Where are Danny and Ryan (Final Exam)

Name these beaches...

Time: Throughout the trip
Difficulty: Very Hard. 2 points per beach for naming the beach exactly, 1 point for the locale without the beach name (such as the town), 1/2 point for the country the beach is in. Not all beaches may have exact names, so 1 point each would be the maximum for those.

With this many points on the line, it's still anyone's game!

1 - Plage St. Francois / Citadel Beach, Corsica	2 - Barcelona, Spain	3 - Monkey Beach, Thailand
4	5	6 - Bondi Beach, Australia
7 - Ipanema Beach, Brazil	8 - Cathedral Cove, New Zealand	9 - (New Zealand)
10	11 - Fossil Shell Beach, Thailand	12 - Punta Tombo, Argentina
13	14	15 - (Torres del Paine Park)

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Cruise Day 12: Disembarkation

Here we are in our last hours of the cruise. It's a short day, since we disembark right after breakfast and we've said as many goodbyes last night already as we hoped to do. Our bags are packed and set out, collected already, except one backpack and our laptops. We stayed out late dancing, then stayed up later packing up the few tidbits that tend to wait until the last minute, and now we're off to our final breakfast.
May 26, 2010

Here we are in our last hours of the cruise. It's a short day, since we disembark right after breakfast and we've said as many goodbyes last night already as we hoped to do. Our bags are packed and set out, collected already, except one backpack and our laptops. We stayed out late dancing, then stayed up later packing up the few tidbits that tend to wait until the last minute, and now we're off to our final breakfast.

We're at Lumiere's again, though that doesn't really make a difference since each night the menu is the same at all restaurants except on the three specific theme days early in the cruise, and it's certainly the case the everyone's getting the same breakfast this morning. Since we have the late dinner, we get the late breakfast, at 8:00 am. Early diners have to be at breakfast by 6:45 and then out in an hour so they can clean up for our arrival.

I ordered more granola and yogurt with fruit. It's taken me this long but I'm finally able to get near enough to what I want without being calculatingly difficult. Ryan has an omlette. We both have grapefruit juice.

We say goodbye to our dinner mates and our servers, and our neighbors, Mike and Michelle and Collin and Shane, and Tracy, their tablemate with her husband and their son Hunter. We wave to Evan and his sister Jennah (with an h, then? I've been spelling it without), and her boyfriend Chris, and their parents. We don't see anyone else that we know, I think. Not Daniel or Peter, who have the late seating with us but in a different restaurant, nor Kia and her family, who also have a different rotation of the late seating.

Our table 12, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Mike and Michelle's table, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Evan, Jennah, and Chris, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Breakfast is over and we're getting our bags and walking off the cruise. It's easy to disembark, even though we toyed briefly with the idea of finding room on the next one, because it was so much fun, even though it would be different with different people and no longer a new experience, and being a 10-day cruise without the extra middle day at sea. But we never know when our next adventure is going to turn out to be fun or a disaster, because of weather, or cost, or some other unexpected factor. In the end, though, there was no room, and it would probably have been too expensive (more than the discounted rate we'd gotten on this one), and anyway, the point for this world trip is to keep trying out new things, so we're happy to stick to our plan.

I can say that the next place we've gone to, along the southern coast of France, has turned out to be as much fun as the cruise. We're at a campsite with a beautiful river and all sorts of fun and friendly people around, and we're already thinking in our heads how next year we need to have a whole month off in May and June so we can take another cruise and go camping in the south of France again, right after. Anyway, so we're having a good time.

After this, I'm hoping we'll jump back in time again to Christmas Eve, 2009, in Sydney, Australia. We were expecting warm, summery weather (it's mid-summer there at that time), but instead when we arrive, we're greeted with cold rain and grey skies. It does get better, for a bit, but rain will be the theme for the next several months, pretty much up until this cruise. I hope I can pick out the better parts to write about, since there were some, interspersed with the plague of rain that made for a chilly, disappointing (weather-wise, at least) summer.
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Cruise Day 11: At Sea

Today was our last full day on the ship, and a day at sea, so we intended for it to be relaxing. We started out with a trip to the gym, to continue working off some of the rich food we'd been eating. After that, we headed to the Topsider Buffet for a light brunch.

May 25
Today was our last full day on the ship, and a day at sea, so we intended for it to be relaxing. We started out with a trip to the gym, to continue working off some of the rich food we'd been eating. After that, we headed to the Topsider Buffet for a light brunch. The salad, cocktail shrimp, and crab claws made me happy, but Danny wasn't initially as enthusiastic.

Top deck, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

The main event for the day was packing. We had to have our bags packed and outside our stateroom door between 8 and 10pm that evening. So, we had to separate out what we needed for tonight and tomorrow morning and make sure that could fit into something we could easily carry to breakfast and then off the ship.

Early in the cruise, I'd heard about a behind-the-scenes tour that you could take that would show you backstage of the theater, including some of the mechanics that make it work. Around Day 8, I'd seen no mention of this in our personal navigators, so I asked guest services. They said it was called the keychain tour, and it happened on the last sea day, but we needed a free reservation. We selected a time slot and got tickets. Later I looked more closely at the tickets and saw that it said "Galley Tour". Puzzled, I called guest services and asked if the different time slots were different tours, but they said they were all the same. It did end up being a tour of the galley, and while it was kind of interesting, and we got a hot cookie, it wasn't what we'd been looking for. We assume that different tours happened on the earlier sea days, but we never asked to find out.

