EilonwyWanderer
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2017
We just completed our first kid-free trip on the Disney Magic Bermuda Sailing October 21-26th and while we had a LOT of fun (particularly with trivia and at Fathoms) there were certainly several things that put a damper on the trip:
Day 1 - October 21
We had decided to take the train from Boston to New York because we'd never done it before. Well, really, my husband REALLY wanted to take the train and I was like whatever, if you book it I'm fine with it. This required us to wake up VERY early to get to South Station because I was nervous about it all. My mother had thankfully come in a day earlier since she was going to be watching the kids, but the six year old was beside herself the whole time. She fell asleep the night before in my arms crying that she "wasn't ready" for us to go and then when we got up at 4 am trying to be as quiet as possible she got up crying again begging us not to leave which broke my heart
But we left and got to the train station way too early and then sat around eating a bagel waiting for the train to show up. It did and I have to say the ride down was gorgeous! Very pretty views and we got to New York in plenty of time. We then walked from the train station to the cruise terminal. I know people will probably be like you did WHAT but while I hate New York, my husband was interested in seeing SOMETHING for the short time we were there so it was fine. We only brought a backpack each and then a duffel bag that had wheels so it wasn't too bad. We were let in at 11 in one of the first groups and then for some reason even though our boarding pass said group 2, the person checking us in wrote group 1 on our little card so when they called group 1 I went up to ask the guy letting people through which one I should go by and he was like "the better group!" so we got on the boat SUPER FAST! We decided to go have lunch at Rapunzel's since we hadn't eaten anything since the bagel at like 5 am and honestly it was probably the best entire meal we had on the boat (unfortunately). The penne pasta was insanely good!
After that we walked around the boat to get the feel of things, got a tour of Senses, avoided most of the hard sells, and bought a rainforest pass for both of us because we'd never tried it before. By that time it was about 1:30 so we ran downstairs with all of our stuff to see if our room was ready and it was! Kind of. The guy that was cleaning the rooms was still in the hall and we asked if we should come back later and he said no, he was done with ours so welcome! Turned out...that wasn't quite the case. We were in room 7623, an inside stateroom and it would be our first time doing that level. The room seemed fine when we walked in, bit small, i think it would be hard for 4 people to fit in it but as there were only 2 of us it was fine. First thing I noticed was that there were no plugs that you could charge your phone with anywhere near the bed, which was disappointing to say the least but would majorly factor into making me hate the room later. The second thing was a bunch of halls wrappers shoved into the couch cushions and the Aleve on the floor. So, whoever had our room before us was sick. Awesome! We did have two room amenities that we had ordered but only one was waiting for us: the cheese platter! It was so delicious. About an hour later they finally delivered our champagne, which we just put in the fridge rather than drinking since we wanted to watch the boat leave port.
Doing the muster drill from the phone was a breeze. We just walked right over to where we needed to be and scanned it, checked in with the person, and we were done! Loved it. Then it was time for our champagne tasting where they interrupted halfway through with the muster announcement but otherwise it was nice. I don't think we'd do it again.
We then stood up on deck to try to get pictures of the Statue of Liberty, but unfortunately the sun was setting like right behind it so none of the pictures turned out all that well. After that was dinner since we had first seating and our first night we were at Animator's Palette at table 31, which was a table location I LOVED! I would definitely ask for it again. Even though we were two people it was a table for 4 and no one else joined us which was kind of amazing. What was less amazing was that we were surrounded by larger groups that were clearly the priority of our serving team. They were nice, but service was painfully slow at times.
Once we finished dinner we made the fatal mistake of going back to our room to relax, where we found my dad had sent us more champagne since it was our anniversary, and of course, having been up since 4 am fell asleep! We woke up a couple of hours later, laughed to ourselves, then went back to sleep so we'd be well rested for Day 2!
Day 2 - October 22
I did not sleep very well the first night despite being exhausted. The rocking of the boat wasn't even really bad that first night, but what I found was that I'd wake up in a pitch black room and have no idea what time it was. Without any sort of porthole or verandah I couldn't see if it was 3 am or 7 am or noon! And because there were no charging ports by the bed I'd have to get up, stumble around the bed to the middle of the room where the TV was and check my phone. It was always somewhere between 3 am and 5 am but yeesh. This would be a pattern that repeated throughout the cruise and really disrupted me getting any kind of really good sleep.
Speaking of the TV it was AWFUL! Slow to load what the movies or shows were and it was halfway across the cabin so I could barely read it and I have good eyes! It was quite frustrating.
