Trip Report Lebeau Family Trip Report 2015: Universal Studios and a Disney Dream Cruise

Figgy1 · Jul 20, 2015

lebeau said:
We marched into Dolphin Cay, the man-made beach where Atlantis conducts all of its dolphin experiences. We were handed off to another Atlantis employee who was apparently late for his shift. He was gently reprimanded in front of us. "You can't keep bein' late, mon."

We were all brought into the Dolphin Cay office where we were divided into groups according to what time our encounter with the dolphins was scheduled to begin. We were assigned to the second group which wouldn't actually be meeting for about another 20 minutes.

They told us we could wait by the beach for our turn. From the beach, we could observe the group that went before us.

There were orientation buildings nearby with lockers, towels and changing rooms.

We weren't given any kind of supervision. No one seemed to know exactly where we were supposed to be. Only that someone would let us know when it was our turn. We decided to go ahead and get changed into our bathing suits.

The girls played in the sand for a bit while we waited. They took turns burying each other's feet. Before long, an employee came along and announced that it was time for our group to gather.

What followed was not-so-controlled chaos. We were each given a plastic souvenir bag and then they started handing out wet-suits. If there was any kind of order established, I missed it. I was standing next to the girls while they got their suits and then someone told me I needed to be in the adult line. I saw no lines, but stepped over where the employee was pointing. Once I was standing a few feet over, he handed me a wet-suit.

I was among the last to be given a wet-suit and when I had one I had to busy myself zipping the girls into theirs. Josie's was entirely too tight. I was about half in my wet-suit when the group began to move again. We walked down a hallway into a classroom setting. There we were given a small presentation which amounted to "we do not mistreat our dolphins" and "yay dolphins!" If there was more to it, I missed it while I was fiddling with my wet-suit.

As soon as I had my wet suit zipped up, I realized I had forgotten to remove my phone from my pocket. So I had to unzip myself enough to get to my phone and then zip back up. By the time I had completed all this, the presentation was over and we were moving again.

Things didn't get any more orderly as we were walked back on to the beach. At some point, we were supposed to be given access to lockers. That never happened. We were standing on the beach with all our belongings (which thankfully weren't many). When we asked about the lockers, we were told we could leave our stuff on the beach. Not ideal, but we went with it because it was dolphin time.

Next: Meet Paulo

I'm sorry the dolphins weren't as magical as they should have been

Figgy1 · Jul 20, 2015

The pics were beautiful, but not worth the money.

FlaggNL · Jul 20, 2015

Like Figement replied.... the pictures are marvelous, but the way you described it absolutely not worth the money!

lebeau · Jul 20, 2015

figmentfan423 said:
I'm sorry the dolphins weren't as magical as they should have been

figmentfan423 said:
The pics were beautiful, but not worth the money.

FlaggNL said:
Like Figement replied.... the pictures are marvelous, but the way you described it absolutely not worth the money!

It was a bit of a bummer to get so little time to actually interact with the dolphins. The experience is so expensive, it is questionable whether or not it is worth the money when everything goes the way its supposed to. Since we were shortchanged dolphin time, it definitely wasn't worth the price.

However...

As a one-time thing, I don't really have any regrets. The kids are going to remember the time they got to kiss a dolphin. Would I recommend Dolphin Cay to others? No, not really. I would caution anyone going that it is poorly run and you take your chances of getting an uncooperative dolphin. But if it's something you really wanted to do, I wouldn't try to talk you out of it either. We enjoyed the experience. Just didn't think that it was worth the steep price tag.

So, buyer beware. And if you decide to go through with it, good luck. There were something like 8 dolphins out there at once. So your odds of getting a good one are actually in your favor. Just hope you don't get a moody dolphin!

UnhealthilyObsessed · Jul 20, 2015

For $250 per person, that dolphin better sing in three different languages and make me a sandwich.

FlaggNL · Jul 21, 2015

UnhealthilyObsessed said:
For $250 per person, that dolphin better sing in three different languages and make me a sandwich.

LOL, I think a agree but would like to add a Dolphin massage

Figgy1 · Jul 21, 2015

FlaggNL said:
LOL, I think a agree but would like to add a Dolphin massage

And a pina colada!

lebeau · Jul 21, 2015

We missed lunch at Cabanas by a few minutes. That wasn't a big deal. On our way back to the room, we would pass Flo's V-8 Cafe, a Cars-themed food court area serving pizza, burgers, salads and sandwiches. None of it is exceptional, but what I tried was better than the pizza and burgers they serve in the theme parks. I had grabbed a late night slice of pizza the night before. The BBQ chicken was so-so but the margarita was good. Today, I decided to grab a quick burger. Kara wanted one too and Josie wanted fries. So I ordered two burgers and gave Josie my fries.

We took our food back to our room to eat. One of the advantages of being on Deck 11 was the convenience of food options. Flo's, Eye Scream and Cabanas were all a short walk away. My burger was decent, Josie enjoyed her fries and Kara fell in love with her food.

We had been invited by the concierge team for a little reception on the concierge sundeck. There would be snacks and a private meet and greet with a surprise character. I had read a trip report by someone who was very upset to discover that the character at his concierge reception was Stitch. But really, we didn't care who it was. We were going just to go. I hadn't ventured upstairs to the sundeck yet and I wanted to check it out. If for no other reason than to include it as part of my coverage here.

