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.
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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.
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Here are flags flying atop the ship.
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The shipmakers didn't do a very good job of hiding this pool at the front of the ship apparently reserved
for the crew.
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This is a picture of me wearing a tuxedo for the first time ever not for a wedding.
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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.
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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).
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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?
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Our first port of call was Philipsburg on the island of Sint Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles.
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Tourists Linda and Paul examine the faux shrunken heads made out of coconuts in one of the shops.
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All right! They have some nice-size lizards in St. Maarten! I'm not
really sure of
the species of this particular critter.
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More tourist shops!
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Here is our ship the Disney Magic at port in
St. Maarten with the scrawny
Seabourn Legend in front of it.
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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.
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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.
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Here is one of the cannons at the fort. The great condition of the
equipment is an indicator of great French fortitude.
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There was a spectacular view of Marigot and the surrounding area
from the fort.
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It's getting close to suppertime, and we have to go back to our ship.
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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.
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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.
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Here is Linda with the St. Thomas harbour in the background.
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We climbed the hill to see lookout tower of Blackbeard the pirate.
Coming down the hill was a lot easier than going up.
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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).
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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.
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Beat Street is where all the nightlife is happening. We went to dancing and
various entertainment venues there.
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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.
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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.
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Smoke Stack of M/S Disney Magic.
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The last port of call is Castaway Cay, Bahamas.
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Here is a zoomed-in version of Goofy (sorry for its poor clarity).
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You see this flower-overgrown abandoned airplane at the
end of the old runway on the island.
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Serenity Bay is a clean, beautiful beach for adults on Castaway Cay.
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There is a play fortress at the main beach on Castaway Cay.
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Alas, the end of beach day means our cruise is nearing its end. Tomorrow,
we'll be back in Florida.
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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.
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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.
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My first cruise (2004) aboard the
Disney Wonder
Curtis's home page