Double Dip with a touch of drama - 11/29/19 from Galveston - COMPLETED

There was no trivia tonight – boo – but we did go down to Crown and Fin so the boys could play backgammon. Belinda managed to squeeze in there for a game which means Paul must have lost! :rotfl2:



Tonight we were in Tiana’s for dinner. It’s not Mum’s favorite restaurant because it is so loud in there in general, and then when the band plays it really is almost impossible to talk to each other. :rockband: I’m really not exactly sure how the food pictures play out tonight. I know I had the grilled swordfish and Mum had the vegetable lasagna but apart from that your guess is as good as mine. :laughing: This is what happens when you don’t take notes and procrastinate on doing your trip report! :blush: First up, mushroom soup – consumer unknown. :rotfl2:



The grilled swordfish was mine and the lasagna was Mum’s, I’m not sure who had the shrimp or the steak, I don’t remember Scott ordering two entrees, so one had to have been Paul’s and I’m guessing it was the steak. Ugg...I'm smacking myself on the forehead right now for not taking notes!!!










Belinda had the turkey and dressing though! Here she is proudly displaying her plate for photo purposes. She's always such a good sport. :lovestruc



We ordered a couple of desserts, which were OK but none of us finished anything. Mum had left the restaurant before dessert and went to sit on a couch that she found between French Quarter Lounge and the back of Triton's. I didn't get a photo, but it was funny to watch the furniture change in the space over the course of the week - it was never the same again, and changed constantly! pixiedust: Back to the dessert pics.





There was a valiant effort tonight to try and stay awake for some adult entertainment and we all went to Azure to watch Majority Rules. We had a good time playing along with that, although Belinda would have won us an extra point had we listened to her Liam Hemsworth answer. :laughing:



We managed to stay for Match Your Mate, which was fun, but these days there are a lot of repeat cruisers and it was pretty apparent that the couple that had been married the longest already knew the questions. :rolleyes2



By the time we got back to the cabin at 11:30 pm, this guy was waiting for us along with the comfy bed. It was quite the late night for everyone - shocker I know!! :crazy:



Coming up: Castaway Cay - Dip Day #1
 
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Ahhh….this is the life…no better way to spend an at sea day for sure.



Until this happens….NOW there is no better way to spend an at sea day! ::yes:: :drinking::laughing:


Right you are. A a glass of bubbly and everything is even "better".

The sunset wasn’t as pretty as others we have seen, but it was worthy of a photo.


I think this is a good photo. I like the grays at the top and bottom and the streak of orange in the middle.

It’s not Mum’s favorite restaurant because it is so loud in there in general, and then when the band plays it really is almost impossible to talk to each other.

I really like the food in Tiana's but it is noisy. I do not like the band though. We used to live in Louisiana and I love the music there but the DCL band does not sound anything like any band I ever heard in LA. They are too bland sounding. I hear though that a new band is coming on???
 
I really like the food in Tiana's but it is noisy. I do not like the band though. We used to live in Louisiana and I love the music there but the DCL band does not sound anything like any band I ever heard in LA. They are too bland sounding. I hear though that a new band is coming on???

The new band were on last week. We've seen several different performers as part of the Crawfish Crooners and the new ones didn't seem much different to us. I'm sure they are bound by DCL performer guidelines. :-) I've got some comments on the band coming up later in the report. :blush:
 


Monday, December 2 – Castaway Cay – Dip Day 1



I woke up around my usual time but Scott was still sound asleep. I really wanted to see what it looked like outside though as the ship had been rocking quite a bit during the night. I tried to shimmy my way through the curtains without showering the entire cabin in sunlight, but I’m sure that I managed to disturb Scott anyway. I’m NOT that graceful, or small, to “slip” through the crack. :rotfl2: The sun was coming up and I could see Castaway Cay in the distance. The seas were rolling quite a bit though.





I popped back and forth a few times and caught a pretty sunrise.



Scott eventually gave in and got up as well. :laughing: I don’t think we’d see the wave action at Castaway Cay this bad and we wondered if they were going to be able to dock. We've been lucky in that we've never missed the island so far, though I've read plenty of reports where it happens. :scared:




Good morning sun! :sunny:

It looked like they were going to give it a good try to get in though, as we were definitely getting nearer.

The rocks at the end of the pier were a good photo opp of the choppiness.

We slowly made our way in, and despite the wind, it was obvious they were going to make it. :banana:

By 7:50 am we were alongside the pier and they were in the process of mooring up.




We decided to order coffee from room service this morning so that we could watch all the goings on from the verandah. Mum joined us out there and we watched as they got everything off-loaded with the usual Disney precision, which is basically akin to a military maneuver.



