A Very Merry Time Cruise with real snow! – December 8th 2017 Bahamian from Galveston - completed

[ukintheus]

Hello and welcome to anyone that follows along! I know I’m really late getting this trip report going, so apologies if it's somewhat out of date, but I was going through my photographs and realized that this cruise was just so much fun that it would be a shame to skip it in my reports, so here it is. This cruise is just Scott and I, and we managed to excel in doing nothing as usual. So, let’s get rolling!!

Day 1 – Friday, December 8th – Embarkation Day.

I woke up early as usual and took a quick look at the Marine Traffic map to see where the Wonder was. Sure enough she was heading into Galveston and looked to be right on time. Yay!!!

I went to feed the outside critters, and, so exciting!!! It had SNOWED overnight!! For those that live in colder climes this would not be good news, but for those of us that live in south Texas this was HUGE and it was so exciting to wake up to see. We had to wait until later to take photos and I realize that this is NOT like snow for most, but it’s snow to us!! Ha Ha. The ground wasn’t cold enough for the snow to stick but it was stuck to the trees and was just so pretty.


The deer were looking at us like they wanted breakfast. We have a protein feed combo that we keep for them, they don’t really stand out in the picture well, so here’s a close up of them staring at us.

And some more photos just because.

OK, so I realize there's no snow on the actual ground but pretend like you are excited with me, OK?



We finished up our packing and had a fairly leisurely couple of hours before leaving the house at about 9:45 am to make the 1 hour and 45 minute drive down to Galveston. We parked at Lighthouse parking and were at the terminal by about 11:45 am. Security and check in was smooth and by 12:15 pm we were walking on board. Look at the the poor guys working on the lift though - totally bundled up!

A quick snap of the lobby atrium chandelier (obligatory for trip reports).

And a view of the atrium as people were coming onboard. It was a nice blend of excitement without being too crazy.

[

Our friend, Susana, who works in Palo was just getting back on the ship today from vacation. One of the reasons we booked this cruise was so that we could see her so we headed straight to the Promenade Lounge to try and arrange for her to be our server in Palo. It never occurred to me that she might have to rotate back into the Palo schedule (duh) but sure enough she was going to be in the main dining room that week. Great!! Can we be in her section in the main dining room? Yes!! Awesome – now we get to see her all week!! The dining room manager just told us to check with him once we got to our dining room that night.

We headed up to Cove to see what was going on. Cold….that’s what was going on…cold, cold, cold!! LOL We went straight into Cove Café to get a cup of coffee, sadly this one did not have any booze in it but we remedied that later on.

I'm betting the sales on those icy fruity sailaway drinks were not good today but I bet the drink station was packed for coffee and hot chocolate. Skinny vanilla latte for me - yum!

Time to see what Cabanas had to offer and luckily we managed to find a table by the window inside. We got a little bit of stuff but neither of us were super hungry.

Scott’s plate

My plate

It was already past 1:30 pm so we finished up and headed to our cabin to drop bags and take a snoop around. A first for us this trip was that we were in a port hole cabin, 2550 on Deck 2, and we were anxious to see what it looked like. Let me tell you, we absolutely LOVED this cabin!





Scott’s birthday had been 4 days before so I had ordered some extra goodies for us and they were already delivered and on the bed.



This was the packaging for the Holiday blanket package - I'm forgetting what the official title of it is now.



And these were the robes for the Romance Package for 2. I didn't get a good picture of the actual robes though, so apologies for that.



There was a note left to say the Prosecco that came with the Romance Package would be delivered after 6:30 pm, or when the ship was 12 nautical miles out of Galveston. It was really nice to finally know what the “rule” was on the (silly) Texas liquor laws! We had guessed it was 7 miles out, but now we know it’s 12. See!! Learning something every cruise!



We hung out in the room enjoying the coziness (we had put the heat on). We loved this port hole!!



Goofy pictures of us in the port hole and, yes, Scott has to wear a beanie with that bald head in the cold!



Here’s a photo of the blanket laid out. It was really soft and cuddly, we used it all the time on this cruise and I was really glad we had it.




Almost 3 pm and we are still holed up in the room enjoying watching the coming and going on the dock and enjoying the heat! Ha ha. Here’s the first map picture of the cruise. Yup, we’re in Galveston.



This is the rose you get as part of the Romance Package. It wasn’t in the room when we got in but while we were lounging around there was a knock at the door and a white coat from Guest Services was outside with the rose. He offered it to me, I took one look at him and said “Are you proposing to me???? OMG!! YES!! YES!!” He took about a nanosecond to register what I had just said before he fell on one knee in the hallway and then busted out laughing. It was such a funny moment – could never repeat it. So. Flipping. Funny. Anywho, the rose had a little test tube type thing on the bottom with water and it lasted all week. Sadly, my second husband had to go back to work so he didn’t last long at all.



Our luggage arrived and we got completely unpacked before it was time for muster. Muster for us was in the Walt Disney Theater. Score!! No standing outside in the freezing cold for us! We decided to head there early as we were about ready to get out of the room. I took this photo at about 3:50 pm on our way in.




Ummmmm…..hello??? Are we in the right place?? It was empty when we got there! Weird, usually people get to muster pretty early. Anyway, didn’t matter to us, we were going to be seated and we were inside – no complaints at all.



