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Iceland, Fjords and AaD (Adventures AFTER Disney)
- Thread starter ChuckElias
- Start date
Day 8 -- Reykjavik Overcast, High 60
We did not plan any excursion for our second day in Reykjavik. We planned on simply exploring the city on our own. Since we didn't have to rush off the ship in the morning, we had breakfast in Lumiere's. There's something really nice about being waited on in a fancy restaurant to start the day. I'm not a huge breakfast person, so we don't usually do this a lot during our cruises. But for the few times that we do, I really enjoy the experience. I had the French Toast pineapple stack, served with a strawberry compote. Delicious! And Kath had the Eggs Benedict, which were great, as usual.
After breakfast, we disembarked and took the free shuttle into town, about a 5 minute bus ride. As a side note, we heard that Disney was the only line that had free shuttles for its passengers. The other lines that came into port had shuttles, but they weren't free. I wasn't able to verify that with anybody from the cruise line, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were true.
Once in town, we found a stand of local tour operators and hired one to take us around to the city's major sites. We picked up the tour at this downtown building. It's hard to tell from the picture, but the windows have different colors and it's really interesting to look at. (That's my brother-in-law, Steve, at the bottom left.) And I just loved the sculpture and the background:
Our first stop was a large mound that was made by Olof Nordal as a piece of art. You can walk up to the top and have beautiful views of the downtown and the water.
We also stopped at Reykjavik's City Hall. It was an interesting-looking building and our guide gave us a little history and geography lesson as we stood around a giant map of the country:
We also went to the legislative building, with a statue of the first woman to serve in the Parliament:
We stopped at Christ the King Catholic Church. Iceland has a deep tradition of Lutheran Protestantism, but there is a Catholic minority. We didn't get to go inside, because they were in the middle of services.
We stopped at the city's main park. It's not nearly as big as New York's Central Park, but it's kind of the same idea. Lots of open green space for general use. The thing I liked most about it was that it was littered with dozens of sculptures and statues. I have lots of pictures of the park, but I'll save them for later.
Our last stop was the Hallgrimskirkja church. This is the biggest church in Iceland, and the main landmark of Reykjavik. It is designed to resemble lava flows that are common in Iceland. This was probably my favorite part of Reykjavik. We arrived just as the Sunday service was ending and after waiting just a few minutes, we were allowed to go in and wander around and take pictures.
This statue of Leif Ericsson was a gift from the USA to Iceland and stands in the courtyard in front of the church:
As I said, we also went into the church and I have a ton of pictures of the interior, but I think I'll post them after the main report. The tour dropped us off where we started and we grabbed the shuttle back to the ship for lunch.
We ate at Cabanas and sat inside. It was a little too cool to eat outside, so we found a table near a window. They served fried calamari, which I don't ever remember seeing before on the Magic's buffet. It was really, really excellent, too. I was very surprised, but the breading was tasty and the calamari was very tender. It was almost as good as Palo's calamari. (Almost. . .) I also tried the chicken Thai curry on rice. It had a good flavor, but it was too spicy for me. If they had kept the same curry flavor, but taken out some of the heat, I would recommend it; but for me, it was too much. However, I loved the grilled spiced chicken with couscous. It was excellent. I also had some peel and eat shrimp. And then for dessert, I got some mint chocolate chip ice cream on a chocolate chip cookie. Overall, this was probably the best lunch menu for the whole cruise in Cabanas.
We did not plan any excursion for our second day in Reykjavik. We planned on simply exploring the city on our own. Since we didn't have to rush off the ship in the morning, we had breakfast in Lumiere's. There's something really nice about being waited on in a fancy restaurant to start the day. I'm not a huge breakfast person, so we don't usually do this a lot during our cruises. But for the few times that we do, I really enjoy the experience. I had the French Toast pineapple stack, served with a strawberry compote. Delicious! And Kath had the Eggs Benedict, which were great, as usual.
After breakfast, we disembarked and took the free shuttle into town, about a 5 minute bus ride. As a side note, we heard that Disney was the only line that had free shuttles for its passengers. The other lines that came into port had shuttles, but they weren't free. I wasn't able to verify that with anybody from the cruise line, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were true.
Once in town, we found a stand of local tour operators and hired one to take us around to the city's major sites. We picked up the tour at this downtown building. It's hard to tell from the picture, but the windows have different colors and it's really interesting to look at. (That's my brother-in-law, Steve, at the bottom left.) And I just loved the sculpture and the background:
Our first stop was a large mound that was made by Olof Nordal as a piece of art. You can walk up to the top and have beautiful views of the downtown and the water.
We also stopped at Reykjavik's City Hall. It was an interesting-looking building and our guide gave us a little history and geography lesson as we stood around a giant map of the country:
We also went to the legislative building, with a statue of the first woman to serve in the Parliament:
We stopped at Christ the King Catholic Church. Iceland has a deep tradition of Lutheran Protestantism, but there is a Catholic minority. We didn't get to go inside, because they were in the middle of services.
We stopped at the city's main park. It's not nearly as big as New York's Central Park, but it's kind of the same idea. Lots of open green space for general use. The thing I liked most about it was that it was littered with dozens of sculptures and statues. I have lots of pictures of the park, but I'll save them for later.
Our last stop was the Hallgrimskirkja church. This is the biggest church in Iceland, and the main landmark of Reykjavik. It is designed to resemble lava flows that are common in Iceland. This was probably my favorite part of Reykjavik. We arrived just as the Sunday service was ending and after waiting just a few minutes, we were allowed to go in and wander around and take pictures.
This statue of Leif Ericsson was a gift from the USA to Iceland and stands in the courtyard in front of the church:
As I said, we also went into the church and I have a ton of pictures of the interior, but I think I'll post them after the main report. The tour dropped us off where we started and we grabbed the shuttle back to the ship for lunch.
We ate at Cabanas and sat inside. It was a little too cool to eat outside, so we found a table near a window. They served fried calamari, which I don't ever remember seeing before on the Magic's buffet. It was really, really excellent, too. I was very surprised, but the breading was tasty and the calamari was very tender. It was almost as good as Palo's calamari. (Almost. . .) I also tried the chicken Thai curry on rice. It had a good flavor, but it was too spicy for me. If they had kept the same curry flavor, but taken out some of the heat, I would recommend it; but for me, it was too much. However, I loved the grilled spiced chicken with couscous. It was excellent. I also had some peel and eat shrimp. And then for dessert, I got some mint chocolate chip ice cream on a chocolate chip cookie. Overall, this was probably the best lunch menu for the whole cruise in Cabanas.
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Day 8 -- Reykjavik, continued
After lunch, Kathryn, Steve and I took the shuttle back into town. We walked back to the city park, the Parliament building and to some of the other local landmarks. We did a little shopping, and were back to the Magic by 4:30. All-aboard was 4:45, so we were back with no problem. Here are some random pictures from our walk.
And Rejkyavik Int'l Airport:
There was a little shop at the port, and I bought a couple postcards and mailed them. We had no problems or lines to re-board the ship, even though it was pretty close to the all-aboard time. We had plenty of time to get ready for dinner back in Lumiere's.
On our way through the Atrium, look who I met in Icelandic garb:
Our serving team was very good throughout the cruise, although I would say they were not consistently excellent. Our Server was Allen (from India). He was excellent, very engaging and made very few mistakes, other than not pouring the sauce for Kathryn's souffle early in the week. Our Assistant Server was Francesca (from England). She was pretty good, but not excellent. She got off to a really bad start on our first night. She just seemed unhappy and didn't engage us at all. She definitely got better over the next couple days, and eventually, we liked her. Usually we feel closer to the Assistant Server by the end of the cruise, since they spend more time with us than the Servers do. But this time, we definitely clicked more with Allen.
That night, for appetizers, Kathryn and I had the crab cake, which was excellent. Great flavor and not as bready as it was on our last cruise. Kath makes them more crispy at home, which I like; but these were terrific. Molly had the spicy empanada (Argentinian beef). It had good flavor, with a bit of heat, but not overpowering. Molly had the Canadian cheese soup, which was very good and not as salty as it has seemed in the past. Kathryn had the South African Pear Salad, which was served with a Garam Masala syrup. (Garam Masala is a spice mixture that is used in a lot of South African recipes.) The syrup was a balsamic vinaigrette base, so unfortunately, the Garam Masala flavor didn't come through very much. This salad would not have been served in a real African-cuisine restaurant like Jiko at the Animal Kingdom Lodge.
For entrees, all three of us got the Indian Prawn curry, and it was very good. The curry was not spicy and the portion size was reasonable for once.
