Friday – Day at Sea

Even though it was a sea day we had places to go and things to do…

We slept in until after 8:00, but we had Palo brunch booked at 10:00. That’s always my favorite meal on board a Disney ship! We were delighted to find that Julia was at the Palo reception desk checking people in. She is so sweet.

There will be a more complete account in the upcoming food blog, but suffice it to say that we had a wonderful brunch, and the sticky buns are as good as ever. (Actually better than the last time we had them.)

It was an absolutely spectacular day at sea – sunny and warm and almost 70 degrees. And the sea was glassy smooth. I so wished we had those conditions in Bergen the day before… Oh well.

After our brunch we did a couple of leisurely loops around deck 10 and then a little last-minute shopping. The shop near O’Gills that is usually the Duty-Free shop was instead carrying a selection of goods from Russia and Norway during this cruise. The inventory was getting a little thin at the end of the cruise, but I found a couple of magnets and a troll figure. Here’s our door on the final day, with all of the various magnets.

Seeing the Tomorrowland movie was our other big event for the day – this was the only day it was showing during the cruise. It was going to be in the Buena Vista Theater three times in the evening, but we wanted to see it in the Walt Disney Theater, which is a little bigger and more comfortable. There was only one showing there, at 2:00. I actually expected it to be a lot more crowded, but it was less than 1/3 full. Unfortunately it meant we missed the final Dr. Marv lecture on Copenhagen, though I caught most of it later on the stateroom TV.

The movie was good. I’d seen both the extended preview in the theater and the sneak peek at Disneyland, but even so it was much different than I expected. As usual, I thought the action scenes went on a little too long – that’s my typical movie complaint. 🙂

Lee was hungry and went up to deck 9 to get some pizza, while I went back to start the dreaded chore of packing. 🙁

I’d left our “Chocolate Chase” answer sheet on the bed that morning, and when I returned we had our prizes. I was very disappointed that the prizes for a CHOCOLATE Chase were not chocolate at all – it was rice krispie treats covered in white (NOT CHOCOLATE) coating. REALLY???? Anna obviously was NOT consulted.

We also had a card from the Frozen gang thanking us for Freezing the Night Away with them.

The suitcases were a lot more full than they had been when we arrived – but by design we had intentionally left a lot of room because we knew we’d come back with stuff. Just the DVC and Castaway Club gifts are always extras plus we had souvenirs and that lovely plush “Frozen” throw, too. Though there was one gift that we hadn’t received, and I was surprised we hadn’t: no commemorative lithograph. We’d always received one before on “first time” itineraries. 🙁

But when we left for dinner I saw the housekeeping carts… and all of them had the tell-tale white cardboard packets piled on top. Yay!

Lee and I were alone at our table that evening – Terrie and Paul were dining at Palo. We had a nice dinner, then went to Keys for a final drink. This was Clara’s final night aboard, and she was feeling a bit melancholy, but she performed several nice Disney medleys.

Lee wanted to see the Disney Dreams show, and I went back to the stateroom to finish packing and put the bags out. Sure enough the lithograph was on our bed, with a nice note from Commodore Tom thanking us for sailing with them on this inaugural itinerary. I wonder if the reason that we received it so late was to prevent everyone from bringing it to the Commodore’s signing, which had been earlier that day. As it was, we had seen a huge line of people who were waiting before the signing even started! I don’t get it, personally.

I packed the lithograph safely away and placed the bags outside. On the stateroom TV I watched Dr. Marv’s talk on Copenhagen, Queen Margaret, and the Kalmar Union and periodically went out on the verandah to watch the sunset – at 10:08 p.m. Still late, but earlier than it had been now that we were sailing south.

Lee returned from the show, telling me about all of the changes to it – lots of new effects, as well as new material featuring Anna, Elsa, and Olaf. He really enjoyed it.

Saturday – Now It’s Time to Say Goodbye…

We were docked in Copenhagen by the time we woke up at 6:30. We’re always surprised at how we can sleep through docking – we never seem to hear the sounds that we hear when we are awake.

Breakfast was at 7:15. The final breakfast is always rather sad, since it’s intended to be fast. They are in a hurry to get us out of there, though of course they won’t TELL us that. 🙂

After breakfast we quickly made our way off ship – again via deck 1. In some ways it was easier to leave from deck 1, since we didn’t have to pass through the beautiful Atrium on our way off the ship. But it’s still an interesting dichotomy: as anxious as the crew is to welcome us aboard the ship at the beginning of the cruise, they are just as anxious to see us leave on departure morning. 🙂 (Donald is obviously overjoyed. 🙂 )

It was, oh, maybe 8:30 by the time we had our bags and were out of the cruise terminal. No passport control or customs to clear. There were already passengers there who were arriving for the next cruise! I was very envious of them…

I had purchased Disney transfers from the port to the Copenhagen airport. It was more expensive, but I had read that taxis can be difficult to get at the port when a ship comes in. I knew Disney would get us to the airport efficiently. They really packed the bus that we were on, though – I felt like one of those sardines in the cannery in Stavanger! Lee and I were some of the last to board, and we ended up crammed in the last row. Not a very pleasant bus ride, though at least the driver was good, and talked to us about the areas we drove by.

