Trip Report: September 25, 2019 5 Night to Bermuda on the Disney Magic – Day 4

You can start this trip report from the beginning by clicking here.

You can see all of the daily navigators for this cruise by clicking here.

Day 4:  Bermuda

Before I get started today, let me share something with you regarding cell phone/data usage in Bermuda.  Our provider is AT&T, and they offer something called the International Day Pass.  It costs $10 per device for each 24 hour period that you use cell or data service in most foreign countries.  Each 24 hour period starts the first time you use cell or data.  Our plan already includes Canada & Mexico, but I wanted to be able to use my phone in Bermuda, and this allowed me to do that.  Since we were there for 2 days, it cost me $20. I just went online before our trip and signed up my phone for the service.  Hopefully this may help anyone else who has AT&T and is interested in using data in foreign ports of call.

Okay, back to day 4.  Our plans for this day were originally to take a minibus to Horseshoe Bay Beach, which is probably the most beautiful and well-known beach on the island.  The minibuses are like taxis in Bermuda, and take you straight to/from Horseshoe Bay Beach and the cruise pier for $7 per person, each way.  However, we changed our minds the night before, which I now regret.  Up until now, I don’t think I’ve ever regretted our decisions for what to do in a port of call.  I guess there’s a first time for everything, right?

There were 2 reasons we decided not to go.  First, our middle daughter was fighting a cold and this was the day she felt the worst.  She wasn’t terrible, but definitely under the weather.  Also, our youngest daughter had cut the bottom of her foot the day before and I was worried about pain/infection/etc and thought she might not enjoy it or be able to play with her sisters on the beach. So, we decided we would just walk around the port area and do some shopping, which at the time seemed like a good plan.

However, once I saw other people’s photos of Horseshoe Bay in our Facebook group, I wish we had just pushed through and gone, even if we didn’t swim because it was breathtakingly beautiful!!!  I think it would easily have been one of the prettiest beaches we had ever been to and it would also have allowed us to see a bit more of the island on the drive there and back. So, I’m going to learn from this and in the future, I’m going to stick with our plans (barring anything extreme happening, of course) and just go.  In all of our cruises, I have never felt the need to return to a port of call until now because I really want to see that beach!

I woke up at 8:15, went up to the drink station for coffee, and walked a few laps on deck 4.  Then we got the girls up, got them some breakfast from Cabanas, and left the ship about 10:30 am.  We passed these maps of both the port area and the whole island.  On the island map, Horseshoe Bay Beach is in the bottom left corner, just to the right of Southampton, so you can see that it is a decent drive from the cruise pier, which is marked with the red circle.

The port area in Bermuda is called the Royal Navy Dockyard and it is clean, pretty, and a nice place to walk around.  There are souvenir stores, clothing stores, a Walgreens/CVS type store, a glassworks studio, restaurants, bars, a Dolphin Quest, a beach/snorkel park, a ferry dock (the ferry goes across to the northern part of the island), a museum, and probably even more that we didn’t see.  It is also historic, as it was originally a 19th century fortress where troops once defended British superiority on the seas.

This was the place to catch a taxi/minibus:

Scooters are very popular in Bermuda.  Also, the weather was perfect – sunny with temperatures in the 70s.

The Bonefish Bar & Grill:

The ferry dock:

Both of these shops were neat and we spent quite a bit of time in them:

Bermuda is a British territory, so there are lots of British influences.

I didn’t see any evidence of the hurricanes as we walked around.

They were setting up for some type of party with the tents in the back here.  We went and checked it out later.

There was a sign that said this was a private residence:

There was a small indoor shopping area called the Clocktower Shopping Mall.  There were 6-7 really nice stores inside. We saw this trash can there that looked British to me:

We also saw a boat in an alley:

We walked back over to the area that was being set up for an event to see what was going on.  This area is called the Victualling Yard:

The event was an Oktoberfest – not sure if it had already happened or was getting ready to happen.

Nearby was the famous Frog & Onion Pub:

This was the entrance to both Dolphin Quest and the National Museum of Bermuda:

We went over to check on the entrance fees to the museum.  I can’t remember how much it cost, but I do remember it was more than we wanted to pay and we declined.