The desserts didn't interest me, so I passed. But there was a Canadian Ice Cream sundae with butter pecan ice cream and a maple cream. Molly asked for just the ice cream, which she liked. Kath got the passion fruit creme brulee, which was very good.
It was Steve's actual birthday, so the serving crew came to the table and sang, and brought a little cake for the table to share. For some reason, I have no pictures of our food, but I remembered to take pictures of Steve's cake.
The show that night was "Ice! Fire! Strings!", featuring Greta Salome. She's the person who played the violin during our meal at Palo, earlier in the week. She's a native of Iceland and advanced to the last stages in a European version of "America's Got Talent". She plays the violin and sings. As with the acrobats (Rebecca and Donovan), I felt the show would be better without her vocals. She is obviously very talented, but it wasn't my kind of show, personally. Her song choices for the violin weren't great. A couple Disney numbers and a classical medley where she shoe-horned some Disney melodies into it. Dueling banjos isn't my cup of tea, especially on the violin. As I said, she's clearly very good and talented, but personally, I would've preferred to hear her perform some great classical music. It just wasn't that kind of show. I think the vast majority of the audience liked the show more than I did, to be fair.
After the show, we relaxed and wandered Deck 9 for a while. Then at 11, I headed to O'Gills for the Women's World Cup Final. It was also shown on the Funnel Vision screen, but it was too cold to sit on deck for 2 hours. The ship was only granted permission to show it that day, so I don't think it was even listed in the Daily Navigator. When I got to O'Gills, the Irish pub band was playing and they apparently didn't realize that they were supposed to be done at 11. So they played right through the first goal, unfortunately. The crew finally shooed them off-stage, they lowered the big screen and we watched the rest of the game. The place was pretty packed and LOUD. And of course, they had nachos, wings and pigs-in-a-blanket because, you know, we hadn't eaten in 3 hours. It was a really fun way to end the day.
After lunch, Kathryn, Steve and I took the shuttle back into town. We walked back to the city park, the Parliament building and to some of the other local landmarks. We did a little shopping, and were back to the Magic by 4:30. All-aboard was 4:45, so we were back with no problem. Here are some random pictures from our walk.
And Rejkyavik Int'l Airport:
There was a little shop at the port, and I bought a couple postcards and mailed them. We had no problems or lines to re-board the ship, even though it was pretty close to the all-aboard time. We had plenty of time to get ready for dinner back in Lumiere's.
On our way through the Atrium, look who I met in Icelandic garb:
Our serving team was very good throughout the cruise, although I would say they were not consistently excellent. Our Server was Allen (from India). He was excellent, very engaging and made very few mistakes, other than not pouring the sauce for Kathryn's souffle early in the week. Our Assistant Server was Francesca (from England). She was pretty good, but not excellent. She got off to a really bad start on our first night. She just seemed unhappy and didn't engage us at all. She definitely got better over the next couple days, and eventually, we liked her. Usually we feel closer to the Assistant Server by the end of the cruise, since they spend more time with us than the Servers do. But this time, we definitely clicked more with Allen.
That night, for appetizers, Kathryn and I had the crab cake, which was excellent. Great flavor and not as bready as it was on our last cruise. Kath makes them more crispy at home, which I like; but these were terrific. Molly had the spicy empanada (Argentinian beef). It had good flavor, with a bit of heat, but not overpowering. Molly had the Canadian cheese soup, which was very good and not as salty as it has seemed in the past. Kathryn had the South African Pear Salad, which was served with a Garam Masala syrup. (Garam Masala is a spice mixture that is used in a lot of South African recipes.) The syrup was a balsamic vinaigrette base, so unfortunately, the Garam Masala flavor didn't come through very much. This salad would not have been served in a real African-cuisine restaurant like Jiko at the Animal Kingdom Lodge.
For entrees, all three of us got the Indian Prawn curry, and it was very good. The curry was not spicy and the portion size was reasonable for once.
The desserts didn't interest me, so I passed. But there was a Canadian Ice Cream sundae with butter pecan ice cream and a maple cream. Molly asked for just the ice cream, which she liked. Kath got the passion fruit creme brulee, which was very good.
It was Steve's actual birthday, so the serving crew came to the table and sang, and brought a little cake for the table to share. For some reason, I have no pictures of our food, but I remembered to take pictures of Steve's cake.
The show that night was "Ice! Fire! Strings!", featuring Greta Salome. She's the person who played the violin during our meal at Palo, earlier in the week. She's a native of Iceland and advanced to the last stages in a European version of "America's Got Talent". She plays the violin and sings. As with the acrobats (Rebecca and Donovan), I felt the show would be better without her vocals. She is obviously very talented, but it wasn't my kind of show, personally. Her song choices for the violin weren't great. A couple Disney numbers and a classical medley where she shoe-horned some Disney melodies into it. Dueling banjos isn't my cup of tea, especially on the violin. As I said, she's clearly very good and talented, but personally, I would've preferred to hear her perform some great classical music. It just wasn't that kind of show. I think the vast majority of the audience liked the show more than I did, to be fair.
After the show, we relaxed and wandered Deck 9 for a while. Then at 11, I headed to O'Gills for the Women's World Cup Final. It was also shown on the Funnel Vision screen, but it was too cold to sit on deck for 2 hours. The ship was only granted permission to show it that day, so I don't think it was even listed in the Daily Navigator. When I got to O'Gills, the Irish pub band was playing and they apparently didn't realize that they were supposed to be done at 11. So they played right through the first goal, unfortunately. The crew finally shooed them off-stage, they lowered the big screen and we watched the rest of the game. The place was pretty packed and LOUD. And of course, they had nachos, wings and pigs-in-a-blanket because, you know, we hadn't eaten in 3 hours. It was a really fun way to end the day.
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Day 9 -- Akureyri Mostly cloudy, high of 50
Up early to work out, as usual, and then back to the room for a small breakfast. It was way too cold to eat on the verandah, so we stayed in the room and looked out the window as we approached land. I have no notes at all about what did that morning, so unfortunately, I have no idea what kind of activities were going on around the ship. Around 11:15, we entered the fjord that leads to Akureyri's port. The voyage in the fjord took took 30-40 minutes, and the scenery was amazing. It reminded me a lot of our Alaska cruise as the ship approached Tracy Arm Glacier. The difference (to me) was that there were a lot fewer trees than in Alaska, leaving more open space. (In fact, on our tour later in the day, the guide mentioned that tree farming is one of the faster-growing industries in the region.) But the terrain seemed very similar. We stood up on Deck 10 for most of the approach, but it was very crowded; so we spent the last 10 minutes or so on our verandah and watched the docking from there.
And Commodore Tom bringing through the fjord (I shot this from my verandah):
We docked just before noon, but our excursion didn't leave until about 1, so I went to Lumiere's for lunch (the girls went to Cabanas) and I had a great (and huge!) strip steak. The variety at a buffet is nice, but I love eating in Lumiere's. It's always nice to have a server, even if you don't know him/her.
Our port adventure for the day was an excursion to the Waterfall of the Gods and then to the city's botanical gardens. We took a bus about 45 minutes to the falls, spent a half hour there, then 45 minutes back to town where the gardens are, where we spent another half hour before heading back to the ship. I liked this excursion very much, although I wish they'd given us a little more time at the falls.
We stopped on the way back to town for some picturesque views of the town:
The botanical gardens were very nice, but just like everywhere else we'd been on this cruise, our guide remarked on how uncharacteristically cold the Spring and Summer had been to that point. So the gardens had not really come to full bloom yet when we were there. But we enjoyed what we could.
This is Matthías Jochumsson, who wrote Iceland's national anthem.
Up early to work out, as usual, and then back to the room for a small breakfast. It was way too cold to eat on the verandah, so we stayed in the room and looked out the window as we approached land. I have no notes at all about what did that morning, so unfortunately, I have no idea what kind of activities were going on around the ship. Around 11:15, we entered the fjord that leads to Akureyri's port. The voyage in the fjord took took 30-40 minutes, and the scenery was amazing. It reminded me a lot of our Alaska cruise as the ship approached Tracy Arm Glacier. The difference (to me) was that there were a lot fewer trees than in Alaska, leaving more open space. (In fact, on our tour later in the day, the guide mentioned that tree farming is one of the faster-growing industries in the region.) But the terrain seemed very similar. We stood up on Deck 10 for most of the approach, but it was very crowded; so we spent the last 10 minutes or so on our verandah and watched the docking from there.
And Commodore Tom bringing through the fjord (I shot this from my verandah):
We docked just before noon, but our excursion didn't leave until about 1, so I went to Lumiere's for lunch (the girls went to Cabanas) and I had a great (and huge!) strip steak. The variety at a buffet is nice, but I love eating in Lumiere's. It's always nice to have a server, even if you don't know him/her.
