elphie101
Left my heart in Tomorrowland
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2008
Thursday October 23 - Cruise Day 6
Another glorious day at sea! Once again we woke up on the open ocean, admiring our view as we got out of bed. This morning was different from all the others though - we had a reservation for brunch at Palo at 10:30. There wasn't really enough time to get out and do anything around the ship, so we indulged in some more of our favorite activity - watching on demand movies from the amazing library onboard. Pretty soon, it was time for us to get spruced up according to Palo dress code standards, and head up to Deck 12 for our fancy breakfast/lunch. We checked in outside the Meridian bar and were lead right to our table inside Palo, a little half booth facing the floor to ceiling windows.
Look. At. That. VIEW!
Our server, Amanda from Mexico, came over and took our order for the complimentary mimosa or champagne included with the meal ( we both went with the mimosa). She then led us up to the buffet, pointing out the dessert section, the hot items made to order, and the main buffet spread. We approached the buffet to make our first plate and similarly to Cabanas earlier in the week, a server walked through with us and put things on our plates as we pointed them out. It was a little awkward to be served at such a self-serve set up, to be honest (I've read on cruise boards that this is how it's currently done on the Dream/Fantasy, whereas on the Magic/Wonder the buffet itself is still self serve, as of a month or so ago). Kevin especially found it awkward, as he chose to forgo the entire buffet set up and instead order several hot dishes, but his buffet escort kept going "Are you sure? Are you sure?"
My plate from the buffet: one of the famous Palo almond croissants, toasted bread and multiple bruschetta toppings, prosciutto wrapped asparagus, some kind of cheese bread roll, warm sticky bun, and a cold scallop with some more tomato/bruchetta topping. The croissant was by far the best of the bunch, it was filled with an almond paste and so light and fluffy! The warm sticky bun was pretty delicious too!
About 5 minutes later our hot entrees came out. Kevin ordered the chicken parmesan (after my telling him how much the internet loved it and knowing how much Kevin loves chicken parm in general) and the mozzarella en carrozza
If you're wondering........this was basically a giant mozzarella stick in the form of a discs
Both dishes were simply amazing. The chicken parm earns every bit of the praise it gets, hands down! To distract myself from eating all of Kevin's food (though I guess I could have ordered my own!) I went up for a second plate at the buffet:
Some kind of cheese, fruit, another sticky bun and prosciutto with melon balls
When Amanda had dropped off Kevin's hot dishes, he decided to order the pomegranate passion beverage we had tried during our Mixology class, being that Meridian was right outside (this was an additional charge). He enjoyed the drink every bit as much as the first tasting earlier in the week!
After a few minutes, our pizzas arrived (the pizzas take longer to cook than the other hot entrees, we were told). I ordered the grape & gorgonzola pizza, while Kevin tried the sundried tomato & goat cheese pizza in the form of a calzone (did you know all their pizzas can be made into calzones?!)
The bright, juicy grapes were the perfect compliment to the bold cheese, but when I tried a little of Kevin's calzone it was clear he picked the better dish. His calzone was absolutely outstanding!
We were fairly stuffed at this point, but I couldn't leave without browsing the dessert table. Unfortunately for me, nearly everything involved either milk or dark chocolate or something else (like lemon or raspberry) that I don't usually seek out in my desserts. Below was the only items that appealed to me:
Some kind of mini tart and berries over gelatin. They were ok.
We were absolutely stuffed after our meal and immensely satisfied with the experience. The upcharge is more than worth it, even though it is now $30pp instead of the $25 we paid back in October (I sure hope you still get a drink!) I can't wait to return to Palo brunch, if only to get my own chicken parm dish, and maybe try some of the hot breakfast items as well!
Just look at those stunning views
The spaghetti and meatballs light fixture!
On the way out I stopped by the restroom, and even those were fancy!! I took some photos since I was alone, just for you all!
We rolled back down to our stateroom to relax and begin to digest the meal we just had. After a bit of chilling, we went down to O'Gills for another stab at trivia - this time it was "Ultimate Disney Trivia".
Well, I am pleased to say this time WE WON!! The questions were a mix of parks and general Disney knowledge, and we won by just a handful of points. Our prize was two DCL luggage tags, which you can see to the left of the sheet.
