Day 12
This morning we had a proper lie in. There was nothing that we had to go to first thing in the morning so we did not get up until 8:00 AM and then we headed up to Beach Blanket Buffet for some breakfast. For a sea day, it was surprisingly quiet up there. We had a leisurely breakfast while watching the world go by. With breakfast out of the way, Graham headed down to deck4 to do Walk a Mile and I went to deck 3 for another DVC Member Celebration.
This DVC Member Celebration was not quite as busy as the first one. I managed to sit with people from our cruise meet thread. This Member Celebration had a distinct Hawaiian theme. They served Blue Hawaii cocktails, introduced the new Aulani resort that will open in Hawaii later this year, did a number of give aways rthat tied in with the new resort and showed some artist impressions of the new resort. I have to say it does look stunning. They also showed a video about the hidden Menehune. Menehune are mischievous little people that live in the forest, but also have been credited with being fantastic builders. Throughout the resort, images of the Menehune have been hidden, most of them in places where they will be found by children. The myth of the Menehune and how they have incorporated this in the resort was very interesting. We did a bit of a Menehune hunt of our own. Before the meeting, the DVC staff had stuck little images of Menhune under some of the chairs. The people who found one of them under their chairs, got a little prize. I did not win anything, but it was fun anyway.
After the Member Celebration, I headed back to the cabin. A group of people who are organizing the Mouse Adventures Scavenger Hunts at
Disneyland and Disney World every year happened to be on our cruise and had offered to do a Mouse Adventure at Sea for us. As Graham is not interested in this kind of thing, I teamed up with two other cruisers that were in the same situation. With being in port for most of the day the previous day, I had forgotten to contact our team captain to arrange a meeting time. I did not want to risk waking her up before we went to breakfast so I decided that I would call her when I got back from the Member Celebration. Graham was in our cabin working on his boat. As soon as I got back, he told me that our team captain had rang and left him her Wave Phone number for me to contact her. They have recently introduced Wave Phones, which are essentially mobile phones that work only on the ship and on
Castaway Cay. They are free to use and every cabin has two of them. This was the only time I used ours. I managed to contact her and we arranged to meet up outside Beach Blanket Buffet 5 minutes later.
When I met up with her and her son, who had decided to join us, we had a look through the game pack. There were a number of tasks that could be done sitting down like some trivia questions and some picture clues. Others could be partially done while sitting down like a word search, but that then lead to a question for which we had to find the answer around the ship. My favourite task was where you had to put various public spaces onto a grid of where they are located and this was then used to decode a grid of words, which in turn formed a question. Other questions could only be answered by going around the ship. A really fun task happened on the Route 66 entertainment area. As part of the theming, they have mile markers and there are also places printed on the carpet that are along Route 66. There was a whole lot of multiple choice questions and for each answer, you had to go back or forward a certain number of miles. Once you reached the last question, you had to answer in which “state” you are badsed on the place names on the carpet around you.
Once we had done this task, we decided to go and sit down to work on the tasks that did not require us to walk around the ship. It just so happens that Bingo was on at this time and my partner in crime really wanted to play. I played a lot of Bingo on our first cruise, but have not played since. Still, I was quite happy to sit down and work on the Scavenger Hunt while the electronic Bingo card did its job. The session was finished earlier than scheduled so they decided to play a game of give away Bingo and everybody in the room was given a free card. I participated in this, but did not win anything.
Once the Bingo was over, we headed out to work on the tasks were we had to find clues or answers around the ship. In the meantime, we had ben joined by another team member. We literally walked up and down the ship looking at every corner of the public spaces. We even managed to talk our way into the Oceaneers Club with the help of the daughter of our team captain as we thought one of thepictue clues was taken there. This was the perfect way to get to know the ship better. We finished off most of the tasks that we had started earlier and did one task where we had to decode a question that had been written in the nautical alphabet and then we decided to break for lunch. I wanted to catch up with Graham for lunch. Be therefore arranged a meeting time and location. Of course, I could not find Graham anywhere. So I decided to go up to Beach Blanket Buffet to join the others.
