Our trip was a 5-night cruise on the Disney Magic, sailing out of NYC on August 5 with ports of call in Halifax, Nova Scotia and St. John, New Brunswick. Our group consisted of my wife Kathryn, my daughter Molly (17), my mother-in-law Dale and me.
Day 1 –New York City
Hot and humid, low 90s
Arrival at the NYC port by car was much easier than I expected. Drop off and check-in was very well-organized. The terminal itself is very no-frills, despite DCL’s efforts to put up Mickey signs, etc. The concierge waiting area was simply a section of chairs that was roped off from the rest of the room. We shared a terminal with a Holland America ship and the DCL passengers had to walk to the far end of the terminal, but overall, it was a straight-forward and unremarkable boarding process. Sadly, there were no upgrades available; but it wasn’t even really all that sad, considering that we were already booked for a veranda. (One of these days, I’m gonna try a suite. . .)
As a Platinum Castaway Club member, we were in boarding group #1, which was sweet. We took our boarding picture, got introduced in the main Atrium on Deck 3 at around 12:10 and headed for lunch. My family likes to sit at Topsider’s for the view during our first lunch, so we headed up, but sat inside to avoid the humidity. The views of the Manhattan skyline were actually pretty cool.
We’d heard from a friend who sailed a few weeks ago that the Magic is showing her age a bit. And we did see signs of this right away. One of the big Deck 3 portholes near where we boarded was shattered. The protective coating was peeling away on several of the bench seat cushions in Topsider’s. A hallway carpet was stained on the way to our stateroom. There were a few things like this; but not as many as I’d been led to expect. Our stateroom was in excellent condition, other than the veranda needing some paint touch-ups. And the main dining rooms looked beautiful, in my opinion, as did all of Beat Street.
The lunch at Topsider’s was pretty typical. There was peel-and-eat shrimp, baked salmon and carved beef, all of which were really good. There was a stir-fry station, which I personally thought was really bad. I didn’t like the chicken stir-fry at all. And there was a chilled pineapple soup, which I tried; it tasted like a pina colada. After lunch, we went back to the room and unpacked, then sat poolside, enjoying the sunshine until the lifeboat drill.
Leaving port, I was told by a crew member that the Magic would sail with the Statue of Liberty on the port side. Our room was on the port side, so I manned my post on the veranda for what were sure to be phenomenal pictures. The only problem is that on the way out of port, the Statue of Liberty is actually on the starboard side of the ship.
We had first seating for dinner, so after NOT seeing the Statue of Liberty , we headed to Lumiere’s. Our serving team for this cruise was Savio and Marcus. Both were very good, but Marcus was really terrific. He was very personable and joked with us a lot.
The Welcome Aboard menu was very good from top to bottom. I had the mushroom and onion tart appetizer, which was very good, and the duck confit. That was a little weird, almost like a pate. It was good, but not my favorite. My wife had the tomato basil soup and said it was very good. My mother-in-law had the sea bass on mushroom risotto, which was excellent. My wife had the lamb shank on polenta, which was excellent. My daughter’s beef tenderloin with bacon-wrapped green beans and smashed potatoes was also excellent. I had the lobster macaroni and cheese. The lobster was just a few pieces of meat, not a tail or anything. It was very good, but not a lot of lobster. For dessert, we had the chocolate mousse and the Grand Marnier soufflé, which were also both very good.
The lobster mac-and-cheese brings up an interesting point. You know how on an Alaskan cruise, there seems to be salmon on the menu in some form every night and at lunch. You can’t get away from salmon. Well, we sort of expected that on this cruise, the menu would be packed with lobsters, mussels, etc. (I mean, you’re sailing off the coast ofMaine, for crying out loud, right?) But it wasn’t at all. There were no mussels at all, and the mac-and-cheese was the only lobster we saw until the final night, when there was another small lobster portion. It certainly did not spoil our dining experience, but we were a little surprised.
There was a LOT of movement of the ship on that first night, to the point that we were watching the curtains in the Walt Disney Theater sway during the show. The Welcome Aboard show was the standard show, with a juggler and a ventriloquist and Jeremy who dreams of being captain. I almost never go to this show, but I did this time. I actually thought one of the songs was different, but Molly assured me that it’s the same show. The juggler and ventriloquist were both ok. Not great, but not terrible. If nothing else, it reminded me of why I don’t usually need to see this show.
The rest of the evening was spent wandering through the shops and ending up in Sessions for some piano music. I actually like the Cadillac Lounge on the Wonder better than Sessions, but Sessions is nice too. We had a nice time unwinding. We’re not night-owls, so we were all back at the room by about 10:30.
Day 2 – At Sea
Overcast, rain. Mid 70s.
We ordered room service for breakfast as a treat for our first morning onboard. There’s really something pretty awesome about chocolate croissants and coffee on your own veranda in the morning. We kept breakfast pretty small because. . .