As you can see, the sundeck is a very nice place to relax assuming you want to take in some rays. There's very little in the way of shade on the sundeck, not surprisingly. It's one more place where concierge guests can go to get away from everyone else on the ship. Sunscreen products are provided. Not being a sun-worshiper, this was my only visit to the sun deck. But it sure looked nice.

The "special guest" at our gathering was Pirate Goofy. We were free to have as much fun with the Goof as we wanted. It's the kind of character experience you just don't get at the parks unless you're a VIP. Goofy was just there hanging out. When no one was taking pictures with him, he was playfully wandering around.

When we went back down below, we saw familiar faces. Remember the woman who made a scene in the concierge lounge when her daughter spilled champagne during the first reception? They were back! They had taken the largest table in the center of the lounge and were playing some card game I was not familiar with. The cards looked like Uno cards in that they were colorful. There were pairs of them all over the table. In fact, the family had pulled up a second smaller table and stacked cards on it too.

As the card game was going on, Goofy walked behind the woman who was deep in concentration. He started up with some typical Goofy antics, but she waved him away with a nasally "I'm winning here, Goofy!" "Winning" means different things to different people. To my eyes, this woman wasn't winning anything.

On the right-hand side of these pictures you can see a gentleman in a tan suit holding trays of snacks. That was Danny from the concierge team. He was carrying around trays of chocolate covered marshmallows and little drinks. Josie took a marshmallow and completely covered her face in chocolate after one bite. I took one of the drinks which I think he called "cold hot chocolate". Whatever it was, it tasted like a chocolate milk shake. It was delicious. even though I had just had a burger a little while ago and dinner was less than two hours away, I could have had a couple of those things.

There were additional snacks in the actual lounge. There are always snacks in the lounge. Josie made herself a little plate. She was surprised to find the eclairs in the center contained a raspberry filling. She asked me if I wanted to share. But really, she was pawning it off on me. I didn't mind. It was scrumptious. Kara had a chocolate covered rice krispie treat which she immediately dropped on the floor. I considered yelling "dammit" repeatedly and then making her stand in a corner, but decided against it (because I am not terrible). She was about to implement the three-second rule when a member of the concierge team replaced the treat with a fresh pop and disposed of the old own.

Next: Pirate Night

lebeau · Jul 21, 2015

When we got back to the room, Ruth from housekeeping had really outdone herself with the towel animals. We returned to the sight of a towel monkey hanging over the bed.

On the bed, there were a couple of gold-wrapped chocolate pirate coins, an offer to attend a DVC presentation for a chance to win on board credits (give me the credits and I'll consider coming to your presentation) and the infamous tip envelopes. Tipping works a little differently on a Disney cruise. Tips are of course discretionary. But towards the end of your trip, these envelopes will arrive with suggested amounts for your server, assistant server, head server and housekeeping. Since we were in concierge, we had a fifth envelope for them. But there is no suggested tip amount for the concierge team.

If you want to change the amounts of your tips, you can do so by going to guest relations. If you want to increase the amount, you can just add some cash to the envelope. If you want to decrease the amount - which I can't even imagine doing - you will have to have guest relations make the changes. But why would you do that? I set all of this aside for later. I wasn't ready to think about the end of our cruise yet.

We had a little over an hour to kill between the reception and dinner, so Josie and I set out to deliver fish extender gifts.

As we were wrapping up we ran into Pirate Sitich just as he was arriving for a scheduled meet and greet. No one was there to meet with him yet. Josie required a bit of prodding to pose for the picture. We were nearby the Midship Detective Agency and she really wanted to register for another game. But someone else was hogging the machine registering multiple cards presumably for his entire family. So she agreed to take a second and pose with Stitch for daddy's blog. Thanks, Josie!

As you can guess from Stitch and Goofy's attire, tonight was Pirate Night on the ship. We saw several people decked out in pirate garb while we did our fish extender rounds. For our part, we weren't going all out. The girls wore eye patches and bandannas which had been provided. Thanks to the fish extenders we had received, we had multiple eye patches and bandannas to choose from.

There was no arm twisting whatsoever to get Josie to pose for this picture. She was getting very well suited to be treated like a princess.

Since it was Pirate Night, all four restaurants were serving the same menu. Guests returned to whichever restaurant they were scheduled at the previous night. For us, that was Royal Palace. When we arrived, Georgi welcomed us as always and shared his appraisal of the offerings. In his opinion, the pirate menu was "comme ci comme ca." I have had enough high school French to know that meant "so-so".

Meanwhile, that little devil Nigel came out and asked if the girls wanted souvenir pirate mugs. They were shaped like skulls and lit up from the bottom. To sweeten the deal, he said the cups included "free" smoothies. The girls were enticed by the promise of a bubblegum flavored smoothie. Mindy said "sure" and before I knew it, skulls full of pink liquid were delivered to our table. The girls both agreed that the drinks tasted like bubblegum-flavored medicine. I ended up dumping them out. But we still have the mugs.

Georgi recommended the pot stickers for our appetizer. I was going to select them anyway and so was Mindy. He asked if he could bring us out a crab cake to share. I told him Mindy didn't like seafood, so he brought a third helping of pot stickers. The kids helped us out with those. They were yummy.

I don't usually talk much about the bread service, but tonight it was johnny cakes. These are the kind of sweet corn bread that has just enough cornmeal in it to not be yellow cake. I stopped myself at one, but they were tasty.