By now we were all up and chatting on the app ready to get the day started, so we went to Cabanas at about 9:00 am. Darren, the cruise director, made an announcement that they were expecting today to be the best out of the two days in terms of weather, and that today was going to be the best day to get off the ship out of the two. Hmm… :scratchin

More of the usual for me from the buffet – although I obviously decided to go crazy and also get a hash brown! :rotfl2:



We had no real plans for today but came up with a “plan” of going up to check out Serenity Bay first and then just taking it from there. So, no real plan. :laughing: I knew Serenity Bay still wasn’t back to the beach we remembered prior to Hurricane Dorian. It was crazy to see how well the island looked when you think of the decimation we had all seen on its neighbor, Abaco. :sad2::sad: That was horrible to watch wasn't it??

Mum was going to use her scooter for the first time today, but she wasn’t keen on trying to maneuver it in and out of the pretty small lifts on the Wonder. Scott is always up for something that involves driving any type of vehicle and was happy to help her with it. He was busy doing donuts here while we wait for the lift. :car:



Belinda got some photos of us all walking down the pier. :teeth: The scooter was perfect for Mum to be able to enjoy being out and about without getting out of breath. For 91 years old she does great, but she is slowing down just a tad and the scooter solves that issue. :thumbsup2



Taking in the sights. :goodvibes



The tree is a great place for photos and they had a photographer there but this group wanted none of it. :rolleyes:



They’ve changed the decorations around a bit. Here’s a picture from when we were there in December 2017. The ornaments were all about the same size and fairly small.




Switch to this trip and the bottom half of the tree definitely looked out of place with the top to me. I’m not sure if that was by design or if something got damaged and had to be replaced. :confused3



No professional photograph for us, just a random selfie. :laughing:



Hmm….this cover up looked way better in the picture on Amazon than it does on me. :rolleyes::rotfl2:



Part of the decision for today was to walk up to Serenity Bay instead of taking the tram. I don’t think Mum had ever gone up there without, and there is a lot that you miss when you take the tram. Scott snapped some good pics while we walked along. He’s handy to have around. :goodvibes The notice boards for the excursions had just about everything cancelled today.









We told Mum to lead the way otherwise we were always looking back to see if she was there.



Goofy was hanging out by the hobie cat and water bike rentals for photographs. There were no jet skis sitting on the beach like there normally are.



There were several people waiting to have photographs at Mount Rustmore so we passed on stopping.



Aww…cute pic of someone’s kid! :lovestruc



The family beach was looking a little deserted, but I think everyone heads over closer to pelican plunge, and, on the smaller ships there just aren’t as many people.



So this is what happens when you tell Mum to lead the way! :rotfl2:She left us in the dust! :drive: We were cracking up! And her hearing isn't the greatest, so no point in trying to call to her! :laughing:



The Bahamian shops and the hair braiding were all closed. I haven’t kept up with it so I don’t know if that’s just because of the winds today cancelling the boats coming over from Abaco, or if they haven’t been coming over since the hurricane. :confused3 More pictures snapped by our resident photographer along the way.




We got to the bike rentals and couldn’t make our minds up whether to rent bikes or not. But it was a discussion that was being had as we continued to walk passed them, and eventually our feet made the decision for us. :teeth:

Spring A Leak seemed to be fairly busy as we walked by, but I admit I haven't paid it much attention in the past.



Continued in next post.
 
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We got to the runway and began a slow stroll up to Serenity Bay.



A forced photograph along the way, which involved making Mum get off her comfy scooter to get into the picture. :laughing:




We got to Castway Air bar and took a look at the beach. It’s still really narrow with basically one row of chairs.



We plonked ourselves down at a table at Castaway Air Bar and took in the view of the beautiful blue water. :cloud9:



Mum parked her scooter at the end of the bar, there was a perfect little place for it to fit. You can see the towel in the basket to the far right of the bar.



3 Konk Coolers for Paul, Belinda and myself and one Blue Moon for Scott. :thumbsup2 Mum stuck with her bottle of water, she was driving after all. :laughing:



The breakwater (or whatever it’s called) over towards the end of the crew beach had some good wave action and Scott diligently worked on getting some good photographs of itl





Mum stayed at the table while the rest of us went to attempt to walk along the beach. Scott and I didn’t get very far before turning back, but Belinda and Paul kept going. The beach got really narrow where you had to walk in the water to get around the row of chairs as they basically were at the water’s edge. And the water was cold! :scared: Toes in and I was done. :laughing: I had just enough sand on my feet to have to attempt to wash them off before putting my shoes back on. Sometimes I question if I really am as much of a beach lover as I like to think I am! :rotfl2: At 12:30 pm we all were hungry enough to go and eat. We are all fans of the ribs but I also got a piece of mahi mahi as well as potato salad and coleslaw.



