shots from my first cruise

Last Mousefest I did the cruise portion as well, it was my first ever cruise. I approached it with a degree of uncertainty, while everyone always says they love the cruise I wasn't sure if it was for me.

I guess I have to admit that basically I enjoyed it. I had a BIG problem with the way they scheduled their dinners, I was on the late rotation and that meant that I kept missing other things. Like their big pirate party, the other people at my table that knew about this gulped down their food and ran out. Since I didn't I missed some of it. And I kept having things closed down on me when I was trying to do things after dinner. I'd be in the pool and then be told that the pool is closed. So I'd go off to the pingpong tables only to find that they've taken away the paddles so I can't play.

Otherwise I had a good time. I couldn't get over the novelty of eating dinner and then walking out without having to pay the check. It was an awful shock to get back to Disney World and have to start paying the rather steep prices for food that frankly wasn't quite as good.

My shots from the cruise are kind of slapdash, I didn't really have a procedure down for when to have my camera with me and what to shoot. For now I offer shots mostly from the two island days. I wasn't overly impressed with Nassau (the first two shots), not even with Atlantis. I mean it was impressive to see, it's a huge structure. But the aquarium failed to impress me. I don't want to suggest anyone else skip it, the theming of the area is impressive and they have some interesting fish, especially the manta ray (NOT a stingray, a manta ray, they're much larger and very intimidating looking yet completely harmless). But if I'd do it again I'd skip the aquarium even if I might still head out to see the massive structure again. I took a water taxi out to the place, which was fun because we had a good guide telling us about stuff we were passing on the way, including who owned the houses on the same peninsula that the light house is on and how much they were worth (YIKES). For the trip back we took a taxi van, and I REALLY enjoyed that. It's just that we passed through what I want to call the REAL Nassau, the homes of people other than the ultra rich, the narrow streets and chaotic traffic patterns.
The other shots are from Castaway Cay. That place didn't quite work for me. Everyone else loves it, this may very well be a quirk of my temperament, but I just didn't "get" it. I had a lot of fun snorkeling in the ocean, except I was too darned buoyant and it was too difficult to dive. Otherwise I couldn't get into the groove of the place. I rented a bike, intending to ride out to the lookout tower only to find that the entire trail leading to it was closed. The beach is accessible by the trail that was still open, it's not for swimming, just for looking and relaxing.
The last shot is of the aft end of the ship. This was the first thing I noticed about the ship when we drove up to the terminal. It was the thing that said "this is a Disney boat". If it's not clear, those are actual figures (giant figures, they had to be big because of the scale of the ship), not just artwork on the hull.
Also, incidentally, the area at the bottom of the image, the openings in the hull, look into what seems to me to be the least polished, the most industrial looking, publicly accessible areas of the ship. I was walking around exploring things and suddenly I found myself in there and stopped in my tracks, wondering if I'd ended up somewhere I wasn't supposed to be. But it seemed clear that I'd followed a public pathway that looped around this area. You can see some enormous machinery, winches and such, related to working the lines that they use to tie the ship up to shore. The walkway is clearly walled off from the machinery.

Up next, the nightlife.

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You know what I really liked? Standing out on deck, on the upper level where you can feel the wind caused by the motion of the ship, late at night. I loved the quiet, the serenity of it. I could look out over the water and see blackness surrounding the ship, it felt like we were alone in our own little world. Sometimes I could see some distant lights, like a city on far away land or else a distant cruise ship. That always reminded me of something from the Pirates of the Carribean ride.

Anyway, continuing the photo tour. Night-time. I tried working the deck of the ship at night with my tripod, but I suspect I really needed a wider lens. I wanted to capture the dramatic look of the red and blue neon lighting behind the mouse ear emblem on the funnels.

I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about the theatrical shows on board the ship, such things are never really my favorite part of Disney World either. The Tarzan stage show was an anomaly for me, I enjoyed it a lot, but I didn't really get into its replacement, the Finding Nemo show.
But for whatever reason I enjoyed the shows on the ship. Maybe I was starting to get into the whole cruising thing. Partially I was just impressed when I thought that the massive theater I was in was INSIDE a moving ship. But I liked the shows, they were original shows featuring Disney characters rather than attempts to retell the stories in musical form. One had a neat trick, featuring Tinkerbell as a laser effect, lasers projected onto the stage made the sparkling light trail.

As to the Captain Jack shot, that's a guy that was in my dining rotation. We shared a table with our travel agent and her two sons, he's one of them (I can never remember his name though, names are not my strong point). They all got into dressing up as pirates for the Pirates in the Caribbean night, this guy was an uncanny Captain Jack. The shot may not show it adequately, but it's impressive. I actually saw a kid walk up to him asking for his autograph. It appears that they think that he's a character performer, it's that good.
The shot is from karaoke night, where he performed "Girls Just Want to Have Fun". In falsetto. I could barely take the pictures because I was laughing so hard.

It's a curious thing. Immediately after the cruise I was still a little uncertain about the experience. But as time went on I started remembering it more fondly. I thing I'll be doing it again at some point, it was a nice change from the usual grind of park going.

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Very cool! My husband and I have been considering a Disney cruise, but didn't know anyone who had been and could make recommendations. Thanks for sharing!