Next: Pirate night continued

lebeau · Jul 21, 2015

Georgi's recommendation for the entree was the Treasures of the Sea. The dish consists of grilled shrimp and seared scallops served over a plate of pasta. Nigel came by and spooned a generous amount of parmesan cheese over the top. If you enjoy pasta and sea food, which I do, it was a winner. And a good change of pace after two consecutive nights of beef dishes.

Mindy had planned to order the beef short ribs, but Georgi said they tended to be dry. When he said this, he made a face to emphasize that only a fool would order the ribs So she decided to order the Castaway Chicken Breast instead. This thing was massive. I knew there was no way she was going to finish it and she did indeed ask for help. I didn't actually help her because I was full of seafood and pasta. But she said she liked it.

For dessert, Mindy ordered the rum-soaked chocolate cake. When she placed her order, Georgi jokingly warned her not to drive home. Mindy said it had a strong rum flavor, but she liked it. I ordered the "sweet temptations" which included a tasting of three desserts on the menu including the chocolate cake. I agreed it was good.

My dessert plate came with a little berry cobbler and some kind of citrusy custard dessert.

Georgi also brought me a full serving of the cobbler because the tasting didn't include vanilla ice cream and he thought the ice cream was essential to the cobbler. He was right.

All in all, Pirate Night wasn't the best meal we'd eaten on the ship. But we walked away satisfied.

Since it was Pirate Night, there was no stage show to watch. Instead, there would be a deck party and fireworks display. We weren't overly fond of the Sail Away deck party and didn't feel any great need to attend the Pirate Party. I poked my head out on deck a couple of times and confirmed that, yes, there were indeed a lot of people out there. But ultimately, we decided to hang out in our stateroom.

I did make a quick trip up to the concierge lounge to do a couple of things. First, I had Danny increase the size of all of our tips. I didn't have much in the way of cash on me to slip it into the envelopes and wanted to leave some to tip drivers after the cruise. I also asked about booking a return cruise. If you book while you are still on the ship, they give you a 10% discount. But Danny let me know that did not apply to concierge rooms. Mindy had been pretty clear that if we did this again, she wanted to stick with concierge. So there wasn't as much incentive for us to book our next cruise while we were on board.

I also ran into Ruth, our housekeeper. She told me she wanted to spend a little time with Kara and Josie to show them how to fold towels. I wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but I told her I'd let her know when they were available. She seemed really excited to show them something.

When I got back to the stateroom, no one else was watching TV, so I decided to put on a recording of the stage show we had missed the previous night, Villains Tonight. All three of the stage productions are available on demand if you should miss one. Obviously, it's not as good as seeing it live. But it was the next best thing. Kara, who was scared to see the villains live, was actually okay with watching a lot of the show on TV.

The plot centers are the villain Hades who has lost his mojo since being defeated by Hercules. If he doesn't prove his worth as a villain, he will lose control of the Underworld. Somehow, this translates into him recruiting villains like Maleficent and the Wicked Queen. But really, it's just an excuse for terrible jokes and villain songs. The songs are well done, but man o man are those jokes corny! And I know corny jokes!

James Woods was a memorable villain as Hades. He stole the show. But the Hades in Villains Tonight is less James Woods than Bruce Vilanch. He did not one but two Lindsay Lohan references. I say references because they weren't really jokes. At one point he says, someone is "as evil as Lindsay Lohan... you can make your own joke." Or you could construct one for us!

Hades would pause after a pop culture reference and then ask "Did everyone get that one who's going to get it?" I really can't imagine these jokes playing much better live than they did on tape. Based on audience response I heard, the crowd didn't appear to be laughing.

Of the three shows, Villains Tonight was the weakest in my opinion. And not by a little. But to be fair, it is also the only one I watched on playback. It's possible I would feel differently if I had seen it live. But I seriously doubt it.

At some point in the evening, I ran into our housekeeper Ruth. She asked if now would be a good time to demonstrate folding towels for the girls. I called the girls and asked them to come out into the hall. I honestly wasn't sure what to expect. Ruth started making towel animals for us right there in the hallway. After the first one, she asked if we could go into the stateroom to continue. We all moved into the stateroom and she started folding towel animals at breakneck speed. Honestly, Mindy and I couldn't follow her. She was lightning fast. But Josie was legitimately trying to take it all in. When she was done, Ruth gave her a printed sheet with instructions to fold some towel animals on her own.

Fireworks were supposed to start around 10:45, but we were all getting sleepy. We had been early risers the entire trip and a fireworks display wasn't enough to keep us up. So we skipped the fireworks and went to sleep. We didn't have anything planned until 10 am the next morning so we planned to sleep in.

Next: Palo?

DisSplash · Jul 21, 2015

Loved your dolphin photos!! They really did come out beautifully (family, dolphin, setting, etc.)! I tend to agree with you on that being a once in a lifetime experience, and you can certainly justify the cost that way. I am going back and forth with trying one out on our Star Wars cruise because of the cost, but I keep coming back to my 'once in a lifetime' logic. I think englanddg had a great experience in Cozumel (which is where I am looking), so that gives me hope! I suppose it will always come down to the particular company and location, really. We will see!

I also love the peek into the concierge world (which will probably always be out of our budget)! Pirate Goofy was a really nice character to see! I heard that there were Pirate characters on Castaway Cay during our Bahamian cruise in 2014, but we saw no one expect Jack Sparrow right as we disembarked.

On a non-Disney note, I also checked out your WTHH blog and love it! This will be my new reading material for the rest of the summer, so thanks!!

