Riss
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2018
Day 4 Part 2 (Thursday, September 20, 2018): Last Night!
It had arrived upon us! Our last dinner on a cruise that had been nothing short of wonderful for the past 3 nights. I think it was only fitting that our semi-formal night was going to be in Royal Palace, I guess what would be considered the "fancier" dining room of the three. There seemed to be a lot more of the fancy dining there, I mean escargot is listed on the menu there, as well as other options. Also, thankfully, there seemed to be things on there that my mom would enjoy.
I know I've mentioned this before, but my family just aren't kind of like fancy eaters. We do like having nice meals but there's just some times when you don't really want to have fancy things for dinner every night. That's not saying that the food on the Disney Cruise Line is bad, because it's anything but. It just doesn't satisfy our palates all of the time. My mom's only wish for them to have something a bit more...normal? If that makes sense. It's like we would've just been happy with maybe some of the kids menu items being offered on the adult menu, maybe underneath a category like the lighter offerings instead of eating steak for like four nights.
Also, another thing that was kind of awkward with our family, or rather just something that we're not used to, is them doing everything for us. They would de-shell the shrimp and cut your food and we just aren't used to having people do that for us that we kept telling our waiter, Leo, that we could do these things ourselves. We get that he's a busy man and didn't want him doing things for us that we were capable of doing.
But anyway, after shopping, we made our way back to our room to get ready for dinner. The baby was still sleeping on his Captain Mickey pillow that my youngest sister had gotten him in the gift shop earlier that day. Now it didn't necessarily say on our Navigator that it was semi-formal night, but almost everyone on the cruise seemed to be dressed up. It might have said on the Navigator that the dress was just cruise casual, but I'm not entirely certain.
Either way, we were all dressed up, or as dressy as we could be, I particularly am not someone who likes to get dressed up. But I made an exception since we were going to be on vacation and on a cruise and made it a priority to find an outfit before we left, I just ended up with a plain black dress just like I had hoped.
Once my sisters were done getting ready, they wanted to take some pictures on the staircase. Being on deck 2 meant that we had a kind of similar staircase to the main staircase in the atrium that we could take pictures on and we spent a couple of minutes there going back and forth. The combination of getting ready and taking pictures almost made us late to get to dinner!
But we made it on time to attend our last dinner on the cruise. I haven't talked much about our waiter or his assistant much throughout this post, but they were absolutely amazing. We loved them and their sense of humor. Leo, our waiter, made sure to let us have fun. He would give us the puzzles made out of crayons and drew on the table once, that threw the baby off who looked at Leo in disbelief, he couldn't believe that he was drawing on the table haha. There was also one moment on the cruise when the baby got like a salisbury steak or something and there was some sort of gravy like sauce on it. Leo went over to cut it up for him and the baby tried to say that he didn't want the ketchup. Everyone at the table was trying to tell him that it wasn't ketchup on his plate, it was like gravy and in the end, the baby declared, "Fine, I will eat the ketchup!" That sentence actually became a catchphrase of his during the trip since later, during Disney World, he actually once said, "Fine, I will take the monorail!" That's become a running gag in our family.
I haven't talked much about dinner in general so I'll briefly go over it in this post about our last dinner. Seeing that we were a party of 7, as in 6 adults and 1 child, we didn't have any seat mates. We did notice that the table next to us did, they were 2 parties of 4. We also saw that one night the one family of 4 actually didn't come at all. When researching about this cruise, I didn't think we would have to sit with anyone because we were such a large party to begin with. Most of the tables they did sit us at were set for 8. We were actually table 50 which wasn't a bad spot in any of the restaurants. For Animator's Palate we were kind of in the middle over to the right of the restaurant but still near a screen where we would see Crush, in Enchanted Garden we were to the right before the fountain, and in Royal Palace, we were outside of the main middle circle.
If anyone has any questions about our dining experience, I'd be happy to answer to the best of my ability.
My dinner for that night went as follows:
French Onion Soup
Crispy Roasted Duck Breast
Tahitian Vanilla Creme Brulee
My family is a big fan of duck and my mom, brother, and I ordered it. In my opinion, which may not really hold much weight, I thought it was excellent. My mom was definitely a fan and glad that she finally found something she enjoyed. She did like the leg better than the cut pieces, but that's just because she likes that meat better, I think it's dark meat? I'm not good with that kind of stuff.
I do know that everyone but my brother and I had the Strawberry Shortcake Sundae for dessert and we also ordered the Apple Tart Tatin for the table. My brother was a definite fan of that one, too. I did end up eating part of my brother's Creme Brulee since he only wanted it for the sugar on top, the part that I actually didn't care for.
Seeing that it was our last night together, and it actually ended up being the last time we saw each other (although we didn't know it then), my mom decided to play a little joke on our waiter saying that she would just eat dessert at home. She said that to him one of the nights when she didn't find a dessert that she wanted, but she told him she was only joking and ordered the sundae.
