Monday, January 21, 2013

Dreaming about the next one

So on the last sea day while we were waiting on some event to start, Ian mentions how much he loved this cruise and we should look at what the pricing would be on a different sailing for next year.

On the way back to the room we stop by the future cruise sales desk and pick up a brochure and see they will be back at their desk in about 15 minutes and there was line already forming.

We look through the brochure and see they have a 4 night sailing that leaves out of Port Canaveral on our wedding anniversary of Jan 5th, 2014. We decide that we would just get the pricing on an interior room as we were out of our room and hardly used the balcony on this one. We didn't want to pay the extra for it if we weren't going to use it.

When they told us it was only 1200 including the taxes, etc we were like yes please. So this trip will head out of Port Canaveral on that Sunday, we will be at Nassau the next day, have a full day at their private island of Castaway Cay and then a sea day and back at Port Canaveral.

We will likely fly in the day before the cruise and stay on property to get the free transportation. We might fly in two days ahead so we can have a day at the parks and see the Christmas stuff still.

Then once the cruise gets back we will go back to the resorts and stay for at least 4-5 days for the parks. That is the tentative plan at least. We will concentrate on paying off the cruise and wait until the discounts come out in August/Sept for Jan trips and then plan our time at the parks then.

I will keep everyone updated for those that might be interested in joining. Otherwise we will probably go by ourselves and still have a blast. =)

Hope everyone else is doing ok.

~Hugs

Our last sea day contd

Our final dinner was sad as we had truly enjoyed meeting our dining companions. I was a little nervous about this because you just never know who or what you will be sat with but we had three really nice couples.

We had two amazing servers. Dharma was the asst server and Mario was our server. Then we had Luis for the Head Server. They all went above and beyond our expectations.

Here is a picture of us with Dharma and Mario.


The final menu art which I loved.


Our last adult activity was POP trivia and then some dancing.

Teesa was amazing and she hosted most of the fun activities for the cruise.





our last sea day

Today was going to be our last day at sea. We had our character breakfast set for today. We only had one of the 3 other couples join us for it so it was nice to get time with them to learn more about them.

The breakfast was a ton of fun and we got pictures with all the characters pretty quickly.

First up is Minnie Mouse. Ian told her she needed to make sure that Mickey gave her a ring.


Pluto


Chip


our waitstaff had fun with us and gave us silly hats. I got a minnie bow.


Ian got dumbo ears


Mickey!!!


Goofy


Thursday - Cozumel

When I last left you we got off the ship to go explore Cozumel at night. The next day we were in Cozumel still until 3:45 PM. So you literally did not have to be on the ship from 8 PM Wed until 3:45 on Thursday. You could literally spend that time off the ship. That was crazy to us.

That morning we got up and went to breakfast. Then went back to the room to change into our swim suits and went to the quiet cove pool area for adults. We found two chaise loungers and went into the pool. Then we got into the hot tub and then laid out until we were just about dry. I read while Ian napped. Then we got back into the pool again as we were quite warm.

There was one family that thought they were above the rules and had their kid in the adult only area. I went into the coffee shop to report them and see if there were any good magazines to look through. Ian got us two blue margaritas as they were the drink of the days. They asked the family to leave the adult only area so thank god for that because their little girl was quite vocal and was interrupting my quiet time. LOL...

Around 1PM we decided to head back to the room and get our showers. Then we took a nap as we had dinner set for Palo tonight. This is the adult only dining that you have to pay an extra charge for. But man was it worth it. We had Alvin for our server and he was outstanding. The food was amazing.

After dinner tonight we went back to the room and just relaxed. We sat on the balcony and just chatted about the cruise so far. I also decided to get us packed up except for the items we would need for tomorrow and the day of debarkation. That allowed us to truly enjoy the last day at sea on the ship.

Costa Maya.....or would we make it....

So we were supposed to be arriving to Costa Maya on Wed at around noonish. So they had some fun activities going on. We planned on today being just a ship/pool day as we have been to this port several times and there is not much to the port area itself.