RandomPrincess · Jul 21, 2015

lebeau said:

That round chair in the back with the canopy. I would love to sit in that all day and read a book.

lebeau · Jul 22, 2015

DisSplash said:
Loved your dolphin photos!! They really did come out beautifully (family, dolphin, setting, etc.)! I tend to agree with you on that being a once in a lifetime experience, and you can certainly justify the cost that way. I am going back and forth with trying one out on our Star Wars cruise because of the cost, but I keep coming back to my 'once in a lifetime' logic. I think englanddg had a great experience in Cozumel (which is where I am looking), so that gives me hope! I suppose it will always come down to the particular company and location, really. We will see!

I also love the peek into the concierge world (which will probably always be out of our budget)! Pirate Goofy was a really nice character to see! I heard that there were Pirate characters on Castaway Cay during our Bahamian cruise in 2014, but we saw no one expect Jack Sparrow right as we disembarked.

On a non-Disney note, I also checked out your WTHH blog and love it! This will be my new reading material for the rest of the summer, so thanks!!

Our experience at Dolphin Cay definitely isn't going to be representative of all dolphin encounters everywhere. Even within Dolphin Cay, it was an outlier. The other 6 or 7 groups were all getting a lot more dolphin time. So we were basically experiencing the worst case scenario and it was still arguably worth it as a once in a lifetime deal. Definitely read up on whatever company you decide to go with. It sounds like you would value a dolphin experience, so I expect it will be worth it to you regardless of price.

When I was researching this trip, I was a bit frustrated by how little first-hand accounts I could find of the concierge experience. I found lists of benefits and a few trip reports of people who had stayed in concierge. But none that were as detailed as I would have liked. So I set out to make sure that my trip report would provide a detailed look at what it's like to cruise with Disney in concierge. Both for those who are thinking about doing so and those who most likely never will.

The pirate characters were cool and we ran into them all over the ship on Pirate Night. We were at Nassau on our Pirate Night, so there were no characters on the island. I will say that when we saw characters on Castaway Cay it was pretty random. Most of them didn't seem to have announced meeting times.

I'm glad you are enjoying the blog and the WTHH series. I'm not going to lie. The blog basically funded the upgrades on this trip. So everyone should go read the site and recommend it to all their friends and family so I can write another trip report next year!

RandomPrincess said:
That round chair in the back with the canopy. I would love to sit in that all day and read a book.

You have identified the exact spot I would have lounged had I visited the sundeck by myself. It's really hot up there, so the canopy is a must.

lebeau · Jul 22, 2015

"Sleeping in" is a relative term. I think we were all up by 8 am. I went upstairs and got my morning coffee from the concierge lounge. We milled around a bit. It was our last full day on the ship which was kind of sad. But we were also all a little bit ready to go home soon. The plan was to take the kids to Cabanas for breakfast and let them fill up. Then we'd drop them off at the kids club in time for us to make our brunch reservations at Palo. After brunch, we'd all go enjoy our final hours on Castaway Cay.

Good plan, right? Well, you know how plans go. This one was about to go astray.

Breakfast at Cabanas went just fine. Mindy and I got plates for the kids and sat down to watch them eat. I grabbed a cup of POG juice to tide me over until brunch and also because there was a machine nearby that served POG juice. Once the kids were done eating, we headed down to the Oceanographer's Club and this is where my plan derailed.

When we arrived, there was virtually no one there. The girl at the desk told us that the kids club was having an "open house" which meant people could come and go as they pleased. But no one was available to supervise the children. I explained that we had reservations at an adults-only restaurant in 15 minutes. She told me that we could take the kids to Scuttle's Cove on Castaway Cay. It was essentially the kids club on the island.

There were a couple of problems with that suggestion. One, you can bet Mindy wasn't about to leave her babies on an island while she had brunch on a ship. Having them out of her sight at the kids club on the boat was hard enough for her. Two, it would take a lot more than fifteen minutes to get the kids to Scuttle's Cove and then get back to Palo.

We took the elevator up to deck 12 to cancel our reservations. They offered to reschedule for later, but we wanted to spend some time on Castaway Cay and I was worried we wouldn't have time to do that after a late brunch. I was disappointed, but only mildly so. This was one of those things we were doing largely so I could cover it in the trip report. We decided to go back to Cabanas and grab something to eat and then start our last day at Castaway Cay.

Kara was actually pretty upset by this development. She really wanted to go to the kids club. So we assured her that no matter what, she could come back to the kids club after we got back from the island. Josie was kind of relieved. She hadn't been to the kids club yet except for the open house and she saw no reason to start now.

The kids had just eaten, so Mindy and I started making plates for ourselves. We were just going to grab a few items and run back to the room. But before long, the kids started picking out things they thought might be good.

The donuts were at the far end of the buffet and the kids had never taken notice of them before. I had specifically pointed them out on previous visits, but the kids don't listen to me. No one does really. Suddenly, Krispy Kreme donuts were a major new discovery and we had to take some back to our room. At first, only Josie wanted them. But then just as we were about to leave, Kara decided that she needed two chocolate donuts to go.

If you had a sweet tooth in the morning, this is where the real action was. I grabbed something with cherries in it.

While I was waiting for the kids to gather, I ran into Georgi. He was working the breakfast shift at Cabanas. He asked how things were going and I told him about our change of plans. He was very supportive of our decision to cancel our reservation at Palo. "It's all same food," he said encouragingly although I'm not entirely certain what that meant. "Better this way. You will have a good time on the beach, no?" Yes, that was the new plan.

