Eastern Caribbean Cruise

After being astounded and wowed in 2004 by my 4-day Bahamian cruise, I eagerly decided to take another, more extensive, cruise on Disney's sister ship, the M/S Disney Magic. (I haven't really figured out what "M/S" really means. I've heard that it means either "motor ship" or "merchant ship", but, for the purposes of this cruise, I suppose it just means "Magical Ship".)

Again, I was ecstatically excited and thrilled by the whole cruise experience, and I would like to share with you some of the plentiful pleasures and memories of my most bon voyage.

I was so fortunate that the famous Mickey Mouse and Pluto just happened to be taking the taking the same cruise that I was. Here they are making their first appearance.
Mickey Mouse and Pluto have embarked upon the Disney Magic.
The Oceaneer's Lab has all exciting sorts of things for kids to do during the course of the voyage. Paul is acquainting himself with the bean-bag chairs.
Bean-bag chairs in the Oceaneer Lab.
Here are flags flying atop the ship.
Flags of the Disney Cruise Line and of the United States of America flying atop the M/S Disney Magic
The shipmakers didn't do a very good job of hiding this pool at the front of the ship apparently reserved for the crew.
forward swimming pool
This is a picture of me wearing a tuxedo for the first time ever not for a wedding.
Linda and Curtis Smith dressed up for formal night
I kept on seeing these particular mice infesting the ship. I previously mentioned Mickey. The female mouse is apparently named Minnie. How do you tell the difference between a male and female mouse? The female wears a frock, duh.
Mickey & Minnie Mouse descend the stairs
He we are eating with our friend Goofy the Dog. To be honest, I think he was just a stray whom we picked up for a while. When the crew came by to shoo the dog out of the restaurant, we just claimed he was our "service animal" (and he was rather accommodating indeed).
Linda, Curtis, and Goofy at the "character breakfast"
Chip the chipmunk, who had graced us with his personal presence on our last cruise just happened to be taking this very same cruise with us. What are the odds?
Linda and Chip the chipmunk
Our first port of call was Philipsburg on the island of Sint Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles.
boats docked in Philipsburg.
Tourists Linda and Paul examine the faux shrunken heads made out of coconuts in one of the shops.
coconut head
All right! They have some nice-size lizards in St. Maarten! I'm not really sure of the species of this particular critter.
Lizard fauna of St. Maarten
More tourist shops!
Paul with toy souvenir machete
Here is our ship the Disney Magic at port in St. Maarten with the scrawny Seabourn Legend in front of it.
M/S Disney Magic cannot hide very easily behind the Seabourn Legend
The island of St. Martin is politically split in two: the south Dutch (Sint Maarten), the north French. On the Dutch side, everybody seemed to speak English, and all the business signs seemed to be in English (other than that company names had "N.V.") Actually, I did see a bank with a Dutch name and a couple of street signs in Dutch. We went over to the French side via taxi to its captial city Marigot. They did speak French there but English just as readily. We first went up the hill to visit the remnants of Fort Louis.
Fort Louis as seen from the streets of Marigot
On the way up, we saw several coconut palm trees which I didn't really expect. According to some nameplates I read, the coconut palm is really not native to the area but had been imported from the South Pacific. I already knew their use in the local economy was to make the shrunken-head souvenirs.
coconut palm on St. Martin
Here is one of the cannons at the fort. The great condition of the equipment is an indicator of great French fortitude.
cannon at Fort Louis
There was a spectacular view of Marigot and the surrounding area from the fort.
Marigot as seen from Fort Louis
It's getting close to suppertime, and we have to go back to our ship.
Disney Magic wording on the side of the ship
That night is the "Pirates IN the Caribbean deck party". It was loads of fun with dancing galore, singing, fireworks, a buffet banquet. I was too busy having fun to make pictures, but here is one snapshot of the decorations at one of the buffet tables.
pirates IN the Caribbean buffet
The next day, we went to St. Thomas, which is one of the U.S. Virgin Islands. I just thought it was funny to see this US-style no-U-turn sign made for a jurisdiction where they drive on the left side of the road.
no-U-turn sign
Here is Linda with the St. Thomas harbour in the background.
Linda at St. Thomas, USVI
We climbed the hill to see lookout tower of Blackbeard the pirate.
Coming down the hill was a lot easier than going up.
Blackbeard's tower These ninety-nine steps are only a fraction of the way up and down the hill.
Back on the ship, you could get all your Disney stuff at the store Mickey's Mates. We got a photo album (and had it signed by the captain) into which we are putting the very same pictures you see on this page (plus loads more).
Linda at Mickey's Mates aboard the Magic
One of the restaurants aboard the ship is Lumière's, named after an enchanted candelabra in Disney's version of Beauty and the Beast, an animated movie I have never seen. The following is a mural on the wall of Lumière's, which brings me to my biggest gripe about the trip: namely, that in all of the TV and cinema movies they show on board, they never show Beauty and the Beast which might cast some light (yes, pun intended) on the origin of the restaurant's name.
Wall painting in Lumière's of Beauty and the beast dancing
Beat Street is where all the nightlife is happening. We went to dancing and various entertainment venues there.
hallway to Beat Street
Linda and I went to an informative explanation of some of the backstage goings on at the onboard theatre where the most enjoyable and competent productions take place. Here Linda is sizing up this ballroom gown said to be made of 100 yards of fabric and weighs a good 10 or 15 kilograms. The reported price to make the dress is a whopping $35,000.
Linda with the golden ballroom gown
Happy Paul is excited to have some stuffed chipmunks. Note the Union-Jack pin on Chip. The youngster was debating whether he should get the Irish pin or the British pin, and you can see the choice suggested to him by the pin clerk who just happened to be a rather charming Englishwoman.
Chip & Dale action figures
Smoke Stack of M/S Disney Magic.
smoke stack
The last port of call is Castaway Cay, Bahamas.
Magic at the Castaway Cay dock
Here is a zoomed-in version of Goofy (sorry for its poor clarity).
Goofy painting the Disney Magic
You see this flower-overgrown abandoned airplane at the end of the old runway on the island.
Castaway Cay abandoned plane
Serenity Bay is a clean, beautiful beach for adults on Castaway Cay.
Serenity Beach
There is a play fortress at the main beach on Castaway Cay.
play platform
Alas, the end of beach day means our cruise is nearing its end. Tomorrow, we'll be back in Florida.
heading back towards the ship
Mealtime is always a delight when Teddy and Gedings are your waiters. They served us the whole week and were the beyond the best you could imagine and a fantastic pleasure.
Teddy and Gedings, waiters extraordinary
It was sad to leave the ship. I didn't take any pictures my last day, but they had this same banner up as I disembarked from my previous cruise. I do indeed wish to see Mickey Mouse again soon.
Mickey Mouse says, "See you real soon!"

See more Disney Magic pictures from this cruise
Go back to My first cruise (2004) aboard the Disney Wonder
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