After dinner my mom wanted to get a picture on the staircase since we were all wearing nice clothes but we also wanted to go see Beauty and the Beast. Also, my brother and dad wanted to at least try the AquaDuck still. There was so much to do in so little time! Our initial plan of attack was for them to do the waterslide after the show since it closes at 10pm and we figured that we'd be out of the show by 9:45. That plan changed and they would go up right as soon as we were done taking pictures and then meet us at the show.
The line for pictures wasn't too bad and we were able to get some nice ones on the stairs. We didn't really buy any, we only bought one of the baby and Vampire Mickey, but they came out nice and we do have some of our own taken from the event. There seemed to be other things going on in the lobby at that time, it seemed like there was some of the captain's crew standing around? But we didn't have any interest in that and went up to go to the theater while my dad and brother went to the waterslide.
I had read reports about how popular the show was and they were not kidding. There were already long lines to get into the theater, especially on the first floor, and we wondered just how we were going to be able to find seats for all of us to sit together if it already seemed super crowded. Thankfully, though, we decided to check the upstairs lines and they weren't as bad. Just to give an idea about how deep the lines downstairs were, they were already well into the gift shop area from the theater. The ones upstairs were probably only a little bit past the concession stand on both sides.
Thankfully we were able to find seats for all of us and the three of us girls sat down with the baby while my mom left to go refill our popcorn buckets and get drinks, as well as go to the bathroom before the show started. Another relief was when my brother and dad showed up probably three minutes later after we entered. They came in saying that they loved the waterslide and were actually able to get on it three times in a row since there was obviously no one up there.
If there was perhaps one negative experience on the cruise, it would have definitely been the night of the show. It didn't involve us, and it wasn't really a negative experience for us personally, but it was something that impacted everyone that night, I guess. We were sitting on the upper level and down below I guess there was someone saving a ton of seats. A man and woman apparently wanted to sit in one of the seats but the guy said that he was saving them and rumor had it that he may have bumped, pushed, or something physical, the woman and the man with her stepped in. People around us said that the man who stepped in punched the man or made some sort of physical contact with him. That resulted in an announcement of them stating that there was no saving of seats and everyone applauded. The second thing was that in front of us there was another woman saving seats and a family of 3 or 4 entered and tried to sit there. It wasn't as dramatic as the one down below, but when the announcement was made, the woman who was trying to sit in the seat, who sat behind the woman saving seats with her daughter on her lap, placed her daughter in one of the seats down below that was supposedly being saved. In the end, though, the woman probably thought better about having her daughter sit there and placed her back on her lap.
While all of the shows were great, it's easy to see why people definitely wanted to see this show as well as what just made this show the newest one. The sets on stage were so great and all of the movements were flawless making one scene seamlessly transition to the next. They used a lot of the lights to help make the scenes as well.
Seeing that it was our last night on the ship, my mom wanted to take a couple of pictures since there was a sign that was similar to the type of magnet that she bought. She wanted us to go up and take a picture next to it so she could put it in her magnet. So we went up to deck 11 and got the baby some ice cream and some late night snacks. We also made time to see the Sail Away party as well.
Football was on while we were on the deck, on the pool TV, so we stayed up there to watch the rest of the game before we went back down to deck 3 to take a picture in front of the pumpkin tree and other places of the atrium. There were some kids running around there that we were wondering what their parents were doing, but they were over talking while their like 8 young kids were running around in the atrium. The kids were apparently playing tag, that's what one of the older women sitting near the tree told us.
It was almost 10:30pm by the time we got back to our room, which was the time that your luggage needs to be outside of your door if you want them to take it off of the ship and put it in the terminal for you. We weren't sure if we were going to do that option and we were under a lot of stress over the fact that we only had probably 15-20 minutes to pack before our luggage had to be out there. We weren't sure if we were going to go to breakfast the next morning either, our time would be at 7:15. It depended upon where you were for your last night of dinner. I think those who had Animator's Palate had the 7:00am time, Royal Palace had 7:15, and Enchanted Garden had 7:30...unless Animator's Palate had 6:45 and Enchanted Garden had 7:00am, but I don't really remember.
In the end, after a little arguing, we decided not to put our luggage outside of our room just based on the fact that we weren't sure what it would seem like for us to disembark. We were going to be going to Disney World the next day through the transfers and didn't want to get hung up not being able to find our luggage or something like that. Therefore we thought it'd be easier if we took our luggage ourselves.
Since we were going to Disney World and taking the transfers after the cruise, a note came in our stateroom to tell us that it was recommended we leave the ship by 8:15am, another part of our apprehension to do breakfast, since it was said that the bus would leave by 9am.
