mandymouse
Bahama Mama Time !!
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2003
Fab photos Corinna, and I'm pleased that you managed to get your t-shirts. I look forward to your next installment 
Transatlantic Adventures
- Thread starter dolphingirl47
- Start date
TotallyAngelic
Disney Addict
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2005
The thunderstorm was quite spectacular .... we saw it from Lynne's apartment down at the harbour. We got absolutely soaked that night. Enjoyed the HRC meet up though ... it was great to finally put faces to names.
- Joined
- May 2, 2004
Fantastic start Corrina, looking forward to more
dolphingirl47
In Search of the Tag Fairy
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2007
Day 3
I was awake at the crack of dawn. Partly my alarm on my phone was to blame as this somehow managed to go off even though I had disabled it the day before. Still, I don't think I would have slept much longer anyway. I left Graham sleep and headed for the hotel lobby to use the Internet. Once my hour was up, I decided to go and wake up Graham. We got ready, packed our few odds and ends and then went down for breakfast.
After breakfast, we checked out and headed for the station to get the train for Barcelona. We picked up our luggage from the left luggage lockers at the station and reorganized our hand luggage a little. We then headed down to the Metro station to take the Metro to a stop close to the port. From there it was a short walk to the port shuttle. When we got to the bus stop, we had to wait for a while until the bus arrived. There were a lot of ships in port that day, which was blocking the view a little, but I finally got the first glimpse of the Magic.
Things at the port were a lot better organized than in April. This time round, we dropped off the luggage before joining the line. Graham took care of the luggage, while I went ahead and got in the line. I met the first people from our cruise meet thread. We chatted for a bit while we were waiting our turn to enter the terminal building. Soon our turn had come. They checked our cruise documents and passports and we got in line for the security check. There it suddenly hit me. The day I had waited for for so long had arrived and I started to cry. Soon it was our turn at to go through security and we headed for the check in desks. Check in was very smooth and soon we were in the waiting area.
I decided to get in line for the characters. Mickey was out when I joined the line, but went away just before it was my turn. He was replaced by Minnie. This actually suited me rather well as it had been the other way round on the Med cruise. Now I had both Mickey and Minnie in their Spanish costumes.
Once I had my photo taken with Minnie, I had a wander around the waiting area to see if I could find a few familiar faces. I talked with a number of different people. Once they started the boarding process, I went to join Graham. We had been given boarding number 5 so I knew that it would not take too long until it was our turn to get on the Magic.
Most people bypassed the embarkation photo. So when we got to the front of the line, we had our photo taken straight away. The embarkation photo was taken by a photographer from England, who we had not met before, but he took a number of gorgeous photos of us throughout the cruise.
Once we had our photo taken, we had our key card swiped and proceeded up the escalator to the boarding level. You have to go over a bridge to get to the gangway and there was a long line on this bridge. The Independence of the Seas was docked right next to the Magic and I took this oportunity to take some photos.
Finally it was our turn to get on the Magic. We were announced, but this kind of bypassed me. I will never be able to get enough of that first glimpse of the atrium. This time round they had set up an ice sculpture of the Magic at the far end of the atrium. I took some photos of this before we headed to Parrot Cay for lunch.
They are always trying their hardest to redirect people up to Topsiders, the buffet on deck 9. This seems to get worse from cruise to cruise. This time they told us that all the tables at Parrot Cay had been taken and that there would be a long wait. They suggested that we should head up to deck 9 instead, where we would be seated straightaway. I told them in no uncertain way that I would not eat at Topsiders and that we would happily wait. They just shrugged their shoulders. Of course, when we actually got to the restaurant itself, we were seated straightaway and the restaurant was at best half full.
As soon as we entered the restaurant, we saw Toto, who was our server on our very first cruise. It is always nice to see familiar faces. We were seated with some other couples. Lunch was very nice. I got my chilled Strawberry Soup and Graham got his Peel and Eat Shrimp. Those things have become part of the tradition of cruising for us. During the lunch, we also met Edward, the server that I had requested, he came over to say "hi" and to check if I had requested him. I said that I had. He wanted to know where we would be eating that evening. I had no idea. On previous cruises, the dining rotation had always been printed on the key card, but that was not the case this time round. He told us that he would be in Animator's Palate that evening.
After lunch, we headed up to the spa. We were given the full guided tour. This was the first time that Graham had seen the spa villas and he was impressed. However, the prices somehow reduced his enthusiasm. During the tour, we also met Benjamin, one of the gym instructors who we know from previous cruises. However, we found out that Mitch, who I had interaction with on the Med cruise, had left. At the end of the tour, we bought our couple's length of cruise pass for the Tropical Rainforest Room.
Once we finished our spa tour, we headed down to see if our cabin was ready. We had a short wait. I had ordered a stateroom gift as a surprise for Graham. This consisted of a bottle of sparkling wine and a plate of Petit Fours. Graham loved the idea.
Another surprise was not quite so pleasant. We had our dining tickets in our cabin. We were on the same rotation than the server than I had requested, but they had put us on the first dinner seating. We always have the second dinner seating. So I headed off to Studio Sea to put this right. I was told that the most likely reason for the mix up was that the server I had requested was up to capacity on the second seating and the only way they could accommodate my request was by switching our seating. I wish they had said something about this to our travel agent before as we could then have sorted this out before we got on the ship. There was a lot of scratching of head going on. In the end I was advised that they would look into this for us and either would leave us a message with our new dining arrangements or otherwise we should come to Animator's Palate at 20:30 and they would sort something out then. While I was there, I decided to check if I could get a reservation for tea at Palo. There was nothing available, but they offered to put me on the waitlist. They tried to convince me to make a reservation for brunch or dinner, which I politely declined.
When I got back to the cabin, one of the suitcases had already arrived. Graham had headed up to the pool and I decided to join him there. The temperature of the water was lovely and we had the adult pool to ourselves.
