northsouth
DIS cruiser
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2000
As usual I was up early Sunday, went for coffee on Deck 9 and wrote in my journal for a while. Went for official morning walk at 9am on Deck 4, felt so exhilerated after that that I did another few laps on "jogging track" then went back to room to shower and dress for the day. I may mention that this was the only day I exercised like that, on Monday I had the beginnings of a cold that haunts me to this day!! A souvenir that I didn't really want to bring home. It wasn't such a bad cold while on vacation, but got worse when I got home. Bummer!! (finally I'm better but it took 2 WEEKS!!) I was beginning to think it was some tropical disease I picked up!!
DH and I went for Italian lunch buffet Sunday at Parrot Cay, later in the week we tried the American lunch also, both were very good. The only thing I didn't like so well about lunches, is they seat you at a table with others even if there are no crowds. This is not such a bad thing because mostly our lunching partners were great, but one couple we sat with was not so great (mostly because I don't think they liked sitting with strangers, not because they were rude or anything). It was just so awkward, especially at a table for 4. Monday was Palo brunch with Gina, and we loved the brunch better than the Palo dinner (the company was good too!!). Maurezio was our brunch server, looks kind of like Davy Jones from the Monkees, he's from Australia I believe. He was very attentive and we liked him a lot.
Our Palo dinner on Tuesday night felt kind of rushed and service was uneven, our server kind of ignored me and fawned over DH, which is annoying. She never asked if we wanted the pizza, which we were looking forward to, and we had to ask for it. Our appetizers were already done by then so the timing was really off. Then for dessert she only asked DH what he wanted, didn't ask me, so I got chocolate souffle as did DH, which I admit is good, but I wanted tiramisu which I didn't get since she didn't ask. It was hard to flag her down or I would've asked for what I wanted. Anyway, our Palo dinner was disappointing but the food was still good, just the service was not up to par. I might mention that this server also was at the ressie desk on Saturday and was quite snooty then also. I am not going to name names here as I know the server job is very difficult and I really don't want to get anyone in trouble.
Do try the Parrot Cay buffet lunches if you can, they had an amazing array of salads and the breads were wonderful at any meal. At the Italian buffet you could get pasta made to order with a variety of ingredients added, such as shrimp, extra garlic, cheeses, whatever you want.
Dinner on Sunday at Animator's I ordered only off the "starter' menu and had Wolfgang Puck's butternut squash soup, braised artichokes, and seared sea scallops. Although the scallops appetizer was only a few pieces, our dear Aleksandra brought me a whole plateful as my entree, with the rice cakes (cooked like hash brown patties, sorry if this is a poor comparison ); they were really delicious.
They now serve really gross chicken nuggets at the pool deck food locations, which my 12 yo pronounced "worse than Mcdonald's!!". You can still get the good chicken fingers from room service, but why can't they serve them at the pool locations also??
Monday morning at 945am was our scheduled character breakfast. With the time change (we lost an hour) and the midnight dessert buffet it was hard to get moving that morning, but 12 yo was determined to attend. I was a little late joining her, and we were the only 2 at our table for 8. Most of the characters did make it over to our table, even though we were back in a corner by the windows. We were at table 35. At table 31 was a fun group of "older" people with no kids, don't know if "older" is a PC term but I don't know what else to say (my DH says we are "older than dirt" ourselves.) They were having a grand old time and it was fun to watch. Their server was Tom from Croatia, he seemed like a fun guy too, and was making them headscarves out of napkins for the men to wear on their heads. My ambition is to have that much fun when I retire!!! That's what's so great about a Disney cruise, or Disney anything, it keeps you young at heart.
Anyway I only had a few bites of yogurt (Dennis was determined that I have something, he is such a jewel!!) at the character breakfast, as we had our Palo brunch scheduled for 11am.
I found out after about the second day that I cannot eat all this food!!! If I stuck to plain type food like salads and meat I was OK, but the desserts just did me in. The Sunday night midnight dessert buffet was lovely to look at but I should've abstained.
I have eaten lowcarb for almost a year and a half now, and lost 60 lbs, and now I have totally lost my taste for anything with sugar. It's a shame too because I would like to splurge at times like this, but it literally made me sick to eat the desserts. One night they had the sugar free cheesecake as an option but it wasn't very good. I did sample the regular cheesecake on 2 occasions but could only eat a few bites. It was pretty good though. The chocolate souffle at Palo was way too much richness for me but I was stuck with it (I know you're saying, "oh boo hoo what a whiner!!")
