You've got a friend in Me(d) - Day 11 - Day at Sea and Day 12 - Going Home

[Scruffette]

Day 11 - Day at Sea andDay 12 - Going Home

The last full day of a trip can always feel a bit sad, but we had every intention of making the most of the day. I was particularly excited about brunch at Palo.

Whilst getting ready and sorting out our things, the front of the safe fell off!



Ollie of course puts this down to his super strength! A quick call to maintenance, and we arranged for them to come and fix the safe a bit later.

This morning we had tickets for the Princess gathering at 9.30am in the atrium. After a short queue, we met Rapunzel, Belle and Cinderella in quick succession. A very efficient princess meet!

We were a bit early for brunch, so took a lap of the pool deck before heading in.







Ollie tried to get some pictures of ‘our spot’ on deck 7 forward.







Soon it was time for our brunch. Sylvester was our server again, and he was exactly as we remembered him from our dinner. He was ever so complimentary, gushing even, but very good at his job. He was training up another Palo server and was apparently leaving soon.

A drink is included with brunch, and we both chose a Kir Royale.



Sylvester then took us for a tour of the buffet – apparently all the food was beautiful like us!

I started with a sweet pastry plate.



Ollie didn’t want to start with something sweet, and instead went for a savoury plate first.

I then went for my savoury plate.



The salmon mousse (in the pot) was one of the standouts along with the arancinni breaded ball. The meat and cheese selections were all lovely.

Ollie then went for his sweet pastry plate.



The sticky bun with the sauce was amazing.

We chose two dished form the menu to share. The Lasagna Bolognaise



And, of course, the Parmesan-Crusted Chicken Breast - topped with a San Marzano Tomato Basil Sauce and Mozzarella Cheese, served on a creamy Arborio Rice Risotto



Sylvester topped both with a generous helping of Parmesan. The lasanga was very nice, but the chicken was the real star of the show here. This was as expected, I think every review I’ve read of Palo brunch mentions this dish.

With our kir royales empty, we each ordered a bellini. I thought these were great value at $4 each.



It was time to hear up to the dessert buffet next. I loved how the desserts were small in size, meaning I could try lots



The chocolate-hazelnut dessert on the spoon at the front was particularly nice.

Ollie’s plate –



There was also a warm dessert available, which was chocolate melt in the middle pudding. The sauce was very shiny!



This was lovely, but not as good as the chocolate soufflé from dinner.
Our brunch was lovely and lasted about 2 hours. I highly recommend this!

After brunch, we headed back to the room, where our luggage labels were again waiting to remind us that the cruise was almost over



Maintenance came up to fix the safe for us, which didn’t take too long.

We picked up some drinks from the pool deck before heading down to TV tunes trivia at O’Gills at 1.15pm.

They’d run out of Disney branded cups completely by this point, so we had these cups to use. I was fine with this as they were a bit bigger than the Disney cups!



Tunes trivia was so difficult, as it was mainly old American tv shows. Jo, the adult club host was running the quiz and cheered for us when we eventually got one right!

After the quiz we did a quick dash to the Walt Disney Theatre to watch Stringfever. They are a string quartet with a bit of comedy mixed in. They did one piece which was movie theme tunes back to back. Now at least most of these themes I recognised!

We spotted our tablemates on the way into the theatre so sat with them and had a catch up. This was the first show in the Theatre they had made it to!

After the show, the plan was to head up to the pool deck, as I hadn’t made it in the pool yet! Ollie had a go on the aquadunk, but I was not brave enough to do this! The aquaduck on the Dream was more my level! The adult pool area seems a bit bigger on the Magic than the Dream which was nicer.

After swimming, we headed back to the room to dry ourselves off in preparation for our mojito & caipirinha tasting class.

This was again in Keys and hosted by Andy. He started the class by saying ‘My aim is to get you all drunk by dinner!’.



The class was $20 and excellent value. During the class we muddled 3 mojitos – classic, strawberry and citrus - and 2 caiprinhas, all of which were full size.











Andy was again funny and informative and the class ran over again by about 20 minutes.

After the class we headed back to the room to make ourselves presentable for the evening and start this evening’s bottle of prosecco whilst trying to put off packing (via the pool deck to pick up some of Disney’s magical chicken tenders to soak up some of that alcohol!)

We were cutting it fine to make it to the show, and bumped into the Captain en route, as you do. He noticed our happily ever after buttons, and we explained we got engaged earlier in the week. Again, we got the response ‘Ah, that was you!’.

Tonight’s show was Dreams – An Enchanted Classic. The show was led by Peter Pan and included a mix of well known Disney songs. They had even updated it to include Frozen (of course!)

After the show we had to tackle the packing before dinner, as we were planning on leaving the case out tonight. This was a bit of a squeeze as we only had the one case between us. We hadn’t bought too much, but the fluffy Disney robes took up quite a lot of space!

Dinner tonight was in Animators Palate for the animation magic show.
We sat down to find our drawing paper. We were told we weren’t allowed food until our pictures were finished!



I’m not particularly artistic, but here is my attempt…



I struggled to think of what to draw, so next time I’m going in with a plan!

I liked Ollie’s drawing, featuring both a Mickey premium bar and a Turley leg.



One of our tablemates was a very talented artist, and manage to draw a great picture in about 2 minutes.

As it was the animation magic show, the first two courses were set.

The first course was an Appetiser sampler platter - smoked duck breast with pickled red onions and craisins, dill marinated shrimp with tomato-mayonnaise and horseradish cream and smoked salmon tartar with sour cream and cream cheese.



