Thursday - Day Two – at Sea

Our first day on the ship was at Sea. Time to relax, enjoy the ship, see Mickey, etc. For us it was “Palo plus” day. Weeks before boarding we were able to book Palo brunch for our 4 adults and also a high tea for Ann and Nan in the afternoon. So, we dropped Jamie at the Oceaneer Club and headed to champagne brunch. The food and service were great as always. Our waitress, Zita from Hungary was the same server that we had on the previous cruise and we all recognized each other. For Ann, the best food was the king crab legs with a brandy sauce (like a creamy, smooth thousand island) and the Tilapia (fish). Ann of course ordered more courses and food than anyone, took several bites of each then gave the rest to Jim to finish. Dad and Nan had eaten at Palo on the first night so they knew ALL the servers and were very popular!

High tea wasn’t really what Ann expected. For some reason, I thought it would be some sort of structured event, in reality, it was just like a restaurant meal, only the drink was tea and the food courses were little canapés and pastries.

Jim and Jamie spent the afternoon poolside. Then tonight was Formal Night for dinner. Yesterday, Jamie got to show off her Belle Princess dress and today she was Sleeping Beauty (Aurora). My favorite is Belle, though - with her hair up in the half-up half-down bun and the fancy yellow dress, she looks just like Belle (just a mother’s “objective” opinion?!?).

A side note about drinks – they make a heck of a Patron Anejo margarita at Signals (the adult bar at the pool). We also ordered the premium wine package, but we never order anything off of the wine menu, instead we get the credit/discount and just order what we want (like Mumm’s champagne and the Chateauneuf-de-Pape Chablis) from the regular wine menu.

For the evening show, on this sea night, we saw the Golden Mickeys – it has changed since our previous cruise, with some acrobatics and new musical numbers. Then we saw Mike Super in the Rockin-D Bar (adults only). He did a show similar to the one we saw on the Panama Cruise. Ann was ready with the video, but we still were amazed by the illusions! This time, we were on the front row and Jim volunteered his wedding ring for the trick with the brandy snifter – Mike took three rings from the audience and linked them altogether in a chain, then de-linked them and the original rings were returned to their owners. Of course, Mike played up to the camera that I had – he is a good comedian as well as magician. The best trick was one we also remember, where he takes a bev-nap and makes it into a flower and levitates it!!! I have it on film but still can’t figure it out!!! Mike says he will have a show on US television in the fall so watch out for him – what a good entertainer!!!

** Note after our return ** I’ve read some other blogs from cruisers on the July 18th cruise. Many of them kept track of each of the meals, what was on the menu, which shows were which nights, etc. Wow! To me, one of the great features of a Disney cruise is the quality and availability of good food, and the Broadway type shows each evening. So, unless it was something so exceptional, I probably won’t write about it here in this blog. Overall, my rating of the food for this cruise was somewhat lower than what I remember from the Panama cruise, but still very, very good. The menus contained a number of destination specific items – local “specialties” from the ports we visited.