And I made sure I left some room for a strawberry and mango ice cream. :teeth: I was forced to start eat it on the way back to the table though because it was melting.



There was a quick stop for a bathroom break as we left the BBQ and by the time I came out the boys were summoning everyone over to sign the disclaimer for bike rentals. The four of us got bikes and Mum was doing the bike path on her scooter. Belinda was the only one that remembered to get photos!



This was mainly because the bikes were pretty hard to steer! :scared: And my seat kept collapsing down to the lowest part. Maybe I should slack off on the ice creams. :laughing: Here is Scott fixing it for about the 5th time.



I’m sure they were waiting for me to fix my bike again but I might point out that Paul had the same problem. :)



This photo makes me laugh because it is so typical of Scott that he is always ahead of the game and off looking in a totally different direction than me. It’s a wonder we ever see the same thing at the same time. :teeth: I was constantly running off the road and into the dirt though so it's a wonder I was actually on the pavement here!



We decided not to go up the lookout tower. Mum wouldn’t be able to make that climb, and, to be honest, none of us wanted to exert that kind of energy. :rotfl2: We rode back down the runway and were very happy to give our bikes back at the bike rental place. Paul summed it up best when he announced that the Disney bikes make your doubt your ability to ever ride a bike! Ha ha. I think none of us Brits are used to the wide handle bars and the way it brakes when you pedal backwards. That’s our story and we’re sticking with it! After dropping off the bikes of death :laughing: we went over to Heads Up Bar to procure another drink.



It was pretty breezy and Scott was busy snapping photographs of the waves crashing over the outer breaker thingy.





We sat for a little while but didn’t stay that long. Pelican Plunge was closed due to the wind and waves and so was the snorkeling lagoon so there wasn’t much to watch. It's a great view of the ship from there though



As we left they were about to start a tasting class at Head’s Up, probably Mojito I’m guessing, but they took up all of the bar. We had to drag Scott away from taking photos!



There were some brave souls in the water...my guess is they were not from Texas. :oops:



We took a look through the gift shops. I found a Castaway Cay ornament that I liked and Scott found a hat. I guess his bald head had had enough of the sun even though he had sunblock on. We were all ready to get back to the ship and so we started the walk back. Another quick pic of Mt. Rustmore along the way.



We look like a real windswept bunch here! Although the worst of the wind was walking back along the pier to get on the ship – it was crazy windy – you really had to fight to walk!



We were back on the ship by 3:30 pm. Scott maneuvered Mum’s scooter through security for her and then promptly ran Paul over in the lift. :rotfl2: Belinda elected to take the stairs rather than run the risk of getting in the lift with us. Paul survived the incident and we were back in the cabins by 3:45 pm. :thumbsup2



They were painting above us and the lift thingy went past while I was out there.



I ordered an All Hands On Deck cheese tray and enjoyed it with a glass of wine while Scott watched a movie. Mum did pretty well with working her way around the new TV system and she was watching a movie as well. They installed a new on-demand system during the dry dock, and it’s definitely a bit glitchy to use when you are scrolling trying to find something to watch. It has a real lag to it. I avoided all of that with my cheese tray outside. :teeth: :thumbsup2

 
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We watched all of the activity on the dock and sail away from Castaway Cay. The wind had died down quite a bit by the time we left. We all relaxed, showered and got ready for the evening. Tonight was pirate night, and typically we go to Palo for dinner but had decided not to book a Palo dinner this time around. Tonight was 80’s music trivia and we were back in Crown and Fin, thank goodness!



Scott was the only one sporting any kind of nod to pirate night. pirate:



Deano, the club host. Not a great picture but it’s the only one I got that was somewhat close up. He has a very dry sense of humor and it not as gregarious as many of the others, but we had a good time with him. :goodvibes



And the winners were???!!!! Not us. :rotfl2: We missed it by one and from here on out our trivia group name was “Handle With Care” so that none of us ever could forget it again. ;)



Dinner tonight was in Triton’s and earlier in the week Maggie had very kindly offered to get us some curry so we were all looking forward to it. She brought two massive bowls of chicken biryani and a curry sauce to go over it. Paul asked if there was any chance of getting chapatis and they went out of their way to get some made for us. :lovestruc



It was really good, the sauce was delicious.



We all had the curry, except Mum, but I don’t remember what Mum ordered now. The curry was brought to us pretty soon after we sat down, and so the samosa’s that we had ordered as an appetizer off the menu came afterwards but it doesn’t matter when you are eating curry.



