PLEASE TO EXPLAIN CAT!
Jake and Jenny always know when I'm leaving on a trip. They sense it somehow, I guess.
My travel plans for my recent trip were delayed, so I decided to clean the Litter-Robots before I left to Florida instead of having everything be frozen outside when I got back. I finished hosing out the downstairs robot first, then tackled the upstairs robot. AND WHILE I WAS SCRUBBING IT OUT ON THE FRONT LAWN, Jenny decided to USE THE KITTY LITTER BUCKET as the toilet...
NO idea how she fit into it. No clue. But litter was pitched out from her trying to cover it, so she took the job seriously.
Then I left for my trip.
And while I was gone, I was checking in on Jake and Jenny the whole time via my security cameras. It was wild. But the most wild was this... before I left I put a protective blanket over the dining room table. I've started doing this more and more even when I am home because it's the one thing I can't seem to keep my cats off of. I think it's because it's so close to their food bowls. And the kitchen and the stairs and the living room. It's a central space where they can see the entire first floor when they're on top of it. I got tired of scrubbing it with vinegar constantly, but when I put a covering on it I only have to scrub it when people will be eating on it.
ANYWAY... I kept watching as the blanket was falling further and further off the table. I think they were chasing or fighting each other on it, and once it started falling off the table it just kept going little by little as they climbed up there again.
Then one day I noticed that it was almost all the way off the table AND a chair was rocked back. So I scrolled back to find out what happened. And it was exactly what I thought it would be.
Jenny was on the table while her brother was on the part of the blanket which was on the floor. She looked down and saw him there and decided to pull some Jenny shit. She goes to jump on him, snags the chair, and it falls over... until it locks under the table...
And how did the blanket get all the way off the table? Jake decided he wanted to sleep on the chair that was locked under the table, of course! Never mind that he's at an angle, he was apparently comfortable enough to sleep there multiple times until I got home. Here he is in the chair getting up and turning around so he can go to sleep...
So... yeah. Cats are weird. There's no denying it.
Breakfast on the ship for my group was 6:45. Fortunately I didn't stay up late, so it wasn't a big deal. My suitcase was packed yesterday, so I pretty much just had my small backpack and a bag of souvenir mugs I bought.
And then there was disembarking the ship.
In all the many years of cruising with my mom, I have never experiences a total cluster-fuck like I did this morning on the Disney Wish. It was mind-boggling how there was no organization... no direction... and no crew members knowing what the heck to do. Somebody mentioned that they usually don't experience such a large number of people getting off the ship at the same time and didn't anticipate the mess we were in. And I'm like "shouldn't you though?"
Eventually disembarkation was acheived and I was ready to... GO BACK TO WALT DISNEY WORLD!
Just for a day. Because I never want to risk flying in or out on the same day I'm embarking or disembarking a cruise.
And here's where I am going to rant on Disney a bit.
As I mentioned, I bought some souvenir mugs at some of the Disney restaurants I ate at (including that very cool mug for my $46 drink at Beak and Barrel!). I thought it would be no big deal to go to the gift shop of my hotel, Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort, and have them mail the mugs home.
I was told "no."
But why?
Because the mugs were in a food environment.
But no food was ever in them! No drink was ever in them! They give you a freshly-boxed mug that's never been anywhere near food!
Doesn't matter. Open food was in the vicinity, and we can't insure products that come from a place that serves food.
Good Lord what a stupid fucking rule.
This meant I had to take an Über to a UPS Pack-and-Ship in order to send my mugs home (which is cheaper than purchasing an extra suitcase and checking one of my bags). And so... I cushioned the mug boxes the best I could with dirty clothes, handed it over to the UPS employee, and hoped for the best. Guess I'll know if my pricey souvenirs arrive in one piece in a week.
From there I Übered back to my hotel in order to ride the Skyliner to Epcot.
And here's where I am going to praise Disney a bit.
I mentioned to a cast member at guest services how we were rained out the last time it was an Epcot day, and all our Lightning Lanes were canceled. The cast member said "No problem!" then looked up the tickets and gave all three of them back! This was completely unexpected. And a nice surprise.
The only ride where I was standing in a long line was Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, but it's worth it because it's the best ride that Disney has. Something Epcot desperately needs, because the number of great rides there is pretty small. I'll save my attraction thoughts for Bullet Sunday.
But anyway... in-between rides it was mostly time to wander through the shops of World showcase where, oddly enough, I didn't actually end up buying anything. I was sorely tempted by the Sanrio potato chips at the Japan Pavillion...
They had Guedetama chips, which are salted egg yolk flavor (Gudetama being a very popular Sanrio character because he's just a tired egg yolk who is apathetic about the world around him)...