The galley tour led us through the kitchens for Lumiere's and Parrot Cay. They're quite large, and have the all stainless steel look (even the ceiling) that you might expect in a naval kitchen. It didn't look all that different from what I'd seen on a battle ship or aircraft carrier. Some tidbits I remember: They start out preparing the main courses twenty at a time. At the end of the serving, they typically have about 5 left over. The cast galley, on another level, operates around the clock and serves a wide variety of foods from many different countries to satisfy the needs of the crew. I presume this is where the indian food came from that the head server ordered for us that night.

Galley tour, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

After the galley tour, we had a martini tasting. This went much better than the rum tasting, although the introduction for it made Danny nervous about it - it was another sheet of paper that had the drinks listed, and only 1 was an actual martini, and a vodka one at that (instead of gin, which is what makes a true martini). The other three drinks were a Washington Apple (made with Crown Royal instead of the expected vodka), Ivory Keys (a coconut, melon, and pineapple drink), and Chocolate Wrap (a chocolate and vanilla martini). All 3 tasted good, and the Washington Apple was the biggest surprise. Additionally, we discussed shaken vs. stirred martinis: a shaken one will be colder, initially cloudy, and weaker because it will contain more water. Additionally, shaking a gin martini will cause the flavor of the gin to become very strong, which could be good or bad, depending on your taste, but is called "bruising" the gin. So the explanation for the James Bond request is that he wanted to drink, but would become slightly less intoxicated with a shaken martini. Either that, or he liked it very cold or with a strong flavor.

Tonight's entertainment was the biggest show yet, one which has won awards for the best cruise ship show. It harvests all the best musical numbers from various Disney movies, and has a staggering amount of costumes. Very impressive and a lot of fun.

Arabian scene, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Rooftop scene, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Big finale, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Then it was back to packing, since we had to finish and set our things out before dinner. Our final dinner was at Lumiere's, and we took the camera to get some photos of our table, and the other people we'd gotten to know. In some ways, the closed environment of a cruise ship reminds me of a college dorm. One of the reasons we'd decided on the cruise was to do something that was more social, so we could meet some people for an extended period of time, and we accomplished that.

For dinner, together we had lamb sirloin, lentil filo pies, lobster bisque, chicken stay, and tuna sashimi. Dessert was chocolate decadence and a baked Alaska that was previewed was a musical march by the waiters, complete with fire.

Since tonight was the last night, we wanted to shut down Rockin' Bar D with a bang. Danny requested a hula hoop from one of the cast members, which they were able to find in one of the children's areas, and I brought my poi (not the flaming ones, the practice ones with the long tails). When the night got late and the dance floor was empty, we brought out the toys and made ourselves the object of a bunch of photos. Both of us had to be careful not to hit the dance floor lights, since the ceiling was low. Although I don't have another cruise to compare it to, I suspect that a Disney cruise is more lighthearted and fun loving than others. Not just the way the cast and crew behave, but how the children and adult guests feel and act too.
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Cruise Day 10: Villefranche

At the beginning of the cruise, when we were planning what to do and when, we didn't have any good ideas for the last port stop in Villefranche, on the southern coast of France between Nice and Monaco. We knew the port would be tendered, so that's a hassle, and looking at the official cruise excursions didn't give us any ideas (visit a fancy car museum/collection in Monte Carlo, taste wine and cheese in Nice, etc.) so we decided it would be played "by ear." This gave us the option of staying on the ship if we were tired, or if the on-board activities were more fun than we were expecting. We elected to take this option, and started off a beautiful day in the bay of Villefranche with a late brunch at the Topsider Buffet, which was featuring a special menu: A Taste of Provence.

May 24, 2010

At the beginning of the cruise, when we were planning what to do and when, we didn't have any good ideas for the last port stop in Villefranche, on the southern coast of France between Nice and Monaco. We knew the port would be tendered, so that's a hassle, and looking at the official cruise excursions didn't give us any ideas (visit a fancy car museum/collection in Monte Carlo, taste wine and cheese in Nice, etc.) so we decided it would be played "by ear." This gave us the option of staying on the ship if we were tired, or if the on-board activities were more fun than we were expecting. We elected to take this option, and started off a beautiful day in the bay of Villefranche with a late brunch at the Topsider Buffet, which was featuring a special menu: A Taste of Provence.

Villefrance-sur-Mer, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

I suppose we felt like we had stumbled on some well-kept secret, that the buffet has better food on the port days, but this was the first day we didn't have anything particular planned so we could have the opportunity to find this out. Anyhow, we enjoyed some aubergine salad, asparagus in truffle jus, Spanish-style pinxtos (little bruchettas) with fresh mozzarella and tomato, a fair attempt at a coq au vin, and sliced baguette to pair with our French cheeses with Corsican confiture du chataigne, and the muscato from La Spezia. Oh, what a splendid banquet, and the clear blue sky, and the steep hills of Villefranche just across the water. It was an awesome brunch.