Kath and I had Palo Brunch at 10:30!!! Woo-hoo! Palo is fantastic. We love dinner at Palo, but because we were on a shorter itinerary, we didn’t want to skip dinner with my daughter. So we had brunch, and it was awesome. If you haven’t done brunch at Palo, it combines buffet and menu dining. There’s a buffet of cheeses, pastries, fruit, shrimp, crab legs, dips (the hummus was good, but not as good as my wife makes), etc. But you can also order flatbreads and a few entrees from a menu. We ordered the flatbread with gorgonzola cheese and grapes. It sounds weird, but it’s really really good. There was also a spicy sausage flatbread, but we passed on that one. The entrees included chicken parmesan, veal with prosciutto over grilled baby mushrooms, grilled tilapia; 3 styles of eggs (Benedict, Sylvia, and Florentine); and pancakes.
I’ve had the chicken parm and it’s fabulous, but I wanted something different, so I got the veal, which turned out to be pretty darn good as well. Perhaps a touch drier than I would have expected, but the taste was terrific. Kath got the Eggs Sylvia (like Benedict, except with salmon instead of ham) and said they were perfect. There’s also a full table of great desserts. Lots of chocolate, obviously, but the most interesting one was a strawberry dessert with a whipped rhubarb topping. It was kind of like a pie filling, without any crust. But it was delicious and (for me, anyway) unusual. Overall, the brunch was a great way to celebrate our anniversary!
(Molly had lunch at Topsider’s and said that the lamb chops were terrific, but the crab cake was too bready.)
The girls went to the Art of Entertainment cooking demonstration. They watched the preparation of filo-wrapped salmon. They like these demonstrations, although they thought this particular chef was a little more interested in talking about himself than the dish.
I went to Rockin’ Bar D to see a presentation on Disney’s Top 10 Innovations. This is a series of 10 short videos where Disney cast members and Imagineers (and Roy Disney) talk about each of the innovations. Between the short videos a crew member “host” interacts with the audience and reads a short intro for each innovation. The video segments were actually very interesting, but the audience interaction was too long the “host” wasn’t really very good at winging it. (I have the list of the Top 10, but I don’t want to post it and ruin it for people who might want to see it on an upcoming cruise.)
Because of the rain, we couldn’t really be out on deck. So I curled up with a book for a couple hours until dinner at Animator’s Palate.
I had an Asian beef tenderloin with wasabi mashed potatoes and bok choi. The beef was good, but the sauce didn’t seem particularly Asian to me. The mashed potatoes were also good and the bok choi was, of course, gross. Molly had pasta with turkey and prosciutto in a cheese sauce, which she said was very good. To me the best part was my dessert, which was a hot apple crumb cake with chocolate ice cream, which was awesome.
The show was Twice Charmed. I usually skip this one. But the girls in my family LOVE it. They said this was a very good performance. Cinderella was excellent, but was actually outshined by the Fairy Godmother. They said she was phenomenal. They all said it was really good.
While the girls were in the Walt Disney Theater, I was in the Buena Vista Theater watching The Avengers in 3D. Although it’s a completely ridiculous movie on almost every level, I actually liked it, mostly because of the interaction of the heroes. I just thought their dialogue and chemistry was really good. I’m not a huge superhero kind of guy, but I liked this one.
Day 3 – Halifax
Foggy, cloudy, rain. Mid 70s.
We had an early whale watch, so we were up for an early breakfast in Lumiere’s. The girls all had basic eggs and bacon. I had the “French toast and pineapple stack” with strawberry sauce and I really liked it. It was really good.
So we rushed out to our 8:30 a.m. whale watch excursion. We were really hoping that this excursion would make up for the disappointing whale watch we had inAlaska. Unfortunately, this one was even worse than theAlaskaexcursion. It turned out to be an utter disappointment. Three hours on the boat and we saw 5 seals, they pulled up a trap to show us live lobsters, and we saw no other sea life. I could’ve just taken the $300 for the excursion and lit it on fire it to keep us warm and it would have been a better experience. The excursion should’ve just been cancelled, since visibility was about 50 feet when we started and at times was down to about 10 or 15 feet. A completely terrible, horrible, no good, very bad experience.
So after that debacle, we double-timed it back to the ship for a quick lunch of pizza and chicken fingers and then we were right back outside for another excursion at 1 pm. This was a bike tour ofHalifax. In the pouring rain. Molly was originally going to come with us, but we told her she should just ditch it. But Kath and I decided to be tough and do the ride. The rain eventually did stop, and the guys who led the tour were nice enough and informative.
