TransAtlantic Disney Cruise – The Crossing

August 25 – 27, 2007
Trans-Atlantic Crossing

In this report I’m going to attempt to cover the six days at sea. We’re at home now back into our normal life, looking back those six days seem like one long relaxation on a deck chair. But there are lots of other highlights to tell you about.

Saturday August 25

Our first full day at sea and at 9:30 this morning we had the pleasure of seeing Don ‘Ducky’ Williams and hearing his remarkable story of perseverance that lead to his employment with WDW. Ducky is a character animator for the parks, he does all of the character illustration for non merchandise items in the parks such as signage, maps, ticket media, even napkins.

During his talk he does large character sketches that they raffle off at the end. I really wanted one of those sketches, but today wasn’t my lucky day. Ducky was on our dining rotation so we saw him every night and many other times during the cruise, he was always gracious and willing to stop and talk to anyone who approached him.

After Ducky’s talk and a little lunch we went to the Castaway Club party. Castaway Club is Disney’s repeat cruiser group and there were a lot of us on this particular cruise. If you’re a Castaway Club member you get a gift in your stateroom when you board the ship, even if it’s just your second cruise with DCL. This trip the gift was a leather embossed travel wallet.

Since it is just our second DCL cruise I don’t know if they usually use just one night club or all of Beat Street for the party, as there’s rumor that there are 1300 of us they used all of Beat Street. They have a trivia contest, a raffle for Castaway Club logo items and provide cookies, Mickey rice crispy treats, soda, water and coffee. As I’ve already said this isn’t my lucky day and I didn’t win a clock which was today’s giveaway. But really how unlucky can you feel when you’re on the Disney Magic. Maybe I’m totally lucky.

Tonight’s menu is Prince & Princess and the show tonight is Twice Charmed. A new twist on the Cinderella story Twice Charmed tells the story of how Lady Tremaine and her daughters along with an evil godfather try to sabotage Cinderella’s chance at happiness with the Prince. It’s a fun and entertaining stage musical that I really enjoyed.

Sunday August 26

The Ocean is like a lake, it’s so completely different from what I know the eastbound passengers experienced. With one exception of 12 to 15 foot seas in the middle of one night we had beautiful calm oceans, and nice warm weather with a moderately strong breeze.

Something really cool about sitting on a DCL deck lounger…happy hour till noon! Mimosas and Bloody Mary’s for $2.99. I only had about 3 the whole trip but I like the idea. Paul has a favorite drink waiter Flavio who seems to find us wherever we are, you always seem to establish a rapport with at least one crewmember, Flavio is ours this cruise.

Today’s agenda included nothing more than me going to the spa for a facial and pedicure and Paul going to the Art of Entertainment. The Art of Entertainment is a series of free cooking demonstrations by Disney chefs, at the end you get to taste the featured dish usually with a wine pairing, We got a couple of good recipes over the week.

Monday August 27

Michael Jordan Sommelier for the Napa Rose Restaurant in the Grand Californian is doing a series of wine tasting that are so in depth they amount to wine classes and at $15 a session are a great value for the amount of information you get.

We’ve also discovered David Cunningham, a crewmember who is doing acoustic guitar shows at the Quite Cove pool stage. He does originals and has a Dave Matthews sound. We like him and caught a couple of his shows.

“When Mickey Dreams” is on tap for tonight Mickey’s dreams come to life guided by cirque-like ‘dream seekers’ This show features amazing acrobats who are even more amazing considering they are performing on a moving ship. They is one nightmare sequence featuring Malificent. I think “When Mickey Dreams” was our favorite stage show.

On a day at sea during the first week of the cruise the show was the Golden Mickeys, an Oscar like show with Disney characters performing their movie hits. We however missed it is because we were at Palo’s that night. We saw it on our last cruise and it’s one of my favorites, I think it’s everyone’s favorite since we all know the songs from the movies.

After Palo’s Paul, Vickie & I did catch Michael Harrison he’s a very funny ventriloquist whom we’ve seen before this was his late night adult show in Rockin Bar D and he was hilarious. That was on Monday and still early in our trip, we were still able to stay up pretty late and happened by the new Ariel View Television, DCL’s new LCD movie screen over the Goofy pool and they were showing Curse of the Black Pearl, so we plopped down on lounge chairs to watch the end before we turned in.

Lynn