So after that Sunday dessert buffet I decided NO MORE!! and I ate carefully after that, and got home to find I really didn't gain any weight either, even though I felt like I was stuffing myself at every meal (I did eat the delicious bread at every chance, it is SOOO good). I did drink my share of drinks though, tried the daily drink special every day and maybe 2 beers some days, including some delicious Texas Ziegenbock beer that Gina had brought me. Thanks, Gina!!! and if you get a chance, have a Bombay Sapphire gin and tonic from Fabiola in Sessions piano bar, she makes a mean G&T. And tell her you like her haircut!! She'll wonder how you knew!! (it really is a cute haircut). And get her to pronounce some of those French wine names, she is from Brazil and speaks beautifully. She is one of my favorite memories, a truly lovely person that Fabiola.
I loved having drinks on the islands; on St Maarten try the guavaberry coolers/coladas, they are wonderful. And on St Thomas try a bushwhacker or a painkiller, all delicious. I know I sound like a lush but I don't drink much at home and a vacation to me means having a few drinks that someone else fixes. As well as meals that someone else fixes, of course!! And I refused to do any laundry on the cruise, that IS a vacation. But oh, the mounds of laundry to do when we got home!! (I'm still catching up!!)
Well, I have devoted part two here almost entirely to food and drink. My day to day activities were pretty standard, lolling around on Deck 4 chairs, go to 630 show, buy some Dispins at the pin trading stand in the lobby (including the magical Ariel Artist Choice pin available only on the Disney ships, in a limited edition of 375 pins per ship...get one if you can!!! they're lovely, and thanks Gina again for alerting me to it) go to dinner etc. We saw our kids mostly at dinner, though ran into them quite frequently during the day also. Our 12 year old is pretty self sufficient and would check in with us every couple of hours; we saw her enough to tell her where we would be), usually she went to do Oceaneer activities or went to a movie (Atlantis) one afternoon with a new friend and friend's dad and DH.
Highlights of Sunday and Monday at sea:
Captain's Welcome Aboard cocktail party on Sunday was kind of fun. We were dressed up in our formal garb, DH saw Cinderella on deck 4 above the atrium lobby and wanted his picture taken with her (he loves "Cindy" "she's as lovely as her name" LOL) but she was about finished with her photo session so we meandered around and ended up at Offbeat Lounge to watch Superbowl. DH won me a Superbowl pin because he is a sports trivia nut. Later he got another pin and a magnet also (because he skipped formal dinner and stayed and watched Superbowl!! he's lucky I'm an understanding wife). Superbowl on the ship was some kind of direct feed with no commercials, so if you like the commercials you're out of luck.
Monday night DH won the sports trivia challenge at ESPN and got a Mickey medallion stating "I''m a winner". In fact both my kids won a medallion also at music trivia contests, and one of the teen friends was a contestant on Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer and won an $80 credit (details later), I'm the only one who isn't a winner I guess. Except I feel like I am because I got to go on this great cruise!!
So, to continue with Sunday night, I went to Hercules show after enjoying the sunset out on deck 4 with a daughter and friend (we made sure to watch the sunset every day), went back to Offbeat to catch halftime show (U2 my favorites) with DH, formal dinner at Animator's Palate, met up with all my pretty dressed up girls, had a nice dinner and went back to Offbeat to see if DH was still standing. He had a great time, happy with Patriots win, lots of smiles everywhere, (sorry Rams fans).
Monday night we went to Returning Cruisers party, lots of hors d'oevres (fried shrimp and jalapeno poppers were our favorites) and free drinks, I had a glass of wine and we talked with Russell, one of the ship's officers, who was very interesting to talk to. Captain Hans was there to greet people, he is a wonderfully polite and warm person, totally approachable and I had my photo snapped with him. I can't say enough about how nice he is, and he evidently really cares about his passengers as he had changed the ship's course on Sunday to avoid some rough seas, and seemed to be very aware of making everyone onboard as comfortable as possible if he could.
On a last note, I would like to mention that, as an adult, it was sometimes tricky to get a trading card at any of the occasions that they were given out. Yes, you could step up and ask for them but they were handed out freely to the kids, and often I would see trading cards scattered on the floor as if the kids didn't really care about having them. Well, I like them for my scrapbooks and wish it weren't so troublesome to get them for myself. Usually my kids were off somewhere else when they were given out so I couldn't have them get them for me. Can't I be a kid too?? Just a thought. I missed out on several because I felt silly having to stand around with the kids waiting my turn for one. Maybe I'm just weird.
Also on Sunday and Monday both there was a lot of hammering going on somewhere (around the lifeboats??) that was so annoying. If it had been of limited duration, it would've been bearable, but it went on from mid morning til afternoon both days. On Monday after our brunch, DH wanted to take a nap and I had to call guest services to try and get the hammering to stop. To their credit it did stop then, after about 15 minutes.
Whatever few complaints I had did not really mar our cruise experience very much, I just like to point out a few things that may matter to some people reading this.
On to St Maarten!!
