2015 Disney Cruise Day 2 Part 2 - After Nassau

The following is the second part of the second day from the account of our Disney Cruise to the Bahamas from earlier in the summer. For the first part of this day, see 2015 Disney Cruise Day 2 Part 1 - Nassau.

We went by our room and dropped off our things, and then we headed upstairs for some lunch. Actually, we took the elevator instead of the stairs. After all, we had already done a good bit of walking.

Our plan was to eat lunch at one of the food counters in the food court-like area. But the elevator nearest to our room took us right up to Cabanas, and we decided that sounded good. As we went in, there was Constantin to greet us! And he even recognized us, even though he had only served us once the night before and we were dressed differently than we had been dressed then. So he welcomed us to lunch, which made for a nice touch. We had lots of good food, much more than we would have had from the counters outside, and probably much more than we needed, if anyone had been keeping count. And the nice, cold soft drinks were good, too. A pleasant lunch after a pleasant morning.

Laura enjoying lunch. And air conditioning.

See caption above, except change “Laura” to “Jaylin”.

We were ready to keep with our cool theme, so we went back to our room and got changed into our bathing suits for a trip or two on the AquaDuck. The line hadn’t looked to be too long when we went past there after eating, so we thought we would give it a try. Unfortunately, swimming itself doesn’t usually go all that well for us on the ships. The pools are rather small, as you can imagine, because of everything they try to fit onto the ship, so in our experience your “swimming” is basically limited to getting into the water and staying in one place. The AquaDuck offers something a little bit different, because you move through the tubes all by yourself (or with whoever is on the float with you), without a lot of people around you. The drawbacks are that you don’t really get down into the water, and the experience doesn’t last for very long. But it is nice and cool, and actually the water is almost even cold at times.

We waited about 20 minutes or so for our trip, and the cold water did in fact feel good. So we decided to go again, since the line was still not very long. After that, Laura and I grabbed a deck chair for a while, and Jaylin got in the pool for a bit.

Looking at the ship parked next to us, as they were looking at us.

As we were lounging, the Riedels came up and found us there, having finished their time with the dolphins at Atlantis. Not sure how they were able to find us, but they did. Not that we were trying to hide from them or anything. Jaylin came back up around that time as well, and he and Katie decided that they would go on the AquaDuck, too. So we waited around for them to go, and it seemed like it took them a lot longer than it had taken us. Maybe it was just felt different because Laura and I weren’t waiting in the line.

They finally finished their trip, and we all headed back to our rooms to change for the evening. The Riedels were going again to the show in the theater, which this time around was Villains Tonight. As with the show from the previous night, we had seen that one on our last cruise, so the Burnses decided to skip it. While we were waiting for everyone to get showered and changed, we watched the Carnival ship next to ours sail out. And we listened to the announcement that was repeated several times for some certain guests to contact guest services immediately. It sounded like someone was getting left behind in Nassau. I felt sorry for them, but I figured they would have a good story to tell one day.

The view from inside our stateroom. Read all about it in the earlier post Our Stateroom on the Disney Dream.

A traffic jam at sea as ships start to leave Nassau. Who has the right of way?

Laura enjoys the view from the verandah.

As our ship departed Nassau, Laura and I watched from our verandah. I enjoyed seeing the Nassau lighthouse as we passed by, getting a different perspective on it from Deck 5 as we left than we had from Deck 11 when we arrived in the morning. It looked taller from down lower, which makes obvious sense if you think about it. But we were still up higher than the top of the lighthouse, so it still looked small, but not as small as when we had arrived.

Passing by the Nassau Lighthouse. Read all about it in the earlier post The Nassau Lighthouse.