Belinda was smart enough to leave room for dessert and got one of these little beauties. I didn’t get one at all this trip, what was I thinking, or not thinking??!! Ugg! :crazy2:



Because we had eaten pretty early with the curry coming so quickly, we were done by 9:30 pm. Seeing as there was an hour before the fireworks we all decided to nix the pirate party and just go to bed. You might have guessed that we’d never make it to anything two nights in a row! :laughing:

Our Davey Jones (I'm assuming that's what it is - I know it's up for debate :P ) pirate creation was waiting for us on the bed. I don’t remember if we went to bed straight away but I know we were in bed before the pirate party ended!



Coming up – Castaway Cay Dip Day 2 and Scott’s birthday. :bday:
 


A perfect day at sea for sure!

Glad you were able to dock at Castaway that day, it did look a little dicey :oops: Mum on the scooter, hilarious! Glad she was able to get around the island so easily with that AND even join along for the bike ride :love:
 
Mum stuck with her bottle of water, she was driving after all. :laughing:
:rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2:

Dinner tonight was in Triton’s and earlier in the week Maggie had very kindly offered to get us some curry so we were all looking forward to it.
Ship curry is so good. It was a little too much on the last cruise having it every day, but I will definitely need to do it once or twice on our upcoming trip.
 
I always get the trip insurance but DCL have been awesome and gave her a credit for half the cabin fare for a future cruise - it was an unexpected gesture on their part that they had no obligation for. :lovestruc


Thank you! I am going to do one for the four night - I took notes for that one. :)

Good for DCL. That is awesome news.

Yay about a TR for the four night cruise. :yay: Looking forward to it.:surfweb:
 
I had to laugh at the picture with your Mom in her scooter way ahead of you. My mother has neuropathy in her feet and can't walk long distances. We got her a scooter for the first time to see the lights at our local zoo. She had never been on a scooter before, but she too took the lead so far ahead that she couldn't hear us when we tried to rein her in! 😂
 
We managed to stay for Match Your Mate, which was fun, but these days there are a lot of repeat cruisers and it was pretty apparent that the couple that had been married the longest already knew the questions. :rolleyes2
I agree. They really need to change it up some. Same thing with some of the Trivia games etc. It isn't fun when people 'cheat' the system.
 
Tuesday, December 3 – Castaway Cay – Dip Day 2



Today we have a birthday boy!! :bday: We had decided to go with the flow today with no particular plans and with a wait-and-see approach to whether we would go onto the island depending on how we felt. Scott and I slept in a little later and by the time we got up and poked our nose outside the ship was already docked. The seas were much calmer today, and it looked like it would be a better day than yesterday weather-wise. :rolleyes2 Evidently the ship’s weather forecasts aren’t any better than your local TV station, :happytv: as Darren had said yesterday was going to be the best day. :rotfl2:





The dive team that contracts to inspect the hull were already busy at work. I’m not sure why we often see them at Castaway Cay, but I have a feeling it has something to do with the Wonder coming to Galveston after the Panama Canal. :confused3




Scott wanted a coffee from Cove so he and I went up together and he went to Cove while I made Mum a cup of tea at the drink station.

[

I forced him to take a photo with his birthday tie that was part of the room decoration package. He’s a good sport! I didn't make him wear it all day though, so that's a plus for him. :rotfl:



He opened his cards, and DCL had left a card and a birthday button in the fish overnight.




Belinda bought him a very cute cheese tray, made out of chocolate! Too funny and very cute!! (He hates cheese.) :flower1:



We were all ready for something to eat and went up to cabanas at about 9:30 am. It was pretty busy, I guess everyone was having a slower start for the second day on Castaway Cay. I decided to mix it up today and put the egg on a hash brown – Craaazyy stuff! Ha ha :crazy:



Belinda decided on…..baked beans. Just the baked beans mind you, nothing else!! :rotfl2:



We had a lazy breakfast and finally left cabanas at about 10:15 am with the decision to go to the adult pool and not get off the ship. Back in the cabin I had arranged all of Scott’s birthday decorations again so that he could enjoy them for the day. (Side note: he couldn’t care less – it was really for my benefit!) :teeth:



We got ourselves settled by the pool with some loungers in the shade. :cloud9:




Paula and Belinda were going to join us up there so we had to spread out for a bit until they joined us as it looked like several people had the same plan in mind.