All to soon, I had to get going as we had a DIS Meet at the Promenade Lounge at 15:00. As I did not want to get my clothes wet, I wrapped myself in one of the towels and headed down to the cabin to get dried off and changed. Our second suitcase had arrived as well. I took the towel that I had borrowed back up to deck 9 and then headed to the meet.
I still had a bit of time before the meet so I decided to head for Guest Services. I had sent a box with my magnets, my tools for the jewellery making workshops, my Fish Extender gifts and my Secret Mickey gifts to the ship. I had expected that they would be in the cabin when I got there, but there was no sign of my box. So I decided to chase this up. I got the Spanish inquisition. Where had I sent this to? Where did I get that address from? I could not remember the address, but I knew that the address had come from DCL Reservations. All I could remember was the name of the person who signed for it at the warehouse. I was standing there for quite a bit while they were trying to trace this parcel. In the end I was told to come back after 17:00 as they were currently busy with all the luggage and had no clear idea what they had on the ship. I was not too worried as we were not due to set sail until 21:30, which would give them plenty of time to sort this out. I was also asked to contact them if the parcel turned up in the meantime. It later turned out that other people had precisely the same problems.
The DIS Meet was nice. I met and chatted with a lot of people that for one reason or another I had not met the previous day. I managed to pick up our lanyards and the pins that I had ordered. I normally find those kinds of meets a little uncomfortable, but I really enjoyed this one. All to soon, it was time to take some group photos and then we had to head back to our cabins to get ready for the safety drill.
I was just in the proccess of putting on my life vest, when the phone rang. It was the dining room manager to give us an update regarding our dining arrangements. I was told that we would have the server I requested if we stuck with the early dinner seating, but that they would not be able to honour the request if we were switching to the late. What really got me is that he just assumed that we would stick with the early dinner seating. He seemed quite surprised when I said that I still wanted to switch to late dinner seating. We had never actually had the early dinner, but it always looked frantic to us if we have gone past Lumiere's while early dinner was in progress. We had no wish to experience this for two weeks. Once he realized that we were serious about swapping, he asked if we wanted a table to ourselves or wanted to share. I opted to share. Having dinner with table mates has always been one of the highlights of our cruises. So I was given our new table number and we were all set.
I got off the phone just before the alarm that signals the beginning of the safety drill was sounded. We had been in this cabin twice before and always used the normal staircase to get to our assembly station. This time round, we were directed to the other end of the corridor and down a crew staircase.
The safety drill was relatively painless. Most people had arrived in time and we were ticked of the list. After a few announcements by the cruise director, Brent, we were dismissed.
We went back to our cabin to put the life vests away. Graham had unpacked while I was at the meet and was heading for the gym. I decided to quickly unpack myself before heading up to the gym as well. Graham had only just left when somebody was knocking on the door. Yes, the parcel that they had no record of had arrived. I quickly rang Guest Services to let them know that the parcel had arrived, before unpacking. I could not resist decorating our door either now that I finally had my magnets.
While I was busily decorating our door with magnets, two members of staff came by. One was obviously new as she had an "Earning My Ears" ribbon underneath her name badge and I assume that she was given a tour round the ship. The other member of staff said to her how much she loves when people get into the spirit of things and decorate their doors. This gave me a nice warm feeling and I felt so grateful towards the kind and talented people who made the designs for the magnets.
Once I was all unpacked and the door was decorated, I headed up to the gym to join Graham. I had brought my heart-rate monitor and it did work with their machines. This first workout was a bit of trial and error though. Their machines are a different brand, which comes with different programmes and settings. Even the fact that it was measuring speed in mph rather than kilometres per hour threw me. Still, I got used to it and got a good workout.
Once we finished at the gym, we headed for my favourite place on the ship, the Tropical Rainforest Room. I found myself a heated tile lounger and just relaxed. While I was in there, Maggie, the beauty therapist that did my massage on the Med cruise, came in and said "hi". It was nice to see her again.
After a while, I decided to move on. I arranged to meet Graham back at the cabin before dinner. I was on a mission. In 4 previous cruises, I had never got around to having a Drink of the Day. This was something that I intended to put right. Normally the Drink of the Day on the first day is Bon Voyage, which is a mix of Pina Colada and Strawberry Daiquiri. I had been looking forward to this for weeks. So I was a little disappointed when the Drink of the Day on this occassion turned out to be something called Bay Breeze. Still, I was not willing to give up on my first ever Drink of the Day and it was rather yummy.
At that time of the day, deck 9 was completely empty. Early dinner was in full swing and the show had started for those on late dinner. I made good use of this by taking some photos around the ship.
I headed back to the cabin to get changed. I knew that Daisy and Donald would be out in their Spanish costumes soon and I wanted to be dressed the part, too. In all the excitement, I ended up locking myself out of the cabin. I had my photo taken with Donald. Fortunately I had my camera with me as well. 90% of the time, they swipe your key card when taking photos. The rest of the time they work with facial recognition. They asked for my key card, but that of course was in my cabin. They said that this would be OK. I was only when I downloaded the photos at home that I realized that the photos from that evening are missing.
Once I had my photos taken with Donald, I headed up to Shutters to enquire about the photo CD. I had put onboard credit onto my account to cover this, but I had had some feedback from somebody on the Eastbound Transatlantic that it was not worth their while. So I wanted to check how many photo oportunities there would be. The answer more that satisfied me. Even though I did not have the key card, they were able to sign me up for this and just asked me that I also confirmed the order in one of the computer terminals so that my key card is linked to. We also went through the photos that had been taken that morning and chose one of the photos that would be used as reference for facial recognition.
Once this was all sorted out, it was time to have my photo taken with Daisy.
After this, I headed back to the cabin in the hope that Graham might have arrived back early. On the way, I stopped by the shops that were already open even though we were still in port. I had really wanted one of the scrapbooks for the Med cruises, but never got around to getting one in May. When I checked that evening, none of them were in the shops.