By the time we went to bed for the final night on the ship, we weren't entirely sure what our plans were for the next day.
It had arrived upon us! Our last dinner on a cruise that had been nothing short of wonderful for the past 3 nights. I think it was only fitting that our semi-formal night was going to be in Royal Palace, I guess what would be considered the "fancier" dining room of the three. There seemed to be a lot more of the fancy dining there, I mean escargot is listed on the menu there, as well as other options. Also, thankfully, there seemed to be things on there that my mom would enjoy.
I know I've mentioned this before, but my family just aren't kind of like fancy eaters. We do like having nice meals but there's just some times when you don't really want to have fancy things for dinner every night. That's not saying that the food on the Disney Cruise Line is bad, because it's anything but. It just doesn't satisfy our palates all of the time. My mom's only wish for them to have something a bit more...normal? If that makes sense. It's like we would've just been happy with maybe some of the kids menu items being offered on the adult menu, maybe underneath a category like the lighter offerings instead of eating steak for like four nights.
Also, another thing that was kind of awkward with our family, or rather just something that we're not used to, is them doing everything for us. They would de-shell the shrimp and cut your food and we just aren't used to having people do that for us that we kept telling our waiter, Leo, that we could do these things ourselves. We get that he's a busy man and didn't want him doing things for us that we were capable of doing.
But anyway, after shopping, we made our way back to our room to get ready for dinner. The baby was still sleeping on his Captain Mickey pillow that my youngest sister had gotten him in the gift shop earlier that day. Now it didn't necessarily say on our Navigator that it was semi-formal night, but almost everyone on the cruise seemed to be dressed up. It might have said on the Navigator that the dress was just cruise casual, but I'm not entirely certain.
Either way, we were all dressed up, or as dressy as we could be, I particularly am not someone who likes to get dressed up. But I made an exception since we were going to be on vacation and on a cruise and made it a priority to find an outfit before we left, I just ended up with a plain black dress just like I had hoped.
Once my sisters were done getting ready, they wanted to take some pictures on the staircase. Being on deck 2 meant that we had a kind of similar staircase to the main staircase in the atrium that we could take pictures on and we spent a couple of minutes there going back and forth. The combination of getting ready and taking pictures almost made us late to get to dinner!
But we made it on time to attend our last dinner on the cruise. I haven't talked much about our waiter or his assistant much throughout this post, but they were absolutely amazing. We loved them and their sense of humor. Leo, our waiter, made sure to let us have fun. He would give us the puzzles made out of crayons and drew on the table once, that threw the baby off who looked at Leo in disbelief, he couldn't believe that he was drawing on the table haha. There was also one moment on the cruise when the baby got like a salisbury steak or something and there was some sort of gravy like sauce on it. Leo went over to cut it up for him and the baby tried to say that he didn't want the ketchup. Everyone at the table was trying to tell him that it wasn't ketchup on his plate, it was like gravy and in the end, the baby declared, "Fine, I will eat the ketchup!" That sentence actually became a catchphrase of his during the trip since later, during Disney World, he actually once said, "Fine, I will take the monorail!" That's become a running gag in our family.
I haven't talked much about dinner in general so I'll briefly go over it in this post about our last dinner. Seeing that we were a party of 7, as in 6 adults and 1 child, we didn't have any seat mates. We did notice that the table next to us did, they were 2 parties of 4. We also saw that one night the one family of 4 actually didn't come at all. When researching about this cruise, I didn't think we would have to sit with anyone because we were such a large party to begin with. Most of the tables they did sit us at were set for 8. We were actually table 50 which wasn't a bad spot in any of the restaurants. For Animator's Palate we were kind of in the middle over to the right of the restaurant but still near a screen where we would see Crush, in Enchanted Garden we were to the right before the fountain, and in Royal Palace, we were outside of the main middle circle.
If anyone has any questions about our dining experience, I'd be happy to answer to the best of my ability.
My dinner for that night went as follows:
French Onion Soup
Crispy Roasted Duck Breast
Tahitian Vanilla Creme Brulee
My family is a big fan of duck and my mom, brother, and I ordered it. In my opinion, which may not really hold much weight, I thought it was excellent. My mom was definitely a fan and glad that she finally found something she enjoyed. She did like the leg better than the cut pieces, but that's just because she likes that meat better, I think it's dark meat? I'm not good with that kind of stuff.
I do know that everyone but my brother and I had the Strawberry Shortcake Sundae for dessert and we also ordered the Apple Tart Tatin for the table. My brother was a definite fan of that one, too. I did end up eating part of my brother's Creme Brulee since he only wanted it for the sugar on top, the part that I actually didn't care for.
Seeing that it was our last night together, and it actually ended up being the last time we saw each other (although we didn't know it then), my mom decided to play a little joke on our waiter saying that she would just eat dessert at home. She said that to him one of the nights when she didn't find a dessert that she wanted, but she told him she was only joking and ordered the sundae.