OK, muster is over. We got the rules, kick the kids out of the way and run for your life to a life boat. Time to get this party started!

It was chilly up on Deck 10 and not many people were there. Now I’m thinking they had the sail away party in the atrium because we didn’t get photos of it, but maybe not ... and we just didn’t get photos of it! Anyway, as you can see, not exactly a crowd to fight up there!

 

[ukintheus]

We had a special treat though as there were two pods of dolphins busy fishing right next to the ship and Scott managed to get some great photos. There’s something that’s just so magical about dolphins! It was turning out to be a magical day! Snow and dolphins all in one day, awesomeness!!

We decided to brave deck 10 for sail away and headed around to the other side. That’s me up there waving, in case you can’t tell.

The sun was poking it’s head out every now and then but it wasn’t really making a dent on the chilliness and it was way too cold to stand right up front. And we’re off!

Poor pelicans. This isn’t something you see every day when you are leaving on a cruise ship from Texas!

And some blue sky!! You can't beat a photo like this. Ahh….life is good.

[

OK, time to hit the bar and get some drinkies!! We are seriously slacking at this point!

I know I got kalua but I don’t remember what’s in Scott’s glass. We got these and then took them into Cove Café to add them to coffee. Cove don’t sell alcohol while they are still within the 12 miles even though they are right next door.

We settled in to watch the sunset on Deck 9. Scott got some really good ones.

It was really chilly with the breeze once the sun was setting so we went back to Daisy’s De-Lights and hit the soup station. I got a lentil soup and took it back to the room and it hit the spot.

We decided to head out to Crown and Fin for the 7:30 Pub Quiz.



Scott wanted to play some Backgammon while we waited, although I wasn’t going to be anywhere near the caliber of my nephew Paul from their Backgammon throwdowns earlier in the year. I was willing to give it a shot though. Turns out that he didn’t remember how to play! So we played checkers instead.



Ahh….now we’re talking. Please welcome my friend Prosecco to the trip report. She played a starring role almost every day.



Quick selfie – note we are still in jackets. LOL



Trivia was fun although it wasn’t super crowded for this session. First seating pretty much knocks that out on the first day – just too much going on, which I totally understand.

OK, so now it was the moment we had been waiting for!! We get to surprise our friend Susana!! Dinner tonight was in Triton’s and we checked in with the dining room manager who had managed to get us a table in Susana’s section and still honored my request for a table for two. Susana looked at us from her station, looked down, looked again and then you could tell it registered who we were! Ha ha. Her station was super far away from our table, I’m not sure how that works out normally and she was so busy of course. Plus it was her first day back, so those two things combined made it hard to really chat. She told us that she thought something was weird because when she was given her schedule she was an assistant server, and then when she showed up at the dining room they told her she was going to be a server. Honestly, we felt a bit bad. An assistant server role would have been much easier on her for her first week, but she went with it, and the assistant server, Putra, was just amazing and helped her out so much.

Annnnyway….onto the food! Yummy bread and Escargot for both of us.



Then Farmhouse salad with no cheese, Lamb and Chateubriand rounded out the rest of the main courses and we both skipped dessert. It was all really good and it was so good to see Susana again, even if it was a rushed hello today.







We headed back to our cabin which was very conveniently one floor down. A quick photo of the Christmas tree on the way by...awwe.



The Prosecco for the romance package had been delivered while we were gone.



We settled in for the night, the rocking in the room was perfect and we were in bed by 11:00 pm. This might be one of my favorite embarkation days ever.



Coming up is an at sea day….bliss. Night Night!

 

[mandymouse]

Wow!! What a great start to your cruise Jenny .. Snow .. Dolphins .. and a proposal That was one unique Romance Package Looking forward to the next installment

 

[ukintheus]

Day 2 – Saturday, December 9th – At Sea Day

We both slept in this morning and didn’t wake up until about 8 am. The cabin was really quiet and there was no noise from outside so we had a really good night of sleep. I got up and opened the curtains and we just lay there and watched the waves go by for a while.

Eventually we got to the point where we needed coffee and so I ordered from room service and it was delivered by 9:30 am. We always request milk for our coffee as we don't like the creamer for some reason. It doesn't taste good to us. We skipped breakfast food this morning as we had Palo brunch booked for 11:00 am.

We got ourselves showered and ready for Palo and made our way up there at 11:00 am. Since Susana wasn’t there, we had requested to inflict ourselves on Judy. She’s been in Palo on the Wonder since the day they brought it across the Atlantic so she knows her stuff! She was great, although she said she was nervous when she found out we'd requested her. By the end of the meal she said we were super-nice and she didn't know what she'd been worried about. Who on earth could be worried about us?? We're so easy - throw drink and food at us and we'll basically catch it like sea lions if we have to!! It was a prettier day today and the temperatures were heading upward slightly. It was still pretty breezy and you can see some white caps out there but it wasn't bad.

My plate from the buffet.

And Scott’s.

I got the Eggs Benedict and this was about the most perfect one I’ve ever had at Palo! Super delicious.

[

Scott got the tomato and onion omelet (cheese free zone).

Judy took a photo of us…aww….

And I took a photo of my booze! Kir Royal. Slurp!

