This is an old trip report that I originally posted on another website. But that site no longer exists and some folks on the DCL forum of this site said it would be ok to re-post it here.
There were 10 people in our party: My wife Kathryn, my daughter Molly, Kathryn's mom (Dale) and me; my sister (Dawn), her husband (Steve), their two kids (Jake and Joe) and Steve's parents (Tom and Bonnie). We flew out of Boston and spent a couple days in London before boarding the Disney Magic.
I apologize now for some of the stuff that seems outdated already (talking about the "new" show Villains Tonight, for example). But I hope it's interesting to somebody.
DAY 1 – London
Very sunny, but cool and breezy, low 70s.
We arrived in London around 7 am (with very little sleep on the plane) and caught the Disney shuttle to our hotel. It wasn’t quite as seamless as our previous experiences with the ground transfers, but our wait was fairly short (20 minutes) and once we got to the bus, it was smooth sailing. Since it was so early in the day, we couldn’t check in to the hotel, so we left our bags there and set out on the city.
We grabbed a breakfast of Danish and donuts at a local shop near the London Eye, which really is as huge as it looks in the pictures. Then we decided on an “On and Off” bus tour, which was £20 per person. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, you buy a ticket and it’s good for ANY bus on any route that the tour company covers for 24 hours. There’s a tour guide on board to describe what you’re seeing. If it seems interesting to you, you can get off the bus and then when you’re done looking around, you just get on the next bus to continue the tour of the city. We really enjoyed it and had a good guide, so it was very interesting.
We drove past the “biggies”: Trafalger Square, the National Gallery, Big Ben and Parliament, Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, the Tower Bridge, plus a lot more. The ticket also allows you to ride a boat on the Thames for different views of the landmarks. I thought it was well worth the money.
After we got tired of the bus, we checked into the hotel and then set out on foot for the Black Friar Pub for dinner, which was a lot of fun. Most of us got traditional fish and chips, but Kath got a steak and ale pie, which was fantastic and made me mad that I didn’t get it myself. We walked back to the hotel (with only one wrong turn) and collapsed from exhaustion.
DAY 2 – London
Very sunny, mid- to upper-70s.
We decided to use taxis to get to a few specific places that we wanted to see. So we cabbed it out to Abbey Road and took pictures crossing the street. Then we headed back downtown so the girls could walk around in Harrod’s. We had lunch there first, then while the girls shopped, the kids and I just wandered up and down Brompton Road and saw some really cool restaurants that I would have loved to try. After lunch, we took a cab to Westminster Abbey. By the time we got there, they were no longer offering tours; but we were just in time for the Evensong service. So we stayed for the service, which is almost completely sung. It was pretty darn cool. (And we saw Isaac Newton’s tomb inside the Abbey. That’s a “wow” moment.)
In the evening, some of the girls went to the London production of “Wicked”, which they all LOVED. I didn’t go, but I met a friend who just happened to be in London while we were there and we walked up to Covent Garden and had dinner at a small restaurant, which was really fun.
DAY 3 – Dover
Partly cloudy, mid 70s.
Because we were out of the hotel all day on Day 2, we didn’t get to do the cruise “check in” ahead of time. So, unfortunately, by the time we registered with the DCL desk at the hotel, the earliest available bus wasn’t leaving until about 1:30 pm. (I’m still kicking myself for this.) The bus ride to the port took about an hour and 45 minutes. The only good thing about arriving at the terminal so late in the day is that everybody else had pretty much boarded already. So there was no line anywhere in the terminal. In fact, we walked right past the local entertainment (a 2-person musical comedy troupe called “Chucklefoot”) and to the check-in desk. We finally boarded the ship at around 3:30 through the Atrium entrance; but we were so late that there was no one to announce our party. After the lifeboat drill, we were starving, so we got chicken fingers on Deck 9 and took pictures of the White Cliffs.
I skipped the Welcome Aboard show to unpack. Jeremy still dreams of being the Captain, of course. The folks in my group who went to the show weren’t all that impressed with the juggling comedian (Ron Pearson) or the ventriloquist (Jimmy Tamley). My daughter was mildly impressed that Pearson has been in the Disney Channel movie “Starstruck” and the show “Good Luck, Charlie”; but nobody thought he was all that funny. The ventriloquist had some kind of malfunction and “winged it” into what my wife thought was PG-rated territory. Overall, nobody was overly impressed.
One of the notable differences of the opening night was that our cruise director was not Brent! It was Peter (from Brazil). I thought he did a really good job. He had the high energy that you get with Brent. He was definitely different, but he was good.
We had second seating (8:30) for dinner, so at 7:30 I went to Diversions to watch the World Cup semi-final (Netherlands 3, Uruguay 1). There were probably 20 people at the start of the game, but by the time I left for dinner at halftime, the place was pretty packed. I would guess there were about 75 people watching. Oh, and guess who popped in to watch some of the game?? Brent!! He was on the ship with his family, taking the cruise as a vacation. It took me a minute to realize it was him, since he was in jeans and a t-shirt, instead of his officer’s uniform.
For dinner, we were in Animator’s Palette and had the “Welcome Aboard” menu, of course. I had the chicken bastella (spiced chicken in a pastry shell), which was really excellent; the crab chowder, which was also fantastic; and the seafood risotto (with lobster and shrimp), which was very good. I shared the risotto with Molly and had some of her Yatchsman’s steak, which was served with a stuffed baked potato and was also amazing.