Our port adventure for the day was an excursion to the Waterfall of the Gods and then to the city's botanical gardens. We took a bus about 45 minutes to the falls, spent a half hour there, then 45 minutes back to town where the gardens are, where we spent another half hour before heading back to the ship. I liked this excursion very much, although I wish they'd given us a little more time at the falls.
We stopped on the way back to town for some picturesque views of the town:
The botanical gardens were very nice, but just like everywhere else we'd been on this cruise, our guide remarked on how uncharacteristically cold the Spring and Summer had been to that point. So the gardens had not really come to full bloom yet when we were there. But we enjoyed what we could.
This is Matthías Jochumsson, who wrote Iceland's national anthem.
Day 9 -- Akureyri, continued
The excursion dropped us back at the Magic around 4:15, but Kathryn and I walked back into town to visit the biggest church in Akureyri, the Akureyrarkirkja. There are wonderful views of the town and the port from the top of the 109 steps to the church. After visiting the church, we wandered through some of the local shops (bought some Christmas decorations). One of the things that everybody talked about as we did our research before the cruise was how Iceland was famous for its hot dogs. So on our last day in Iceland, we shared a hot dog. They put all kinds of stuff on them. It was good, but come on, it's still just a hot dog. We arrived back at the ship at 5:30.
A view of the ship from the top of the 109 stairs:
A couple shots of the shopping "district" (just one pedestrian-only street, actually):
We saw this on our way back to the ship. If I've said it once, It've said it 1,000 times: "Hittu litlu raddirnar i hofdinu pin".
And this sculpture is at the port entrance. I'm not sure what it's supposed to be, but it reminds me of a whale's tail:
Getting back to the ship at 5:30 didn't leave us much time to get ready for dinner. But we didn't want to be late because our dinner was in Animator's Palate, and we wanted to make sure we had time to draw our figures for the animation show. If you haven't been on the Magic or Fantasy, I won't ruin this show for you, but the basic concept is that everyone draws a person and the dining room animates it. It's very fun to do and to watch and you don't want to miss it, especially if you have kids in your traveling party. Anyway, my character was a Viking. I thought it was pretty good, but Allen laughed at it. (I had second thoughts about it at that point.) But it's not THAT bad, is it?
Because of the show, the menu is somewhat limited on "Animation Night". Everybody gets the same appetizers, there aren't any options. The appetizer was a sampler with smoked duck breast, dill shrimp and smoked salmon tartare. I passed on this combo, but Kathryn said it was very good. The soup was "Macaroni, cheese and baked potato", which was a lot like the Canadian cheddar soup with elbow noodles in it. I liked it more than Molly did.
Several of the entrees sounded really good, so we each ordered something different and just shared all three among ourselves. We got the Juniper wild Boar filet on spetzel, the Honey-Mustard Marinated Salmon, and the Veal topped with crab meat over polenta with a red wine reduction. The boar was fabulous and so delicious! We all loved it. The salmon was also very good. The veal, however, was disapointing. It was a very thick piece of meat and ended up being pretty overdone. The crab topping, polenta, and sauce were all delicious; but the veal itself, sadly, was a waste. Here are the entrees:
The veal:
This is a terrible picture of the salmon. Sorry:
The amazing boar:
There was a frozen yogurt dessert that no one wanted. So we all ended up getting the sampler trio, which included a Norwegian pancake and an almond berry crumble. It was ok, but not as good as a soft-serve twist on Deck 9 later. (By the way, they served a really great variety of flavors at the soft serve station. Throughout the week at various times, there was banana, blueberry, mango and strawberry. Yum!!)
The show in the Walt Disney Theater was the Beatle Maniacs. As you might guess, this is a Beatles tribute band. And they put on a GREAT show. I loved it, and pretty much everyone in the theater was going crazy for them. They played a great selection of songs from different "eras" of Beatles history. They opened with "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and closed with (what else?) "Hey Jude". They did use a lot of pre-recorded orchestration, so it was never 100% clear to me exactly how much they were actually playing. But the show was really fantastic. And, as I said, the crowd absolutely loved it.
After the show, we got that soft-serve, but it was too cold to spend much time on deck. So we watched a movie back in the stateroom and called it a night.
The excursion dropped us back at the Magic around 4:15, but Kathryn and I walked back into town to visit the biggest church in Akureyri, the Akureyrarkirkja. There are wonderful views of the town and the port from the top of the 109 steps to the church. After visiting the church, we wandered through some of the local shops (bought some Christmas decorations). One of the things that everybody talked about as we did our research before the cruise was how Iceland was famous for its hot dogs. So on our last day in Iceland, we shared a hot dog. They put all kinds of stuff on them. It was good, but come on, it's still just a hot dog. We arrived back at the ship at 5:30.
A view of the ship from the top of the 109 stairs:
A couple shots of the shopping "district" (just one pedestrian-only street, actually):
We saw this on our way back to the ship. If I've said it once, It've said it 1,000 times: "Hittu litlu raddirnar i hofdinu pin".
And this sculpture is at the port entrance. I'm not sure what it's supposed to be, but it reminds me of a whale's tail:
Getting back to the ship at 5:30 didn't leave us much time to get ready for dinner. But we didn't want to be late because our dinner was in Animator's Palate, and we wanted to make sure we had time to draw our figures for the animation show. If you haven't been on the Magic or Fantasy, I won't ruin this show for you, but the basic concept is that everyone draws a person and the dining room animates it. It's very fun to do and to watch and you don't want to miss it, especially if you have kids in your traveling party. Anyway, my character was a Viking. I thought it was pretty good, but Allen laughed at it. (I had second thoughts about it at that point.) But it's not THAT bad, is it?
Because of the show, the menu is somewhat limited on "Animation Night". Everybody gets the same appetizers, there aren't any options. The appetizer was a sampler with smoked duck breast, dill shrimp and smoked salmon tartare. I passed on this combo, but Kathryn said it was very good. The soup was "Macaroni, cheese and baked potato", which was a lot like the Canadian cheddar soup with elbow noodles in it. I liked it more than Molly did.
Several of the entrees sounded really good, so we each ordered something different and just shared all three among ourselves. We got the Juniper wild Boar filet on spetzel, the Honey-Mustard Marinated Salmon, and the Veal topped with crab meat over polenta with a red wine reduction. The boar was fabulous and so delicious! We all loved it. The salmon was also very good. The veal, however, was disapointing. It was a very thick piece of meat and ended up being pretty overdone. The crab topping, polenta, and sauce were all delicious; but the veal itself, sadly, was a waste. Here are the entrees:
The veal:
This is a terrible picture of the salmon. Sorry:
The amazing boar:
There was a frozen yogurt dessert that no one wanted. So we all ended up getting the sampler trio, which included a Norwegian pancake and an almond berry crumble. It was ok, but not as good as a soft-serve twist on Deck 9 later. (By the way, they served a really great variety of flavors at the soft serve station. Throughout the week at various times, there was banana, blueberry, mango and strawberry. Yum!!)
The show in the Walt Disney Theater was the Beatle Maniacs. As you might guess, this is a Beatles tribute band. And they put on a GREAT show. I loved it, and pretty much everyone in the theater was going crazy for them. They played a great selection of songs from different "eras" of Beatles history. They opened with "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and closed with (what else?) "Hey Jude". They did use a lot of pre-recorded orchestration, so it was never 100% clear to me exactly how much they were actually playing. But the show was really fantastic. And, as I said, the crowd absolutely loved it.
After the show, we got that soft-serve, but it was too cold to spend much time on deck. So we watched a movie back in the stateroom and called it a night.
We saw the Beatlemaniacs last year on our Med cruise. Fantastic. They also did a show on Deck 9 the next day, which was even better.
On our Baltic cruise we had an ABBA revival band, which was ok, but a little odd. The musicians and singers seemed to have a 30+ year age range, which meant that you couldn't really get lost in the experience like we did for the Beatlemaniacs. All the real ABBA members were in their 20s or early 30s in their prime back in the 70s and 80s. Honestly, seeing a 19 year old singing next to an approximate 50 year old seemed a bit odd. The BeatleManiacs had no such anomalies. I'm 50, so I don't think I would pair up with a 19 year old to start a Simon & Garfunkel revival. Odd looks would abound, no matter how good we sounded. Nevertheless, a fun experience overall.
On our Baltic cruise we had an ABBA revival band, which was ok, but a little odd. The musicians and singers seemed to have a 30+ year age range, which meant that you couldn't really get lost in the experience like we did for the Beatlemaniacs. All the real ABBA members were in their 20s or early 30s in their prime back in the 70s and 80s. Honestly, seeing a 19 year old singing next to an approximate 50 year old seemed a bit odd. The BeatleManiacs had no such anomalies. I'm 50, so I don't think I would pair up with a 19 year old to start a Simon & Garfunkel revival. Odd looks would abound, no matter how good we sounded. Nevertheless, a fun experience overall.
