Day Eleven: In Which We Have Brunch at Palo and Learn That It Never Hurts To Knock.

Another slow day at sea, notable for our Palo brunch. 

The brunch at Palo is a major affair, with more food than you could easily imagine.  They have different stations for seafood and cold items, berries and cereals, pizzas, eggs, pastas, meat entrees, and desserts.

The only downside is that there is no way you could ever try everything, or even something from each station, without exploding in a "Mr. Creosote" moment.  We particularly enjoy the caviar and crab legs.  They are extremely cordial and always make a point of saying that you can stay as long as you wish.  We contemplate taking sleeping bags up, but figure they may not be speaking literally.

After a considerable time spent devouring some fine quality food, we retired to our cabin to recuperate.  In Hawaii, one guide told me they have a saying:  "Some people eat until they get full; we eat until we get tired."  This is pretty much where we're at by now.  There is a cooking demo we considered going to earlier, but can no longer face the sight of more food and take a nap, instead.

Finally, I drag myself out of food coma to attend an Animation With Ducky session, in which Don Williams shows everyone how to draw Mickey Mouse.  He also draws some random characters and raffles them off, and we don't win again but it's still fun.

Almost directly afterwards, they have a signing for him, where we can get our complementary lithographs signed.  The line is fairly lengthy, but it goes pretty fast as there's no personalization.  They also restricted it to pre-designated floors, so it was probably less of a mob scene than it might have been.

Our show tonight was Darren Romeo, who does magic and sings, sometimes simultaneously.  It was an entertaining show, however one couldn't help thinking it might have been better had he concentrated on just one or the other.

In the meantime, we receive our latest animal--apparently we have now graduated to animals of greater stature, as a gargantuan creature is waiting for us.  We are unsure what it is, and are excessively grateful when we run into our steward and he says "oh, did you like the dinosaur?" before we can thank him for the ostrich.

The bathrooms on board in the public areas are, as befits Disney, very clean and orderly.  They are the sort where each stall is basically a little room with it's own door, and Mom says she has a hard time telling if someone's in there or not.  I patiently explain to her that the door has a little white dot under the handle; when the door is locked, the dot turns red, so further examination is unnecessary.  She is suitably impressed.

The dinner menu tonight is "Master Chef:  A menu created by our world-famous chefs."  Which, I suppose, sounds better than "We Ran Out Of Themes Because The Cruise Is So Long."

Appetizers tonight include a seafood risotto (rice still a little harder than I would normally look for, in risotto,) and a tropical fruit cup.

My entree is a sirloin steak which looks pretty much like every other sirloin steak you've seen.  It was good, but I'm not sure you necessarily need a Master Chef for that.

Dessert was a chocolate terrine which was creamy and mousse-like, and a no-sugar added chocolate pots de creme, which was actually better tasting, as it was so much less sweet than the regular desserts. 

After dinner, I enter the restroom and see two doors with red dots, and one with a white one.  Confidently, I fling the white dot door open, to reveal a small girl using the facilities within.  After a great deal of horrified screaming from all parties involved, I manage to slam the door shut, which then locks decisively over with a red dot.  There is a mortified pause, broken by a plaintive voice:

"At least you managed to fix the door."

Tomorrow:  Aruba.

Day Ten: In Which We Go To Columbia, Home of Coffee, Emeralds, and Juan Valdez.

It's a relatively overcast morning that greets us in Cartagena, along with many dancing residents.

We are the first cruise ship of the season here, so they are fairly happy to see us.  After a quick breakfast of Mickey waffles, we set out on our excursion, Best of Cartagena.  It takes some time to get going, as most of the ship seems to be going on this excursion, but eventually we load onto busses and are off.

The first stop on the excursion is the San Pedro Claver Church, famous for its namesake who made a life's work out of helping the African slaves that were abundant there.

In the main church area, our guide Duran Duran showed us the original resting place of San Pedro...

...and then his current resting place.

I always think nothing adds to the interest of a place of worship like a preserved body, or parts thereof. 

We leave the church and walk around the city center for a bit, while Duran Duran points out buildings of interest to us.  Although it doesn't seem all that hot, the humidity is around 5000%, which makes everyone melt into puddles.  Eventually we make our way to the Naval Museum for a drink and some folkloric dancing, to which we give short shrift because we are so busy enjoying the air conditioning.

After he pries us from the air conditioned comfort of the museum, we walk back to the bus via a quantity of street vendors, some of which are obviously endorsed by Duran Duran.  He encourages people to buy Official Columbian Coffee from one vendor in particular, whom he swears is Juan Valdez.

