A Little Trans-Atlantic Magic - The (somewhat) LIVE TR! -updated 07/03/13 About This Page:

[Principessa_di_Fata]

Originally Posted by Dlandmom2

Wow, you're a pro at this cruising stuff! The cabin looks cool and comfy. Everything so far looks great! I have GOT to try a Disney cruise soon!

Yes you do! But we'll get you on one sooner or later (maybe with us, lol)!

Originally Posted by chezp

What a great day at sea! That massage sounds heavenly. Now there is one issue I have - come on, it's formal night, and no pictures of you and your mom all dressed up? Please?

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

I know, I know, I'm sorry! I think we have a few from the second formal night! I really did get better at taking pictures!

Originally Posted by lfredsbo

Whew! Finally all caught up! I am drooling at the thought of this trip, especially the alone time spa!

Yeah the spa treatment pretty much rocked!

Originally Posted by num1DVCfan

I'm loving your TR so far, it's bringing back so many great memories we had of our time on the Magic last year. I really need to look into that Alone Time on a future cruise!

I highly recommend it!

Originally Posted by DrDolphin

Great start! Your spa time sounded wonderful - and I am glad Meri has bonded with your tablemates right off!!

Me too! It's always a gamble with what you will get at your table (as we saw at other tables, lol). We were more than pleased.

Originally Posted by mushu22

Great pictures around the ship

Thank you!

Originally Posted by Russi01

Signing in so I can go back and read all about your trip!

Welcome!

Originally Posted by MayraLR

Sounds like a great dinner! Everything looked delish.

I looked up the description of the book you were reading (Nineteen Minutes) and really liked it. It has been added to my must-read list.

It's a tough read at times, and very frustrating at other times, but it's really good.

[Principessa_di_Fata]

Day 4 – Monday, May 20, 2013

Mom was up first, somewhere around 8:15am, and was hungry, so I sent her ahead to have breakfast without us. About 20 minutes later, Meri and I woke up and grudgingly decided to go ahead and start our day as well.

We got dressed, pretty slowly, and headed up to Parrot Cay. On our way in, Meri noticed mom sitting in a chair in the Promenade Lounge, by a window, and she ran to say hi! Mom came back in to Parrot Cay with us and we enjoyed breakfast, while a silly waiter made bird call sounds and teased Meri. I didn’t take pictures of the buffet this morning, but I can tell you there was lots of fruit, lots of pastries, plenty of eggs, bacon, sausage, Mickey waffles and pancakes. There’s also omelets, oatmeal, cream of wheat and grits. Yummy!











The funny thing to me is that Parrot Cay is my favorite restaurant, and that's the one they're ditching. I have always heard people say it's their least favorite, but for me, Animator's Palate was my least favorite. I know, I know, don't hate me. LOL!

After breakfast, mom went to go relax, and Meri and I went to the Lobby Atrium to go meet Stitch! He wasn’t scheduled until 10:15am, and it was only 9:35, so we planned to grab a seat on a couch and just relax for a bit. I noticed a line starting to form, and I thought, “Seriously? This early?!” So I got up and got in line, slightly annoyed that I’d have to stand in a line for 30 minutes. It turns out that the line had formed to meet Captain Hook and Smee – who were scheduled at 9:45am. Oops! I felt sheepish for even thinking irritable thoughts! I should have known better!!!

We stayed to meet Captain Hook and Smee. It was Meri’s first time, and she was a little nervous. She had never met a villain before, and she was definitely worried. Together we watched how sweet Hook was with all of the little kids, and she was a little reassured. When it was her turn, she was a total pro!!! She was much relieved, and proud of herself for being brave enough to meet Hook.

The camera was really behaving oddly today for some reason. I'm not sure what it's deal was, but it wasn't focusing right, so the photos are kind of crappy. Sorry about that.







After meeting Hook we went back in line to meet Stitch. While waiting, they all congregated around Meri in one of the windows, where she was telling them heaven knows what...



Stitch was adorable, as usual, and Meri loved meeting him again!