The seats in the shade were filling up fast. Hmmm…maybe not as quiet as we thought it would be. :rolleyes1 Oh well, time to get a drink to celebrate the birthday!! Signals wasn’t open so we looked through the app to figure out what bars were open. The answer? None!!! :scared1::scared1::scared1: Of course, all the crew are off on the island working the bars and the restaurants. :earseek: Crisis time!! I sent Paul and Belinda a message warning them of the possible majorly bad decision on our part. Not to be put off I went into Cove to ask about getting a drink there. The bar tender was super nice and said he could get us whatever we wanted – he would just pop back to Signals and get it. Ahhh….halleluia! :woohoo:party:



We hung out there all morning and had several mimosas while we enjoyed the sunshine. About 1 pm we decided we were snackish…hungry isn’t really the right word. :laughing: We went to Cabanas and they had curry so that was a done deal. Perfect day so far for the birthday boy! ::yes::




This was my plate…again with the 3 fries??!! :confused3 I have no clue why 3 is the magic number for me. :rotfl::rotfl2:



We took some photos of the island, as you can see, it was a beautiful day and the weather was much nicer. Everything looked to be open. :beach:






I got myself an ice cream on the way by. The soft serve is impossible to pass up. P.S. I do these trip reports and then go...oh, yeah, that's why the scale was so mean when I got home! :blush: :laughing:



By now it was coming up on nap-thirty so we went back to our cabins to continue the lazy day. They were doing some painting above us.



The pier was quiet though, not many people coming back yet.



Scott and I settled in to watch a movie – quick selfie first. :love:



Scott found Old Dogs as the movie of choice for the afternoon.



I was having a hard job settling down and relaxing so I kept popping back and forth to look outside. About half way through the afternoon I noticed that the lift they had been using for the painters appeared to be stuck, and was now a few cabins down from us. :stir:


:teeth:

There was some white coat activity on the pier as they roped off the area around it. The action for them trying to get this fixed continued for quite a while, and was perfect viewing pleasure fun for me! :teeth: They had some maintenance people come and bring a new battery, lots of different people peering at it and in the end we actually left the pier with the lift still precariously up against the cabin. They had removed the wooden rail so it wouldn’t damage it, and there were at least 6 white coats in that cabin as we pulled away. I don't know why, but that stuff just entertains me no end!:rotfl2:



We all had agreed to meet for the first trivia session of the day which was Brainteasers at 3:30 pm.








We didn’t do very well, and I can see now that someone (I suspect Paul :p ) wrote “Jenny’s wrong” against one of the answers! :laughing: You can see how much I am valued by my team mates. :rolleyes: :crazy:



We popped back to the cabin in between Brainteasers and the next trivia session at 5:00 pm. That was when we got the good view of the white shirts in the cabin just down from us. I wondered if the people who were in that cabin were totally shocked to find a party in their cabin for sail away. :rotfl2: We left Castaway Cay right on time and headed down to Crown and Fin again.



Continued in next post.
 
I think this was the trivia session that I dubbed Paul, Know it All Paul. :lmao: We didn’t win (again) but decided that we would go and catch the sunset from our cabins as it looked like it was shaping up to be a good one.













Seeing as Mum, Scott and I hadn’t made it to a single show yet this cruise, we decided to go and see The Magic & Comedy of Jon Armstrong in the Walt Disney Theater. Paul and Belinda agreed to come along for the ride.







The show was OK, it was made somewhat more entertaining by Paul telling me how the trick worked on pretty much every trick. Ugg… kids!! :crazy: Remember what I’m calling him now? :rotfl2:



There was no trivia again this evening…sigh…there was some big basketball game on that got us pushed off the schedule so we took a look through the gift shops and went back to the cabins until it was time to go to dinner. Tonight we were in Animator’s again for the Animation Magic Show. Mum doesn’t mess about with getting her drawing finished. :lmao:



Paul looks like he's been caught cheating at a school test here. :laughing:



Quick picture of all of us - barely - but it will do.




Tonight I had the romaine wedge, Scott had the ahi tuna and we both had rack of lamb. I asked if it was possible to get a bottle of wine that Scott and I have had in Palo a couple of times called Purple Angel, and they were able to get it it for us. I think the somellier from Palo brought it to the dining room but our assistant server, Orly, was deemed worthy to open it and pour it. :blush: :thumbsup2







We ordered a couple of desserts and Maggie brought Scott his birthday cake, along with edible candle, which he was “encouraged” to blow out. :goodvibes



Happy birthday to the birthday boy!



Then it was time for the show.



This made me laugh, because obviously there is a screen right behind me based on Paul and Belinda…but is Mum looking that way??? Nope!! :rotfl2:



My drawing didn’t make the cut evidently – it’s the first time that we’ve had one that didn’t make it. :o Seriously, it doesn’t matter at all, but it did make me laugh that I wasn’t included as a “Guest Animator” on the roll call at the end either. :laughing: When you're out, you're out!!! :rotfl2:



We said goodnight to our servers and made our way through Shutters toward midship. We stopped to take a look at the photographs that had been taken of us so far. We hadn’t taken many but they had a couple from formal night in Animators that I bought. This was a good one I thought.



