You left the kids where?? Our "kid-free" 4/10 MR cruise on the Wonder - Updated 5/1

[DisFanInCO]

We started our second day at sea the same way we did the first – sleeping in, this time until 8:30! We had reservations for Palo brunch at 11am, so we walked around on deck 10 for a little bit before heading in to the restaurant. We were seated right away, and our server Karolina (I forgot to write down where she was from, but I think it was Croatia) brought us our complimentary mimosas. Yummy! Brunch is setup with both buffet items as well as hot items you order from the kitchen separately. Karolina gave us a tour of the buffet and then left us to fill our plates. I got pictures of our plates, but I can’t remember what everything was. I know there was some really yummy blue cheese and walnut bread, several different types of cheeses, crab legs, salmon, etc, etc. Oh, and some pretty darn good sticky buns. Everything was fabulous!

We also ordered a couple of the hot dishes. I had the frittata. It had bacon, sausage AND ham in it and was DELICIOUS. DH had the Eggs Julia, which is like eggs benedict but made with salmon. He said it was good. We also ordered the grape and gorgonzola pizza to share, just because it sounded interesting. It was actually WAY better than I expected – the sweetness of the grapes and saltiness of the cheese worked really well together.

Somehow we still had room for dessert, so we went back to the buffet and picked up some treats. I had the chocolate crème de pot and a brownie-like thing with dark chocolate and peanuts. Both were very good. DH had a mango custard parfait thing, some fresh fruit and a tart. We THINK it was pineapple, but it may not have been He ate most of everything, so I’m assuming he liked them all!

After gorging ourselves, we rolled out of the restaurant and headed down to the Buena Vista Theatre to see the “Behind the Scenes with an Imagineer” session. This was a talk by an Imagineer, Dex Tanksley, discussing how Imagineers work and a little bit about what they are currently working on. There were some interesting pictures of the inside infrastructure of Expedition Everest, but other than that, I was kind of disappointed in the presentation. It was completely scripted, and some of the material, especially the “what we’re working on now” pieces, was pretty out of date. Toy Story Mania and World of Color? Yeah, they’ve been out for awhile now… At the end Dex opened it up for questions and that was better since he was more comfortable kind of speaking off the cuff about things he was working on. He also must have realized that it wasn’t the best presentation ever because at the end he told us to come to his second session on Saturday where he would talk about his personal experience as an Imagineer and would not be going off a script. I didn’t really learn anything new but at the end, he handed out pins to everyone who came down to talk to him and I got a cool Disneyland Paris WDI exclusive pin.

We sat outside for a little while and then headed over to the spa. I had reserved the Exotic Rasul as a “surprise” for DH, but forgot he had access to log in to the Disney website too so he found out about it when he logged on to look at something in our reservation before we left. We checked in a couple minutes early, filled out the paperwork at the front desk and then Rebecca lead us back to the changing rooms to change into our robes. We ran into Mindyjoy and her DF in our respective changing rooms – they had just finished their Rasul session and had enjoyed it, which I was happy to hear. . Rebecca led us back to the room and gave us instructions on each of the products we would be using. There are several TRs with pics on the boards that have already done a good job explaining what the Rasul is all about, so I won’t go in to details here. One thing I don’t remember reading about – the door does lock, but it doesn’t lock from the inside – only from the outside (apparently for safety reasons, so they can come in if something happens), so Rebecca had to lock us in, we couldn’t do it ourselves. It wasn’t a problem, but I did suddenly have a mental picture of someone “accidentally” opening the door as they walked by. LOL! Anyway, it was very relaxing and the 50 minutes went by quickly. Rebecca had champagne waiting for us and led us to the rainforest room where she said we could hang out for as long as we wanted since it wasn’t busy. We sat on the heated loungers for a bit (those are REALLY nice) and tried out the two steam rooms for a minute or two. We both really enjoyed it and our skin was SO soft afterwards. It’s a good way to visit the spa without spending a TON of money and we would definitely do it again. Oh, and Rebecca asked us how we had decided to do that particular treatment. I told her I had seen a couple reviews and thought it sounded like fun. She said “Oh, did you read the reviews on Disboards?” Why yes, yes I did

It was about showtime, but because we had seen Alfred and Seymour the night before, we decided to skip the show. I have heard they do a totally different bit for the family show, so I’m sure it would have been good, but we were ok with missing it. In hindsight, I think it probably would have been better to go to the show, because we wound up in Cadillac Lounge…

As we sat down, Christiaan came on the PA and announced that Captain Guus was signing stuff in Treasure Ketch. We bought DS8 a model of the ship and decided he would like to have it signed, so DH went to grab that and get it signed while I sat and drank my first margarita.