Day 9 -- Akureyri (Continued -- again!)
For some reason, I didn't put anything about this in my notes, so I totally forgot about it until I was looking through my pictures. But between the first and second seatings of dinner, the Magic hosted the Freezing the Night Away party on Deck 9. This was a very cute deck party with Anna, Elsa and Kristoff performing live on deck and Olaf and Sven joining us via the Funnel Vision screen. There was a dance party, lots of Frozen songs, and a little story line and Olaf being silly up on the screen.
Since the party took place at 7:30 p.m., it was still broad daylight outside, so it didn't really feel like a Freezing the NIGHT away party. But it definitely was a FREEZING the night away party!! It was so cold on deck! It had to be in the mid-40's at the most. So with the wind blowing across the deck, it really felt like Arendelle!
I'm not a huge fan of the deck parties (they're usually just too crowded for me), but I really thought this one was terrific. The singing and dancing was great -- the cast member who sang "Let It Go" was phenomenal -- and there was plenty of Olaf and Sven to make it funny. So here are some pictures from the party:
The stage with gorgeous Iceland scenery in the background:
And it even "snowed":
When we got back to our room that night, we were greeted by a note from the Frozen characters and some rice crispy treats.
It's a little sad not having Pirates Night and fireworks on a Disney Cruise, but this party was very good, too.
For some reason, I didn't put anything about this in my notes, so I totally forgot about it until I was looking through my pictures. But between the first and second seatings of dinner, the Magic hosted the Freezing the Night Away party on Deck 9. This was a very cute deck party with Anna, Elsa and Kristoff performing live on deck and Olaf and Sven joining us via the Funnel Vision screen. There was a dance party, lots of Frozen songs, and a little story line and Olaf being silly up on the screen.
Since the party took place at 7:30 p.m., it was still broad daylight outside, so it didn't really feel like a Freezing the NIGHT away party. But it definitely was a FREEZING the night away party!! It was so cold on deck! It had to be in the mid-40's at the most. So with the wind blowing across the deck, it really felt like Arendelle!
I'm not a huge fan of the deck parties (they're usually just too crowded for me), but I really thought this one was terrific. The singing and dancing was great -- the cast member who sang "Let It Go" was phenomenal -- and there was plenty of Olaf and Sven to make it funny. So here are some pictures from the party:
The stage with gorgeous Iceland scenery in the background:
And it even "snowed":
When we got back to our room that night, we were greeted by a note from the Frozen characters and some rice crispy treats.
It's a little sad not having Pirates Night and fireworks on a Disney Cruise, but this party was very good, too.
DisSplash
Well-Known Member
Loving your report and all of the beautiful photos!! I got a kick out of seeing a Mexican restaurant (Amigos) in the middle of a what appeared to be a Norwegian fishing port! I am pretty sure you were trying to capture the Magic in the background, but that still made me laugh a bit.
The churches, and a lot of the other architectural details throughout your port stops, are absolutely beautiful. Can't to hear and see more!
The churches, and a lot of the other architectural details throughout your port stops, are absolutely beautiful. Can't to hear and see more!
Day 9 -- One last thing. . .
I also forgot to mention that we crossed the Arctic Circle as we approached Akureyri, and then crossed it again after our departure. This was actually a sore spot with many of the cruisers because there was no announcement or recognition of any kind that we'd been in the Arctic Circle. There was no announcement made at the time of the crossing because it was around 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. each time. But I have to admit, I expected a certificate or some memento, or even some merchandise, to recognize that we'd become Arctic "explorers".
This lack of recognition of a pretty cool achievement just seemed to reinforce the feeling that DCL really gave a poor effort of providing passengers with unique reminders of this once-in-a-lifetime trip. So one of the passengers created a customizable image and I adapted it for my family:
I also forgot to mention that we crossed the Arctic Circle as we approached Akureyri, and then crossed it again after our departure. This was actually a sore spot with many of the cruisers because there was no announcement or recognition of any kind that we'd been in the Arctic Circle. There was no announcement made at the time of the crossing because it was around 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. each time. But I have to admit, I expected a certificate or some memento, or even some merchandise, to recognize that we'd become Arctic "explorers".
This lack of recognition of a pretty cool achievement just seemed to reinforce the feeling that DCL really gave a poor effort of providing passengers with unique reminders of this once-in-a-lifetime trip. So one of the passengers created a customizable image and I adapted it for my family:
Day 10 -- At Sea Overcast, High 45
We had very rough seas overnight. I got up early as usual and worked out, but I didn't feel great. I don't usually feel motion sickness, but I think that's what was bothering me. I skipped breakfast, because we were scheduled to have brunch at Palo. Instead, I took my book into Cove Cafe on Deck 9 because it was too cold to sit on deck.
Kathryn went to another session of "Anyone Can Cook", which was promoted as a "Battle of the Chefs". But the chefs were Natalie, our Cruise Director, and her assistant. They didn't actually even really cook. They each had a chef to "assist" them and they just acted goofy while the chefs cooked. Kath said it was kind of unorganized. They didn't tell the audience what ingredients they had to use or even what they were cooking. But it wasn't supposed to serious. Just goofy and a chance for all of them to be funny on-stage.
There was also a late morning lecture on the history of Kirkwall, which I really would have liked to attend, but we were getting ready for brunch.
We had a noon seating, but waited maybe 10 minutes just to be greeted, and then had another wait before our "tour" of the buffet. For those of you who haven't had the chance to enjoy Palo brunch, it has two parts. The first part is a buffet and the second part is a menu. The buffet portion was exactly the way I remembered it: breads on one side; desserts on the other; cheeses, shrimp, crab legs, and meats in the middle.
From the menu, we ordered the Gorgonzola with grape pizza, which had green grapes for the first time. (Every time I've gotten this in the past, it's had red grapes on it.) It was delicious, as always. You might think it's an odd combination, but I highly suggest you try it. It's always very good. I ordered the veal with mushroom sauce, which sadly was terrible. It was so over-cooked that it was practically shoe-leather. I hate to say it, but it was just awful. Molly ordered the same thing and hers was better than mine: sliced thinner and not as over-cooked. But I didn't even bother to try to eat mine. I hate to say things like this on a Disney cruise, but it's hard to sugar-coat that dish. Not good. Kathryn ordered the oysters with hollandaise sauce and loved it. I ordered the chicken parmesan to replace my veal and it was very good, and much better than the last time I ordered it on the Fantasy.
The menu also always has egg options, since it's brunch, but none of us ordered them this time. The desserts were really nice. I had a chocolate-dipped strawberry and a walnut cake that was delicious!
Our pizza -- always delicious:
My terrible veal:
Kathryn's oysters:
The chicken parm:
Dessert portion of the buffet:
This odd mask decorated part of the buffet:
Right after lunch, we had to go through British customs. That's right, we had to report to British customs officials with all the members of our traveling party while still at sea. Disney had brought them aboard in Akureyri and we cleared customs in the Walt Disney Theater. We also received our passports back at this point, after they'd been stamped by the British agents.
Unfortunately, I felt steadily worse throughout the afternoon. I took a nap after brunch and decided to skip dinner, I have no information to share about our dinner at sea that night. But I didn't want to miss the evening's show, so I rested up for a few hours in the afternoon. The reason I didn't want to miss the show is that it was "Walt Disney: the Dream Goes On", which I'd seen and loved during our Northern Capitals cruise in 2010. This show uses stage action plus video clips to dramatize certain portions of Walt's life, interspersed with Disney songs performed by the cast. They used "No Strings on Me", "Step in Time", "Walking Right Down the Middle of Main St. USA", and "I Wanna Be Like You", among others, including a couple original songs written just for this show. I really like this show a lot. The song choices are great because there aren't a lot of Mary Poppins songs in DCL shows (although they do a HUGE Mary Poppins segment in Disney's "Believe" on the Dream and Fantasy) and I just have a soft spot for "Main St., USA". It's corny, but I love seeing this performed in the Magic Kingdom and to have it included in this show is special to me.
After the show, I was definitely feeling better, but didn't want to push it. So it was a quiet night of hanging out in a lounge, then back to the room to watch Emperor's New Groove.
We had very rough seas overnight. I got up early as usual and worked out, but I didn't feel great. I don't usually feel motion sickness, but I think that's what was bothering me. I skipped breakfast, because we were scheduled to have brunch at Palo. Instead, I took my book into Cove Cafe on Deck 9 because it was too cold to sit on deck.