Tapas at the lunch buffet, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Banquet on deck, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Though we woke late, I still managed to visit the gym and rainforest room at the spa before breakfast, and I was feeling very refreshed, with the good workout, relaxing steam and lush mid-morning feast. Ryan's been wanting to play shuffleboard on the ship, I think since we started considering the cruise, so we went and played a couple games of that and then spent more time exploring the ship. (There's a pool we can see but can't figure out how to get to. Our best deduction was that it was reserved for some top-end stateroom suites, but even then we couldn't find the logical door. Several times when we thought we were on the right track, we were blocked by a Staff Only door. Later someone confirmed that it's a staff pool, which I suppose makes more sense.)

Shuffleboard, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Now we're tired, so we headed to our room for a little reading, but then decided what we needed was a good beer. We'd seen some Murphy's Stout on tap at several of the bars, so at 4:00 (a perfectly respectable drinking hour, I'd say, especially for an afternoon beer), we went in search of our Stouts. The first bar we tried was closed and there was nothing going on there. We wandered to another bar and found it closed, too, but then we ran into Lola (a girl I met earlier on the ship when I was rescuing a drowning dragonfly) and she had just begun a game of Wheel of Fortune as a pass-time. We joined her team and ended up winning the game. One of the other teams was an older couple who had done two back-to-back cruises aboard the Magic and had now been at sea nearly 20 days! And they'd played Wheel of Fortune on the ship before, and despite having seen several of the questions in earlier games, they still managed to get a final score of zero. Sigh. Our main competition was the third team, which gave us a good run for our (fake) money. We had just reversed the lead for the third or fourth time when the round ended with us in first place. The woman running the game decided that some prizes were in order, so she returned with little plastic balls of lip balm for each contestant. Mine was pineapple scented.

Promenade lounge, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Then we went to the last bar where we hoped to find our beers, and we did find them there, and tried to play a trivia game with Lola on our team again, but we didn't do as well. But the beer was good.

Tonight's entertainment was a crew talent show, which was fun, but again not as spectacular as the big production shows. We heard some amazing vocals from several cast members, but then there were also a couple hokey numbers that could have been skipped. So it goes. It was a shorter show that started late, so we came dressed for dinner already, which for us tonight will be at the exclusive restaurant (requiring reservations), Palo's.

Oh, what we ate: four cheese pizza to start with (shared between us), with gorgonzola and soft white cheeses on a delectably crisp crust; my grilled shrimp salad which was terrific, though Ryan's calamari wasn't as spectacular as the reviews from other people predicted. I had room for a marché salad before the main course. For mains, Ryan had lamb, which was delicious, and I dared a halibut with ginger-orange sauce, but shouldn't have (the sauce was too sweet and not nearly bold enough for me, and I found the fish soft and weak instead of robust; sigh, again). We ordered the obligatory chocolate soufflé for dessert, broken with a spoon and filled with dark chocolate sauce; and shared a tiramisu, too, with a shot of espresso poured across the top. We drank a bottle of wine with the meal and staggered out happy.

Dressed up for Palo, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Yummy lamb at Palo, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

We made a quick change at the room before heading off to Rockin' Bar D again for socializing and dancing and had another good night that ran long past bedtime. Lola and her friends were there, and I think Evan and his gang, too. Michelle may have joined us, and several of our Table 12 mates. This is how the last several evenings were, so on any night this may be true. We talked and danced and stopped for a breath when the music went to hip hop, and then requested new songs and got up and danced again. By the end, DJ Matt was tossing in our choices without waiting for us to pester him, and we had so much fun I sweated in all my shirts and never got more than 5 hours of sleep before we had to get up and do it all over again.
Tomorrow's our last full day, a sea day, and then we'll be back in Barcelona for disembarkation. Wah.

Sunset, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

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Cruise Day 9: Ajaccio (Corsica)

Today was to be the start of the more leisurely days. No more hurrying to get on a train, see a site, and then get back to the ship with enough time to be safe. Instead, we were just going to go to a beach. So, we slept a bit late, and just got to breakfast before it closed.
May 23

Today was to be the start of the more leisurely days. No more hurrying to get on a train, see a site, and then get back to the ship with enough time to be safe. Instead, we were just going to go to a beach. So, we slept a bit late, and just got to breakfast before it closed.

Again, we had breakfast at Lumiere's, and again I had the eggs benedict. I have to say, they've got the cooking of the eggs nailed. Each time, the eggs have been perfect, not overcooked and semi-solid, and not undercooked with runny whites.

Ajaccio, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

We'd intended to go to Tahiti beach. According to the Lonely Planet, it was 5km east of town, via the #1 bus, and the bus terminal was the same building as the port terminal. Well, the bus terminal didn't handle the city buses, but we found out we could pick it up a couple blocks uphill. So, we walked up there and found a bus stop for bus #1. We waited about 10 minutes, but no bus came. It was Sunday, so we thought they might be on a reduced schedule. We did notice in a tourist pamphlet that we'd picked up that there were also several beaches right in town, and a string of them heading west. So we decided to check out the closest two, and if neither of those were good, we'd take a bus west to some that had good looking pictures in the brochure.