Just a word of warning to you here – if Brigetta (from Hungary) asks if you would like to make your margarita a double TELL HER NO!! I made the mistake of saying “yes, sounds great” and I paid for it later (just wait, you’ll see ). DH ran into AnimalPrincess (of course ) as he went to chat with Captain Guus, so she and her DH showed up a few minutes later to join us for pre-dinner beverages. My DH soon came back with a successfully signed boat and we all chatted (and drank double margaritas) until dinner.

Dinner was at Parrot Cay again and we were solo as our tablemates had dinner at Palo that night. I’m going to blame the tequila here, because I only got pictures of our entrees, but DH had the St. Marteen Stack (ok), the Parrot Cay Salad (good), the Mixed Grill (pretty good) and the Ice Cream Sundae (good). I had the Jamaican Chicken Tenderloins (ok), the Parrot Cay Salad (good), the Jerk Seasoned Pork Chop (very good) and the Crème Brulee cheesecake (better than the straight up crème brulee, but not fabulous).

At this point, the tequila, along with the wine I had at dinner was having an effect on me because I was starting to get a little crazy…

Yeah...I don't know either...

After dinner, we decided to watch Tron in 3D, because, as you know, we’re big Tron fans. We got to the theatre, got our 3D glasses, sat down, the movie came on…and I lasted about 5 minutes before I had to call it a night and head back to the room. Let’s just say the 3D, slight swaying of the boat and the alcohol from earlier were not mixing all that well

Next up: Unimogs, ziplining and “Holy Moly Guacamole!!”

 

[Mindyjoy]

Brigetta was the best, wasn't she??? She tried to make my cafe w/ Baileys a double and I said no thanks; I'm glad I declined! LOL

 

[mbb]

Yeah...I don't know either...

.........

LOVE it!!! LOL!!


Great TR - so happy all the MR folks are busy typing this weekend!

 

[AnimalPrincess]

Those Margaritas did not have a great effect on me either, unfortunately they gave me REALLY bad heartburn (at least I think it was those), or maybe it was all the food I am not used to eating. Love the last picture of you!

ETA: Oh and your report totally helped me remember what we did Tuesday! I had forgotten that Margaritas were that night and due to my heartburn we just went to bed after dinner. Thanks! lol

 

[DisFanInCO]

Brigetta was the best, wasn't she??? She tried to make my cafe w/ Baileys a double and I said no thanks; I'm glad I declined! LOL

Yes, definitely a good thing you declined! Everyone at Cadillac Lounge was great! We enjoyed talking to Brigetta, Vendy and Romy - they were all fab.

LOVE it!!! LOL!!


Great TR - so happy all the MR folks are busy typing this weekend!

Thanks for reading! I'm surprised that crazy pic of me didn't scare you away though

Those Margaritas did not have a great effect on me either, unfortunately they gave me REALLY bad heartburn (at least I think it was those), or maybe it was all the food I am not used to eating. Love the last picture of you!

ETA: Oh and your report totally helped me remember what we did Tuesday! I had forgotten that Margaritas were that night and due to my heartburn we just went to bed after dinner. Thanks! lol

LOL! Glad I could help I was trying to remember if we saw you guys after dinner, but I guess not!

 

[DisFanInCO]

Luckily, when I woke up Wednesday morning, I didn’t have any ill effects from the previous evening’s festivities. We had to be up and ready to go by 9 since we were going on the Canopy Adventure tour (ziplining) so had put out the breakfast order door hanger the night before. Our bagels, fruit and coffee were delivered promptly at 8am.