DH and I went for Italian lunch buffet Sunday at Parrot Cay, later in the week we tried the American lunch also, both were very good. The only thing I didn't like so well about lunches, is they seat you at a table with others even if there are no crowds. This is not such a bad thing because mostly our lunching partners were great, but one couple we sat with was not so great (mostly because I don't think they liked sitting with strangers, not because they were rude or anything). It was just so awkward, especially at a table for 4. Monday was Palo brunch with Gina, and we loved the brunch better than the Palo dinner (the company was good too!!). Maurezio was our brunch server, looks kind of like Davy Jones from the Monkees, he's from Australia I believe. He was very attentive and we liked him a lot.
Our Palo dinner on Tuesday night felt kind of rushed and service was uneven, our server kind of ignored me and fawned over DH, which is annoying. She never asked if we wanted the pizza, which we were looking forward to, and we had to ask for it. Our appetizers were already done by then so the timing was really off. Then for dessert she only asked DH what he wanted, didn't ask me, so I got chocolate souffle as did DH, which I admit is good, but I wanted tiramisu which I didn't get since she didn't ask. It was hard to flag her down or I would've asked for what I wanted. Anyway, our Palo dinner was disappointing but the food was still good, just the service was not up to par. I might mention that this server also was at the ressie desk on Saturday and was quite snooty then also. I am not going to name names here as I know the server job is very difficult and I really don't want to get anyone in trouble.
Do try the Parrot Cay buffet lunches if you can, they had an amazing array of salads and the breads were wonderful at any meal. At the Italian buffet you could get pasta made to order with a variety of ingredients added, such as shrimp, extra garlic, cheeses, whatever you want.
Dinner on Sunday at Animator's I ordered only off the "starter' menu and had Wolfgang Puck's butternut squash soup, braised artichokes, and seared sea scallops. Although the scallops appetizer was only a few pieces, our dear Aleksandra brought me a whole plateful as my entree, with the rice cakes (cooked like hash brown patties, sorry if this is a poor comparison ); they were really delicious.
They now serve really gross chicken nuggets at the pool deck food locations, which my 12 yo pronounced "worse than Mcdonald's!!". You can still get the good chicken fingers from room service, but why can't they serve them at the pool locations also??
Monday morning at 945am was our scheduled character breakfast. With the time change (we lost an hour) and the midnight dessert buffet it was hard to get moving that morning, but 12 yo was determined to attend. I was a little late joining her, and we were the only 2 at our table for 8. Most of the characters did make it over to our table, even though we were back in a corner by the windows. We were at table 35. At table 31 was a fun group of "older" people with no kids, don't know if "older" is a PC term but I don't know what else to say (my DH says we are "older than dirt" ourselves.) They were having a grand old time and it was fun to watch. Their server was Tom from Croatia, he seemed like a fun guy too, and was making them headscarves out of napkins for the men to wear on their heads. My ambition is to have that much fun when I retire!!! That's what's so great about a Disney cruise, or Disney anything, it keeps you young at heart.
Anyway I only had a few bites of yogurt (Dennis was determined that I have something, he is such a jewel!!) at the character breakfast, as we had our Palo brunch scheduled for 11am.
I found out after about the second day that I cannot eat all this food!!! If I stuck to plain type food like salads and meat I was OK, but the desserts just did me in. The Sunday night midnight dessert buffet was lovely to look at but I should've abstained.
I have eaten lowcarb for almost a year and a half now, and lost 60 lbs, and now I have totally lost my taste for anything with sugar. It's a shame too because I would like to splurge at times like this, but it literally made me sick to eat the desserts. One night they had the sugar free cheesecake as an option but it wasn't very good. I did sample the regular cheesecake on 2 occasions but could only eat a few bites. It was pretty good though. The chocolate souffle at Palo was way too much richness for me but I was stuck with it (I know you're saying, "oh boo hoo what a whiner!!")
So after that Sunday dessert buffet I decided NO MORE!! and I ate carefully after that, and got home to find I really didn't gain any weight either, even though I felt like I was stuffing myself at every meal (I did eat the delicious bread at every chance, it is SOOO good). I did drink my share of drinks though, tried the daily drink special every day and maybe 2 beers some days, including some delicious Texas Ziegenbock beer that Gina had brought me. Thanks, Gina!!! and if you get a chance, have a Bombay Sapphire gin and tonic from Fabiola in Sessions piano bar, she makes a mean G&T. And tell her you like her haircut!! She'll wonder how you knew!! (it really is a cute haircut). And get her to pronounce some of those French wine names, she is from Brazil and speaks beautifully. She is one of my favorite memories, a truly lovely person that Fabiola.
I loved having drinks on the islands; on St Maarten try the guavaberry coolers/coladas, they are wonderful. And on St Thomas try a bushwhacker or a painkiller, all delicious. I know I sound like a lush but I don't drink much at home and a vacation to me means having a few drinks that someone else fixes. As well as meals that someone else fixes, of course!! And I refused to do any laundry on the cruise, that IS a vacation. But oh, the mounds of laundry to do when we got home!! (I'm still catching up!!)