The first beach, right next to the castle was very rocky. Not huge rocks, but lots of fist sized ones right as you enter the water. There were a lot of people on this beach because it was very close, but it didn't look very inviting. We kept walking. The next beach had very coarse sand, but no stones. Partway down the beach, we ran into Lola (who Danny had met at the pool), and her friends Sky, Michelle, Lindsey, Anthony, John, Andrew, and ultra-pale Alex. They were in the process of sampling as many Corsican wines as they could (perhaps 12 bottles or so), and getting some sun. The weather was very nice - a hot sun but a cool breeze, and you could go in the cool water if you got too hot. We ended up staying there well into the afternoon.

The first beach in town, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

Some people in Lola's group got a bit hungry, so went to the grocery store across the street in search of bread and cheese. Unfortunately, since it was Sunday, the grocery store closed around 1, and wouldn't open again until 8, and most of the other small shops had closed as well. They gave up, but Danny and I were getting hungry too, so we went looking for a restaurant I'd read about that sounded good. It turned out to be only open for dinner (as the guidebook said, but I hadn't noticed). We did find a bakery that was open, so we got a baguette to eat with the goat cheese we had.

On the way out of the port terminal, we'd seen some animals and farm equipment for a local agricultural fair. I thought we'd check out the building that also had some things in it to see if there was any food. It was full of yummy treats! Local farmers, most organic, were selling cheeses, meats, honeys, jams, perfumes, and wine. Everyone was offering samples, so we tried quite a few and ended up picking out a sheep cheese, some cured ham, and a jar of candied chestnuts.

In front of the boat, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

It was late enough that the buffet was closed, so we got fruit plates at Goofy's Galley to accompany the bread, goat cheese, and one of our Spanish wines. We didn't need a lot, since we'd just had a fair number of samples, and dinner would be soon. After lunch, we hit the rain forest room for some relaxation. Danny got a good, hour long nap in the hot stone lounge chairs.

Tonight's dinner was at the Animator's Palette, and the theme was "Flavors of the Mediterranean". Danny tried one of the specialty drinks, rum with honey, lime and basil. It was interesting, but not quite what we were hoping for. A bar earlier in the trip had had a really interesting sounding basil drink, but whenever we went there, they were out of basil. For an appetizer, I had the fried soft shell crab and the Egyptian spinach soup. Danny had the same soup and the frisee salad. We both made a mistake. The soup was great, an interesting and spicy taste. But my crab was overbreaded, the breading wasn't crispy, and the crab was missing all but two legs. One other person at the table got the crab, and she was similarly disappointed. The frisee salad, contrary to its name, was mostly composed of iceberg lettuce. Another person at the table got a lentil appetizer, and its garnish had more frisee than Danny's salad. For the main course, we both got the lamb sirloin. Danny thought it was tough, compared to the wonderful lamb shank he'd had several nights before, but I thought it was fine. Someone else at the table really loved the spinach and filo pie, so we got a side order of that, and they were really good.

For dessert, I got the flourless chocolate cake and Danny got the Barcelona butterscotch sundae. The sundae was good, but my expectations were too high for the cake. One of the special desserts that I make myself is a flourless chocolate cake, and I was expecting the density of this one to match mine. Nope. They either cheated and put flour or a flour substitute in it, or whipped the daylights out of it. Oh well. By now I've learned not to expect too much from their chocolate or their cheesecake.

After a break, we hit Rockin' Bar D for the tail end of Disco 70s night and the regular DJing. Dance, dance, dance! Table 12 made a solid appearance, and the guy running the show put a hard hat on Danny and had him lead part of the YMCA dance on stage (even though Danny looked more like an architect in a suit and hardhat than a construction worker). Then it was time to run a quick load of laundry and head to bed. Fortunately, tomorrow was to be another late start, so a late night didn't hurt too much.
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Cruise Day 8: La Spezia

Teaser only here Today we landed in La Spezia, Italy, about an hour away from Pisa, or a little farther for Florence. We've been to Florence a couple times, but never to Pisa so we decided to head there and go up the tower. We had actually made this plan soon after booking the cruise so we'd gone ahead and bought train tickets and made a reservation for the 12:40 ascent up the tower. There's no where for the cruise ship to dock, so we have to tender to the port, which means taking small ferries between ship and shore. We knew that tendering could lead to a delay in getting ashore, so we purchased tickets on the 10:00 train and planned to get on the earliest tendering ferry that we could.
May 22, 2010

Today we landed in La Spezia, Italy, about an hour away from Pisa, or a little farther for Florence. We've been to Florence a couple times, but never to Pisa so we decided to head there and go up the tower. We had actually made this plan soon after booking the cruise so we'd gone ahead and bought train tickets and made a reservation for the 12:40 ascent up the tower. There's no where for the cruise ship to dock, so we have to tender to the port, which means taking small ferries between ship and shore. We knew that tendering could lead to a delay in getting ashore, so we purchased tickets on the 10:00 train and planned to get on the earliest tendering ferry that we could.

I had planned for us to save time by having room service deliver our breakfast. We have door hangers with little checkboxes for the breakfast items you'd like, and we filled that out when we returned to our room after dancing last night at 1:30 am. The order form says you have to hang it up by 3:00 am, so I assumed we were okay, but in the morning the breakfast never arrived, and then I noticed that our order form was still hanging on our doorknob - it had never been taken. So we had to rush up to the buffet instead to get some cereal and apples for later, and then we assembled at the proper place to queue for the ferry.