With a pep talk from Georgi, we headed back to our stateroom to eat.

After a quick second breakfast we got ready for another day at Castaway Cay. Sensing that the trip was nearing its conclusion, the girls posed for a verandah picture. They wanted to enjoy it while they still could.

Our first day on the island was spent almost exclusively on the family beach. There was a lot of Castaway Cay left to explore. So the plan for today was to go out and see more of the island.

Next: Another Day on Castaway Cay

lebeau · Jul 22, 2015

One advantage to getting a bit of a late start was that we weren't on the same time-table as everyone else. When we got off the boat, Mickey Mouse was standing right there all by his lonesome at the post office.

Meeting characters hadn't been a big priority for us on this trip, but you don't just pass up an opportunity to see Mickey without a line. Especially when he's wearing one of his situation-specific outfits.

If we had made our brunch appointment, we would have missed this. Any lingering disappointment I may have had evaporated. This was going to be at least as much fun as a fancy brunch.

During the princess meeting, I referenced my "extra picture" strategy. Under the bright Bahamian sun, all my pictures came out nicely. So the extra poses were just that. Extra.

Once the girls get into picture mode, they pretty much stay in it. We hadn't even gotten to the shuttle yet and they found something else to pose with.

We hopped a shuttle to the beach. The idea was to go one stop further than we had on our previous day on Castaway Cay. When we got to the first stop, a golf cart came whipping around. The golf cart was carrying Chip and Dale and Stitch all in beach attire. We waved as it did a complete lap around us. Then the characters got off and started to head to a meet and greet. We considered hopping off and meeting with them but decided to stick to our original plan instead. It was enough to get to wave to the chipmunks.

The girls had really wanted to meet Olaf during the cruise. They had already met Anna and Elsa at Disney World last summer. But Olaf had just been added to the cruise line. Since we hadn't found him yet, they posed with a statue of Olaf instead.

The statue is outside a stand that sells non-alcoholic slushies. If I remember correctly, a slushie in a regular cup was around $6 and one in an Olaf-shaped cup was $12. For now, we got off without buying any frozen drinks. For now.

Next: Warm hugs and cold drinks

lebeau · Jul 23, 2015

We spent some time on the beach which was slightly different from the location we were in before. There were a lot more and bigger shells on this part of the beach. Eventually, I got out while Mindy played with the girls in the water. As I was drying off, a woman came running down the beach. She was like Paul Revere except instead of announcing that the British were coming, she was shouting that "Olaf is here!"

I considered calling for the girls. But they seemed to be having so much fun I didn't think they would want to interrupt it for a character. Even Olaf who I knew they wanted to see. But as fate would have it, they started coming back to the beach chairs almost immediately. I still didn't want to call out for them to hurry up and come meet Olaf because, well, I didn't want to look like the Paul Revere lady.

Fortunately, I was able to follow the trailing sound of the woman's screams. "Ooooolafffff is heeeerrreeee!" I should be grateful to her. We never would have found the cuddly snowman without her dutiful sounding of the Olaf alarm.

Because the location and time of Olaf's meeting wasn't plastered all over the place, there was virtually no wait to see this popular character. If he was meeting at the Magic Kingdom, you can bet that there would be an hour-long line. But here on Castway Cay, the girls were giving him warm hugs in seconds.

After meeting with the loveable snowman, we ended up back at the slushie shack. Sure enough, the girls wanted slushies in giant Olaf cups. They let us try samples of the assorted flavors. Josie picked a strawberry drink called Warm Hugs and Kara's was citrus and passionfruit. It was called Yellow Snow, but it was actually quite tasty.

We decided to head down towards Cookies BBQ to see what else was back there. We came across a splash play area where the kids had some fun.

The appeal of the splash pad on a hot day is incredibly simple. You know water is going to splash you, but you never know when or where.

This one really caught Josie by surprise.

I was actually surprised by how long the girls spent playing here. I shouldn't have been. One of their favorite things to do last year was to get soaked in the fountain at Epcot.

We came up to Cookie's Too BBQ which is basically a buffet serving typical backyard BBQ food with some covered seating. I wasn't actually hungry having had a late breakfast. No one was especially hungry. But if we were going to have lunch, we needed to have it soon. Otherwise, we wouldn't be hungry for dinner tonight. So we made light lunch plates. The girls ate more than we did since they had eaten breakfast at a regular time.

I didn't actually eat anything at Cookies, so I can't comment directly on the quality of the food. Mindy had some ribs since she skipped the ribs at the Pirate Night dinner. She said they were good. Kara sampled a bit of everything and seemed to enjoy it all. I know she ate about half of a hot dog and half of a cheeseburger.

As we were leaving, we noticed that Cookies had a soft serve machine just like the one at Eye Scream. This caught my attention because they were serving flavors we hadn't yet seen on the ship. At Eye Scream, they always had chocolate and vanilla which could also be served swirled. They frequently had strawberry and banana which were also available in swirl form. But Cookies had mango and blueberry. I had to get a taste of those two flavors swirled. Josie got herself a blueberry cone as well. I have to say that the blueberry seemed exceptionally creamy. It was probably my favorite ice cream flavor of the trip though banana wasn't far behind.

Next: Shopping and lounging on the beach

lebeau · Jul 23, 2015

Mindy really wanted a souvenir from our time in the Bahamas. She didn't know what she wanted specifically, but she would have liked something with the name Castaway Cay printed on it. We stopped at a couple of stores on the island, but ultimately she didn't find anything she liked well enough to buy.

