Disney Dream Trip Report – Day 3

First of all, if you missed Days 1 & 2 of my trip report, you can read that here.

On day 3 we slept in and woke up in Nassau, Bahamas.  We have been to this port twice before and have never left the ship.  Today would be no different.  My husband and I honeymooned at Atlantis eons ago when it was brand new (and about 1/4 of the size it is now) and initially we thought about taking a taxi over there to check it out.  But, in the end, we decided a relaxing day on the ship would be better.

We went to Cabanas for breakfast, ate outside and enjoyed the views of Atlantis.  After breakfast we wandered around for a little while, checking out the activities in the atrium, and stopped by the future cruise sales desk but no one was there.  We grabbed a brochure and went back to the room for a while where we read, watched some TV, and just relaxed until our champagne tasting at 11:15.

At about 11:10, we headed down to Pink for our tasting.  When we arrived, our sommelier Dajana (I can’t remember where she was from – Serbia?  Bosnia?) greeted us at the door.  For those of you who have never been to Pink on the Dream, it is spectacular!  It is one of my favorite places on any Disney ship:

These glass lights behind the bar are supposed to look like bubbles:

We chose a table and Dajana told us that we would wait a few more minutes to see if anyone else would arrive.  While we waited we chatted with Dajana about all sorts of things.  She told us that she was one of 4 sommeliers on the ship, and that there was one assigned to each main dining room to help any guests or servers who needed it, as well as a “head” sommelier who oversaw the team.  She also mentioned something that I was very disappointed to hear.  She said that during the dry dock coming up in October, “a lot” of changes would be coming to Pink.  She said it would be totally different.  I was getting ready to ask her if this meant that Pink would no longer exist, or if it was just getting a makeover….you know, all the details that inquiring minds want to know, when a couple walked in the door.  It turns out that they didn’t have tickets (thus had not paid the $35 per person fee) and so unfortunately, Dajana had to tell them that in order to participate, they needed to go down to Guest Services and get tickets.  They left and never came back, so we ended up having a private champagne tasting!  It was AWESOME!  After they left, we got down to business.  Dajana told us that she had chosen the 4 champagnes we would be tasting.  She poured the first 3 for us, and unfortunately I can’t remember the names.  They were all fairly different from one another, so it was a good variety.

She took us through, one by one, and gave us all sorts of information about how each one was made, where it was made, which types of grapes it was made from, etc.  I won’t go into a lot of the things we learned, but I will share with you one interesting detail about champagne in general.  She told us that you can quickly tell how good (i.e. expensive) a champagne is by looking at 2 things – the size of the bubbles and how long they last.  The smaller the bubbles and the longer that they last, the better the champagne.  Good to know!  Sometime during this part, another group of people tried to crash our private tasting.  I heard some commotion from behind me and turned around to see a man prying the automatic sliding doors open (that Dajana had locked) with his fingers.  I guess he really wanted some champagne and there would be no one (and no doors) stopping him!  Four people came in and Dajana apologized for the interruption and graciously asked if they had tickets (no) and explained that they would need to go buy some.  They asked how much it cost and when Dajana told them, they said no thanks and left.  So, back to the tasting……

After we finished the first 3, Dajana told us that she had saved the best one for last – the Moet & Chandon Ice Imperial:

 This was far and away our favorite.  It is relatively new and the only champagne that is meant to be served on ice.  I can see how some champagne purists might frown on this but we loved it!  She explained how you can jazz it up by adding berries, mint, lemon or orange peel, or even cucumber.  This one was our favorite by far.

After we finished, we thanked Dajana and left to go find some lunch.  We went up to the pool deck, grabbed a few slices of pizza and found a spot in the Quiet Cove area to eat & relax.  After lunch we went back to the room for some more reading (me) and TV watching/napping (husband).  Around 4:00 we decided we were going to go see what Bingo was all about.  In our 4 prior cruises we had never gone, but I have always heard that it is fun and they really talk it up on the ship.  We walked into Evolution and right inside the door was the table where you select your package.  We decided on the $50 package which included 1 48-card electronic handset as well as 1 3-card paper pack.  This way we could both play,  although the electronic handset isn’t really “playing” because it does all the work for you, so it is more like watching.  This is what our package looked like:

My husband took the paper cards (you just punch out the numbers as they are called) and I took the handset (you just watch the screen for the big, flashing “Bingo”) and we got started.  I think there were 4 games played total.  My husband had a strip of paper for each game that had 3 cards on it, and I think the handset was playing 12 cards at a time.  The first game was traditional bingo, but I can’t remember what the second game was – maybe diagonals only?  The third game you had to get either all N’s or all G’s, and I won this round, along with several other people.  We all split the jackpot and I ended up with $48 and a DCL water bottle.  Hey, at least it covered the cost of the game, right?  The fourth and final game was blackout and since this was $5,000 Mega Jackpot Bingo, this was the round when someone had the opportunity to win $5000 by getting blackout within a certain number of numbers called.  Sadly, no one managed to do that but a few people still won eventually and split a smaller jackpot.  Overall we enjoyed it, and the CM’s do a lot of funny things to keep it fun and entertaining.  There were some spa certificates given away as raffle prizes inbetween games as well which people seemed to enjoy.