We headed over to Cadillac Lounge to check in and chatted with Kat (from England) for a few minutes while we waited for everyone to check in. We were given the go-ahead to head off the ship pretty quickly so we headed out and met up with the guy from Vallarta Adventures who would take us over to their office to check in. We took about a 10 minute ride through the marina to get to their offices and saw a lot of awesome yachts. Pretty sure if we win the lottery that will be one of DH’s first purchases

We signed the “it’s not our fault if you get hurt because you’re not listening to us” waiver and were introduced to our driver for the day. He made sure we all had a bottle of water and had a chance to use the restroom since it was going to be about an hour drive out to the zipline park. Our adventure began when we were introduced to the vehicle we would be taking out to the park…the UNIMOG.

(the pic below courtest of the Vallarta Adventures website since I forgot to take one of the one we rode in)

Typically used as military troop transports, these Unimogs have been slightly modified to make our ride more comfortable and safe (yes, there are seatbelts ) Our group of 11 intrepid Disney adventurers climbed aboard and we were off! The drive took us away from the tourist areas so we could see a bit more of typical life in Mexico. We saw a ton of little food stands like the one in the pic below – some in front of stores like this and some just on the side of the road. The smell coming out of these places was heavenly and I REALLY wanted to yell down to the driver to see if he would stop so we could grab a snack, but wasn’t sure how that would go over with the rest of the group, so decided against it.

We made it to the Canopy Adventure Park in just about an hour and were greeted by Felipe, who was going to be one of our guides for the day. For some reason, as soon as DH stepped off the truck Felipe started calling him “Papa”. I don’t know, maybe because of the hat?!?!

Anyway, we headed over to get our equipment and helmets and to give up our worldly possessions, at least for awhile. There are no cameras allowed, no hats, no bags and NO sunglasses (unless they are prescription and you need them to see). They locked up all our stuff together and we got it all at the end of the day. I was asked what my name was and apparently they don’t get many visitors named Holly because they gave me a really weird look. I said, “Well, it’s like ‘holy’ but with an extra L” to which Felipe said “OHHH!! GREAT! Holy Moly Guacamole!!!” And from that point on, I was no longer “Holly”. I was now “Holy Moly Guacamole!” It has a nice ring to it, but really is a little long for everyday use.

Once we were all decked out with our equipment, we sat down for a safety briefing and met the rest of our guides. Along with Felipe, we also had Naza, Ivan and Lalo helping us. Since cameras are not allowed, there was also a photographer, Gino, who came along to document our journey. I cannot say enough good things about all these guys. They were FANTASTIC! They were all hilarious and very, very patient. I was a little nervous about the height thing and they quickly put me at ease and made sure I was doing ok the entire time.

After the safety briefing we stood up, walked about 10 feet, turned around a couple of trees and there was our first zipline. Whew!! This was a baby one, just to get us comfortable sitting in the harness and everything, and while I was scared standing there while they were hooking me up to the line, as soon as I stepped off the platform, I was totally fine. We all had a great time.

We went through several more ziplines and also got to rappel (scary concept, but not nearly as bad as I expected)

We crossed a couple rope bridges which, for some reason, were a little tricky for me to maneuver because I am short and didn’t really have any good places to hold. We also got to climb a rope ladder, which scared the heck out of me. I was WAY more scared during this than I was on anything else, but I’m not really sure why. I DID make it to the top and even smiled once I got there

We went through a total of 2 miles of ziplines and rappelled something like 190 ft. total. The zipline course is in a mountainous area, and you do have to do some walking up steep parts of the trail in a few spots, so it is a pretty active excursion. They have water at almost every stop on the 2nd half of the course and the guides definitely encourage you to drink it so you don’t get dehydrated. It was a pleasant day that day, probably in the low- to mid-70s, but it still got warm as the day progressed and I’m not sure if I would want to do this in the middle of the summer!

After we got out of our gear, they took us over to the snack area where we could purchase beer/soda/water, homemade quesadillas with really, really good salsa as well as souvenirs like t-shirts and bandanas. They also had laptops set up so we could review the pictures that Gino took of us during the tour. They took over 200 pictures of just our group and of that, 50 or so were of “Papa John” and I. We decided to purchase the CD of all the pictures of us, and for the two of us it was $58US. When I got home, I found that in addition to your individual pictures, they also include about 30 or so pictures of some of the local animals and plants you MIGHT see on the CD as well, so I thought it was a relatively good deal.