Our servers were also amazing on this trip. Melwin and Bima were great and took fantastic care of the kids. They both had learned all our names by the end of the first night. (Not easy with 10 people in the party.) The restaurant manager was Yolande, who visited with us numerous times over the week. She was also terrific.
After dinner, I stopped into the Promenade Lounge to hear the “Right Stuff duo”. It was a male singer and female singer and they did standards and pop tunes with a kind of jazzy style. It wasn’t really a duet, though. They basically took turns singing to a recorded soundtrack. They definitely had good voices, but they weren’t really my style.
DAY 4 – At Sea
Sunny, mid 70s.
I was up early, and had a small breakfast at Topsider’s. Why was I up early? Because sunrise was about 4 am!! The sun didn’t set until about 10:20, but at least it got totally dark for a while. (This wasn’t necessarily true for every night.)
Anyway, as they did during the Mediterranean cruises in ’07, Disney provided a person to give lectures about the history and important sites in each port of call. In 2007, the person did not do a good job and I only attended one of his lectures. To my great pleasure, this year’s lecturer was fantastic. He is Dr. Ken Pearl from CUNY. He was funny and engaging, and also very informative. He used powerpoint presentations to show us maps and locations as well as important scenes from each town’s history. The first lecture was about Copenhagen, and each lecture lasted about an hour. Sometimes they were in the Buena Vista theater, but today’s two lectures were both in the Walt Disney Theater. Excellent experience.
After the lecture, I got some lunch from Topsider’s. There was tamarind beef-kabobs (very good), baked salmon (very good) and gnocchi (just ok). After lunch, I went to the second lecture of the day, which was about Berlin. Then, back to my stateroom to watch “How to Train Your Dragon” on TV with Molly. Very cute, and Disney could probably sue Dreamworks for using Stitch’s face for the main dragon.
The show was “Twice Charmed”. It’s not my favorite show, so I didn’t go. I hung out on deck for a while. The folks who went like the show, but thought it was just ok this time.
After getting dressed for dinner, I again wandered to the Promenade Lounge; this time to hear the “Right Stuff trio”. This was 3 guys – a guitarist/vocalist, a bassist and a drummer – different from the duo of the night before. And they were awesome. They did covers of lots of songs that you’d know. Musically, they were very good; they were funny; and they had the volume exactly right, so it was more than background music, but you could still have a conversation without shouting.
(“More than you may want to know” alert! So why is there a duo and a trio with the same name? The Right Stuff is a group of 7 people total, including a keyboardist and another female vocalist. They were hired by DCL as a 7 person group. But when they boarded, DCL told them that they were going to be split up so that they could perform outside Rockin’ Bar D. So the duo was essentially reduced to karaoke, the trio had to learn an entirely new set (since the guitarist is never the lead singer in the larger band) and the entire band still had to perform together for Beatles’ Night, ‘80s Night, and the ABBA tribute night.)
Dinner was the “Prince and Princess” menu in Parrot Cay. It was formal night, which is a little strange in Parrot Cay, but was fine. I had the scallop and shrimp appetizer, which was excellent; the lentil and sausage soup, which was kind of spicy and served just above room temperature; and the Beef Wellington, which was excellent, although the breading around the beef was just so-so. Kathryn and Molly each had the rack of lamb, and Kath said it was “awesome”. (I then bolted at 9:30 so I could watch the second half of the World Cup semi-final (Spain 1, Germany 0) in Diversions.
The adult-only cabaret act in Rockin’ Bar D was Ron Pearson, from the Welcome Aboard show. He didn’t do any juggling, he just did his comedy which included a lot of interaction with the audience. (So what do you do for a living, sir?) My own opinion is that he was a less-funny version of Jeff Foxworthy. He did several bits that you’d recognize from any Foxworthy show: “Things I still don’t get about women”; “Funny southern words” (his wife grew up in Texas); “How my wife ‘trained’ me”, etc. We stayed for about 20 minutes, but got tired of the banter with the crowd.
DAY 5 – Oslo, Norway
Overcast, rain. Upper 60s.
For our first port day, Disney changed the music in the elevators and public spaces from traditional Disney songs to local music. So we were treated to Norwegian music all day. This was fine at first, but honestly, traditional Norwegian music sounds a lot like traditional Swedish and/or Danish and/or Russian music. After the first 2 or 3 days, I was kind of tired of hearing it on the elevators.
We took a morning shore excursion called “Viking Heritage”. We boarded a bus at 8 am and drove past many of the town’s important buildings, including the royal summer home (with armed guards out front). We stopped at a Viking boat museum, which was very interesting. They had several actual longboats in varying states of decay. But you could still see a lot of amazing carvings on most of them. Then we drove up a mountain to see the ski jump that the city is building for an international competition. It was also very cool. It doesn’t just look like a big hill with a jump at the end. The architecture is very interesting. Finally, we went to an “open-air museum”, which is essentially a town of old buildings that have been brought there from all over the country. Most of the buildings have a sod roof, with grass and flowers growing out of it. There was an actual stave church, which was incredible to see.
