Day 17
Mickey woke us bright and early at 7:30 that morning. This is the one time on every cruise were I really do not want Mickey to call. Graham always complains that he is lying. Mickey tells you that there are "Doings going on" when he calls you to wake you up. Well, the only doings that are going on the last morning is that they want you off the ship as soon as possible. We packed the last odds and ends in our hand luggage and I took our door spotter and our magnets down. I decided to put the wave phone on charge for the next people and noticed that I had a text from Shutters. I was supposed to pick up my photo CD the previous night. Normally they always left a message on the normal phone. There was nothing I could do about this and we headed to Shutters on our way to breakfast. There were not many people about. We bumped into Michelle who was sorting out her prints. We collected our CD and then headed down to the Promenade Lounge to sit down until it was time for breakfast.
Breakfast went very smoothly. As soon as we were seated, we were offered coffee and juice and handed the menu. We both had coffee. Graham had some orange juice and I had apple juice. Graham went with Route 66, which consists of Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, Grilled Sausage, Grilled Ham and Hash Browns. He also had some toast. I went with my usual, the Chef's Farewell, which is a large open faced Omelet topped with Barbecued Chicken, Green Peppers, Onions and melted Swiss Cheese. Once we had finished our breakfast, we said goodbye to Edward and Putu and then headed out. By then they had called open debarkation so we headed straight up to deck 4 and left the ship.
Debarkation was probably the smoothest we had experienced on any cruise. When we got off the ship, we were directed straight to the baggage hall where rather than rows of suitcases there were numerous airport style baggage carousels. Each of them had a character corresponding to the luggage tags next to them. We just had to wait for our luggage to come round, which did not take very long and all of our luggage arrived at the same time. We then got into a short line for customs and then we were on our way. As we got to the exit, we asked where we would get the Alamo shuttle. We were pointed in the right direction. We did not have to wait long for the shuttle to arrive. The shuttle took us to the airport where we collected our car. I was a bit worried how long this would take as there were a lot of people on the bus, but the process was very quick and smooth as well. It took less than an hour from us walking off the ship to us driving off towards Orlando.
This time round we opted to go straight up the Florida Turnpike. I have to admit that I remember very little about this trip. I think I spent most of it asleep. We briefly stopped at a service area to use the bathroom, but other than that we had a clear run. We decided to come off at the exit for the 192. I have never really been on that road and was surprised how rough certain parts of this are. Along some stretches, the most common businesses seem to be pawnshops and bail bond offices. I was more than a little relieved when we were on Disney property.
When we arrived at the Beach Club, we were asked for our name. When we arrived at the front of the hotel, we were welcomed by name and advised that our room was ready. The bellman had already whisked away our luggage in the few seconds that we spoke with the Greeter and given us a claims receipt. We were then escorted to the Beach Club Villas to check in. I was seriously impressed by the whole process. We quickly went up to the room to drop off our hand luggage, which had not been in the boot and used the bathroom and then we took the car to the Dolphin where we had chosen to drop it off. This also worked like clockwork. We pulled up to the hotel and the people manning the valet desk asked us whom we hired the car through. When we told them Alamo, one of them did a quick inspection and wrote us out a receipt. We did not even have to go inside to the Alamo desk. We still went inside the hotel though. I had fallen in love with the Poinsettia tree at the Dolphin last year and I wanted to check if this was there again this year. It was and this year it had a train running around the base.
We then took a slow wander back to the Beach Club via the Boardwalk. I took some photos on the way. When we got back to the Beach Club, we got our resort mugs and got something to drink. I had treated us to the Deluxe Dining Plan for this one night and this came with a refillable mug each. We then headed towards the room. I stopped by Bell Services and asked them to bring our luggage over and while I was waiting for the lift, a Bell Man already arrived with our stuff. I took a couple of photos of our room before we had time to mess it up and then we went exploring. We were quite far from the lobby, but it turned out that we were virtually next door to a lift that went straight to the pool. Graham decided that he wanted to do the laundry that afternoon. As DVC laundry rooms are often near the pool, we headed down there. We were out of luck. We then asked at the concierge desk and were sent to the wrong floor. Fortunately there was a friendly mousekeeper around and he pointed us in the right direction.
