Day 5
We were awake at the crack of dawn again, which probably is not all that surprising as we both had plenty of sleep. We got up and experienced a gorgeous sunrise on our balcony. We have seen a number of beautiful sunrises and sunsets on the ships, but being able to experience it on our own balcony made it even more special. Once the sun was high in the sky, we got ready to go to the gym. They were offering a 7:00 AM stretching class. We did this every morning on our Transatlantic cruise, but they have never offered this on the Wonder. So it was nice to see that this was still offered on the Magic. The class was good fun. At the end of the class, the fitness instructor advised that they were now offering a free foot print analysis and wondered if anybody would be interested. Graham and I decided that this would be quite interesting and went for it. Unfortunately we ended up with the hard sell for some arch supports. I have to admit that they felt really comfortable, but essentially they were a thin piece of moulded plastic and they wanted about $300 for them. He told us to think it over. Needless to say neither of us set foot into the gym again that cruise.
After we escaped from the gym, we headed back to our cabin. We got changed and headed to Lumiere's for breakfast. One of Graham's favourite breakfast dishes had unfortunately disappeared from the menu. He has always loved the Maitre D' Kick Off, which was fresh fruit with plain yoghurt and Granola. Instead he tried the Strawberry Tug Boat, which was a Strawberry, Banana and Yoghurt Smoothie with Granola. He then had the Express breakfast, which consisted of Scrambled Eggs, Sausages, Bacon, Ham and Hash Brown. Unfortunately all the sweet names from the breakfast menu have gone. This used to be called Cogsworth's Express on the Magic and Scuttle on the Run on the Wonder. We had already spotted the same thing happening when we were on the Wonder for our Hawaii cruise. I had a Mango Mountain Hike, which is a Mango, Honey and Yoghurt Smoothie with Granola followed by Eggs Benedict, which are served with Sausages and Grilled Tomato on the ships. We both had coffee and Graham had some orange juice and I had apple juice.
When we had finished our breakfast, we decided to head to guest services. We had originally booked an independent excursion to the Queen Elizabeth II Botanical Gardens in Grand Cayman. However, with about two weeks to go, I got an email saying that the tour operator had informed them that the excursion would not go ahead on the day we were in Grand Cayman. So we were at a loose end. We had a look at the excursions Disney offered, but nothing really grabbed us. One excursion that we had looked into a bit deeper was called Native Cayman and the Saltwater Forest. This is what we decided to go for. We were lucky and snapped up the last two places. I had also spotted a Martini tasting for this afternoon in the Navigator and got my ticket for that. There was one last thing to take care off. As we did not have turndown service the previous night, we did not receive our Gold
Castaway Club welcome letter and therefore had no idea when the reception for Gold and Platinum Castaway Club members would be. There was a chance that this would happen that day so I figured I should better ask. We were told that this had not been scheduled yet, but that we should get a letter during the course of the day.
At that point, Graham and I said goodbye to each other and went our separate ways. I still had some time until the DVC Member Celebration. So I decided to do a Fish Extender run. I was not taking part in this as far as receiving is concerned, but I had organised it and therefore had the full list of people participating. I have to admit that making the Fish Extender gifts is an integral part of the cruise preparations for me. I had decided to make a little something for everybody taking part in the Fish Extender exchange. I had decided to go with a Christmas theme this year as I was hopeful that the Christmas decorations would go up during our cruise. For the men and boys, I had made Christmas-themed key rings and for the girls and women Christmas-themed zip pulls. Doing the Fish Extender run before the meet that was scheduled to take place later that day also gave me the chance to check if everybody was in the stateroom that I expected them to be in. Well, everybody was present and accounted for and with only 14 families participating, this did not take long. When I headed back to the cabin, I found our Gold Castaway Club gift, which consisted of a leather-bound notebook, a luggage strap and a set of note cards. We also had received the welcome letter and the reception was the next day. I also spotted that the message light was blinking. The person we had spoken to earlier at Guest Services had left me a message confirming when the reception would be and advising that we would get the welcome letter during the course of the day. I was well impressed that she had followed up on this for us.