One of the fun items was going to be Monsters Inc in 3d in the main theatre so Ian and I went to go see it. It would be over around the time we would be docking and then would go to the room to change for some pool time. While we were waiting for them to open the theatre, the winds were blowing pretty strong and the seas were rocking. Ian and I knew from a previous time that if it's too bad they will shut this port down and not allow boats to dock at their pier. So I had a feeling we might not make it to port today. While in the theater watching the movie I could tell they were making an announcement but they didn't interrupt our movie.

So once the movie finished they came into the theater to let us know that the port was closed down as they were getting 7ft swells over the pier so it was unsafe for us to walk on. So they were busy making quick adjustments to our daily activity schedule and we were making our way to the next port of Cozumel which we were expected to arrive around 7:30 pm. Yes you heard that right. We got an overnight stay which hardly ever happens. We were so stoked as we lucked out on this. Cozumel is one of our favorite ports too.

So when we exited the theater they had a new schedule for us and we noticed they added a mixology seminar which we went and signed up for promptly. They also had a ton of various characters out. One of which was Pinocchio. We also saw Dopey today, tink, peter pan, alice, the white rabbit, capt hook, etc.

Looking down at Pinocchio.


Some of the contents of the mixology class...items to make a mojito. mmmm..


Blue Margarita


They added another bingo round and everyone got a free disney calendar as well.


We did get off the ship to go explore Cozumel at night. We went to Carlos and Charlies at the pier area shops in Downtown Cozumel. We had some yummy mexican and it makes us want to visit the one in Austin now on the lake. No pictures though because we weren't sure how safe it would be in Cozumel at night. We were both a little nervous but it was a lot of fun.

Grand Cayman

We actually didn't take the camera off the ship today because we had no plans like we usually do for Grand Cayman. We literally got off the ship later in the morning around 11 am. We took the tender to town and just walked around. We did shop some and grabbed a bite to eat at Margaritaville as we had never been and had always wanted to try it out.

Ian got me a pair of tanzanite earrings for our anniversary at the Tanzanite international store. We also picked up some rum from the tortuga rum shop as it's some of the best coconut rum I have ever had. So cheap too. We got two bottles for 24 bucks. Man do I love Grand Cayman. We will likely learn how to dive before we make it back so we can scuba next time we take a cruise here.

This is the night of the Pirates in the Caribbean party as well. We didn't take the camera as we weren't sure how they would come out at night. They had various characters appear and the big finale was fireworks. They are the only cruise line with the permission to shoot them and it was spectacular.

They showed Pirates of the Caribbean movie as well on the big funnel movie screen.

Next up will be Costa Maya or would it.....

Day at Sea on our way to Grand Cayman

Today was another sea day. We were on our way to Grand Cayman and we got to do several fun things today. We did another of the animation classes and a tequila and margarita tasting.

First up: animation class where we learned how to draw Daisy Duck.

Here is the pro picture up on the screen.


Here is Tammy's completed picture. This is actually really good for me as I'm normally a stick figure artist and a bad one at that. They make it really easy with step by step instructions.


Next up is the tequila and margarita tasting. We got to try three different tequilas and two margarita's. The tequilas were a patron silver, patron repesado and a patron coffee tequila. The two margaritas were the typical lime and a mango one.


The nearly empty table now...lol.


We went from the tasting to the 5k jackpot bingo session. We didn't win anything but we had a lot of fun. Here is a picture of the rockin bar d lounge where it took place. This is also where a lot of the adult nightly entertainment events we went to took place.


Our nightly towel animal was a cool rabbit tonight. Tomorrow would be Grand Cayman day.






Key West Cont'd

After finishing off the key lime pie we made our way back on the ship. The nice thing is when waiting in line to get back on the ship they had several stations set up that had ice water/lemonaide and cold towels to cool yourself down. This has never been provided on previous ships and makes us realize why Disney is a step ahead of the others in some areas.