Up next was Artichoke Ravioli for me and the Grilled Sirloin Steak for Scott.

[

And onto dessert – Nutella Choux pastry and a lemon meringue something (super yummy) and Judy brought us a chocolate lava cake type thingy which was new to us.

And then Scott got a happy birthday plate….except it said James. Because that’s his real name – HA HA!!!

Wow! Marathon food event completed! Very stuffed and sleepy we headed back to our cabin so that we could lay comatose on the bed and really let all those calories stick to our butts and thighs. Thankfully the crew were all doing their job and we were chugging across the Gulf nicely.



Finally at about 4 pm we felt guilty enough that we decided to go for a walk. It was beginning to warm up a bit more and we were ready to admit the outside world existed. A convenient quick trip up to deck 4 and we were there.



This makes me think of the song “We’re following the leader, the leader, the leader. We’re following the leader wherever he may go.” Insert whistling here. Scott hates to walk beside me on the track because he says he has to constantly watching for runners. Whatever!!



Having walked a couple of miles we headed back to the cabin and played Backgammon on my ipad. I don't know why we didn't go to Crown and Fin...too much activity in one day probably.



Ahhh….see the sea???



We got a bit peckish and so went down to Crown & Fin early to grab some snacks before the 50’s and 60’s Music Trivia started at 7:30 pm. They had chips, salsa, wings with celery and carrots every night. They sometimes had something else in there as well but we pretty much stuck with these. The wings are really good.



Some photos taken by me. See, here's the thing with me. I really want to have good photos because I know I'll be doing a trip report, BUT, I'm too lazy to actually MOVE myself and get a good photo! Ha ha. Oh well...here they are anyway.



We didn’t win at trivia but we did way better than we thought we would so two thumbs up for us there! Tonight we were in Animator’s Palate for dinner and we left trivia and went straight there. Cute Chrimble decorations everywhere.

 

[ukintheus]

Here are our choices for this evening.

Smoked Salmon Tartar, Chicken and Walnut Salad, Lemon-Thyme Chicken Breast and the Ginger-Teriyaki Beef Tenderloin.

We shared the Warm Sticky Date pudding. It's oh-so-good.

But enough of that! On with the show, people! It was time for Mickey to come and show us all how magic really happens.

Good photos by Scott again! He was definitely in the zone this trip. And here are our wonderful servers. Susana practicing her princess wave (sorry, a bit blurry), Putra and Mehmet.

And we were finally able to get a photo with Susana tonight after everything had quietened down a bit although the lighting on it was horrible, but, oh well.

It was 10:30 pm by the time we got out of the dining room, but we weren’t really very tired (gee, I wonder why? ) and so we decided to see what was going on over at the Cadillac Lounge with the thought we may swing over to watch Match Your Mate afterwards. It was busy in Cadillac!

They had Aaron Lotzow (thank you Navigator ) playing on the piano and it was a nice relaxed vibe in there so we ended up staying put and not going over to Azure.

Yummy cocktails. A manhattan for Scott and a Tropical Flower for me. The Tropical Flower was discovered in a mixology class on the Wonder last January and I’d kept my notes about what was in it. The bartender that night hadn’t heard of it, but he took my phone for the notes and made me one anyway. Again, awesomeness!! As you can see, I was wasting no time grabbing that sucker!

The honey pearls are just so yummy!

We were enjoying our relaxing time there and so we ordered another round. The piano player was good and entertaining and everyone was having a nice mellow time. We finally decided to call it a night at midnight and we made the short descent of one flight of stairs down to Deck 2. Loving it!!

Talk about an exhausting day!! Ha ha! We both hit the pillows and were soon sound asleep in our cozy little world. Tomorrow we are at Key West, but it’s a lateish morning start, so no need to be up and about any time soon. Night everyone!

 

[ukintheus]

Wow!! What a great start to your cruise Jenny .. Snow .. Dolphins .. and a proposal That was one unique Romance Package Looking forward to the next installment

I should have made him marry me - I could have got free cruises!!

 

[tennesseemo]

I love the blanket and peppermint pillow! Forgot you had taken this cruise, but then it all came back as I read it. This was a great cabin! Fun to read along as usual. Looking forward to the rest

 

[ukintheus]

I love the blanket and peppermint pillow! Forgot you had taken this cruise, but then it all came back as I read it. This was a great cabin! Fun to read along as usual. Looking forward to the rest

It's never a good thing when I don't do a trip report, somehow they are easily forgotten when I don't.

 

[ukintheus]

Day 3 – Sunday, December 10th – Key West

We had another lazy start to the morning with nothing on the agenda to get out of bed for. Perfect!! We could feel the ship rolling a little and so I popped the curtains open and we could see that we were somewhere with channel markers so we assumed we were on our way in to Key West. The window had picked up quite a bit of salt from the sea spray overnight.

It was about 9 am and coffee'o'clock, so we decided to order room service for breakfast and get something light to eat rather than deal with Cabanas. The breakfast menu is on the hanging cards that are in the middle drawer of the vanity. I usually pull one out and refer to it when I’m ordering as it’s really handy to just keep adding stuff as you go down the card.

Breakfast arrived at about 9:45 am which gave us time to get up and get moving. Cereal and a couple of croissants fit the bill nicely.