I still had a bit of time until the DVC Member Celebration, but decided to head down to deck 3 anyway. I had bought a 9 inch Create Your Own Vinylmation from Ebay that I wanted to have signed by the characters. I dropped this off at Guest Services and then headed over to Diversions. When I got to Diversions, they were still setting up and there was nobody there to sign people in. I decided to have a quick bathroom stop and when I came back, they had started to let people in. As per usual, they had no record of us. I got two baseball caps and one very nice writing portfolio. I love the new baseball caps. DVC changed their logo at some point and the new caps have the new logo. The caps are white with a blue logo and blue lettering. They had some technical difficulties so that delayed things a little. However, the Mimosas were flowing liberally so this was not a problem. We were shown a number of different video clips. In between they did a few ice-breakers and gave out a few prizes for things like having been a member for the longest time or having become a member most recently. I knew that I would not even get close with either as we were just coming up to our 5th anniversary as members. I was kind of hoping that we would get a category for the furthest away member, for which I most certainly have been in with a chance as most people in the room seemed to be fairly local to Galveston and I was the only non-US member in the room. This did not happen. They then asked for the member who had done the most cruises. I did not think I would have a chance with that as there are normally people at those events that have done 20+ cruises. She started by asking who had done 5 or more cruises and only 3 hands went up. She then asked for the number of cruises. The first couple had done 5 cruises, the second couple were on their 7th cruise and then there was me on the 9th cruise. So that particular prize was mine. I also did well with the trivia questions that they asked in between the video clips and the sales pitch. In the end I left the Member Celebration with two baseball caps, a writing portfolio, a drawstring gym/ beach bag, a reusable shopping bag, a document wallet and a set of refillable travel bottles for shampoo, etc. I felt thoroughly spoiled.
Once the DVC Member Celebration was finished, I was yet again at a loose end. I wanted to check out the Princess Gathering at 11:30 and get some phones and decided I may as well join the line for this. Even though it was only 11:10, the line was already half-way to the back entrance to Lumieres. I was not overly concerned as I have done this kind of thing before. The line normally moves very swiftly once the characters arrive. There were also some very nice people in the line and everybody was chatting with each other so waiting was no hardship. Well, this time round was the exception that proves the rule. The line hardly moved at all and at 11:50, I was still nowhere near the atrium, so I decided to give up. I am not all that keen on the Princesses anyway so this was no problem. The only reason I did get in the line in the first place was that I had heard that Aurora is part of the Princess Gathering on the Magic and I still had not managed to get a photo with her.
I had arranged to meet Graham back at the cabin at 12:00. We had never had room service on all of our cruises and as we had a balcony this time round, we decided to put this right. I had romantic ideas about having lunch on our balcony. The reality was a different one as it was a really overcast day and it was very windy. So we decided to have a picnic in the room. Graham ordered some Chicken Wings for a starter and I had a Caesar Salad. We both had the Steak Sandwich, which was served with Fries. When I rang, I was told that it would be about 30 to 45 minutes. I had heard that this is the standard estimate and that the food usually arrives quicker. I quickly went up to the drink station and got both of us some soda water. In the end, we waited an hour for our lunch, but it was well worth the wait. We both loved our food. Once I had finished eating, I left Graham to it and asked him to put the tray outside as I was running late for our meet.
This meet was something new for me. I am used to having the meet before the safety drill on the first day. I have to admit that I do prefer it that way as you get to know the people who you have chatted with online straightaway and there is also no risk with the meet clashing with anything else. The meet also normally takes place at the Promenade Lounge, but somebody in the group had managed to get us Rocking Bar D for the meet, which was great as the only people who were in there at the time was us. After our allocated hour, they had an organized activity where families could build a race car out of vegetables. Some of the families took part in this and those not involved just stayed behind and chatted. It was great to put some faces to names. Unfortunately a number of people could not make it as they had other activities planned.
Once everybody started to drift away, it was nearly time for my Martini tasting. So I headed straight over to Sessions, where the tasting would take place. A few people were already there. The funny thing is that I normally do not drink Martinis, but I love doing the Martini tastings on the cruises. They had set up for this on either tables for 2 or 4. There did not seem to be any tables that had a spare seat so I settled down on a table for 2. A lot of the people at the tasting seemed to know each other and being by myself felt a little awkward. I had never experienced this before. On previous cruises, I had always ended up joining other people and quite often ended up staying behind with them after the tasting and just chatted. The bartender also seemed to be rather full of himself. Still, the drinks were very nice. We started out with a Classic Martini and the option to turn this into a Dirty Martini. I decided to pass on this this time round. I had tried this during previous cruises, but this particular Martini was so smooth that it would have been a shame to spoil it. The other Martinis were a twist on a French Martini, which had an addition of Midori, a Guava Martini and a Chocolate Martini. At the end three people got the chance to work together to create a Martini. They came up with a creation consisting of Vanilla-flavoured Vodka, Frangelico, Raspberry Purée and an Elderflower liqueur. I so wish that we all had the opportunity to try this. It sounded absolutely delicious.