I got back to our cabin and knocked, but there was no reply. I was just about to leave to see if I could find Graham, when somebody from our cruise meet thread arrived. She had done the last Med cruise before the Transatlantic and had kindly agreed to get a couple of dresses for me in Tunis. She was delivering those. I told her that I had locked myself out. It turns out that she was only a few cabins down the corridor from us. Her stateroom host was around and she went to check if he knew who our stateroom host was. It turned out that it was him as well. So he let me back in our room and introduced himself at the same time. His name was Rodolfo. He is from Costa Rica and a real gem. He always commented on what a beautiful smile I had throughout the cruise. Well, he played a big part in this as he always made me smile.
Of course, just as soon as I was back in the cabin, Graham arrived. He got changed and we headed for dinner. The first dinner is always a bit nerve wrecking as you don't know what servers you get and if you get on with your table mates. We had absolutely fantastic table mates on our Med cruise and I was really missing them that first night. Add to this that I was still upset about the mess up with our dinner rotation and our request for a specific server and I was not really in the mood for dinner. To add insult to injury, the server we had requested was just across the isle from us. It nearly broke my heart to have him wave at us and we had to go past and sit down at another table.
We were at a table for 10, but there were only three other couples. Two couples were from the USA and one from Canada. I was by far the youngest person on the table. In fact they all had children that were older than me. This worried me a bit at first, but we had a fantastic time. With hindsight, I don't think I ever laughed so much than I did during dinner during those two weeks. For our serving team, we had Sompong from Thailand as our server, Romaine from Jamaica as our assistant server and Dogan from Turkey as our head server. Initially they were all very quiet, but during the cruise it turned out that they all had a fantastic sense of humour and we had a lot of fun with them.
That evening we had the Let The Magic Begin menu. I had Chicken Bastella ( a middle Eastern chicken pastry ) followed by chilled cucumber soup. For my main course, I had Pork Tenderloin with grilled vegetables and for dessert a coffee and pistachio mousse on a white brownie. I am normally not too impressed with the desserts on Disney Cruise Line, but this was fantastic. Graham had left his glasses in our cabin and decided to leave it up to our server what he would eat. He got Calamari, Seafood Chowder and the Pork Tenderloin. He did enjoy everything. He did choose his own dessert, which was Apple Tart Tartin with vanilla ice cream.
After dinner, we had a quick look at the photos that had been taken that morning and happened to bump into my favourite photographer Claire. She had been on holiday and only got back on the ship that day.
Once we said good night to Claire, we headed back to our cabin and drank the sparkling wine that was part of our stateroom gift. I took a quick photo of the towel animal that we had been left, which was an elephant.
We then went to bed and to my delight, the ship was gently rocking. Soon I was fast asleep.
I was awake at the crack of dawn. Partly my alarm on my phone was to blame as this somehow managed to go off even though I had disabled it the day before. Still, I don't think I would have slept much longer anyway. I left Graham sleep and headed for the hotel lobby to use the Internet. Once my hour was up, I decided to go and wake up Graham. We got ready, packed our few odds and ends and then went down for breakfast.
After breakfast, we checked out and headed for the station to get the train for Barcelona. We picked up our luggage from the left luggage lockers at the station and reorganized our hand luggage a little. We then headed down to the Metro station to take the Metro to a stop close to the port. From there it was a short walk to the port shuttle. When we got to the bus stop, we had to wait for a while until the bus arrived. There were a lot of ships in port that day, which was blocking the view a little, but I finally got the first glimpse of the Magic.
Things at the port were a lot better organized than in April. This time round, we dropped off the luggage before joining the line. Graham took care of the luggage, while I went ahead and got in the line. I met the first people from our cruise meet thread. We chatted for a bit while we were waiting our turn to enter the terminal building. Soon our turn had come. They checked our cruise documents and passports and we got in line for the security check. There it suddenly hit me. The day I had waited for for so long had arrived and I started to cry. Soon it was our turn at to go through security and we headed for the check in desks. Check in was very smooth and soon we were in the waiting area.
I decided to get in line for the characters. Mickey was out when I joined the line, but went away just before it was my turn. He was replaced by Minnie. This actually suited me rather well as it had been the other way round on the Med cruise. Now I had both Mickey and Minnie in their Spanish costumes.
Once I had my photo taken with Minnie, I had a wander around the waiting area to see if I could find a few familiar faces. I talked with a number of different people. Once they started the boarding process, I went to join Graham. We had been given boarding number 5 so I knew that it would not take too long until it was our turn to get on the Magic.
Most people bypassed the embarkation photo. So when we got to the front of the line, we had our photo taken straight away. The embarkation photo was taken by a photographer from England, who we had not met before, but he took a number of gorgeous photos of us throughout the cruise.
Once we had our photo taken, we had our key card swiped and proceeded up the escalator to the boarding level. You have to go over a bridge to get to the gangway and there was a long line on this bridge. The Independence of the Seas was docked right next to the Magic and I took this oportunity to take some photos.
Finally it was our turn to get on the Magic. We were announced, but this kind of bypassed me. I will never be able to get enough of that first glimpse of the atrium. This time round they had set up an ice sculpture of the Magic at the far end of the atrium. I took some photos of this before we headed to Parrot Cay for lunch.
They are always trying their hardest to redirect people up to Topsiders, the buffet on deck 9. This seems to get worse from cruise to cruise. This time they told us that all the tables at Parrot Cay had been taken and that there would be a long wait. They suggested that we should head up to deck 9 instead, where we would be seated straightaway. I told them in no uncertain way that I would not eat at Topsiders and that we would happily wait. They just shrugged their shoulders. Of course, when we actually got to the restaurant itself, we were seated straightaway and the restaurant was at best half full.
As soon as we entered the restaurant, we saw Toto, who was our server on our very first cruise. It is always nice to see familiar faces. We were seated with some other couples. Lunch was very nice. I got my chilled Strawberry Soup and Graham got his Peel and Eat Shrimp. Those things have become part of the tradition of cruising for us. During the lunch, we also met Edward, the server that I had requested, he came over to say "hi" and to check if I had requested him. I said that I had. He wanted to know where we would be eating that evening. I had no idea. On previous cruises, the dining rotation had always been printed on the key card, but that was not the case this time round. He told us that he would be in Animator's Palate that evening.