Everything looked the same colour

I’ve hear some not very complimentary things about this set starter, and I can see why. I’m not sure why you’d put two fish options on a set appetiser, when lots of people can be a bit picky about fish.

Compared to the amazing smoked salmon mousse at Palo this morning, this was the other end of the spectrum…

The soup was macaroni cheese and baked potato.



I enjoyed this, although it was quite similar to my soup from earlier in the week.

Some of the artwork throughout the meal –







For mains, I ordered the Roasted fillet of beef wellington – covered with mushroom stuffing wrapped in puff pastry and served with fingerling potatoes, baby vegetables and a cabernet red truffle jus.

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Ollie ordered double beef wellington as he was on a creative streak…



You can never go wrong with a beef wellington (or a Mickey wellington). The wellington was still pink in the middle which was nice to see.

It was then time for the show! I was impressed by how much dancing our drawings did and the interactions with the Disney characters.





Look, I’m famous!

For dessert, we both went for the baked Alaska – sponge loaf layered with chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream covered with burnt meringue.



The meringue layer was a little thinner than I was expecting, but this was still tasty.

Our servers also bought out a special chocolate dessert and some celebration badges for us.

[Scruffette]

After dinner, we headed to Fathoms with our table mates to watch Junnk’s adults only show at 10.45.

Again, they were very funny and had us laughing a lot.

Not wanting the evening to end, we moved next door to Keys. Our tablemates ordered us a round of bright blue drinks. I’m pretty sure they were vodka based, made even better by Disney glow cubes!



They were so nice that another round was ordered!

It was around 1am when we wished our new friends goodnight.

However, Ollie and I were really putting off going to bed, as we didn’t want the cruise to end. We did a late night wander of the ship, which is my favourite time to explore as it’s so quiet.

I used this time to start taking a really random selection of pictures.

I’ll share a selection here, but save you from some of the really random ones. (For some reason, I felt the need to take a picture of the PG tips available on the pool decks. I don’t even drink tea…)













One day…



























We attempted a game of shuffleboard, but realised we didn’t actually know how to play.



Relaxing (and trying to put off going to bed…)



Our door looked so empty with our magnets taken down.









Eventually we admitted defeat and headed to bed around 3am.
Tonight’s towel animal (and double chocolate)



Day 12 – Going home

I’m not sure day 12 warrants its own post, so I’m going to put it here.

The alarm was not welcome this morning. 4 hours sleep was definitely not enough.

We gathered all our bits and pieces, ahead of breakfast in Animator’s Palate.







Olie had the Route 66 - Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, Grilled Sausage, Grilled Ham, and Hash Browns


I went for the sweet option (of course) For A Sweet Journey -
Buttermilk Pancakes, Blueberry Pancakes, Whole Wheat Pancakes, Belgium Waffles (All served with Honey or Breakfast Syrup)



I decided to add a side of hash browns, as Ollie’s sounded nice!

I could have done without the whole wheat pancakes, but the rest was tasty. I asked for the syrup into my tea cup (which was empty) so I could dip my pancakes into syrup, rather than have it mixing with the hash browns. The server thought this was an odd request!

After breakfast, we bit farewell to our serving team and tablemates. We had some really fun mealtimes and it was quite sad to say goodbye.

On our way off the ship we also bumped into Maya, our photographer from the other evening. She gave us a big hug and said she expected to see us on our honeymoon!

After putting it off long enough, we had to disembark. Finding the case was easy enough, and it was an easy process getting off the ship.

Goodbye beautiful ship



We caught the port bus again for 3€ each. The taxi lines was really long and not shaded, so pre-book if you plan on getting a taxi!

As we had some time, the plan was walk to Drassanes Metro, alight at Passeig de gràcia station and take the Renfe C2 overground train to Barcelona airport station, where we’d have to get the internal bus to transfer terminals.

We followed this plan, but the C2 wasn’t running as frequently as we expected (maybe due to being a weekend). Our flight was 1pm, and this meant we were checking in slightly under two hours before.

We checked in, and there was a delay a they were trying to work out if we had been bumped form the flight or not, due to an earlier cancellation. Eventually they decided we were going to be on this flight. Our seats were at opposite ends of the plane, which was a shame. But I’m sure Ollie was sick of me by then anyway!

The flight to Madrid took off a bit late. I could barely keep my eyes open (due to 4 hours sleep) and fell asleep before the cabin crew safety announcements (oops). The Spanish guy next to me was a complete arm hog! I slept most of the flight and we landed just after 2.45pm.

Our next flight was 4pm, and we picked up a Macdonalds each to eat before getting on the plane.



Not the most exciting food choice, by the CBO was tasty. I think you can only get these in Europe – I had one in France about 10 years ago I think.

Again we were at opposite sides of the plane. I was next to two well behaved girls who were part of a bigger family. Ollie ended up sat next to two people from the cruise! The man proudly told Ollie he ate 15 steaks on the cruise. Not sure how he fitted all of those in!

Eventually we landed to a cold, rainy Manchester around 5.30pm. This felt like a really long travel day, considering we had only come from Spain.

I don’t mind flying indirect to the States, but it’s a bit of a hassle from Europe.

The journey home was smooth, and I put on my cruise robe straight away!

Being home was of course sad, but having exciting news to share with people definitely helped

Coming soon - Final Thoughts and Future Plans

[Gill H]

What a lovely end to your cruise. I love the random photos - definitely getting us excited for our trip!

[Cutiepie]

Lovely holiday, thanks taking the time to write your report & sharing your holiday & engagement. I have enjoyed reading along.