We lounged around and watched the world go by while we munched away and discussed our no-plan plan for the day.

It didn’t take long before we were docking in Key West and it didn’t seem like we had been docked even 5 minutes before our windows were being blasted with water!!

Sure enough….already hard at it….and now our windows are clean again!! Thanks!!

[

All Ashore was at 11:00 am and we ambled off the ship soon after that. We decided that we would go and do the Old Town Trolley Tour as we had never done it before and it seemed like a good way to start the day as it involved us just sitting there and doing nothing!



Sadly this is the only picture I got! Everyone was so chilly once the trolley got moving that they put the plastic window sheeting down and so photographs were almost impossible.



We actually enjoyed the tour quite a bit and it showed us parts of the town to the north that we hadn’t been to before. We didn’t get off on any of the stops, and aside from it being really chilly in the wind, it was a good way to kick the day off. Once we’d been dropped off back at Mallory Square we ambled our way down to the marina. It really was still pretty chilly and so we decided to go into Conch Republic seafood and grab something warm to eat. We tried the conch fritters and they were “OK”. The ones you get at the conch stand by Mallory Square are better.



Despite it being cold we braved a couple of beers.



We both had the fish special, which had some kind of mango salsa on it and was pretty good.



So here’s some shocking news! We didn’t go to Kermit’s!! I know!! I think we were just too cold to eat pie, although how that can be possible seems ridiculous to me as I’m typing this. Who doesn’t eat key lime pie when it’s available, and even more ridiculous, who doesn’t eat key lime pie in Key West??? Anyway, so as to not disappoint anyone, and to let you know that we weren’t completely barmy….here’s Sloppy Joe’s.



We stayed for one drink in there, a beer for Scott and a margarita for me. It was a fairly calm crowd and I really think the cold weather had everyone just bundling up and staying inside.



As we made our way back to the ship we made the obligatory stop at Hog’s Breath Saloon (although why this is obligatory and Kermit’s isn’t??) We parked ourselves (literally) at the bar and there was some kind of heater blowing on us which was nice.



We had one drink there and then slowly made our way around the shops, although there was nothing we particularly wanted to go in and look at. We made it to the end of the pier and took some photos there, all while freezing our butts off.



I even LOOK cold in this one!



It was about 4 pm when we made our way back on board and got into our cozy cabin. Ahhh….now that’s more like it.





And I took this screenshot to prove how cold it was!! 62 degrees in Key West is COLD!! All the locals were completely bundled up in the kind of parkas that people up north would wear, but I could really relate.

All aboard was at 4:45 pm and nobody must have been late because right before 5 pm we pulled away.



The ship had to turn in the harbor before we could head back out to sea, and we sat and watched it all from our cozy little spot.



And soon we were on our way to our next adventure.



We decided to pop up to deck 4 and take some photographs of the sunset.



Scott did his best but it wasn’t the most colorful – even the sun was cold!! Ha ha!!



This looked pretty cool going through the clouds.





All bundled up but determined to stick it out.



There wasn’t any trivia tonight…boooo….because they were showing the Texans game in Crown and Fin…ugg!! I really don’t like football, and it makes me really, really not like it when it interferes with our trivia (aka our drinking!!). We hung out in the room and sacrificed by drinking some of the wine we had bought on board.

 

[ukintheus]

Time for dinner and we were off to Tiana’s Place tonight! More cute Christmas decs.



And an obligatory menu photo. Tonight we had the Princess menu out of the two that are served in Tiana’s.



Followed by an obligatory plate photo! Ha ha!!



We about inhaled the bread tonight as we hadn’t eaten since lunch and now were apparently starving to death.



Tonight’s smorgasbord of culinary wonder begins with appetizers:

Country Green lentil soup, Buttered Green and White Asparagus Spears, Sliced Gravalax.

Then Louis made an appearance, although you can tell by the photo which one of us had the camera! Sorry about that folks!



Up next were our main courses, Lime-Marinated Jumbo Shrimp and Grilled Rum-Marinated Swordfish.

Tiana came on by. I wonder how many times she has her photo taken in any given week?? It’s got to be a crazy amount, especially if they have her as one of the princesses although maybe she’s not there any more? As you can tell, I am NOT princess savvy!



And finally dessert! I don’t know what the top one is, I’m guessing the no sugar added Tiramisu, but I know the bottom one is the Banoffee Cream Pie.





We got finished with dinner a little earlier tonight and were out of there before 10 pm. Poor Susana was starting to get a headache when we left. We decided to go and watch Santa’s Winter Wonderland in the atrium. It was fairly crowded but Scott’s a tall enough guy that he can take pictures over the top of everyone. Here we are patiently waiting for it to begin at 10:15 pm.



The dancers came on first and put on a cute opening show.



Then they lined up to bring a series of “snowballs” down the stairs.

The snowballs magically made a snow man on stage.

And then Father Christmas arrived.

And Mrs. Clause made an appearance and they read off the naughty list. I noticed Scott wasn’t on it, I’ll have to have words about that.



And then the rest of the gang joined in.

Ashley, the cruise director, made a brief appearance.



And last, but not least, the Arendelle sisters made an appearance much to the delight of everyone.

And then we experienced our second snow fall of the cruise!! It didn’t stick to the ground this time either!!