But this day was the one I was most looking forward to--we had PALO BRUNCH! We'd never been able to get a reservation before, being lowly Silver Castaway members, but someone in the Facebook group for this cruise had set up a private group and we'd gotten two spots! The bad news? We thought we'd packed my husband's slacks, but it turned out they were just shorts. So we were flagged at the entrance BUT they just went ahead and called someone and we ended up getting him a pair of pants to wear for the meal. And what a meal it was! There were pizzas for the table that were AMAZING! Everyone basically ordered everything and wow, it was all super delicious. Definitely the best meal of the cruise. We kept thinking that we were full and then another course would be brought out and how could you not eat it?? I had breakfast (the pancakes) AND the chicken parm and it was SO GOOD! Then for dessert I had the chocolate cake and omg. OMG! Delicious.
When we got back to our room after that we laughed because there was ANOTHER surprise champagne there! A rose Tattinger! No card, so we weren't sure who it came from but we ended up drinking that one while we got ready for our Couples massage at Senses. We upgraded to the hot stones and it was one of the best, most relaxing massages I've ever had. Of course, as happens on every trip we take I had mistakenly thought it was cheaper than it was going to be so our budget took a hit, but still it was really nice. After that we checked out the rainforest room, scored a heated chair immediately (they really are worth all the hype!) and then sampled all the showers. All in all it was an AMAZINGLY relaxing time.
That night was the Halloween party so we headed back to the room to get our costumes on before dinner--I was Mavis from Hotel Transylvania and my husband was Wreck It Ralph! Dinner was at Rapunzel's Royal Table and the theming of that room is just beautiful. Our table was over by a window, which was nice, and we had some fun interactions with the cast. I got the pasta and it was pretty good, but the desserts were spot on delicious! It was at this point someone came over to talk to us about the champagne we got in the room and I could barely hear or understand them but I guess the gist was that there had been some kind of mistake or they were out of the Moet Ice Rose I had ordered to be delivered at dinner on night 5 so they had given us that champagne instead? It didn't really make any sense when we really thought about it since it was 1. the wrong champagne and 2. the wrong night and 3. the wrong location, so we just assumed someone had made a mistake, wasn't able to correct it since we'd, you know, gone ahead and drank it on our anniversary, and they were trying to even the accounts. Whatever. It was super disappointing because we REALLY wanted to try that Moet Ice Rose but it is what it is. They had a very cute show at dinner that made us miss our kids.
We then went to the Halloween party kick off and that was a lot of fun to watch from the balcony. We even saw a little Vanellope who was SO EXCITED to see a Ralph! After that we headed into D-Lounge to play Halloween Trivia and we WON! Not only that but I made the BEST guess on a question no one else got: Jason Marsden who played Bixby in Hocus Pocus also voiced what Disney character? I was the ONLY PERSON to get that question right and we got two Mickey Medallions on Winner ribbons! We were so proud. Too proud. It definitely kicked off our obsession with trivia for the rest of the cruise.
After that we headed to Fathoms to see the adult shows and they made us wish we had done that the night before instead of falling asleep! They played Snippets and it was HILARIOUS! We made a note to stop down there every night that they offered something after that.
We had bought the basic tier of wireless from Disney and it was BAD. Not only was it slow but it DID NOT WORK AT ALL in our stateroom. It was like we were in a faraday cage, absolutely no signal. We were pretty disappointed since we were worried about missing something about the kids from my mom. Weirdly we would get the notifications that we got emails or facebook messenger notifications randomly throughout the day without purchasing wireless but weren't able to read them. Another guy on the cruise joked that was "how they got you" because you then wanted to read the rest of the email. But the purchase was definitely not worth it.
Day 3 - October 23 - BERMUDA!
We woke up to an absolutely beautiful day in Bermuda! A bit windy but not at all rainy like the forecast had threatened. We planned on heading to Horseshoe Bay but didn't want to take our passports and I'd forgotten to make copies so we headed down to Guest Services where they made copies for us! That was very helpful and we were basically the first people off the boat! Which is when we realized we'd neglected to take towels. Not a problem, we could buy some towels at port and get some souvenirs right?
