December 20th, Part 3
About 30 minutes into the movie, I decided to leave. We had just seen it less than 24 hours ago and I was more interested in watching our sail away from Galveston. Sadly, I was about 5 minutes too late to watch us pass the pier webcam but I was just in time to watch us sail past Seawolf Park so I took a couple of quick pics on this side and ran over to the port side.
This is something we have tried to do for the past 3 years and it just never worked out for us. I had decided this was the year to do it, right after the cruise, however, when I went to look up the hours, I noticed that it was temporarily closed, so that makes it four years in a row we've tried to visit and failed.
It was very windy and cold and still sprinkling, otherwise I would have gone up to the top front deck to watch us sail out of the channel.
When I went back in, I noticed the popcorn buckets that were for sale this cruise. Rob had already gotten the plain Star Wars bucket, otherwise I would have told him to get the tree one. I have threatened him to stop buying the buckets because they just sit in our pantry and take up way too much room in our suitcases but I really liked the Mickey tree one and would have used it for decoration too.
Oh well, maybe next year when he doesn't pack clothes for 27 days. More on that later
I went back to the room so I could enjoy some quiet time with our lights, now that it was dark out.
We had brought even more lights than last year and although Rob said he would have liked to have a few more sets, I think it was perfect.
Just to note, we used magnets to hang these, no glue or tape.
Notice that I kept the hanging decorations for above our bed but gave Kira the Minnie one.
You repeat readers know why.
Just then I remembered that the stores were open and most people were either watching SW or eating dinner so it was the perfect time to check them out.
I ended up buying a few things, including this xmas throw which was $30 with $60 purchase. I think I was able to wash this sucker and put it away without Kira stealing it first.
I checked out the TV as I had read somewhere that the classic ships had finally switched over to an On-demand system like the Dream & Fantasy! Yay, I finally won't have to watch the same movie, in parts, 8 times over the course of 7 days.
It's super cute when you first turn it on, like the inside room portholes on the newer ships, if you watch long enough, different characters will show up quickly for a few seconds. I saw Dumbo, Dash, the house from Up, Spiderman, the Millenium Falcon, Captain Marvel and several others that I can't recall at this moment.
I don't know if it was our remote or just the system itself but it was sooooo slow!! You would press a button and nothing would happen for about 10 seconds so you press something else and then eventually it would do the first thing and then eventually the second thing, but by then you've moved onto another screen and don't want it to perform that second function but too late, you've already pressed it! Good Lord, choosing a movie often took 5- 10 minutes if you weren't super patient because it's set up like Netflix but it's hard to see which box/movie is actually selected, so you scroll up and down to figure it out but it takes so long, that once you are on the right line, you are moving to the right to choose your desired movie but it's like 6 years later when it chooses it and it's always on the wrong line
So it was a better system but aggravatingly slow.
There were also times when the system just didn't work, mostly when we were in port or channels disappeared and you couldn't find what you were looking for, even though it was right there a second ago. So yeah, fun times with the TV.
Rob went to take some pics of the tree lighting for me but it was a zoo and he couldn't get a good spot.
He came back to Kira and I snuggling, watching Doctor Strange together.
I found out that Kira and K left the movie early too, I think they were bored and the Edge was calling them. Maybe some more ice cream and cookies too, I think.
We were just passing time until dinner because, well, it's been at least three hours since we have eaten, so we were starving!
Actually, they had popcorn, so it had been less than an hour for them.
Our first dinner was at Animator's Palate so we headed down and joined the absurdly long line to get in, as usual.
Our table number was listed 99 on our cards but they don't go up to 99 so this confused several of them.
Two of them went to go check with their head server so we waited off to the side. For some weird reason, I took this photo. I don't even remember taking it but if you stay tuned for our second dinner tomorrow, you will find out that it foreshadowed our fate.
So, we waited a few minutes for Boohla, one of the head servers to help us out. We recognized him right away from previous cruises. He explained to us that because I had requested a private table, like I always do, and because they didn't have anything available for us, they issued us table 99, meaning they would be assigning us a table when we got there. He told us that they were a very full ship, with 2685 people on board and a capacity for 2700 and they didn't have a private table for us so we would be joining another family.
Honestly, I wasn't very thrilled about dining with strangers.
I'm terrible at small talk and I don't get along with most people. I already told you that I was anti-social but there are many other reasons I prefer to eat at a private table. The main reason is that the service takes so much longer and I am not a drinker or social butterfly so I like to eat and go. I loathe two-hour long dinners and I like to enjoy the pool and hot tub every night because I can't swim during the day because of my Lupus but the pool closes at 11pm so that leaves me with about an hour after dinner and even less when the service is slow.
