travels, races, and other musings

Walt Disney World We spent two full days at Walt Disney World going to Epcot on Thursday and Magic Kingdom on Friday. The weather was a little chilly on our Epcot day, but beautiful on our Magic Kingdom day. We enjoyed some new experiences we hadn't had before such as the "Behind the Seeds" tour in the Epcot Land pavilion, a new dining experience (we tried Biergarten in the Germany pavilion at Epcot), a new ride (Tron Lightcycle Run, which is amazing and my new favorite thing), a new show (Epcot's new nighttime show "Luminous" which is absolutely stunning) and a reimagined favorite (Tiana's Bayou Adventure, formerly Splash Mountain). We experienced some of our favorite things like "Happily Ever After" fireworks at Magic Kingdom, a Dole Whip float (me), Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion (twice), Pirates of the Caribbean, "Festival of Fantasy" parade, caramel popcorn, cinnamon roasted almonds, and of course Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic...

Disembarkation, Mini Golf, Disney Springs We had arranged the night before to come to first seating breakfast. Did we want to? No, but we had transfers we had to catch earlier than second seating breakfast would allow. I don't know how other people handle it. Maybe they also try to make a similar deal? Go to Cabana's? Our usual table wasn't going to be occupied so it wasn't an issue to show up for first seating.  We had breakfast and said goodbye to Jay and the team and disembarked. Re-entry was super easy and we didn't even have to get out our passports. They have some new facial recognition system. It made things go really quickly. We found our bus and thankfully, everyone was pretty much on time for the transfer with some folks sliding in right at the last second. It was an uneventful ride back to Orlando and we arrived at our resort (Riviera) at around 10:30 and then we...didn't have anything to do. So we hung out in the lobby, did a little shopping and went...

Castaway Cay Roger and I both got up around 7:15, got dressed and he disembarked to run the Castaway Cay 5k and I went to the gym, which was pretty empty so I had some space to do some strength training. While I was working out I got a notification that our parasailing excursion had been cancelled due to weather. Again. This was our third attempt and it's been cancelled every time. I've done it with my mom years ago, but Emmaline has been wanting to go. We decided to spend a day onboard and enjoy an empty ship with everyone at the beach. The weather was sunny and nice, but Roger did say it was a bit windy.  We showered and ate breakfast before catching the 10:30 AM showing of Moana 2. It was actually quite good! When the movie was done we went to Cabanas for lunch and found it full of people! During the movie it had started to rain and many people came back to the ship. Well, there goes our chill crowd-free day on the ship. It was probably for the best because they ended up add...

Lookout Cay I woke up at 7:00 AM and went to the gym to see if I could find a space to do a workout. I carved a little space for myself and practiced a Shapes class. Everyone else got up when I was done around 8:00 AM and we all had breakfast in Cabanas before going to the Walt Disney Theatre to see if we could get Emmaline on an earlier golf cart ride down the pier so she could save her joints and energy for walking on the nature trail and doing a little snorkeling. When we had checked the day before, the only slot open was 11:30 AM but they told me that they might be able to accommodate her on an earlier cart if we were willing to wait standby.  When we arrived around 9:15 AM, a group was just leaving and the crew members there said it would absolutely be no problem to get her on an earlier cart. I waited in the theatre with her until they said they had a cart ready and then I met up with Roger and we disembarked together around 9:30 and made the half mile walk from the ship to t...

Nassau I slept in again. I think I never fully transitioned to Eastern time. Everyone else was still asleep and I opted not to work out. I decided to see if I could get a hot chocolate on Deck 11.  There was no hot chocolate on Deck 11. Whomp whomp. Everyone else got up shortly thereafter and we went to Cabanas for breakfast. After breakfast, we went back to the room and got ready for the day.  This was our fourth time in Nassau and the last time we came we didn't get off the ship, (previous adventures include a city tour hampered by a national holiday with parade and a visit to the pirate museum). We disembarked at around 10:30 and made the short walk over to the Queen's Staircase. This large passageway between the old fort (Fort Fincastle) and the main city dates to the 18th Century and was hand carved by 600 enslaved men. For some reason there is a plaque there that says that it was carved by free men of African descent in 1830, but everything I can find online indicates th...

At Sea I woke up around 7:30, which is pretty late for me. I apparently needed the sleep! I put on my workout clothes and went to the gym, which was packed. I much prefer the gyms on the Classic ships. They are bigger, actually. But I usually stake out a particular spot on the Dream class ships and I went in to find that they had stuck a piece of equipment in that spot. There was already limited real estate and now more of it was gone. (I never saw anyone using that piece of equipment.)  I couldn't find a space to do my own thing so I went to deck 4. I didn't want to run, but I was able to find a nook in which to do a BODYCOMBAT workout. I was going to be teaching a new release upon arriving back home and I really needed to start getting it into my muscle memory. I'm sure I looked like a weirdo shadowboxing in a corner on deck 4, but I got it done. Roger got up around 8 and he did run on deck 4.  We both got some snacks from Cabanas before returning to the room to shower. E...

Embarkation Day We woke up early so we could get our luggage packed up and ready by the 7 AM pickup. We have found that when they say 7 AM luggage pickup, they literally mean 7 AM (and sometimes a few minutes earlier). Once the luggage was gone, we vegged in the room for a few minutes before going to the main building for breakfast and then meet up with the DCL transportation rep at 8:45 for a 9:15 departure.  We made one more stop before driving to Port Canaveral. I wish I could say that the trip was uneventful but there was a toddler screaming bloody murder the entire time. To the point at which I was actually concerned that something was wrong with the poor kid. The parents tried everything. It was awful for everyone. The poor kid finally crashed out with the ship in sight. Of course.  Check in and security was pretty chill and we didn't wait long for our boarding group to be called. We were sitting down for lunch at Cabana's at right around noon. When we finished lunch, it...