I don't know if it was because it was our second day on the island or if it had to do with the weather which occasionally threatened to take a turn for the worse (it never actually did though), but the beach was relatively empty. The hammocks which had been hard to get during the morning of our first visit were wide open today.

The girls were not about to pass up open hammocks. Kara was a bit too bouncy and had trouble balancing at first. We had to explain more than once that if she didn't keep her weight in the center of the hammock, it was going to dump her in the sand.

Josie took to it like an old pro.

We had only covered a relatively small amount of Castaway Cay. But we were ready to say goodbye for now. I have to say, I haven't been big into beaches since I was a kid. But Castaway Cay was something special. If you want to soak up the sun and relax, there isn't a better place to do it. But if you are looking to do a little more, there are activities and distractions all around. I will have nothing but fond memories of our time on the island and I look forward to returning someday.

But all good things must come to an end. Kara had been disappointed about missing out on the kids club this morning, so we really had to make sure she got some time to enjoy it today. Josie and I had our last fish extender run to make. And we had dinner and a show in the evening. So we figured it was best to return to the ship.

When we got back to the room, I checked the Navigator for details regarding the afternoon activities. There were a couple of programs in the kids club that Kara and Josie both wanted to try out, so I was looking to see if any of them were offered today. Sure enough, both Anyone Can Cook and gaga ball were scheduled for later in the day. Every time one of these activities had been offered previously, it either conflicted with something else we had scheduled or it was past our bedtime.

You Can Cook was scheduled at 4:00. I offered to take both girls down and check them in. The Buena Vista Theater was showing Avengers: Age of Ultron in 3-D at 4:20. It is just down the hall from the Oceanographer's Lab, so I figured I would drop the kids off for their cooking class and then watch the first hour of Avengers until it was time to pick the kids up and get ready for dinner. Perfect plan, right?

We had a little bit of time to kill before we needed to go to the kid's club. So Josie and I went on our final fish extender run of the trip. I didn't think we'd have time to make all of our drops. But since we had gotten much more familiar with the ship over the last couple of days, we were able to hit all six staterooms in fifteen minutes!

At one point, we observed a group of about five unsupervised children. They were being kind of rambunctious and were obviously enjoying their freedom. The kids ranged from six to eleven approximately. Personally, I wouldn't have chosen to turn them loose on the ship by themselves, but they weren't hurting anything. At one point, they started running down the halls leaving the youngest girl lagging behind. She started crying for the older kids to "wait up" but that only made them laugh.

Their laughter made my blood boil. I knew exactly what was going on here. The youngest child was starting to panic. She didn't have adult supervision and she was rightfully scared out of her mind over the prospect of being abandoned on a giant cruise ship by the older kids. Tears were starting to fall when her older sibling turned around and waited for her.

The entire incident transpired over maybe three seconds. Had it gone on half a second longer than it did, those older kids were about to get a scolding from a complete stranger. I don't usually step in where other people's kids are involved, but they were about to get a "Be nice to your sister" at a minimum. Fortunately, that was not necessary.

After the speedy delivery of our final round of fish extender gifts, Josie and I returned to the stateroom to pick up Kara. We both really enjoyed our little walks around the ship every day and we were a little sad to see them end. It was great bonding time for us both as we would talk about our day, what we wanted to do next and what we saw on the ship. For example, one stateroom was decorated for a girl's sweet sixteen birthday. And as it turned out, we happened to be passing just as she was coming out of her room one day. So we wished her happy birthday. There were lots of little things like that. We'd see decorated doors and wonder about the families behind them.

Once we had picked up Kara, we headed down to the Oceanographer's Lab for the Anyone Can Cook presentation. This is where we hit another minor bump. I went to check the girls in and for the second time today I was told I couldn't do so. I didn't fully understand the explanation the girl gave me. It seemed vague. They could check in at the Oceanographer's Club, but if they did they wouldn't be allowed into the Lab for Anyone Can Cook.

I still wasn't getting it. Maybe I was being dense. They had an activity scheduled but they weren't checking kids in? The girl at the counter explained somewhat patiently that they weren't checking kids in on this side of the kids club. They were having an activity, but there was no supervision. Kids could come and go as they pleased. She told me I was welcome to drop the kids off, but no one would be keeping track of them.

I'm sure I made an "Are you kidding me?" face.

Next: Anyone Can Cook

lebeau · Jul 23, 2015

Since the kids wanted to do Anyone Can Cook, I resolved to hang around. Maybe once the activity got started, I could check them in. I sat on a beanbag and let them go find something to do while we waited. They went to the animator's studio and traced a few Disney characters.

A few minutes later, it was almost time for the presentation. A cast member started handing out aprons. I decided to check with the front desk again and see if we could check in yet. A different girl at the desk told me that the Lab was in Open House. That didn't make any sense to me. I had checked the Navigator and it specifically said the Lab had Anyone Can Cook Scheduled. Not Open House.

There was a Navigator sitting on the desk, so I picked it up. Sure enough, Anyone Can Cook was scheduled in the Lab at 4:00. I was just about to say something when I noticed a detail I hadn't noticed before. Some of the activities had little letters in the corner. "OH". It didn't stand for Ohio. I put two and two together and realized that Anyone Can Cook was an Open House activity. Suddenly, it all made sense. If the kids wanted to participate, I would need to either hang around or leave them and take my chances.