There was also Aggretsuko chips, which are pink salt flavor (Aggretsuko is a combination of "Aggressive Retsuko," another popular Sanrio character which is a red panda that has a normal life... except she can explode with rage when stressed out about the world around her, which is often)...
I swear that I was totally wanting to go all Aggretsuko when Disney wouldn't ship the mugs that they sold me!
Dinner was at the Nine Dragons restaurant in the China Pavillion. It was good food, as expected. What was not expected was the horrific mess that a table near ours left. These photos were taken as the table was being cleaned and don't even show the disaster it was before they started trying to clean up...
Yes, they had some kids at the table... but my God... I would have been mortified to leave such a mess! If this is how your kids eat, maybe feed them directly instead of giving them access to food? Or, at the very least, attempt to clean up the mess you made so that the workers don't have to deal with all this. I hope they tipped an extra $100.
And then it was time to ride the Skyliner back to the hotel. At which time fireworks were going off out the window...
What a lucky break! Quite a nice end to the night, actually.
And now it's time to say good bye to all things Disney, as I have to be up at 4:30am so I can get to the airport in time for my 7:00am flight back home.
When I was going on cruises all the time with my mom, I always picked the itineraries with the least amount of "sea days" because I much preferred to be doing cool stuff at the ports around the world instead of hanging around on a big boat all day with =shudder= loads of people.
But sea days are unavoidable, mostly, because port landings are an expensive ordeal for the cruise line. And Disney is no different (even though they owned the two ports this Very Merrytime Christmas cruise landed at). Ideally, you wouldn't have a sea day the last day of the cruise, but here we are.
My plan for the day was to relax and eat, since that was all that's really available that I wanted to do. I must say, I did a pretty good job of meeting my goals. Except I did have one moment of stress when I noticed that the garbage hole and the tea caddy didn't line up. Why wouldn't they split the difference and line them up?
It very nearly made me want to jump overboard, but it wouldn't have worked because the worst that would happen if I leapt from my cabin's veranda was that I'd break a leg...
I did do two things today, however. First of all, I packed my suitcase so it could be picked up and delivered to the cruise terminal (so I wouldn't be dragging it around at breakfast). And second of all, I watched the final live theater show, and adaptation of Aladdin (which was the best show of the cruise, in my humble opinion).
Other than that? Eat and drink mostly...
Disney has my favorite food than any other cruise line because it's geared for families with kids... and I eat like a kid. The Disney Wish has a "Mickey & Friends Festival of Foods" with various staple food stalls like Goofy's Grill for hamburgers and hotdogs, Donald's Cantina for tacos and burritos, Mickey’s Smokestack Barbecue for barbecue, Daisy’s Pizza Pies for pizza, and Sweet Minnie’s Ice Cream for soft serve bowls and cones. All of it great and all of it offering vegetarian options (the grill has vegetarian hamburgers and hotdogs, which was a pleasant surprise!).
The worst part of an all-inclusive cruise like this with unlimited food is that there's an insane amount of food waste. Because it's all included, people will order massive amounts of food, then just pick around all of it and leave the remainder to be cleaned off and thrown away. Incredibly wasteful. Happens at dinner too. People will order multiple entrees to "try them" but not actually eat them all. Drives me crazy.
Dinner in tonight's rotational dining was at 1923, which is the fanciest of the onboard restaurants on The Wish. I asked if I could have a kid's menu so I can frame it because it features Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, one of my most favorite Disney characters...
I had a great meal and even greater dessert...
The towel sculpture creature on my bed tonight was... a crab?? I'm guessing...
And there you have it, my final night onboard. It all blew by way too quickly. Now I'd better get what little sleep I can manage.
Today's port adventure was Disney's second private playground, Lighthouse Cay. I'm guessing they had to build a second one because they are adding a bunch of new ships to their fleet, and didn't have enough days available at Castaway Cay to service them all. Our cruise director told us that this Very Merrytime Christmas Cruise was rare because it stops at both places. Since I'd only ever been to Castaway, I was interested in seeing what Disney had going on at the new port adventure.
What's different about Lighthouse Cay is that there's a long, long walk from the ship to the shore...
They did this to protect the coral and wildlife in the area.
Then once you get to shore, you're immediately greeted by luxury cabanas available to people who want to pay hundreds of dollars to have their own private retreat and beach. For everybody else, you take a tram to the other side of the island.
The design of Lighthouse Cay is very much Caribbean-inspired with bright colors and festive art everywhere...
The weather was very much improved from previous days, which made for a nice time to have drinks on the adults-only beach...
After lunch I realized I had forgot my sunscreen and was getting pretty red. So it was time to head back to the ship...