Also, I like to take photos and videos, which I feel very awkward doing when strangers are seated with us and I also hate feeling squished when I am eating, which is why you will notice that Kira and Rob always sit across from me during meals.
Two other reasons...we don't get to eat together at home very often and when we do, it's often in front of the TV so I actually look forward to chatting with Rob and Kira at dinner every night. We can catch up on stuff, Kira can tell us about her day and we don't have to worry about offending or including other people. And lastly, my family are huge bread/bun hogs, as I have mentioned and they literally fight over the bread basket, especially on cruises, almost embarrassingly so
Having said that, Disney is great at pairing people up and maybe we will make new friends and everything will be fantastic. You never know, right?
So, we are assigned to table 28 and someone escorts us to a table with a single mother and her three kids. The kids were either younger or older than Kira and we had nothing in common. It doesn't help that no one looked very comfortable and there was mostly awkward silences the entire meal. It would have been much worse if Kira hadn't been such a social butterfly and chatted up the 17-year old next to her. They were the only ones talking at the table basically, apart from the usual questions/answers (where you from, how old are you, how many cruises have you been on, etc.)
To make things worse, we were seated at a round table, which gives you much less space than a rectangular one, in my opinion and Rob was almost on top of me, he was so close.
To be clear, Rob is
very social and has no problem talking to people, actually he loves it! He's constantly making friends wherever we go and I'm always rolling my eyes at him.
Sometimes, though, people just don't gel. It is what it is.
I didn't feel comfortable to take menu pics, sorry....
Notice how close Rob was?
So dinner was good, servers were okay, a little slow but fine. Our table mates were well-behaved and polite, it just all felt very uncomfortable, you know?
I spoke to Dee, our head server, once our table mates had left and asked her very nicely to find us a private table for the next night. She could tell that there was tension at our table and she had already put us on the list but there were two families ahead of us on that list and she couldn't promise us anything. I told her we would switch dining rotations or take a spare table from anyone that might be eating at Palo.
There were three empty tables of four around us, in our section alone, which kind of frustrated me. I know it's probably people that just didn't show up for their dinner and they couldn't give their tables away I guess but it was still frustrating. This is our 4th Christmas cruise, they have always been full but I've always requested a private table and we've never had issues before.
I personally think that Disney needs to get rid of all of the round tables and use only the rectangular ones. That way, they are more easily adjustable. I felt like our table had tons of wasted space in the middle but we all looked (and felt?) a little cramped.
Cry me a river, right?
After dinner, Kira headed off to Edge and we headed back to the room...
This was waiting for us...which Rob thought was very sexist since I was the one who actually made the reservation.
I kind of had to agree with him on that.
I quickly changed into my swimsuit, Rob grabbed his book and off we went to the Quiet Cove pool.
If you've read my previous reports, you will know that there is nothing I love more on vacation than a night swim and a dip in the hot tubs.
Last year I didn't have the best of luck with that. It was closed on the last night due to the weather and every night but one, I had to deal with loud/rude people.
I will tell you now that this year was AMAZING when it came to my pool time. Apart from one night when it closed due to us rocking so much, I was practically alone. Not only was I able to get a lot of swim time, hot tubs weren't too crowded most nights but it also rained several nights I was in there, which made me a happy camper because I LOVE the rain.
I did see many people try to get in the pool with me but only two other people actually braved the water with me the entire week and really, they didn't last very long.
To be fair, I run hot so I can tolerate cool temps more than your average person and well, most of this sailing was filled with Texans, who are not used to cooler temperatures so I would imagine that most passengers felt that this water was freezing. I will admit, there were two nights where it was
almost too cold for me but I braved it knowing that I could dip into the hot tubs at any time to warm up. Mostly though, it was the perfect temperature for me and I enjoyed every single second of my hot tub/pool time this cruise.
Rob always joined me, poolside or outside the Cove Cafe in those comfy chairs with his book and some blankets since he is the opposite of me and does not handle cooler temperatures well, like I do. He's also not a pool guy but he sure got a lot of reading in this cruise.
I swam every night until they kicked me/us out and then we headed back to the room.
That was when I remembered that they no longer leave the next days' Navigators in your room for you. Rob went down to the lobby to grab it for me and snapped a couple of photos of the Atrium with the now-lit tree and garlands.
We did ask Alex the next day if he was able to deliver it to us at night and some nights he was able to but some nights he turned down our room before they were printed so on those nights, one of us ran down to grab them. They sometimes weren't on the side where the others were, you would have to ask them for it at the desk.
As much as I love the app, I also love having the paper version to get a good overall sense of what was going on. Sometimes I would miss something in the app but I would see it in the Nav. Also, sometimes the app was just wrong and the Nav always seemed to have the correct information.
Here's day 2 for you...