Haha it was Sunday and almost NOTHING was open! The shops that were open didn't carry towels! What the hell Bermuda! You have a captive towel audience! The pharmacy at port opened at 10 am and they had towels...very lovely, but expensive towels which we bought before taking the $7 shuttle to Horseshoe Bay. If you've never been there it's BEAUTIFUL! Skip the lagoon to the right, which is where all the influencers go to take pictures because it is COLD and instead go to the left and walk past all the parts that are going to be busy. Unfortunately because of the storms they'd been getting there were flags up warning of rip tides and the waves were INSANE! I was looking forward to a day of swimming and floating and there was none of that happening. The waves were so strong they knocked me down several times and pushed me back towards shore. We had a fun time jumping in them and trying to stay up, but oof, was I sore later. Some of the waves hit just right to be like a punch to the stomach! We spent a few hours there, sometimes just sitting in the surf at the edge, before heading back to port to do some shopping. Since we had early seating (and EVERYTHING in Bermuda is expensive--$16 for a gallon of milk!) we knew we wanted to get back to the boat for dinner so we mostly hit up the shops around there and got a few things for the kids, replaced a mug I had gotten in 2018 that had broken (I was SO HAPPY they still had it!) and basically mucked around until we headed back. It was HOT so I was very glad for the nice cool towels they were handing out as you went back to the ship. Dinner that night was at Lumiere's and we decided to try a bunch of the appetizers including the escargot. Which when it came my husband tried, but I just...couldn't. So he texted our kids who sent me a video saying I should try new things. So I sent them a video back showing them that you could still see the spots on the back of the snail's back! So they sent another video back freaking out that it was DISGUSTING and I SHOULD NOT eat it! It was hilarious.
Our plan was to get off the boat again and head back to Hamilton to just walk around, but we were pummeled by the waves so much and did so much walking in the heat that we decided to stay on the boat and tried finishing dinner as fast as we could to get to Mickey Mouse trivia. Unfortunately we didn't make it in time so we just sat in the back and listened to the last couple of questions then made plans to come back at 9 pm for the second iteration of it. When we did the guy running it, Elliot, apologized and said it would be exactly the same trivia BUT then got excited and asked if we wanted him to run down and get an ultimate Disney trivia instead, with the caveat that if someone else came in he'd have to do the Mickey Mouse trivia. We said okay and no one else came in so my husband and I competed against each other AND we didn't have him read the multiple choice unless we were really stumped. Which wasn't often! So if you ever need to know how many years it would take you to stay in every hotel room at Disney World I got you! My husband won by 2 points but we each got our second Mickey Medallions which was quite fun to walk around with. After that we went to 80s music trivia where we did pretty terribly, then went to see the comedian/juggler Marcus Monroe who was HYSTERICAL! After that we were pretty worn out so we skipped the silent DJ party and went back to our room.
Day 4 - Bermuda Day 2
We had big plans to get off the boat and go to Hamilton, but after I woke up at 3 am and then 4 am and then 5 am to check the time we decided to have more of a down day on the boat, especially because the weather was very overcast and rainy. This turned out to be a pretty great decision because the boat was still nearly empty so after starting our day with a disappointing Lumiere breakfast where my french toast was barely cooked (the middle was RAW!) we decided to have a Rainforest room morning and got hot chairs right away. We spent lots of time in there just relaxing, then went for a swim in the adults only area where it is surprising how many people try to bring their kids in to swim. I mean, no only are there signs everywhere but there's a BAR and no other children. You think those would be big hints! But in each case the castmembers were on top of it and ushered them out before anyone got in the pool. We hit a few more trivias where we lost pretty badly, then did lunch at Rapunzels and it was so forgettable I don't remember anything we ate! It did allow us to sit on the opposite side of the restaurant and notice details we hadn't before, like how around every porthole window are paintings that tell a part of the Tangled story! That was pretty cool.
After that we had a martini tasting, which was something my husband was dreading because he doesn't like martinis and I only like fruity martinis so he was convinced it would be all gin martinis and we would both hate it. But very surprisingly it was our favorite tasting of the whole trip! Andre was amazing and while I could not finish the first martini which was a straight up gin one, the rest were FANTASTIC! We had a champagne martini, a french martini, a lemoncello, and finally a chocolate martini to end it out. Everyone liked the french martini so much they gave us two! It was a really great time even though the tasting was PACKED! I've never seen so many people at a tasting before.
