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- Sep 8Day 5 - Wednesday, Sept 4, Falmouth, Jamaica. We still have our clocks ahead 1 hour, so we were up early today. They docked in Jamaica at 7:30 AM, so breakfast was ready early also. We headed up for breakfast around 7 and each of us got what we like and sat and people watched while drinking our coffee.
After breakfast, Loretta decided to head back to the state room for some rest, all 3 of us are feeling under the weather. Deb and I decided to walk over to the shops at the port. It is a small shopping area, but more than enough to keep us entertained. We did walk to the back of the boat so we could see which character was on it. The guard, for lack of another word, informed us that we could not go down to that part of the peer. We explained that we just wanted a picture of the character and she walked us down and let us take a picture. Since the ship is so cold and it was so warm and humid outside, it took a little while for my lens to adapt. But, I was able to take a picture, hopefully, it will turn out. I have not looked at any pictures yet, since I won't be able to post this till we are back in town.
After our trip to the port, we headed back to the room and Loretta was still laying down. She said she felt better, but I was starting to sneeze and get a runny nose :-(. Deb and Loretta went back out to the peer and I tried to rest in the room. I did find some cold meds that I had packed in my suitcase and I took one of them. It seemed to help. At lunch, we opted to go to the buffet, it was easier and I did not feel like sitting through a sit down lunch, when my nose was running.
After lunch, I went back to the room and took another cold pill. It helped, but I was still watering from my eyes and nose. Tonight is Pirates night, but we have dinner reservations at Palo, the expensive Italian restaurant on-board.
We also have a cocktail hour with DVC in the Tube before dinner. We headed down there at 5 PM and they asked if anyone wanted to share a DVC experience with the rest of the DVC members to either get a DVC Pin or DVC bag. I shared our story of our first trip on DVC, when we had a grand villa and Steven thought we were staying in a castle! DVC was so worth the expense! Oh, I forgot to mention, before we headed to the DVC party, we were told that we will not be able to stop at Castaway Cay...shocking, I know! But, the hurricane was over the Bahamas for 3 days, I would have been more shocked if it was still in great shape for us to go there. They do plan to stop and drop off supplies at 2 of the Bahamas Islands.
After this, we went back to the room and I got my camera and then we headed up to Palo. Palo was OK, it was not great, but it was good. I would not pay the extra to do it again. We remember it being much better on the Disney Magic, but that was over 8 years ago, so maybe time makes everything better. Our service was great and our waiter brought us a shot at the end of our meal to celebrate all 3 of our birthdays. Then our server informed us that the $40 covers the cost of the meal. Not sure what that meant, but to me, it sounded like he was expecting more tip. I could be wrong, but I know that the tip is included in the cost of the meal. And, if we felt like it, we could add more tip. There is a spot on the bill that says "Additional Tip". I have had so many better meals that I have paid less than $40 for... Oh well, live and learn. Guess our meals in our dining room were so great that Palo did not shine for us this trip :-(.
After dinner, we headed back to the room and I decided just to stay in for the night and get rested up. Deb went to the show, which is a comedian/ventriloquist (spelling). She said it was OK, but not as good as the magician was.
Day 6, Thursday, Sept 5, At Sea. In Disney's ultimate wisdom, they decided not to turn the clocks ahead last night :-(. They decided that everyone would want to enjoy Pirate night for an extra hour. So, we are still on Central time, even though we were suppose to be on Eastern time today. But, since they canceled the Castaway Cay stop, I guess they are taking their time to get to the Bahamas to drop off supplies.
We were all up early today, before 6 AM, but we have to wait till 7:30 AM to get the breakfast, they do have continental breakfast at 7 AM. We were disappointed to find that the coffee machines at the breakfast area do not work till 7:30 AM... We had to walk out to the pool area to get coffee and it was hot and humid there. My glasses fog up every time I step outside. We did get our coffee at the pool and headed over to the buffet area to relax till 7:30.
They opened the breakfast area a little before 7:30 AM and I got the eggs benedict again. Loretta joined us a little after 7:30 AM. She likes that they have Coke Zero at one of the pop stations. It is nice that they have soft drinks available during breakfast, lunch and at dinner. I started drinking cranberry juice, hoping to help battle this cold with some natural antibiotics.
After breakfast we took a walk to guest services and paid off the tips that were on our bill. Deb and Loretta paid for my tips since I used my points to book this cruise. I was still no feeling that great so I sat in the large chair next to guest services while they paid the bill. We then headed back to the room and I took a much needed nap. Deb went out to the pool area to maintain the tan she has. She only stays out for 1 hour and it is enough.She was back in the room before lunch. We decided to go to the sit down lunch at the Royal Court at noon. We were hoping to get done with lunch before 12:45 PM, since Toy Story 4 was playing at the theater. It took 50 minutes for lunch, so we were a little late for movie, but we still decided to go. Of course, you have the option to buy popcorn for $3.50 a box or $7.50 for a plastic bucket that has free refills. I don't see me ever paying for popcorn on a cruise ship, but there were many people doing it. We found a seat, but the theater was packed! We enjoyed the movie, even though we missed the first 10 minutes. It was cute.
After this we headed back to the state room for some relaxing before dinner.
At 5:45 PM we headed down to Animator's Palette. This is the first time we encountered a line for dinner and the doors were not opened. But, after a few minutes they opened and we all made our way to our table. On our table they had a stick man (for lack of a better name for it) for us to draw, we had to draw between the blue lines and they had us put our names on them and give them back. They had something special planned for us later.