Here is a picture of Mickey in the lobby.


Ian snapped this shot of the bird on the lines tying us to the pier.


He also got this great evening shot as we were heading out of port to our next destination.


This was the night we decided to go catch a movie on the pool deck as they were showing "Enchanted".


Ian enjoying the evening breeze and the movie.


Key West cont'd

They had a lot of neat buildings all around town that we got to see. Here was one of the oldest churches.


The world famous lighthouse.


One of the trolley stops, had this store that was selling the "southern most point" souvenirs and this lovely iguana posing on the roof.


The end of Highway 1.


At the pier they had some great shops and seating. We had to get a piece of the world famous Kermit's frozen and chocolate dipped key lime pie. So while eating and drinking some water we got some pictures of the ship docked.


Aft of the ship.




Key West, Florida

I apologize for the delay in the postings. I came down with the flu and pretty much spent time resting and napping as the cough meds the Dr. prescribed me knocked me out.

I am feeling much better though and luckily Ian didn't come down with it as bad as I was.

Now on to where we left off. We arrived in the beautiful port of Key West, Florida. We decided to do the conch trolley tour and got our tour tickets right away. We lucked out that a trolley had just arrived so we hopped on it and took the 1.5 hour tour of Key West. We got to see a lot of the main sights such as Hemmingway's House, the southernmost point, etc.

Here we are at the port just pulled in. This is looking out from the balcony towards the pier and main street area.


There was a beautiful building that had a mural painted by a local artist named Wyland. You can see his signature in the top left corner of the building.


Here is another side of the building.


Here is a picture of Jimmy Buffett's studio.


Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Happy Anniversary to us!!!

This first sea day also happened to be our first formal night and our 11th wedding anniversary. So we really lucked out to have something to remember our anniversary with.

Here is Ian getting all dressed up for our dinner tonight.


All the characters were out in their formal wear as well tonight. Here is a quick one I snapped as we were walking by to get to dinner of Donald.


We got one together of course but I haven't scanned it in yet. Once I do I will come back and post it here or just give it a new post of it's own. hehe.

Our towel animal of the night was an elephant.


That's all for now. I am going to take a break from posting as I have been messing with this for a while now.

Take care everyone.

~hugs

1st Sea Day and more exploring the ship

So our first sea day we did a lot of various activities. We also took the time to go explore the ship as it was still cloudy and chilly today.

Here we are going down "Beat Street" which is over 18 after 6 pm if I remember right. Before that, they host things like Bingo, and some family activities as well.


At several of the elevator banks they had these cute Mickey hands showing you where the elevator currently was and if it was going up or coming down to your floor.


They had these great display cases outside of the shops on board. Here is Ian in front of a disco themed one. They would change every so often so we had to go by them often.


Today was a chance to get to meet the princess's. They had their banners hanging in the lobby area. As you can see they already had a line forming and this was about 1.5 hours before they would be out.


One of the fun activites they would have going on during sea days was learn to draw "X" character. Today happened to be Goofy, Donald and Mickey. We only made it for the Donald one but did catch the end of Goofy.


Here was Tammy's finished Donald Duck.


Ian's finished Donald Duck.



exploring the lido deck and our first drink of the day

So after the sail away we were really starting to get cold and were a little hungry as we had not eaten anything since around 9 that morning. We decided to head down one deck and explore the pool deck and get a quick snack.

This was a neat splash area for little ones themed around Fantasia.


This was under the mickey hand holding up the slide for kids only. No adults are allowed to go on the slide. So we were a little sad.


A better view of the Mickey slide area.


Here we are waiting for the first show to begin. We sat in the same seats for each and every show.


Before our first dinner we decided to give our stateroom attendant plenty of time to make the room. So we decided to go listen to a father and son duo that played celtic country music. We had to of course have our first drinks of the cruise. We had orange margaritas on the rocks with no salt. This became our go to drink most nights.


Our first towel animals of the cruise ended up being a lobster we believe.