The excursion was described as “active”, and it certainly was. I have to say, I didn’t expect it to be quite as long as it was. We covered a lot of distance and Halifax is a very hilly city. The guides were nice and it was mildly interesting, but it wasn’t nearly as scenic or beautiful as our bike excursion in Skagway last year. Maybe we just had a leftover bad taste in our mouth from the morning’s excursion, but I didn’t really enjoy the bike tour all that much, to be honest.
We got back to the Magic around 4, showered and just relaxed in the stateroom until dinner. This was our only dinner in Parrot Cay and everybody really enjoyed it. When we came in, the Caribbean music was playing loudly (steel drums, “Hot, Hot, Hot”, etc), but it changed over to “regular” background music when it was time for the servers to start taking orders. I had the crab dip and jerk chicken appetizers, which were both excellent. Molly had the ahi tuna, which was also excellent. (She actually had tuna 3 times during the 5 nights and it was excellent each time.) Kath had the cream of broccoli soup (bleh!), which she said was very good, and I had the romaine salad (basically a Caesar), which I thought was excellent.
For entrees, Kath and Molly got the mixed grill. We’ve had very mixed results with this entrée, if you’ll pardon the pun. On a previous cruise, Kath ordered this and everything on the plate came out cooked to death. Not just well done, but very overdone. When we mentioned this to the server, she brought out the chef, who basically blamed the server for not asking us how we wanted it cooked. (This was a terrible excuse, since it was overdone for nearly anyone. It wasn’t just a matter of being medium instead of rare. Anyway. . .)
So this time, Kath stressed that she wanted the lamb chop and the beef filet to be rare, and if that wasn’t possible, she would order something else. Well, that did the trick, apparently, because everything came out perfectly the way she likes it. She and Molly both loved the meal. I had the jerk-spiced pork chop with polenta cakes and my mother-in-law got the sea bass. Both of us thought our meals were excellent. After excellent appetizers and entrees, the desserts seemed unremarkable and we didn’t get any.
The show was Villains Tonight, and I have to say that it was the best performance of the show that I’ve seen. Hades was just about perfect. He made all the jokes, threw in a (very) few ad-libs, made exactly ONE joke with the sign language team and didn’t derail the show. The rest of the cast was also very good. I think my favorite segment is still Ursula; she was great. I was glad that I gave it another chance. It was definitely very good.
I was wiped out from the excursions of the day, so I just went back to the room to read a little bit. The girls went to Sessions for martinis and music.
Day 4 – St. John
Sunny, high 70s
A quick breakfast at Topsider’s (no biscuits and gravy ) before our 9:30 excursion to the Hopewell Rocks tidal basin. This is in the Bay of Fundy and has some of the largest tidal shifts in the world. The tide rises at an average of a foot every 6 minutes, so it’s very dramatic. At low tide, it seems like you can walk about a mile out on the ocean floor.
We took a very long bus ride (2+ hours) through absolutely gorgeous countryside to the national park. We arrived just after low tide and walked out on the mud flats. There are often flocks of sandpipers along the flats to eat the small shrimp that live in the mud, but we weren’t lucky enough to see them that day. The huge rock formations reminded me a lot of the Baths in Virgin Gorda, if you’ve ever seen them. But in St. John, most of the caves are roped off, so tourists don’t get lost in them when the tide rushes in. We spent about 40 minutes eating lunch, which they provided (soup and sandwich) and then we went back to the tidal basin to (quickly) see how far the tide had come in. Just in the 40 minutes, it was very noticeable. A lot of where we had walked was already underwater, so it was pretty cool to see it change that quickly. We had to rush back to the bus to get back to the ship by “all aboard” time of 5 pm. We got back at 5:05 (the captain waited for us ) and were one of the last two excursions to get back on board. I liked the excursion, but because the bus trip was so long, we didn’t actually get to see any of St. John itself. Oh well, next time.
For our second dinner in Lumiere’s, we had the Pirates In the Caribbean menu. Unfortunately, this meal was mediocre at best. The crab cake and the potsticker appetizers were ok to good, certainly not great. (The crab cake did seem too bready and the potsticker wrapper was thick and bready, unlike an Asian potsticker with a thin, crispy wrapper.) The conch chowder had no chunks of seafood in it; it was really just a creamy broth. My mother-in-law said that the shrimp on couscous salad was actually good. Everybody got the same entrée, which was the shrimp and scallops on pasta with tomato sauce. Again, this was ok, but not great – 3 shrimp and 4 small scallops in a plain tomato sauce on a lot of pasta. I ended up eating the shrimp and scallops and leaving almost all the pasta. I also got a second entrée, which was the BBQ short ribs; and this was the exception to the rest of the meal. They were really delicious. The ribs were very tender and the BBQ sauce was very good. And my fruit cobbler dessert was also very good. So at least I left dinner on a good note!