After lunch, we headed up to the spa. We were given the full guided tour. This was the first time that Graham had seen the spa villas and he was impressed. However, the prices somehow reduced his enthusiasm. During the tour, we also met Benjamin, one of the gym instructors who we know from previous cruises. However, we found out that Mitch, who I had interaction with on the Med cruise, had left. At the end of the tour, we bought our couple's length of cruise pass for the Tropical Rainforest Room.
Once we finished our spa tour, we headed down to see if our cabin was ready. We had a short wait. I had ordered a stateroom gift as a surprise for Graham. This consisted of a bottle of sparkling wine and a plate of Petit Fours. Graham loved the idea.
Another surprise was not quite so pleasant. We had our dining tickets in our cabin. We were on the same rotation than the server than I had requested, but they had put us on the first dinner seating. We always have the second dinner seating. So I headed off to Studio Sea to put this right. I was told that the most likely reason for the mix up was that the server I had requested was up to capacity on the second seating and the only way they could accommodate my request was by switching our seating. I wish they had said something about this to our travel agent before as we could then have sorted this out before we got on the ship. There was a lot of scratching of head going on. In the end I was advised that they would look into this for us and either would leave us a message with our new dining arrangements or otherwise we should come to Animator's Palate at 20:30 and they would sort something out then. While I was there, I decided to check if I could get a reservation for tea at Palo. There was nothing available, but they offered to put me on the waitlist. They tried to convince me to make a reservation for brunch or dinner, which I politely declined.
When I got back to the cabin, one of the suitcases had already arrived. Graham had headed up to the pool and I decided to join him there. The temperature of the water was lovely and we had the adult pool to ourselves.
All to soon, I had to get going as we had a DIS Meet at the Promenade Lounge at 15:00. As I did not want to get my clothes wet, I wrapped myself in one of the towels and headed down to the cabin to get dried off and changed. Our second suitcase had arrived as well. I took the towel that I had borrowed back up to deck 9 and then headed to the meet.
I still had a bit of time before the meet so I decided to head for Guest Services. I had sent a box with my magnets, my tools for the jewellery making workshops, my Fish Extender gifts and my Secret Mickey gifts to the ship. I had expected that they would be in the cabin when I got there, but there was no sign of my box. So I decided to chase this up. I got the Spanish inquisition. Where had I sent this to? Where did I get that address from? I could not remember the address, but I knew that the address had come from DCL Reservations. All I could remember was the name of the person who signed for it at the warehouse. I was standing there for quite a bit while they were trying to trace this parcel. In the end I was told to come back after 17:00 as they were currently busy with all the luggage and had no clear idea what they had on the ship. I was not too worried as we were not due to set sail until 21:30, which would give them plenty of time to sort this out. I was also asked to contact them if the parcel turned up in the meantime. It later turned out that other people had precisely the same problems.
The DIS Meet was nice. I met and chatted with a lot of people that for one reason or another I had not met the previous day. I managed to pick up our lanyards and the pins that I had ordered. I normally find those kinds of meets a little uncomfortable, but I really enjoyed this one. All to soon, it was time to take some group photos and then we had to head back to our cabins to get ready for the safety drill.
I was just in the proccess of putting on my life vest, when the phone rang. It was the dining room manager to give us an update regarding our dining arrangements. I was told that we would have the server I requested if we stuck with the early dinner seating, but that they would not be able to honour the request if we were switching to the late. What really got me is that he just assumed that we would stick with the early dinner seating. He seemed quite surprised when I said that I still wanted to switch to late dinner seating. We had never actually had the early dinner, but it always looked frantic to us if we have gone past Lumiere's while early dinner was in progress. We had no wish to experience this for two weeks. Once he realized that we were serious about swapping, he asked if we wanted a table to ourselves or wanted to share. I opted to share. Having dinner with table mates has always been one of the highlights of our cruises. So I was given our new table number and we were all set.
I got off the phone just before the alarm that signals the beginning of the safety drill was sounded. We had been in this cabin twice before and always used the normal staircase to get to our assembly station. This time round, we were directed to the other end of the corridor and down a crew staircase.
The safety drill was relatively painless. Most people had arrived in time and we were ticked of the list. After a few announcements by the cruise director, Brent, we were dismissed.
We went back to our cabin to put the life vests away. Graham had unpacked while I was at the meet and was heading for the gym. I decided to quickly unpack myself before heading up to the gym as well. Graham had only just left when somebody was knocking on the door. Yes, the parcel that they had no record of had arrived. I quickly rang Guest Services to let them know that the parcel had arrived, before unpacking. I could not resist decorating our door either now that I finally had my magnets.
While I was busily decorating our door with magnets, two members of staff came by. One was obviously new as she had an "Earning My Ears" ribbon underneath her name badge and I assume that she was given a tour round the ship. The other member of staff said to her how much she loves when people get into the spirit of things and decorate their doors. This gave me a nice warm feeling and I felt so grateful towards the kind and talented people who made the designs for the magnets.
Once I was all unpacked and the door was decorated, I headed up to the gym to join Graham. I had brought my heart-rate monitor and it did work with their machines. This first workout was a bit of trial and error though. Their machines are a different brand, which comes with different programmes and settings. Even the fact that it was measuring speed in mph rather than kilometres per hour threw me. Still, I got used to it and got a good workout.
Once we finished at the gym, we headed for my favourite place on the ship, the Tropical Rainforest Room. I found myself a heated tile lounger and just relaxed. While I was in there, Maggie, the beauty therapist that did my massage on the Med cruise, came in and said "hi". It was nice to see her again.