Kathryn went to another session of "Anyone Can Cook", which was promoted as a "Battle of the Chefs". But the chefs were Natalie, our Cruise Director, and her assistant. They didn't actually even really cook. They each had a chef to "assist" them and they just acted goofy while the chefs cooked. Kath said it was kind of unorganized. They didn't tell the audience what ingredients they had to use or even what they were cooking. But it wasn't supposed to serious. Just goofy and a chance for all of them to be funny on-stage.
There was also a late morning lecture on the history of Kirkwall, which I really would have liked to attend, but we were getting ready for brunch.
We had a noon seating, but waited maybe 10 minutes just to be greeted, and then had another wait before our "tour" of the buffet. For those of you who haven't had the chance to enjoy Palo brunch, it has two parts. The first part is a buffet and the second part is a menu. The buffet portion was exactly the way I remembered it: breads on one side; desserts on the other; cheeses, shrimp, crab legs, and meats in the middle.
From the menu, we ordered the Gorgonzola with grape pizza, which had green grapes for the first time. (Every time I've gotten this in the past, it's had red grapes on it.) It was delicious, as always. You might think it's an odd combination, but I highly suggest you try it. It's always very good. I ordered the veal with mushroom sauce, which sadly was terrible. It was so over-cooked that it was practically shoe-leather. I hate to say it, but it was just awful. Molly ordered the same thing and hers was better than mine: sliced thinner and not as over-cooked. But I didn't even bother to try to eat mine. I hate to say things like this on a Disney cruise, but it's hard to sugar-coat that dish. Not good. Kathryn ordered the oysters with hollandaise sauce and loved it. I ordered the chicken parmesan to replace my veal and it was very good, and much better than the last time I ordered it on the Fantasy.
The menu also always has egg options, since it's brunch, but none of us ordered them this time. The desserts were really nice. I had a chocolate-dipped strawberry and a walnut cake that was delicious!
Our pizza -- always delicious:
My terrible veal:
Kathryn's oysters:
The chicken parm:
Dessert portion of the buffet:
This odd mask decorated part of the buffet:
Right after lunch, we had to go through British customs. That's right, we had to report to British customs officials with all the members of our traveling party while still at sea. Disney had brought them aboard in Akureyri and we cleared customs in the Walt Disney Theater. We also received our passports back at this point, after they'd been stamped by the British agents.
Unfortunately, I felt steadily worse throughout the afternoon. I took a nap after brunch and decided to skip dinner, I have no information to share about our dinner at sea that night. But I didn't want to miss the evening's show, so I rested up for a few hours in the afternoon. The reason I didn't want to miss the show is that it was "Walt Disney: the Dream Goes On", which I'd seen and loved during our Northern Capitals cruise in 2010. This show uses stage action plus video clips to dramatize certain portions of Walt's life, interspersed with Disney songs performed by the cast. They used "No Strings on Me", "Step in Time", "Walking Right Down the Middle of Main St. USA", and "I Wanna Be Like You", among others, including a couple original songs written just for this show. I really like this show a lot. The song choices are great because there aren't a lot of Mary Poppins songs in DCL shows (although they do a HUGE Mary Poppins segment in Disney's "Believe" on the Dream and Fantasy) and I just have a soft spot for "Main St., USA". It's corny, but I love seeing this performed in the Magic Kingdom and to have it included in this show is special to me.
After the show, I was definitely feeling better, but didn't want to push it. So it was a quiet night of hanging out in a lounge, then back to the room to watch Emperor's New Groove.
1) What did you think about the amount of instrumentation that was pre-recorded? Did it take away from the experience for you? It didn't for me, except for one time when the piano started playing before he sat down on the bench.
2) I'm really bummed that we didn't get a Deck 9 performance, but it was so cold, I'm not sure they could even have done it.
We also had an ABBA tribute in 2010 during our Baltic sailing. Like you, I just wasn't able to get fully into it. We actually didn't even stay for the whole thing. On our sailing, they played in Rockin' Bar D (now Fathoms). Did they play a main show in the Walt Disney Theater when you saw them?
I didn't notice the pre-recorded music because it appeared that they were all playing their own instruments and singing live. The piano thing would have given it away. That didn't happen to us.
ABBA FAB played in the Walt Disney Theatre, and it was well-received for the most part, but not like the Beatle Maniacs from last year. Like I said, the problem was one of image. The 2 female singers were 19 and about 50, which was odd. The electric keyboard player looked to be over 300 pounds. I know that shouldn't matter at some level, but a tribute band really should look like the group they are portraying. It's like casting a show--suspending belief to draw you into the performance. People who don't look the part detract from the audience experience. After all, they had the right costuming, the right lighting, the right hairstyles, and the music sounded good. But it's hard to really get fully into it when quite obviously these people don't look the part.
Day 11 -- Kirkwall, Scotland VERY windy, 55°
I skipped the gym this morning because one of our excursions was a walking tour of the town. So I slept in a little bit and then headed to Cabanas for breakfast. Blueberry pancakes with strawberry compote has become a staple, with a side of corned beef hash and (because I have no self-control) some bacon.
We met for our Walking Tour of Kirkwall excursion at 10:30 and took a short bus ride from the ship to the town. As we walked to the bus, we had to lean into the wind to keep walking. The wind was brutal by the water; and although it wasn't as bad once we actually got into the town, I couldn't help but feel bad for the people who had signed up for golf excursions. You come all this way and pay a couple hundred dollars per person to play a round in the birthplace of golf and then get unplayable conditions. I heard later that most people played four holes, at the most. I'm sure it was a beautiful setting, but those folks must have been disappointed.
Which leads me into our walking tour. While the town's highlights were great to see, it took our guide forever to get us to them. I loved seeing St. Magnus Cathedral, the Bishop's Palace and the Earl's Palace; but our guide was not as helpful as I would've hoped. It seemed like we stopped every 15 feet to look at a shop or a street with moderately interesting, but historically minor, details. But as I mentioned, this made it about 45 minutes before we got to the really interesting sites. This also caused the tour to go about a half hour longer than planned. Several people actually left the tour to explore the town on their own.
We all stuck with the tour and overall, I guess I'm glad that we did. Once we got into the Palaces, the guide did offer some interesting information. The Earl's Palace, in particular, was intriguing because of the extreme cost and the Earl's ultimate demise for treason.
Where we started the tour:
A couple of views of the town:
The cathedral:
Outer tower of the Bishop's Palace:
The Water Gate for the Palace:
Entrance to the Palace:
The Great Hall:
The Earl's Palace is directly across the street from the Bishop's Palace:
Kathryn and Molly in an upstairs balcony:
The main dining room of the Earl's Palace:
This is a study or bathroom off of one of the guest bedrooms upstairs:
The tour ended at about 1:30 and we took the shuttle back to the ship. When we arrived at the pier, these poor souls were playing for us in the windy cold weather:
We had some lunch at Cabanas, which included conch fritters and pan-fried dumplings -- both really good -- and some shrimp. After lunch, Kathryn took the shuttle back into town to do a little shopping and pick up a bottle of wine. Because the trip into town is so short, she was able to make it back to the ship in plenty of time for our second excursion.
I skipped the gym this morning because one of our excursions was a walking tour of the town. So I slept in a little bit and then headed to Cabanas for breakfast. Blueberry pancakes with strawberry compote has become a staple, with a side of corned beef hash and (because I have no self-control) some bacon.
We met for our Walking Tour of Kirkwall excursion at 10:30 and took a short bus ride from the ship to the town. As we walked to the bus, we had to lean into the wind to keep walking. The wind was brutal by the water; and although it wasn't as bad once we actually got into the town, I couldn't help but feel bad for the people who had signed up for golf excursions. You come all this way and pay a couple hundred dollars per person to play a round in the birthplace of golf and then get unplayable conditions. I heard later that most people played four holes, at the most. I'm sure it was a beautiful setting, but those folks must have been disappointed.
Which leads me into our walking tour. While the town's highlights were great to see, it took our guide forever to get us to them. I loved seeing St. Magnus Cathedral, the Bishop's Palace and the Earl's Palace; but our guide was not as helpful as I would've hoped. It seemed like we stopped every 15 feet to look at a shop or a street with moderately interesting, but historically minor, details. But as I mentioned, this made it about 45 minutes before we got to the really interesting sites. This also caused the tour to go about a half hour longer than planned. Several people actually left the tour to explore the town on their own.
We all stuck with the tour and overall, I guess I'm glad that we did. Once we got into the Palaces, the guide did offer some interesting information. The Earl's Palace, in particular, was intriguing because of the extreme cost and the Earl's ultimate demise for treason.
