Friday - Day Three – Palermo

This morning, we hit the workout room at the Vista Spa. They’ve expanded the workout area to the front windows overlooking the bridge and added a lot of work-out machines (treadmills, elliptical trainers, etc.). We used our workout routine that we got from our trainers at home, so we felt pretty proud of ourselves for actually using the workout clothes we packed. (and now, updating/writing this post-cruise, I’m a bit embarrassed to say that this was the only time we did a work-out, we were soooo hot and tired after the heat and walking on most excursions that all we wanted to do was sit in the pool afterwards!!)

Altogether with our three generations, we did the Palermo for Kids excursion. Started off on the bus with a mini-city tour and finally arrived at the area where we would see the Sicilian palace. Very disappointing site after visiting the Palacio Real in Madrid. It was not very well decorated or preserved, all the windows were open and it was hot inside. The palace seemed very small, with only about 5 different rooms open to the public. One room was set up with tables for the children to do crafts. Then, they served us all gelato and finally we walked to the small “theatre” next door and saw a puppet show. Candidly, this excursion was not so great. The puppet show in Italian was funny when the puppets started sword fighting – the music would get going and the swords would be clanking and the puppets bounced up and down then all of sudden, one of the puppets would swack at the other a little harder than before and WHAM, the losing puppet would fly off to the back of the stage and land in a heap, dead. It got lots of laughs the first 3 or 4 times, but on the 14th or 15th fight, it was a bit repetitive. For the parents it was interesting because of the political undertones - this show would be banned in the US because the knights kept killing everyone, plus the theme appeared to be the Christians vs. Muslims where the Christians always won. So, if you are going on this cruise later, I think your time will be better spent on a different tour.

So, comments on dinners on the ship… Service is good as always. We are sitting with a nice family from northern California (near Napa and Sacramento). The servers are being flexible with arrival times and clothing because of the long shore excursions. Our servers are Fernando and Beethoven, and the maître de is Stepane from Marseille. From reading the Disney Boards, we know that we can ask for special food, especially if it is cuisine that is native to the chefs on board. We ordered Indian food for a future meal based on the recommendations from previous cruisers.

Tonight, Mike Super was on the big stage at the Walt Disney Theatre. Ann talked with the theatre managers before the show to try to have our tablemate Irene selected from the audience to be levitated on stage, but Mike chose someone else. Irene saw Mike on the ship one of the following days and chatted with him - he said he didn’t select her because she had a dress on and he didn’t want her “flashing” on the stage. Instead, we got a special treat when Mike selected Jim to go onstage for the Voodoo doll routine. Jim sat down on a chair on stage. Mike had a voodoo doll and asked Jim very seriously, “do you believe in voodoo” and Jim of course replies “no.” So Mike proceeds to poke pins in the voodoo doll’s shoulders (Jim said he felt something, not sure what), burn its hands and then ultimately poke the doll in the bum. For the burning of the hands, Jim had to put his hands straight out in front of his body and when Mike asked, did you feel it burning? Jim replied no, and then Mike said, then why are there black marks on your palms? Sure enough, when Jim opened up his fists, there were black “charcoal” markings on his palms! Mike asks again “do you believe” and Jim says “no…” So for the finale, Mike pokes the voodoo doll in the bum and Jim nearly jumps off the stage because he got shocked in the bum by the chair! Ouch! It got some laughs and Jim’s a believer in something, we’re not sure what?!?