And I also bought this was the one that was taken right before it. :lmao:



Stitch was in the corridor so we stopped for some quick photos. Mum and Paul declined to be photographed with Stitch. Spoil sports. :laughing:






So, side note here. I always look at the paintings for sale along here and some of them appeal to me, but then I see the price, and realize that as soon as one gets purchased another is promptly removed from the stock room to replace it - and then I just can't justify the $$. Anyone else feel that way? :confused3

Anyway - onward!! There was a pretty short line for Cinderella as we passed by at about 9:45 pm.



And back at Preludes Pluto had almost no line at all so I forced everyone into getting a photo with him.



The birthday boy got a special welcome from Pluto…ha ha…captured by Belinda. :thumbsup2



Continued in next post.
 
We made it to our final destination, which was Cadillac Bar. Josh Freilich was playing piano and the place was pretty full. The only spot for us all to sit together was right by the piano, which didn’t work out well for Mum as she was right next to him.





The boys ordered a Macallan flight each. Scott and I had tried this on our last cruise in Cove Café, but they have changed it and it no longer comes with the Black (which was the one that made it a good deal. :rolleyes: )





Belinda ordered a lemon drop martini (based on the pics above), and I asked if they could make my favorite drink, which is not on the menu. I still have the notes on my phone of what is in it from a mixology session about 3 years ago. :goodvibes:goodvibes And they are always good about making me one. It was called a Tropical Flower in mixology and it’s delicious! Apple vodka, elderflower liquor and a mix of lemon juice, passion fruit juice and guava juice. pixiedust:



The bar tender kindly offered to take our photo.



Mum left shortly after this and went back to the cabin as she was tired, and didn’t like the noise. Paul and Belinda stayed for a little while and we were able to move back a little further from the stage. Belinda got this great photo of Paul and Scott. It’s so funny for so many different reasons. First off, the white “aura” around the loving couple was a complete photo phenomenon – hilarious. Second, Paul looks like a giant compared to Scott!! :rotfl2::lmao:



Josh Frielich finished his set and Paul and Belinda left and went to bed. Scott and I decided to hang out for a little longer and the Brace Boys (Crawfish Crooners in Tiana’s) came and set up to play. We didn’t know at the time, but this was one of their last performances on DCL as they have left to explore other adventures. :rockband: They were really, really good and their talent is not showcased well when they play in Tiana’s. Josh came back and played piano with them and it was a really entertaining session. :thumbsup2



Quick selfie while we watched.



I got this shot of them with my iphone – I love how it turned out (but I’m not the photographer with the new lens) :teeth:



It was almost midnight when we walked back to the cabin. The ship was completely quiet – it would have been a great time to go and take photos but we were way too tired. :goodvibes Here’s one of the empty hallway though! :flower:



Back in the cabin this cutie was waiting for us. We’d had a great day celebrating Scott’s birthday and we used every minute of it. I put together a breakfast order for room service and hung the tag out on the door as we had agreed didn’t want to deal with Cabanas in the morning. By the time we got in bed it was officially not-his-birthday-anymore. Ha ha.



Coming up: Key West
 
Wednesday, December 4 – Key West



So today was a day that had been long in the making for this group! We were on a sailing out of Galveston back in January 2017 with Key West as a stop. That cruise had a horrible fog delay, and we ended up being stuck in Galveston overnight on our departure day, which led to the Key West stop being cancelled. :headache: Today was the day we were actually going to make it and Mum would get to Key West for the first time. :thumbsup2

Usual wake up time for me today at just before 7 am, and I was definitely feeling sleepy given our late night last night. Of course nosiness won over and I did my (infamous) attempt to shimmy through the middle of the curtains to see outside. It was overcast but the temperature was perfect.





Just before 7:30 am Scott was awake as well and so I opened the curtains and the verandah door and we listened to the sound of the waves for a little while. :cloud9:



Eventually it was time to haul ourselves out of bed and get ready for the day. We were in the channel approaching Key West already.



By 8:00 am we were turning to dock at the Navy Pier (also called Outer Mole B.) I had already looked the cruise ship schedule up online and so I knew we were going to be docking here today. It’s not as convenient as being docked next to Mallory Square, but the shuttles run pretty frequently.



I don’t have any photographs :rolleyes: but we had room service for breakfast this morning. I had ordered cereals and some muffins for all of us, including Mum. We had decided to skip Cabanas this morning because everyone was required to clear immigration in the Walt Disney Theater starting at 9:00 am. We have had to do this once before (that I remember) out of Galveston when Key West is the stop on the way back from the Bahamas rather than the first stop on the way out. Unfortunately, this was also one of the reasons that DCL couldn’t negotiate anything with immigration with regards to my sister’s papework. :sad2: Anyway – here’s the letter you get in your stateroom the night before. It was a quick and easy process and it took less than 10 minutes from start to finish.