Dinner was good and before dessert they showed all of the drawings that everyone made and they animated it. Very cute! They brought our drawings back to the table and left without taking them. Our server came rushing after us and meet us at the elevators with our drawings.....OK....
We decided to head to the show tonight to see the Lion King movie (2019 version). It was the main show for tonight. Deb and Loretta stayed for half of the movie then headed back to the room. I stayed for the entire movie. Another good movie, it is a lot like the original. After this, I headed back to the room and was in for the night.
Day 7, Friday, Sept 6, at Sea. Oh, forgot to mention that they decided that we will stop at Nassau and give us a few hours there since we did not get to go to Castaway Cay. But, we will also stop at Castaway Cay and drop of supplies there, since they have not had any for a while.
We were up early again today, but no breakfast till 8 AM. Guess, since we turned the clocks to Easter time, they figured we would not be hungry till then, and that is probably true, but, it is nicer when we have more time between meals. Oh well, got to go with the flow. We headed up to Cabanas at 7:30 AM and got our coffee and waited till 8 for the serving areas to open. Loretta came and joined us at 8. This morning, the breakfast area was the most crowded I have seen it all week first thing in the morning.
Breakfast this morning was ok, the english muffins on the eggs benedict sat for so long that they were really hard on the bottom and the egg yolk was pretty much cooked :-(. I only got one and decided to try their version of a egg cheese sausage sandwich. It was good. After breakfast Deb and Loretta decided to head off shore and go shopping in Nassau, I decided to use this time to have the room all to myself. I took my time taking a shower and packed up most of my clothes so I was ready for putting my luggage out tonight.
At 10:30, Deb and Loretta were back and they got some nice stainless steel bracelets. At 11, Deb and I headed over to the Buena Vista Theater to watch Avengers End Game. It is 3 hour move and we had told Loretta that we would meet her at the lunch area at 11:45, so we saw 45 minutes of the movie then headed to lunch. We had a quick lunch then headed back to the theater to see the rest of the movie. We missed a good half hour of it. But, still enjoyed the movie.
When we got back to the room we decided to watch the Avengers Infinity Wars (since we had not seen it before). It was also a good movie and long! After the movie we got ready for dinner and headed down to Enchanted Garden. Since we have dinner here tonight, we will have breakfast in Enchanted Garden tomorrow morning.
Dinner was good and they did the same color changes and opening of the flower lights as they did the first time we ate here, so nothing was different except the food. We gave our gratuity envelopes to the Server, Assistant Server, and Head Server. They all did a great job and dinner was most enjoyable, enough so that we wished we would have skipped Palos and just did a regular dinner that night. Oh well.
We were told that breakfast will be at 7 AM tomorrow. A little disappointing, but we think that is because we left Castaway Cay later than we would if we had went there. We were suppose to have breakfast at 6:45 AM. Not a big deal. We headed back to the room after dinner and packed up everything that was going outside of our door tonight. Then we headed over to the Walt Disney Theater for Disney's Believe. Loretta was not feeling well, so she stayed in the room and rested.
The show was good, lots of kids that sing along and just love the show! I remember the first time we cruised with Disney and they had the shows and I thought they were outstanding. Don't get me wrong, the shows are really good, I just didn't feel they were are magical as they were back then. Could be because I'm older and I do not have a young child with me.
After the show we headed back to the state room and we are in for the night.
Day 8, Saturday, Sept 7 - Off the boat. We were up at 6 AM and got everything together and headed down to Enchanted Garden for breakfast at 7 AM. Looks like they opened a little earlier than they 7, so there was no line. We left our carry-on(s) outside of the restaurant. Breakfast was so so. Limited choices, but we expected this. We had our coffee and a quick breakfast then headed up to 3 to get of the ship. We were very disappointed to see a couple of lines that we had to get into for leaving....and no line was moving. We thought we were cleared, but they said that custom had halted everything and we waited for a good 1/2 hour. Once the lines started moving we got off the ship quickly. We had the van packed and started our road trip home at 8:40 AM. We were back home a little after 1 AM. This was our easiest ride home since driving. We have very little back up in Charlotte and no accidents on our side of the highway. We did pass a 3 or 4 car accident on the south bound lanes and traffic was very backed up on I-26.
All in all, this was a great trip, although we enjoyed being on a Disney ship again, we were disappointed in a number of things. No split beds. Apparently, this does not stop others from booking with Disney, but when you are traveling with your sisters....it is nice that everyone can have their own bed. Also, the sofa/bed on the Fantasy is a foam mattress that is half as thick as a regular mattress. Why did Disney change this? Back on the Wonder and Magic the couch folded down with a regular mattress and the bed was longer and comfortable. My sister Loretta had the fold down sofa and it was shorter and not comfortable at all. There is no way I would subject a third person to that sofa/bed again. It would be fine for a kid or teenage, not for a tall teenager though.
Food was exceptional for dinner! Lunch options were just like any cruise line, although, I find the pizza and hamburgers better on Carnival. Their pizzas were good, but the crust was just ok, it was thick and looked pre-made, I like the think crust better. And, it is hard to beat Guy's burgers...
The split baths are great, but I like the small shower stall better than the tub. Tubs are nice for the kids to take that bath, but not so great for older people to climb over... guess I'm spoiled having my walk in shower at home. At least they did have a grab bar to help getting in an out of the shower.
I have no plans to do a Disney cruise in the future. But, I still own DVC and can swap my points for cruising, so who knows. It is hard to justify the cost of a Disney cruise when you compare it with other cruises. And, there are lots more kids, but that is to be expected. There were many little princesses aboard our ship :-).
Thanks for reading....
Once I upload some pictures, I will share them, I really did not take that many :-)....
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