They gave us a choice of driving back to the ship or being dropped off at the City Hall, which is a very short walk from the dock. We got off at City Hall and had a nice lunch in a little restaurant. The girls did some shopping and I walked a bit up the road to the National Gallery. Admission is free, so I went in. I was very surprised that it was not at all climate controlled. It was pretty sparse for a “national” museum, but there were some very impressive sculptures, including Renoir’s “Victorious Venus”, which is the first thing I saw as I came in. They had a small but nice Impressionist collection and a Johann Christian Dahl exhibit that I loved. There was also a large (20 paintings or so) Edmund Munch collection, not surprisingly. I saw the actual painting of “The Scream”. Another “wow” moment.
Upon returning to the ship, I have to say that I was disappointed that there was no “Welcome Home!” sign over the gangway. It’s a little thing, but it’s kind of nice to see after a long day. Maybe they figure that just seeing the ship is the same thing. Anyway, once I was back on the ship, I skipped the show, which was the family version of Ron Pearson’s act. Instead, I headed to the Promenade Lounge to hear the Right Stuff trio again, which became my pre-dinner routine for most of the cruise.
Dinner was at Lumiere’s. I had a mushroom tart with grilled leeks as the appetizer. It was excellent. Kathryn had the escargot, which is gross, but she liked it a lot. There was also a jumbo shrimp appetizer, which was very good; and a French onion soup, which Steve’s dad didn’t like. Kathryn and Molly had the beef tenderloin and loved it. I had portabella mushroom pasta (like tortellini) in a vegetable sauce. The sauce was more like a thin tomato soup, and I didn’t really like it all that much. It didn’t taste bad, but maybe it just wasn’t what I was expecting. The lamb shank on polenta had a sweet gravy and was excellent. Dawn and Steve had the sea bass and both said it was excellent. For dessert, I had the ice cream sundae (mint chocolate chip ice cream), which I liked a lot. Steve’s dad had TWO of the crème brulee. Dawn had the chocolate mousse, which was excellent. Kathryn had the Grand Marnier soufflé and loved it. The table shared a bread pudding, which was very light.
Belle and Beast came into the restaurant and danced during dessert. It was very sweet.
DAY 6 – Copenhagen, Denmark
Sunny. Mid- to high-70s.
We met for our shore excursion at 9:15. It was the “Highlights and Open Air Tour of Copenhagen” excursion. This was essentially the same tour as in Oslo. We rode in a bus and saw several historical sites and got out at a couple of places. We walked through the Parliament grounds (but not inside any of the buildings), and saw the Queen’s state offices, where she has official meetings with foreign dignitaries. We also walked through the gardens of the national library, which is adjacent to the Parliament building. The gardens used to be completely underwater and there is still a large metal ring where former royalty used to tie up their boats when they visited. We also saw the modern wing of the library, which has been called the Black Diamond building. (Its design was pretty controversial, when first presented; but it’s not horrible.) At another stop, we walked through the palace complex of Amelionborg. It’s an official residence of the Queen and Crown Prince. There is also the Marble Church in the complex. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to walk through the church. The final stop of the tour was an open air museum like the one we visited in Oslo. It was mildly interesting, but I didn’t love it, personally. This is where we had lunch, as well. (The pickled herring was not good!) We got back to the Magic at about 4 pm.
When we got back to the ship, it had warmed up to the point that I went in the pool for the first time of the trip. Ahhhhhh. From Deck 9, you can see several windmills off the shore of the city. The wind farm produces 20% of Copenhagen’s electricity.
The show in the Walt Disney Theater was a new show created just for the European itineraries, called “Once Upon a Song”. This show had no “story”. It was just five singers (3 men, 2 women) who sang Disney songs and medlies, with virtually no staging. Their voices blended wonderfully, they sounded very good together. There were a couple points at which the soundtrack seemed too loud and overpowered them a little bit; but other than that, it went very smoothly. They did individual songs (“God Help the Outcasts” from Hunchback, “Take a Look Through My Eyes” from Brother Bear). There was also a medley of Mary Poppins songs, and a medley of “When She Loved Me” (from Toy Story 2), “Beauty and the Beast” and “You’ll Be In My Heart” (from Tarzan). The stand-alone songs were great; the medlies seemed really forced to me. Personally, I hate medlies. I’d much rather hear one good song done well than hear somebody try to smoosh together parts of a couple different songs. My much-wiser wife reminds me that if they didn’t do a couple medlies, we would only get to hear 6 or 7 songs in the entire show. I can understand that reasoning. (Doesn’t mean I like it, though.)
Dinner was the “Show Dinner” in Animator’s Palette. Kathryn had the lamb again and loved it. The sauce had a licorice flavor to it. (I’m told it’s from the terragon.) Dale had the stir-fry veggies on a bird’s-nest of noodles and said it was very good. I had the Asian-spiced beef, which was also pretty good.
We headed to bed pretty quickly after dinner because we knew the next day was going to be long.
DAY 7 – Warenmunder (Berlin)
HOT! Upper 90s, intense sun all day.
We met for “Berlin’s Turbulent History” excursion at 7:15 am. The train is right across the street from where the ship docks, so it was a short walk and then a long train ride. It takes two hours and 45 minutes to make the trip to Berlin. With no air conditioning. It actually wasn’t too bad in the morning; it hadn’t gotten really hot yet. We had a really nice guy named Oliver as the “host” for our train trip. He’s studying to be a doctor.