The tendering process was much faster than we'd anticipated and we were off in the first boat. We got to shore and walked up to the train station. Aylish and Eric (some of our dining mates) went with us to the station and bought tickets for the 9:00 train. Our tickets were for a 10:00 train, but we weren't permitted to switch them to the earlier departure. So we spent an hour writing blog entries (we carried a laptop ashore with us) and then took the 10:00 train as scheduled.

The train ride was 50 minutes, and then we were in Pisa. From the station, we still needed to walk about 25 minutes to get to the central plaza where the tower and other monumental buildings are. As we approached, we knew the leaning tower would appear any moment, but even with this anticipation, it still managed to surprise me with just how tilted over it is. I tried taking several photographs and noticed this: photos don't convey the reality of the lean that well. When I look at the tower, it looks impressively slanted, but in the photo, it looks upright, or just tipped a bit. I don't know if it has to do with the curve of the camera lens, or if it needs to be seen in 3D, or what, but no photograph I took, no matter how contrived to enhance the lean looked as unreal as the lean of the actual tower. I wonder if a movie can do a better job than a still photo, but I didn't shoot any film. We were a little early for our appointment and so we exchanged our reservation printout for the tower tickets and then explored a bit. As I mentioned, there are several other buildings in the plaza, and though they aren't as tall so the effect is less noticeable, it looks like they are slumping into the ground, too. We took some photos of this and that, and dropped our laptop bag off in the luggage lockers and then lined up to ascend the tower.

Pisa, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

Someone else counted the number of stairs to the top; I didn't. I'm sure that information is available on the web. Anyhow, there were many steps to the top. Since the tower leans, the staircases lean, too. As we walked around and around up the spiral stairs of unevenly worn marble with big scoops eroded from their middles, we were tipped this way and that, around and around, and the uneven footing, the slant of the tower and the dim, narrow stairwells went well with our sea legs. We felt drunk and woozy and I think climbing the tower after several days at sea is now our recommendation.

On top of the tower is a bell platform where the leaning of the tower is evident in the way the bells hang. In order to ring properly, the bells must have their clappers centered and vertical, which means they have to be adjusted and repositioned as the tower leans over. There were great views of the plaza and the city from here, but there's still one higher rim atop the tower to which we can climb, so we did. The view gets even better from here, but there are fewer visual reminders of the lean, so I think we preferred the bell platform best. It's amusing to me that all the metal railings around the top of the tower are not in the original design. Even with these guard rails, some people were sitting and scooting around from place to place, because without the railings there is nothing but stairs down to the edge of the tower and then a steep drop.

Top of the leaning tower, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

The tickets are issued to limit the number of people on the tower at any time (25 tickets are granted for each 20 minute interval) and we'd stayed up the tower for nearly 40 minutes by now, so we headed back down and went to view the cathedral for an extra 2€. The most impressive thing about this cathedral is the plethora of master paintings along the walls, which we were happy to gape at. There's also an enormous curved mosaic in the alcove behind the altar. I don't remember which painter was said to have done most of this work, but it's impressive. Along the side of the pew area of the cathedral is an elaborate podium. There's one of these in most or all Catholic cathedrals but I don't know its name. Anyhow, the one here is pretty ornate with many small details. It took the sculptor ten years to complete.

From Cruise 2010 - Ports

We had hoped to have time to sample some Tuscan lunch while we were here, but there wasn't time for that any more, since our return train was at 15:00. Fortunately, we did have time to stop at a chocolate shop and liked their gelato flavors, too. So we got rhum babas and gelati (Ryan tried to mix gusto caffe and mango - good flavors on their own but quite challenging to pair. I took the safer combination of strawberry balsamic panna cotta and a very delicious sesamo). Unfortunately for us and our rhum babas, we ordered them to go and so they were not freshly drizzled (soaked!) in rum like the ones we had in Barcelona, which are the second best we've ever had to those in Paris. Still, they were tasty enough and would contribute to a regret later in the day (I'll get to that).

Now it's time to return to La Spezia, but our 15:00 train has been delayed 20 minutes and so the slow train (that we can't take without abandoning our pre-paid tickets) will probably arrive first, despite leaving a couple minutes after 3. At 3:20, our train still hasn't arrived and now the schedule says it's a 30 minute delay. At 3:30, chaos reigned.

At 3:30, a train arrived in bin 4, which was what we expected. Expectedly, a whole bunch of people boarded the train, including a frazzled family of parents and children in strollers with luggage tags bearing the initials BCN. If their bags had been checked to Barcelona, we figured that they must be on our cruise (or some cruise) and therefore heading to La Spezia with us. Just as we prepared to board the train in bin 4, there was an announcement which we couldn't hear well, and the sign moved our expected train to bin 3, where there was currently no train. This confusion made us hesitate, and then we also noticed that the train we had been preparing to board didn't look like the right company (we were waiting for a Eurostar train), so then we had to figure out whether and how to warn the frazzled family before they went the wrong direction and became stranded, never to see the cruise ship again. I hurried up the steps and stuck my head into the cabin while keeping my arm and leg outside the train, in the hopes that I'd have enough warning to jump off should the train before I got caught in the same fate. I managed to get everyone heading to La Spezia off the train (just for that car) and then the sign switched again, saying bin 4. Now we all hovered in the limbo between expectation and misdirection. The frazzled little girl began to cry because she wanted to get on the train. The frazzled mother tore her hair and fretted. An Englishman went this way and that, and the announcer said something in Italian. Finally, we all agreed that this was the wrong train and headed to bin 3 to wait for the proper train. One came 10 minutes later and at last we were all boarded and heading in the right direction.