Then it was straight up to the Oceaneers Club so Meri could decorate a photo frame and meet a “special guest”, who turned out to be Goofy! While she was there, Mom and I hung out up at the Cove Café and checked email and updated PassPorter, and read our books.

I picked Meri up at 12:15pm and we ran right up to Pinocchio’s Pizza, where we scarfed down 5 pieces of pizza each! It was rushed because I had to drop her back at the club at 1245pm so that I could get to Studio Sea in time for our napkin folding lesson!

After dropping Meri off, I got settled up at Studio Sea, with my napkin and instructions. Mom showed up not long after me, and we started attempting to follow the written directions for making the various things. We laughed as we realized we were NOT successful. The guy that led us was the head of the dining room, a man from India. I forget his name. And of course one of the entertainment staff, Andy, led us all with his commentary. He was quite funny!



The tuxedo from Palo


A flower from Parrot Cay


Not sure what this was... it wasn't a banana, lol. Mine is the awful green one. Mom definitely was better at this than I was...


Peter pan's boot... mine was pretty bad, and THIS was with HELP! LOL!


A candle


We got all of them learned, though I highly doubt I could recreate any of them! Mom, on the other hand, really got the hang of most of them! After napkin folding, I went back to the room to relax, because I was just so tired! Mom showed up after about an hour, and we just hung out in the room. She napped and I read a book. At 3:35pm, Meri decided she was done with the club, so I picked her up, and we spent about half hour delivering Fish Extender gifts, which was fun! And we had some of our own when we returned!!



Those were definite keepers, and we've used them plenty on the trip and after!

We relaxed in the room for a little while before dinner. Well. Mom and I relaxed. Meri hopped from point to point, asking, “Can we go? Can we go? Is it time? Can we go?” Finally it was just about time to go! But before we left, we realized, the tiny little wet spot by the desk that we earlier had thought was from a spilled water bottle had turned into a really huge wet spot over by the window! Really huge! Uh, that ain't no water bottle spill! We called maintenance and they came down and checked it out. They brought a dryer while we were at dinner, and let it run.



We’ll let it run all day tomorrow as well, and by the time we get back, it’ll be fine! The problem was a leak in an AC unit in the cabin beside us. They fixed it and we’re good as new!

Dinner was great, as usual. No color show tonight – I guess they’re saving it for later in the cruise. It was a Caribbean menu tonight, and it was very nice. Not my absolute favorite menu thus far, but it was fine.







My pulled pork and mango chutney tart (which wasn't quite a tart at all, lol, but it was good)


Mom's appetizer - I can't remember what this was though...


Mom's seafood pasta (which was out of this world)


My Delmonico steak (I almost always ordered the steak at dinner)






My pineapple bread pudding, which wasn't really good to me, but it improved when I asked for some vanilla ice cream


Dale (Timothy’s dad) took 3 of the kids up to the kids club before dessert, and the four of us sat and chatted with Taner for about ten minutes. We talked about Castaway Cay, the Disney Cruise Line, what it’s like to work for Disney, what his plans are after this cruise, etc. It was such an enjoyable and interesting conversation, and it was so generous of him to spend time talking to us when I know he had so much else to do to prepare for the second seating!

After dinner, it was back down to pick up Meri at the Club. On our way in, I noticed Belle sitting in the hallway, just reading to a handful of kids. I was utterly charmed, I have to say. Just to see these impromptu character interactions happening with no huge line or handler... just a princess sitting in the hall with a book and a few kids. It was sweet. The photo was blurred because I was trying to take the picture quickly (and the camera was being a beast, lol).



We went up to the top deck to check out the view, since we were near land and moving slowly. We were refueling in Nassau before heading to Castaway Cay the following morning.





Then it was back to the cabin to get ready for bed. We skipped the show this night, and instead just relaxed in the room.

Tonight's animal...


Here's a pic of the inside of our door, with the magnets I made. Just below sight at the bottom of the picture was our dry erase board where every night we'd list out the times and activities for the following day. It was a good reminder of what was coming up, and where each of us would be.