In the mood to celebrate our win, and needing to get rid of the extra booze we had carried on board, we returned to our stateroom to open our last bottle of champagne and spend some more quality time on the verandah.
This was the Southwest bottle - and it was our least favorite of the three we had! Guess we shouldn't be surprised the budget champagne came from the budget airline!
Pure relaxation
Sitting on the verandah we sipped champagne and reminisced over our first weeks of married life. It wasn't even especially warm out there, just peaceful, calm, easy going, utter bliss.
We were at a bit of a loss for what to do next in our day, aside from the big elephant in the room, starting to pack (nooooo!) I suggested we take the video camera my dad had sent with us and make our parents a video tour of the ship, since they were all curious to see just what one of the DCL ships looked like.
I have no idea where this video is now, but it was a total blast! We recorded our stateroom, the pool decks (where I didn't realize how much I seemed like a total creep until I accidentally pointed the camera at a hot tub with what seemed like 30 children in it), the nightlife clubs, and other various sections of the ship. Especially on the pool decks whenever the CMs noticed the camera they would wave and say hello. My family especially is huuuuuuuuuge on home videos, so I like to think this is something we might continue in the future, and something our own kids might like to watch someday!
After walking about the ship, we returned to our stateroom and decided to pack so we wouldn't have to do it all on our last evening (aka we threw all the dirty clothes into a giant pile inside our biggest suitcase). Having "packed", we settled back into one of our favorite cruise activites:
More movies and just relaxing in our stateroom - this time it was Wreck it Ralph
Around 5pm, we started to feel a little peckish and decided a light meal would be in order since dinner was still 3 hours away. Kevin got up to head to the pool deck, but I suggested we try out room service, since we were so comfortable and hey, it was free! (I swear to go, the blankets in the DCL staterooms are the most comfortable blankets in the galaxy). We placed our food order and about 30 minutes later it arrived.
My BLT and fries, plus Kevin's chicken strips and fries (he had three strips, but snatched one as soon as it arrived!)
I've got to tell you, if we had paid for this I probably would have been PO'd - 3 chicken strips is nothing!! But for what we wanted, a medium snack to hold us over, it was exactly perfect. Plus you can never go wrong with steak fries!
After eating, it was time to get ready for the evening (it was semi-formal night) and head down the show of the evening, Believe (yes, the two "original" shows were called Wishes and Believe).
Every show started with Clayton, the cruise director coming out to talk about what had been going on during the day, sharing stories from other passengers, and generally getting the audience pumped. It was here that we first heard that there was some inclement weather approaching our way, but according to Clayton the bridge team had an eye on the radar and it seemed like it shouldn't impact Castaway Cay the next day (*cue foreshadowing music*)
The story of Believe was about a young girl and her dad, who has let his career ambitions fall in the way of family time and believing in magic, so together they set off on a magical journey with the help of some of our favorite Disney characters to rediscover pixie dust......or something like that.
We really didn't like it at all. I mean, it wasn't as bad as ADVERTISING: THE MUSICAL on the first night, but it was just dripping with cheesyness, even for us. When we left the theater Kevin commented that it made Wishes a few nights before seem far more bearable in retrospect. I'm certainly glad we went, but we will absolutely, 100% be skipping this one next time. The storyline was just far too forced for our liking.
We headed to our final meal in Royal Court for the evening, the Captain's Gala dinner. Behold, blurry menu pictures!
For some reason I only have photos of my meal on this evening - I promise you Kevin ate, though never one to order a course "just because" I'm confident he only ordered an entree.
I started with the Garlic and Herb Sauteed Shrimp, with a zesty Lemon-Aioli on Spaghetti Vegetables. Ever since moving in with my shellfish-intolerant husband, I can't help myself whenever I see shrimp on the menu, I have to order it! This was definitely good and a good starter.
My Wild Forest Mushroom Soup, swirled with White Truffle Oil. My apologies to any culinary savvy readers, but am I missing something about truffles? Maybe if I ate out more I would be able to catch the taste, but it just tasted like mushroom soup to me. Good mushroom soup none the less!