We picked up a cheap bottle of Tuscan Chianti on the way back to the ship and some spumante muscato. We got back early enough to take a nap and visit the rainforest room in the spa (in case this hasn't been explained yet, the rainforest area has a couple steam rooms with hot steam and several beds of heated rock tile. Soothing music mixes with the tinkle of water from the fountain and it's a nice place to relax or try to kill a chest cold, which is what Ryan got in Sevilla and I've been trying to avoid.) After recuperating, we finished preparing our costumes for the night.

Each day on the ship there is some theme. Today's theme was Pirates! Ryan and I had hustled out before the cruise to the thrift shop in Barcelona and bought items which could be turned into costumes and now, back aboard the Magic, we donned pirate rags and adjusted our eye patches, and headed up to dinner. A good number of other people were wearing costumes - either hand made like ours or ones of Disney merchandise like Jack Sparrow dreds or Cap'n Hook regalia. Children, especially, were in outlandish pirate garb, but some adults were dressed in high theme, too. All the staff had special uniforms with a pirate theme, and at our dinner tables we all received flimsy headscarves with pirate designs on them. Anyone without a costume could wear this to fit better with the festive spirit and soon most people had on something piratey and the place was filled with "aarghs" and "yo-ho-hos."

From Cruise 2010 - On the boat

For supper, we had some conch chowder and crab cakes and a macadamia nut crusted mahi-mahi for the main course. It wasn't as good as what you'd find in Hawai`i (of course), but I liked it still. We also ordered one of the specialty dinner cocktails which had sparkling white wine, Malibu rum and apple schnapps in it. Dessert was a terribly disappointing rum baba. We'd had a choice of rum babas or ice cream sundays with rum raisin ice cream and a rum caramel sauce. I thought I'd prefer the ice cream, but I'd had gelato already and didn't want to break the rule for this option, so I risked the rum baba and regretted it, especially since I'd had a much better one already today. The problem with the cruise rum baba was that there was no rum in it, only regular sugar syrup. Alas!

After dinner there was a pirate party on deck, and a huge buffet had been laid out, including a vast array of desserts. Now I really wish I hadn't had the inferior rumless baba, but I was too full to touch the after dinner buffet. I suppose people who ate at the earlier seating were hungry enough to go again, especially since I saw numerous people strutting about with massive turkey thighs wielded like clubs, from which they were taking immense, messy bites. The party included a cast member-led group dance and then some Disney pirates made an appearance only to be defeated by Captain Mickey, who rode down on a zip line. Then there were brilliant fireworks, which are not normally allowed on ships because of their resemblance to distress signals, but which the Disney ships are permitted somehow.

Pirate party, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Mickey ziplines in, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

We attended the adult karaoke (it only means no children, not raunchy or racy) but I started to fall asleep because I was so tired [it was Wind Beneath my Wings that did us in --Ryan]. We heard a handful of numbers and then slipped off to bed. Good night!
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Cruise Day 7: At Sea

Danny started the day out right with a trip to the gym. I slept in and went after breakfast. Today's breakfast was a special one, the "character breakfast", so it had a fixed time and location.

May 21

Danny started the day out right with a trip to the gym. I slept in and went after breakfast. Today's breakfast was a special one, the "character breakfast", so it had a fixed time and location. Unfortunately the food for the character breakfast was some of the poorest. I had a belgian waffle which was more like a limp Eggo, and Danny got a bagel that was missing all of its toppings (smoked salmon and onion). During the character breakfast Mickey, Minnie, Chip, Dale, and Goofy came by the table for pictures with everyone.

Character breakfast, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Table 12 with napkin headwear, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

While I took my time at the gym, Danny went to investigate the princess gathering. I'd expected that it would be all the Disney princesses together, with little girls dressed up in princess outfits getting their pictures taken. That was pretty close, but the princesses were all separate. Then Danny did some writing and laid out in the sun on the deck.

For lunch, we hit the buffet. We both constructed salads, and I had a pile of cocktail shrimp too. After lunch, Danny went to play the adult pool games.

[Danny here, since Ryan was off tasting cocktails at a mixology class, he didn't see the pool games. When I arrived, there wasn't anything going on yet and I wasn't sure even what to expect. Would they just throw some inflatable toys into the adult pool, or would we all do inane things like try to touch our toes underwater? I was ignorant. Eventually two of the crew, David and DJ Matt set up their sound system and called the adults to order. The games would be a series of three competitions, to be fought girls against boys. Four volunteers from each sex were called for, and I raised my hand and got included in the men's team.

The first game was a relay race in which we had to push a ball along with our noses, one lap down the pool and one lap back. The girls got a ball like a volleyball, but to give the men a handicap we were given a ping pong ball. Our small ball turned out to ride the wake very well and we kept abreast of the women for the first two relays, but then our third man lost the ball and bumped into a large woman splashing herself by the side of the pool. I did my best to make up lost time, and did quite well, but we still lost the race.