Where we started the tour:
A couple of views of the town:
The cathedral:
Outer tower of the Bishop's Palace:
The Water Gate for the Palace:
Entrance to the Palace:
The Great Hall:
The Earl's Palace is directly across the street from the Bishop's Palace:
Kathryn and Molly in an upstairs balcony:
The main dining room of the Earl's Palace:
This is a study or bathroom off of one of the guest bedrooms upstairs:
The tour ended at about 1:30 and we took the shuttle back to the ship. When we arrived at the pier, these poor souls were playing for us in the windy cold weather:
We had some lunch at Cabanas, which included conch fritters and pan-fried dumplings -- both really good -- and some shrimp. After lunch, Kathryn took the shuttle back into town to do a little shopping and pick up a bottle of wine. Because the trip into town is so short, she was able to make it back to the ship in plenty of time for our second excursion.
Day 11, Continued
Our second excursion of the day was the "Standing Stones and Dramatic Cliffs". We took a bus to a circle of standing stones called the Ring of Brogdar. It's estimated to be about 5,000 years old. Our guide gave us some history and some theories on why the stones were erected there, but when we arrived, we were on our own to wander around the circle (or inside the circle) for about 45 minutes.
After leaving the Ring of Brogdar, we drove to the sea and looked out over some amazing cliffs. From there, we could just make out the Old Man of Hoy, which is a rock formation, created by the erosion of the sea over the last few centuries. The views really were pretty dramatic.
This terrible picture is the best I could get of the Old Man. You can sort of make out his form on the right.
The tour was just about 2 hours long, and I really enjoyed it very much. Our guide was excellent and I felt like we weren't rushed to leave the standing stones, even with the excursion being relatively short. On our bus ride back to the ship, our guide told us that the mayor of Kirkwall had made a special request of the residents to come down to the pier to see us off when it was time for the Magic to leave port. I think they really appreciated having us visit and pump some pounds/dollars into the local economy. These folks came out to bid us farewell. It was really pretty cool.
We got back to the ship around 5:00 and immediately started getting ready for dinner. We were going to Carioca's for the final time of our cruise. My appetizer was a crab salad, which was good. It was lobster tail night and everyone got one as an entree. I also got the parmesan-crusted chicken, which I liked very much.
For some reason, that's all the information that I wrote down about our meal. But I took pictures. So here are a bunch of food pics from Carioca's:
My chicken:
The show that night was a solo performance by stage singer Michelle Mallardi. She has been in many successful touring shows. She played Belle in "Beauty and the Beast" and Maria in "West Side Story". She sang several numbers from Beauty and the Beast and Les Miserables, among others. Molly and Kathryn said she was great.
I'm not a huge fan of Broadway musicals, so I skipped this show and found some quiet music in Keys. After that, I got some ice cream on Deck 9 and watched a movie in the room before calling it a night.
Our second excursion of the day was the "Standing Stones and Dramatic Cliffs". We took a bus to a circle of standing stones called the Ring of Brogdar. It's estimated to be about 5,000 years old. Our guide gave us some history and some theories on why the stones were erected there, but when we arrived, we were on our own to wander around the circle (or inside the circle) for about 45 minutes.
After leaving the Ring of Brogdar, we drove to the sea and looked out over some amazing cliffs. From there, we could just make out the Old Man of Hoy, which is a rock formation, created by the erosion of the sea over the last few centuries. The views really were pretty dramatic.
This terrible picture is the best I could get of the Old Man. You can sort of make out his form on the right.
The tour was just about 2 hours long, and I really enjoyed it very much. Our guide was excellent and I felt like we weren't rushed to leave the standing stones, even with the excursion being relatively short. On our bus ride back to the ship, our guide told us that the mayor of Kirkwall had made a special request of the residents to come down to the pier to see us off when it was time for the Magic to leave port. I think they really appreciated having us visit and pump some pounds/dollars into the local economy. These folks came out to bid us farewell. It was really pretty cool.
We got back to the ship around 5:00 and immediately started getting ready for dinner. We were going to Carioca's for the final time of our cruise. My appetizer was a crab salad, which was good. It was lobster tail night and everyone got one as an entree. I also got the parmesan-crusted chicken, which I liked very much.
For some reason, that's all the information that I wrote down about our meal. But I took pictures. So here are a bunch of food pics from Carioca's:
My chicken:
The show that night was a solo performance by stage singer Michelle Mallardi. She has been in many successful touring shows. She played Belle in "Beauty and the Beast" and Maria in "West Side Story". She sang several numbers from Beauty and the Beast and Les Miserables, among others. Molly and Kathryn said she was great.
I'm not a huge fan of Broadway musicals, so I skipped this show and found some quiet music in Keys. After that, I got some ice cream on Deck 9 and watched a movie in the room before calling it a night.
Day 12 -- At Sea Partly Sunny, 65º
Since this was our last day on board, I decided to be lazy and I slept in a little, since we'd have to up early to disembark the next day. I had my usual breakfast in Cabanas, and I was generally very pleased with the food quality in Cabanas over the course of this cruise. As a general comparison, it was better than the buffet food that I've had on Royal Caribbean, but not as good as the buffet food that we had on the Grand Princess during our Hawaii cruise.
It was a very quiet morning for me. I decided not to do any of the ship's activities. I just wanted to enjoy the Magic on my last day on board. Sailing down the east coast of England, there was still some fairly heavy motion of the ship. Thankfully, it wasn't bothering me. It was almost warm enough to sit up on the deck, and there were people in the pools and even riding the AquaDunk. It was my last chance to ride the AquaDunk, but I decided to pass. For those of you who might not be familiar with it, the AquaDunk is a waterslide with a very steep drop and then a portion that puts you out over the edge of the ship so that you're over the ocean.
Kathryn and Molly attended a Q-and-A session with the Walt Disney Theater cast in O'Gills. There were four cast members on the panel, and they took lots of questions from the audience. Most of the questions were pretty typical, asking about the cast members' favorite shows, the length of their contracts with DCL, etc. They talked a (very) little bit about the new Rapunzel/Tangled show that will be coming to the Magic in November. One thing that they would not talk about at all was whether they worked as characters around the ship.
I wandered around the ship for most of the morning, taking pictures. When lunchtime rolled around, I wasn't all that hungry, so I grabbed some pizza at Pinocchio's. They had a BBQ chicken pizza with olives, but I don't like olives, so they made one for me without the olives. The funny thing was that he asked me how many slices I wanted before he made the pizza. Then he made it and just left the olives off the portion of the pizza that he would be cutting up for me.
After lunch, the girls went back to O'Gills for a Q-and-A session with Michelle Mallardi, who had performed in the Walt Disney Theater the night before. I went to another showing of Inside Out. It had originally been scheduled in the Buena Vista Theater, but I think they realized that it was going to be packed, so they moved it the Walt Disney Theater. I still enjoyed it on a second viewing!
After the movie, I went back to the room and. . . started packing.
Our last dinner was in Lumiere's. For appetizers, I had the goulash soup, which was very good. I liked it a lot. Molly had the Ahi appetizer, which was excellent. And Kathryn had a potato and goat cheese stack, which she said was also excellent. For my entree, I had the veal schnitzel, which I liked very much, but was just way too big. (It seemed to me that the portion sizes were very random on this cruise. Some meals, I felt that I had just enough food; but other times, my portion was double what I could eat. I never knew what to expect.) Kathryn's entree was the Tandoori Lamb Two Ways. It was a chop and a tenderloin. We've discovered that if you don't say anything, the lamb is served medium well done. So Kathryn asked for it to be not as well done, and it came out about medium rare. And Molly had the Beef Wellington, which she liked very much.
After dinner, I decided to watch a little bit of Tomorrowland in the Buena Vista Theater. But I left early to get to the main show in the Walt Disney Theater. As it turned out, I ended up being a little bit late for Disney Dreams. The theater was packed by the time I got there and I ended up standing in the back. I missed about the first 15 minutes, but I'm so glad that I didn't just miss it completely because they made some changes in the show just for our sailing. You might be sick of Frozen by now, but they inserted a segment with the Frozen characters: Olaf sang "In Summer", and Elsa sang "Let It Go" -- and she was amazing. Additionally, there were new lighting effects throughout the theater as she sang. The Alladin segment and Lion King segment were also different. The Circle of Life added projections of animals in the plains to the walls on each side of the stage. It was a really cool effect.
For me, Dreams is heavily dependent on the quality of the two leads -- Anne Marie and Peter Pan. If Anne Marie tries too hard to sound like a little girl, it's hard to listen to her for the whole show. But in this performance, both leads were terrific and the overall show was great.
After the show, we had to finish packing and get the suitcases into the hallway by 10:30. Then we headed to Fathoms for the Crew Farewell, which always includes the "If I were not upon the Sea" skit. In the past, they've done some audience participation, some jokes and then they closed with "If I were not upon the Sea". But this time, the opened with the skit and then had a DJ play music for those who wanted to stay and dance.