Once we arrived in Berlin, we got on a bus and drove about 5 minutes to a section of the Berlin Wall, where we were allowed to get out and take some pictures. We then drove through what was formerly East Berlin. We got out again at the Brandenburg Gate (yet another “wow”) and walked to the Parliament building. The building has a new glass dome on top. It was made of glass to symbolize the need for the German people to watch what’s going on inside the building.
We then drove past the Holocaust Memorial, which is essentially 1700 stone blocks of varying height. The number of blocks has no significance and there are no inscriptions on them. It’s just supposed to be a place to wander and reflect. It’s located in a park that is directly across the street from Hitler’s famous bunker. We then stopped at the National Theater building. To each side of the Theater is a church. One is Dutch, one is French. They face each other and have remarkably similar design. Then we went to the Allied Museum. We saw the actual building from Checkpoint Charlie (the building at the actual site is now a replica), a guard tower that used to be along the Berlin Wall, as well as a piece of the Wall itself. There was a plane used in the Berlin Airlift and a very large exhibit about how the airlift was actually accomplished.
Our last stop was at the Kaiser Wilhelm Church, which was bombed during WWII, but allowed to remain on its site as a reminder of the destruction of the war. A new church has been built around the ruin, but the old church is pretty amazing, and you can even go into the ground floor and see how the interior was damaged.
Then we got back on the bus and drove under the Linden trees down the main street of Berlin (Unter del Linden). Our train home was delayed because the engine broke down. Once we finally got on the train, we simply baked for 3 hours. It was so hot. We got back to the ship at 9:20 pm. Because the train was late, the ship had to delay its departure. They were ready to leave as soon as the last person was back onboard and we were underway before we could get from the gangplank to Parrot Cay.
The restaurant wasn’t even half-full. The first seating had literally 50 guests because so many people were stuck in Berlin. Yolande told the staff to all go on break for the first seating because there was no one to serve. Agus, our server from last year, came over and spent some time with us. Yolande stood at our table for a solid 20 minutes, talking to us. The meal itself was very good. I had the spicy chicken tenderloins appetizer, which was good and not actually very spicy. The Caribbean jerk pork was excellent (the mango salsa was the spicy part). Molly had the crab dip appetizer as her meal and loved it. Dawn had the fish, but hated it and traded for the portabella mushroom risotto, which was great. The dessert was a real good lemon meringue pie.
I relaxed in the hot tub until they closed it at midnight. I had a nice conversation with two sisters who were on their first Disney cruise.
DAY 8 – At Sea
Sunny. Mid- to upper 70s.
I spent a very lazy morning reading on Deck 9 before heading to the lecture about St. Petersburg at 11 am. Molly and I had lunch together at Topsider’s. There was a very good cold corn salad, a Waldorf salad (apples, grapes and walnuts) that I kind of liked, awesome BBQ ribs and so-so mashed potatoes (I’m not crazy about sour cream in them). There was also some pasta and a carved turkey. The treat, though, was that they had a big grill out on the deck and they were cooking steaks, which were very good. And one of the cooks wearing an apron that said “Cookie’s BBQ” on it. So we had a little taste of Castaway Cay in the middle of the Baltic. That was fun.
My sister’s family had lunch in Lumiere’s, where the menu included a really good steak sandwich, burgers, and wienerschnitzel (which Dawn found to be almost completely tasteless). I think Topsider’s was the better choice that day.
After lunch, I went to the second half of the St. Petersburg lecture and Kathryn did laundry. One improvement in the laundry equipment is that there are no more coins needed. You swipe your key-card and your onboard account is charged: $2 for a wash, $1 for a dryer, and $1 for each detergent packet.
The afternoon was split between shopping on Deck 4 (Platinum Castaway Club members get $25 credit if they spend $100. So we had to do that.) and relaxing with chicken fingers on Deck 9.
The show was “Villains Tonight”. This is the new show that has replaced “Golden Mickeys” on the Magic.
(Let’s have just a moment of silence for the loss of the best onboard show. Ok, I think I’ve pulled myself together. . .)
It had a very – painfully – slow start to explain the concept of the show. It did, however, have several genuine laugh-out-loud moments. It’s laced with a lot of pop-reference, Shrek-style humor. For example, Cruella DeVil walked the fashion runway between banners for “Project Cruella”. There was a Jerry Springer-style talk show segment, complete with “backstage cam”. The Fates referenced a Beyonce song (which I didn’t know, because I’m so old) and Panic’s cell phone ringtone was a High School Musical song. A lot of it worked for me (Ursula’s cabaret version of “Poor Unfortunate Souls”), while some of it fell flat (the Springer segment . . . right up until the last 45 seconds). Overall, it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, and definitely better than the new Toy Story show on the Wonder; but I wouldn’t say that it was a classic that I’d want to see every time I sail. Unlike the “Golden Mickeys”. Not that I’m bitter. Moving on, then.
Dinner was in Lumiere’s and was the “Villains Menu”. I had the seared scallop appetizer, which was very good. Kathryn’s entrée was the roast duck and she liked it a lot. I had the shrimp with mushrooms on pasta, which was also very good. There was also a Thanksgiving dinner on the menu, and a couple of people in our group got that. It was turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, etc. The folks who got that said it was very good also. The Yachtsman’s steak was on the menu again (this time with “walk the plank” butter) and was really good every time I tasted it.
I dashed out before dessert to see the World Cup Final (Spain 1, Netherlands 0) in Diversions; but I took a toasted cheese appetizer with me as a snack. Diversions was PACKED, and it was a loud crowd. It was a really good time.