We had about 30 minutes to sit and relax and then we boarded the unimog to head back to the port. On the way back the driver randomly pulled over and a woman and two kids climbed up into the cab of the truck and off we went again. I thought that was a little strange, but turns out it was the driver’s family and he was just taking them into town. The kids were SO cute and gave us big smiles and said “Adios! Hasta Luego!” when we left.

Overall, DH and I really, really liked this excursion and thought it was well worth the money. The Vallarta Adventures guys were SO great and we felt absolutely safe the whole time. I would highly recommend it for adults and kids alike (kids have to be 10 I think). We had 4 kids in our group with us and they thought it was great and of course, showed no fear at all

Up Next: Puerto Vallarta Part 2 – Starbucks!, Kinder Buenos and "To Infinity and Begone!"

 

[AnimalPrincess]

I have to totally agree with you about the staff at Vallarta Adventures, they were awesome! Totally hilarious, and very kind. Ours did get a little rushed at the end because we had someone get stuck on the rappel so we were loosing time, and then when we left they almost forgot to give us our CD but overall it was such a good experience.
I love your guys nicknames! We didn't get any funny nicknames!
I hear you on the hot aspect, that is why I had no problems getting totally soaked on our adventure, it felt great!
I am amazed at how many ziplines they must have and find it funny that you guys just walked a few feet and were at yours and we had to take a mule! lol

 

[Mindyjoy]

oh my, you are beating my report by a half day, how did this happen?!?!?!?! Sounds like ziplining was fun! I didn't book this because I too thought I would be terrified. Sounds like it's not so bad. I showed Tim your pictures and he thought it looked fun. If we go back we may have to give it a try!

 

[acpalmer]

I'm jealous of your ziplining adventure. We can't go because our youngest will only be 8, so he can't do it and he would be wicked jealous if we went without him. We ziplined near the Royal Gorge last summer and had the best time doing it!

 

[TinkLoverSam]

My DH and I are planning on doing the Outdoor Adventure excursion with a mule ride along with everything else. I believe it's run by the same company so I'm excited as it looks like it should be a lot of fun!

 

[DisFanInCO]

I'm jealous of your ziplining adventure. We can't go because our youngest will only be 8, so he can't do it and he would be wicked jealous if we went without him. We ziplined near the Royal Gorge last summer and had the best time doing it!

How tall is your DS? If he is at least 4ft tall, he CAN go on the tour, but you have to book it through them directly. I think you'd have to get transportation over to their office on your own, but it was only a 10 minute ride by boat, so I'm sure it would be faster by taxi...Just an idea if it's something you're really interested in!

My DH and I are planning on doing the Outdoor Adventure excursion with a mule ride along with everything else. I believe it's run by the same company so I'm excited as it looks like it should be a lot of fun!

It IS run by the same company, and this is the tour that AnimalPrincess went on. She mentioned a little bit about it in a post above - they got pretty wet after rappeling down the waterfall, but I think they had a lot of fun.

 

[DisFanInCO]

After we were dropped off back at the port, we decided to walk around a little bit, but we didn’t want to go too far, so just stayed around the port. As I’m sure everyone is aware of by now, there is a Walmart AND a Sam’s Club right across the street from the port, and just to the left of those is a big mall. We decided to check out the mall just to see if there was anything interesting there. It was pretty much your average mall, so we didn’t stay there very long BUT they DID have a Starbucks! The coffee on the ship is not exactly what I consider to be “good” coffee, so I was excited to get my caffeine fix with good ole’ strong Starbucks coffee. And, it was cheaper than it is at home!

DH wanted to grab a few snacks and some beer so we headed over to Walmart. Honestly, I cannot stand Walmart, and pretty much refuse to shop there at home, but, it was close and we knew we would find what we wanted, so I tolerated it. We picked up some snacks and I found a Spanish Sleeping Beauty (La Bella Durmiente) coloring book for DD2. As we were waiting to check out, we looked at the candy they had by the registers and found one of our FAVORITE candy bars

Have you ever had a Kinder Bueno? It’s kind of like a Kit Kat, but a bit bigger with hazelnut filling, and in my opinion, WAY better. They’re pretty hard to find in the US, so we stocked up on some.