If I were not upon the sea, a taxi driver, me:
If I were not upon the sea, a blackjack dealer, me. (Hit me here! Hit me there! Twenty-one or "bust"!)
If I were not upon the sea, a tailor, me. (Cruise Director Natalie)
We didn't stay. Instead, we got our last soft serve on Deck 9, and got back to the room around midnight. I finished my book and hit the sack.
Since this was our last day on board, I decided to be lazy and I slept in a little, since we'd have to up early to disembark the next day. I had my usual breakfast in Cabanas, and I was generally very pleased with the food quality in Cabanas over the course of this cruise. As a general comparison, it was better than the buffet food that I've had on Royal Caribbean, but not as good as the buffet food that we had on the Grand Princess during our Hawaii cruise.
It was a very quiet morning for me. I decided not to do any of the ship's activities. I just wanted to enjoy the Magic on my last day on board. Sailing down the east coast of England, there was still some fairly heavy motion of the ship. Thankfully, it wasn't bothering me. It was almost warm enough to sit up on the deck, and there were people in the pools and even riding the AquaDunk. It was my last chance to ride the AquaDunk, but I decided to pass. For those of you who might not be familiar with it, the AquaDunk is a waterslide with a very steep drop and then a portion that puts you out over the edge of the ship so that you're over the ocean.
Kathryn and Molly attended a Q-and-A session with the Walt Disney Theater cast in O'Gills. There were four cast members on the panel, and they took lots of questions from the audience. Most of the questions were pretty typical, asking about the cast members' favorite shows, the length of their contracts with DCL, etc. They talked a (very) little bit about the new Rapunzel/Tangled show that will be coming to the Magic in November. One thing that they would not talk about at all was whether they worked as characters around the ship.
I wandered around the ship for most of the morning, taking pictures. When lunchtime rolled around, I wasn't all that hungry, so I grabbed some pizza at Pinocchio's. They had a BBQ chicken pizza with olives, but I don't like olives, so they made one for me without the olives. The funny thing was that he asked me how many slices I wanted before he made the pizza. Then he made it and just left the olives off the portion of the pizza that he would be cutting up for me.
After lunch, the girls went back to O'Gills for a Q-and-A session with Michelle Mallardi, who had performed in the Walt Disney Theater the night before. I went to another showing of Inside Out. It had originally been scheduled in the Buena Vista Theater, but I think they realized that it was going to be packed, so they moved it the Walt Disney Theater. I still enjoyed it on a second viewing!
After the movie, I went back to the room and. . . started packing.
Our last dinner was in Lumiere's. For appetizers, I had the goulash soup, which was very good. I liked it a lot. Molly had the Ahi appetizer, which was excellent. And Kathryn had a potato and goat cheese stack, which she said was also excellent. For my entree, I had the veal schnitzel, which I liked very much, but was just way too big. (It seemed to me that the portion sizes were very random on this cruise. Some meals, I felt that I had just enough food; but other times, my portion was double what I could eat. I never knew what to expect.) Kathryn's entree was the Tandoori Lamb Two Ways. It was a chop and a tenderloin. We've discovered that if you don't say anything, the lamb is served medium well done. So Kathryn asked for it to be not as well done, and it came out about medium rare. And Molly had the Beef Wellington, which she liked very much.
After dinner, I decided to watch a little bit of Tomorrowland in the Buena Vista Theater. But I left early to get to the main show in the Walt Disney Theater. As it turned out, I ended up being a little bit late for Disney Dreams. The theater was packed by the time I got there and I ended up standing in the back. I missed about the first 15 minutes, but I'm so glad that I didn't just miss it completely because they made some changes in the show just for our sailing. You might be sick of Frozen by now, but they inserted a segment with the Frozen characters: Olaf sang "In Summer", and Elsa sang "Let It Go" -- and she was amazing. Additionally, there were new lighting effects throughout the theater as she sang. The Alladin segment and Lion King segment were also different. The Circle of Life added projections of animals in the plains to the walls on each side of the stage. It was a really cool effect.
For me, Dreams is heavily dependent on the quality of the two leads -- Anne Marie and Peter Pan. If Anne Marie tries too hard to sound like a little girl, it's hard to listen to her for the whole show. But in this performance, both leads were terrific and the overall show was great.
After the show, we had to finish packing and get the suitcases into the hallway by 10:30. Then we headed to Fathoms for the Crew Farewell, which always includes the "If I were not upon the Sea" skit. In the past, they've done some audience participation, some jokes and then they closed with "If I were not upon the Sea". But this time, the opened with the skit and then had a DJ play music for those who wanted to stay and dance.
If I were not upon the sea, a taxi driver, me:
If I were not upon the sea, a blackjack dealer, me. (Hit me here! Hit me there! Twenty-one or "bust"!)
If I were not upon the sea, a tailor, me. (Cruise Director Natalie)
We didn't stay. Instead, we got our last soft serve on Deck 9, and got back to the room around midnight. I finished my book and hit the sack.
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Day 13 -- Dover/Paris Sunny, 70°
Disembarkation Day! Always a sad day. It's sad because we have to leave the ship, but also because we were up at 6:00 a.m. for the first seating of breakfast. Breakfast is always in whichever restaurant you had dinner the night before. So we were back in Lumiere's bright and early. The breakfast menu is always the same and they don't allow a lot of changes because they're really trying to get everybody served and off the ship quickly. Breakfast is also served in Cabanas, which I think is a terrific option because you're not quite as restricted to a particular time to eat. However, my family likes to say good-bye to our serving team before disembarking, so we always go to our rotational restaurant on our last morning. So we got to see Allen and Francesca one last time. Francesca is from England and her parents were driving into Dover to meet her, so she was very excited to see them and was a little distracted; but who can blame her? Here's our "farewell" photo.
We had already cleared Customs in the Walt Disney Theater on Day 10, so our disembarkation went pretty quickly. The longest part of the process was finding all our luggage in the terminal. But once we had all found our bags, we walked straight out of the terminal. We hadn't pre-arranged our transportation, but there plenty of taxis waiting at the pier. So a half hour and £50 later, the taxi dropped us off at the Ashford Int'l train station.
I'm sure you've heard of Adventures by Disney. But this is where our group entered our Adventures After Disney!
Adventure #1 (the train):
When we were originally making all our plans, we weren't exactly sure what time we'd be able to get off of the ship and get to the train station. So we bought tickets to Paris on the 4:00 pm train. But as it turned out, we got to the train station around 9:10 am and the morning train was scheduled to leave at 9:50. So we got to the ticket window and asked if it would be possible to exchange our afternoon tickets for the earlier train. They said they couldn't do it because we had booked the tickets through an outside travel company. So we called the travel company and asked if they'd refund us the cost of the tickets if we didn't use them and the customer rep assured us that the tickets were fully refundable, as long as they were stamped "Unused" and signed by the ticket agent. So we had the old tickets stamped and signed, and bought new tickets for £180 each. Once we knew we had seats on the early train, I called the transfer service that was picking us up in Paris to let them know that we were arriving early. The person I spoke to didn't speak any English, so passed me over to someone else who took my name and told me that they would make the necessary change. We put our bags through security and got to the platform at about 9:40. Whew!
(When we got home, and I attempted to return the stamped, signed tickets to the travel company, they told me that the old tickets were absolutely non-refundable. Period. To make a very long story a little shorter, after several emails and phone calls, they pulled my phone call from the call center's records and verified that we were told they were refundable and they agreed to honor that. So we did get the tickets refunded. Again. . . Whew!)
We felt a little bit rushed, but at least we knew we were getting on the train and had seats waiting for us. Well, as it turned out, we did get on the train, but there were people in our seats. The whole car was filled. In fact, the whole train was packed. Apparently, the ticket agent double-booked us. So we spoke to the conductor and he had us wait in the dining car until he could figure out where to put us. To be honest, I was so happy to have made it in time to catch the early train that I would have been happy to stand for the two hour ride. But eventually, he had us sit in First Class, which ended up being pretty nice.
The Paris train station, where we arrived:
Adventure #2 (the transfer):
As if you didn't already guess, our car was not waiting for us when we arrived at the Paris station. I'd never been there before, so I didn't know if we were supposed to go somewhere like a taxi stand to find our driver. So I walked all over the station and outside and they just weren't there. Eventually, I called the company back and they found our reservation and told us to stay right where we were and they'd have somebody there in 5 minutes; which they did. (Although our driver informed us that he'd had to abandon his lunch to come and get us.)
