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The dreaded alarm went off at 7:31am with the pre-ordered room service arriving expectedly just a couple of minutes later. It was juice & bagel with PB & jelly for Gayle and a croissant & coffee for Kara. We donned swimwear and moved all of our beach gear (again) to primarily Gayle’s rolling backpack. The weather was to be a low of 76 and high of 86. It was sunnier than expected, so it was already getting quite warm when we disembarked around 8:45am. (They are no longer using the Virtual Queue to disembark anywhere and we really wish they’d keep it for Disney Castaway Cay!)
We grabbed towels and took the tram to the first stop to peruse the Sally Sells shop. Then we walked to the 2nd stop to view the other shop and grab the tram to Serenity Bay. We realized this was probably the first time since our 2017 Disney Dream cruise (where we got rained out) that we’d been to Serenity Bay. (During this five-year span we’d gone to the Med and returned on low capacity sailings to the point of just hanging out at the Family Beach.)
Gayle: Ya. The chairs on the incline were really odd - & uncomfortable. It was quite warm and the water still quite cool. While I likely would have enjoyed the water had I made myself more than just wade in, I never committed to it.
Between the heat and the incline issue, we were simply impatient to get to the 11:30am lunch time at Serenity Bay. We were some of the first people at lunch. While the food is of lovely quality on a beach, it was simply too warm for us to enjoy hot dogs, ribs, etc. (But the Big Island Cookies were as wonderful as ever!)
We sat at our lunch table waiting for the next Tram to approach and were very soon back on our way to the ship (More blasphemy of leaving Disney Castaway Cay early!) I’d initially wanted to head to the pools, knowing they would be empty, but just ended up back at the room. We packed early this time, which took the pressure off of the evening.
As it was the only time it was being offered for the entire cruise(!), we went to my favorite - Disney Cruise Line Trivia - at 3pm in La Piazza. There were only 2-3 other teams playing. We were stumped on one question and I mis-remembered on another. Yet, we still proclaimed VICTORY! (I was especially proud of this because one of the other competitors was also a travel agent.) There had been no winner “medals” on the entire sailing, so we were awarded Mickey rice krispie treats instead. (Mine is still in my kitchen cabinet….)
Next it was back to get ready for dinner. Just before dinner we dashed to Sweet on You, to pre-order desserts for the dining room (That’s a Pro Tip, if you didn’t already know that’s an option.) Here we finally saw Noom, a crew member we remembered from our October sailing. (He’d been in quarantine most of this cruise!)
This final night we were back in Enchanted Garden, where we started on the cruise. When we were in Royal Court previously, we pulled our Head Server, Tony, aside to share while we wanted to dine in our main dining room on the final night, the entrees were not of interest. (We didn’t want to be huge pains, so we didn’t request anything specific.) As expected, he responded to not worry, he’d take care of us.
When Carlos came to take our order, we chose appetizers (shrimp with Mexican rice) and shared that we thought Tony was taking care of our entree? I know we were both hoping for the perfect sea bass from earlier in the trip, but were just as delighted to be presented with more lobster tail!
We presented Carlos with our ticket from Sweet on You, which was a first for him, and soon Noom was delivering our desserts. Perfection!
Since we never go to the main dining room for our final breakfast, we presented our servers with their tips. It was also a special goodbye to Carlos, who was leaving the next morning to fly to Amsterdam to board the new Disney Wish! (Yes, I have requested him on our September sailing, presuming he’s still on contract.)
We ended our evening with the Disney’s Believe stage show. As mentioned earlier, we were slightly dreading the Genie, but alas! This one was great (which made us regret skipping Disney's Aladdin - A Musical Spectacular earlier in the cruise.)
We made an uncharacteristic stop at the pool bar on our way back to our room to get strawberry daquiri to end our cruise in style.
Then it was the traditional quick change of clothes, and as promised to our steward, the bags were set out just prior to 10:30pm!
Disclaimer: I (Gayle) am a travel agent with Authorized Disney Travel Planner agency - Off to Neverland Travel. Contact me today for a no-obligation quote!
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