After Bingo we stopped by the future cruise sales desk again and there was someone there and no line.  We sat down and quickly put down our $200 deposit for a place holder.  If you are not familiar with DCL’s onboard booking benefits, you can read about them here. I am hoping to sail to Alaska next year (you can read about that here) and use this place holder for that.  Fingers crossed!

When we were finished we went back to the room to get ready for the show, which is one of my husband and daughter’s favorites:

I enjoy it, but it is not my favorite.  I do suggest that if you have not seen the movie Hercules yet that you do so before seeing this show.  It will make the show a lot funnier for you.  Hades, Pain and Panic (characters from Hercules) are the “hosts” for this show.  The first time we saw it, none of us had seen Hercules yet.  We went home and watched it after the cruise, and the next time we saw the show it made a lot more sense and we enjoyed it more.  While we were waiting for the show to start, Pain and Panic wandered through the theater talking to guests.  They were really funny.  This is the best picture I got because we were in a dark theater and several rows away, so my flash wasn’t helping at all:

The show was great.  One thing I like about this show is that Hades ad-libs a lot of his jokes, so no 2 shows are exactly the same.  He also typically references a few current events in his jokes.  I think this time it was Tom Brady.  One time we saw it soon after the Carnival Triumph fiasco so of course that was thrown in there.

After the show we wandered through the shops a bit and then briefly stopped by our room.  Trif had left us several things tonight, the best of which was this:

The others were not as great because they were a reminder that our cruise would soon be coming to an end.  We had our tip envelopes (you can read my post All About Tipping on a Disney Cruise here):

The slips of paper to put inside the envelopes:

And a letter explaining the tipping process:

I stepped out on to the balcony to check out the sunset and noticed that someone was following us:

I zoomed in and could see that it was a Norwegian ship:

I was pretty sure it would be hanging around in an attempt to see our fireworks later.

Soon it was time to head to dinner at Enchanted Garden. I would have to say this is my least favorite of the 3 main dining rooms. I think this is because there are no windows so I feel like I am in a basement, while the theme of the place is a garden in which you would expect to have lots of natural daylight.  Anyway, we had a great time again with our table mates. One of the couples had done the chocolate factory excursion through DCL and they said they really enjoyed it. The other couple did the Atlantis Beach Day excursion through DCL and while they enjoyed it, they said they wouldn’t do it again. They said the beach was gorgeous, but there was a TON of walking involved and it had been really hot that day.

This was also Pirate Night. We didn’t bother dressing up (we do when our kids are with us) but it was fun to see others dressed up. One thing that I really miss on the Dream is the parade that the servers & guests do through the dining rooms on pirate night on the Magic & Wonder. I understand that the dining rooms are just too large to do it, but I really miss it when we are not on the classic ships. If you have never seen it, I have some video of it in our 2014 Disney Magic Cruise Video which you can see here.

After dinner we once again lingered and talked with our table mates until we realized that we would miss the fireworks if we didn’t leave soon. We went straight up to deck 13, right next to the Currents Bar.  This is our favorite place to watch the fireworks on the Dream.  It is adults only and there is a nice little seating area with tables & chairs right next to the glass railing.  There are even waiters walking around if you would like a drink.  I suggest getting there at least 15 minutes early because all of the chairs quickly filled up in the 5-10 minutes before the fireworks started.  I think I was right about the Norwegian ship I saw earlier because while we were waiting I counted 3 ships hovering in the distance.

Pretty soon the fireworks began.  My camera (if you are looking for a new camera, you can read all about it here) has a fireworks setting on it so I was playing around with it.  I got some decent shots:

 When the fireworks ended we were tired and went back to the room to go to bed.  We walked past the Quiet Cove pool from above and saw that they had drained the pool and someone was cleaning it:

It looked like this man was scrubbing the sides with a brush.  I love to see the measures that DCL takes to ensure the upkeep and cleanliness of their ships.

Another day was in the books, and a great day it was.  Up next:  Day 4 – Castaway Cay

You can see the Daily Navigators for this sailing here.

You can see my stateroom review for this sailing here.

 You can like me on Facebook (click here) and follow me on Pinterest (click here) for all of the latest Disney Cruise Mom Blog updates!