We headed back to the ship at that point, although I wish we had gone into downtown to walk around, because I think we missed the charm of Puerto Vallarta. I hadn’t done a lot of research on the city since we had the excursion booked, so we weren’t sure how far it was and if we’d have enough time to get there and back since I wanted to see the night’s show. Oh well, just gives us a reason to go back some time!

It was about 5 when we got back to the ship and DH was hungry, so he headed up to Deck 9 to get a snack. Apparently I was exhausted because I was fast asleep, with my legs hanging off the bed, when he came back 10 minutes later

The evening’s show was Toy Story the Musical. I LOVE Toy Story, so was looking forward to seeing it and apparently, so was everyone else because the theatre was packed by the time we got there. We were able to find a couple seats and sat down just as Christiaan came up on stage. If you’ve seen Toy Story, you know what happens - it’s the same story with a couple songs added in. When Toy Story first came out, my niece was 3 or so and would run around the house yelling “To Infinity and BE GONE”. Both DH and I apparently said that out loud at one point during the show because people around us looked at us kinda weird. Oops! It was good, and I thought “Sid” was particularly good, but after seeing it once, I probably won’t need to see it again when we’re back on the Wonder next year.

After the show, we headed to Diversions for the Pub Quiz. We walked in and who should be sitting there, just WAITING for us, but AnimalPrincess and her DH. I think they were stalking us…Or, maybe it was the other way since we showed up after they did It ended up that we were the only ones who showed up, but Drew asked us if we just wanted to play against each other, so we decided to do that. It was all “general knowledge” questions, but some of the questions we had no idea about (anyone know what you would be doing if you were “sniggling”? I guessed, and just happened to get it right, but didn’t really KNOW.) It was very close, but in the end, my guess about “sniggling” made the difference and I won by one point. I ended up winning a blue DCL journal, which was pretty nice. AnimalPrincess found out later that Drew was supposed to give us ALL keychains, since there were only 4 of us playing, but he forgot.

BTW – “sniggling” is a fishing technique used to catch eels. Whip that little tidbit of useless knowledge out at your next party or family gathering and I’m sure you’ll AMAZE all your friends and family.

We sat and chatted for a little bit and then headed to dinner. We were in Triton’s for the night and had some of my favorite dishes of the week. For appetizers, DH did the shrimp (sorry no pic of that) and I had the bacon and mushroom tart, which I really enjoyed

For the 2nd course, I had the Tomato and Basil soup, which was good and DH had the French Onion Soup, which I think was also good (another pic I missed).

For our entrées DH ordered the steak (who can pass up bacon-wrapped green beans?! ). Originally, I was going to order the lamb, but Vicky suggested that I might like the duck better, so I went with her suggestion. We also ordered the lobster mac & cheese to split. When Vicky brought our meals, she also brought me the lamb to try and I was very happy that she steered me toward the duck, which was very good. The lamb was ok, but a little tough. We’ve had better lobster mac, but this was fine.

Once again, I missed out on pics of dessert, but DH had the Brioche and Pannetone Pudding (good) and I had the Grand Marnier Souffle (good, but Palo’s is better )

After dinner we headed to Wavebands to see Heath Hyche, a comedian. He was pretty funny, but not a “must-see”. I was tired, so after Heath’s show ended, we just headed to bed.

Next up: Wandering around Cabo, Dinner at Palos and a covert operation

 

[AnimalPrincess]

After the show, we headed to Diversions for the Pub Quiz. We walked in and who should be sitting there, just WAITING for us, but AnimalPrincess and her DH. I think they were stalking us…Or, maybe it was the other way since we showed up after they did

I think we were equally stalking each other lol

Before the show I ran into John at the DVC booth (you and Keith were sleeping) and Matt tried to introduce us and we were like "yeah we know each other lol"

I want my key chain!!

 

[SeaSpray]

Looking forward to more! Thanks for taking the time to post your review and pictures.

 

[QuiltTeddy]

We were on the same cruise the week prior to you. DH said the creme brulee was terrible, also. He was extremely disappointed because it's one of his favorite deserts.

 

[ame]

We were on the same cruise and my DH was continually disappointed by the creme brulee too!