The show was Brave in 3D in both theaters. We chose the Walt Disney Theater. I deliberately didn’t see the movie when it came out so that I could experience it for the first time while on the ship. (This is just one example of my sickness when it comes to DCL.) If you haven’t seen it yet, I won’t ruin it for you. I liked it a lot, although I wasn’t “blown away” as some people had said I would be.
We went to Deck 10 for the Pirate Party and fireworks and had a really fun time. After the fireworks, we went to the Pirate buffet (which was in Topsider’s, instead of out on deck) and just grabbed a couple desserts and a few yummy conch fritters!
After dessert, I headed down to Diversions to watch a little of a ballgame. The place was deserted! It was nice to have a quiet place to myself, but I did miss the energy that you get when a bunch of guys are in there watching a game.
Day 5 – At Sea
Cool foggy morning. Sunny and 80 by 11 am.
I slept in because I didn’t get a lot of sleep during the night. The ship’s horn went off every 5 or 10 minutes all night because of the heavy fog. This was actually the second night that happened. But because of that, I skipped breakfast and just stayed in bed for a while. When I finally made it out of the room around 10 am, I went up to sit with Kath and Molly at the Goofy pool. They were determined to get some pool time on this trip. I was actually glad to be at the midship pool, because Quiet Cove got the brunt of the foghorn every 5 minutes. By 11:00, the fog had mostly burned off and the foghorn stopped. The sun was out and it was actually very pleasant to be poolside for a couple hours. We watched the characters come and go for pictures and watched Chicken Little on the Ariel View screen.
We had lunch at Lumiere’s. I had the calamari appetizer with red pepper dip. It was very good. It had a bready coating instead of crispy. The dip was ok, but I liked the calamari just as much without it. I also had the Mulligatawny soup. This is a chicken lentil soup with curry. It was a little spicy, but I liked it a lot. It had a really interesting taste. Kath had the quiche appetizer as her entrée. It was just ok. The cheese gave it a little flavor, but otherwise, Kath said it wasn’t all that exciting. Molly had the pasta with prosciutto in marinara sauce and liked it a lot. I had the pork tenderloin with shredded potatoes. The taste was very good and I liked the sauce, but the pork was well done. I still enjoyed it, though. The potatoes were also very good. Everybody left me (I can’t remember why, now) so I had dessert by myself. It was a chocolate roulade. It was thin layers of chocolate cake wrapped around chocolate mousse. (Think of a Hostess Ho-Ho snack, with mousse instead of cream filling.) YUM!
I spent the afternoon in Buena Vista Theater, giving Brave another viewing. This time in 2D. Molly walked in to watch People Like Us, as I was leaving.
Our final dinner was in Animator’s Palate and it was a great way to end our dining experience. The lobster bisque was excellent as was Molly’s Ahi tuna appetizer. Kathryn and Dale had the crab-stuffed tomato and said it was tasty, but a little short on crab meat. Kath also had the edamame and cabbage salad, which was ok but not great. The seafood pasta entrée was very good, much better than the shrimp and scallops I had previously. There was more seafood in this dish, including some lobster (seemed like half of a small tail) and the cream sauce was very good. My second entrée was the Beef Wellington with roasted potatoes and broccoli, which was not as good as the seafood pasta, but I did like it. (Kath shared with me and liked the bread/pate around the beef.) Kath’s main dish was the lamb, which was excellent; and she had the cappuccino mouse, also excellent. I had the apple and cranberry pie a la mode for dessert and it was really good.
Speaking of really good, the show on our final night was Dreams, and it was fantastic. I don’t usually go to Dreams because if either Peter or Anne Marie isn’t great, it tanks the show for me. But this was an absolutely terrific performance. Peter and Anne Marie were both outstanding. The Prince Ali number was great. The Circle of Life soloist was a little below what we normally see, but she was still good; and in that segment, a male dancer is supposed to hold his partner over his head with one arm, but she slipped off his hand and he had to catch her. Oops!!! But in all other ways, it was a great performance. I really loved it.
After the show, I quickly finished packing and went to bed early because I had unfinished business to attend to in the morning.
Day 6 – NYC and debark
I got up at 3:55 am so that I could get a look at the Statue of Liberty on the way intoNew Yorkharbor. They couldn’t give me an exact time, so I got up a little early to make sure I didn’t miss it. As it turned out, we passed the statue at around 4:40, but it was worth getting up for. I’d like to say that I got great, dramatic pictures; but my camera’s just not that good. I stayed up to watch the NYC skyline as we sailed to the dock.
Breakfast was in Animator’s, of course, and it was the standard hurry-up-and-get-out menu. We said good-bye to Savia and Marcus. (Marcus actually had the afternoon off and had a full itinerary planned for his day in the city. I didn’t think anybody got the day off on embarkation day.)
Debarkation was very smooth. They now call people to debark according to your luggage tags. So they call Mickey and Donald tags, for example, and only those people (theoretically) report to the Atrium to leave the ship. It actually made the process less hectic, which was a good way to end our trip.