After a while, I decided to move on. I arranged to meet Graham back at the cabin before dinner. I was on a mission. In 4 previous cruises, I had never got around to having a Drink of the Day. This was something that I intended to put right. Normally the Drink of the Day on the first day is Bon Voyage, which is a mix of Pina Colada and Strawberry Daiquiri. I had been looking forward to this for weeks. So I was a little disappointed when the Drink of the Day on this occassion turned out to be something called Bay Breeze. Still, I was not willing to give up on my first ever Drink of the Day and it was rather yummy.
At that time of the day, deck 9 was completely empty. Early dinner was in full swing and the show had started for those on late dinner. I made good use of this by taking some photos around the ship.
I headed back to the cabin to get changed. I knew that Daisy and Donald would be out in their Spanish costumes soon and I wanted to be dressed the part, too. In all the excitement, I ended up locking myself out of the cabin. I had my photo taken with Donald. Fortunately I had my camera with me as well. 90% of the time, they swipe your key card when taking photos. The rest of the time they work with facial recognition. They asked for my key card, but that of course was in my cabin. They said that this would be OK. I was only when I downloaded the photos at home that I realized that the photos from that evening are missing.
Once I had my photos taken with Donald, I headed up to Shutters to enquire about the photo CD. I had put onboard credit onto my account to cover this, but I had had some feedback from somebody on the Eastbound Transatlantic that it was not worth their while. So I wanted to check how many photo oportunities there would be. The answer more that satisfied me. Even though I did not have the key card, they were able to sign me up for this and just asked me that I also confirmed the order in one of the computer terminals so that my key card is linked to. We also went through the photos that had been taken that morning and chose one of the photos that would be used as reference for facial recognition.
Once this was all sorted out, it was time to have my photo taken with Daisy.
After this, I headed back to the cabin in the hope that Graham might have arrived back early. On the way, I stopped by the shops that were already open even though we were still in port. I had really wanted one of the scrapbooks for the Med cruises, but never got around to getting one in May. When I checked that evening, none of them were in the shops.
I got back to our cabin and knocked, but there was no reply. I was just about to leave to see if I could find Graham, when somebody from our cruise meet thread arrived. She had done the last Med cruise before the Transatlantic and had kindly agreed to get a couple of dresses for me in Tunis. She was delivering those. I told her that I had locked myself out. It turns out that she was only a few cabins down the corridor from us. Her stateroom host was around and she went to check if he knew who our stateroom host was. It turned out that it was him as well. So he let me back in our room and introduced himself at the same time. His name was Rodolfo. He is from Costa Rica and a real gem. He always commented on what a beautiful smile I had throughout the cruise. Well, he played a big part in this as he always made me smile.
Of course, just as soon as I was back in the cabin, Graham arrived. He got changed and we headed for dinner. The first dinner is always a bit nerve wrecking as you don't know what servers you get and if you get on with your table mates. We had absolutely fantastic table mates on our Med cruise and I was really missing them that first night. Add to this that I was still upset about the mess up with our dinner rotation and our request for a specific server and I was not really in the mood for dinner. To add insult to injury, the server we had requested was just across the isle from us. It nearly broke my heart to have him wave at us and we had to go past and sit down at another table.
We were at a table for 10, but there were only three other couples. Two couples were from the USA and one from Canada. I was by far the youngest person on the table. In fact they all had children that were older than me. This worried me a bit at first, but we had a fantastic time. With hindsight, I don't think I ever laughed so much than I did during dinner during those two weeks. For our serving team, we had Sompong from Thailand as our server, Romaine from Jamaica as our assistant server and Dogan from Turkey as our head server. Initially they were all very quiet, but during the cruise it turned out that they all had a fantastic sense of humour and we had a lot of fun with them.
That evening we had the Let The Magic Begin menu. I had Chicken Bastella ( a middle Eastern chicken pastry ) followed by chilled cucumber soup. For my main course, I had Pork Tenderloin with grilled vegetables and for dessert a coffee and pistachio mousse on a white brownie. I am normally not too impressed with the desserts on Disney Cruise Line, but this was fantastic. Graham had left his glasses in our cabin and decided to leave it up to our server what he would eat. He got Calamari, Seafood Chowder and the Pork Tenderloin. He did enjoy everything. He did choose his own dessert, which was Apple Tart Tartin with vanilla ice cream.
After dinner, we had a quick look at the photos that had been taken that morning and happened to bump into my favourite photographer Claire. She had been on holiday and only got back on the ship that day.
Once we said good night to Claire, we headed back to our cabin and drank the sparkling wine that was part of our stateroom gift. I took a quick photo of the towel animal that we had been left, which was an elephant.
We then went to bed and to my delight, the ship was gently rocking. Soon I was fast asleep.
TotallyAngelic
Disney Addict
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2005
Lovely to see your decorated door again Corinna .... as we had to pass your cabin to get to ours it was one of the things I saw most on the ship! I remember commenting to Tony on the first day how impressive your door was and how quickly you had managed tog et your magnets in place! Rodolfo was a lovely chap wasn't he ... as we had to pass thorough his area to get anywhere, we saw a lot of hime too and he always said hello and chatted with us on our way past.
Candy Apple
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2007
Great pictures!! Your pictures of the ice sculpture came out beautifully. Is there any way for me to get a copy? They came out much better than ours.
I never even noticed the Independence of the Seas next to us. I guess I was really jet-lagged, having arrived just that morning. Maybe that is why our ice sculpture picture didn't turn out so great. We were quite asleep!!
I never even noticed the Independence of the Seas next to us. I guess I was really jet-lagged, having arrived just that morning. Maybe that is why our ice sculpture picture didn't turn out so great. We were quite asleep!!
mandymouse
Bahama Mama Time !!
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2003
What a great day Corinna, you managed to fit so much in. Lovely photos too 
dolphingirl47
In Search of the Tag Fairy
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2007
Rodolfo really was a star. I will so miss him on our next cruise. I was dropping heavy hints that he needs to transfer to the Wonder. He was a little upset that when the Magic did the Panama Canal cruises, she never stopped in Costa Rica, but the Wonder will.