 

[DisFanInCO]

Hi there! Sorry I've disappeared for a couple days, my DH was out of town over the weekend and the kids kept me VERY busy searching for Easter eggs and then I had work chaos to deal with

thanks to everyone for reading and it sounds like my DH has lots of good company on the "bad creme brulee" bandwagon. It's such a bummer as he was really looking forward to it

Ok, next up part 1 of Cabo Day 1

 

[DisFanInCO]

I woke up around 7 and looked out the porthole to see…water, water everywhere! We weren’t scheduled to get into Cabo until 10:30 and we didn’t have excursions planned for the day, so we took our time getting ready and had a leisurely breakfast at Beach Blanket Buffet. Today was a really horrible picture-taking day for me, so I don’t have any pics of our breakfast, but the buffet had a pretty good selection of breakfast foods, a chicken enchilada casserole which was good, but not really a breakfast food in my mind and, of course, Krispie Kreme donuts! After breakfast, we walked around on deck 4 and took some pictures as we were coming into Cabo.

We also ran into Turk, who came out to see what Cabo looked like

Christiaan announced that we had been cleared and tenders were starting at about 10, 30 minutes earlier than planned. We decided to grab our stuff and head into the city to walk around. People without excursions were asked to go to Buena Vista Theatre, which just happened to be right down the hall from our room, so when we walked into the theatre, they were already letting people head down, so we didn’t even have to sit and wait.

Boarding the tender was very easy and we got some good views of the ship as we headed into town. If anyone’s interested in the secret porthole rooms, you can see where they are in the picture below – right next to the word “Wonder” there’s an indention with 2 rows of barrels. If you look at the top row, you’ll see a porthole, a platform where two guys are standing and then a set of 2 barrels. Those are the 3 SPH rooms on the port side. We were in the room that was least obstructed, to the left of the two guys standing there. It was really a great location!

We also saw this gigantic yacht on our way in. You can’t see it in the picture very well, but there’s a helicopter on the back. Another purchase my DH will make if we win the lottery some day!

We didn’t have any plans and weren’t shopping for anything in particular, so we basically just wandered around the marina and some of the side streets for a couple hours.

Both Puerto Vallarta and Cabo have the funniest pedestrian signals. Pictures don’t do it justice, and of course we didn’t get a video of it, but the “walk” sign is animated and the guy looks like he’s doing the running man. It’s HILARIOUS

We decided to follow the advice on this sign…

…and headed over to Cabo Wabo for a snack and an adult beverage or two. You will NEVER guess who we ran into…

alright, you guessed it, AnimalPrincess and her DH.

Next Up: The beach, Dinner at Palo and that covert operation I keep talking about

 

[DisFanInCO]

After our snacks at Cabo Wabo, we meandered back to the marina and decided that we wanted to go to the beach for a little while. We had some packages with us and we didn’t really want to get them all sandy, so we headed back to the ship to drop them off and put some more sunscreen on. It didn’t take long for the roundtrip – maybe 30 minutes or so.

Once we got back to the marina, we found a water taxi that would take us out to Lover’s Beach and pick us up after a couple hours for $15 total. The taxis get as close as they can, but you do have to get out in the water, so be prepared to get a little bit wet. There were two random guys there “helping” people to shore, and of course they were looking for tips. They told us to make sure to come find them when we were leaving so they could “help” us back into the boat. Um…yeah, we didn’t really need help

It was kind of busy on the front side of the beach, so we went around back where there were fewer people, but you also couldn’t swim because the current was too strong. That was fine with me – I just wanted to get a little bit of sun and relax. I parked myself on a beach towel with my book and DH went off to explore. The rock formations at Lover’s Beach are really, really cool. Almost seems like someone has carved the rock on purpose, but no, it’s all natural.

One thing to mention – El Arco is at the end of the rock formations next to this beach. During very low tide, you can actually walk underneath it HOWEVER, if you are there when the tide is coming in, they will NOT let you walk over in that area. DH tried to walk in that direction and he was whistled back by a guy who I presume was a lifeguard (although I could have sworn that I saw a sign saying there were NO lifeguards) If you want to walk under the arch, go during low tide

Our water taxi captain was right on time and he got us back to the marina safely, telling us to make sure to come see him the next day if we were around. We didn’t have anything else we needed to look at, so just headed back to the ship at that point.