One thing I had never done at sea was a waterslide, and The Wish has an "AquaMouse" that went around the ship's upper decks. Not as cleverly named as the "AquaDuck" that's on the Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy, but it was still pretty clever, with a story you watch as you climb up the tube for the slide down...
Unfortunately they don't allow cameras in the tube, so I wasn't able to video the experience. Instead I went to the adults-only upper deck and grabbed a drink from the Cove Bar so I could air-dry...
Dinner was at Arendelle again, but there wasn't any performances because it was Pirate Night. There also wasn't a show in the theater for some reason (the first day was some kind of Goofy stage show, the second was a weird re-telling of The Little Mermaid stage show which made no sense, and tomorrow is an adaptation of Aladdin). Instead it was movie-time, where everybody could watch Zootopia 2 which is just as entertaining as the first one. I'm fairly certain that this will be another billion-dollar blockbuster for Disney.
After the movie, the ship was eerily lacking in people. I guess most people have kids and are off to bed with them...
Tonights towel sculpture is an octopus? I think?
It's gotta be some kind of sea creature. Or maybe it's the head of one of the cursed pirates from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
Anyway... tomorrow is a day at sea as we head back to Florida.
Welcome to landfall!
This morning the ship docked at Disney's Castaway Cay, their private island which has all kinds of activities scattered about.
It's well-themed with Disney touches, which is the entire reason for going, I suppose...
Looking back at the ship, you can see that it was overcast the entire day, but never rained...
Before dinner it was time for a visit to Star Wars Hyperspace Lounge for drinks. Honestly, I thought it was going to be very tough to get in, but it actually wasn't. No wait at all. And only a short wait other times I popped in to see what's going on...
The interior feels very Star Wars, and that gives it a leg-up on the very similar Epcot lounge/restaurant, Space 220, which was nice enough but a bit of a letdown. The bar has a large "window" behind it which alternates between various planets, ships, and the like...
The big deal about the place is their bubble gun, which is used on some of the drinks they offer...
The rotational dining restaurant tonight was "Arendelle: A Frozen Dining Adventure" which features a live show built around the engagement of Anna and Kristof, but Elsa was there too...
As was Olaf, who is hilariously dragged around the restaurant on a serving cart along with shopkeeper Oaken. The robot snowman is slyly controlled by the cart-pusher who twists various knobs concealed as a pepper grinder and such...
And tonight's bed sculpture is a penguin...
At least I think that's what it is? Maybe a penguin in a blanket?
Today's the day! The real reason I'm here in Florida!
But not so fast, because it was essential to start the day with Tonga Toast at Disney's Polynesian Resort.
It's sublimely delicious... made with a thick piece of Sourdough French Toast which has been filled with sliced bananas then covered in sugar and cinnamon...
Then it was time for a Very Merrytime Cruise aboard the Disney Wish!
Some background...
I have cruised with Disney three times before... twice with my mom because she loved cruises. But they were their original two ships, The Magic and The Wonder, which are much smaller than The Wish. And less crowded. This is my second Christmas cruise, which Disney does very well...
Fast-forwarding to the most exciting thing on this first day, I happened across some paintings which I thought were by one of my favorite contemporary artists, Kehinde Wiley (probably most famous to many as the artist behind President Obama's portrait)...
But they were not. The biggest clue being that they were relatively small, and Wiley paintings are mostly quite large. And the cool patterns that Wiley adds to his works were absent. But even so, it was thrilling for a second to think that I got to see Kehinde Wiley's works by accident instead of flying to an exhibition somewhere!
More excitement was to be had at my first night of rotational dining at the Worlds of Marvel restaurant, featuring Ant-Man and The Wasp...
Like most of the Disney restaurants, there's cool stuff going on while you eat. In this case there's a "demonstration" of the technology playing on the screens which goes very, very wrong... and requires some help of other Marvel heroes to resolve.
Interesting that the "towel sculpture" on Disney cruises is not with towels any more, it's with the cover that goes along the foot of the bed. Tonight it was a turtle...
And tommorrow it's land-ho.
Today was built around going to Magic Kingdom so I could visit the brand new Beak & Barrell Tavern, Disney's newest way to print money.
It's near The Pirates of The Caribbean attraction, and beautifully pirate-themed and jam-packed with cool stuff from top to bottom, and there's hidden surprises throughout...
Before I even made the reservation (which is very difficult for West Coasters since they start taking them at 4am Pacific Time and are gone immediately), I knew I wanted to try the Cook’s Corn Griddle Cakes with Roasted Corn and Poblano Peppers. I had heard they were excellent (and they live up to the hype).
But here's the thing... though there is seating available, there's also standing tables. Which makes eating more of a challenge than it should be. Especially when they stand you half-way between the accessible dip in the table and the tall table top, meaning you have to eat on a small corner away from your plate...