There were 10 people in our party: My wife Kathryn, my daughter Molly, Kathryn's mom (Dale) and me; my sister (Dawn), her husband (Steve), their two kids (Jake and Joe) and Steve's parents (Tom and Bonnie). We flew out of Boston and spent a couple days in London before boarding the Disney Magic.
I apologize now for some of the stuff that seems outdated already (talking about the "new" show Villains Tonight, for example). But I hope it's interesting to somebody.
DAY 1 – London
Very sunny, but cool and breezy, low 70s.
We arrived in London around 7 am (with very little sleep on the plane) and caught the Disney shuttle to our hotel. It wasn’t quite as seamless as our previous experiences with the ground transfers, but our wait was fairly short (20 minutes) and once we got to the bus, it was smooth sailing. Since it was so early in the day, we couldn’t check in to the hotel, so we left our bags there and set out on the city.
We grabbed a breakfast of Danish and donuts at a local shop near the London Eye, which really is as huge as it looks in the pictures. Then we decided on an “On and Off” bus tour, which was £20 per person. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, you buy a ticket and it’s good for ANY bus on any route that the tour company covers for 24 hours. There’s a tour guide on board to describe what you’re seeing. If it seems interesting to you, you can get off the bus and then when you’re done looking around, you just get on the next bus to continue the tour of the city. We really enjoyed it and had a good guide, so it was very interesting.
We drove past the “biggies”: Trafalger Square, the National Gallery, Big Ben and Parliament, Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, the Tower Bridge, plus a lot more. The ticket also allows you to ride a boat on the Thames for different views of the landmarks. I thought it was well worth the money.
After we got tired of the bus, we checked into the hotel and then set out on foot for the Black Friar Pub for dinner, which was a lot of fun. Most of us got traditional fish and chips, but Kath got a steak and ale pie, which was fantastic and made me mad that I didn’t get it myself. We walked back to the hotel (with only one wrong turn) and collapsed from exhaustion.
DAY 2 – London
Very sunny, mid- to upper-70s.
We decided to use taxis to get to a few specific places that we wanted to see. So we cabbed it out to Abbey Road and took pictures crossing the street. Then we headed back downtown so the girls could walk around in Harrod’s. We had lunch there first, then while the girls shopped, the kids and I just wandered up and down Brompton Road and saw some really cool restaurants that I would have loved to try. After lunch, we took a cab to Westminster Abbey. By the time we got there, they were no longer offering tours; but we were just in time for the Evensong service. So we stayed for the service, which is almost completely sung. It was pretty darn cool. (And we saw Isaac Newton’s tomb inside the Abbey. That’s a “wow” moment.)
In the evening, some of the girls went to the London production of “Wicked”, which they all LOVED. I didn’t go, but I met a friend who just happened to be in London while we were there and we walked up to Covent Garden and had dinner at a small restaurant, which was really fun.
DAY 3 – Dover
Partly cloudy, mid 70s.
Because we were out of the hotel all day on Day 2, we didn’t get to do the cruise “check in” ahead of time. So, unfortunately, by the time we registered with the DCL desk at the hotel, the earliest available bus wasn’t leaving until about 1:30 pm. (I’m still kicking myself for this.) The bus ride to the port took about an hour and 45 minutes. The only good thing about arriving at the terminal so late in the day is that everybody else had pretty much boarded already. So there was no line anywhere in the terminal. In fact, we walked right past the local entertainment (a 2-person musical comedy troupe called “Chucklefoot”) and to the check-in desk. We finally boarded the ship at around 3:30 through the Atrium entrance; but we were so late that there was no one to announce our party. After the lifeboat drill, we were starving, so we got chicken fingers on Deck 9 and took pictures of the White Cliffs.
I skipped the Welcome Aboard show to unpack. Jeremy still dreams of being the Captain, of course. The folks in my group who went to the show weren’t all that impressed with the juggling comedian (Ron Pearson) or the ventriloquist (Jimmy Tamley). My daughter was mildly impressed that Pearson has been in the Disney Channel movie “Starstruck” and the show “Good Luck, Charlie”; but nobody thought he was all that funny. The ventriloquist had some kind of malfunction and “winged it” into what my wife thought was PG-rated territory. Overall, nobody was overly impressed.
One of the notable differences of the opening night was that our cruise director was not Brent! It was Peter (from Brazil). I thought he did a really good job. He had the high energy that you get with Brent. He was definitely different, but he was good.
We had second seating (8:30) for dinner, so at 7:30 I went to Diversions to watch the World Cup semi-final (Netherlands 3, Uruguay 1). There were probably 20 people at the start of the game, but by the time I left for dinner at halftime, the place was pretty packed. I would guess there were about 75 people watching. Oh, and guess who popped in to watch some of the game?? Brent!! He was on the ship with his family, taking the cruise as a vacation. It took me a minute to realize it was him, since he was in jeans and a t-shirt, instead of his officer’s uniform.
For dinner, we were in Animator’s Palette and had the “Welcome Aboard” menu, of course. I had the chicken bastella (spiced chicken in a pastry shell), which was really excellent; the crab chowder, which was also fantastic; and the seafood risotto (with lobster and shrimp), which was very good. I shared the risotto with Molly and had some of her Yatchsman’s steak, which was served with a stuffed baked potato and was also amazing.
