other shows on the ship that week. I cant remember what we exactly did that day, but I do know we had fun! Oh I do remember one show that we saw that evening was a little comedy/ventriloquism show by a guy named Michael Harrison. He was hilarious! He had both the kids and the adults cracking up. I noticed when we walked into the show that the captain was actually standing near the door taking in the show himself. In fact, we saw the captain on a number of different occasions. I thought this was very special, since I had never experienced that on other cruises. Since I had enjoyed that guys show so much, after I put my daughter to bed that evening, I came back for his adult show. He was equally hilarious in that show too. Although after the show was over I ran out of the bar because they were dancing to songs of the 80s and I didnt want to relive that ;-)
Friday was Castaway Cay, the private island. My daughter wanted to see what the island looked like so bad. When we went up for breakfast we werent at the island yet. After breakfast we looked and she was so amazed. She said thats the island that I dreamed about mommy! At that very moment, the crew came on the loud speakers to let us know that the immigration check was complete and we could debark. We quickly ran to the room and got our stuff and got off the ship. I had packed everything that we needed the night before so that we could just get right off at a moments notice.
I know from previous cruises that you have to get off early and claim your beach chair on the private island. We had a blast on the island. We rented bicycles and a float. Its just a great beach day. The bicycle trail was pretty cute. They even have cold water (actually ice cold water) at a couple different stopping points. I did the snorkel trails while my daughter played on the beach with her friend Spencer. She came into the water to snorkel, put her head in the water, realized that all the fish were swimming around her, and then ran off. It was just a little too much for her. And I think by that time in the week, she was just so tired and over-excited that she couldnt physically or mentally handle it. So I didnt push her. I was happy that she was willing to go back to the beach and play in the sand while I snorkeled. We bought a chip and dale t-shirt for her and a Castaway Cay pin to commemorate the day.
That evening she was so tired at dinner that she said she was going back to the cabin to go to sleep. After I ate I went back to the cabin she wasnt sleeping, she was watching tv (which is a full set of tv stations due to the satellite tv). I told her I would get her ready for bed (it was about 7:30ish at this time). All of a sudden she got a 2nd wind and wanted to run off with me. So we did the farewell show (which had our favorite comedian/ventriloquist in the show). That was a fun show. After that I think we headed back to the room. I needed to pack everything since they wanted all the luggage out of the room by 11pm. While I was packing everything she just fell asleep. This is a child that doesnt fall asleep that easily. I think the weeks worth of fun took its toll on her. In fact that afternoon she was asking me what we were doing the next day. I said oh, thats the day we have to get off the ship! She said, NO WAY! We just got on the ship! I said yeah .a week ago! She couldnt believe that the week had flown by so fast. I agreed, it really did.
I just thought it was such a neat restaurant, with it's tropical decor and I loved the chandeliers with bananas hanging from them. To me, Lumiere's was just a tad bit too stuffy. 
I'm more of a "casual" person than a "formal" one anyway! 