You should be able to save the photos by right-clicking on them. If you have no joy with this, PM me your email address and I will sent you the photos of the ice sculpture as an attachment.
Corinna
Candy Apple
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2007
That worked. I don't know why I didn't think of that. And, I can't claim jet-lag today! Thanks!
dolphingirl47
In Search of the Tag Fairy
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2007
dolphingirl47
In Search of the Tag Fairy
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2007
Day 4
Even though time difference was not an issue this time round, I was still wide awake at 6:00 AM. I just relaxed and enjoyed the fact that I was on a ship. I had set the wake up call for 7:00 AM as Graham had spotted a stretching class on the gym schedule that would take place at 7:30. I decided to go along. This was a lovely start to the day. We headed up to deck 10 with our yoga mats and were doing our stretching as the sun rose. There were other people from our cruise meet thread in this class, too.
Once the class was finished, we went to the Cove Café to get something to drink. I had a Chai Latte, but Graham had some coffee. Normally they have Palo's famous Stollen Bread there in the morning, but that morning I was out of luck. While we were enjoying our drinks, we checked the Navigator. We spotted that they were offering something called "Walk A Mile" at 9:00 and the meeting point was on deck 4 by the Walt Disney Theater. We decided to give this a go. When we go there, there was one member of Cruise Staff, the two of us and one other person. We walked three laps around deck 4. It was nice to see the sea all around us and to chat with a member of staff while getting some additional exercise.
Once we had walked our mile, we headed to Lumiere's to Brunch. It still was relatively early, but I really fancied one of the Lunch dishes. So I ended up with a tropical fruit platter followed by Beef Strip Loin and Fingerling Potatoes. This was absolutely divine. Graham also had the fruit platter and some Lemon Sole.
After Brunch, Graham went to a lecture about Gibraltar and I decided to have some photos taken with the characters. I managed to get Daisy, Donald, Chip and Dale, Goofy, Pluto, Minnie and Mickey in their nautical outfits. I was particularly pleased with Mickey. I have many photos with Mickey in his red Captain's Outfit, but this was the first time I caught Mickey in his white Captain's outfit. There was the same group of people from our cruise meet thread going from character to character as well and it was nice to have somebody to chat to in between photos. I also had another little task. We had two little girls who celebrated their birthday during the cruise. I had made them a jewellery set each and bought a blank card, which I had signed by as many characters as I could get away with. This was the first time ever I collected autographs from the characters.
Once I had my last photo had been taken, I quickly went back to our cabin to get the things that I would need for the rest of the day. I had a busy afternoon ahead of myself.
Even though time difference was not an issue this time round, I was still wide awake at 6:00 AM. I just relaxed and enjoyed the fact that I was on a ship. I had set the wake up call for 7:00 AM as Graham had spotted a stretching class on the gym schedule that would take place at 7:30. I decided to go along. This was a lovely start to the day. We headed up to deck 10 with our yoga mats and were doing our stretching as the sun rose. There were other people from our cruise meet thread in this class, too.
Once the class was finished, we went to the Cove Café to get something to drink. I had a Chai Latte, but Graham had some coffee. Normally they have Palo's famous Stollen Bread there in the morning, but that morning I was out of luck. While we were enjoying our drinks, we checked the Navigator. We spotted that they were offering something called "Walk A Mile" at 9:00 and the meeting point was on deck 4 by the Walt Disney Theater. We decided to give this a go. When we go there, there was one member of Cruise Staff, the two of us and one other person. We walked three laps around deck 4. It was nice to see the sea all around us and to chat with a member of staff while getting some additional exercise.
Once we had walked our mile, we headed to Lumiere's to Brunch. It still was relatively early, but I really fancied one of the Lunch dishes. So I ended up with a tropical fruit platter followed by Beef Strip Loin and Fingerling Potatoes. This was absolutely divine. Graham also had the fruit platter and some Lemon Sole.
After Brunch, Graham went to a lecture about Gibraltar and I decided to have some photos taken with the characters. I managed to get Daisy, Donald, Chip and Dale, Goofy, Pluto, Minnie and Mickey in their nautical outfits. I was particularly pleased with Mickey. I have many photos with Mickey in his red Captain's Outfit, but this was the first time I caught Mickey in his white Captain's outfit. There was the same group of people from our cruise meet thread going from character to character as well and it was nice to have somebody to chat to in between photos. I also had another little task. We had two little girls who celebrated their birthday during the cruise. I had made them a jewellery set each and bought a blank card, which I had signed by as many characters as I could get away with. This was the first time ever I collected autographs from the characters.
Once I had my last photo had been taken, I quickly went back to our cabin to get the things that I would need for the rest of the day. I had a busy afternoon ahead of myself.
dolphingirl47
In Search of the Tag Fairy
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2007
First up was the DVC Member Celebration. This is normally always on the first sea day at 10:00. This time round it was at 12:30. This clashed with my first jewellery making workshop, which had been scheduled for 13:00. I still quickly checked in chiefly because I had not packed a baseball cap as I knew I would get one during the DVC Member Celebration. I got my caps and sat down. Unfortunately I had to leave 20 minutes later.
A few months ago, I had posted photos of some jewellery that I had made for myself on our cruise meet thread. People started to ask me if I would be able to offer a jewellery workshop during the cruise. Initially I said no as I thought that bringing the tools would be a major pain. However, I then found little sets of travel sized tools and I decided to go ahead with this. Initially I said I would do one workshop and accept up to 10 people, but I was flooded with requests. In the end I did 4 workshops, most with 11 people and one with 5 people. I had assembled the kits well in advance and had sent most of them out in advance. We were making bag charms with DIS spelt out in letter beads and lime green Mickey heads, mobile phone charms with either a Pirate theme or in pink with Tinkerbell and illusion necklaces in either pink, purple and black for Villains Night or in the colours of the ship. I had great fun running the workshop and I think everybody enjoyed it. I learned one lesson from this first workshop though. A number of people arrived late and I was waiting for most of them to arrive. This meant that the people who had actually arrived on time did not have enough time to finish their jewellery either.