Our servers were also amazing on this trip. Melwin and Bima were great and took fantastic care of the kids. They both had learned all our names by the end of the first night. (Not easy with 10 people in the party.) The restaurant manager was Yolande, who visited with us numerous times over the week. She was also terrific.
After dinner, I stopped into the Promenade Lounge to hear the “Right Stuff duo”. It was a male singer and female singer and they did standards and pop tunes with a kind of jazzy style. It wasn’t really a duet, though. They basically took turns singing to a recorded soundtrack. They definitely had good voices, but they weren’t really my style.
DAY 4 – At Sea
Sunny, mid 70s.
I was up early, and had a small breakfast at Topsider’s. Why was I up early? Because sunrise was about 4 am!! The sun didn’t set until about 10:20, but at least it got totally dark for a while. (This wasn’t necessarily true for every night.)
Anyway, as they did during the Mediterranean cruises in ’07, Disney provided a person to give lectures about the history and important sites in each port of call. In 2007, the person did not do a good job and I only attended one of his lectures. To my great pleasure, this year’s lecturer was fantastic. He is Dr. Ken Pearl from CUNY. He was funny and engaging, and also very informative. He used powerpoint presentations to show us maps and locations as well as important scenes from each town’s history. The first lecture was about Copenhagen, and each lecture lasted about an hour. Sometimes they were in the Buena Vista theater, but today’s two lectures were both in the Walt Disney Theater. Excellent experience.
After the lecture, I got some lunch from Topsider’s. There was tamarind beef-kabobs (very good), baked salmon (very good) and gnocchi (just ok). After lunch, I went to the second lecture of the day, which was about Berlin. Then, back to my stateroom to watch “How to Train Your Dragon” on TV with Molly. Very cute, and Disney could probably sue Dreamworks for using Stitch’s face for the main dragon.
The show was “Twice Charmed”. It’s not my favorite show, so I didn’t go. I hung out on deck for a while. The folks who went like the show, but thought it was just ok this time.
After getting dressed for dinner, I again wandered to the Promenade Lounge; this time to hear the “Right Stuff trio”. This was 3 guys – a guitarist/vocalist, a bassist and a drummer – different from the duo of the night before. And they were awesome. They did covers of lots of songs that you’d know. Musically, they were very good; they were funny; and they had the volume exactly right, so it was more than background music, but you could still have a conversation without shouting.
(“More than you may want to know” alert! So why is there a duo and a trio with the same name? The Right Stuff is a group of 7 people total, including a keyboardist and another female vocalist. They were hired by DCL as a 7 person group. But when they boarded, DCL told them that they were going to be split up so that they could perform outside Rockin’ Bar D. So the duo was essentially reduced to karaoke, the trio had to learn an entirely new set (since the guitarist is never the lead singer in the larger band) and the entire band still had to perform together for Beatles’ Night, ‘80s Night, and the ABBA tribute night.)
Dinner was the “Prince and Princess” menu in Parrot Cay. It was formal night, which is a little strange in Parrot Cay, but was fine. I had the scallop and shrimp appetizer, which was excellent; the lentil and sausage soup, which was kind of spicy and served just above room temperature; and the Beef Wellington, which was excellent, although the breading around the beef was just so-so. Kathryn and Molly each had the rack of lamb, and Kath said it was “awesome”. (I then bolted at 9:30 so I could watch the second half of the World Cup semi-final (Spain 1, Germany 0) in Diversions.
The adult-only cabaret act in Rockin’ Bar D was Ron Pearson, from the Welcome Aboard show. He didn’t do any juggling, he just did his comedy which included a lot of interaction with the audience. (So what do you do for a living, sir?) My own opinion is that he was a less-funny version of Jeff Foxworthy. He did several bits that you’d recognize from any Foxworthy show: “Things I still don’t get about women”; “Funny southern words” (his wife grew up in Texas); “How my wife ‘trained’ me”, etc. We stayed for about 20 minutes, but got tired of the banter with the crowd.
DAY 5 – Oslo, Norway
Overcast, rain. Upper 60s.
For our first port day, Disney changed the music in the elevators and public spaces from traditional Disney songs to local music. So we were treated to Norwegian music all day. This was fine at first, but honestly, traditional Norwegian music sounds a lot like traditional Swedish and/or Danish and/or Russian music. After the first 2 or 3 days, I was kind of tired of hearing it on the elevators.
We took a morning shore excursion called “Viking Heritage”. We boarded a bus at 8 am and drove past many of the town’s important buildings, including the royal summer home (with armed guards out front). We stopped at a Viking boat museum, which was very interesting. They had several actual longboats in varying states of decay. But you could still see a lot of amazing carvings on most of them. Then we drove up a mountain to see the ski jump that the city is building for an international competition. It was also very cool. It doesn’t just look like a big hill with a jump at the end. The architecture is very interesting. Finally, we went to an “open-air museum”, which is essentially a town of old buildings that have been brought there from all over the country. Most of the buildings have a sod roof, with grass and flowers growing out of it. There was an actual stave church, which was incredible to see.
