Living the Dream and remembering the Bagman TRIP REPORT COMPLETED IN THIS FORUM About This Page:

[chezp]

Originally Posted by jenseib

The lanyards....only given to Silver and up. New to Disney cruise line do not get them. I think many many years ago they used to but it has probably been at least 7 years or more since they stopped that practice. The lanyard is one of the perks for being a Castaway Club member.

Wow! Thank goodness we took our first cruise all the way back in 2004....

That stuff being built at the port...I believe that is the new port shopping area. They are making one so that ships that visit PC as a destination have options to just stay there and shop and eat, etc and also for those who are in the area to have something to do as well pre or post cruise or just vacationing.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by momtolexi

Your food porn has me sitting at my desk drooling!

Sorry about that!

[Cam22]

Great start to your Remy dinner! But crazy that they charge for water.

[chezp]

Wednesday 28 September – part eight: “all I know is that we have it on pizza”

For the next course, we both had the John Dory from the French menu, which was very nice. The orange you can see on here was carrot puree, and it was beautifully flavoured.



For our main course, I went for the halibut, which wasn’t on either menu, but was an a la carte option, and Alejandro suggested it as soon as he heard I didn’t eat meat. It was covered with a tomato paste, and this was exceptionally strong. I personally thought the tomato overwhelmed the rest of the dish, and as a result, I was a little disappointed with it.



Mark had the lamb from the American menu, which was beautifully presented. This was the only thing he’d asked for from the American menu – remember this…



The next course was the cheese trolley, and I think Alejandro was very happy when I started talking to him about cheese, as he realised that I knew a fair bit about this. I had a feeling that he often encountered people who knew nothing about this subject, and I would be right about that. Later on, we honestly heard the table behind us say, in answer to how much do you know about cheese, “all I know is that we have it on pizza”. Ok, so I think the Remy cheese trolley may just be slightly lost on you then…



There was a wide selection of cheeses, including hard ones, double cream, triple cream, and blue cheese. Mark tried a couple that I recommended that he might be Ok with, but I did enjoy all of them, particularly the mild blue cheese. It was a real treat to be able to enjoy such a wonderful range of cheeses, as America just doesn’t seem to be a place where you can get something like this…



We did have a close call with this, as Mark noticed Alejandro putting dried apricots on the plate, and reminded him about my allergies. We figured we’d better own up to it, given that the chefs like to surprise here. I would hate for them to surprise me with something I just couldn’t eat…

Now when it came to dessert, we had both ordered the chocolat dessert from the French menu. I got mine fine:



However, Mark was not impressed when this rolled up in front of him.



It was yoghurt from the American menu, or should I say their take on panna cotta, and given Mark really doesn’t like panna cotta, this was never going to work for him. He insisted on the chocolat dessert, and Alejandro did go to get it. Apparently the way they work is that they like to offer both options from the French and American menus to share between people, which is fair enough, but that’s not what we wanted to do. It was quickly switched out, although we both had to eat on our own, which was a bit of a shame not to be able to enjoy this together. Ok, I will admit I could’ve waited, but heck, I wasn’t going to…

We were then presented with our petits fours to take back to our room… and Alejandro made a show of dropping “something”, and then passing it to Mark, which was nicely done, so it meant he could present me with this… well, after he’d got it out of his mouth anyway!



They also presented us with a box of chocolates to take back to the room with us. It had been a superb meal, but then again, it really needed to be with the $85/cover charge per person. I was a bit annoyed that we got charged for the water we were served with. If you’re paying this amount of money, I would think the water could at least be free. It was a lot better than last time, when it had been affected by strong winds, which wasn’t their fault. I think this is the sort of experience that I’d do maybe every few cruises, but not every time, as there’s no way we could afford it every time.



Remy

Appetiser 1 9 9½
Appetiser 2 9½ 10
Appetiser 3 9 9
Entrée 8½ 9½
Cheese 9 N/A
Dessert 10 10
Service 9½ 10
Atmosphere 9½ 9½

Average score: 9.43

Look what was waiting for us when we got back to the room!