Next up was the Cruise Critic Meet, which also took place in the Promenade Lounge where I had done my jewellery workshop. I just quickly went over to say "hi" before tidying away the stuff from the jewellery workshop.
From there, I headed up to Animator's Palate for a tasting seminar. One person from our cruise meet thread was staying in a suite and was kindly organizing private tastings for our group. The tasting that day was a Mojito tasting. This is not something that Disney Cruise Line had ever offered before. They offer a number of other tastings like Tequila/ Margarita, Beer, Wine, Martini,etc. However, they had never offered a Mojito tasting before. Initially they were very reluctant, but were surprised by the demand so they decided to work with us on this one. This was absolutely fantastic. They bar tender who did the seminar said that a number of people wanted to do this. I would not be surprised if this would show up on the regular programme before too long.
When we got to the restaurant, we each had a placemat with 4 glasses with various ingredients in front of us and a can of soda water. We also had a number of muddlers and two buckets with crushed ice on each table. I had only had one Mojito previously and I have to say that was not very nice, but I was willing to give this another chance. The seminar was very educational and very interactive. We started off with the history of the Mojito and the basic ingredients. Then we made the Mojitos. We muddled the ingredients and then added the crushed ice and some soda water. For each Mojito, we were told what the ingredients are and then we had a go at making it before tasting it. We made a classic Mojito, a Pineapple Mojito, a Watermelon Mojito and a Raspberry Mojito. The seminar was great fun and the company was great.
As soon as the seminar was finished, I headed up to deck 9 to get something to eat. I had not eaten anything since 10:00 AM that morning and the alcohol had gone straight to my head. I felt a lot better after I had a burger.
Before I could go and relax in the Rainforest Room. I had one last thing on my to do list. One of the children on our cruise meet thread was celebrating her birthday that day and she had Goodie Bags for the children, which she was giving out that afternoon. I had made her a necklace, bracelet, earrings and a hairslide to go with her formal night dress and also had the card that was signed by the characters. I had arranged with her mother that I would come by to give her present during the slot that she was having the children come by. She really liked her present so this was well worth doing.
Once I had delivered the present, I went back to the cabin to drop off the Goodie Bag that I had also been given and then I headed up to the Rainforest Room to relax and sober up a little. I did fall asleep on one of the heated tile loungers, but when I woke up, I felt as good as new.
By the time I woke up, Graham was also in the Rainforest Room. I left him there for a bit longer, but I headed back to our cabin to get ready for formal night. I had a beautiful dress made in China for that occasion, had some custom jewellery made and even got a matching tiara to go with the Prince and Princess theme. Once Graham got back, I asked him to tie the ribbons on the back of the dress, which was easier said than done. Once I was all done, I left him to get changed as well and headed off to have my photo taken with Donald in his formal outfit.
Once I had my photo taken with Donald, Graham was waiting for me. We went downstairs to the atrium, where we got in line for a photo with the captain. For once, the real Captain actually had a longer line than the characters, but we did not have to wait long.
Once we had our photo taken with the Captain, we got one of the free drinks each and socialized for a bit. I was talking with Mandy, Sarah and Elizabeth for a bit and we decided to have a group photo taken. Mandy's husband kindly acted as our photographer and took photos with numerous cameras.
A few months ago, I had posted photos of some jewellery that I had made for myself on our cruise meet thread. People started to ask me if I would be able to offer a jewellery workshop during the cruise. Initially I said no as I thought that bringing the tools would be a major pain. However, I then found little sets of travel sized tools and I decided to go ahead with this. Initially I said I would do one workshop and accept up to 10 people, but I was flooded with requests. In the end I did 4 workshops, most with 11 people and one with 5 people. I had assembled the kits well in advance and had sent most of them out in advance. We were making bag charms with DIS spelt out in letter beads and lime green Mickey heads, mobile phone charms with either a Pirate theme or in pink with Tinkerbell and illusion necklaces in either pink, purple and black for Villains Night or in the colours of the ship. I had great fun running the workshop and I think everybody enjoyed it. I learned one lesson from this first workshop though. A number of people arrived late and I was waiting for most of them to arrive. This meant that the people who had actually arrived on time did not have enough time to finish their jewellery either.
Next up was the Cruise Critic Meet, which also took place in the Promenade Lounge where I had done my jewellery workshop. I just quickly went over to say "hi" before tidying away the stuff from the jewellery workshop.
From there, I headed up to Animator's Palate for a tasting seminar. One person from our cruise meet thread was staying in a suite and was kindly organizing private tastings for our group. The tasting that day was a Mojito tasting. This is not something that Disney Cruise Line had ever offered before. They offer a number of other tastings like Tequila/ Margarita, Beer, Wine, Martini,etc. However, they had never offered a Mojito tasting before. Initially they were very reluctant, but were surprised by the demand so they decided to work with us on this one. This was absolutely fantastic. They bar tender who did the seminar said that a number of people wanted to do this. I would not be surprised if this would show up on the regular programme before too long.
When we got to the restaurant, we each had a placemat with 4 glasses with various ingredients in front of us and a can of soda water. We also had a number of muddlers and two buckets with crushed ice on each table. I had only had one Mojito previously and I have to say that was not very nice, but I was willing to give this another chance. The seminar was very educational and very interactive. We started off with the history of the Mojito and the basic ingredients. Then we made the Mojitos. We muddled the ingredients and then added the crushed ice and some soda water. For each Mojito, we were told what the ingredients are and then we had a go at making it before tasting it. We made a classic Mojito, a Pineapple Mojito, a Watermelon Mojito and a Raspberry Mojito. The seminar was great fun and the company was great.
As soon as the seminar was finished, I headed up to deck 9 to get something to eat. I had not eaten anything since 10:00 AM that morning and the alcohol had gone straight to my head. I felt a lot better after I had a burger.