In the second competition, David threw a bunch of gold coins into the pool and we had to collect them for our team. He announced that we'd get an advantage in this competition since we had baggy swim shorts with cargo pockets, but not I. I wore a speedo style suit with no pockets. David laughed and gave me a coin to start with to tuck where I could. I jumped in an scooped up a whole section of coins and the mens' team won handily.

In the third race, we had to relay across the pool and back again, with a t-shirt being passed from swimmer to swimmer. We did very well, but then as our fourth man swam back, the host David jumped in the pool and dragged our man down. We all tried to get him back to the finish line, but then the women started pushing us back in the water. Thus, we lost the games, but everyone who participated still got a free drink. There were 10 drinks for 8 contestants, so one of the other men and I each took the leftovers when they were cleaning up. I had fun, and got two free drinks from it ;) Now back to Ryan's narrative. --Danny]

For my part, I went to the Mixology 101 class, where we made (and drank) 5 drinks. The first was a martini (regular and dirty), second was a mojito, third was Sunken Treasure, fourth a margarita, and fifth was a B52 shot. While the drink were tasty, I did actually learn a few things from the class. First was that I don't like a dirty martini - it's far too salty. Second was I learned that I'd been making mojitos wrong - if you crush the mint to the point of breakage, that's too much, as it will make the drink bitter. Third was I got to practice with using a spoon to layer the B52 shot, and found out why the one time I'd tried it before it hadn't worked. You turn the spoon upside down, and then put the end of the spoon just above the layer of liquid, touching the edge of the glass, and pour the new layer very slowly onto the hump of the spoon.

Then we met back up at the Latin dance class where we paired up with a ballet dancer and her mother to learn the meringue and a few steps of the salsa. The meringue was pretty easy. Danny got the salsa steps quite easily, but I had trouble with one of the three patterns, even though it was the same as the other patterns, just in a different direction. We did work up a sweat.

Since it was a sea day, there was a big show this evening: Villains Tonight! The dinner theme was also Villains, so I dressed in black and Danny dressed in purple (a common color for Disney villains). The show was quite good, and like the others, had a great array of costumes, and a lot of song and dance numbers. **SPOILER ALERT** The plot of the show was that Hades has lost his evil since being defeated by Hercules, and the Fates are going to kick him out of the Underworld if he can't get his evil back. So, he summons up many of the past Disney villains to increase his evil. The show includes some fun repartee between the Evil Queen of Snow White and Maleficent as to who is the most evil, which ends up in an audience booing contest. I hadn't seen the Emperor's New Groove, so I wasn't familiar with Yzma, but now I want to see that movie.

Evil queens, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Villains, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Dinner was at Parrot Cay. I had crusted baked ravioli, scallops over risotto, swordfish steak, and the ultimate chocolate ending. Danny had baby greens salad, roast duckling, and a ricotta brulee. In addition to the normal meal, the table manager had arranged for some indian food for us. So, we also got a huge platter of basmati rice and a tasty chicken saag. As usual, the food was excellent. The desserts always seems a little disappointing. Usually the cheesecake tastes like a frozen one - too airy and fluffy, and the chocolate desserts aren't dense enough - the ultimate chocolate ending fell into this category, and fell far short of its name. The ricotta brulee was really good though.

Dinner menu, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

Dinner menu, from Cruise 2010 - On the boat

After dinner, we had a rum tasting that we'd signed up for early on. We'd hoped this might inform us a bit about rum, but it was kind of disappointing. We had 3 different rums to taste, plus a caprihana made with cachaca, which is like a rum. One of the rums was Malibu, which is really cheating. The other two were Bacardi Silver and Appleton VX. I could tell that the Bacardi was by far the more mixable of the two, and that Mailbu was very weak compared to a standard rum, but that was really all that we learned.

During the day, we'd tried to convince people to show up to the late night DJ session at Rocking Bar D. So after the tasting, we headed there to see if we could get a dance party started. Sure enough, Tennille and Greg, and Amir and Carla, from our dining table had shown up, plus Jenna, Chris, and Evan who we'd originally met one night in the hottub. Plus, Lola and her friends from the rum tasting showed up independently. Danny guided DJ Matt with songs we'd been hearing in our travels, plus some other good ones. When he stuck to that (instead of diverging into hip hop) we had a pretty good group going, and had a few other couples out on the floor too. That went on until about 1:30am, when the DJ played a string of bad songs and we called it quits.
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Cruise Day 6: Civitavecchia

The ship docked in the port of Rome today. Civitavecchia is actually an hour away from the city of Rome, but it's the closest port, or at least it's the one we used. Since we've been to Rome several times before and seen a lot of it, we decided to visit the ancient port city Ostia (now called Ostia Antica) that sits at the mouth of the Tiber river. The Roman ruins there are fairly well preserved and there are some large mosaics and intact buildings worth a visit.
May 20, 2010

The ship docked in the port of Rome today. Civitavecchia is actually an hour away from the city of Rome, but it's the closest port, or at least it's the one we used. Since we've been to Rome several times before and seen a lot of it, we decided to visit the ancient port city Ostia (now called Ostia Antica) that sits at the mouth of the Tiber river. The Roman ruins there are fairly well preserved and there are some large mosaics and intact buildings worth a visit.