That night was also pirate night so we had to race from the martini tasting back to our room to get dressed then back down to Lumieres for the second night in a row for what was honestly the worst menu ever. The only thing that was slightly good was the samosa appetizer and then I got the falafel entree which wasn't bad, but they were super soft and I was expecting them to be crispy. They were also cold so...yeah. I didn't even order any desserts because they all sounded gross. After dinner it was over to 90s music trivia which was REALLY fun because I knew EVERY song even though I couldn't name them enough to win the contest, but everyone sang them as they were played and it was just a great time. Then the pirate deck party was happening and surprisingly it didn't seem all that crowded. Not sure if people just didn't want to go up on deck or if our sailing wasn't that packed but we basically had prime standing positions to watch the fireworks show, which is always spectacular.
This night was probably our worst at-sea night though. Even the cast members were commenting on how much the boat was rocking. People in the halls would suddenly all get thrown to one side and I made sure to sleep with PJ pants on juuuuuust in case we got an evacuation order that's how tipsy our boat was. I mean, I'm sure it was absolutely par for the course and the crew has seen worse, but it was easily the most rocking I've ever had on a cruise before.
Day 5 - At Sea
This might have been my favorite day of the cruise because of how low key everything was. We were sad Marvel trivia was done during first dining seating and then never offered again, but we ran around from Pixar trivia to Star Wars trivia to more Disney trivia to 2000s trivia (where we did even worse than 80s trivia HOW!) trying to hit them all up, we also spent more time at the rainforest room at the spa although it was far more packed than the day before and did some swimming in the adults only pool. My husband is a big board gamer so I finally indulged him in playing Duel, a very complicated game that I then DOMINATED HIM at, which was pretty funny. For the first time we went up to Cabanas and I was like WHY have we not been having every meal here?! Everything was great, it was HOT, AND they were having a special Indian cuisine section and everything there was absolutely delicious. Bonus was that they had little things of pavlova, which weren't very good honestly, but WERE good for sending pictures of to my kids and saying "Bonjour!" so they could guess what it was. After that we did the chocolate and liquor tasting which I enjoyed a lot more than my husband did, but all in all I think we're pretty done with tastings and will stick to in-room amenities next time. Or just going to the bars and ordering something!
I was sad that Cabanas never seemed to be open for dinner, it closed at 2 pm even on pirate night. I was also sad that I swear they used to offer Beef Wellington on the last night of the cruise and it was NOWHERE this time! We were in Animator's Palette for the final night, which was fine, the food was perfectly standard though forgettable. Oh wait no the soup was AWFUL! It was supposed to be baked potato and tasted like chicken stock and SALT! Now, I love salt, but this was SO BAD I took three spoonfuls and set it to the side, I just could not eat it! The animation show was hysterical because my husband and I were not very good artists. We then skipped off to Fathoms for the last night entertainment and it did not disappoint. They played a game where they split the room into two teams, then we had to name that tune basically and also dance to it. Well, one team's last song was the Dirty Dancing song so everyone was up and flinging themselves at other people, while the other team's was Maniac and someone not only knew the dance, they took the chair up on stage and then other people dumped water on them! That team won and we laughed and laughed and laughed. It was a great way to end the cruise. We went back to our room where they delivered the questionnaire and I was SO GLAD I looked at it because it was LONG! Like 8 pages back and front with a ton of questions. I filled it out right then so we wouldn't have to worry about it and then we went about packing. I was very glad that we'd left some room when we packed the first time since we had a ton of candy to take back from our fish extender group.
Day 6 - See Ya Real Soon
We were to report to Animator's Palette for breakfast the next morning and I watched several people try to scramble to fill out those questionnaires. Then I made the worst mistake of my life and ordered the "Belgian Waffle" and was shocked to then be presented with two Eggo waffles that were barely warmed. I should've taken a picture but seriously, they were Eggo waffles. We laughed, made a face, and then basically got up and walked off the boat. I had no idea that you could just go if you didn't have any checked bags! We were off the boat at like 7:45 am! It was crazy early. Walked straight through customs after showing our passports and then walked all the way to the train terminal where we realized our train wasn't until 1 pm! But we didn't want to pay to check our bags and walk around New York again, so instead we paid to up our train time to 11 am. While I enjoyed the trip up I did not enjoy the trip back, I just wanted to be home! We got back a little after 3 pm and surprised our kids who were super thrilled to see us. Truth be told, we'd missed them the whole time a lot more than we thought we would.
But key takeaways from the trip were:
-NO INSIDE STATEROOM EVER AGAIN! Maybe ones with the magic porthole are better? But not being able to see if the sun was up was INCREDIBLY rough on me, especially since I had to walk halfway across the stateroom to check my phone for the time.
-Always go to the nightly entertainment for adults, it was so, so funny!
-We don't like to vacation without our kids.