We were too tired to stay up for the Pirates fireworks, much as we liked the idea of them. We heard them all explode, but we’d heard they would be on the other side of the ship, so it wasn’t even as if we could just go out on to our balcony to watch them. Oh well… maybe next time… I think we say that on every cruise.

The weather today was hot and sunny with temperatures in the mid 90s.
The best thing today was dinner at Remy.
The worst thing today was not being able to stay longer on Castaway Cay, as it was just too darned hot.
Today we tried seeing Finding Dory
And the result was it was good fun and very well done, but the ending was a bit long.
The most magical moment today was just sitting in the Rainforest and enjoying the peace.

Next: this is very weird…

[lindawdw]

Your dinner at Remy looked like a wonderful experience from start to finish (with the exception of being charged for the water). I loved the picture of Mark with the rose in his mouth.

[Colexis Mom]

Glad you enjoyed a fantastic meal at Remy's!

[disney_duke]

So glad you get to enjoy experiences like this - and them share them with us! It all looks so very delicious..... and I totally understand that you couldn't wait for Mark to receive his dessert before you tackled yours!

[cubfancolleen]

Ugh, shaking my head over the comment about only knowing cheese is on pizza. Americans, I'm betting?

[chezp]

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

Ugh, shaking my head over the comment about only knowing cheese is on pizza. Americans, I'm betting?

You got it!

[SuperDave]

That's funny you mention Granada as I was there in 199 and got to visit the Alahambra as well and immensely enjoyed it!

Your meal looked amazing at Remy and you certainly can't go wrong when two chefs at the top of their game are involved and have enjoyed Scott Hunnel's creations at Victoria & Albert's on many occasions! Your halibut looks very similar to that I had at V&A's a few years ago but without the tomato sauce as it was ash crusted and had amazing flavor. Everything just looks so good and hope to dine hear one day on the Dream or Fantasy!

That was funny with the other couple and cheese as they are quite oblivious, when it comes to cheese! Actually, things have changed in the USA regarding cheese over the last several years and you can get really good quality cheeses from a variety of sources including those from California, NY and much of New England. I think many of them are up there with some of the best French cheeses! Some of them I've had off of Victoria & Albert's cheese trolley, so that's a good sign!

[Cam22]

The meals at Remy looked divine and sounded scrumptious. But I'm still in shock over charging for water. Not nice! : You all have had absolutely the cutest towel critters.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by SuperDave

That's funny you mention Granada as I was there in 199 and got to visit the Alahambra as well and immensely enjoyed it!

Isn't it amazing?

Your meal looked amazing at Remy and you certainly can't go wrong when two chefs at the top of their game are involved and have enjoyed Scott Hunnel's creations at Victoria & Albert's on many occasions!

No, you are so right, with that calibre of chef, you certainly can't.

Your halibut looks very similar to that I had at V&A's a few years ago but without the tomato sauce as it was ash crusted and had amazing flavor. Everything just looks so good and hope to dine hear one day on the Dream or Fantasy!

Oh you will absolutely love it there!

That was funny with the other couple and cheese as they are quite oblivious, when it comes to cheese! Actually, things have changed in the USA regarding cheese over the last several years and you can get really good quality cheeses from a variety of sources including those from California, NY and much of New England. I think many of them are up there with some of the best French cheeses! Some of them I've had off of Victoria & Albert's cheese trolley, so that's a good sign!

I remember going back about 10 or 12 years now, Tara took us to the farmers' market (I think it was) in the centre of Philadelphia and she was so proudly showing us all the different cheeses you could get there. She was so disappointed when we told her we could get all of them at the local supermarket. However, we've now noticed whenever we visit supermarkets in the States that they do now seem to have a wider range of cheeses.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Cam22

The meals at Remy looked divine and sounded scrumptious. But I'm still in shock over charging for water. Not nice! : You all have had absolutely the cutest towel critters.

They were some of the best we've ever had on a cruise.

[chezp]

Thursday 29 September – part one: this is very weird…

I woke up just before 8:00am, and suggested we get going, so we could visit the Rainforest before the captain’s reception, and then Palo brunch. We didn’t do badly, and we were there 20 minutes later. It wasn’t too busy when we arrived. I think there were maybe three other couples there. I could imagine that later on in the day, it would be complete chaos.