Well, I have devoted part two here almost entirely to food and drink. My day to day activities were pretty standard, lolling around on Deck 4 chairs, go to 630 show, buy some Dispins at the pin trading stand in the lobby (including the magical Ariel Artist Choice pin available only on the Disney ships, in a limited edition of 375 pins per ship...get one if you can!!! they're lovely, and thanks Gina again for alerting me to it) go to dinner etc. We saw our kids mostly at dinner, though ran into them quite frequently during the day also. Our 12 year old is pretty self sufficient and would check in with us every couple of hours; we saw her enough to tell her where we would be), usually she went to do Oceaneer activities or went to a movie (Atlantis) one afternoon with a new friend and friend's dad and DH.
Highlights of Sunday and Monday at sea:
Captain's Welcome Aboard cocktail party on Sunday was kind of fun. We were dressed up in our formal garb, DH saw Cinderella on deck 4 above the atrium lobby and wanted his picture taken with her (he loves "Cindy" "she's as lovely as her name" LOL) but she was about finished with her photo session so we meandered around and ended up at Offbeat Lounge to watch Superbowl. DH won me a Superbowl pin because he is a sports trivia nut. Later he got another pin and a magnet also (because he skipped formal dinner and stayed and watched Superbowl!! he's lucky I'm an understanding wife). Superbowl on the ship was some kind of direct feed with no commercials, so if you like the commercials you're out of luck.
Monday night DH won the sports trivia challenge at ESPN and got a Mickey medallion stating "I''m a winner". In fact both my kids won a medallion also at music trivia contests, and one of the teen friends was a contestant on Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer and won an $80 credit (details later), I'm the only one who isn't a winner I guess. Except I feel like I am because I got to go on this great cruise!!
So, to continue with Sunday night, I went to Hercules show after enjoying the sunset out on deck 4 with a daughter and friend (we made sure to watch the sunset every day), went back to Offbeat to catch halftime show (U2 my favorites) with DH, formal dinner at Animator's Palate, met up with all my pretty dressed up girls, had a nice dinner and went back to Offbeat to see if DH was still standing. He had a great time, happy with Patriots win, lots of smiles everywhere, (sorry Rams fans).
Monday night we went to Returning Cruisers party, lots of hors d'oevres (fried shrimp and jalapeno poppers were our favorites) and free drinks, I had a glass of wine and we talked with Russell, one of the ship's officers, who was very interesting to talk to. Captain Hans was there to greet people, he is a wonderfully polite and warm person, totally approachable and I had my photo snapped with him. I can't say enough about how nice he is, and he evidently really cares about his passengers as he had changed the ship's course on Sunday to avoid some rough seas, and seemed to be very aware of making everyone onboard as comfortable as possible if he could.
On a last note, I would like to mention that, as an adult, it was sometimes tricky to get a trading card at any of the occasions that they were given out. Yes, you could step up and ask for them but they were handed out freely to the kids, and often I would see trading cards scattered on the floor as if the kids didn't really care about having them. Well, I like them for my scrapbooks and wish it weren't so troublesome to get them for myself. Usually my kids were off somewhere else when they were given out so I couldn't have them get them for me. Can't I be a kid too?? Just a thought. I missed out on several because I felt silly having to stand around with the kids waiting my turn for one. Maybe I'm just weird.
Also on Sunday and Monday both there was a lot of hammering going on somewhere (around the lifeboats??) that was so annoying. If it had been of limited duration, it would've been bearable, but it went on from mid morning til afternoon both days. On Monday after our brunch, DH wanted to take a nap and I had to call guest services to try and get the hammering to stop. To their credit it did stop then, after about 15 minutes.
Whatever few complaints I had did not really mar our cruise experience very much, I just like to point out a few things that may matter to some people reading this.
On to St Maarten!!
No, really our tablemates at dinner weren't that bad, it's just that we were a couple celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary and they were a family of five, three children, the youngest being 6 and kind of an annoyance at times. We had hoped to be seated with just adults, but the family was nice enough so we didn't want to make them feel bad by asking to be changed to another table so we just "put up with it" but it was nice at breakfast and lunch to be able to be by ourselves. We did try to eat breakfast once at Lumiere's, as hubby wanted eggs benedict. We told the head server we would like to be seated alone and he said we would be seated with another couple, so we said no thanks and turned to go. He stopped us and said he would arrange it. He told the person seating us "a table just for two" but the guy tried to seat us with another couple and we said "no, we'd like to be alone." He rolled his eyes, so we knew he wasn't happy, and we just turned and walked out....and went to Topsiders. 