-The Rainforest Room was totally worth it.
-Bermuda is amazing.
-Feel free to sleep in because breakfast is not worth it.
Day 1 - October 21
We had decided to take the train from Boston to New York because we'd never done it before. Well, really, my husband REALLY wanted to take the train and I was like whatever, if you book it I'm fine with it. This required us to wake up VERY early to get to South Station because I was nervous about it all. My mother had thankfully come in a day earlier since she was going to be watching the kids, but the six year old was beside herself the whole time. She fell asleep the night before in my arms crying that she "wasn't ready" for us to go and then when we got up at 4 am trying to be as quiet as possible she got up crying again begging us not to leave which broke my heart
But we left and got to the train station way too early and then sat around eating a bagel waiting for the train to show up. It did and I have to say the ride down was gorgeous! Very pretty views and we got to New York in plenty of time. We then walked from the train station to the cruise terminal. I know people will probably be like you did WHAT but while I hate New York, my husband was interested in seeing SOMETHING for the short time we were there so it was fine. We only brought a backpack each and then a duffel bag that had wheels so it wasn't too bad. We were let in at 11 in one of the first groups and then for some reason even though our boarding pass said group 2, the person checking us in wrote group 1 on our little card so when they called group 1 I went up to ask the guy letting people through which one I should go by and he was like "the better group!" so we got on the boat SUPER FAST! We decided to go have lunch at Rapunzel's since we hadn't eaten anything since the bagel at like 5 am and honestly it was probably the best entire meal we had on the boat (unfortunately). The penne pasta was insanely good!
After that we walked around the boat to get the feel of things, got a tour of Senses, avoided most of the hard sells, and bought a rainforest pass for both of us because we'd never tried it before. By that time it was about 1:30 so we ran downstairs with all of our stuff to see if our room was ready and it was! Kind of. The guy that was cleaning the rooms was still in the hall and we asked if we should come back later and he said no, he was done with ours so welcome! Turned out...that wasn't quite the case. We were in room 7623, an inside stateroom and it would be our first time doing that level. The room seemed fine when we walked in, bit small, i think it would be hard for 4 people to fit in it but as there were only 2 of us it was fine. First thing I noticed was that there were no plugs that you could charge your phone with anywhere near the bed, which was disappointing to say the least but would majorly factor into making me hate the room later. The second thing was a bunch of halls wrappers shoved into the couch cushions and the Aleve on the floor. So, whoever had our room before us was sick. Awesome! We did have two room amenities that we had ordered but only one was waiting for us: the cheese platter! It was so delicious. About an hour later they finally delivered our champagne, which we just put in the fridge rather than drinking since we wanted to watch the boat leave port.
Doing the muster drill from the phone was a breeze. We just walked right over to where we needed to be and scanned it, checked in with the person, and we were done! Loved it. Then it was time for our champagne tasting where they interrupted halfway through with the muster announcement but otherwise it was nice. I don't think we'd do it again.
We then stood up on deck to try to get pictures of the Statue of Liberty, but unfortunately the sun was setting like right behind it so none of the pictures turned out all that well. After that was dinner since we had first seating and our first night we were at Animator's Palette at table 31, which was a table location I LOVED! I would definitely ask for it again. Even though we were two people it was a table for 4 and no one else joined us which was kind of amazing. What was less amazing was that we were surrounded by larger groups that were clearly the priority of our serving team. They were nice, but service was painfully slow at times.
Once we finished dinner we made the fatal mistake of going back to our room to relax, where we found my dad had sent us more champagne since it was our anniversary, and of course, having been up since 4 am fell asleep! We woke up a couple of hours later, laughed to ourselves, then went back to sleep so we'd be well rested for Day 2!
Day 2 - October 22
I did not sleep very well the first night despite being exhausted. The rocking of the boat wasn't even really bad that first night, but what I found was that I'd wake up in a pitch black room and have no idea what time it was. Without any sort of porthole or verandah I couldn't see if it was 3 am or 7 am or noon! And because there were no charging ports by the bed I'd have to get up, stumble around the bed to the middle of the room where the TV was and check my phone. It was always somewhere between 3 am and 5 am but yeesh. This would be a pattern that repeated throughout the cruise and really disrupted me getting any kind of really good sleep.
Speaking of the TV it was AWFUL! Slow to load what the movies or shows were and it was halfway across the cabin so I could barely read it and I have good eyes! It was quite frustrating.