The show lasted about 15 minutes and, again, we were conveniently only one floor up from where we needed to be. Back in our home from home we decided to call it an early night. Tomorrow we were at Castaway Cay so we figured we might possibly want to try and get up a bit earlier. Maybe. After reading my book for a little while it was time for the gentle rocking of the waves to get the better of me again.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……

 

[ukintheus]

Day 4 – Monday, December 11th – Castaway Cay

We were on a roll with our lazy mornings and today was no exception. We finally hauled ourselves out of bed at about 9 am and tried to decide what to do today. With a forecast high of 68 degrees and a breeze we knew that bathing suits and beach lounging wasn’t on the cards for us. We decided to take our first trip up to Cabanas for breakfast just before 10 am and it wasn't packed at all. We both grabbed some stuff off the buffet. I love eggs benedict! It was nice to have a hot breakfast after our mornings of cereal.

Scott has decided he likes eggs benedict without the hollandaise sauce.

It was a beautiful sunny day, but definitely on the chilly side if you were in the breeze. We snapped some photos after we ate and gave more thought to our plans. Castaway Cay looked as beautiful as ever.

We finally decided on just moseying off the ship and wandering around the island with a start at Serenity Bay and then a gradual meander back from there. We didn’t wear any swimming gear, and basically just headed off the ship just before 11 am with our KTTW cards and cameras. I think it’s the first time we’ve ever not had to tote bags full of stuff and towels. It was great!

All of the Christmas stuff was out, of course. We’ve looked at it before but I must admit to not REALLY looking at it, it was so cute and well done. The tree is amazing.

A look back at our ride for the week, she’s looking pretty clean and purdy after her hosing down yesterday.

And of course a quick selfie with the back of the ship.

More Chrimble decorations.

And the obligatory stern photograph of Donald and nephews. It's at a weird angle, but we're going to go ahead and call this "artsy."

They were doing a lifeboat drill today, so quick photograph of that thankyouverymuch. I should also point out that Scott was in absolute hog-heaven today with his photo taking as for the first time I wasn't nagging on at him about taking forever!

We decided to walk up to Serenity Bay today. We haven’t walked it in a while and it was cool enough to make it really pleasant. I bet the 5K runners today were in heaven!! We made it there in about 20 minutes I think. It really doesn’t take that long and we were going slow.

As we walked onto the beach the breeze was blowing pretty good so we made a beeline to the Castaway Air bar and the deck in front of it. You can see the few people that were there were bundled up.

I went and got us a round of drinks while Scott was busy taking photos.

All of the umbrellas were kept down today because of the wind.

Some nice gentle wave action going on.

Yes!! First Konk Cooler of the day and it was perfect!!! DEELICIOUS!!! Scott had some random beer which isn’t very interesting at all.

It took us forever to manage to get this selfie taken…I didn't like any of them and this one was barely acceptable.

So the lifeguard that had been walking by took pity on us and took a photo of us…thanks! Too bad about the squinty eyes from the sun – I should have followed Scott’s lead and kept my sunglasses on!

More random photos while we were drinking our drinks and pondering our next move because staying here wasn't going to be an option...too chilly!!

Oh, yeah, there was TONS of dead sea grass being washed up today due to the wind. I’m glad that it was cold because it would have been nasty if you’d actually wanted to get in the water. You would have had to walk through about a foot, maybe two, of dead sea grass. Bleck!! That’s not my idea of tropical paradise!

Despite the low crowds, Captain Jack made an appearance – I think he had a hard time finding anyone to mess with, but he did find someone!

One last shot of the almost deserted Serenity Bay. Today’s weather reminded me of our first trip here – the weather was almost identical but we toughed it out because we hadn’t been before!

We decided to take a walk back to Pelican Point and see what was going on there.

We were amazed because the weather was SO different! The breeze was being blocked and so it was nice and warm and sunny!!

The beach was fairly crowded, especially when compared to Serenity Bay.

 

[ukintheus]

Sand Bar was calling our name as we’d never been to it before. We grabbed a couple more drinks and sat in the shade doing some good people watching.

This was the first time we’ve ever been to the family beach area and actually sat a while. We’ve taken quick photographs, and we’ve stopped by to catch up with friends once, but on the whole – nope, never really stopped and taken a good look around.

We were interested to see what Pelican Plunge was all about so we took a mosey over there.

It looked like it would be fun, and I can see how it would wear the kids out!! No wonder they all look dead tired heading back to the ship.

We played with the water squirty game thingy that’s there. I took this cool photo of Scott.

He took this not-so-cool photo of me! Thanks honey.

All played out we decided to continue on to Heads Up Bar, again another one we’ve never been too (I know you are shocked!).

You get a great view of the ship from there.

Scott decided this seagull should get a special mention…he looks pretty shifty to me!

More drinks were purchased. I got a Captain’s Mai Tai this time around as the Konk Coolers were nice, but I was over the sweetness of them and it didn’t sound good any more. The Mai Tai was excellent.

Another selfie trying to get the ship in the background – it turned out kind of OK.

We hung out and enjoyed the warmer weather there with the breeze being nicely blocked. It was a great place just to chill out as there was hardly anybody there.