The true star of this menu is the lobster tail - based on the plates around us I would say about 85% of the restaurant ordered it. It's brought to you in-shell and then popped out by your server tableside. As I've mentioned, shellfish doesn't agree with Kevin and try as I might, I'm simply not a fan of lobster, so we both surprised Alfredo by ordering one of the oft-neglected other entrees. I realize now why I only have a picture of my entree - because Kevin got the same meal!
Fettuccine with Parmesan Crusted Chicken - Chicken encrusted in Parmesan Cheese with Sweet Peppers and Mushrooms in a Cheddar Cheese Sauce
I think we were feeling a little nostalgic for our wedding menu in ordering this, or at least I was. I hate to say it, but our wedding meal Parmesan chicken was actually better than this one! This wasn't bad by any means, but given that we still had the memory of our wedding chicken fresh in our minds, the bar was already set pretty high.
Look, I actually remembered to photograph the dessert menu!
Reading this now, it's quite funny as I see about 3 desserts I want (and knowing that I could order all 3 and it would be ok with them!) but in the moment I was just so incredibly stuffed that it took will power to actually order even one! But I couldn't walk away without tasting at least one dessert-
Banana Foster Sundae - Rum Glazed Bananas, Vanilla Ice Cream, Whipped Cream, and Caramel Sauce
Yuuuuuuuum. This was so delicious and worth every bite! I say it was even better than the Apple sundae from earlier in the week.
We bid farewell to our serving team and toddled over to the elevator to head back to our stateroom (remember the plan to only take the elevator when we had luggage? Yeah.....) so we could change out of our semi-formal wear.
One of 8000 chandelier shots
We found this guy in our room, and at a loss of what to do Kevin just lightly bopped him to the side. You have survived, turtle friend!
We changed our clothes and headed right back out to Skyline - no early bedtime for us! After the hilarious performance of Buckets N' Boards the previous night we were determined to make it to their adult-only performance, plus I had about 3 drinks left on my Skyline passport.
Oh Skyline passport - how I wish you had worked for us. It is a good deal to get 7 drinks for the price of 6 but the plan really didn't work for us, as we wanted to explore other bars but felt tied to Skyline since I had already pre-paid for my drinks there. Perhaps if Kevin was also a martini drinker, or perhaps if we had actually used the lounge during more populated hours we would have appreciated it more, but we didn't and so we were left with the impression that the passport was something we would not do again.
At my last visit, the bartender had mentioned I could order any drink I wanted, even off menu, and if they could make it in the bar it would count towards my passport. I decided to ask for a Berry Mojito from our Mixology class, which ended up causing a bit of trouble, enough so that the Skyline bartender actually called Meridian to get their exact recipe. It wasn't quite the same, but it was still yummy!
This was the busiest we had ever seen Skyline - guess the time to go if you want some people watching is 10:00pm!
After the mojito, I ordered another Catalan, successfully making it to the 6 drinks I had paid for! This ended up being more of a drink for the road, as it was getting close to show time, so we set off back to the Walt Disney Theatre with drinks in hand to grab our seats for the show.
An illegal picture - after two cocktails I was a little less rule-abiding.
The show was HILARIOUS! Just as funny if not more so than the all-ages performance the previous night. Even though we had to hold out till 11pm for the show to even start, it was well worth it. Hey, you only honeymoon once, right?
After the show I dragged my poor exhausted husband back to Europa to check out the late night snack spread, even though he couldn't imagine being hungry after the huge dinner plus adult beverages I had enjoyed that evening. What can I say - I have an appetite!
From right to left we have pizza bagels, steak on a stick, and what I think is various forms of chicken fingers/wings. Aka perfect bar food.
I ended up deciding not to grab any munchies, and we headed up to our stateroom to finally hit the hay. Tomorrow was our last full day of the cruise (nooooooo!) and the highlight of any DCL trip - Castaway Cay!
I hope you try some for yourself someday!!
Honestly it's a bit of a marvel we even packed before the last day in the first place! Good to know about the truffles - all I really knew was that truffle fries are OUTSTANDING!
But even more reason to do another cruise, right?! 
I'm glad there's still one more MK day. It sounds like the perfect way to end your honeymoon!
- I think I gained weight just from following and mouth-watering
I don't know if you're commenting on her under a different name, but I heard you were following along so I wanted to give you a shout out 