I’ll have pictures to post soon.
Day 1 –New York City
Hot and humid, low 90s
Arrival at the NYC port by car was much easier than I expected. Drop off and check-in was very well-organized. The terminal itself is very no-frills, despite DCL’s efforts to put up Mickey signs, etc. The concierge waiting area was simply a section of chairs that was roped off from the rest of the room. We shared a terminal with a Holland America ship and the DCL passengers had to walk to the far end of the terminal, but overall, it was a straight-forward and unremarkable boarding process. Sadly, there were no upgrades available; but it wasn’t even really all that sad, considering that we were already booked for a veranda. (One of these days, I’m gonna try a suite. . .)
As a Platinum Castaway Club member, we were in boarding group #1, which was sweet. We took our boarding picture, got introduced in the main Atrium on Deck 3 at around 12:10 and headed for lunch. My family likes to sit at Topsider’s for the view during our first lunch, so we headed up, but sat inside to avoid the humidity. The views of the Manhattan skyline were actually pretty cool.
We’d heard from a friend who sailed a few weeks ago that the Magic is showing her age a bit. And we did see signs of this right away. One of the big Deck 3 portholes near where we boarded was shattered. The protective coating was peeling away on several of the bench seat cushions in Topsider’s. A hallway carpet was stained on the way to our stateroom. There were a few things like this; but not as many as I’d been led to expect. Our stateroom was in excellent condition, other than the veranda needing some paint touch-ups. And the main dining rooms looked beautiful, in my opinion, as did all of Beat Street.
The lunch at Topsider’s was pretty typical. There was peel-and-eat shrimp, baked salmon and carved beef, all of which were really good. There was a stir-fry station, which I personally thought was really bad. I didn’t like the chicken stir-fry at all. And there was a chilled pineapple soup, which I tried; it tasted like a pina colada. After lunch, we went back to the room and unpacked, then sat poolside, enjoying the sunshine until the lifeboat drill.
Leaving port, I was told by a crew member that the Magic would sail with the Statue of Liberty on the port side. Our room was on the port side, so I manned my post on the veranda for what were sure to be phenomenal pictures. The only problem is that on the way out of port, the Statue of Liberty is actually on the starboard side of the ship.
We had first seating for dinner, so after NOT seeing the Statue of Liberty
, we headed to Lumiere’s. Our serving team for this cruise was Savio and Marcus. Both were very good, but Marcus was really terrific. He was very personable and joked with us a lot.The Welcome Aboard menu was very good from top to bottom. I had the mushroom and onion tart appetizer, which was very good, and the duck confit. That was a little weird, almost like a pate. It was good, but not my favorite. My wife had the tomato basil soup and said it was very good. My mother-in-law had the sea bass on mushroom risotto, which was excellent. My wife had the lamb shank on polenta, which was excellent. My daughter’s beef tenderloin with bacon-wrapped green beans and smashed potatoes was also excellent. I had the lobster macaroni and cheese. The lobster was just a few pieces of meat, not a tail or anything. It was very good, but not a lot of lobster. For dessert, we had the chocolate mousse and the Grand Marnier soufflé, which were also both very good.
The lobster mac-and-cheese brings up an interesting point. You know how on an Alaskan cruise, there seems to be salmon on the menu in some form every night and at lunch. You can’t get away from salmon. Well, we sort of expected that on this cruise, the menu would be packed with lobsters, mussels, etc. (I mean, you’re sailing off the coast ofMaine, for crying out loud, right?) But it wasn’t at all. There were no mussels at all, and the mac-and-cheese was the only lobster we saw until the final night, when there was another small lobster portion. It certainly did not spoil our dining experience, but we were a little surprised.
There was a LOT of movement of the ship on that first night, to the point that we were watching the curtains in the Walt Disney Theater sway during the show. The Welcome Aboard show was the standard show, with a juggler and a ventriloquist and Jeremy who dreams of being captain. I almost never go to this show, but I did this time. I actually thought one of the songs was different, but Molly assured me that it’s the same show. The juggler and ventriloquist were both ok. Not great, but not terrible. If nothing else, it reminded me of why I don’t usually need to see this show.
The rest of the evening was spent wandering through the shops and ending up in Sessions for some piano music. I actually like the Cadillac Lounge on the Wonder better than Sessions, but Sessions is nice too. We had a nice time unwinding. We’re not night-owls, so we were all back at the room by about 10:30.
Day 2 – At Sea
Overcast, rain. Mid 70s.
We ordered room service for breakfast as a treat for our first morning onboard. There’s really something pretty awesome about chocolate croissants and coffee on your own veranda in the morning. We kept breakfast pretty small because. . .