Once again, we followed our previous routine of getting our scrubs out, having a shower, then going into the hamam to put the scrubs on, heading into the caldarium (both were cooler than the day before), before washing the scrubs off. This time, I was planning on washing my hair, so it made playing in the showers a lot easier than when you’re trying to keep your hair dry.

From there, we headed into the hot tub, but we only lasted about five minutes in there, as it was scorching hot. We then settled down on the hot stone chairs, and thankfully today we had no snoring, we just had other people also sitting there, reading, just like we were.

Eventually, I headed out to shower and to wash my hair. I do much prefer the showers here, as they are so much bigger than the room, and it really allows you to lay everything out, which is a very pleasant change from the room. One thing did make me laugh. As I was leaving, two women got into two of the showers. One said “did you get a towel?” and the other said I’m sorry – you get into a shower, and didn’t think to pick up a towel…

We headed back to the room, as we needed to change for our Palo brunch, which we’d be heading straight up to following the captain’s reception. We met the same girl who’d headed up our lifeboat drill, so we chatted to her when we arrived, and she got some photos of us as well.



Mark wanted to get there early to get a seat, but honestly, we needn’t have bothered. When we got in there, there was a total of four other people. We assumed more and more people would arrive as we headed towards 10:00am, but there was no massive influx. This was very weird.



Anyway, let’s have some food, as we hadn’t had any so far today, and we were hungry. Look at the selection they had for us! This is one of the reasons we come…



… oh and this of course… free champagne!



Captain Mickey arrived, so we got our photos taken with him…



We did ask him who was driving the ship if he was here, and we were a bit concerned that it might be Goofy or Donald. Can you imagine?

We chatted to Phil, who was responsible for the shops and things like the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, and it was interesting to speak to him. His career on the ocean has totalled 45 years. He genuinely did not look old enough!

Still, there were very few people. In fact, we counted a total of 12 people. Where was everyone? Were there very few gold and platinum members on board? We summonsed over an officer to ask him. He said they’d just been discussing this, and apparently they sent out invites to 200 people, although the couple sitting next to us said they had nothing in our room, so maybe there was a bit of a disconnect there. The last two cruises they’d had similar numbers of Castaway Club members on board who qualified for this, and apparently both were rammed with people, so goodness knows what was going on today.

Anyway, it worked for us, as it made it a very nice experience, but I just hope Disney don’t take this as a sign that people aren’t interested in these receptions, because we certainly are. Look at poor old Mickey – he really didn’t know what to do with himself…

We had Jimmy, our Cruise Director, start off, and he told us a bit more about himself. He started out with Disney in the beginning, but apparently left in 2004, when he got married. Reading between the lines from what he said, I think he then cruised with someone else that specialised in Australia, as that’s where his family live, and New Zealand, before he came back to Disney as a Cruise Director in 2011. Well that would explain why we haven’t come across him before, given he’s had such a long period of time away from Disney…



Next up was Captain Thord, who again apparently has been with Disney since the beginning. We were surprised, as we’ve never encountered him in any of our cruises to date. He spoke about the importance of guests ensuring they give their views, as that’s how the Castaway Club started. Apparently in the beginning, Disney had nothing like this, as they couldn’t see the value of it, but so many people requested it that they felt they had to do something. I’m glad they did.



Then we had the video message from Karl Holz, which is the same one we’d seen 18 months earlier. However, it has been changed a bit to reflect the changes the Wonder is currently going through in Cadiz, Spain. I had no clue that the Wonder had gone through for its dry dock. I somehow stupidly assumed it would be in the States somewhere, but apparently not. I’ll be intrigued to see what it’s like, although I can’t see us cruising on it for at least another couple of years.

Now we did have some fun and games with Karl’s video. It started up once, with no visuals. Hmmm… we were all sitting there, thinking “what the…?” and Jimmy had to intervene. Then they tried again, and the same thing again happened, so Jimmy had to improvise. At least he was earning his money this morning! Then finally the whole thing came together, and we had Karl in all his glory…

Next: we won’t go hungry here!

[chezp]

Just to let you know that there won't now be any further updates until Easter Monday, as we're away for the next couple of days....