DAY 13
This was our final day at sea, but of course that did not mean we were without things to do! I posted to the blog. Resolving my wireless usage was much more trouble than it should have been. The first rep told me that had to investigate, and then left me a message that everything looked fine! Well, of course it showed I used all my time - that’s the point!
Twice I could not log out. With their wireless you get a pop up window with a butdidn’t even get this window). I clicked it and got “page could not be found.” As a backup, you are supposed to go to 1.1.1.1/logout. Guess what? That took me to an ever-reloading blank page!
I did finally get a manager at guest services and later the Intenet manager to OK crediting me up to the time I had purchased (I was shorted 45 minutes). The access was sometimes slow and spotty. There was a link for printing services, but this too took me to Internet Neverland. Skype was blocked completely.
Took the kids to the clubs and later after a relaxing morning, met up with J4* at the Spa for our sole treatment - the “Exotic Rasul” (the treatment formerly known as the Surial Bath). Little had changed in 5 years - there is now one mud and one sea salt scrub instead of the 3 muds they had in ‘01. Still fun.
Oddly, although I made reservations online for Thursday at 2PM, the spa had us in their system for Friday at 4:30! Fortunately, this was no problem, just odd.
After that we got ready for dinner at Palo. The lovely Zita from Hungary was again our server as she had been at lunch. Being lobster night, we were offered lobster tail here as well, and even a side dish of pasta to taste. J4* had the chocolate souflee for dessert - don’t mess with it until they pour the sauce! Learned that on the last cruise! They hate when you do that!
Poor kids - stuck in the kids club with hot dogs & mac & cheese. They’ll survive!
We had some wine left from dinner the night before - took the sommelier a bit to find it, but she did in a few minutes.
After dinner, we got the kids and went to see Disney Dreams. In 2001 I thought this was fantastic, but now I personally found it the weakest of the three musical shows. Not to say it’s bad, but it has stronger competition.
Before the show, some tween boys were already lined up for the big 12:01 AM Prem-EAR of ”Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”
After the show, the girls (including J4*) headed back to the room. I got ready to wait for the film, taking my pin trading bag to keep my busy. The crowd was small at first, but progresively grew. I was waiting near a great group of 20-something couples who all shared the same dinner table (our table was just the 4 of us). One was in the mirror image of our room, 5524.
The center section of the theatre filled immediately when they let us in a bit after 10. Surprisingly, there were a lot of seats on the sides until near midnight, but every single seat filled by the time the film started. I amazingly sat next to a couple that live not 10 miles from my house!
The film was a lot of fun. My mini review:
PotC 2 is not nearly as cohesive and driving as the first, but does engage with perfect visual effects and much (if cartoonish) action. It is long at over two and a half hours, but it seems that some of that length is the introduction of elements that will only come to fruition in PotC 3. The plot seems a bit overly complex at times, and actions not always consistent with character (or logic). Still, it does carry you along reasonably well. It seems they wrote more than one film and less than two for the end of this trilogy, and what we have now is the leftovers that won’t fit into 3 with some padding to give it ballast. The scene after the credits is cute, but not as worth the wait as the first film, and a bit anti-climatic after the ending (which did indeed get the theatre roraing with applause). When the credits start, go to the bathroom - you’ll be in time for the joke scene afterwards, most likely.
After that, I was wide awake, so went about the ship for a bit and then back to the room.
DAY 14 - Castaway Cay
Woke after a few hours of sleep. The kids wanted to see Pirates, but knew they wouldn’t make it at midnight, so we went to the 9AM showing after a quick breakfast. Much more sedate crowd at this hour! The kids did indeed like it - we stayed for the final scene (I actually ducked out early the night, well really a few hours before).
Then off to Castaway Cay. Only thing on the agenda was the stingray activity at 3 PM. The weather was perfect. The first sire we saw was the Flying Dutchman from the film. It did look cool. Later I could see the back (like any movie piece) was unfinished.
I forgot my photo ID leaving the boat (yes, it is another country!), so had to run back to the room- and I do mean run! They were doing a generator test, so the lifts were all out of service!
I finally got off the boat, mailed some postcards for that special Castaway Cay postmark, took some pictures of the Dutchman, and met the family for lunch.
The kids were at each other again (glad to see many other siblings doing the same all vacation! At least we wre not suffering alone!)
Lunch was good. Hamburgers, hot dogs, ribs and salmon burgers.
After lunch we swam for quite a bit. We brought the noodles I bought along (but forgot the cheap inflatables we bought). Later in the day, we found a few abandoned inner tubes and mats. J7 loved the tiny shells in every handful of sand.
At 3 we headed to the teen beach for the stingray encounter. First, a Living Seas Cast Member (secunded to Castaway Cay to live for a year) explained features of rays. Then into the water. This is much more organized than Stingray City. The rays are much smaller, and all have their barbs trimmed. The are trained to enter a floating horseshoe shaped table and hover over a Mickey-shaped target for food. J11 still wanted nothing to do weith these animals, so retreated to the shore. J7 on the other hand loved it. She was the first to volunteer to feed the ray.
After the feeding, there was freetime to snorkel or juyst wade with the rays. The snorkelling was uneventful, as the waters are cloudy with kicked up sand and lack the startling clarity of the Caymans. Also, aside from the passing ray, there is not much to see.
We returned to the ship. We found we were very lucky with the weather, as it poured all day at Castway Cay the day before.
Before dinner, J7 went back to the club and I joined J11 to see the end of “Cars.” The theatre we saw it in before in Chicago turned off the sound during the credits, so the funny scenes at the end were all silent. Glad I saw them - they were pretty funny!
We ate at Parrot Cay again and delivered out tip envelopes.
After dinner, I packed and the women went to the final show.
We got all the luggage not needed for tomorrow out before the deadline of 11PM and went to bed.
DAY 15 - Homeward Bound
The girls got up too late for breakfast at Parrot Cay (they also slept through the character meal the day before - no big loss there!). We ate instead at Topsiders, whose “continental buffet,” I happily found had many hot items as well.
We got in line for the exit (the boat was not cleared until almost 8:00), and proceeded off the ship. I suggested hanging out in Preludes until the line died down (we had a late flight), but J7 wanted to stay in that line!
We got a porter and he very effeciaently helped us with our luggage. Really did a great job. We were off on the Disney bus to the airport (both Jackie and I seperately thought we could just hop over to MK, but that would have been an expensive little few hours!).
I had checked in on the boat for Southwest, and again got mixed groups - adults in A, kids in B this time! It must have something to do with doing a few in a row like that - not way I could have both times signed on just at the end of A! As the printing didn’t work, I had to reprint them at the Southwest kiosk at the airport - no big deal. We waited until we could check luggage (4 hours ahead of the flight). Wosrt part about MCO is you still have to carry your luggage from the checkin counter to the x-ray machines yourself. Most airports seem to have adapted to the post-9/11 machies, but not MCO.
We had lunch (hhhmm, Arthur Treacher’s is still alive somewhere - under the Nathan’s banner, so must be in the east. Loved their fish and chips as a kid). Did a little last minute shopping.
Had an euneventful flight home and were picked up by my dad. My mom prepared a meal of dungeness crab and ribs. No meatballs.
A great trip overall.