Meri went to bed around 9:30pm and mom and I sat up a little longer and watched Men in Black 3 before turning in.

Up Next: Our day at Castaway Cay!

[lauriep]

Parrot Cay is my favorite restaurant also. I love the cheery decor-- just feels right for a cruise. I'll miss it. Another lovely day at sea. I agree-- that impromptu story time with Belle is completely charming. Bravo to Meri for meeting her first villain! I have a feeling she'll never be brave enough for Jaffar at the parks, though.

[chezp]

The napkin folding looked like a lot of fun and I thought your creations looked fine. Sorry about the problems with that air con unit spewing water into your room, but at least they were able to sort it out.

[disney_duke]

Oh I loved Parrot Cay! Are the really getting rid of it? That's a shame. It captured the true Caribbean, relaxing spirit of a cruise! Bummer.
That photo with Belle reading to the kids is priceless. Where else would you find such a thing?

[Russi01]

Your trip looks so relaxing and lots of fun. Great pictures by the way. Can't wait to read more. I would love to take a Disney Cruise but first I need to get to the World! LOL

[rlb38]

I didn't know they were getting rid of Parrot Cay. I thought it was better than reviews I'd read. It had the best steak of our trip & for some reason I seemed to eat more red meat on the cruise than I normally would.
I'm surprised that they don't at least run the effects in AP everytime. I can see not having the wait staff "do their thing" each time but I would expect the colour effects .

[cubfancolleen]

Enchanted Garden is great (the Dream & Fantasy replacement for Parrot Cay). I always thought PC was a little loud and gaudy, although I enjoyed the menu.
Your mom's app looked like some kind of quiche?
Looked good to me!

[Principessa_di_Fata]

Originally Posted by lauriep

Parrot Cay is my favorite restaurant also. I love the cheery decor-- just feels right for a cruise. I'll miss it. Another lovely day at sea. I agree-- that impromptu story time with Belle is completely charming. Bravo to Meri for meeting her first villain! I have a feeling she'll never be brave enough for Jaffar at the parks, though.

I don't think there's any way she'll meet Jafar, Malificent or Cruella.

Originally Posted by chezp

The napkin folding looked like a lot of fun and I thought your creations looked fine. Sorry about the problems with that air con unit spewing water into your room, but at least they were able to sort it out.

Mom was glad, too. They told her initially that there were no open staterooms to move us to, and mom was like, "Well then I guess you'd better hope you can fix it." She was VERY polite about it, but she was quite firm. They were wonderful, though, and really took care of it quickly and efficiently.

Originally Posted by disney_duke

Oh I loved Parrot Cay! Are the really getting rid of it? That's a shame. It captured the true Caribbean, relaxing spirit of a cruise! Bummer.
That photo with Belle reading to the kids is priceless. Where else would you find such a thing?

Yeah, I forget what's going in instead, but that's what I hear. And I know, it was so charming to see - you'd sure never find that at WDW! LOL!

Originally Posted by Russi01

Your trip looks so relaxing and lots of fun. Great pictures by the way. Can't wait to read more. I would love to take a Disney Cruise but first I need to get to the World! LOL

LOL you've got to start somewhere!

Originally Posted by rlb38

I didn't know they were getting rid of Parrot Cay. I thought it was better than reviews I'd read. It had the best steak of our trip & for some reason I seemed to eat more red meat on the cruise than I normally would.
I'm surprised that they don't at least run the effects in AP everytime. I can see not having the wait staff "do their thing" each time but I would expect the colour effects .

I agree, they should run the color effects nightly at AP, and then do the big show on the final three nights (one for each seating). It was such a bland restaurant without the color effects, and it just wasn't what I expected at all. My expectations were far higher for some reason, and I was disappointed.

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

Enchanted Garden is great (the Dream & Fantasy replacement for Parrot Cay). I always thought PC was a little loud and gaudy, although I enjoyed the menu.
Your mom's app looked like some kind of quiche?
Looked good to me!

Enchanted Garden looks fabulous, I agree - and I can't wait to dine there one day!

I do remember that mom's app looked nothing like the description on the menu, and so we were really confused as to what it was when it was served.

