From no trip to celebrating 20 years together… planning it all in less than 100 days! COMPLETED IN THIS FORUM 7/24 - Page 4 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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What a great name for a boat!!
Never order tuna on DCL, never order tuna on DCL.....repeat 100 times now, please.
Ok, now post that on the pre-trip report for our January cruise and I'll be set!
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See, I think I'd like that - but we grill tuna steaks to medium rare here.
Definitely not me at all!
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I do so hear you on the menu seeming to never change! While I love a few of the offerings (pasta pursiettes being one), I think I've been having those for over 10 years now. I don't know how the lucky people who've sailed over 100x with DCL deal with that.
We have friends who've been platinum members for some time. I want to say they've probably taken more than 30 cruises and they constantly complain about the food on board, to the point where we're beginning to wonder why they cruise with Disney. However, I am now starting to sympathise with them.
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In my case, it's only going to be my 10th time and I'm tired of some things. But DCL still wins overall for me in terms of cruises. And the old menus are still tastier than the food we found in the main dining room on RCCL.
Yep, you're right there. The main dining room on board Celebrity was awful. We only ate there twice, but both times it was terrible.
Apparently the way to go to sort out problems with food is to ask for something off the children's menu. That's what happened on Mari and Raleigh's cruise (they were with Deb Wills from All Ears Net) and that brought a lot of questions and then they ended up getting their meals personally cooked for them, as they said they'd gone for the children's menu, as the other choices were so bad. I hope we don't have to go down that avenue on our future cruises, but at least now we know what we need to do... just in case...
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It is a bit odd on departure seeing the Coast Guard boat with the gun artillery on it as I remember that from my Magic cruise! That was quite something with the ambulance and not something you really want to see. Too bad with your first dinner of the cruise! I sort of remember you having a bad experience with the tuna on a prior cruise. They certainly need to change the menus around much more with so many repeat cruisers on the ships! I remember those truffle pursettes from mine and they were quite good.
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
It is a bit odd on departure seeing the Coast Guard boat with the gun artillery on it as I remember that from my Magic cruise!
It is! I don't know if it's something they do for every single cruise ship? I assume so...
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That was quite something with the ambulance and not something you really want to see. Too bad with your first dinner of the cruise! I sort of remember you having a bad experience with the tuna on a prior cruise. They certainly need to change the menus around much more with so many repeat cruisers on the ships! I remember those truffle pursettes from mine and they were quite good.
If only they would change the menu. I really wish Disney would do something about that.
Sunday 5 March – part nine: that poor towel animal!
I think we were one of the last tables to be served at Animator’s Palate, as we were all still on entrée when the show started. I do love this show, it’s just pure Disney and magic. I love the way it slips from romance to the villains and so on, with the lighting matching it. I’m glad they still have it, as this show has been around for years, but it is a real classic.
Now my only complaint is I have never once managed to get a decent shot of Sorcerer Mickey during this show in all the times we’ve seen it, and yet again, that proved to be the case. He stood for ages hiding behind a serving booth that was right in between our table and him. Ugh! I did my best, but I am still awaiting a decent shot of him… one day I will get one!
For dessert, Mark had the warm sticky date pudding, served with butterscotch sauce, vanilla ice cream, and philo crunch. about the quality of the shot…
I went for the cookies ‘n cream sundae, made up of cookies and cream ice cream with chocolate sauce and chocolate chip cookies, hoping that would finish the meal on a better note for me, but I barely managed a mouthful of it, as I was still tasting that awful tuna. I couldn’t bear to eat anything else, and all of a sudden, I’d gone very hot, whereas for the rest of the meal, I was feeling cold. It was clear I wasn’t feeling that good. Oh well, it was the end of the meal now, and oddly I felt full despite how little I’d eaten, so that was something.
Now I do need to mention a couple of things here – firstly our service team. It was Jorge and Manuel was his assistant. I didn’t feel as if I gelled with either sadly. We bought the wine package, as it’s got the Riesling on it that we love, but can’t get at home, and we know we can take a couple of bottles home with us. However, the first pour we got was pathetically small, and I finished off some time before Manuel refilled it. It honestly got so bad that I was tempted to get up and get the bottle myself, as it was sitting near us.
We also had a visit from the head server, Paolo, who did his spiel, and it sounded great, except he was standing right by me, and this was the point where I had nothing in front of me, as I’d sent back the first tuna, and was waiting for it to come back. If I was him, I’d have immediately been enquiring if everything was Ok, but he didn’t. A missed opportunity I felt…
Animator’s Palate
Appetiser 8 9
Soup and salad 8˝ 8˝
Entrée 3 9
Dessert N/A 8˝
Service 6 7
Atmosphere 9 9
Average score: 7.77
The other bit I need to mention here is the pitching of the ship. I mentioned earlier that it had been windy out on deck, and I was hoping it would abate. Well, long story very short – it didn’t. If anything, it got worse. Even on deck four, you could clearly feel the ship pitching from side to side, and the new chairs they’d put into Animator’s Palate didn’t exactly help hold you in place. All our table were managing Ok, and I was fine when I was sitting down, but when it got to leaving at the end of the meal,
I was pitching all over the place!
I grabbed hold of anything I could lay my hands on, including chairs in the restaurant as we left, and then the railings along the stairwells, but even with that, I was staggering (and it was not the wine, trust me! ) and I pitched into things more than once, no doubt adding a few bruises to the collection. It was not fun, and in fact I don’t think we’ve had anything this bad since the infamous inaugural Med cruise all the way back in 2007.