It was now about 2 pm and we were ready to make our way back to the ship. We took a leisurely stroll back, popped into a couple of shops along the way, and took in the sights.

More Christmas decoration photos once we got back to the pier. There was hardly anyone around as it was still early in the afternoon. Wouldn't it be awesome to have someone come to your house and completely decorate with stuff like this.

One more selfie to round it out.

It’s about 2:30 pm now and so we are starting to feel hungry. The fast food options were calling our name, so time to get back on board.

 

[ukintheus]

Shwarma for both of us. I just love this option on the classic ships – so tasty!

Then an order of fries happened….we split them.

Then pizza…ha ha! Hey! We'd walked a lot!!

Snapped this through the window as we were sitting eating. The water is such a beautiful color over in that part of the world.

You may have thought that we’d be done eating at this point…you’d be wrong. Ice cream for dessert of course!! I can see that I’ve already taken a bite out of mine…such a piggy.

We decided to walk down the stairs to our cabin and so we stopped along the way taking photographs. Love this mural of Ariel.

Snaps of the atrium. Such a pretty carpet – I love all the stuff they did in the dry dock.

And one of the chandelier...because it’s right there in front of you.

We finally made it back to our cabin by about 3:30 pm and decided to just hang out for a few hours. I took this shot of the TV so apparently we watched Tangled. I’m sure that naps happened as well, that’s a given.

We did finally rouse ourselves in time to go and see the sunset. Deck 4 was our go-to spot as usual and we were up there by about 5:00 pm. Tonight we were treated to a beautiful show and I’m throwing quite a few photos in here. I love sunsets at sea. I’m sure I’d love sunrises too, except they are way too early to actually “enjoy” them.

Tonight was Pirate Night and so true to tradition for us.....we had Palo dinner booked. We aren't very piratey really. I'm good with the rum part, but it pretty much ends there. We got showered and changed and were up to Palo by 7:30 pm for dinner. Judy was our server again and we had a great time. The only photographs I have are of our cocktails….perfect! Mine was the Limone Basilico (I think that’s how it’s spelled) and Scott’s was a Manhattan (of course).

We waddled out of there feeling so stuffed that we decided to get changed and go for a walk. We started on deck 4 as that was the closest deck for us from our cabin.

We noticed that we could see lights off in the distance and wondered what it was that we could see.

We took a couple of turns around deck 4 and then realized that the Pirate party and fireworks had gone off between first and second seating at 7:30 pm (right as we got to Palo) so we didn’t have to worry about dealing with crowds up on Deck 10 so we headed up there.

Everything was really quiet for 10:45 pm on Pirate night that’s for sure.

The Curse of the Black Pearl was playing on Funnelvision.

We finally figured out that it was Nassau that we could see and that we were getting really close to it. We were done with walking by this point so we headed back down to our cabin thinking that we would just bob around out there until morning. We immediately hit the port hole when we got back and this was the view.

You can’t tell by this photo but we could see that this was the new Baha Mar resort.

Sure enough, by 11:30 were were sailing into the harbor and up to the pier.

We never did find out why we docked in Nassau overnight, but we were moored up by 11:45 pm.

So tonight we had to go to sleep without the gentle rocking of the waves I demand my money back!! We also forgot to get a photograph of our towel animal because we were so intent on watching everything going on outside. Ugg!!


So, it's just goodnight....except now I’m laying awake wondering why we are docked…. and I get up and check outside every now and then but can’t see a thing… Sigh, the perils of being nosey …..but I bet you can guess where we are tomorrow!!

 

[tennesseemo]

Not like you to have an unsolved mystery Jen. Nassau overnight?

 

[bcwife76]

Look at you, sneaking in another trip report

I love that you surprised Susanna!!!

Mehmet was our head server when we sailed to Alaska last year and he was ever so lovely!!! I was sad not to be seated in his section when we sailed on the Wonder this past May. Nevermind we're on the Wonder twice in 2019 so here's hoping! And maybe one day we'll get Susanna either in Palo or the MDR's as well!!

Some absolutely gorgeous sunset photos you've taken!!!!

I was going to ask how you liked the port hole vs. the verandah as I know you normally have a verandah but it looks like you're enjoying the porthole immensely on this cruise (esp since the weather has been chilly). I had to laugh though....parkas in 62F?! You know that us crazy Canadian's are still wearing tshirts at that point, right?

Did you ever find out when you docked in Nassau so early??? I'd be friggin' curious about it, too!

 

[ukintheus]

Look at you, sneaking in another trip report

I love that you surprised Susanna!!!

Mehmet was our head server when we sailed to Alaska last year and he was ever so lovely!!! I was sad not to be seated in his section when we sailed on the Wonder this past May. Nevermind we're on the Wonder twice in 2019 so here's hoping! And maybe one day we'll get Susanna either in Palo or the MDR's as well!!

Some absolutely gorgeous sunset photos you've taken!!!!

I was going to ask how you liked the port hole vs. the verandah as I know you normally have a verandah but it looks like you're enjoying the porthole immensely on this cruise (esp since the weather has been chilly). I had to laugh though....parkas in 62F?! You know that us crazy Canadian's are still wearing tshirts at that point, right?

Did you ever find out when you docked in Nassau so early??? I'd be friggin' curious about it, too!

