Trip Report: May 16, 2018 5 Night Pacific Coast Cruise – Day 4

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

Day 4: At Sea

You guys, I totally dropped the ball this day.  I hardly took any notes, and only 6 photos (1 being of the hair dryer!), although what happened that evening was one of the most memorable experiences of the cruise.  So, this is going to be a short post.  I am going to try my hardest to look at the Navigators and figure out what we did this day.  Fingers crossed!

You can see this day’s Navigator by clicking here.

I remember that once I woke up, I took a shower and dried my hair.  I remember this because I took a picture of the hair dryer.  More than once I have been asked about the type of hair dryer, so I took a photo for future reference.  Just in case you’re wondering, here it is:

I’m pretty sure that some of us went to Cabanas for breakfast while other slept in, but we brought them back a plate of goodies.  I also think we did lots of trivia this day.  Looking at the Navigator, I think we did the Disney Cruise Line trivia at 11:45 and then general Disney trivia at 2:30.  In between I think we ate lunch at Cabanas.

Also, I know that we stopped by guest services mid-day to sign up for a special event that evening in Palo.  A lovely couple, Kenney and Bunny, that we had met a few days earlier and become friends with (and realized we had sailed with on last year’s Panama Canal cruise!) had mentioned that they had been at a wine tasting seminar and were told about a special event on this sailing at Palo – a 6 course wine paring dinner that was being held that night.  We then heard a bar tender talking about it as well, so we decided to go to guest services and see if there were any spots left.  We didn’t really know anything about it, and we aren’t even wine drinkers, but we had been tossing around the idea of going to Palo for dinner this cruise (we hadn’t been in years) so we thought, why the heck not?  Let’s go hang out with our new friends!

So, we went to guest services to check on availability because I knew there was limited space (I found out later it was 10 spots).  Luckily, there were 2 spots left!  The price was steep ($150 per person), but something inside of us was telling us to just go for it so we did.

The Navigator app said it was at 6:30, and the tickets said 6:00, but the CM at guest services assured us when we booked it that it was indeed 6:30.

At 3:00, I think we did Disney Tunes trivia again in the D Lounge.  We thought they might be the same questions as the last session we went to, but they were different which was nice.  The next thing I remember doing is going to The Wheel game show in the Promenade Lounge at 4:15.  It’s like a Disney version of Wheel of Fortune. Once that was over, we stayed in the Promenade Lounge for a bit playing the Disney version of Apples to Apples.  They had board games and cards available throughout the cruise in the Promenade Lounge, and the girls would often go their on their own to play.

During this time, we talked to the girls about what they wanted to do for dinner since they would be on their own while we were at Palo.  They decided that they wanted to get food from deck 9 and then go to the main dining room just for dessert.  So, at 5:45, I went into Triton’s to let Lito know that we wouldn’t be eating there, but that the girls wanted to come for dessert.  He said they should arrive around 6:30-6:45.  So, I told the girls the plan and we went back to the room so we could get ready for Palo.

At about 6:15, I checked the Navigator app and saw that it was showing up on our “My Plans” page:

This was also the first time that I noticed the name of it – the “Skywalker Vineyards Dinner Experience”.  Hmmm………I wondered how Star Wars would be worked into this.

We arrived about 6:25, but it seemed like at least some people thought it started at 6:00 because we were the last ones there, which I felt badly about.  We were in the private room in the back of Palo, and there were 11 people in all (including the host and his wife).  When we arrived, there were quick introductions made and we got started right away.  The host introduced himself and I immediately began to put two and two together about what this event really was.   Tom Johnson is the Director of Retail, Hospitality and Events at Skywalker Vineyards and hosted the event along with his lovely wife, Kelly.  I had heard of Skywalker Ranch, but not being a wine drinker, was not familiar with Skywalker Vineyards.  This little dinner that we just stumbled upon and booked on a whim turned out to be one the more memorable meals of my life.  Tom began by explaining to us the history of the vineyard, what projects they are currently working on, and all about their wines and olive oil.  You can buy the olive oil online, which I plan to do.  He also told us about Skywalker Ranch, which was fascinating.  It is not open to the public, so details of it are hard to come by and it was so neat to hear about it from someone who works there.  He then surprised each of us with a gift. I love souvenirs so was very excited by this! We hadn’t started dinner yet, so I pulled out my camera for a quick photo:

We each got a Skywalker Vineyards coaster!  There were 2 different designs, and my husband and I both ended up with same one which was fine.  Ours has this winged sculpture on it and Tom told us the significance begin the sculpture (which appears on some of their wine labels).  I don’t want to get any of this wrong so I’m not going to be too specific, but many years ago, George Lucas saw this sculpture and it made an impression on him.  He eventually bought it for his personal collection, and Mr. Lucas used this sculpture as his inspiration for the character of Luke Skywalker.

We each had a menu, which we got to keep as a souvenir:

Dinner began, and guess who was our server?  LEO!  It was so nice to see him again and he did an incredible job with the service.  Before each course, the chef came out to describe the food, and then Tom would tell us about the wine.  I wanted so badly to take pictures of each course, but it just didn’t feel right to be whipping out my camera at such an elegant event.  But, the food was amazing and I hate that I don’t have photos to show you.  As we ate, we got to know the other guests.  We were able to chat more with Kenney and Bunny, and we also got to know Tom and Kelly, as well as another couple who we clicked with right away and ended up spending quite a bit of time with after that night.  I’m not going to use their real names (I’ll tell you why later), but since the royal wedding had taken place earlier that morning (at 4:00 am our time, and no I did not get up to watch it although I talked to quite a few people who did) and was one of the topics of dinner discussion, I’m going to call them Harry and Meghan from now on.  Over the 6 courses, we all talked, laughed, made new friends and had the best time.  Everyone there (minus Tom and Kelly) were staying on for the next sailing to Alaska which was nice as it would give us more opportunities to hang out.  It was such an enjoyable evening and one I’ll never forget.  I told you I didn’t take any pictures of the food, but I lied.  When the dessert course came out, I just couldn’t resist!  By this time the mood was more relaxed so I snapped a photo as quickly as I could:

It was the Death Star, complete with green laser!!!  I loved that the chef did this! We ended up sitting at that table in Palo for almost 5 HOURS because we were having such a great time with our new friends.  The girls would message me every so often and let me know where they were.  They ate dinner on deck 9, went to dessert at Triton’s, spent some time in the room, checked out the shops, and went to see Frozen in the Walt Disney Theater at 8:30.  I love that they are now old enough to have some independence on the ship every now and then.

I found out at some point during the evening that this was the first Skywalkers Vineyards Dinner Experience aboard any Disney cruise ship, and could be the last.  They don’t currently have plans to do another one, but obviously that could change.  I feel so honored to have been one of the few to experience it.

Finally, at 11:00, the party broke up, we said our goodbyes (though not for long) and we headed back to the room.  The girls had showered and were in bed watching TV. They just could not understand how dinner had taken 5 hours.  We told them all about it our wonderful evening and went to bed.

Up Next: Day 5 – Victoria, British Columbia

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