They gave us a choice of driving back to the ship or being dropped off at the City Hall, which is a very short walk from the dock. We got off at City Hall and had a nice lunch in a little restaurant. The girls did some shopping and I walked a bit up the road to the National Gallery. Admission is free, so I went in. I was very surprised that it was not at all climate controlled. It was pretty sparse for a “national” museum, but there were some very impressive sculptures, including Renoir’s “Victorious Venus”, which is the first thing I saw as I came in. They had a small but nice Impressionist collection and a Johann Christian Dahl exhibit that I loved. There was also a large (20 paintings or so) Edmund Munch collection, not surprisingly. I saw the actual painting of “The Scream”. Another “wow” moment.
Upon returning to the ship, I have to say that I was disappointed that there was no “Welcome Home!” sign over the gangway. It’s a little thing, but it’s kind of nice to see after a long day. Maybe they figure that just seeing the ship is the same thing. Anyway, once I was back on the ship, I skipped the show, which was the family version of Ron Pearson’s act. Instead, I headed to the Promenade Lounge to hear the Right Stuff trio again, which became my pre-dinner routine for most of the cruise.
Dinner was at Lumiere’s. I had a mushroom tart with grilled leeks as the appetizer. It was excellent. Kathryn had the escargot, which is gross, but she liked it a lot. There was also a jumbo shrimp appetizer, which was very good; and a French onion soup, which Steve’s dad didn’t like. Kathryn and Molly had the beef tenderloin and loved it. I had portabella mushroom pasta (like tortellini) in a vegetable sauce. The sauce was more like a thin tomato soup, and I didn’t really like it all that much. It didn’t taste bad, but maybe it just wasn’t what I was expecting. The lamb shank on polenta had a sweet gravy and was excellent. Dawn and Steve had the sea bass and both said it was excellent. For dessert, I had the ice cream sundae (mint chocolate chip ice cream), which I liked a lot. Steve’s dad had TWO of the crème brulee. Dawn had the chocolate mousse, which was excellent. Kathryn had the Grand Marnier soufflé and loved it. The table shared a bread pudding, which was very light.
Belle and Beast came into the restaurant and danced during dessert. It was very sweet.
DAY 6 – Copenhagen, Denmark
Sunny. Mid- to high-70s.
We met for our shore excursion at 9:15. It was the “Highlights and Open Air Tour of Copenhagen” excursion. This was essentially the same tour as in Oslo. We rode in a bus and saw several historical sites and got out at a couple of places. We walked through the Parliament grounds (but not inside any of the buildings), and saw the Queen’s state offices, where she has official meetings with foreign dignitaries. We also walked through the gardens of the national library, which is adjacent to the Parliament building. The gardens used to be completely underwater and there is still a large metal ring where former royalty used to tie up their boats when they visited. We also saw the modern wing of the library, which has been called the Black Diamond building. (Its design was pretty controversial, when first presented; but it’s not horrible.) At another stop, we walked through the palace complex of Amelionborg. It’s an official residence of the Queen and Crown Prince. There is also the Marble Church in the complex. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to walk through the church. The final stop of the tour was an open air museum like the one we visited in Oslo. It was mildly interesting, but I didn’t love it, personally. This is where we had lunch, as well. (The pickled herring was not good!) We got back to the Magic at about 4 pm.
When we got back to the ship, it had warmed up to the point that I went in the pool for the first time of the trip. Ahhhhhh. From Deck 9, you can see several windmills off the shore of the city. The wind farm produces 20% of Copenhagen’s electricity.
The show in the Walt Disney Theater was a new show created just for the European itineraries, called “Once Upon a Song”. This show had no “story”. It was just five singers (3 men, 2 women) who sang Disney songs and medlies, with virtually no staging. Their voices blended wonderfully, they sounded very good together. There were a couple points at which the soundtrack seemed too loud and overpowered them a little bit; but other than that, it went very smoothly. They did individual songs (“God Help the Outcasts” from Hunchback, “Take a Look Through My Eyes” from Brother Bear). There was also a medley of Mary Poppins songs, and a medley of “When She Loved Me” (from Toy Story 2), “Beauty and the Beast” and “You’ll Be In My Heart” (from Tarzan). The stand-alone songs were great; the medlies seemed really forced to me. Personally, I hate medlies. I’d much rather hear one good song done well than hear somebody try to smoosh together parts of a couple different songs. My much-wiser wife reminds me that if they didn’t do a couple medlies, we would only get to hear 6 or 7 songs in the entire show. I can understand that reasoning. (Doesn’t mean I like it, though.)
Dinner was the “Show Dinner” in Animator’s Palette. Kathryn had the lamb again and loved it. The sauce had a licorice flavor to it. (I’m told it’s from the terragon.) Dale had the stir-fry veggies on a bird’s-nest of noodles and said it was very good. I had the Asian-spiced beef, which was also pretty good.
We headed to bed pretty quickly after dinner because we knew the next day was going to be long.
DAY 7 – Warenmunder (Berlin)
HOT! Upper 90s, intense sun all day.
We met for “Berlin’s Turbulent History” excursion at 7:15 am. The train is right across the street from where the ship docks, so it was a short walk and then a long train ride. It takes two hours and 45 minutes to make the trip to Berlin. With no air conditioning. It actually wasn’t too bad in the morning; it hadn’t gotten really hot yet. We had a really nice guy named Oliver as the “host” for our train trip. He’s studying to be a doctor.
Once we arrived in Berlin, we got on a bus and drove about 5 minutes to a section of the Berlin Wall, where we were allowed to get out and take some pictures. We then drove through what was formerly East Berlin. We got out again at the Brandenburg Gate (yet another “wow”) and walked to the Parliament building. The building has a new glass dome on top. It was made of glass to symbolize the need for the German people to watch what’s going on inside the building.
