Day 5: Day at Sea, Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Oh, no! Our last full day of vacation : ( The cruise really flew by. I cannot imagine doing a 3-nighter since the 4-night is so fast. Anyway, Lee and I got dressed up for our Palo brunch and then went to the lobby atrium to get some character pictures. Finally, they had a good line system set up to get the pictures—this time, they had just one line instead of 3 different ones, and when it was your turn, you got pictures with the first character, then moved on to the second and third ones in a line. Just like they do at WDW. Why they did not do this the entire cruise is beyond me, because until now it had been so frustrating and disorganized since you had to wait up to 20 minutes in one line, before having to get in another and wait all over again for another character!
After getting pictures with Mickey, Minnie, and Stitch, we headed up to Deck 10 for our 10:00 AM brunch at Palo. It was pretty overcast outside, which we were bummed about, but we decided to focus on enjoying brunch and hope that the sun would come out by the time we were done. We were the first ones to arrive, and we had Sebastien from France as our server again, which was very nice. I was glad we were first because we had an uninterrupted, easy tour of the entire brunch setup, like it was private just for us! I couldn’t believe the selection of food. Seriously if it rained all day I would probably just stay in there for hours to be able to eat everything! The tables of food setup were great, but I was even more overwhelmed by the choices of “made to order” breakfast and lunch items. They had 2 different soups, plus an array of omelettes, eggs benedict variations including with crabmeat, spinach, and more, chicken parmagiana, and more pasta dishes. I enjoyed some samplings from the table displays while I waited for my chicken parm and egg dish to come out. Both were superb. I especially loved the chicken parm because it was served over risotto, and I’ve never had it that way before and it was amazing. For dessert I had the panna cotta, tiramisu shooter, and a chocolate mousse, while Lee just had THREE chocolate mousses! Our brunch was awesome, and it was great to be there in the daytime because on both of our previous Palo dinners we were there when it was dark outside and had no view, so this time was very special seeing the ocean all round us.
We finished brunch a little after 11:00, and by that time the sun was finally coming out. We later found out from Peter the CD that the captain had been trying all morning to find an area at sea that was warm and sunny, even going out of our way to the Freeport, Bahamas area to reach the sunshine because where we were supposed to be going back to Port Canaveral was chilly and cloudy since a cold front had rolled in. Luckily, the captain did find us a great spot and we had sun for the rest of the day. Lee and I tanned and relaxed at the adult pool all day, then we went to have our hair braided later in the afternoon. It took them 2 hours to do each of us because we had the whole head done, and we have very thick hair. Seriously, the women from Trinidad and St. Vincent who did our hair were really nice, but they were so funny—when I took my thick, long hair out of my ponytail she ran her fingers through it and said (in her awesome island accent), Oh, mon! So much hair, I don’t know where to start! It was so funny. It is really frustrating to sit and waste 2 hours of valuable vacation time having this done but it really looks sooooo good when its done, and then you have that “island, I’ve just been on vacation” look for 2 weeks when you get home, which is cool. It was definitely worth it.
We finished our hair braiding around 4:30, so we went back to the adult pool to relax for another hour before going to the Disney Dreams show. That show was definitely my favorite because it included so many Disney characters. Now I feel like watching all of my Disney VHS movies in the little bits of spare time I have at home! After dinner at least I didn’t have to waste time doing my hair since it was already done, so we took our time getting ready and had some room service appetizer before dinner. Lee and I were both looking forward to the night’s dinner because it was Animator’s Palate. It was also the only night other than the first that our entire table was at dinner, and it was even better because we all had a lot more to talk about this time. Dinner was very good—we didn’t care for any of the appetizers, but I loved the butternut squash soup which was very tasty. Lee didn’t like any of the appetizers, soups or salads on the menu but our server remembered that she’d liked the Caesar salad from the night before, so he offered to get her that, which made her very happy. For dinner Lee and I both had the grilled filet mignon in the port wine demi glace, but without the scallops. For dessert I had the chocolate peanut butter pie, but it wasn’t what I expected…I get that at 2 restaurants at home and love it, it is like a peanut butter colored mousse, with graham cracker crust on the bottom and a chocolate topping on top. On the ship it was like a brownish color, I guess the peanut butter and chocolate were mixed together. It didn’t look very good, but it tasted just okay. Lee had the chocolate fudge cake, which she said was better than the one served on the Pirate menu night, but still just okay. Overall on the cruise the desserts (other than Palo of course) are a major let down. But the animation show allowed dinner to end on a very good note.
After dinner we went to the Til We Meet Again character greeting. It was awesome, all the characters came down the staircase, and then each one went to a different area in the lobby on decks 3 and 4, so everyone scrambled to get in the lines they wanted for each character. We got lucky because we happened to be standing right where Belle’s line was formed, so we were second to get our pictures with her in her beautiful gold dress. I was psyched because I only have pictures with Belle in her peasant dress, never her ball gown! Then we went to get Aladdin, then Snow White, and Pluto…we’d already gotten everyone else earlier in the cruise. I thought it was a great way to end the night. We thought about going up to Wavebands, so we peeked inside around 11:00, but it was dead and we were pretty tired, so we decided to just head back to our room to finish up the packing and order some Mickey bars from room service.
Day 6: Morning at WDW, Thursday, January 15, 2009
The morning came way too fast, and boy was it cold. Peter the CD had told everyone the night before that it would be only 45 degrees upon arrival in Port Canaveral. Oh well, I only had shorts and flip flops and a jacket so I’d just have to deal with it. Lee and I got up at 6:30 and had breakfast at the Beach Blanket buffet, then picked up our last picture at Shutters when they opened. Then we took our carryons from our room and debarked the ship at 7:45 am…we wanted to get an early start since we were planning to spend the morning in WDW before going to the airport since our flight wasn’t until 3:45 pm. Debarkation was a breeze since we had no luggage to collect. The Hertz shuttle was right out front, and before we knew it we were in our rental car by 8:15 am. The drive to WDW was about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Not sure how some people say it takes only 45-50 minutes, I was driving about 75 mph, and there wasn’t any real traffic…lots of tolls though.
We planned to park at the Boardwalk so we could walk around and hang out at the hotel we always stay at, the Yacht Club. Actually our original plan was that we would lay out on the beach chairs at the Yacht Club and have lunch in the sun, but it was freezing. Granted, it was 9 degrees back home but it was not fun having 50 degree temps in Orlando. We went to the hot tub at the Yacht Club and just hung out there for a couple hours, then walked to our favorite place to have lunch at the Dolphin, the Cabana grill. It is outside seating and looks like a South Beach, Miami place…it’s a lot of fun when its actually hot outside like when we go in March. But even though we were the only ones there, we still had a great lunch and it definitely beat wasting time in the airport.
Overall, it was an amazing cruise. I had a great time because it had been 5 years since my first cruise so it was like experiencing something new all over, but at the same time I had some familiarity and was glad I had more advice from experience and from these boards this time. I especially loved doing the Fish Extender exchange, door magnets, and getting the photo matte signed. These little things really added to our vacation. We lucked out with great warm weather in January, and everything went very smooth. I only wish we had more time, but now I’m super excited that I rebooked onboard for a 7-night Eastern cruise for January 2, 2010! Time to obsess over planning all over again!
Hope you all enjoyed my TR! Feel free to post if you have any more questions!