We had Palo scheduled for a late dinner, but I enjoy dressing up for pirate night, so decided to put our pirate gear on and head down to get a few pictures. We ended up getting Captain Hook and Smee, Mickey and Minnie but the line for Jack Sparrow was too long by the time we got to him.

Once we were done with our pictures, we headed back to the room to get ready for our Palo dinner. Before we get to our dinner experience, I just want to apologize in advance…we forgot our camera so didn’t get ANY pictures of our Palo meal. I know…total fail I’ve learned my lesson and will now carry my camera with me wherever I go! The photographer did come around, so at least we got a rare picture of the two of us together.

We were seated right away and saw Mindyjoy and her DH as we walked in. They were finishing up their meal and looked like they had enjoyed their time! (SHE remembered her camera, so you can see some pics over on her TR ) We were immediately greeted by Nikola from Serbia. He treated us really well and suggested great menu items and a nice bottle of Sangiovese to go with our dinner.

I don’t know if anyone looks at menus before they leave like I do, but just one thing I noticed. The menu they have on the Disney Cruise website for Palo on the Wonder is NOT the menu we saw. Ours matched the Palo menu that’s up for the Dream right now – just FYI in case you want to look at it.

We started out with the bread service and then Nikola served us some delicious antipasti from the rolling cart. We didn’t go with any pizzas since we had tried those at brunch, but for our appetizers we ordered the Cioppino (DH) and the fritto misto (me). Both were delicious although I liked mine better

For our entrees, I ordered the rack of lamb and DH ordered the tenderloin. Nikola also insisted that we have a pasta course so we ordered the lobster ravioli and the chianti braised beef ravioli as well. Nikola said the beef ravioli is a relatively new dish and I must say, it was AWESOME. I could have eaten a whole big plate of those things The lobster ravioli was also good.

Nikola brought out the palate cleanser and also checked in with us on dessert. Of course we both wanted the soufflé, so he put those orders in for us. Our entrees followed soon after. Both were delicious. Nikola had mentioned that they recently switched from New Zealand lamb to Colorado lamb so I was excited to get a little piece of home out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

We were seriously stuffed at that point, but you know, once those soufflés come out, you can always find a tiny bit more space for some of that deliciousness. We were in for a treat though – not only did we get the soufflés but Nikola also brought out another dessert to try – the Orange Soda Float. I’m really kicking myself for not having my camera for this, because I have not seen a picture of this yet (it’s a new menu item) and I don’t think I’m going to do it justice by describing it. Basically, it’s like a highball sized glass with a scoop of vanilla gelato in the bottom. The top is covered by I guess what you would call a “chocolate cup” that fits perfectly into the mouth of the glass. In the chocolate cup is some orange soda (think orange-flavored seltzer, not Sunkist ). Nikola poked a hole in the chocolate so the soda fell over the gelato and kind of bubbled up a bit and then told us we could either eat the chocolate by itself or break it up and mix it with the gelato and soda (which is what we did). OH MY GOSH!! This was really just an amazing dessert – very light and refreshing. ALMOST better than the soufflé…but not quite

So all week we’d been talking to our server about how much she loves the soufflé at Palo. She kept joking with us saying “oh, you’ll have to bring me some in a paper cup”. Well, we knew she was joking and didn’t really expect us to bring any back to her, but DH was determined to bring some back to her somehow. We didn’t really want to say “we want to order a soufflé for our dining room server” but it worked out because DH was stuffed, so only took a couple bites of his soufflé anyway. We asked Nikola if we could take it with us (his answer was “of course”). We knew Vicky was working somewhere in the pirate buffet line, so after we said our goodbyes to Nikola, we wandered through the pirate party crowd until we found her. She looked pretty shocked and was very reluctant to take it because she didn’t want to get in trouble, but DH insisted, so she took it and hid it away for later.

Just at that point, the fireworks started going off, so we stood there for a few minutes and then headed off to bed because we had an EARLY excursion the next morning.

Next up: ATVs in Cabo and “What did you DO?!?!”

 

[Mindyjoy]

Okay ... orange soda dessert sounds amazing and now I'm jealous. How come WE didn't get offered one? And I didn't even THINK about taking our souffles to go!!!! We both only managed a couple bites of each of ours and I was so sad to leave it behind. We definitely would have saved them for breakfast the next morning ... haha!