I remain dubious, although I refrain from asking him "where is your burro?"

We next have a photo stop at the Fort of San Felipe de Barajas, which is the largest Spanish fort in the New World.

They are very proud of their various city defenses, which include walls around the city center, the Fort, and an underwater wall blocking entrance to the bay through the main passageway "Bocagrande."  Many of these were developed after Sir Francis Drake came and almost captured the city, accepting ransom in exchange for taking it.

This is the "Half-Man" statue.  He apparently lost one arm, a leg, and an eye, but still fought bravely against the enemies until he was stabbed in his remaining thigh and died of gangrene.  He kind of reminds me of the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Continuing on, we travel to the Convento de la Popa monastery, which is the highest point in Cartagena and offers city-wide views.

 

Within, you can find items of interest such as their altar, which is covered in real gold, and a depiction of people who indulged in golden goat worshipping and got subsequently busted.

In addition to these areas, we also made a few shopping stops where people were invited to buy emeralds of every shape, price, and quality.  Whether people actually did or not, is probably best left to the imagination.

At the end of the tour, we were deposited back at the port where Mom went back to the ship to rest, and I looked around the shops at the port terminal.  I get an coffee slush at this place:

Looks like our friend Juan has moved up in the world.

Back on the ship, we say goodbye to the interesting port of Cartagena and begin sailing off towards Aruba.

The show tonight is Disney on Broadway, with Sarah Litzinger, the longest running "Belle," and David DeVries who played "Lumiere" with her doing various songs in a cabaret style.  Although they give reasonably pleasant performances, the disappointment from the small girls who doubtless thought Litzinger would look more like Belle, is palpable.

The towel animal for tonight is a little larger than we've been used to, however the upside is that we now know where Felindro hid our couch cushion.

The evening cabaret is comedian Heath Hyche who starts off his act telling us that his flight was deranged and his luggage lost after having to spend the night in Miami and Cartagena, causing him to have to spend his whole time on board until he gets off in 2 days with one shirt and pants from Disney costuming.

Dinner tonight is "Taste of the Caribbean"

It's very good, despite the fact that the dessert photo comes out blurry. 

The deck party theme tonight is Tropicalifragilisticexpialidocious.

It's a pretty buffet, however the pain of the late dinner seating is that you are inevitably still full to bursting when the deck parties are ongoing.

We leave the merrymaking to the less-stuffed, and retire to our cabin, where I notice something odd about the TV programming.  One of the channels is supposed to be showing episodes of various sitcoms all day, one of which is Whose Line Is It Anyway?  I watched one episode a few days ago and it was funny; then I watched an episode the next day, and it was funny, but a little familiar.  Today it suddenly occurs to me that they play the same episodes of the given sitcom at the same time each night, so basically I've been watching the same episode for about a week now. 

No regular midnight buffet tonight, as the larger one for the deck party supplants it, so consequently no chocolate covered strawberries.  Again. 

Tomorrow:  Another Day at Sea.

Day Nine: In Which We Traverse the Panama Canal and Get Really Really Wet Again.

So...the Panama Canal.  Commonly referred to by Christiaan the Cruise Director as "one of the Eighth Wonder of the World."  It's the reason this journey is 2 weeks, instead of 2 months.

We are told that we are scheduled to pass under the Bridge of the Americas at 0700.  It actually ends up taking about an 30-60 minutes longer than that.  Our plan is to sleep as long as possible, while watching on the front-of-the-ship cam to see when we're actually approaching, then race out all disheveled and race back to sleep after we pass under it.  It is, unfortunately, a plan doomed to failure as everyone else apparently got up and staked out spaces at around 0500.  After wandering around aimlessly trying to find a decent spot in the scorching heat, we watch the bridge pass over us and retreat back to our cabin until the next lock.

We get to the Miraflores Locks around 0930.

I am finally able to get something of a view by balancing on the top of a waist-high box with about 6 other people.  I watch the ship enter the lock, and then decide the better part of valor might be to just assume we get out ok.  As the heat becomes ever more oppressive, we have lunch in Topsider Buffet and watch the next lock, the Pedro Miguel, from inside.

Finally, for the last lock, the Gatun Locks, we are determined to watch the whole thing from a good spot.  By this time, most people's interest had waned, so we got a relatively clear spot in front.  The weather had also turned cooler and we congratulated ourselves on a pleasant viewing experience...until we noticed the flashes of lightning in the distance.  The lightning that got progressively closer, until it began pouring down rain on us.

After a considerable time of getting rained on, CMs came by and handed out ponchos.  Finally, roughly 12 hours after our initial approach to the Bridge of the Americas, we completed our journey through the canal, and reached the Atlantic Ocean.

