Disney Magic 5-night Spring Break Cruise - Day 5 - Nassau

Nassau

I debated about getting up and working out this morning, but I decided to sleep in and take it easy in the morning. Still, I was up before everyone else so I went off to deck 9 to have some snacks. After a bit, I came back to the room and got everyone else up. We opened the curtain and there was an ambulance there loading someone on. I didn’t mention in my previous post about the events from the night before.

The night before, while I was putting Emmaline to sleep, around 10:45, I heard screaming in the hallway near our room. At first, I dismissed it as kids, but then I realized that it was legitimate distress. I opened the stateroom door (as did many) to see a woman running down the hall with someone in her arms frantic screaming, "HELP ME!!!! HELP!" Someone was on the phone calling to get her help. I was so shaken and I can still hear her voice. Unfortunately, the ambulance increased my concern. I did find later that the woman (who was on our Facebook cruise group) had found her daughter having a seizure (the girl had never had one before). They got medical attention in Nassau and then boarded the Magic again, only to have another. They were told by Disney that they could not continue the cruise, but found themselves without passports. Eventually they did get home and their daughter has been diagnosed with a form of adolescent epilepsy and will be on anti-seizure medication until she outgrows it. It was brought on by fatigue and lack of sleep. I'm so relieved that everyone is (more or less) okay and that they got home, though I feel badly at how their trip ended. Nobody wants that. The moral of this story is to travel with passports and trip insurance because you NEVER KNOW.

Moving on, we all met up for breakfast in Cabana’s where I had made to order eggs which made my breakfast immensely better. The stuff that they call “eggs” in the buffet are…not. We left breakfast and regrouped and disembarked from the ship around 10 AM. We walked over to the Pirates of Nassau museum. We all really enjoyed the museum. It wasn’t overly big - we probably spent 30-40 minutes there. I had some neat stuff and a lot of good information. I liked the way it was arranged. Someone put some thought into it.



At this point we decided to split up because Roger was interested in going to John Watling’s Distillery and the rest of us weren’t interested. Mom, Steve, Emmaline and I walked back toward the ship, hitting the straw market on the way. Steve bought a ball cap that said Nassau and Emmaline wanted a little wooden turtle. After that, we made our way back to the ship, getting back on board around 11:30. Mom, Steve and I were ready for lunch so we made our way up to Cabana’s after dropping things off in our rooms.




Right as we sat down at Cabana’s, we had a message that Roger was reboarding the ship so he came back and ate with us. He said that the distillery was okay but not great, but that on the way back he spotted some rum at a local shop he was interested in taking home. With regards to John Watling’s, the house is nice and has a lot of historical photos, but the distillery itself is a plain warehouse, so nothing interesting to see there. There’s a “tavern” in the house where you can buy a flight or a cocktail when your done walking around for the few minutes it takes.

After lunch, he disembarked again and went to buy the rum while Emmaline and I went to go find some activities and Mom and Steve went to spend the afternoon in Quiet Cove. Emmaline and I decided to go to the Promenade Lounge where there was a tile coasters craft happening. We got there a couple of minutes late but had no trouble jumping in and making our coasters. We each made one and it was a fun little craft. After that, we stayed in the Promenade Lounge for Pirate Trivia. The questions were pretty hard, but Emmaline’s class at school is studying pirates and she did really well! Ultimately, we came in second place. The woman in first, however, was so impressed with Emmaline’s performance that she gave her the prize - a luggage tag. Emmaline was super excited.

We went back up to the room to meet up with Roger who had made it back to the ship and was having a little rest in the room. Emmaline wanted to change in her pirate costume and I decided it was time for some alone time so I went to Quiet Cove with my Kindle and Roger took Emmaline to the Pirate and Princess party in D Lounge. Eventually, we regrouped on deck 9 for some snacks. While we were up there, they announced a hula hoop contest. First, the dads went. That wasn’t much of a contest. All the hoops dropped to the deck straight away. Then mom. I entered and didn’t win, but came in second with a pretty good run. Then boys went and finally the girls. They had so many girls that they did three rounds of 5 girls each. Emmaline was in the last round. The girls were so good and it was going on for so long they had them do things like step forward and backward, stand on one leg, etc. She’s pretty good at hula hoop and as a gymnast, she has a lot of strength and flexibility. She got up there and won her round! She was so excited. It was very cute. And just by happenstance, Mom and Steve had made their way out of Quiet Cove in search of snacks just in time to see her win it.

After we were done snacking, we went back to the Promenade Lounge for “Pirate Crafts” which turned out to be pretty lame. They had a paper pirate hat you could cut out. You win some, you lose some, I guess. From there, it was time to meet all the pirates in their costumes. She met Goofy, Stitch, Minnie, Mickey, and Hook & Smee. While she was greeting, Roger and I took turns getting ourselves decked out in our pirate gear and eventually Mom and Steve appeared in their pirate outfits.



Eventually it was time for our show for the evening, Hector is Magic. On our previous sailing (on the Wonder in August) we had a magician and he wasn’t that great, but I really enjoyed Hector. He did some more standard magic stuff (cutting in half, switching and disappearing, etc.) but he also had a really interesting shadow puppet thing he did with his hands that was fascinating that was actually one of my favorite parts of the show.

After the show, I took Emmaline directly to deck 9 to prep for the pirate party. Before the show, I chatted with Darrell for a couple of minutes and he commented on our costumes. I’m not sure if I mentioned Darrell previously. He’s on the Cruise Staff team (wears those navy and red striped shirts with white shorts and dances at the Sailing Away party and does some of the activities on board). Anyway, I remembered Darrell from our last time aboard the Magic because he was so complimentary of our Halloween costumes and was so nice to us, it really made me feel so great. So on the first day I saw him and introduced myself and he said he remembered us and was glad to see us again. He’s just the friendliest guy. So we chatted several times over the course of the cruise. He’s one of those crew members you can tell just really loves his job, loved being there and is always giving 110% (honestly, that’s a huge majority of the crew, but there are always a couple that stick out).



Emmaline danced and had a great time at the pirate party. I stayed down on deck 9 with her. Roger was up on deck 10 and my mom and Steve came for a bit, but decided it was louder and more crowded than they wanted so they went elsewhere. At 7:30, I was wondering if it was going to be dark enough for fireworks, and I was concerned about wind but by 8 PM, it was plenty dark. Though there was still some wind which prevented Captain Mickey from doing his little zip line stunt, but the fireworks went off without a hitch and they were actually better than I remember.

After that, Emmaline danced until I finally dragged her away to dinner. I have to say, I enjoyed the new pirate menu. I think the options are much better than the previous one. We left full and happy.

Click here for Day 6.