We all made it through immigration and went back to the cabins to grab our day bags to head off the ship. We made it down the elevators with nobody sustaining any bodily wounds this time. :lmao: Scott was in charge of the scooter again though for maneuvering purposes.



We were asked to wait to one side for a tram that was accessible for wheelchairs and scooters. There was a family waiting with us with a wheelchair but the wait wasn’t too long - I'm guessing about 10 minutes. As soon as we had got down to the tram area, Scott realized he had left the battery for his camera in the charger in the cabin, so he did a quick trip back inside to grab it. This meant that he handed over the scooter to Paul, who was left getting it onto the tram. :rotfl2:



Scott made it back just in the nick of time, and in time to make fun of Paul and his scooter driving abilities.



The tram drops you off right in the middle of town by the Shipwreck Museum. It’s a good place to start, but for anyone that wants to go to Southernmost Point it means you have to walk all the way back to where you started basically. :crazy2: I wish they offered two stops!



We began the relatively short walk back to Southernmost Point. It’s just over a mile. Mum led the way again. :moped: We like to take Whitehead Street because it’s so much easier to navigate than Duval – it’s also quieter with no vendors in shop doorways trying to sell anything. :goodvibes



The very cool Kapok tree that you pass along the way.



This Bahama Village Market was new to us. They have been renovating the house behind it for years, we always wondered what it was going to be. It’s now a bar/restaurant which is quite handy if you get thirsty during the walk.



You walk right past the entrance to the pier.



We made it to the Southernmost Point marker in about 40 minutes, and that was at a relatively slow walk. The sidewalks were pretty wheelchair/scooter friendly, Mum just had to look for the curb that was accessible to get across all the intersections. The line wasn’t too awful and it was mainly DCL passengers in front of us. :laughing:



Scott managed to get a good photo of the iguanas that live on the rocks (through the iron fencing) with his new lens. They blend in pretty well.



Here’s a photo of Paul, blocking the view of the iguanas. :rotfl2:



We got a couple of photos, but unlike our previous trips to the marker, nobody was volunteering to help the next person in line and take a photo for them :rolleyes2 and I was feeling “too British” to ask. :laughing: :lmao:



This is the closest we could get for all of us.



We walked back to the town the way we came along Whitehead Street.







We went past an Order of the Elks building (or something like that.) I have decided that I would like to be called a “Grand Exalted Ruler”! :thumbsup2 How impressive is that!!?? :snooty::snooty::snooty: Or how about Grand Daughter Ruler? Is that a grand-daughter or a GRAND daughter. :idea: I’d opt for the latter if I had to choose the title. As you can see there is also an Exalted Ruler but they are at the bottom of the pile. :laughing:



We got to the end of Highway 1, and Mile Marker 0 – I had to point it out to everyone because we had missed it on the way out. :rolleyes1



If you haven’t been through the cut through from Whitehead Street to the Truman Little White House I would certainly recommend the walk. :goodvibes There are beautiful gardens and lovely homes to look at and it’s nice and shady. Of course I don’t have any photographs of that though! :laughing: We took a look at the house from across the street, although Paul ventured across to look at the sign.



Obligingly, Scott to a photo of the sign from across the street. :magnify:

[

By now it was almost noon and the tanks were running low. We hadn’t eaten in nearly four hours, which, with the exception of sleeping was going on a record length of time! :scared: We walked down to the marina and took a look around there while discussing where to eat.



There were huge fish - no idea what they were - that were hanging around while some people fed them.





We ended up at Conch Republic, which isn’t great, but we were all getting to the point where anything would do! :teeth::teeth: It's basically the same type of food you can get anywhere, at any chain restaurant across the US.



I guess I was hungry enough that I didn’t take any food photographs but I think we all got a hamburger and I remember some fried pickles as well I think. :P Having cured the “gotta eat” problem we were all feeling nice and full and we continued our walk out towards Kermit’s.



The Christmas tree that they have with fishing bobbers is cute. :lovestruc



Nobody was really hungry for key lime pie, but I was going to force the issue for everyone to try it, because otherwise what’s the point in going to Key West?? :confused3:confused3:lmao: We got one piece of regular and one piece of frozen and shared it amongst all of us. Everyone agreed it was good but I have a feeling that was just to shut me up. ;):rotfl2:



Continued in next post.
 
It was now just gone 1 pm and all aboard was at 2:30 pm so we decided that we would make our way back to the shuttle pick up area. We didn’t have to wait long for a shuttle at all, but Paul happily relinquished his shuttle-boarding duties with the scooter to Scott.



The ride back was short and sweet and the shuttle wasn’t full at all. They stop the shuttle as you enter the naval base and everyone has to show a picture ID and your Key To The World card.



We were back on the ship by 1:45 pm. We all decided to take a break, although that mostly meant people-watching from the verandah. :goodvibes







There were quite a few people coming from the last shuttle back.