[cubfancolleen]

Forgot to comment on your napkin creations! Um, er, well, your mom seemed to pick up on it, didn't she? Our DD still often folds the tuxedo one. That, or the rubber chicken our assistant server taught her one night!

[MayraLR]

Another great day! I think you shouldn't have a career in napkin folding anytime soon. Just sayin'.

[Principessa_di_Fata]

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

Forgot to comment on your napkin creations! Um, er, well, your mom seemed to pick up on it, didn't she? Our DD still often folds the tuxedo one. That, or the rubber chicken our assistant server taught her one night!

Mom definitely picked up on it, lol.

Originally Posted by MayraLR

Another great day! I think you shouldn't have a career in napkin folding anytime soon. Just sayin'.

Later in the cruise, our server tried to show us a few things, and we followed along. Needless to say, at the end, he'd look at mine and say, "WHAT on earth did you DO?" It became a great source of amusement for everyone, lol.

[Principessa_di_Fata]

Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - Part 1

We had set the alarm for 7:15am, knowing that we had to get an early start today in order to have plenty of time on Castaway Cay! I was up a little bit before the alarm, and so I got up and moving. Mom was next up, and then finally Meri dragged herself out of bed, but she wasn’t happy about it. She definitely wasn’t ready to get moving!

Once we were up and dressed, with day bags packed, we headed up to Parrot Cay for breakfast. By this point it was roughly 8:00am. We relaxed and enjoyed our coffee and food, and first had a nice long chat with our assistant server Kadek, and then George, the head server came up to talk to us. He's from Romania, and we really loved him. He was so funny with Meri, and really had her giggling away. He told her that before she got off at Castaway Cay, they would scan her tummy to see if she ate enough, because she had to have a lot of energy for the island. Immediately she scarfed down the rest of her eggs (which, of course, I had struggled to get her to take one single bite of). He spent nearly 10 minutes chatting at our table, and he was such a pleasure to converse with.

For some reason, though, I have no photos of breakfast. Oops! Guess we were so excited, we forgot! Sorry!!

After breakfast, we headed down to deck 1, and right out onto the island! When we got off of the boat, Meri said, “No one scanned my tummy!” LOL! I told her that there was a scanner at tummy level, and that she obviously had a full enough stomach, or they would have stopped her. I know, the lies just keep coming, but it’s not my fault! George started it!!!

The first thing we did was dash up to Daisy, who was standing right outside the gangway!





Then we headed down the island! We skipped the tram, opting to walk out, on the recommendation of a friend who said we wouldn’t want to miss the sights along the way. It was a nice walk, and we enjoyed it, but I didn’t really see any sights, except for the view of the ship from the path - which was lovely and worth the walk alone. We, of course, took some photos of the ship, and just enjoyed the scenery.

Mom loved seeing the ship tied to the dock...






On the way, we ran into Donald, Minnie and Pluto, as well, and enjoyed a few moments with them, and snapped random photos in between!























The bathrooms were neat


Then we paused at the gift shop to pick up an underwater camera (because I had forgotten ours in the room!) and a pail and shovel.



Then we grabbed a couple of chairs right near Castaway Rays, because we had just 45 minutes until our stingray experience! Meri played in the sand and waded around while mom and I read.







Before we knew it, it was 10:00am and time to go meet the stingrays of Castaway Cay!! I was in a bit of a panic at this point, because I had realized that I left the tickets somewhere in the cabin! NOT COOL! The lady immediately put me at ease, telling me that she could easily look us up, and poof, we were in! PHEW!!! *duh* That’ll teach me!





The stingray lagoon


Our instructor


The stingray experience was really cool. First we had roughly an 8-10 minute lesson about the rays, which was really interesting and informative, and then we headed down to get in the water! We first went to feeding stations, where we got to pet and feed the rays. Some of them were quite funny, and you could see that they really had some personalities! Some of the attendants could tell them apart by their size and markings (they’re all named) and it was really cool to see that!