Before I could go and relax in the Rainforest Room. I had one last thing on my to do list. One of the children on our cruise meet thread was celebrating her birthday that day and she had Goodie Bags for the children, which she was giving out that afternoon. I had made her a necklace, bracelet, earrings and a hairslide to go with her formal night dress and also had the card that was signed by the characters. I had arranged with her mother that I would come by to give her present during the slot that she was having the children come by. She really liked her present so this was well worth doing.
Once I had delivered the present, I went back to the cabin to drop off the Goodie Bag that I had also been given and then I headed up to the Rainforest Room to relax and sober up a little. I did fall asleep on one of the heated tile loungers, but when I woke up, I felt as good as new.
By the time I woke up, Graham was also in the Rainforest Room. I left him there for a bit longer, but I headed back to our cabin to get ready for formal night. I had a beautiful dress made in China for that occasion, had some custom jewellery made and even got a matching tiara to go with the Prince and Princess theme. Once Graham got back, I asked him to tie the ribbons on the back of the dress, which was easier said than done. Once I was all done, I left him to get changed as well and headed off to have my photo taken with Donald in his formal outfit.
Once I had my photo taken with Donald, Graham was waiting for me. We went downstairs to the atrium, where we got in line for a photo with the captain. For once, the real Captain actually had a longer line than the characters, but we did not have to wait long.
Once we had our photo taken with the Captain, we got one of the free drinks each and socialized for a bit. I was talking with Mandy, Sarah and Elizabeth for a bit and we decided to have a group photo taken. Mandy's husband kindly acted as our photographer and took photos with numerous cameras.
dolphingirl47
In Search of the Tag Fairy
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2007
We were having dinner at Parrot Cay that night. This was the first time ever that we were spending a formal or semi-formal night at Parrot Cay. I know that this is very unpopular for formal night, but I was actually really looking forward to this. It was still a little while until dinner, but often on formal night, they have a backdrop up somewhere between Lumiere's and Parrot Cay. So I suggested to Graham that we should head in that general direction to see if this was the case this time round. They had a backdrop with the moon up between Promenade Lounge and Parrot Cay. We got in line for this and had some gorgeous photos taken. Once we were done, it was just about time to head for dinner. This was perfect timing.
This evening we had the Prince and Princess Menu. Graham decided to let our server choose again and ended up with Royal Salmon, The Beast's Potato and Sausage Casserole Soup and Rack of Lamb. He liked the Lamb so much that our server brought him another plate. I had a double-baked cheese soufflé, The Beast's Potato and Sausage Casserole Soup and the Beef Wellington. For dessert, Graham had Jasmine's Banana Bread Pudding and I had Prince Charming's Chilled Chocolate Souffle.
After dinner, I had my photo taken with Minnie and Mickey in their formal outfits. Once I was finished with those two, I spotted that our favourite photographer was taking photos on deck 4 in front of a backdrop of the Magic at night. So we headed up there to have our photo taken. The photos are nothing short of spectacular.
After all those photo ops, we were ready for our bed. We were welcomed by a towel scorpion. We also had another surprise. We had a limited edition lithograph by Don "Ducky" Williams on our bed, which was a gift from Disney Cruise Line. This was a lovely surprise. I put this somewhere safe and took a photo of our towel scorpion and then headed to bed.
This evening we had the Prince and Princess Menu. Graham decided to let our server choose again and ended up with Royal Salmon, The Beast's Potato and Sausage Casserole Soup and Rack of Lamb. He liked the Lamb so much that our server brought him another plate. I had a double-baked cheese soufflé, The Beast's Potato and Sausage Casserole Soup and the Beef Wellington. For dessert, Graham had Jasmine's Banana Bread Pudding and I had Prince Charming's Chilled Chocolate Souffle.
After dinner, I had my photo taken with Minnie and Mickey in their formal outfits. Once I was finished with those two, I spotted that our favourite photographer was taking photos on deck 4 in front of a backdrop of the Magic at night. So we headed up there to have our photo taken. The photos are nothing short of spectacular.
After all those photo ops, we were ready for our bed. We were welcomed by a towel scorpion. We also had another surprise. We had a limited edition lithograph by Don "Ducky" Williams on our bed, which was a gift from Disney Cruise Line. This was a lovely surprise. I put this somewhere safe and took a photo of our towel scorpion and then headed to bed.
Candy Apple
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2007
Love all the pictures! Your formal dress is gorgeous. I wish I had seen you in person that night, but I missed you.
Are you wearing silver mary jane crocs? I love my mary jane crocs and may need to find a silver pair.
Are you wearing silver mary jane crocs? I love my mary jane crocs and may need to find a silver pair.
Corinna, as one of your jewelry class students, I have to tell you how much I enjoyed it. It was great telling people at home who noticed it that I had made it! I especially loved the necklace. Thank you again.
I'm so glad you're posting your photos. Since we were on early dining, we never got to see you in your dresses. I particularly like the picture where you and Graham are looking at each other; it's just lovely.
I'm so glad you're posting your photos. Since we were on early dining, we never got to see you in your dresses. I particularly like the picture where you and Graham are looking at each other; it's just lovely.
dolphingirl47
In Search of the Tag Fairy
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2007
Yes, they are silver Mary Jane Crocs. I love my Mary Jane Crocs, too and have them in all kinds of different colours.
I know that you cannot see them under my formal night dress, but keep an eye out from photos that were taken in the evenings. The shoes that I wear then are actually Crocs, too. People never can believe this.
Subscribing to your great trip report! I've really enjoyed reading it so far and your photos are FAB!
Rodolpho was right - your smile is amazing - the ones of you as you boarded the ship look as though you could not be happier!
The Magic is definitely my happy place. I can't believe that I won't be seeing the Magic at all next year, but I hope that I will have just as good a time on the Wonder.
Corinna
TotallyAngelic
Disney Addict
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2005
I really enjoyed it too ... thank you so much for organising it and having the patience to deal with all of us amateurs! I learned a few new skills when threading the necklace which will come in should I ever try my hand at making jewellery again.
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