Kath and I had Palo Brunch at 10:30!!! Woo-hoo! Palo is fantastic. We love dinner at Palo, but because we were on a shorter itinerary, we didn’t want to skip dinner with my daughter. So we had brunch, and it was awesome. If you haven’t done brunch at Palo, it combines buffet and menu dining. There’s a buffet of cheeses, pastries, fruit, shrimp, crab legs, dips (the hummus was good, but not as good as my wife makes), etc. But you can also order flatbreads and a few entrees from a menu. We ordered the flatbread with gorgonzola cheese and grapes. It sounds weird, but it’s really really good. There was also a spicy sausage flatbread, but we passed on that one. The entrees included chicken parmesan, veal with prosciutto over grilled baby mushrooms, grilled tilapia; 3 styles of eggs (Benedict, Sylvia, and Florentine); and pancakes.
I’ve had the chicken parm and it’s fabulous, but I wanted something different, so I got the veal, which turned out to be pretty darn good as well. Perhaps a touch drier than I would have expected, but the taste was terrific. Kath got the Eggs Sylvia (like Benedict, except with salmon instead of ham) and said they were perfect. There’s also a full table of great desserts. Lots of chocolate, obviously, but the most interesting one was a strawberry dessert with a whipped rhubarb topping. It was kind of like a pie filling, without any crust. But it was delicious and (for me, anyway) unusual. Overall, the brunch was a great way to celebrate our anniversary!
(Molly had lunch at Topsider’s and said that the lamb chops were terrific, but the crab cake was too bready.)
The girls went to the Art of Entertainment cooking demonstration. They watched the preparation of filo-wrapped salmon. They like these demonstrations, although they thought this particular chef was a little more interested in talking about himself than the dish.
I went to Rockin’ Bar D to see a presentation on Disney’s Top 10 Innovations. This is a series of 10 short videos where Disney cast members and Imagineers (and Roy Disney) talk about each of the innovations. Between the short videos a crew member “host” interacts with the audience and reads a short intro for each innovation. The video segments were actually very interesting, but the audience interaction was too long the “host” wasn’t really very good at winging it. (I have the list of the Top 10, but I don’t want to post it and ruin it for people who might want to see it on an upcoming cruise.)
Because of the rain, we couldn’t really be out on deck. So I curled up with a book for a couple hours until dinner at Animator’s Palate.
I had an Asian beef tenderloin with wasabi mashed potatoes and bok choi. The beef was good, but the sauce didn’t seem particularly Asian to me. The mashed potatoes were also good and the bok choi was, of course, gross. Molly had pasta with turkey and prosciutto in a cheese sauce, which she said was very good. To me the best part was my dessert, which was a hot apple crumb cake with chocolate ice cream, which was awesome.
The show was Twice Charmed. I usually skip this one. But the girls in my family LOVE it. They said this was a very good performance. Cinderella was excellent, but was actually outshined by the Fairy Godmother. They said she was phenomenal. They all said it was really good.
While the girls were in the Walt Disney Theater, I was in the Buena Vista Theater watching The Avengers in 3D. Although it’s a completely ridiculous movie on almost every level, I actually liked it, mostly because of the interaction of the heroes. I just thought their dialogue and chemistry was really good. I’m not a huge superhero kind of guy, but I liked this one.
Day 3 – Halifax
Foggy, cloudy, rain. Mid 70s.
We had an early whale watch, so we were up for an early breakfast in Lumiere’s. The girls all had basic eggs and bacon. I had the “French toast and pineapple stack” with strawberry sauce and I really liked it. It was really good.
So we rushed out to our 8:30 a.m. whale watch excursion. We were really hoping that this excursion would make up for the disappointing whale watch we had inAlaska. Unfortunately, this one was even worse than theAlaskaexcursion. It turned out to be an utter disappointment. Three hours on the boat and we saw 5 seals, they pulled up a trap to show us live lobsters, and we saw no other sea life. I could’ve just taken the $300 for the excursion and lit it on fire it to keep us warm and it would have been a better experience. The excursion should’ve just been cancelled, since visibility was about 50 feet when we started and at times was down to about 10 or 15 feet. A completely terrible, horrible, no good, very bad experience.
So after that debacle, we double-timed it back to the ship for a quick lunch of pizza and chicken fingers and then we were right back outside for another excursion at 1 pm. This was a bike tour ofHalifax. In the pouring rain. Molly was originally going to come with us, but we told her she should just ditch it. But Kath and I decided to be tough and do the ride. The rain eventually did stop, and the guys who led the tour were nice enough and informative.
The excursion was described as “active”, and it certainly was. I have to say, I didn’t expect it to be quite as long as it was. We covered a lot of distance and Halifax is a very hilly city. The guides were nice and it was mildly interesting, but it wasn’t nearly as scenic or beautiful as our bike excursion in Skagway last year. Maybe we just had a leftover bad taste in our mouth from the morning’s excursion, but I didn’t really enjoy the bike tour all that much, to be honest.