We celebrated by going inside and toweling off, although not with the towels from our new cabinmate:

Dinner tonight is a special menu entitled "West Meets East" with the date printed on it that we are allowed to keep as a memento.

This is my favorite dinner by far on the trip.  The crab legs and lobster are terrific, and cooked just right.

Our day in the Panama Canal came to a close with the delivery of a lithograph by "Ducky" Williams to commemorate our voyage.  Heat and rain nowithstanding, it was a great experience to see such a marvel of engineering and historical significance.  The only downside is that there is no longer any way to deny that the majority of our trip lies behind us, with the Pacific Ocean.

Tomorrow:  Cartegena.

Day Eight: In Which We Spectate Various Things.

Another day at sea.  Mom tries to make the case that the days at sea should be spent in restful contemplation and napping.  I make the case that you can rest for free at home, and neither one of us is entirely convinced.

I start off the day at a demonstration called "The Art of Entertaining," which is a cooking series put on by Michael Jordan, Master Sommelier at the Napa Rose restaurant in the Grand Californian at DLR.  He is accompanied by Gretchen...someone...who is something like the Executive Chef of the DCL, and who used to be something like the Executive Chef of EPCOT before.

They make duck comfit tacos and crunchy fish tacos which are a little amusing, as the duck requires you to get a duck breast and cook it slowly in (separately obtained) duck fat for eons, shred it, etc. and then roll it in a corn tortilla.  Michael Jordan's fish tacos involve you going to the market and getting the Gorton's frozen fish sticks, baking them, and then cutting them in little pieces and putting them in a tortilla.  So some difference in the amount of time/effort investment required.

After that, we attend a talk by the Art Auction folks, where they showed original art storyboards created by Salvador Dali for the animated short he did with Walt Disney called "Destino," and then showed the actual film from the 40's.  It was typically difficult to follow as most Dali works are, but fascinating none the less in its depiction of a love story between a woman and man separated by time, monotony, and various insecurities, who ultimately find connection.  I suspect you'd have to watch it a number of times before you really caught the majority of the details.

After a quick buffet lunch at Parrot Cay, we went to the matinee showing of the new DCL musical, "Twice Charmed," which basically follows a similar plotline to the made-for-DVD Cinderella III animated. 

 

I liked it.  It's definitely a little more ambitious than their other theatrical offerings in it's attempts to tell a whole new story with original music, etc.  The sets and costumes are wonderful, as always, and the Stepmother and Franco, her Wicked Fairy Stepfather (who looks suspiciously like Nathan Lane) are well-delineated characters.  As in the original text, however, the various protagonists come off a little weak, with the Major-Domo actually getting more characterization than anyone else.  The Prince gets a little more to do this time around, and provides what I think is the funniest moment in the play:  When the stepsisters are presented to him as his potential brides, he basically runs off stage, changes his clothes, then pretty much leaps off a balcony and flees away like a bat out of Hell.  I think it's supposed to show his heroic resolve to find Cinderella, but it ends up just looking like abject terror to me.

Cinderella still strikes me as a heroine in dire need of a backbone.  There's one point where she's wrestling with the stepsisters over an object which is supposed to mean the difference between marriage to the Prince and Happily Ever After, and a lifetime of domestic slavery to her stepfamily.  I don't know about you, but if the stakes were that high for me, I expect blood on the floor before anyone runs away with that one. 

Subsequently, we watched Prince Caspian in the Buena Vista Theater.  While greatly changed from the original book as far as I can remember, it was a good action-filled flick, and the kids seemed as though they had become slightly better actors from the first film.

For dinner, we had Prince and Princess dinner, which we were told was a new menu for them.

For appetizers, I had Belle's scallops, with puff pastry.  The kitchen continues its above-average run on scallops.

The featured entree was a chicken Wellington which my Mom said was good but too big a serving for her to finish.  It had a mushroom stuffing.

I had a seafood stew with zucchini and olives.  The seafood is cooked just right, however the sauce is a little one-dimensional, and the rice is frankly hard in bits, as if undercooked.

For dessert I had the chocolate slipper, which was not the same as the chocolate slipper they used to serve at Cinderella's Castle.

The slipper was really more of a decoration than an integral part of the dessert, and the presentation was fairly sloppy--it was like they had amateur night with the piping bag.  The cake was very good though--similar to angel food.

Today's towel animal looks a little like a lobster, but I'm not sure.  Either way, it's doing it's part to prevent cataracts.

Tomorrow:  Panama Canal!