After dinner my mom wanted to get a picture on the staircase since we were all wearing nice clothes but we also wanted to go see Beauty and the Beast. Also, my brother and dad wanted to at least try the AquaDuck still. There was so much to do in so little time! Our initial plan of attack was for them to do the waterslide after the show since it closes at 10pm and we figured that we'd be out of the show by 9:45. That plan changed and they would go up right as soon as we were done taking pictures and then meet us at the show.
The line for pictures wasn't too bad and we were able to get some nice ones on the stairs. We didn't really buy any, we only bought one of the baby and Vampire Mickey, but they came out nice and we do have some of our own taken from the event. There seemed to be other things going on in the lobby at that time, it seemed like there was some of the captain's crew standing around? But we didn't have any interest in that and went up to go to the theater while my dad and brother went to the waterslide.
I had read reports about how popular the show was and they were not kidding. There were already long lines to get into the theater, especially on the first floor, and we wondered just how we were going to be able to find seats for all of us to sit together if it already seemed super crowded. Thankfully, though, we decided to check the upstairs lines and they weren't as bad. Just to give an idea about how deep the lines downstairs were, they were already well into the gift shop area from the theater. The ones upstairs were probably only a little bit past the concession stand on both sides.
Thankfully we were able to find seats for all of us and the three of us girls sat down with the baby while my mom left to go refill our popcorn buckets and get drinks, as well as go to the bathroom before the show started. Another relief was when my brother and dad showed up probably three minutes later after we entered. They came in saying that they loved the waterslide and were actually able to get on it three times in a row since there was obviously no one up there.
If there was perhaps one negative experience on the cruise, it would have definitely been the night of the show. It didn't involve us, and it wasn't really a negative experience for us personally, but it was something that impacted everyone that night, I guess. We were sitting on the upper level and down below I guess there was someone saving a ton of seats. A man and woman apparently wanted to sit in one of the seats but the guy said that he was saving them and rumor had it that he may have bumped, pushed, or something physical, the woman and the man with her stepped in. People around us said that the man who stepped in punched the man or made some sort of physical contact with him. That resulted in an announcement of them stating that there was no saving of seats and everyone applauded. The second thing was that in front of us there was another woman saving seats and a family of 3 or 4 entered and tried to sit there. It wasn't as dramatic as the one down below, but when the announcement was made, the woman who was trying to sit in the seat, who sat behind the woman saving seats with her daughter on her lap, placed her daughter in one of the seats down below that was supposedly being saved. In the end, though, the woman probably thought better about having her daughter sit there and placed her back on her lap.
While all of the shows were great, it's easy to see why people definitely wanted to see this show as well as what just made this show the newest one. The sets on stage were so great and all of the movements were flawless making one scene seamlessly transition to the next. They used a lot of the lights to help make the scenes as well.
Seeing that it was our last night on the ship, my mom wanted to take a couple of pictures since there was a sign that was similar to the type of magnet that she bought. She wanted us to go up and take a picture next to it so she could put it in her magnet. So we went up to deck 11 and got the baby some ice cream and some late night snacks. We also made time to see the Sail Away party as well.
Football was on while we were on the deck, on the pool TV, so we stayed up there to watch the rest of the game before we went back down to deck 3 to take a picture in front of the pumpkin tree and other places of the atrium. There were some kids running around there that we were wondering what their parents were doing, but they were over talking while their like 8 young kids were running around in the atrium. The kids were apparently playing tag, that's what one of the older women sitting near the tree told us.
It was almost 10:30pm by the time we got back to our room, which was the time that your luggage needs to be outside of your door if you want them to take it off of the ship and put it in the terminal for you. We weren't sure if we were going to do that option and we were under a lot of stress over the fact that we only had probably 15-20 minutes to pack before our luggage had to be out there. We weren't sure if we were going to go to breakfast the next morning either, our time would be at 7:15. It depended upon where you were for your last night of dinner. I think those who had Animator's Palate had the 7:00am time, Royal Palace had 7:15, and Enchanted Garden had 7:30...unless Animator's Palate had 6:45 and Enchanted Garden had 7:00am, but I don't really remember.
In the end, after a little arguing, we decided not to put our luggage outside of our room just based on the fact that we weren't sure what it would seem like for us to disembark. We were going to be going to Disney World the next day through the transfers and didn't want to get hung up not being able to find our luggage or something like that. Therefore we thought it'd be easier if we took our luggage ourselves.
Since we were going to Disney World and taking the transfers after the cruise, a note came in our stateroom to tell us that it was recommended we leave the ship by 8:15am, another part of our apprehension to do breakfast, since it was said that the bus would leave by 9am.
By the time we went to bed for the final night on the ship, we weren't entirely sure what our plans were for the next day.