About 20 minutes later, we were dropped off near our hotel. He couldn't take us to the door because the Citadines hotel is located in a pedestrian-only area. But we were able to find it pretty easily and we met another family member who was joining us for the Paris portion of our trip. We were ready to start our stay in Paris!
Adventure #3 (the hotel):
As if you didn't already guess, the hotel had no record of our reservation. We had paid in full for the reservation before our departure and had printed documents from the company that handled our reservation, but apparently nobody at the hotel knew we were coming. After about an hour on the phone with the reservation agent in the US, they still could find no record of our reservation, but they were still able to take us. We had chosen this particular hotel because it was one of the few that would accommodate 3 people in a room, instead of only 2. But they had no rooms for 3 people available and ended up giving us 4 rooms and we put 2 people each in 3 of the rooms and I stayed in the fourth room. It was a bit of a hassle, but we were finally settled in and ready to start seeing Paris.
I guess I was kind of frazzled by everything that had happened to that point of the day, because I have no pictures at all of the hotel or our rooms. But it was located in the Place des Innocents, which was a wonderful little plaza with a fountain that we saw each time we left the hotel. Here is the archway that leads to the Plaza. Our hotel was through the archway and immediately to the left:
And here's "our" fountain:
Once we were finally settled into our room, we found a cute little restaurant in the plaza for dinner. We were all starving because it was 4:00 and we hadn't eaten since breakfast on the Magic. We sat at an outdoor table and our waiter set the table for us while smoking a cigarette. Classic.
We shared a meat plate and a cheese plate and it was delicious. A great selection on each plate and served with fresh bread. Molly, at 20 years old, had her first "legal" glass of wine. It was a great experience.
After dinner, we walked to Notre Dame Cathedral and toured the inside. I also wanted to walk up the towers and look for Quasimodo, but for a couple different reasons, I decided against it. The cathedral itself is absolutely amazing in person. I have dozens of pictures, but I'll just share a few.
Instead of climbing the towers, we walked back along the Seine and took a one-hour cruise on the river. This had been a great way to see a lot of Copenhagen and we decided to try it in Paris, as well. It turned out to be a great experience. The guide was very informative, making it more than just a sight-seeing cruise. I really liked it a lot.
This is a "twin" of the flame that sits atop the Statue of Liberty:
The smallest house in Paris:
The restaurant that Pixar's "Ratatouille" is based on:
And even though our cruise was finished before complete darkness, the Eiffel Tower was lit up to say "good night" to us.
By the time we finished the cruise, it was about 10:00. We wandered a little more on foot and made it back to our hotel around 11:30. It was a long, trying, frustrating, but extremely fun day.
Disembarkation Day! Always a sad day. It's sad because we have to leave the ship, but also because we were up at 6:00 a.m. for the first seating of breakfast. Breakfast is always in whichever restaurant you had dinner the night before. So we were back in Lumiere's bright and early. The breakfast menu is always the same and they don't allow a lot of changes because they're really trying to get everybody served and off the ship quickly. Breakfast is also served in Cabanas, which I think is a terrific option because you're not quite as restricted to a particular time to eat. However, my family likes to say good-bye to our serving team before disembarking, so we always go to our rotational restaurant on our last morning. So we got to see Allen and Francesca one last time. Francesca is from England and her parents were driving into Dover to meet her, so she was very excited to see them and was a little distracted; but who can blame her? Here's our "farewell" photo.
We had already cleared Customs in the Walt Disney Theater on Day 10, so our disembarkation went pretty quickly. The longest part of the process was finding all our luggage in the terminal. But once we had all found our bags, we walked straight out of the terminal. We hadn't pre-arranged our transportation, but there plenty of taxis waiting at the pier. So a half hour and £50 later, the taxi dropped us off at the Ashford Int'l train station.
I'm sure you've heard of Adventures by Disney. But this is where our group entered our Adventures After Disney!
Adventure #1 (the train):
When we were originally making all our plans, we weren't exactly sure what time we'd be able to get off of the ship and get to the train station. So we bought tickets to Paris on the 4:00 pm train. But as it turned out, we got to the train station around 9:10 am and the morning train was scheduled to leave at 9:50. So we got to the ticket window and asked if it would be possible to exchange our afternoon tickets for the earlier train. They said they couldn't do it because we had booked the tickets through an outside travel company. So we called the travel company and asked if they'd refund us the cost of the tickets if we didn't use them and the customer rep assured us that the tickets were fully refundable, as long as they were stamped "Unused" and signed by the ticket agent. So we had the old tickets stamped and signed, and bought new tickets for £180 each. Once we knew we had seats on the early train, I called the transfer service that was picking us up in Paris to let them know that we were arriving early. The person I spoke to didn't speak any English, so passed me over to someone else who took my name and told me that they would make the necessary change. We put our bags through security and got to the platform at about 9:40. Whew!
(When we got home, and I attempted to return the stamped, signed tickets to the travel company, they told me that the old tickets were absolutely non-refundable. Period. To make a very long story a little shorter, after several emails and phone calls, they pulled my phone call from the call center's records and verified that we were told they were refundable and they agreed to honor that. So we did get the tickets refunded. Again. . . Whew!)
We felt a little bit rushed, but at least we knew we were getting on the train and had seats waiting for us. Well, as it turned out, we did get on the train, but there were people in our seats. The whole car was filled. In fact, the whole train was packed. Apparently, the ticket agent double-booked us. So we spoke to the conductor and he had us wait in the dining car until he could figure out where to put us. To be honest, I was so happy to have made it in time to catch the early train that I would have been happy to stand for the two hour ride. But eventually, he had us sit in First Class, which ended up being pretty nice.
The Paris train station, where we arrived:
Adventure #2 (the transfer):
As if you didn't already guess, our car was not waiting for us when we arrived at the Paris station. I'd never been there before, so I didn't know if we were supposed to go somewhere like a taxi stand to find our driver. So I walked all over the station and outside and they just weren't there. Eventually, I called the company back and they found our reservation and told us to stay right where we were and they'd have somebody there in 5 minutes; which they did. (Although our driver informed us that he'd had to abandon his lunch to come and get us.)
About 20 minutes later, we were dropped off near our hotel. He couldn't take us to the door because the Citadines hotel is located in a pedestrian-only area. But we were able to find it pretty easily and we met another family member who was joining us for the Paris portion of our trip. We were ready to start our stay in Paris!
Adventure #3 (the hotel):
As if you didn't already guess, the hotel had no record of our reservation. We had paid in full for the reservation before our departure and had printed documents from the company that handled our reservation, but apparently nobody at the hotel knew we were coming. After about an hour on the phone with the reservation agent in the US, they still could find no record of our reservation, but they were still able to take us. We had chosen this particular hotel because it was one of the few that would accommodate 3 people in a room, instead of only 2. But they had no rooms for 3 people available and ended up giving us 4 rooms and we put 2 people each in 3 of the rooms and I stayed in the fourth room. It was a bit of a hassle, but we were finally settled in and ready to start seeing Paris.
I guess I was kind of frazzled by everything that had happened to that point of the day, because I have no pictures at all of the hotel or our rooms. But it was located in the Place des Innocents, which was a wonderful little plaza with a fountain that we saw each time we left the hotel. Here is the archway that leads to the Plaza. Our hotel was through the archway and immediately to the left:
And here's "our" fountain:
Once we were finally settled into our room, we found a cute little restaurant in the plaza for dinner. We were all starving because it was 4:00 and we hadn't eaten since breakfast on the Magic. We sat at an outdoor table and our waiter set the table for us while smoking a cigarette. Classic.
We shared a meat plate and a cheese plate and it was delicious. A great selection on each plate and served with fresh bread. Molly, at 20 years old, had her first "legal" glass of wine. It was a great experience.
After dinner, we walked to Notre Dame Cathedral and toured the inside. I also wanted to walk up the towers and look for Quasimodo, but for a couple different reasons, I decided against it. The cathedral itself is absolutely amazing in person. I have dozens of pictures, but I'll just share a few.
Instead of climbing the towers, we walked back along the Seine and took a one-hour cruise on the river. This had been a great way to see a lot of Copenhagen and we decided to try it in Paris, as well. It turned out to be a great experience. The guide was very informative, making it more than just a sight-seeing cruise. I really liked it a lot.
This is a "twin" of the flame that sits atop the Statue of Liberty:
The smallest house in Paris:
The restaurant that Pixar's "Ratatouille" is based on:
And even though our cruise was finished before complete darkness, the Eiffel Tower was lit up to say "good night" to us.
By the time we finished the cruise, it was about 10:00. We wandered a little more on foot and made it back to our hotel around 11:30. It was a long, trying, frustrating, but extremely fun day.
coachwnh
Well-Known Member
Not bad for your troubles!