We got back to the Magic around 4, showered and just relaxed in the stateroom until dinner. This was our only dinner in Parrot Cay and everybody really enjoyed it. When we came in, the Caribbean music was playing loudly (steel drums, “Hot, Hot, Hot”, etc), but it changed over to “regular” background music when it was time for the servers to start taking orders. I had the crab dip and jerk chicken appetizers, which were both excellent. Molly had the ahi tuna, which was also excellent. (She actually had tuna 3 times during the 5 nights and it was excellent each time.) Kath had the cream of broccoli soup (bleh!), which she said was very good, and I had the romaine salad (basically a Caesar), which I thought was excellent.
For entrees, Kath and Molly got the mixed grill. We’ve had very mixed results with this entrée, if you’ll pardon the pun. On a previous cruise, Kath ordered this and everything on the plate came out cooked to death. Not just well done, but very overdone. When we mentioned this to the server, she brought out the chef, who basically blamed the server for not asking us how we wanted it cooked. (This was a terrible excuse, since it was overdone for nearly anyone. It wasn’t just a matter of being medium instead of rare. Anyway. . .)
So this time, Kath stressed that she wanted the lamb chop and the beef filet to be rare, and if that wasn’t possible, she would order something else. Well, that did the trick, apparently, because everything came out perfectly the way she likes it. She and Molly both loved the meal. I had the jerk-spiced pork chop with polenta cakes and my mother-in-law got the sea bass. Both of us thought our meals were excellent. After excellent appetizers and entrees, the desserts seemed unremarkable and we didn’t get any.
The show was Villains Tonight, and I have to say that it was the best performance of the show that I’ve seen. Hades was just about perfect. He made all the jokes, threw in a (very) few ad-libs, made exactly ONE joke with the sign language team and didn’t derail the show. The rest of the cast was also very good. I think my favorite segment is still Ursula; she was great. I was glad that I gave it another chance. It was definitely very good.
I was wiped out from the excursions of the day, so I just went back to the room to read a little bit. The girls went to Sessions for martinis and music.
Day 4 – St. John
Sunny, high 70s
A quick breakfast at Topsider’s (no biscuits and gravy
) before our 9:30 excursion to the Hopewell Rocks tidal basin. This is in the Bay of Fundy and has some of the largest tidal shifts in the world. The tide rises at an average of a foot every 6 minutes, so it’s very dramatic. At low tide, it seems like you can walk about a mile out on the ocean floor.We took a very long bus ride (2+ hours) through absolutely gorgeous countryside to the national park. We arrived just after low tide and walked out on the mud flats. There are often flocks of sandpipers along the flats to eat the small shrimp that live in the mud, but we weren’t lucky enough to see them that day. The huge rock formations reminded me a lot of the Baths in Virgin Gorda, if you’ve ever seen them. But in St. John, most of the caves are roped off, so tourists don’t get lost in them when the tide rushes in. We spent about 40 minutes eating lunch, which they provided (soup and sandwich) and then we went back to the tidal basin to (quickly) see how far the tide had come in. Just in the 40 minutes, it was very noticeable. A lot of where we had walked was already underwater, so it was pretty cool to see it change that quickly. We had to rush back to the bus to get back to the ship by “all aboard” time of 5 pm. We got back at 5:05 (the captain waited for us
) and were one of the last two excursions to get back on board. I liked the excursion, but because the bus trip was so long, we didn’t actually get to see any of St. John itself. Oh well, next time.For our second dinner in Lumiere’s, we had the Pirates In the Caribbean menu. Unfortunately, this meal was mediocre at best. The crab cake and the potsticker appetizers were ok to good, certainly not great. (The crab cake did seem too bready and the potsticker wrapper was thick and bready, unlike an Asian potsticker with a thin, crispy wrapper.) The conch chowder had no chunks of seafood in it; it was really just a creamy broth. My mother-in-law said that the shrimp on couscous salad was actually good. Everybody got the same entrée, which was the shrimp and scallops on pasta with tomato sauce. Again, this was ok, but not great – 3 shrimp and 4 small scallops in a plain tomato sauce on a lot of pasta. I ended up eating the shrimp and scallops and leaving almost all the pasta. I also got a second entrée, which was the BBQ short ribs; and this was the exception to the rest of the meal. They were really delicious. The ribs were very tender and the BBQ sauce was very good. And my fruit cobbler dessert was also very good. So at least I left dinner on a good note!
The show was Brave in 3D in both theaters. We chose the Walt Disney Theater. I deliberately didn’t see the movie when it came out so that I could experience it for the first time while on the ship. (This is just one example of my sickness when it comes to DCL.) If you haven’t seen it yet, I won’t ruin it for you. I liked it a lot, although I wasn’t “blown away” as some people had said I would be.