But this day was the one I was most looking forward to--we had PALO BRUNCH! We'd never been able to get a reservation before, being lowly Silver Castaway members, but someone in the Facebook group for this cruise had set up a private group and we'd gotten two spots! The bad news? We thought we'd packed my husband's slacks, but it turned out they were just shorts. So we were flagged at the entrance BUT they just went ahead and called someone and we ended up getting him a pair of pants to wear for the meal. And what a meal it was! There were pizzas for the table that were AMAZING! Everyone basically ordered everything and wow, it was all super delicious. Definitely the best meal of the cruise. We kept thinking that we were full and then another course would be brought out and how could you not eat it?? I had breakfast (the pancakes) AND the chicken parm and it was SO GOOD! Then for dessert I had the chocolate cake and omg. OMG! Delicious.
When we got back to our room after that we laughed because there was ANOTHER surprise champagne there! A rose Tattinger! No card, so we weren't sure who it came from but we ended up drinking that one while we got ready for our Couples massage at Senses. We upgraded to the hot stones and it was one of the best, most relaxing massages I've ever had. Of course, as happens on every trip we take I had mistakenly thought it was cheaper than it was going to be so our budget took a hit, but still it was really nice. After that we checked out the rainforest room, scored a heated chair immediately (they really are worth all the hype!) and then sampled all the showers. All in all it was an AMAZINGLY relaxing time.
That night was the Halloween party so we headed back to the room to get our costumes on before dinner--I was Mavis from Hotel Transylvania and my husband was Wreck It Ralph! Dinner was at Rapunzel's Royal Table and the theming of that room is just beautiful. Our table was over by a window, which was nice, and we had some fun interactions with the cast. I got the pasta and it was pretty good, but the desserts were spot on delicious! It was at this point someone came over to talk to us about the champagne we got in the room and I could barely hear or understand them but I guess the gist was that there had been some kind of mistake or they were out of the Moet Ice Rose I had ordered to be delivered at dinner on night 5 so they had given us that champagne instead? It didn't really make any sense when we really thought about it since it was 1. the wrong champagne and 2. the wrong night and 3. the wrong location, so we just assumed someone had made a mistake, wasn't able to correct it since we'd, you know, gone ahead and drank it on our anniversary, and they were trying to even the accounts. Whatever. It was super disappointing because we REALLY wanted to try that Moet Ice Rose but it is what it is. They had a very cute show at dinner that made us miss our kids.
We then went to the Halloween party kick off and that was a lot of fun to watch from the balcony. We even saw a little Vanellope who was SO EXCITED to see a Ralph! After that we headed into D-Lounge to play Halloween Trivia and we WON! Not only that but I made the BEST guess on a question no one else got: Jason Marsden who played Bixby in Hocus Pocus also voiced what Disney character? I was the ONLY PERSON to get that question right and we got two Mickey Medallions on Winner ribbons! We were so proud. Too proud. It definitely kicked off our obsession with trivia for the rest of the cruise.
After that we headed to Fathoms to see the adult shows and they made us wish we had done that the night before instead of falling asleep! They played Snippets and it was HILARIOUS! We made a note to stop down there every night that they offered something after that.
We had bought the basic tier of wireless from Disney and it was BAD. Not only was it slow but it DID NOT WORK AT ALL in our stateroom. It was like we were in a faraday cage, absolutely no signal. We were pretty disappointed since we were worried about missing something about the kids from my mom. Weirdly we would get the notifications that we got emails or facebook messenger notifications randomly throughout the day without purchasing wireless but weren't able to read them. Another guy on the cruise joked that was "how they got you" because you then wanted to read the rest of the email. But the purchase was definitely not worth it.
Day 3 - October 23 - BERMUDA!
We woke up to an absolutely beautiful day in Bermuda! A bit windy but not at all rainy like the forecast had threatened. We planned on heading to Horseshoe Bay but didn't want to take our passports and I'd forgotten to make copies so we headed down to Guest Services where they made copies for us! That was very helpful and we were basically the first people off the boat! Which is when we realized we'd neglected to take towels. Not a problem, we could buy some towels at port and get some souvenirs right?
