Day 2 - Day At Sea
The second day was a day at sea with lots of activities available to do.
Our first night at sea was very quiet, although I kept waking up. I usually sleep with the fan on all the time at home, so I think I was missing the white noise that I’m normally used to. Fortunately, in the accessibility part of the iPhone, there is an option to play white noise, so I’ll try that tonight.
In the stateroom, the toilet is separate from the bathroom. However, unlike the Novotel, there is a basin in the toilet area, as well as one in the bathroom. In the bathroom there is a small round bath with a shower over it, so if you have young children that you wish to bathe, it’s perfect for them. There is also a built-in seat there, so it’s handy for George as he’s terrified of showers. The side of the bath isn’t too high either, and there’s a grab handle for when you’re stepping in and out of the bath to use the shower. Both the toilet area and bathroom have steps up to them, so if you have really poor mobility, these are probably not the rooms for you.
For breakfast and lunch there’s a choice of either going to Cabana’s – buffet service or going for table service in one of the rotational restaurants. We chose to do both breakfast and lunch as table service. These were both at the Royal Court, you can be seated anywhere and you’ll have different servers than you have at dinner. We enjoyed both meals there and think it was a better choice for us than going for a buffet service.
Breakfast pancakes on the left and the DCL express breakfast on the right
There were lots of activities on today. We played two trivia quizzes – one was an Aladdin quiz open to all ages. John, the Aladdin expert, couldn’t hear and process the questions being asked, so I was having to repeat them to him. He still scored a respectable 15 out of 20 though, although that wasn’t enough to win. The second quiz was a Disney trivia quiz for adults only, with some quite tough questions. George got one question right; I got three and John got sixteen! We got some Disney Cruise Line winners medals for winning that quiz.
On the left we have John and George sitting in one of the porthole spaces. On the right, John and George are showing off the winners medals from the Disney trivia quiz.
Today has been a struggle for John for both hearing and processing things. There are a lot of different accents among the crew, as they are from all over the world, and John can struggle with different accents. A lot of them were struggling to understand him too, as he kind of mumbled at them and talked to his feet, particularly in the restaurants. I suppose this was one occasion where it was useful to have my (ex) teacher’s voice, so we all understood each other!
In the evening, we went to see Believe in the Walt Disney Theatre. The shows that Disney put on are of a high standard, and this was no exception. The theatre itself was very full, so John and George sat together, and I sat elsewhere on my own. The tip for things like this is to arrive a bit earlier, so you can sit together!
Our rotational restaurant for dinner tonight was Enchanted Garden. The same servers move with you, so they know you and what you like. We have Dani, the assistant server; Fahmi, the server; and Tony, the head server. We decided to have a Nutty Chocolate cocktail tonight, which was a lot stronger than it tasted! George and I had lobster ravioli to start, all three of us had the prime rib main, all three of us had chocolate garden torte for dessert and John also had an Italian sundae too.
Top left is the Nutty Chocolate cocktail. Next is the lobster ravioli. Top right is the prime rib (I'd started to tuck in before remembering to take a picture!) Bottom left is the Italian sundae and bottom right is the chocolate garden torte
The entertainment during this meal was Mickey, Donald and Pluto coming out and dancing among the tables, but they don’t interact with individual tables.
On the left, Pluto is walking through the restaurant. In the middle, we have Donald Duck walking through the restaurant. On the right, Mickey Mouse walking through the restaurant.
When we returned to our room, we found that George had been pixie-dusted – that’s where people give you a random small gift or gifts. The gifts were left on our door, maybe because of the Happy Birthday magnet on the door. I think tonight’s blanket animal was a fish, but I’m not entirely sure. What do you think it is?
On the left are some of George's pixie dust items and on the right is our blanket animal.
It's been a good day. Tomorrow we’re in Belgium.