 

It's odd, I would not be the one to make recommendations. Not that I disliked it, just that I'm generally not a good example of how others would experience something. For example, the one thing I really wished I could do on that cruise was go on a tour of the engine room and talk to someone who works down there to learn the details of how the drivetrain for that ship works. I now know that they have two banks of motors, and it runs slower on one bank and faster on both (it's more fuel efficient to run slow, they only go fast when they have to, like the first night when they made a speed run down to Nassau). But that raises new questions, that doesn't make sense with my other assumptions about how the propulsion system would work.

Even in THAT, they did partially cater to me. They have a big (BIG!) screen TV on the back of one of the funnels that you can see in the "decknight2" shot, it's the big bright white panel (overexposed compared to the rest of the scene). Sometimes they show movies, sometimes it's nothing important, and at least once they did a sort of behind the scenes thing with the bridge crew giving a tour of the inner workings of the bridge. I learned that they have a fascinating system that combines the two groups of side thrusters (small motors mounted sideways in the bow and aft that push sideways to help the ship maneuver in tight spaces) with the main screws and the rudders into a simple control interface consisting of a single joystick that's used to control the ship. They showed some details of a satellite communication system, navigation system.. for a geek like me it was heaven.

Something I made sure to do was photograph this side station that they have on each side of the ship for use when they're docking it. It's out in the open, with a sun umbrella covering it, and the panel is covered by a retractable shield when not in use. It gives the captain access to all the essential ship functions when he's doing the rather impressive job of gently moving the ship up to the pier. Through the behind the scenes video I learned what most of the stuff on this panel is. The two large levers are, of course, the throttles for the two screws (it's not so much for two engines since they use groups of engines, simpler to think of it in terms of each shaft). The display I couldn't see at all in person, but I can zoom in on it and enhance and see what it's showing, I don't really know what each datum displayed on it is though. The two side by side dials on the upper right are the RUDDER controls. Yeah, that floored me too, you control the rudders independently and with small dials instead of with a traditional wheel. I think they have a traditional wheel somewhere, but not there.

To the left of the rudder controls are the thruster controls, the dials with the long handles. I can even tell which is which, because one has three readouts and one has two. There are three bow thrusters, and two aft. If you'll notice one is fully deflected one way, the other in the other direction. I don't remember when I took this picture, but based on that I'm guessing this was when they were rotating the ship 180 degrees to dock it. They turn it around (while remaining stationary, it can rotate in place) and then back into the pier.

Still the fact that they turned around a cynic like me speaks well to their cruise operation. It's an almost evilly seductive operation, from the moment you step aboard they go out of their way to make you happy and at the end of the cruise they make a point of "allowing" you to reserve a future cruise in advance for a discount. From what I hear a LOT of their customers become return customers, and I can understand why.

Apparently we "broke" the ship. I experienced this when I was seeing Ratatouille in their movie theater (they show movies both in the theater and on the outdoor big screen). In the middle of the movie first we lost the sound and then the movie shut off and it went dark. This was a bit disconcerting to the large group of kids seated behind me, I think some groups of their children's activities groups were there. It was kind of funny, when it first went dark the kids were yelling out in surprise, not terribly frightened but at least concerned. One asked "are we going to have to send an SOS?". After a while of no power the leaders (who had flashlights, very nice) were leading the kids in trivia questions. One of my favorite moments of the cruise was when one of the leaders asked the name of another character in the movie who was seen beside Remy, the main character. The kids weren't getting it at all, so they got the hint that he had red fur.

One of the kids shouts out "Eddy Murphy?"

I about died laughing.

During the waiting I smelled gasoline. That was a bit disconcerting, I had visions of running to the life boats.. but eventually we got the power back and everything was fine. But I was told that after we got off they had to hold the ship in port longer than normal and that that delayed the next cruise, they had to change their schedule to accommodate the delay (they can, they have the at sea day first instead of going to Nassau first). There was a problem with a generator. I have to guess that it was the same generator that failed when we were in the theater.


As a side note, it's a good theater. I'm a theater snob, I get unhappy when I'm watching a movie with a tiny screen and terrible sound. It wasn't a huge screen, they only have so much space, but the sound was excellent.

Basically it was a quality experience all around. The worst I can say (besides my harsh words about the late dinner rotation) is that they had a foosball table that was unbalanced. You'd put the ball into play and it would immediately roll into a goal.

And about making recommendations, if you go, DEFINITELY book a Palo meal. If you're not familiar, you normally rotate through their three restaurants. But they have a special Italian place that you have to request in advance and pay a small fee (now $15, which is a bargain). Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, that I saw online raved about that place. I DESPISE dressing up, and it does have a dress code, but I did it for that place. I'm not even a fan of Italian food, and I still loved it. I just loved different things.. everyone else raved about a steak entree, I was moved to a state of near ecstasy simply by eating the gnocchi. The texture was indescribable, the taste was sublime. They had fantastic pizzas and a really good cocktail, a Chambord mojito martini, but from the first bite of the gnocchi I was convinced.
There's a Palo buffet as well that I hear is great, but the dinner was a new experience in excellence for me. Probably the closest I'll get to Victoria and Albert's.

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