Haha it was Sunday and almost NOTHING was open! The shops that were open didn't carry towels! What the hell Bermuda! You have a captive towel audience! The pharmacy at port opened at 10 am and they had towels...very lovely, but expensive towels which we bought before taking the $7 shuttle to Horseshoe Bay. If you've never been there it's BEAUTIFUL! Skip the lagoon to the right, which is where all the influencers go to take pictures because it is COLD and instead go to the left and walk past all the parts that are going to be busy. Unfortunately because of the storms they'd been getting there were flags up warning of rip tides and the waves were INSANE! I was looking forward to a day of swimming and floating and there was none of that happening. The waves were so strong they knocked me down several times and pushed me back towards shore. We had a fun time jumping in them and trying to stay up, but oof, was I sore later. Some of the waves hit just right to be like a punch to the stomach! We spent a few hours there, sometimes just sitting in the surf at the edge, before heading back to port to do some shopping. Since we had early seating (and EVERYTHING in Bermuda is expensive--$16 for a gallon of milk!) we knew we wanted to get back to the boat for dinner so we mostly hit up the shops around there and got a few things for the kids, replaced a mug I had gotten in 2018 that had broken (I was SO HAPPY they still had it!) and basically mucked around until we headed back. It was HOT so I was very glad for the nice cool towels they were handing out as you went back to the ship. Dinner that night was at Lumiere's and we decided to try a bunch of the appetizers including the escargot. Which when it came my husband tried, but I just...couldn't. So he texted our kids who sent me a video saying I should try new things. So I sent them a video back showing them that you could still see the spots on the back of the snail's back! So they sent another video back freaking out that it was DISGUSTING and I SHOULD NOT eat it! It was hilarious.
Our plan was to get off the boat again and head back to Hamilton to just walk around, but we were pummeled by the waves so much and did so much walking in the heat that we decided to stay on the boat and tried finishing dinner as fast as we could to get to Mickey Mouse trivia. Unfortunately we didn't make it in time so we just sat in the back and listened to the last couple of questions then made plans to come back at 9 pm for the second iteration of it. When we did the guy running it, Elliot, apologized and said it would be exactly the same trivia BUT then got excited and asked if we wanted him to run down and get an ultimate Disney trivia instead, with the caveat that if someone else came in he'd have to do the Mickey Mouse trivia. We said okay and no one else came in so my husband and I competed against each other AND we didn't have him read the multiple choice unless we were really stumped. Which wasn't often! So if you ever need to know how many years it would take you to stay in every hotel room at Disney World I got you! My husband won by 2 points but we each got our second Mickey Medallions which was quite fun to walk around with. After that we went to 80s music trivia where we did pretty terribly, then went to see the comedian/juggler Marcus Monroe who was HYSTERICAL! After that we were pretty worn out so we skipped the silent DJ party and went back to our room.
Day 4 - Bermuda Day 2
We had big plans to get off the boat and go to Hamilton, but after I woke up at 3 am and then 4 am and then 5 am to check the time we decided to have more of a down day on the boat, especially because the weather was very overcast and rainy. This turned out to be a pretty great decision because the boat was still nearly empty so after starting our day with a disappointing Lumiere breakfast where my french toast was barely cooked (the middle was RAW!) we decided to have a Rainforest room morning and got hot chairs right away. We spent lots of time in there just relaxing, then went for a swim in the adults only area where it is surprising how many people try to bring their kids in to swim. I mean, no only are there signs everywhere but there's a BAR and no other children. You think those would be big hints! But in each case the castmembers were on top of it and ushered them out before anyone got in the pool. We hit a few more trivias where we lost pretty badly, then did lunch at Rapunzels and it was so forgettable I don't remember anything we ate! It did allow us to sit on the opposite side of the restaurant and notice details we hadn't before, like how around every porthole window are paintings that tell a part of the Tangled story! That was pretty cool.
After that we had a martini tasting, which was something my husband was dreading because he doesn't like martinis and I only like fruity martinis so he was convinced it would be all gin martinis and we would both hate it. But very surprisingly it was our favorite tasting of the whole trip! Andre was amazing and while I could not finish the first martini which was a straight up gin one, the rest were FANTASTIC! We had a champagne martini, a french martini, a lemoncello, and finally a chocolate martini to end it out. Everyone liked the french martini so much they gave us two! It was a really great time even though the tasting was PACKED! I've never seen so many people at a tasting before.
That night was also pirate night so we had to race from the martini tasting back to our room to get dressed then back down to Lumieres for the second night in a row for what was honestly the worst menu ever. The only thing that was slightly good was the samosa appetizer and then I got the falafel entree which wasn't bad, but they were super soft and I was expecting them to be crispy. They were also cold so...yeah. I didn't even order any desserts because they all sounded gross. After dinner it was over to 90s music trivia which was REALLY fun because I knew EVERY song even though I couldn't name them enough to win the contest, but everyone sang them as they were played and it was just a great time. Then the pirate deck party was happening and surprisingly it didn't seem all that crowded. Not sure if people just didn't want to go up on deck or if our sailing wasn't that packed but we basically had prime standing positions to watch the fireworks show, which is always spectacular.