We went to get the laundry and then I went off in search of some change for the detergent. Graham then headed for the pool near our room. I have to say I was struggling to get excited about a quiet pool when there was Stormalong Bay waiting at the other side of the hotel. So I got as far as sticking my toe in. As the water was also quite cold, I decided that it was too much like hard work. Not too long after it was time to take the laundry out of the washers and put them in the dryers. We headed back down to the pool and although the pool did still not appeal, the hot tub looked awfully tempting. This had been quite full earlier on, but by the time we came back from the laundry room, this had empty out. So we decided to try this out. It was quite a big hot tub and just the perfect temperature. This felt so good. We enjoyed this for a good half an hour and then it was time to come out and drip dry before checking on the laundry. About half was dry and the other half needed another spin in the dryer. We sorted and folded what was dry and then we sat down in the laundry room and watched CNN until the rest was try as well.
Once all the laundry was done, we got showered and changed and then we headed for dinner. I had made a reservation at the Yachtsman Steakhouse. We had eaten there last year and I had really enjoyed it. We checked in and were asked to wait in a little side room near the podium and a couple of minutes later we were seated. As we were on the Deluxe Dining Plan, we got a starter, main course and dessert. Our server came to introduce himself and took our drinks order. Graham had an iced tea that he was not too impressed with and I had a Coke. We were also brought some bread with butter sprinkled with sea salt and a dish with warm roasted garlic. I admit it; I could just make a meal of the bread, especially as it is sour dough bread and therefore safe for me to eat. The mixture of the sour dough bread, slightly salted butter and the nutty flavour of the roasted garlic is utterly sublime. Still, we had three courses to come so we had to pace ourselves.
Graham opted to have the Charcuterie Board for his starter. This consisted of Calabrese: A cured dried sausage, which is accented with cayenne pepper giving it a spicy kick; Chasseur Pâté: Produced from suckling pig, rabbit and accented with pistachio and apricots throughout; Summer Sausage: Made from an all-natural Berkshire Pig. It is garnished with Sweetbreads, fatback, and suckling pig, which pairs perfectly with blackberry sauce; Pepperoni: Dried sausage, made of all beef with spicy and oak smoke notes throughout and Duck Pastrami: A smoked Hudson Valley Duck Breast seasoned with various herbs and spices. This was served with toasted brioche. It also came with a little card describing what everything was. I had the Caesar Salad, which consisted of crisp Romaine, Parmigiano, Coppa Secca and Focaccia Croutons. The Coppa Secca, which is a type of Parma Ham was delicious and really added something to the dish. It was still the strangest Caesar Salad that I ever had. Essentially the put a whole head of Romaine on the plate and added the other ingredients underneath and above it. It was very tasty, but just strange.
For his main course Graham went with the 16-oz Boneless Rib-Eye, which came with Brioche, Bone Marrow and Point Reyes Blue Cheese Butter. I had the 12-oz Prime New York Strip Steak with White Cheddar Twice-baked Potato and Peppercorn-Brandy Sauce. This was the same steak that I had the previous year and at that time it was the stuff of my dreams. This time it was not as much. I never quite could make up my mind if this was that the quality had gone downhill or that we just had been spoiled at Capital Grille.
Dessert was a hit with both of us. Graham had the Crème Brûlée, which consisted of Papua Vanilla Custard and Seasonal Berries. I was torn between the Sundae with Amarena Cherries and the Seasonal Sorbet Trio with Coconut Tuile and Fairy Tale Celebration Cuvée. The Sorbet won. I got a scoop of Spiced Pear Sorbet, Cranberry Sorbet and Mulled Berry Sorbet. The flavour of the Spiced Pear Sorbet was a little two subtle for my taste, but this may have had something to do with the fact that I had a cold and this affected my taste buds. The other two flavours were amazing though. Once we had finished our desserts, we settled the bill, which required touching my Magic Band against a modified iPhone and entering the pin. This is all terribly clever.
We slowly wandered back towards the Beach Club Villas. On the way, I had a bit of a closer look at Stormalong Bay. I was surprised that we did not have to show our Magic Bands anywhere. There were not many people about, but Stormalong Bay was definitely still open.
When we got back to the room, we reorganized our luggage, which did not take very long. We then enjoyed the second bottle of wine that we had taken on the cruise, but never got around to drinking. My original plan for the next day had been to have an early breakfast at Cape May Cafe and the head over to Epcot for a few hours. I realized that evening that I did not really feel like it. I had started to come down with a bit of a cold when we were at Grand Cayman and also I did not really feel ill, I had run out of energy. I checked if there were still later reservations available for breakfast at Cape May and there were plenty. I checked with Graham and we decided to have a lie in and then have a slightly later breakfast before chilling out at the resort. I managed to change our reservation to 10:15 without any problems. We relaxed for a while and then went to bed.