The Sea Witch Stole My Voice! Our Two Week Land and Sea Adventure! COMPLETE 4/12

[carissanboys]

As I was looking at the food at Palo I just kept thinking, "How could I ever decide what to eat??" There are so many yummy choices! I'd love to try that mushroom soup.

[morgtroy]

Palo's brunch looks scrumptious. Did you try the chilled strawberry soup? We had that on a cruise with RCC. Like you we were trying new things. I really didn't expect it to be good but it was wonderful! Thanks for sharing, looks like a "must do" when we do get to do the disney cruise.

[princess_momma]

Originally Posted by Lifelong_Dreamer

Definitely do it! I agree that the $15 per person is not bad at all considering the quality of the food, service and atmosphere.

That's really not bad at all!! You've talked me into it!!

As for your stepmom...that's just so ridiculous. Some people will just never be happy and find faults just so they have something to complain about. Sorry you had to deal with that!

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Originally Posted by carissanboys

As I was looking at the food at Palo I just kept thinking, "How could I ever decide what to eat??" There are so many yummy choices! I'd love to try that mushroom soup.

That is not a problem, you can order/eat as much as you want, so long as you don't mind feeling like a glutton.

Originally Posted by morgtroy

Palo's brunch looks scrumptious. Did you try the chilled strawberry soup? We had that on a cruise with RCC. Like you we were trying new things. I really didn't expect it to be good but it was wonderful! Thanks for sharing, looks like a "must do" when we do get to do the disney cruise.

I did not try the strawberry soup there but I have had it before, once at the Grand Floridian and then at Parrot Cay the first day of the cruise. I love strawberry soup but I was focused more on the bread and cheese!

Originally Posted by princess_momma

That's really not bad at all!! You've talked me into it!!

As for your stepmom...that's just so ridiculous. Some people will just never be happy and find faults just so they have something to complain about. Sorry you had to deal with that!

Yeah, it is rather unfortunate that Dad had to pick such an annoying woman to leave my mom for.

[PopArtGal]

Palo looks great. Looks like my kind of place.

As for the e-mail your dad sent you.... Why did he do it? It was uncalled for. You don't need to know all of that.

Let her be. She's a miserable woman who's only happy if everyone else is miserable. Maybe she would have liked to have kids with your father, and you remind her of what she'll never have.

Anywayz, she's not worth the time you spend talking about her

[englishrose47]

Originally Posted by emmaca

Hi Rosie, my dessert was the best, talk about low-cal. I was really good on this trip, I only ordered dessert 2x, the whole time. I ate a lot of fresh fruit each day, as the fruit was so fresh and delicious, I think I had a large fruit plate each morning for breakfast, then I fixed a small plate to take back to the room for snacking on later. It was a VERY HEALTHY cruise for me.

That was def.low cal!!! Good for you Beth!!!

Lessa , I am speechless at Maria's behavior !!! I know that is shocking Rosie being speechless !! The Bros of course looked soooo educated in your Dad's glasses!! But that didn't seem to impress the evil one !!!Who I have renamed Devilia !! An abbreviation for Der Evil Maria !!

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Originally Posted by PopArtGal

Palo looks great. Looks like my kind of place.

As for the e-mail your dad sent you.... Why did he do it? It was uncalled for. You don't need to know all of that.

Let her be. She's a miserable woman who's only happy if everyone else is miserable. Maybe she would have liked to have kids with your father, and you remind her of what she'll never have.

Anywayz, she's not worth the time you spend talking about her

He sent the e-mail because I asked him to let me know what was bugging her if he ever figured it out.

Originally Posted by englishrose47

That was def.low cal!!! Good for you Beth!!!

Lessa , I am speechless at Maria's behavior !!! I know that is shocking Rosie being speechless !! The Bros of course looked soooo educated in your Dad's glasses!! But that didn't seem to impress the evil one !!!Who I have renamed Devilia !! An abbreviation for Der Evil Maria !!

[Mysteria]

Originally Posted by Lifelong_Dreamer

He doesn't have a cell phone.

Smoke signals?

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Originally Posted by Mysteria

Smoke signals?

[FauntleroyFAN07]

sorry to hear that something flew up cruellas hind quarters

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Originally Posted by FauntleroyFAN07

sorry to hear that something flew up cruellas hind quarters

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

After Palo we wandered through Shutters which is the onboard photography service. They are an independent company that has a contract with Disney to provide the photographic services onboard. Their prices are astronomical so I had no plan on buying any of the pictures they took but it was fun to look anyways. I really hope that DCL eventually changes over to a photopass type system, I think many more people would buy the photos if they could view them and decide once home or if they could order a reasonably priced cd with all the pictures on them.

Shutters is also very wasteful, they print out all the pictures they take and have them on display on the walls so if you don't buy the picture the paper and ink have gone to waste. While we were onboard they were starting a computerized kiosk service where you can scan your card and your pictures would show up on screen, this was in addition to the prints that they post. Hopefully they will fully move to the computerized system as it is definitely more eco-friendly.