We really liked to port hole room, we've got another one booked for our 4 night cruise out of Galveston in November. I think it's about the best we've ever slept!! Sooooo...quiet!!

Yes, I know that cold for us vs. cold for you are two totally different concepts. And for the locals in Key West and the Bahamas it was really cold - they were all commenting on the fact that they KNOW it's not cold for a lot of people, but it's cold for them!

I never did find out why we docked early...not good sleuthing on my part....nobody I asked seemed to know, or really care.

 

[ukintheus]

Day 5 – Tuesday, December 12th – Nassau

Yet another lazy, wonderful, sleeping in morning. I told you this trip was all about us being lazy!! So, no surprise where we are today! We woke up about 9 am and lazed around being nosey on all the stuff going on outside until about 9:30 am before deciding we would head to Cabanas for breakfast. All Ashore was at 7:00 am this morning! The Dream was already next to us, and there were excursions leaving the ship.

We got up to Cabanas at about 10:30 am. I told you we were being lazy!! We both had cereal for breakfast this morning, muesli for me and Raisin Bran for Scott.

We had no real plans for today....what a shocker I know . We left Cabanas and went for a stroll around. Here’s the drink station offerings. There was a slight difference. One had Diet Coke and the other had soda, and one had ginger ale and the other had Coke Zero.

Cute MerryTime cups.

We checked out the Dream while we walked along.

We decided to plonk ourselves down on Deck 10 under one of the covers, read and watch the world go by.

Then I decided that I couldn’t see enough action facing that way, so we turned the chairs around…..ahhhh….much better!!

We picked out “our cabin” from our cruise on the Dream last August. The oversize verandah was awesome but we love our porthole cabin just as much this cruise. It just proves that any cruise is better than no cruise, and for us, the cabin doesn't matter.

At about 1 pm we decided to see what was for lunch. They had a lot of oriental offerings today so we both got a bite of this and that. I haven’t seen prawn crackers in the US, maybe I’ve just not asked for the right thing?

Having stirred ourselves we contemplated what else we might do, and decided to take a short trip off the ship. I’d seen a place very close by that was highly rated on Trip Advisor for Conch Fritters, so we thought we’d try and find it.

We got off the ship at about 1:30 pm. It was pretty cool to see the two ships side-by-side. I think this is the second or third time we’ve been lucky enough to see it.

We walked out of the port area and down the road that faces the pier. I knew the name of the place we were looking for, and I’d looked it up before we left but I wasn’t able to find it on Google Earth.

Sure enough, we weren’t able to find it today either! We tried pulling up information on our phones but they weren’t cooperating. Eventually we just gave up and walked back to the shops in the secure area of the port. I thought maybe we might be able to buy some rum there, but couldn’t find that either. In our search for rum we found the Conch Fritter place!!! It was closed….wahhh!! Linda decided to be on vacation, darn it! Oh well, it will give us a reason go to back.

We strolled back to the ship. Photo of the bridge going over to Paradise Island and the ever-popular Atlantis resort.

And a selfie with both ships in the background. Perpetual squinty eyes from me.

Duckbutt!!! …or is it Duckbelly?

Our ramblings hadn’t taken us long at all and we were back on board by 2:15 pm. We headed to our cabin (1 deck up) and grabbed a cold adult beverage from the fridge. For the benefit of photos, we could really have done with that window washer guy coming back.

I needed to go to Guest Services so we decided to pop up (1 flight of stairs) and get that done and also get some photographs while the ship was fairly quiet.

There were crew members from the Dream in the Atrium taking photos as well. Nice that they managed to get a little time to get over and take a look.

We went back to the cabin and I wanted the All Hands On Deck cheese plate to go along nicely with that adult beverage. I asked for lots of crackers because Scott doesn’t eat the cheese – they gave us a bunch!

At 3:30 pm we decided to make our way upstairs and watch the world go by. We found a couple of seats next the windows and Scott found a bee. Ugg….why he insists on befriending critters that he finds is beyond me, but this bee was very tired and lethargic so he managed to coax it onto his finger. Great. Now what you going to do with it?? Ugg….. again.

The foosball tables were empty and we’ve never played it on the ship (that we can remember anyway) so we decided to give it a go.

Someone was extremely confident!

Annnnnddd with good cause. This was me….at zero…..

Here’s the victory pose.

 

[ukintheus]

We took a stroll around deck 10.

The adult pool was pretty quiet, and today was the warmest day we had had so far so it was a bit suprising.

Here’s Festival Place. By the way, did you know there’s a good conch place in there??!!!

Hmmmmm….off to find errant sunglasses or a gopro maybe? You couldn’t pay me enough money to do what she’s doing. My fear of heights would nix that immediately.

More shots of Atlantis.

Someone was kind enough to offer to take a photo of us…..my hair looks a bit crazy here though!

And our journey ends……

Here!

And now we were thirsty because we’d just done all that walking so a beer for him and a Caipirinha for me. Yummy.

The seats we had been in originally were still free so we resumed our watch of the Dream. Scott managed to find his buddy again.

After about 30 minutes we got restless again and walked around a little more.

All Aboard was at 4:45 pm and so we went up to Deck 10 to watch us sail away and the Dream and the Wonder had a fun little horn battle as we pulled away right before 5 pm.