By this time it was about 1:15 and we had been ashore for over 2.5 hours.  We had bought some nice souvenirs and were ready to return to the ship before Cabanas closed for lunch at 2:00.  It was a short walk back to the Magic.

We went to Cabanas and tried to eat outside but we were chased back inside by the bees.  There were bees everywhere in Bermuda!  The entire time we were in port, bees were flying all around the drink station on deck 9, and all around people trying to eat outside.  We also saw them while we were ashore, and saw a young girl get stung.  We were unable to enjoy the beautiful weather while eating and went back inside.

Next we went back to the rooms to drop off our purchases and relax for a bit.  Abhay had left our gratuity envelopes (you can read all about DCL gratuities here) and our pirate night bandanas for us:

While some wanted to watch movies and nap, our youngest wanted to walk around the ship.  I am not really one for hanging out in the room, so she and I walked around a bit.  We saw that things were getting ready for pirate night:

 

All aboard was 3:30 pm, and about that time we were walking on deck 4 and noticed some people running for the ship.  It was 2 moms and 2 young kids, and they clearly thought they were in danger of being left behind because they were running down that pier as fast as they could.  I think it was exactly 3:30 at that point.  Once they boarded, we saw that the gangways were still left out so we thought there might still be others ashore.  I didn’t hear them announce any names over the ship intercom like I have in the past, but we stayed there watching just to see.  Sure enough, about 10 minutes later, a minivan parked right next to the ship sped off towards the taxi area, and then sped back a minute later with a man and his young child, who both proceeded to run to the ship.  There were lots of people on the ship cheering them on. I think this was about 15 minutes past all aboard time.  Don’t be like these people – always give yourself extra time to get back to the ship!!!

Next, my husband and I went to Ultimate Disney Trivia at 4:00 in O’Gills Pub.  I think the girls were still watching movies in the room.  This was really hard!  It’s called ultimate for a reason! We didn’t do so well, even though we usually do pretty well at regular Disney trivia.

I’m not sure what we did next – probably spent some time in the rooms getting dressed for pirate night.  At 6:15, we went to the Walt Disney Theater for the evening show, which was “Showtime: Junnk”.

I thought it was pretty good.  It was 4 guys who made music with various objects and also included some comedy.  My kids loved it, and the audience seemed to as well.  I thought the guys were talented, but I don’t feel the need to see it again and we skipped it on the next cruise.

After the show, we went to the atrium to check out the pirate night festivities.

We stood in line for a few Shutters photo ops, but I didn’t buy any of them.  We also popped into the D Lounge to watch a few minutes of “A Pirate’s Life For Me”, which is kind of like a game show.

At 8:15, we went to Lumiere’s for dinner.

For some reason, they were not having the pirate night menu, which also meant no dining room parade or servers dressed as pirates.  I asked Aubrey why and she didn’t know.  What’s weird is that we did have it on our next cruise, which was also a 5 night cruise with ports on the same 2 days, and went to Maine and Canada which is even farther from the Caribbean than Bermuda. Strange.

The Breaded and Deep Fried Brie (great):

The French Onion Soup (good, but a little salty):

The Iced Lobster and Jumbo Shrimp (great, and one of my favorites!):

The Conchiglie Pasta (with lobster):

When my husband ordered the pasta, Aubrey immediately told him that he might not like it.  She said most of her guests thought it had too much of a “fishy” taste.  This made me curious so while he and I both chose another entree, I asked Aubrey to bring a pasta for us to taste.  I ended up liking it and not thinking it was too fishy at all.  My husband didn’t care for it.

The Oven-Baked Salmon Royale (good):

The Chateaubriand-Roasted Filet Steak (great):

The Strawberry Shortcake Sundae (great):

The Classic Opera Gateau (great):

The Duo Chocolate Slice (great):

You can see in the photo above that Aubrey also gave us some number puzzles to solve.  It took some time, but I think we solved every one she gave us.

We had been taking our sweet time at dinner and suddenly realized that it was 9:50 and the Pirates in the Caribbean Deck Party started at 10:00.  We rushed up to deck 9 and got a decent spot next to the stage.

The party was fun as always, and the weather was perfect! Spoiler alert, this was not the case on our next cruise.

There was no karaoke tonight, so after the party we were off to bed.

Up Next:  Day 5 – At Sea