Update: 12/13/08 Palo Brunch, Happy Birthday, Kenny! At Sea 10/23/08
We slept in today. I didn’t get up till 9:00; of course, we did lose an hour going back to Eastern Time. I ordered coffee from Room Service and we had it on the veranda before starting to get ready for Palo Brunch at 11:00.
Palo Brunch
Now, I know I said it before, but I must stress this again: Palo Brunch should NOT be missed! This, IMHO, was the best meal of the cruise. The maitre de showed us the drink offerings, 2 I think, a Mimosa and another, plus a non-alcoholic choice. Then, as he took us to our table, we mentioned we were there last night. He asked who our server had been and then seated us in Emmanuel’s section. We had the same table we had for dinner last night. Emmanuel came over and, after the reintroductions; he took us on a tour of the buffet. The brunch is a combination of a buffet and a table service meal. You can eat appetizers and such from the buffet, have a pizza (including a breakfast pizza), and order one of three breakfast or three lunch offerings. You are seated with your drink, then, after your tour, your server takes any other drink orders and you wander among the tables laden with cheese, crackers, shrimp, fruit, a whole section of breads and pastries… and… and… I don’t know what all!
And that doesn’t even include the dessert table!! As you fill up on the buffet, your server comes to take your order of pizza and/or your choice of the cooked to order meal. You are given a choice of 5 pizzas, including the dessert one which had berries on it.
You can also have your choice of three breakfasts, including omelets and other egg dishes, or three lunch dishes. Brenda had chicken parmesan and I had veal saltimbocca. We chose lunch because everybody knows you can’t have dessert with breakfast… and I was not going to miss dessert! Let’s see, the dessert table had berries… berries… and even more berries, chocolate, tiramisu, and more, and more, and more! It seemed huge!
I don’t remember what I had, but I’m sure I had more than one with strawberries and blackberries on them. And I’m sure we both had Tiramisu. I think someone here said, not too long ago, they weren’t sure about doing the Brunch because it was too late for breakfast and too early for lunch. But, to me, this is the ideal meal. If you are an early riser, you can get enough to tide you over at Topsiders or Room Service. If you are used to having breakfast later you could have a bagel or something to satisfy you till brunch. I just think that, if you have the opportunity, you should get Palo Brunch reservations… I promise you… you won’t regret it!
We left Palo at about 12:45. We had time to go back to the stateroom for a short nap. There was a matinee of tonight’s show, "Disney Dreams" at 2pm and "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" was playing in the Buena Vista Theater at 3pm, so we thought we would try one of those for the afternoon. Well, when I awoke from my "short nap" at 2:57, we realized we were too late to do either one, so we ended up just hanging out on the veranda with a pot of coffee and cookies from Room Service until time to get ready for dinner. BTW, if you are sitting around on your cruise with nothing to do and would like a treat… order cookies from Room Service! They have chocolate chip and oatmeal. DW loved the oatmeal and I LOVED the chocolate chip! We found out later, the chocolate chip cookies are specially made right there on the ship!
Semi-Formal Night
Happy Birthday, Kenny!
Happy Retirement, Marilyn!
Tonight was semi-formal night at dinner. Our rotation had us back at Lumiere’s. We missed Parrot Cay the second time because we were at Palo. That was OK, DW did not like the food choices there very much anyway, and it was our least favorite of the restaurants. On the other hand, we loved Lumiere’s.
I just wore a shirt and my Pluto tie and was glad I did because Keith came wearing a nice Disney shirt with no jacket or tie. I was glad to see Keith and Marilyn at dinner because they had decided not to come for formal night because they didn’t bring "nice enough clothes". We were very comfortable in our attire this evening, though.
Tonight’s menu included lobster and venison. Brenda, Marilyn, and Keith all had the lobster tail and I had the venison. The venison was very good. It came with baby potatoes and a cooked apple. The lobster, according to DW, was "just OK". Being from New England, she is hard to please when it comes to lobster. Brenda said it was just not "Maine Rock Lobstah", and I know that many of you are familiar with what she means by that! She gave me a bite of it and to my Midwest taste buds, it was just lobster… Overall, though, we were all quite content with our meals. I don’t remember the dessert, but we did have dessert! And then, they brought out Marilyn’s "Happy Retirement" cake
and a "Happy Birthday" cake for Brenda and me.
We were all too full to try either cake, so we ended up taking them back to our staterooms for later. During dinner, we talked about our dolphin experiences from the day before. Keith and Marilyn had done the "Dolphin Discovery" at Chankanaab National Park in Cozumel. We found out that the two excursions were almost the same, except for the belly swim that we had at Dolphinaris. Keith said their excursion lasted "about an hour" with the dolphins while ours was about an hour and a half. They did all of the things we did except for the swim. They said their facility was also quite modern with restroom changing rooms, showers, and lockers, as was Dolphinaris. They were very pleased with their excursion, so I guess only you can decide which one you would like to do.
The conversation lead on into how much we were enjoying the cruise. We mentioned how we were contemplating booking the westbound trans-Atlantic cruise in 2010, but hadn’t booked it yet. Marilyn told us that they had just booked this same cruise for next year! It was the 7 night Western Caribbean, leaving on October 17, 2009. Brenda and I just looked at each other, and then said how much we were enjoying their company. A photographer came around and took pictures of each of us, and then took one of the four of us together.
We decided to see the show together tonight and so we took our cakes back to our staterooms and met outside the theater
Dreaming Disney Dreams
The show tonight was "Disney Dreams". If you love Disney, you should not miss this show. It is about a little girl who is visited by Peter Pan one night. Peter shows her how she can be any of the great Princesses, if she will just dream. It was a very good show that touches on all the great Disney Princess stories. We had a good time but, finally it was time to go back to the staterooms for the night and we said good night to our friends.
After we parted, Brenda said to me she didn’t want to wait 2 years to cruise again and I said I didn’t either. We thought it would be really neat to do this same cruise with Keith and Marilyn next year. So on the way to deck #6, we stopped at deck #4 and Jocelyn was still open at the Future Cruise Desk. She had a couple of clients ahead of us, but still had time when it came our turn to talk to us. We were able to book the Western Caribbean 7 Night Cruise for October 17-24, 2009, and were able to get our same stateroom #6600. We learned, later, that Keith and Marilyn had booked a stateroom only two or three doors from us! We got a 10% discount, $200 onboard credit, and only had to put ½ the deposit down! So, now, we are waiting to be "Twice Charmed By The Disney Magic!"
We found this from Keith and Marilyn on our door when we got back to the room:
We couldn't wait till dinner the next night to tell them we booked the cruise and thank them for the Birthday "Card"!
We went into the room and found this on the bed:
We ordered our coffee from Room Service (and, I think, more cookies), and had our Irish coffee and cookies on the veranda.