Another photo of the two of us taken by a kind bystander. More crazy hair from me!

A good lighthouse photo from Scott. He's taken several of these over the years and I really need to pick one to get framed.

And this is a good one of the Dream still in port. Love it.

We had another beautiful sunset tonight….but I’ll try and cut back on the photos this time. I know I was a bit overkill from last night.

Once the sun was gone completely we headed back to the cabin. I have no idea why Scott took this photo, or what I was doing – ha ha - but I’m going to put it in here because one of the robes is hanging on the hook, so if you’re interested in seeing what they might, kind of, if you tilt your head sideways and squint, look like. They are kind of a plush material, as in furry toy. If that makes sense? Too hot for Houston in the summer, but great for colder winter days.

Tonight was 70’s music trivia at 7:30 in Crown and Fin and Scott was very ready – he’s really good at it. We didn’t win though – I think we missed by one.

After trivia was over it was time for dinner so we headed to Animator’s Palate and our great serving team.

 

[ukintheus]

Tonight we had the animation show so we got busy with our drawings. Both of them look really angry!!

We got the first little preshow while the servers put in your orders.

Tonight is one of my least favorite menus in the dining rooms. I know if you've read any of my other trip reports, you probably know that already. The yucky appetizer was first. Duck, shrimp and smoked salmon. Apologies for the quality of the photos....the lighting in there isn't great.

We then had the beef wellington and rack of lamb and skipped dessert.

I got a video of the show with the animations but no photos. Oh well. Dinner ended just before 10 pm and we decided we would go and see the ventriloquist, Michael Harrison, in Azure.

Dino was the club host for us this week. He did a good job….number tirty-tree!! (He’s Irish) This was the end of “Snippets” that we watched…they have some funny stuff going on in Azure at night.

Michael Harrison was really good. We’d seen him a long time ago but it was the family show in the Walt Disney Theater, plus it had been a while so I didn’t remember anything from his act. Funny stuff - we really enjoyed it.

We left right after his show ended and made the journey down the stairs to Deck 2…..still loving it!!! Tomorrow is an at sea day, so no plans to do anything that would encourage us to be active. At least tonight we are rocked to sleep by the waves again…..ahhh….much better.

 

[ukintheus]

Day 6 – Wednesday, December 13th – At Sea

It was shaping up to be another very lazy day as we rolled out of bed at about 9 am. One of the things I love about this itinerary out of Galveston are the two at sea days coming back. This morning we decided to go up to Cabanas and grab something. Our dining team were working in Cabanas that morning and we got to say hello. Poor Susana was suffering from a horrible migraine and you could tell she felt so ill. She got some over-the-counter migraine medicine to take and was hoping to feel better.

Here’s our breakfast choices, nothing too exciting, although I have been craving this muesli recently!

We took a stroll around up on Deck 10. The weather was beautiful today, perfect for an at sea day.

We chilled out somewhere in the shade for a while and then went back to the cabin to drop stuff off before our Chocolate and Liquor tasting at 12:15 pm in Cadillac Bar. This was a private group that had been organized through FB.

Yummy!! This is one of my favorites! Chocolate and alcohol awaited us. And look at me being all good with a bottle of water as well!

The pairings were Tatinger Rose, Lasseter Amoureux, Noval Port and Glenmorangie Signet whiskey.

It was a fun tasting and we drank every drop of them all. Slurp!

I needed to pop to the Future Cruise sales desk and get our onboard booking done. They weren’t there but they had this sign and a stack of the placeholder cards. So much easier now that they just take a placeholder and be done with it!

We went for a stroll around deck 4 and watched the waves. Such a beautiful day today….

There was an animation class at 2:00 pm in Crown and Fin so we dropped by the cabin first….argg!!! What are these doing here already!!! Ugg….the first shoe of reality had dropped.

Oh well, on to Crown and Fin and it was quite crowded.

Here’s the beginning of the end….it was all downhill from here. We aren’t ever going to make it into Disney’s animation academy.

In the meantime, here’s the food menu from Crown and Fin. We mulled it over but weren’t really hungry.

And voila!! Here’s a puffer fish …wait, no, it’s a blow fish …nope, that’s not it either…..oh, yeah, it’s supposed to be Dory! It really was a hard one to do….looks awful! HA HA. Mine first and then Scott’s....sad.

By now it was about 3:30 pm and the day was racing away from us. Time to go up and grab something from Deck 10 to keep us from starvation before dinner.

It filled a hole, although I’m not overly keen on the burgers from the pool deck, I think they tend to be a bit on the hockey puck side. The fries are good though.

But you can’t beat this view while eating a hockey puck.

Still left room for icecream. We decided to see who could make the more perfect cone. I think Scott won with his banana and strawberry even though the picture is a bit fuzzy.

It was definitely nap-o-clock by now and so we headed back to the room and settled in to watch Moana. Ahhh….vacation perfection and the robe was perfect for getting comfy and cozy.

We roused ourselves in time to get ready and head out for 80’s music trivia at 7:30 pm.

We got there a bit early and managed to snag some of the comfy seats that are by the port holes.

Drinks and snacks to tide us over until dinner. These pretzel thin things are available sometimes for no extra charge if you ask for them in the evening.