This night was probably our worst at-sea night though. Even the cast members were commenting on how much the boat was rocking. People in the halls would suddenly all get thrown to one side and I made sure to sleep with PJ pants on juuuuuust in case we got an evacuation order that's how tipsy our boat was. I mean, I'm sure it was absolutely par for the course and the crew has seen worse, but it was easily the most rocking I've ever had on a cruise before.
Day 5 - At Sea
This might have been my favorite day of the cruise because of how low key everything was. We were sad Marvel trivia was done during first dining seating and then never offered again, but we ran around from Pixar trivia to Star Wars trivia to more Disney trivia to 2000s trivia (where we did even worse than 80s trivia HOW!) trying to hit them all up, we also spent more time at the rainforest room at the spa although it was far more packed than the day before and did some swimming in the adults only pool. My husband is a big board gamer so I finally indulged him in playing Duel, a very complicated game that I then DOMINATED HIM at, which was pretty funny. For the first time we went up to Cabanas and I was like WHY have we not been having every meal here?! Everything was great, it was HOT, AND they were having a special Indian cuisine section and everything there was absolutely delicious. Bonus was that they had little things of pavlova, which weren't very good honestly, but WERE good for sending pictures of to my kids and saying "Bonjour!" so they could guess what it was. After that we did the chocolate and liquor tasting which I enjoyed a lot more than my husband did, but all in all I think we're pretty done with tastings and will stick to in-room amenities next time. Or just going to the bars and ordering something!
I was sad that Cabanas never seemed to be open for dinner, it closed at 2 pm even on pirate night. I was also sad that I swear they used to offer Beef Wellington on the last night of the cruise and it was NOWHERE this time! We were in Animator's Palette for the final night, which was fine, the food was perfectly standard though forgettable. Oh wait no the soup was AWFUL! It was supposed to be baked potato and tasted like chicken stock and SALT! Now, I love salt, but this was SO BAD I took three spoonfuls and set it to the side, I just could not eat it! The animation show was hysterical because my husband and I were not very good artists. We then skipped off to Fathoms for the last night entertainment and it did not disappoint. They played a game where they split the room into two teams, then we had to name that tune basically and also dance to it. Well, one team's last song was the Dirty Dancing song so everyone was up and flinging themselves at other people, while the other team's was Maniac and someone not only knew the dance, they took the chair up on stage and then other people dumped water on them! That team won and we laughed and laughed and laughed. It was a great way to end the cruise. We went back to our room where they delivered the questionnaire and I was SO GLAD I looked at it because it was LONG! Like 8 pages back and front with a ton of questions. I filled it out right then so we wouldn't have to worry about it and then we went about packing. I was very glad that we'd left some room when we packed the first time since we had a ton of candy to take back from our fish extender group.
Day 6 - See Ya Real Soon
We were to report to Animator's Palette for breakfast the next morning and I watched several people try to scramble to fill out those questionnaires. Then I made the worst mistake of my life and ordered the "Belgian Waffle" and was shocked to then be presented with two Eggo waffles that were barely warmed. I should've taken a picture but seriously, they were Eggo waffles. We laughed, made a face, and then basically got up and walked off the boat. I had no idea that you could just go if you didn't have any checked bags! We were off the boat at like 7:45 am! It was crazy early. Walked straight through customs after showing our passports and then walked all the way to the train terminal where we realized our train wasn't until 1 pm! But we didn't want to pay to check our bags and walk around New York again, so instead we paid to up our train time to 11 am. While I enjoyed the trip up I did not enjoy the trip back, I just wanted to be home! We got back a little after 3 pm and surprised our kids who were super thrilled to see us. Truth be told, we'd missed them the whole time a lot more than we thought we would.
But key takeaways from the trip were:
-NO INSIDE STATEROOM EVER AGAIN! Maybe ones with the magic porthole are better? But not being able to see if the sun was up was INCREDIBLY rough on me, especially since I had to walk halfway across the stateroom to check my phone for the time.
-Always go to the nightly entertainment for adults, it was so, so funny!
-We don't like to vacation without our kids.
-The Rainforest Room was totally worth it.
-Bermuda is amazing.
-Feel free to sleep in because breakfast is not worth it.
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