The vast majority of parents chose to do the latter. There were dozens of kids in the program and only a handful of adults hanging around. Since I was going to be there, I decided I might as well cover the presentation for the trip report. So I did everything short of decorate my own cupcake. At one point, one of the coordinators asked if I would like to do that too. I declined. The cupcakes looked really gross.

The presentation started with a cast member dressed like a chef reviewing the story from Ratatouille. She was using a voice that I really hope was not her own. She spoke in a really annoying, high-pitched French accent. Behind her on the giant screen, images from the movie would appear and the cast member would ask kids what was going on. She would get the story wrong every time and rely on the kids to correct her. If I had to guess, I would estimate that fully half of the kids weren't familiar with Ratatouille. So sometimes, it was slow going.

Once the obligatory movie tie-in was done, we moved into the "lab" which is basically a big open room with lots of tables and chairs. Everything had been covered in cellophane in preparation for the mess that was about to be made. Each child was given their own tiny vanilla cupcake in a bowl. Then cast members came around with various icing colors. Each child was allowed to have up to two colors.

Josie took green and white. Kara took green and blue. She decided that green and blue were beach colors and that her cupcake was a Castaway Cay cupcake. As such, it required no additional decorations. Just smears of green and blue icing. Since Kara was done, she sat still during the rest of the presentation during which cast members handed out bits of candy with which to top your cupcakes.

Here's a look at the girls' works of art:

The kids were allowed to eat their cupcakes when they were done, but neither of the girls wanted to. Kara reminded me she doesn't like frosting. In this case, I couldn't blame her. Maybe Anyone Can Cook, but I don't think anyone can make that colored glob appetizing.

The presentation ended much earlier than anticipated. It was scheduled for an hour, but lasted less than half of that. Which meant a lot of kids were going to be turned loose with a half hour to go on open house. I imagine the majority of parents were not on hand to pick up their kids early. I know I didn't see them.

I took Josie and Kara around to the Oceanographer's Club and had them check in there. Josie wasn't thrilled with the idea. It was the first time we were leaving her at the kids club without hanging around. I assured her, I wouldn't be gone long and I had a wave phone just in case. Kara was ready to get down to kids club business.

Once the kids were checked in, I had about a half hour or so to kill before I had to pick them up for dinner. So I resumed my original plan and walked down the hall to watch some of Age of Ultron. On my way, I saw Sailor Donald posing for pictures in the ship's lobby. As I said before, there were almost always characters meeting in this area. I took this picture to illustrate that fact.

Then I grabbed a pair of 3-D glasses and hopped into an aisle seat in the back of the theater. I wanted to have easy access to the exit as I didn't plan to stay long. The opening to the Avengers sequel contains some of the best parts of the movie. The assault on Hydra in the opening scenes has all the fun stuff you want from an Avengers movie without getting bogged down in some of the exposition and continuity issues that mar the middle act. So I kept a close eye on the time and just enjoyed watching super heroes kick some butt in 3-D for a little while. Then I went back to pick up the girls.

They had clearly had fun, but Kara was much more enthusiastic about the experience than Josie. No surprises there, There had been a presentation in which Stitch stole a space ship which both girls found to be very funny. I heard all about it on the way back to the stateroom.

When we returned to the stateroom, there was a knock on the door. It was Danny from the concierge team. He had a really big envelope in his hands. He asked if I knew about Don "Ducky" Williams. As it turns out, I had heard of him. We saw a video about him on our Magical Express bus on the way back to the airport in 2014. He has done illustrations for Walt Disney World both in the park and for marketing purposes. Currently he is the senior character illustrator for the Walt Disney marketing and attractions.

Anyway, Danny had arrived with a parting gift - a print of one of "Ducky" Williams' paintings made especially for concierge guests on the Disney cruise line. Danny told me the program had been in place for about ten years and this particular print was one of his favorites. "It's beautiful," he said. I'm inclined to agree largely because it is mine. Currently, the print resides in its original envelope, but at some point in the future I'll be framing that bad boy and hanging it in my man cave.

Next: Animator's Palate

lebeau · Jul 24, 2015

Our final dinner was at the Animator's Palate. According to Georgi, they had saved the best for last. We had been in the Animator's Palate for our Frozen meet and greet the day before. But this was our first time seeing it in its regular form.

As the name would suggest, the restaurant has an animation motif. On the original ships, the Magic and the Wonder, the restaurants starts off black and white and slowly transforms into color. But on the Dream and the Fantasy, Disney has installed a new gimmick. Basically the entire restaurant is one giant version of the Turtle Talk with Crush show from Epcot.

Before we get to the show, let's take a look around at some of the smaller touches.

The chair backs have an obvious Mickey Mouse-inspired design.

The butter knives look like paint brushes. There's also a paint brush and half-painted Mickey on the plates. The butter knives are actually available for purchase if you want one.

As always, we were at table 106. The table marker looks like a paint can rested on a film reel. There are phony paint brushes sticking out.

Once again, table 106 proved to be a good one. We were located directly in front of one of the screens which pretty much guaranteed we would have an audience with an animated turtle.

Prior to the start of the show, the screens look like bulletin boards with sketch art for Finding Nemo all over them. But later in the evening, the screens fill with bubbles and the lights dim. From that point on, the screens appear like windows to the sea with characters from Finding Nemo swimming past and occasionally interacting with diners.