After the feeding, which Meri opted out of, though she did pet some rays, we were allowed to snorkel freely in the little lagoon area. Some of you may be familiar with “Big Mama”, who I guess was a very large ray there. Apparently she escaped a couple of years ago, and now their biggest ray is about 4 feet across, and is named Megatron, lol. That made me laugh to hear!

We took photos on our disposable underwater camera, so when they are developed, I'll add them in... but it will likely be a couple of weeks because they have to get mailed away.

After our experience, which was a good length of time, we headed back over to get settled into seats. All of the hammocks were reserved with towels / bags (I’ll come back to this later with some commentary) and so we chose a couple of chairs not too far away, near-ish to the lagoon. Meri immediately went down to the waters edge with her bucket and pail, and mom and I again settled in with our books.



At this point, we had a really neat experience. The Dream passed by to "see us off", as it were. There was a horn battle, of course, and then the Dream bid us adieu, and headed off! The cruise line had planned this because they wanted us to have a little send-off. It was neat.

The Dream is in the distance...




Finally it was time for us to eat – we had definitely worked up some appetites! We took our wallets, and my camera, and went up to Cookie’s BBQ. It was 11:40am at this point.











Yummy!!


There was a little "show" that went on, which was cute with some dancing and fun music.



After lunch, Meri decided she wanted to go to the kids club on the island, so I dropped her off there, and got myself settled up in an empty hammock. There was exactly one empty hammock, and it turns out that "technically" it "belonged" to a family that saved the other hammocks with towels. This is my rant here, and something I plan on emailing to Disney to make suggestions about... these hammocks were "saved" with towels for the entire time that we were on Castaway, from 915am'ish to 2:15pm'ish. I only saw people come back to them ONCE, for about 2 minutes. And that was when I was laying in the one, and had my sunglasses on and my iPod on... I guess they thought I was asleep or couldn't hear them, because the family came back, and it was a bunch of teens and young adults with some parents. The grandmother was in a hammock all day. I heard one kid ask, "Who is THAT?" and the Grandmother replied, "I have no idea, I was reading and I looked up and she was there! I didn't know what to do!" And they all were just like, "Oh well, we'll go to lunch and then come back and swim some more."

I didn't say anything, though I wanted to. Who did they think they were, acting as though I didn't belong there??? They hogged up these hammocks all day, and didn't even USE them, just threw towels on them. I was REALLY irritated, seriously. So I'd like to suggest to Disney that they put up signs saying "no reserving" or something like that. I mean, no CM's even noticed or cared... and there were lots of people that wanted to use hammocks, but saw they were reserved and moved on. It would be one thing if people were IN them, but just to use them as towel holders for FIVE HOURS... that was really ridiculous to me. It just rubbed me totally the wrong way.

Ok, rant over.





I snoozed for about an hour and change in the hammock after the family left to go eat lunch, and then I relocated myself to the chair beside mom again, where I read for a little while longer.

At around 1:30pm, I went back to get Meri, and we went swimming in the lagoon for about 30 minutes. At 72 degrees, the water wasn't particularly pleasing, but once you were in for a bit, it wasn't bad. Probably because your body was too numb to feel anything.

Around 2:10pm we decided to head back to the ship. First, of course, we had to do a little more shopping. I grabbed a photo album, an ornament, a magnet, a tshirt for myself and for Meri, and some postcards. I think I grabbed a couple of little random things, too, but I forget off of the top of my head.

We slowly meandered back, taking the tram this time, and had no line getting back on to the ship.







I never tire of taking pictures of the Magic!


When we got back on the ship, we talked to a few CM's who told us that they had been worried about the weather forecast, because storms had been forecast, and initially they worried that we wouldn't even be able to dock. Fortunately, while it wasn't PERFECT weather, it didn't rain, and the sun DID come out!!!

Continued in a few hours in the next post...

[Dlandmom2]

Oh man, I would've been SO annoyed about the hammocks! That's just so not cool! I really hope Disney answers you. As I always say, common sense is NOT common! Why did they think they were?!

[MayraLR]

What a great day at CC! Sorry about the hammock situation. That must've been so frustrating.