Now, I get it... they have to pack in as many people as possible, so they can't have sit-down tables for everybody (and I am very glad that they have an accessible spot for somebody in a wheelchair), but they should really prioritize seating for people who are there to eat. Otherwise, they shouldn't bother serving food at all.
I did get a very cool souvenir mug with my $46 Plunderer’s Punch though (a tempting blend of The Kraken Black Spiced Rum, Blackberry, Lime, and Vanilla)...
Unfortunately, this was another day of rain. But this time it was a torrential flood, as faithfully indicated by Carrot Weather...
Hopping over to Epcot resulted in canceled Lightning Lanes all over the place due to ride closures, so calling it an early day only made sense.
And there you go. A cool experience with fantastic drinks and very, very good corn cakes. The Beak and Barrel is worth a visit, assuming you can manage to get a reservation.
Another Disney night, another Disney party.
This time the extra hours event called "Jollywood Nights" at Disney Hollywood Studios park. It's the more mature alternative to "Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party" that I was at on Thursday. It's more show-oriented than anything else, but there's things for everybody to do. At least I hope so given that the event lasts until 1:30am...
It was cold, rainy, and I left before it shut down at 1:30am, as did most people. But not before wandering around the parking lot near-empty conditions to look around without crowds, especially Star Wars Land...
And thus ends another night at The Most Magical Place on Earth.
I've attempted to "drink around the world" on two occasions.
For those not in the know as to what that means, it's a Disney challenge where you have an alcoholic beverage from every pavillion in Epcot's World Showcase. There's 11 countries represented, which means 11 drinks. This wouldn't be a terrible challenge for me if I started drinking when they start serving alcohol around 11:00am, but I didn't get off work until 3:30 or 4:00 at the earliest, which means I only get around 5-6 hours to do it. Fortunately, the drinks are mostly weak because Disney doesn't want people getting plowed in their park, but it's still a chunk of alcohol in a relatively short time.
The first time I tried I started in Mexico and went clockwise. I stopped at United Kingdom because I couldn't stomach one more drink. The second time I went counter-clockwise thinking it would be easier to finish on a margarita in Mexico, but was again one drink short.
This time I didn't want to fail, so I started early and split some of my drinks. Which I think still counts, doesn't it? Here's how it went...
As I mentioned, the first drink of the day, The Ottawa Apple, was a clear winner. Refreshingly delicious...
And here's Ashley at the CandleLight Processional...
The last thing of the evening was to use a Lightning Lane for the Living with the Land holiday overlay called "Glimmering Greenhouses" (there was no way I was standing in line for 90 minutes to do this)...
So... yeah... best to begin the minute they start serving alcohol, get mixed drinks so you're not flooded with beer bloat, pace yourself with food, and drink some water along the way. Probably also best to drink around the world in the winter when you're not having to get toasted while in the middle of heat stroke and humidity.
Thanks to the politics of our 27th state, traveling to Florida is something that gives me pause. The bigotry that's been pressed into policy is pretty disgusting, and has resulted in hate crimes exploding. It's so bad that actual travel advisories have been issued.
Though I'm in Walt Disney World, which is kind of a bubble unto its own, and makes any politics feel a world away.
Hey, weren't you in Disney World just a year ago? you might be asking?
Yes. Which you might remember from the two weeks of blog posts I dumped on Blogography (starting here).
Except I'm not here for Disney World, that's just something to do before the reason I'm here.
Tonight was spent at Magic Kingdom because it's time once again for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. An overtly shameless cash-grab by Disney. It's an after-hours event which has special food, merch, parades, characters, and other stuff... along with free hot cocoa and cookies. And magical projections on the castle as a Christmas stage show plays below...
Plus fireworks, of course...
Disney also advertises that you get to enjoy the attractions with shorter lines, but they oversell the event so badly that it's hardly the case. Lines were actually shorter during the day.
Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party is a separately-ticketed event which doesn't require a regular park ticket. If you pay to do it, then you get to enter the park at 4:00 and everybody who doesn't pay to do it has to leave by 6:00. As you might imagine, those two hours of overlap is crowded and crazy. Once the park can be reasonably sure that all the regular ticket riff-raff is gone, they start unleashing all the Christmas specialty stuff around 7:00 and keep it going until midnight.
I've never really found any of the after-hours events to be worth it. But I end up going to many of them anyway for something to do when I was working in Orlando. Plus the specialty foods are interesting. And my mom loved it, so I brought her along when I was there while the Christmas party was going...
If nothing else, you get to see Space Mountain lit up in Christmas colors...
And now I'm cold and dead tired and need to get to bed.
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