We then drove past the Holocaust Memorial, which is essentially 1700 stone blocks of varying height. The number of blocks has no significance and there are no inscriptions on them. It’s just supposed to be a place to wander and reflect. It’s located in a park that is directly across the street from Hitler’s famous bunker. We then stopped at the National Theater building. To each side of the Theater is a church. One is Dutch, one is French. They face each other and have remarkably similar design. Then we went to the Allied Museum. We saw the actual building from Checkpoint Charlie (the building at the actual site is now a replica), a guard tower that used to be along the Berlin Wall, as well as a piece of the Wall itself. There was a plane used in the Berlin Airlift and a very large exhibit about how the airlift was actually accomplished.
Our last stop was at the Kaiser Wilhelm Church, which was bombed during WWII, but allowed to remain on its site as a reminder of the destruction of the war. A new church has been built around the ruin, but the old church is pretty amazing, and you can even go into the ground floor and see how the interior was damaged.
Then we got back on the bus and drove under the Linden trees down the main street of Berlin (Unter del Linden). Our train home was delayed because the engine broke down. Once we finally got on the train, we simply baked for 3 hours. It was so hot. We got back to the ship at 9:20 pm. Because the train was late, the ship had to delay its departure. They were ready to leave as soon as the last person was back onboard and we were underway before we could get from the gangplank to Parrot Cay.
The restaurant wasn’t even half-full. The first seating had literally 50 guests because so many people were stuck in Berlin. Yolande told the staff to all go on break for the first seating because there was no one to serve. Agus, our server from last year, came over and spent some time with us. Yolande stood at our table for a solid 20 minutes, talking to us. The meal itself was very good. I had the spicy chicken tenderloins appetizer, which was good and not actually very spicy. The Caribbean jerk pork was excellent (the mango salsa was the spicy part). Molly had the crab dip appetizer as her meal and loved it. Dawn had the fish, but hated it and traded for the portabella mushroom risotto, which was great. The dessert was a real good lemon meringue pie.
I relaxed in the hot tub until they closed it at midnight. I had a nice conversation with two sisters who were on their first Disney cruise.
DAY 8 – At Sea
Sunny. Mid- to upper 70s.
I spent a very lazy morning reading on Deck 9 before heading to the lecture about St. Petersburg at 11 am. Molly and I had lunch together at Topsider’s. There was a very good cold corn salad, a Waldorf salad (apples, grapes and walnuts) that I kind of liked, awesome BBQ ribs and so-so mashed potatoes (I’m not crazy about sour cream in them). There was also some pasta and a carved turkey. The treat, though, was that they had a big grill out on the deck and they were cooking steaks, which were very good. And one of the cooks wearing an apron that said “Cookie’s BBQ” on it. So we had a little taste of Castaway Cay in the middle of the Baltic. That was fun.
My sister’s family had lunch in Lumiere’s, where the menu included a really good steak sandwich, burgers, and wienerschnitzel (which Dawn found to be almost completely tasteless). I think Topsider’s was the better choice that day.
After lunch, I went to the second half of the St. Petersburg lecture and Kathryn did laundry. One improvement in the laundry equipment is that there are no more coins needed. You swipe your key-card and your onboard account is charged: $2 for a wash, $1 for a dryer, and $1 for each detergent packet.
The afternoon was split between shopping on Deck 4 (Platinum Castaway Club members get $25 credit if they spend $100. So we had to do that.) and relaxing with chicken fingers on Deck 9.
The show was “Villains Tonight”. This is the new show that has replaced “Golden Mickeys” on the Magic.
(Let’s have just a moment of silence for the loss of the best onboard show. Ok, I think I’ve pulled myself together. . .)
It had a very – painfully – slow start to explain the concept of the show. It did, however, have several genuine laugh-out-loud moments. It’s laced with a lot of pop-reference, Shrek-style humor. For example, Cruella DeVil walked the fashion runway between banners for “Project Cruella”. There was a Jerry Springer-style talk show segment, complete with “backstage cam”. The Fates referenced a Beyonce song (which I didn’t know, because I’m so old) and Panic’s cell phone ringtone was a High School Musical song. A lot of it worked for me (Ursula’s cabaret version of “Poor Unfortunate Souls”), while some of it fell flat (the Springer segment . . . right up until the last 45 seconds). Overall, it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, and definitely better than the new Toy Story show on the Wonder; but I wouldn’t say that it was a classic that I’d want to see every time I sail. Unlike the “Golden Mickeys”. Not that I’m bitter. Moving on, then.
Dinner was in Lumiere’s and was the “Villains Menu”. I had the seared scallop appetizer, which was very good. Kathryn’s entrée was the roast duck and she liked it a lot. I had the shrimp with mushrooms on pasta, which was also very good. There was also a Thanksgiving dinner on the menu, and a couple of people in our group got that. It was turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, etc. The folks who got that said it was very good also. The Yachtsman’s steak was on the menu again (this time with “walk the plank” butter) and was really good every time I tasted it.
I dashed out before dessert to see the World Cup Final (Spain 1, Netherlands 0) in Diversions; but I took a toasted cheese appetizer with me as a snack. Diversions was PACKED, and it was a loud crowd. It was a really good time.
