The Crossing Has Begun

Day eight aboard the Disney Magic Westbound Transatlantic cruise is coming to an end, with today being the first of five straight sea days as we traverse the Atlantic ocean. At the time of writing this post, we are west of the cape of Africa, with 17,470 feet of water below us.

With two sea days between Malaga and our next port of call, Tenerife, we kept ourselves busy with a variety of activities, including beer tasting on day five and wine tasting on day six. Beer tasting is usually my thing and the wife will join, unless she’s into a good book, which in this instance was the case, so I struck out alone.

I usually make it to at least one beer tasting when on board and I’m afraid they may have jumped the shark (pun intended), having attended many of them. The bright side is, for a fee of about $10, you get to sample five different beers and try to guess what they are. The down side is, you have to sit through a presentation you’ve heard many times before about which ingredients go into making beer and how beer is made. They’re interesting and informative, as long as you haven’t heard them multiple times previously. My hope is that they’ll ask for volunteers at the end of the tasting, which usually signals some fun. When chosen as a volunteer in the past, it’s meant pitting my beer drinking skills in some sort of competition against a fellow cruiser, as was the case again today. The challenge today: who can drink a pint of Guinness the fastest. My competition was a 50-something woman from the UK, who’s a professed Boddington’s hobbyist, so I wasn’t quite sure of my odds. Then came the twist: who could drink a pint of Guinness the fastest. Through a straw. We looked at one another when the challenge was announced and before I could say anything, she exclaimed “I hope this doesn’t make me start lactating!” When the look on my face turned quite quizzical, she explained that when she was nursing, her doctor told her to drink Guinness to boost her iron levels. Despite the threat of lactation, I’m pleased to report that when it comes to Guinness drinking competitions aboard the Disney Magic, I remained undefeated.

Day six brought a wine tasting, which I will preface by saying it is not a wine slugging contest. A little more refined and still informative, the wine tasting sessions have been great by introducing us to new wines that I don’t know we would have tried prior to the tasting. Today’s tasting was no exception, as Leslie really enjoyed the Beaujolais and I enjoyed a Cabernet Sauvignon from Simi Valley. The only criticism we had of the tasting was that they started late, which made our session feel a bit rushed. Unless you’re downing some 40/40 or Boone’s Farm, wine should not be a rushed experience.

Wine Tasting on the Magic

Day seven was our gauntlet excursion to Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. This Port Adventure, booked through Disney, took us to Mount Teide, an ancient volcano, located about 10,000 feet above sea level. Upon arrival, I would say we were more volcano adjacent than actually at the volcano, ending up in the Teide National Park. It was a good photo op, especially on a day like today, when we were above the cloud line by a good 3,000 feet. The only thing we didn’t care for was the cramped bus ride up and especially, the ride down, where, due to all the switchbacks on the road, we, as well as several of our bus mates, became rather green around the gills due to car sickness. Should make any rough waves we encounter during the next few days a breeze! The neat part of this excursion, other than being told Star Wars had been filmed here, which I found out later was untrue, was driving through the enormous crater of a long defunct volcano. Tenerife at one point, was host to another volcano nearly twice the size of Teide, which erupted long ago and because of its sheer size, collapsed unto itself, creating a massive landslide down the south part of the island and into the ocean, as well as the aforementioned crater we drove through. The landscape left behind did enable films like 10,000 Years BC and Clash of the Titans (2010) to be filmed here.

View from Mt. Teide

High Above the Clouds

After the long and nauseating drive back down the mountain, we ended up at a restaurant for a delightful tamarind glazed chicken lunch, before a visit to the botanical gardens of Tenerife. The island is just a hop, skip and a jump from the Tropic of Cancer and despite the fact that it’s located in the North Atlantic, it’s considered a sub-tropical island. This allows for temperatures that make it feel like Spring all year long, and enables the growth of more than 500 different plants that are indigenous to the island. Long story short, the botanical garden was beautiful and a great opportunity to put our new camera to the test.

Hydrangea on Tenerife

Aristea Africana

Day eight has been fairly uneventful, with me finishing my first book (The Circle – a great read of perhaps things to come in a Facebook/Google/Apple dominated world) and going to bingo for the first time. We are also keeping our eyes peeled for two different storm systems in our neighborhood. The first, Tropical Storm Edouard, (coincidence?) shouldn’t be a concern, as it’s currently positioned in the middle of the Atlantic, with a west by northwest trajectory. However, Invest 93L has just formed off the cape of Africa and is currently positioned exactly due south of our location, moving at about the same speed as we are. I’m curious to see if the Captain will try to beat the storm or if he’ll slow our progress and allow the storm to pass in front of us. Whatever minimizes the chop is fine with us.

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A Day Full of Plans and a Day at the Beach

Before we start tonight’s entry, just a quick word about the awful events in Oklahoma. We saw the newscasts yesterday and today and can’t believe the devastation. Of course, our thoughts are with those affected and hopefully, you and your loved ones are safe.