We went to Deck 10 for the Pirate Party and fireworks and had a really fun time. After the fireworks, we went to the Pirate buffet (which was in Topsider’s, instead of out on deck) and just grabbed a couple desserts and a few yummy conch fritters!
After dessert, I headed down to Diversions to watch a little of a ballgame. The place was deserted! It was nice to have a quiet place to myself, but I did miss the energy that you get when a bunch of guys are in there watching a game.
Day 5 – At Sea
Cool foggy morning. Sunny and 80 by 11 am.
I slept in because I didn’t get a lot of sleep during the night. The ship’s horn went off every 5 or 10 minutes all night because of the heavy fog. This was actually the second night that happened. But because of that, I skipped breakfast and just stayed in bed for a while. When I finally made it out of the room around 10 am, I went up to sit with Kath and Molly at the Goofy pool. They were determined to get some pool time on this trip. I was actually glad to be at the midship pool, because Quiet Cove got the brunt of the foghorn every 5 minutes. By 11:00, the fog had mostly burned off and the foghorn stopped. The sun was out and it was actually very pleasant to be poolside for a couple hours. We watched the characters come and go for pictures and watched Chicken Little on the Ariel View screen.
We had lunch at Lumiere’s. I had the calamari appetizer with red pepper dip. It was very good. It had a bready coating instead of crispy. The dip was ok, but I liked the calamari just as much without it. I also had the Mulligatawny soup. This is a chicken lentil soup with curry. It was a little spicy, but I liked it a lot. It had a really interesting taste. Kath had the quiche appetizer as her entrée. It was just ok. The cheese gave it a little flavor, but otherwise, Kath said it wasn’t all that exciting. Molly had the pasta with prosciutto in marinara sauce and liked it a lot. I had the pork tenderloin with shredded potatoes. The taste was very good and I liked the sauce, but the pork was well done. I still enjoyed it, though. The potatoes were also very good. Everybody left me (I can’t remember why, now) so I had dessert by myself. It was a chocolate roulade. It was thin layers of chocolate cake wrapped around chocolate mousse. (Think of a Hostess Ho-Ho snack, with mousse instead of cream filling.) YUM!
I spent the afternoon in Buena Vista Theater, giving Brave another viewing. This time in 2D. Molly walked in to watch People Like Us, as I was leaving.
Our final dinner was in Animator’s Palate and it was a great way to end our dining experience. The lobster bisque was excellent as was Molly’s Ahi tuna appetizer. Kathryn and Dale had the crab-stuffed tomato and said it was tasty, but a little short on crab meat. Kath also had the edamame and cabbage salad, which was ok but not great. The seafood pasta entrée was very good, much better than the shrimp and scallops I had previously. There was more seafood in this dish, including some lobster (seemed like half of a small tail) and the cream sauce was very good. My second entrée was the Beef Wellington with roasted potatoes and broccoli, which was not as good as the seafood pasta, but I did like it. (Kath shared with me and liked the bread/pate around the beef.) Kath’s main dish was the lamb, which was excellent; and she had the cappuccino mouse, also excellent. I had the apple and cranberry pie a la mode for dessert and it was really good.
Speaking of really good, the show on our final night was Dreams, and it was fantastic. I don’t usually go to Dreams because if either Peter or Anne Marie isn’t great, it tanks the show for me. But this was an absolutely terrific performance. Peter and Anne Marie were both outstanding. The Prince Ali number was great. The Circle of Life soloist was a little below what we normally see, but she was still good; and in that segment, a male dancer is supposed to hold his partner over his head with one arm, but she slipped off his hand and he had to catch her. Oops!!!
But in all other ways, it was a great performance. I really loved it.After the show, I quickly finished packing and went to bed early because I had unfinished business to attend to in the morning.
Day 6 – NYC and debark
I got up at 3:55 am so that I could get a look at the Statue of Liberty on the way intoNew Yorkharbor. They couldn’t give me an exact time, so I got up a little early to make sure I didn’t miss it. As it turned out, we passed the statue at around 4:40, but it was worth getting up for. I’d like to say that I got great, dramatic pictures; but my camera’s just not that good. I stayed up to watch the NYC skyline as we sailed to the dock.
Breakfast was in Animator’s, of course, and it was the standard hurry-up-and-get-out menu. We said good-bye to Savia and Marcus. (Marcus actually had the afternoon off and had a full itinerary planned for his day in the city. I didn’t think anybody got the day off on embarkation day.)
Debarkation was very smooth. They now call people to debark according to your luggage tags. So they call Mickey and Donald tags, for example, and only those people (theoretically) report to the Atrium to leave the ship. It actually made the process less hectic, which was a good way to end our trip.
I’ll have pictures to post soon.