The Copenhagen airport had been pretty empty when we arrived at 7:15 in the morning, but it was very busy at 10:00 in the morning! We had to wait in a huge line to check our bags – that took almost half an hour! But we still had time before our flight to get something to eat and do a little last-minute shopping for some Danish chocolates.

We flew to San Francisco – it was a long flight, but nice to get most of the travel done in one chunk. The flight was a little over 10 hours. We flew over Greenland, and it was clear enough that I could see it below us. Wow… definitely not much “green” down there! We were able to get through Immigration and Customs in San Francisco pretty efficiently, and landed in San Diego about 6:40 p.m. A very long day, and we were tired. We’d been in Scandinavia just long enough for me to get accustomed to that time zone, and now I was back in California. Oh well, at least I find it easier to go west rather than east.

Final Thoughts

It was a GREAT trip!!! Copenhagen was even better than I thought it would be, and I’m glad we flew in several days early and had time to enjoy the city. And Norway – that was certainly a “bucket list” item for me, though now I want to go back and spend more time there, and go further north to see some other places.

I wish the itinerary had been slightly different, and that we could’ve had our second sea day earlier in the cruise to break up some of the port days. Four port days in a row was exhausting.

I really enjoyed the excursions that we selected, and felt that they gave us a good mix of available activities, since we didn’t have time to do EVERYTHING that we would’ve liked to do. I regret that we didn’t have any time to wander around Alesund at all, but we knew that would be the case when we chose the Troll Road excursion. Knowing what I do now, I’m still happy that we chose that excursion. But of course next time I would choose something different, since I’ve seen the Troll Road.

But a nice thing about all of the ports was that you didn’t need to go on an excursion in order to see something interesting. All of them had places that you could easily walk to from the dock. In fact, we chose not to do an excursion in Bergen because just about everything we really wanted to see was within walking distance of the ship.

Though we had outstanding weather in Copenhagen, the weather in Norway was typical for this time of year and mostly overcast. I was hoping we’d get the “Disney bubble” that we’ve had on so many other cruises (like the first Disney cruise to Alaska) and have really great weather, but on port days we only had the one afternoon in Stavanger where we had beautiful blue sky and sunshine. But at least we didn’t have much rain – just the one day of rain/drizzle in Geiranger which didn’t really bother us. And even under gray skies Norway is truly spectacular. Words and photos can not convey the beauty, majesty and grandeur. It is simply breathtaking.

Prior to the trip everyone we talked to who had been to Norway told us to dress in layers, and that was really the key – especially having a waterproof/windproof outer layer. The coldest day we had was in Geiranger when it was mid-40s, but otherwise it was in the 50s and even low 60s. Still, I think this was the first Disney cruise I’ve been on where I never wore shorts at all. (There were some passengers, including a guy who was on a couple of our excursions, who wore shorts the entire time! They were obviously not from southern California.)

Given the “Frozen Frenzy” and the Norway itinerary, there were lots of Frozen-related activities on-board the ship. I already mentioned “Freezing the Night Away”, and some of the special activities that day, as well as the Chocolate Chase. In addition there were special Meet and Greets with Anna and Elsa – for which Fastpasses were distributed – and a version of the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique called “Anna and Elsa’s Boutique” to transform little girls into miniature Annas and Elsas. The Frozen movie was shown multiple times on board, and I think all of the on-board entertainers were required to perform “Let it Go.” 🙂 In Alesund, there was even a special excursion to the Sunnmore Museum that included a visit by Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff. (For “only” $359/person. We weren’t interested, but a lot of people were and it sold out quickly. From what I heard it was a huge success and guests were thrilled.)

There was a fair bit of cruise line specific Frozen-themed merchandise, but I think the bulk of it was generic Frozen items for the kids that you can purchase just about anywhere.

In all honesty, while I would really like to use the line: “Disney, just let it go!”, the reality was that I didn’t feel buried under a veritable avalanche of “Frozen” while on the cruise. It was there, but it was easy to choose not to participate, and there were lots of other activities available. There was no question that all of the Frozen additions were a huge hit with most guests, though. And there were probably a number of guests who wanted even MORE Frozen. (And I can think of a few Frozen things I would’ve like to see… for example, a magnetic snowflake around the number on the door of every stateroom would’ve been a nice touch, and it would have been very amusing to see Olaf give the disembarkation talk… 🙂 )

I should wrap this up. So just a couple more things:

The crew was wonderful, as they always are. We are always impressed by how nice and accommodating everyone is, despite the incredibly long hours that they work, and with very little personal time (or space). We enjoyed seeing how excited they were to be visiting Norway for the first time.

And the ship was beautiful. The last time we were aboard the Disney Magic was in October 2013 just after the drydock/refurbishment when things weren’t quite done and it was still a bit of a fixer-upper. That wasn’t an issue this time, though there was some maintenance going on just because there is ALWAYS maintenance in progress on a ship. We still love the Magic, and it’s our favorite of the four Disney ships.

We had a wonderful time, and I’m really glad we took this trip. I would’ve loved to have had a couple more days on board – but I always say that! I know that the cruise experience is not for everyone, but I love it. And as you can see we manage to have VERY active vacations, even on a cruise.

Thanks for reading – the food blogs will be coming soon.

Comments (4)