We met our stateroom hostess, Lois, as we headed back into the room, and she seemed lovely. However, we didn’t stay long to talk to her, as we were struggling to stay on our feet. We headed into the room, and straight into bed. At one point, I did say to Mark that I apologised if I rolled into him, so violently were we moving… but that wasn’t an end to the matter.
When we got back to the room, we were welcomed by this:
Earlier on in the day, Mark had commented on the fact that the doors on the cupboard by the door had no seal on them… and I’m sure you can see what ended up happening. If you guessed that we were soon greeted by a regular “thump” followed by the light inside the cupboard coming on, you’d be right. Mark headed out to solve the problem, which was a very creative solution, and one I only saw in the morning… I feel sorry for the towel animal though!
The weather today was warm and sunny with temperatures in the high 70s. The best thing today was our boat ride in the morning. The worst thing today was the pitching of the ship. The funniest thing today was how the towel animal ended up being used! Today we tried packing our swimming stuff in our carry-on luggage And the result was it worked really well, as we could enjoy a swim before our luggage arrived. The most magical moment today was seeing the wildlife on our boat ride in the morning.
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Let’s just say we didn’t have a good night’s sleep with all the pitching. Even after Mark managed to prop the cupboard doors, so they didn’t sway to and fro, we both kept waking up with the motion of the ship. At one point it did get better, and we thought we were clear of the worst, but we were being hideously optimistic. I know I asked Mark at one point what time it was, and he said 4:00am. I promptly went back to sleep.
I eventually woke up around 7:15am, and lay there for a while, figuring lying was easier than attempting to stand in the swaying. I grabbed our Navigator, hoping we’d be docking soon, so it would all stop, but no such luck, all aboard was 9:30am. Great!
I hauled myself out of bed, and got my sea legs, and then started to get going. I decided to go and brave the Rainforest, which opened at 8:00am, and stumbled my way over here, no doubt getting a couple more bruises in the process….
When I got there, I was a bit concerned about how many people were already here, but Rachel (from the UK ) who showed me to the changing rooms told me that I was fine, they were all there for massages, and no-one was using the Rainforest. She was right – I had the whole place to myself the whole time I was there! That was a real treat..
I started off by trying out the three showers, but disappointingly, although they look like the ones on the Dream and the Fantasy, they’re nothing special. They are literally showers with nice lighting, and they vary in temperature, but no other special effects, like making them appear to be like a tropical rainstorm or anything like that. I was a bit disappointed with that.
I next tried the mild steam room, and this did live up to its name. I spent quite some time in here, only escaping occasionally to grab some water.
However, the aromatic steam room was a disappointment. The door wasn’t closing properly, and as there was a blast of cold air from above as you entered and left, that meant the cold air was getting into the steam room. I didn’t spend long in there as a result, as there was just no steam, and sitting in a coldish steam room just didn’t do much for me.
Instead, I retreated back into the warmth of the mild steam room for a while, before trying out the hot stone chairs. Oh wow, now these were perfect. As there was no-one else in sight, I didn’t need to worry about pulling the curtain, but that is a very nice touch.
I had no idea how long I lay there, but eventually I felt I’d toasted enough, and decided to make a move out of my VIP area, reserved just for me!
When I got back to the changing room, I went into the sauna for a while, and I was really impressed with this. I loved the lighting effects, very neat. As there was no-one else around, I quickly grabbed some photos of the place:
Once again, it’s very different to what was on the Wonder before, and almost to the point where you can’t recognise it. I love the changes they’ve made throughout the spa, and they’re long overdue.
Just as I was heading out of the changing room, a woman walked in and immediately said “Cheryl”. I didn’t recognise her at first, but it was Heather, a friend on Facebook. I remember seeing a post by her that she was flying down for a cruise, but I had no idea she’d be on ours – cool! It was so good to see her, and I did try and get into Facebook later to message her about meeting up, but my phone decided it had no Internet, and we’d already said we weren’t going to pay for the Disney Internet while we were on board.
I headed out of the spa…
… and out on to deck nine…
I decided to be brave and brave the elements on deck 10 to take a few photos, and my goodness, it was still breezy up there!
I quickly retreated back to the relative safety of deck nine, and washed the adult pool sloshing around.
Sorry to hear that your first dinner aboard the ship was kind of a disappointment. I hope the servers were better throughout the rest of your stay. I would not have done well with the motion of the ship! You're both very lucky that you don't get seasick. The Rainforest Spa looks so relaxing, and although the aromatic steam room didn't sound great, it certainly seemed like you enjoyed the rest of your experience. How fun that you got to meet a Facebook friend!
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That's what happened on Mari and Raleigh's cruise (they were with Deb Wills from All Ears Net) and that brought a lot of questions and then they ended up getting their meals personally cooked for them, as they said they'd gone for the children's menu, as the other choices were so bad. 
I hope we don't have to go down that avenue on our future cruises, but at least now we know what we need to do... just in case...
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That was quite something with the ambulance and not something you really want to see. Too bad with your first dinner of the cruise! 
I sort of remember you having a bad experience with the tuna on a prior cruise. They certainly need to change the menus around much more with so many repeat cruisers on the ships! 
I remember those truffle pursettes from mine and they were quite good.
about the quality of the shot… 
That was a real treat.. 
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