For our appetizer, Georgi highly recommended the black truffle pasta. Both Mindy and I took him up on the recommendation and we were glad we did. This dish was heavenly. We both agreed we could have eaten this for an entree if it was available.

Mindy had expressed an interest in the tomato tarte which Georgi described as "a little pizza". He surprised us with one to share. It was tasty, but nowhere near as delectable as the truffle pasta.

Once the show started, Josie was transfixed. The little fish from Finding Nemo played a guessing game where they would slowly form a shape and diners were supposed to guess what they were making before they finished. Kind of like Dory and Marlin did in the movie.

Next: Crush arrives and so do the entrees

lebeau · Jul 24, 2015

For our main course, Georgi recommended the Angus beef tenderloin with wasabi mashed potatoes. After the wonderful appetizer, Mindy and I both followed his recommendation. It was good, but we preferred the pasta.

We were one of the first tables Crush visited. We've been to Turtle Talk a handful of times, but since the girls are kind of quiet they never got picked to ask a question. Since we were centrally located, Crush swam right up and started talking to them. He had them both repeat some surfer lingo like "cool, dude" and "radical". When they were done, he gave a special shout-out to Josie. Or as he called her, "the dudette with the pink shell and the glasses on her noggin".

I didn't snap pictures of our desserts but I believe Mindy had the "crunchy walnut cake" which consisted largely of chocolate mousse and I had a cheesecake. They were both solid desserts.

As dinner ended, we had the girls give Georgi and Nigel their tip envelopes. Georgi let us know that after 12 years waiting tables for the Disney Cruise Line, this was his final tour. He was returning home tomorrow. I was unclear as to whether home was in Florida or if he was actually going back to Bulgaria, but it sounded like the latter. He said he lived on the beach. We looked it up and there are some beautiful beaches in Bulgaria. We all hope Georgi is on one of them right now.

I had initially scoffed at the idea of befriending your wait staff over the course of four dinners. But we had. Every time Georgi saw Kara, he teased her and called her his "best friend". We had to admit we were going to miss him and Nigel after the cruise. Mindy asked them if we could take their picture. Instead, Georgi had another waiter come over and take a picture of us all. After two pictures on my phone, Georgi told me to check them to make sure they were all right because he "doesn't trust that guy".https://lebeauleblog.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/aniomators-palate-sign.jpg

When we were done, Georgi ran through all of our options for breakfast in the morning. We had to be off the ship by 9:00, so it was going to be an early morning no matter what we did. We wished Georgi good luck in whatever he did next. But it turned out to be a bit premature. We would see him again the next morning.

The final stage show for the cruise was Believe. The girls didn't want to go see it. Kara was really excited to go play gaga ball at the kids club. So we made plans to drop them off. There were a couple of other things to keep us busy in the meanwhile. There was another princess meet and greet at the D-Lounge I thought we might go to. Who knows? Maybe Cinderella would be there. But first, Mindy wanted to go shopping.

Josie and I had already been through the stores during our fish extender trips. So Josie was pointing out things she liked. In one of the fancier shops, the Captain was holding a meet and greet of his own which had a pretty long line. Apparently a lot of people wanted his autograph. We ended up skipping the princess meet and greet for more shopping. Finally, I decided to go hold a place in line for Believe while Mindy dropped the kids off at the Oceanographer's Club.

There was one small problem. I got the showtime wrong. I thought the show started at 8:00 so I was actually about 45 minutes early. When Mindy got back, they weren't even seating yet. She decided she would rather pack up our bags and pick up the girls from the kids' club early rather than watch another stage show. So I stayed to watch the show by myself which was okay by me. I hate packing.

I later heard from the girls that they had fun at the kids' club. Kara spent most of her time playing gaga ball as expected. Ironically, Cinderella made an appearance at the kids club as did Tinkerbell. Mindy picked them up from the kids club as soon as gaga ball was over which was right about the time the show was beginning. They still had those arcade cards from the concierge lounge. So they went to the arcade to play a few games.

https://lebeauleblog.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/ap-nemo-drawings.jpg

Meanwhile, I had a primo seat for the stage show. I was dead center. Just before the show started, a violinist came out to entertain us. First, she played When You Wish Upon a Star, recently picked by Le Blog readers as the best Disney song of all time. She followed that up with Let It Go and the place went nuts. After just a couple of notes, every little girl in the theater recognized the song and started bouncing in their seats. There was an electricity in the air as though Uncle Walt himself had just taken the stage. When the song reached the chorus, it turned into a sing-along.https://lebeauleblog.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/ap-place-setting.jpg

After that, Cruise Director Mike took the stage for more of his info/stand-up. He gave us the rundown on our options for tomorrow, how to fill out the customs paperwork and reiterated that everyone had to be off the ship by 9:00. He asked if we wanted him to turn the ship around so we could do it all over again. When the audience roared with approval, he replied "Not gonna happen."

As for the show itself, it's pretty much what you would expect from a Disney show called Believe. A scientist doesn't believe in magic. It's his daughter's birthday and he has a major presentation, so he is distracted. She makes a wish that he could believe in magic and the genie from Aladdin shows up. There's a progression of classic Disney songs leading up to the scientist's change of heart. By the end, father and daughter are bonding over their shared belief in all things magical. It was a decent show but honestly, I can't really imagine sitting through any of these stage shows a second time. The production values are good, but the shows are so incredibly corny.

Next: One Final Thing

Trip Report Lebeau Family Trip Report 2015: Universal Studios and a Disney Dream Cruise

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