Day Ten - Saturday, October 4th - Part Two
So, after sitting on the deck and watching the rain, we thought we'd head down to Diversions on Deck Four. Thinking that it was mid-afternoon, and the bar would be slow. No such luck. The rain had driven everyone inside, of course. And there are big-screen TVs in Diversions, where people were watching College Football. This should have been my cue to get the heck out of dodge, but I'd heard tell of the "Mini-Martini Flight" at Diversions and thought it sounded nifty, so we stayed. The martini flight comes to the table in this little metal rack, and has six different mini-martinis. Of six, I really liked one, tolerated two others and thought the other three were just nasty. (especially the "dirty martini". Olives, YUCK!). So after Scott finished his drink and I slogged my way through the martini flight, we decided that we didn't belong in a bar full of crazy people who thought they could talk to football players hundreds of miles away by shouting at a television screen (seriously, why do people do this. They can't possibly think it helps!) From there we headed back to our room to chill for a bit. (And by "chill for a bit" I mean "watch
Iron Man on TV"
It was on all weekend and we had it on in the background whenever we were in the room.) When we got to our room there were several items on the bed waiting for us: tip envelopes and instructions on who to tip and how on the last night of the cruise; instructions on how to handle lugguge for disembarkation (we have to put it outside our room tonight!
), and two "Magical Moments" certificates (one from the lovely ladies who had done our massage, and one from the ships store with a honeymoon pin attatched.) Pretty cool.
Soon it was time to get ready for the show, and then dinner. It was at this point that it hit us that this was our last night of the cruise. It felt we were just getting settled in! Not fair! We'll have to do a longer cruise next time! We headed up to the Walt Disney Theatre for "Disney Dreams", which we thought was all right. I honestly enjoyed it better than the "Toy Story" musical, and the guy playing Aladdin was HOT!!!! The boat was just pulling away from the dock at
Castaway Cay when the show started, and the rain was still coming down in buckets. You could actually feel the boat rocking from side to side, and it was funny to see the heads of the people seated in front of us swaying slightly from side to side with the rocking. I gained a lot of respect for those performers that night. I don't know that I could have walked without swaying at that point, let alone sing and dance.
After the show, we headed to Animator's Palate for our last dinner on board. We met Randy and Mary Kay at our table. They'd only eaten at Animator's once before, and on that cruise, it had been the pirate event, so they hadn't gotten to see the black and white decor change to full color. So all four of us were constantly looking around the room with each change of lights to see what had changed. The affects were really very well done. I ordered a glass of pinot noir, and it went really well with the foccacia bread and garlic/anchovy/butter spread that they served with it. It reminded me of bagna calda, which is a family favorite. Then I ordered the avocado seafood wrapper with cole slaw appetizer, the tomato confetti salad, and then the bacon-wrapped filet mignon with seafood filled pastry shell and tomato-goat cheese ragout. It was all very tasty! For dessert, we couldn't make up our minds, so Scott and I shared Strawberry Shortcake, Chocolate and Peanut Butter Pie, and Double-Fudge Chocolate Cake! While we were consuming all those empty calories from our three desserts, the serving staff brought a special occasion cake over to the couple on the far end of the huge table from us. It was thier honeymoon!
They passed around pieces of the yellow cake with buttercream frosting to all of us. Mary Kay and Randy tried to get the attention of the wait-staff to let them know that we should get a cake, too --and we appreciate the thought-- but none of us had room for any more dessert, so we weren't upset when they weren't able to get another cake. They gave us instructions on which breakfast seating we should attend in the morning, and our last dinner on the boat was over.
Scott and I headed up to our room, packed, and were putting our suitcases outside the room just as our room-steward came by to thank us and pick up his tip.
Lastly, our friends who had done the four-day cruise a month earlier told us that we could not miss the very funny show done by the entertainment staff on the last night. They said it was very similar to the "Hoopla" show that used to close every night at the Adventurers Club, and we'd really enjoy it. So we checked the show schedule and headed down to the night club where the only show featuring the entertainment crew was scheduled for the night. We sat down, we ordered drinks, and we waited. Eventually other guests started to trickle in. Then the show started. And it was NOTHING like what we were led to expect. The MC was encouraging tables to make lots of noise because the "happiest table" would win a bottle of champagne, and the music was loud and people were screaming, and then the dancers came out and did a couple of numbers, and Rob and Scott left. We just weren't into it and couldn't believe our friends would recommend that kind of a show to us. Turns out that the show they saw is the last night of the four night cruise. It's not done on the three night cruise.
So, as it was after mid-night and we'd have to be up early in the morning to make our breakfast time, we called it a night. We got back to our room, set the alarms, and were asleep almost before the lights were out.
Next installment: The cruise ends, and we head home.