Civitavecchia, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

We thought to save time this morning by ordering breakfast from room service, and thus I was finally able to get my granola with fruit and yogurt without having it all blended together, or with milk added in, or any of the other ways I keep encountering when trying to get this simple breakfast dish. Why do they need to make it more complicated than it is? Even still, I failed to specify plain, unsweetened yogurt, so I wound up with black cherry sugared yogurt, which wasn't bad, just not what I'm looking for.

After breakfast, we rushed out of the boat and took a shuttle to the end of the pier, which took about 15 minutes. It's walkable, but takes about a half hour to get from boat to the end of the pier, and then whether arriving by shuttle or on foot, it's still another 20 minutes to the train station from there.

We took the train in to Roma Termini and went straight to our favorite pasticceria (U. Giuliani's - it's got a big green sign) and had caffe and croissant and some glacéed clementines for us and for later and for our hall neighbors, Mike, Michelle, and their kids Collin and Shane. Then back to the Termini train station to take the metro another train station and from there we caught another train to Ostia. We used all this travel time to write journal entries and read books or nap, and then we arrived at the ancient port.
[If anyone can tell us how to make these glaceed oranges, we'd really, really like to know. We've made some attempts, but they've never turned out right. --Ryan]

From Cruise 2010 - Ports

A map of the ruins was an additional 2€. We bought one even though it only gave names and not descriptions of the buildings because we had the Lonely Planet PDFs on Ryan's iPod for those. There's a large bath (in fact there are several in Ostia) built by Hadrian, with an impressively large mosaic of Neptune and his tritons. We went into an ancient restaurant with a nice fresco of the daily menu still painted on the wall, and a bar of marble in the kitchen where some customers probably sat and drank or placed orders while they were waiting to be seated. We explored some underground tunnels that were probably ancient waterways or something. They were larger than I would imagine for sewers, and shored up in more recent times, but still fun to poke around in the dark with a flashlight. We had to roll up our jeans because of the deep puddles of water in the tunnels. We explored for about two and a half hours, and then, disappointingly, it was time to leave. [Interesting to me was the storefronts that had small mosaics in the front to indicate what they were selling. --Ryan]

From Cruise 2010 - Ports

Tunnels under the baths, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

Bath mosaic, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

We took the train back to Rome and then the subway to the Pantheon stop where we were to get some gelato. I couldn't remember the specific gelateria so Ryan confused me when he went into the first shop we passed and ordered a single scoop ice cream cone. I had some lactaid pills with me specifically for the indulgence of this superb gelato, and now we were in the wrong shop, and ordered some myself. Once I'd paid for my double-scoop cone, Ryan said, you know we're getting gelato again in about thirty minutes. Boy was I mad. What are you doing, going into the wrong store then and suggesting this was our specific destination? I didn't know you didn't remember the name of the shop, etc. I was furious because I'd wasted my one ice cream for the day on this inferior stuff (it was too soft and the flavors weren't great, just good) and then by the time we sorted everything out my stomach was rumbling in an unpleasant way telling me it couldn't stand any more dairy, even with the pill I'd taken.

We went to the Pantheon and saw the impressiveness of it (again, we've been before, of course), and I dream of someday the Roman Catholic church taking their tacky candles out and restoring the alcoves to statues of the Roman gods. I suppose that's never going to happen.

Pantheon oculus, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

After the Pantheon, we went to the proper gelateria. Now I recognize it. Now I remember it. Too bad my stomach is still upset at me, and I'm still upset at it. I sit on the step while Ryan picks out his favorite flavors. Ryan enjoys his ice cream while we had back to the subway, my stomach still terrorizing me with its borborygmous turbulence. Finally, I've had enough. I can't stand being in Rome on a single serendipitous day and ruining the chance to have some excellent gelato. Ryan was happy to turn back, even though before he'd acted like we were in a rush, and I got some gelato: licorice, caffe espresso and pistachio bronte (bronti?), which I think had a crisp crunch in it and some chocolate swirl. Fortunately I had a second lactaid, and even though I broke my rule of only one ice cream a day, I was happy to make this exception.

From Cruise 2010 - Ports

We tossed a couple coins in the Trevi fountain and then took the train back to Civitavecchia again. Once there, we spent about a half hour uploading prior days' blog entries and then reboarded the Magic and got ready for dinner.

Coins for the Trevi fountain, from Cruise 2010 - Ports

Tonight's theme was Master Chef, and we ordered pheasant for supper. I don't remember the other items (appetizers and salads), nor the dessert. We're trying to get our hands on some menus to help us out with the earlier dinners when we weren't diligent recordkeepers. Peter Pan showed up during dinner and startled guests everywhere with his exceedingly quick movements. We posed for a photo (why not?) and he dashed away again.

After dinner, we tried to meet up with Jenna, Chris and Evan, but the pool was taken over by teenagers having a party. I think those three had come, seen the crowds and left, but Ryan and I swam in the pool a bit while Wall-E played on the big outdoor screen, and then once there was room, we went into the hot tub. Some of the teens returned to the hot tub and we chatted with a couple of them. The movie was almost over by the time we arrived (our dinner table is always slow) and we left once the movie was over because the night had turned cold and windy.
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