Once we were all three changed and ready to go (the Riedels had already left for the show), we went ship exploring. We had briefly visited the shops the night before, so we went back to look a bit longer, and also to see what different items they may have put out. We learned on our first cruise that the shops don’t always have the same items out for the whole cruise. A lot of it is the same, but some items change from time to time. And besides, we just like wandering through that area anyway. We also took a little time to get some photos with the statue of Admiral Donald Duck, since there were many people around him. Apparently, one of the good times to explore the ship is when half of the passengers are eating and many of the other half are at a show in the main theater. That just leaves a few of us to wander around and take it all in. Which is perfectly fine with us.

Laura, Jaylin, and Admiral Donald Duck.

The Princess blows a kiss.

Laura and Jaylin, with some creeper guy looking over their shoulders.

Soon, however, the Villains Tonight show ended, and people started streaming out of the theater. We were there waiting for them, however, because we were meeting up with the Riedels to go see a Seven Dwarfs themed show in one of the lounges. It was a game show, with a live host and hostess, along with Dopey and the Magic Mirror from Snow White. It was good overall, and the banter between the live hosts, as well as between them and some of the guests, made it better than what it might have been otherwise. But it wasn’t something I would rush to again. I’m glad we saw it, because it was something interesting to do that we hadn’t done before, but now we have done it.

Dopey takes the stage in the show.

By the time the show finished, it was time to head to our dinner in Animator’s Palate. The concept of Animator’s Palate is pretty interesting, because the restaurant has several large screens where Crush from Finding Nemo comes up and talks to the guests at the tables. The downside is that we always end up at one of the larger tables out in the middle of the restaurant, so that we aren’t close enough to any of the screens for Crush to talk to us. That’s the problem with being a group of seven, apparently. It happened on our previous cruise, and it happened once again on this one. We could still hear some of the conversations with Crush around us, though. The best was when he would go from one side of the room to the other to get the people to do the wave across the room, with some pretty good success.

Riedel adults at dinner.

Burns adults at dinner.

Riedel girls at dinner. Apologies to Jaylin and Zach who were left out of this series of photos for some strange reason.

Our food was good as always, and we once again enjoyed talking to Constantin and Potchara, who also took time to tell us about the next day’s events at Castaway Cay. I chatted with Potchara just a bit about Thailand. He is from a town about an hour from Bangkok, and all I visited while I was there was Bangkok. But we also talked about how far away it is, and the fun of travelling halfway around the world. And as usual, we were among the last to leave the restaurant because of the time spent talking to our servers. Everyone else’s loss, our gain.

We started taking random candid photos at dinner. Here’s Brant.

Karen was caught checking her phone.

Katie was in the middle of taking a bite.

Dessert! Yum! And it was happy to see me, too. Just look at that smile!

Constantin was entertaining us with some card tricks.

Animator’s Palate has such cool chairs.

After dinner, we once again took our customary stroll on the Deck 4 Promenade, enjoying the cool evening air, which was much warmer than the really cool air inside the restaurant. Of course, all of that walking makes you thirsty. Or maybe it was all of the rich, delicious food we had at dinner. Either way, we went up to the pool deck to get a refreshing carbonated beverage, or water for some of our group, before heading back to our room for the evening, where we were greeted by an elephant made from towels, along with a few mints. Made from chocolate and not towels, of course. Because who would want to eat mints made from towels? Imagine how quickly those would dry out your mouth.

Walking the plank. I mean the Promenade.

Peeking in a porthole along the Promenade.

Nighttime at the AquaDuck.

But it wasn’t time for bed yet, because Laura declared it was Story Time! She climbed up on Katie’s bunk with her, while Jaylin and Zach sat down below, and the rest of us sat on the bed, and Laura read her new book to everyone. The book was A Pirate Night Before Christmas, which she had gotten in the pirate shop next to the Pirate Museum in Nassau. We hadn’t visited the museum, but we do always make it a point to go through the shop, since we do like pirate stuff. Everyone seemed to enjoy the story, and Laura enjoyed reading it to us.

Story time!

So after that, it was time for bed. I was hoping to be able to sleep well, and I didn’t figure I would have a problem sleeping after all of the fun and walking that we had experienced during the day.

Watch for more from our cruise report coming soon!