Day 2 – Sunday
Woke up and went to breakfast at the Enchanted Garden (after working in Fantasyland I keep wanting to call it Enchanted Grove, which used to be the name of the little snack place near the Tea Cups, but it’s now called Chesire Cafe … anyways, I digress). Enchanted Garden is one of the 3 “main dining” restaurants for dinner, but for breakfast it is buffet style, with the drinks being taken care of by a server. Buffet was pretty much a typical breakfast buffet. Pastries, toast/bagels, scrambled eggs, breakfast meats, cereal, pancakes, french toast, and mini-Mickey waffles. Most of the food was pretty good, but the Mickey waffles were sadly cold, and dry. Cold Mickey waffles don’t taste nearly as good as the warm fresh ones.
After breakfast, we killed a little time, until the Disney Trivia contest in one of the bars. The format of the trivia contests (we did a few while we were on board) was that you’re in teams of 2-4 people, with an answer sheet. The trivia host will read out questions, and you write your answers on the sheet, then at the end, trade sheets with another team to go over the answers. Since we didn’t know anyone else in the area, Tracy and I were a team by ourselves. There were 25 questions, covering Disney parks, movies, and TV shows. I think we had 18 or 19 correct. Not good enough to win, but
After Disney Trivia, we had about 20 minutes until the TV Tunes Trivia, which was held in the bar right next to where we were. (Most of the trivia contests were held in the “adult zone” of the ship, deck 4 aft, where there are 4 or 5 different themed bars. Some, like the sports bar are open pretty much all day, some are mostly unused during the day, but since they have seating and sound systems, they’re a good place to do things like trivia contests). TV Tunes Trivia is a music contest, they’ll play a small (1-3 second) clip from a theme song, and you have to try to guess which show it is. Again, Tracy and I played as a team, and again, 18 or 19 out of 25.
Right after the TV Tunes Trivia, we moved from the back of the boat to the front, and went to see Wreck It Ralph in the Buena Vista Theater. The Buena Vista Theater is a pretty decently sized movie theater, where they show various full length movies, for free. They do have a concession stand outside where you can buy snacks, or you can bring food from one of the quick service locations, and eat it in the theater. However, since the trivia ended at 12:30, and the movie started at 12:30, we opted to skip the food, this time. We had already seen Wreck It Ralph when it was in theaters (If you look at our AMC stubs account, probably 1/3 of the movies we see are kids movies … only half of which are Disney), but it’s a cute movie, and there wasn’t anything else that we wanted to do at that time, so why not see it again?
After the movie, we split up. Tracy went to lay out in the sun, and I went over to the “D Lounge” (which is larger than the bars, and is basically a multipurpose room) where they were having a class called “Anyone Can Cook”, and the recipe they were making was Apple Strudel.
The class was lead by Chef Shyam, who is the executive pastry chef on the ship. He shared some interesting facts about the pastry/bakery operation on board, like that they make 75 different types of pastry/baked goods on board every day, and that nearly 90% of all the baked goods available on board are actually prepared on board. (He said that the main things that are prepared shoreshide are the donuts, and the gluten free or vegan bakery items). The Chef demonstrated the technique as he talked, and there was a camera/monitor, so even people in the back of the room could see what was going on. As he was talking, they brought around samples of the finished product, so everyone could have a taste. After the talk, they handed out recipe cards.
After the cooking class, I went back to the room and changed to go to the pool. I didn’t actually go in the pool, but Tracy and I did go down the “Aquaduck” water slide. It is a 1 or 2 person tube slide (when we went, due to high wind, they said we needed to go 2 at a time) that has a pretty gentle slope, not too scary for the little kids. (Although, the first curve actually takes you beyond the side of the boat, and the slide itself is clear, so if you look down, you can see the ocean, 15 stories below). Once was enough for us, and we dried off a bit and spent some time in the lounge chairs reading.
After about an hour or so, we went back to the room to shower and change for the evening’s show and dinner. The dinner attire for the day was formal. I went with a shirt and tie, although we did see several folks in suits, and even 1 or 2 in tuxedo. The show in the Walt Disney Theater was Aladdin, which is a shortened telling of the story. (Think “Beauty and The Beast on stage” at DHS, or “Finding Nemo The Musical” at AK). The performers were all very talented, especially the Genie, who is allowed to do a little bit of ad-libbing/improvising/pop culture references with his lines … “I can’t bring someone back from the dead. I used up all that magic on Betty White’s career”
Dinner that night was in the Animator’s Palate restaurant. Animator’s Palate is, in terms of theming, my favorite restaurant on the ship. Throughout the restaurant, there are sketches, models, paintings, etc, Even the butter knives look like paint brushes (someone else’s picture on flickr: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8523/8628428183_c9aca3d3c3_z.jpg ), and the chairs are in a “Mickey” design (again, someone else’s picture since I still haven’t gone through all of mine: http://drinkingdisney.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/animators-palate-chair.jpg ) There are also video screens in the walls, and during the meal (the first time you eat there), they do a version of “Turtle Talk with Crush” … Crush will swim from screen to screen and interact with the guests at the nearby tables via the use of hidden microphones, then swim to another section of the restaurant, and some of the other Nemo characters will swim around and play (non-interactively) to entertain you.
After dinner, I think we just went back to the room and watched TV for a little while before bed. The in-room TVs have a large (free) on-demand selection of Disney (and Pixar, and Marvel) movies, both live action and animated. I think we watched the Mighty Ducks.