2017 Disney Cruise - The Last Night
As the 2017 Disney Cruise trip report continues, we just finished at Castaway Cay and are starting the last night of our cruise…
When we arrived back at our room, we decided to just hang out there for a while. After all, we still had a lovely view of Castaway Cay down below. Jaylin, however, was not as excited about the view, and he and Andrew went to the teen club to hang out a bit and play whatever games they might be playing. Jaylin had really taken to that this trip, whether it was the chance to socialize with others his own age or the chance to get away from the old folks. I am guessing it was more the latter than the former. So we enjoyed our time to just sit and relax for a bit.
At the appointed time, Jaylin returned and we got ready to go to dinner, our last dinner on the ship. And it was not a coincidence that there was one dinner restaurant on the ship that we had not been to yet. So we made our way down to Deck 2 to the Enchanted Garden restaurant. I do have to say that Enchanted Garden is always the restaurant on the Disney Dream that impresses me the least, at least as far as theme goes. It is themed to a fancy garden, I think, although there are very few live plants in the restaurant because of its location down inside the ship. I guess it is intended to be something like a gazebo or greenhouse in a garden, but it never really does all that much for me, although I do like the fountain topped by Mickey Mouse out in the middle of the restaurant.
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However, although the restaurant’s theme is not my most favorite, the Enchanted Garden does have one of my favorite food offerings on the ship, Pan Seared Sea Bass. I sort of randomly chose that on our first Disney Dream cruise a few years back, and now this is the third cruise that I have had the sea bass. It has been excellent every time, too. Why choose something new if you are happy with what you get each time? I was glad that they still had it on the menu.
Andrea and Mariya were our delightful hosts once again, making sure that we had everything that we needed at all times. And once again, they presented us with puzzles and games to try to figure out, some of which we did, others of which we could not figure out at all.
At dessert time, because the cruise was in honor of my parents’ 50th anniversary, Andrea, Mariya, and several of the other servers brought out a special dessert and sang Happy Anniversary to them. Always nice that they do that! And we all sampled a little bit of the dessert, because we were all already full from our regular desserts.
Before we left, Andrea presented all of the ladies in our group with a special handmade pin from Peru, which was a really nice touch. It is always neat to see how the crew members of the cruise ships go out of their way to make everyone in their care feel special. This cruise was just one more example of the high level of service that we always enjoy. We said our goodbyes to our servers, knowing that we would see them one more time at breakfast the next morning, and went on our way so that they could get ready for the second dinner seating.
We went to the Shutters photo shop to start selecting our photo purchases from the cruise. Laura and I just wanted to get some prints of our favorite photos, while our other groups had decided on the digital package, where you get digital versions of the photos you select on a flash drive. We also saw the Jamersons making their purchase before they went to their dinner seating, so it was nice to have all of the group together for a few more minutes. But it was hard to have the group all together, because lots of people were in the area trying to make their photo purchases. That is to be expected on the last night of the cruise, however, and we were not at all surprised by it.
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Once we were all finished and the Jamersons had gone on to dinner, the rest of us ducked out the side door and onto the Deck 4 Promenade, still one of our favorite places on the ship. The rest of our group decided to move on to other things, including the last evening show of the cruise. We never have seen that last show, and we are always okay with that after seeing the first show or two. Everyone always goes on and on about how good the show is, so maybe one of these days if we do another of these cruises we should skip the first shows and just see the last one. Or maybe not.
Instead of seeing a stage show, we chose to see a natural show, watching the sky, the clouds, and the water as the sun had set and things were getting darker. Actually, we could not see the sunset because of all the clouds, but that was okay because the sky was still quite interesting even without the sun. I always love to see how everything becomes blue before the darkness of night sets in, and that contrasts well to the yellow tones of the lights on the ship, making for some interesting photo opportunities.
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After that, we went shopping for a little while, just to see if there was anything else in the shops that we had not bought that we might need to help us remember the cruise. We always do some last-minute shopping on the last night of our cruises, and we usually end up with something, too. And it is important to note that the shops on the ship are not open on the morning that you leave the ship, so the last night of the cruise counts as last-minute shopping. We also stopped by White Caps to pick up our purchases from Castaway Cay earlier in the day, thankful that we had not had to keep up with those during the rain on the island.
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We went back to our room to drop off our purchase and put our luggage out for the evening. As with all of our cruises, we had the option to have our luggage out in the hall by 10:30 PM on the last night of the cruise or carry everything with us the next morning as we would exit the ship. As with all of our Disney Cruises (we chose otherwise on our Carnival Cruise last year), we chose to put our luggage out in the hall. This always creates a little problem in knowing what to keep so that you have everything you need the next morning, and also the problem of just how to carry everything that you keep with you. We planned as best we could and then put our stuff out into the hallway, satisfied that we would not have to carry quite everything to breakfast the next morning.
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Because the evening was starting to wind down, we went and found a spot for the See You Real Soon show that they have in the main lobby at the end of the last night of the Disney Cruises. It isn’t necessarily a grand, spectacular show, but it is just a chance for the Disney characters to come out one more time and say goodbye. No crying allowed. Instead of being down on the main floor of the lobby, we chose one of the upper levels, so that we could get a good view and not have people stand right in front of us. The Jamersons also joined us after they had finished their dinner, because we had texted them to let them know where we were, just in case they wanted to join us.
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Before the show started and the characters arrived, several of the character “handlers” were out there, and they all danced along to the songs that were playing while we waited. I knew that most of the handlers had moved up in position from once being characters themselves, or perhaps alternated with others who were in the costumes at that time, and it was interesting to watch them and identify which characters they had portrayed based on their height and how they moved. It was fun to watch.
The show soon started, and the characters came out one by one. Next, they had a few minutes of meet-and-greet time, so that whoever wanted to could get one more photo with the characters, or one more character autograph. Maggie and Piper went to seek out a couple that they had missed, while the rest of us stayed where were. It was interesting to see how well the characters interacted with the guests, which always makes everything more special.
As we were talking, we mentioned something about putting out our luggage, and Daniel realized that he had not put out their luggage yet. So he raced to their room to get things out in the hall ahead of the deadline. I was glad that we were able to remind him, because that would have been a lot to take with them the next morning.
We were all back together again once the show started back up, so that we could all wave to the characters one more time before the cruise was over. It was a short show as always, but a nice little touch to end things on.
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And with that, it was all just about over. We and the Jamersons made our way back to our rooms for the evening. In the stairway, I noticed that one of the songs they were playing was “I Will Go Sailing No More,” from Toy Story. Pretty fitting, perhaps, although I would like to think that it was just for this cruise and that we will in fact go sailing some more sometime in the future.
But for now, we settled into our beds one more time, drifting off to sleep as the ship sailed back to Port Canaveral.
Check back soon for the wrap-up as the 2017 Disney Cruise trip report ends!