We had a nice leisurely lunch. I had Macaroni Cheese, Beans and Carrots, Beef Short Ribs, Fried Chicken and Pasta with Tomato, Basil and Parmesan Sauce. For pudding we decided to get some soft-serve ice cream from Goofy’s Galley and made our own ice cream sandwiches with the cookies that were on the dessert buffet at Beach Blanket Buffet.
After lunch, we carried on with our tasks. We had another decoding exercise to do and we also had two tasks that had to be done at a specific time. One of them was Shuffle Board and I was very quick to volunteer somebody else for this and the other one was a task where we had to send a message to a Wave Phone with a bit of information and then got a reply with another piece of information. Once all the tasks were complete, I dropped off our answer sheet as the cabin for this was near my own cabin. We came 9th, but this was definitely about the taking part rather than the winning and I had a lot of fun doing Mouse Adventures at Sea.
When I got back to our cabin, Graham was there and we decided to go and get a coffee at Cove Café and then head for the Rainforest Room. We had a nice relaxing afternoon. In between, we did our laundry. We had no trouble finding a washing machine. Finding a dryer proved to be a bit more challenging. As there were no dryers available on our deck, Graham decided to go up to deck 7 as the laundry room there is bigger. I decided to leave him to it and get changed for the show. I rarely attend any shows when cruising, but that night there was a show that I wanted to see. Susan Egan, who was the original Belle in Beauty and the Beast on Broadway was on the ship and was giving a concert. I was just leaving to head down to the theater when Graham came back to ask if I could come up to see if I could get the dryer to work. He had found spare dryers on deck 7, but unfortunately he could not get the dryer to accept his key card. Each machine has a card reader installed. You just swipe your key card and it charges the applicable amount to your room account. Well, that is the theory anyway. I tried with my card and had no success either. I then noticed that none of the card readers in the laundry room seemed to have power. By now I was too late for the show anyway, so I headed to Guest Services to report the fault. You have to give them this. By the time I headed back to my cabin, maintenance was already on the way to look at the problem.
With my plans spoiled, I went back to the cabin to read for a bit and then headed out to make good use of the various photo opportunities. I was in line for Mickey and Minnie, when Graham appeared in this swimming shorts and a t shirt to let me know that he had managed to find a dryer and would be a few minutes late for dinner. There were all these people in their semi-formal dresses and then there was Graham. You should have seen the looks some people gave us. He suggested that he should have a photo with me, Mickey and Minnie, but I sent him packing. I regretted this afterwards as this would have made a very memorable photo.
Once I had my photos with Mickey and Minnie done, I went to have photos done on the stair case and in front of one of the backdrops. They had a lovely pink backdrop out that evening.
Once I had my photos done, I headed for dinner. Apart from Graham, we were waiting for one other couple. When Graham arrived, we decided that the other couple would probably not come so we decided to order. Graham disappeared in between two courses to get our laundry out of the dryers. That night was the Prince and Princess Menu. Graham had Scallops Au Gratin, The Beast's Potato and Sausage Casserole Soup and New Zealand Rack of Lamb, Potato Gratin, Ratatouille. It suited me rather well that he was not there at the beginning of the meal. On the Transatlantic he had really enjoyed the Rack of Lamb and even had seconds. So I tipped off our server to this fact. For his dessert, Graham had chosen Princess Jasmine's Banana Bread and Butter Pudding, but he was not very impressed with this. I had chosen Double-baked Cheese Soufflé with Mascarpone and Gorgonzola Sauce, The Beast's Potato and Sausage Casserole Soup, Beef Wellington, Broccoli and Carrots, Roasted Fingerling Potatoes and for dessert I had Prince Charming's Chilled Chocolate Soufflé.
After dinner, we made a quick exit so that we could some photos of the two of us before the photographers packed up for the night. Unfortunately the photographer by the staircase had already left, but we managed to get photos in front of the pink and white backdrops.
Once the photos were taken, we headed to our cabin. Our stateroom host had left us a towel peacock. I took a couple of photos of this and then retired to bed.