Some of us were catching up on emails from having cell signal. 😉



It appeared that everyone was back on the ship but it was obvious they were waiting for someone, or something as one gangway was still down and there were a couple of white coats milling around. Unfortunately, yet again, we had had a medical emergency and someone had been taken off the ship via ambulance before we got back on. :sad1: We could see a family coming off with tons of luggage. They had to have been occupying several staterooms as it filled an entire pickup truck bed and the trunk of an SUV. There were about 6 or 7 people that got off. Again, turns out it was someone on the Facebook group whose father in law had been taken off with heart problems. Yucky way to end their day as they got the call that he was being taken off and had to rush back from their excursion to pack up their cabins. :worried:

We got away from Key West about an hour late if I recall right.



Scott got this photograph of Fort Zachary State Park Beach as we sailed past the bottom of it.

[

And then we were out into the blue, blue ocean again. Lovely. :cloud9::cloud9::cloud9:



They had another Brainteasers Trivia scheduled at 4:15 pm so being the gluttons for punishment that we are, we decided to give it a go. :joker:



It was followed by Know it All Trivia. Thankfully, we had someone on the team that qualified for that one. ;) :teeth:



We didn’t win either of them, but it looked like there was going to be a nice sunset so we headed back to the cabins. Paul & Belinda had bought a nice bottle of champagne along with them :thumbsup2 (this placed them high on my list of preferred cruising buddies – ha ha) and I ordered a couple of cheese trays (extra crackers for Scott) and we got ourselves settled on the verandah.



This was about the best photo we got of all of us, you can kind of see the sunset as it sheds a halo around my angelic nephew. :rotfl::littleangel:



Scott got busy with his camera.



We were treated to a lovely sunset. It always amazes me how quickly the sun goes down once it gets close to the horizon and I love watching it from the cruise ship when there is nothing else but the wide open ocean.





Scott got these photos, which now I am laughing at because never once did anyone tell me that my makeup was basically sliding off my eyes. :rolleyes2 Seriously?! :crazy: He took all of these and never said anything…neither did Belinda! :rotfl: It’s not too bad in this one.



But this one is terrible! o_Oo_Oo_O :lmao: The only saving grace is that my champagne glass is full. :teeth: :thumbsup2



And one of Belinda with no make up sliding down her face. ;)



The 7:30 pm trivia tonight was 90s music. It was really packed. I’m going to go off on a random topic here that may not be too popular, but it’s my opinion. :duck: You can see in the photograph that there is a small, not-even-close-to-18, personage in the bottom left. Disclaimer: I love kids, we sail Disney knowing that there will be kids everywhere, and we don’t care. They are cute, it’s funny to watch them meltdown when they belong to someone else, and I love that they have so much stuff for the kids and adults to do together. ::yes:: But on this cruise, almost every “adult only” session was full of kids, and nobody said anything about it. At one session adults that were coming in at the last minute literally had nowhere to sit because people were putting their kids at the backgammon tables to “play” while they sat in trivia. Not cool IMO. :headache: And, yes, I did put it on my comment card. :laughing:



Back to your regularly scheduled programming.



We didn’t win – no shocker there. :lmao: It does make me chuckle that people are complaining that repeat cruisers have done these trivia sessions so often they know all the answers. Evidently we aren’t that smart to remember the answers!! :crazy2: :rotfl2:



Continued in next post.
 
With trivia over we took a slow walk back to the other end of the ship to get to Tiana’s. Tonight it was the Mardi Gras menu. I had the iceberg wedge (which I really enjoyed) and Scott had the boudin fritters (he always regrets his decision but he always gets them - LOL) and the tomato soup.







Then I had the artichoke ravioli and Scott had the prime rib.






We ordered several desserts to give them all a try. Mum elected to go and find her spot between French Quarter Lounge and Tritons again as the music was too loud for her. For the desserts the doberge gateau still remains my favorite despite all the hype about the beignets. ;)



Then it was time for the parade. party: Belinda was a good sport and got up with me. Maggie led the servers on our side of Tiana's.








We finished up dinner and went and collected Mum. I have no memory of it but apparently we went to see Pop! in Azure at 10 pm. :confused3 I guess it wasn’t that memorable! :rotfl2:



We were back in our cabin at 10:35 pm though, so evidently we left right after it finished. This guy was waiting for us when we got back. :lovestruc



We also had this little package from guest services on the coffee table. At the time I couldn’t figure out why they left it (it had a really sweet note in it) but the next day it occurred to me that I was technically supposed to be in that cabin with my sister, so I believe it was left for me because she hadn’t made it on the ship. It was a lovely gesture. :love::flower:





Coming up: Last day (boo) – At sea
 

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