Anyways, Mom and I searched the walls for our photos. We had had three taken so far, our boarding picture, a picture at dinner the first night and then a picture at dinner on formal night. Shutters has photographers that go into the dining rooms and take pictures of you at your table. We however only saw them the first two nights, after that they seemed to disappear from the dining rooms. We found our pictures and I stacked them all together so that if I wanted I could find them easily again. They all turned out nicely but not nice enough that I was willing to pay the astronomical prices they charge. Now if you are looking to get a nice family portrait I can see shelling out the money for one of these pictures as they do have nice backdrops that they set-up every night in the lobby for just that reason. Mom and I however were not interested.

After taking a look at our pictures we headed back to our room to change for the pool.

I was so sleepy probably from waking up early and then the big brunch/lunch I ate. So I lay down for a quick power nap while Mom went up on deck to scout out some lounge chairs.

I think I probably only slept for 15 minutes or so but it was nice and refreshing, just what I needed!

All ready for the pool I went on up to find Mom. I left the camera behind in the room for once, the only time on the whole vacation where I opted to just relax and not take any pictures.

Mom had once again picked some chairs on deck 10 overlooking the adult pool. I sat my stuff down and then made a beeline for the pool. The water was pretty chilly compared to the day before so I hoped out of the pool and made my way over to one of the hot tubs where I was joined by my hot tub buddies from the day before, the father and son and the grandma.

Eventually I started to feel overheated from the hot tub so back in the pool I went where I lounged around for a while just relaxing and enjoying the sun and heat. It was wonderful.

Eventually I decided to get out of the pool and went back to our chairs to lay down and read. Mom took this opportunity to head down to the pool where she met another diser that she recognized from the cruise thread, Goofy Gal. She chatted with her for a while and then came back up to lay in the sun some more.

That is pretty much how we spent our afternoon, lazing around in the pool and the sun. Absolute bliss.

Evening was starting to approach so we packed up our stuff and strolled down to the ice cream station on deck 9. The ice cream station consists of two self-serve soft serve ice cream machines that dispense chocolate, vanilla and twist. There are also toppings available for your ice cream. I think Mom and I grabbed ice cream from here almost every day, it was very yummy although nothing compared to the ice cream on Castaway Cay! I am an expert at dispensing soft-serve ice cream as I worked at a Dairy Queen in high school, I even made the little curls on top of the ice cream.

We took our ice cream back down to the room where we watched part of Ghost Town on our tv's movie channel while sitting on the verandah and getting ready for the show and dinner.

I wanted to leave the room early as I saw some characters were scheduled to be in the lobby and I wanted to get my picture with them.

So we got to the lobby nice and early and I scouted out where my character was going to be. Every evening they have character meet and greets in the lobby on deck 3 and deck 4 so you have to pay attention to where the character you want is scheduled to be as the lines can get rather lengthy if you don't plan ahead. I quickly became an expert at the character meet and greets and I was always the first or second person in line. It even became a joke between myself and another cruiser who also always showed up for the character pictures with her son, she said she knew she was in the right place if she saw me.

The characters arrive in 15 minute increments so for instance if Snow White is scheduled to arrive at 5:15 deck 3 starboard, at 5:30 Belle would arrive for pictures at deck 3 port side. So if you are first in line for Snow White as soon as you get your picture with her you can quickly cut across the lobby and jump in line for Cinderella and most likely be one of the first people in line. There are usually 4 characters that come out each night so if you want to get your picture with all of them that is the best plan to follow, be first in line for the first character to arrive and you will be at the front of the line for the rest as well. Worked for me every time.

Anyways the characters that I was going for tonight were Goofy and Max. I was maybe third in line for them. Shutters had set up a white backdrop for the photo-op. Unfortunately Mom did not zoom the camera in so it would only show the white so the picture looks kind of "goofy". Pardon the pun. The shutters photo turned out great with the white background but again I wasn't about to pay $20 for it.



Next up was Princess Minnie, I love her princess dress, so cute!





Notice the detailing in the stairs.

Wendy was wandering the lobby, she did not have a designated meet and greet, she was a surprise guest! Since she didn't have a designated spot she was free to wander and interact with people as she saw fit.



I watched Wendy run around and play while I waited in line for Belle.





After Belle I saw Wendy on her own so I grabbed my chance and got a photo with her too!



All done with character photos for the night Mom and I had some time to kill before the show so we wandered around admiring the beautiful ship and we visited the shops again!







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[jordanyosh]

Nothing like Deck 10! I liked sitting up there much better than right by the pool.

Sounds like the perfect way to spend an afternoon.

I like the way they have the character meet and greets set up.

Where are those nice chairs that your mom was sitting in? I don't recognize them...

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Originally Posted by jordanyosh

Nothing like Deck 10! I liked sitting up there much better than right by the pool.

Sounds like the perfect way to spend an afternoon.

I like the way they have the character meet and greets set up.

Where are those nice chairs that your mom was sitting in? I don't recognize them...

The chairs were on deck 4 in the lobby overlook area.

[carissanboys]

Sounds like a lovely time at the pool. And your lounging time was paying off - your tan looked great.