Yesterday was our second full day at sea and DCL does a great job of making a lot of activities available so you don’t get bored. And when aboard, it’s easy to get into a pattern. Get up and shower. Go have breakfast. Do some stuff. Have lunch. Do more stuff. Get cleaned up again and go to the show at 6:00 and then dinner at 8:15. While we don’t always adhere to this kind of schedule, a lot of people do. We tend to look over the coming day’s activities the night before and make our plans.

Yesterday was no different and as a result, we had a number of things lined up: wine tasting at 12:00; watching Lincoln at 1:00; and beer tasting at 4:00. We accomplished exactly none of those things. Once we got up about 10:30, we ordered room service breakfast and then made our way to deck four where we staked out a couple of deck chairs and read and napped. For about six hours. We begrudgingly made our way back to the stateroom in time to get cleaned up and go to dinner. It’s important to stick to a schedule.

As we were getting ready for dinner, we noticed the ship came to a complete stop off the coast of Grand Bahama, along with a number of other sea faring vessels. Included amongst these ships, off in the distance in dry dock, was the Carnival Triumph, or perhaps as many of you know it, the poop ship. I imagine it’s getting a good scrub down in the Bahamas.

 

Refueling Barge

Turns out, we were anchored for a refueling stop before making our way to Disney’s island paradise, Castaway Cay. The process of a cruise ship refueling while in the ocean is quite fascinating. After some time, we were approached by a fuel barge, which is essentially a football field size platform that sits upon a giant tank of fuel. It pulls up alongside the ship, connects the hoses and pumps fuel from it’s tanks into the tanks of the ship. It was an interesting, yet disconcerting process to watch, as it didn’t seem like the crews of both vessels were having the easiest time making a connection. We watched for hours as the crews searched for different ways they could make this love connection work. After about four hours and the clock eclipsing 1:00am, we decided to call it a night and wished them luck.

The next morning, we awoke to the ship once again being docked, but now, no longer next to a fuel barge, but at Castaway Cay. This Bahamanian paradise offers a nice break from the kids on the ship, as we can escape to the adults only beach of Serenity Bay. Last year, even though it’s a Disney island, some of the women on the beach decided for more of a European approach to sun bathing and I was wondering if that would be the case this year.

However, before we even left the cabin, the wife encountered a bathing suit emergency that luckily happened in the room vs. on the beach, or she would have treated our fellow beach goers with her own version of a European sun bathing experience. So after a slight delay due to wardrobe malfunction and some sewing on the wife’s part, we were good to go and made our way to the island.

This was one of those picture perfect days that we dream about. The temperature maybe, maybe got into the low 80s as dark skies and thunderstorms swirled around in the distance, providing a nice break from the sun, along with a cool breeze. Low tide was also happening and as a result, sand bars that we normally don’t see, appeared and provided for a nice retreat well off into the bay.

All-in-all, time on the island is always too brief and once 3:00 rolled around, it was time to gather our belongings and begin the trek back to the ship. Despite having liberally applied sunscreen on earlier in the afternoon, once I emerged from the water, I knew I was in trouble. Once we got back to the ship, my suspicions were confirmed and my torso is now the color of a lobster. It will make for a few uncomfortable and very warm days ahead. Luckily, I don’t have a lot to do.

Storm Clouds at Castaway Cay

After being distracted by a couple of the crew, dressed as Chip and Dale, playing air guitar to Smells Like Teen Spirit, and having a “Do I feel old” moment, we were invited to attend a sail away get together by some of our friends also sailing on this cruise.

If you’ve ever cruised before, or perhaps even watched Titanic, you probably know there are different categories of staterooms that you can book. Luckily, steerage class is a thing of the past. We always try to book an outside stateroom with a verandah. It provides you with your own little patio from which you can watch the world pass by. But just like Titanic (it makes my wife nervous when we’re sailing and I mention Titanic so often), there are high end accommodations for the well-to-do. Aboard the Disney Magic, the creme de la creme are the Walt and Roy Disney suites. By way of comparison, our stateroom is roughly 325 square feet; our friends are staying in the Roy suite, which is approximately 1200 square feet, give or take. They have a bathroom that is roughly the size of our stateroom and it provided for a Ferris Bueller moment: if you have the means, I highly recommend it.

It’s now 11:00pm and we have seen the last land we are going to see for six days. Also, travelling eastbound in this manner means we will lose an hour every night. What kind of sadistic person books a vacation where you actually lose time??

As I’m certain you can guess, we don’t have a lot planned for tomorrow. There is an Around the World wine tasting happening at 12:30. Is that too early for catching a buzz on some vino? Or is it ok, because it’s 5:00 somewhere? I also plan to finish the current book I’m reading, Stephen King’s 11/22/63, so I can start my next one, the new Dan Brown book, Inferno. Wish me luck!

Our Chairs at Castaway Cay

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