FTC Disclosure: Through business relationship with our suppliers, some may provide complimentary or discounted access to their locations and products to provide hands-on experiences to better assist my clients.
Kara’s alarm went off at 8am. (Ouch.)
Kara: Why did my alarm go off at 8 a.m. on the first day of our cruise? Because I booked the Kickstart Your Day Beverage Tasting for 9 a.m. today. I did this beverage experience on our October cruise and enjoyed it so much that I wanted to do it again. Since Gayle was doing all the heavy lifting in our cruise blogging back then, I decided now that I’m taking a more active role in things, I’d give you more specific detail about this beverage tasting.
I got ready and headed down for our meet up in Skyline. I arrived right at 9 a.m. and grabbed a seat.
This experience begins with three smoothies and wraps up with two alcoholic beverages. I believe that the drinks were all the same from October to this sailing. The one thing that was different in this experience was that they made a tray of the ingredients that we could take a look at after we finished our experience. Let’s go through each of the smoothies.
Our first one was the “Get Up”. It featured almond milk, banana, strawberry, sunflower seeds, and tumeric. I had the Beauty and the Beast “try the gray stuff, it’s delicious” melody in my head as I drank it. This one was pretty good, regardless of how it looked. They mixed all the smoothies with a bit of ice which made them taste better in my opinion.
The second smoothie was the green smoothie. It was called the "Juice Tonic". It included spirulina, which I don’t think I’ve ever heard of, as well as more common ingredients apple, banana, kale, spinach, chia, and water.
Here is the display of the items in the green smoothie.
I was tickled about our final smoothie as many of the people around me really did NOT enjoy the first two smoothies and thought they would enjoy the third one since it LOOKS friendly. However, I knew from my first experience that this one has a special surprise.
I didn’t write down the name of this one, but it is very pretty:
However, as I recalled this one had a special surprise. I watched patiently as the folks around me who had not enjoyed the first two took a big ‘ole swig of this one - and then their faces wrinkled up. Here is what is in it.
Beets, avacado, goji berries, avacado, and kale. Between the funny aftertaste of the beets and the odd texture that only an avocado can give it, this one is NOT my favorite at all. I heard a couple of folks say, “Well, I paid for it so I’m gonna drink it.”
After our three smoothies, it was time for the two alcoholic drinks - a mimosa made with fresh squeezed orange juice and a bloody mary made with fresh “squeezed” tomato juice. After having these in October these were enough of a reason for me to do this beverage tasting again - even though my experience of these two beverages was very different.
In October, the mimosa was absolutely INCREDIBLE. I said to Gayle that now that I’d had a mimosa made with fresh squeezed orange juice, I’d never be able to drink a “normal” mimosa again. Had I had the May mimosa first, I might not have been that excited as it was not all that tasty. There was not enough orange juice in it to give it any real flavor.
However, the Bloody Mary was AMAZING and I’m not typically a Bloody Mary fan. This Bloody Mary was much less spicy but still had great flavor.
It was so good, I brought it with me back to the stateroom so I could finish ALL of it.
I would have thought the “recipe” would be a bit more standard but clearly that isn’t the case. I would drink this Bloody Mary every single morning.
Gayle: Meanwhile I finally slept peacefully. I don’t know if it was the light motion of the ocean, the slightly great Dramamine (⅔ pill) I took, or not having a thing to prepare, worry, or remember for the next day that allowed me to sleep nearly 10 hours. (I have chronic insomnia at home and sleep better on the ship than anywhere, so #NotSorry.)
Kara left just before 9am for her experience, so I made sure to be up and mostly ready when she returned around 9:30am. First I got on the Guest Services chat to inquire about the Favorites in our Apps not syncing (must go to Guest Services), asking Engineering to set our max coolness a couple of degrees colder for sleep, and to request a specific server for Palo tomorrow night. (Sadly Borys from Russia is no longer on this ship or may be home from contract.)
Per Kara’s debrief of her drink experience, it served as a reminder of a Juice/Smoothie Bar in Senses Spa & Salon. (This is a feature only on the larger ships.) Since I hadn’t eaten - & wouldn’t until 12:15pm - we headed there. I got a smoothie of almond milk, blueberries, strawberries, and banana. (I should have had them add ice to it.) Ultimately it’s likely to be the healthiest thing I consume all week! It was quite sizable, but after the tip, came to over $11!
We went to Guest Services to deal with the App and apply our Disney Rewards Cards, but the line was longer than what we wanted to endure. (We ignored the fact you can make appointments at Guest Services. That sounds too much like daily work!) So we went to the Shops, as I’d seen a print I wanted. I have a collection of Larry Dobson prints from the ships and the parks. This one is of the Disney Fantasy and very specifically includes “Inaugural Sailings 2012-2013” of which we were on one. By the time I climbed the stairs (Deck 3 to 9 - ouch), I started second-guessing whether I already had it. With nearly 10 years gone by, I’d think I would have seen and purchased it by then. So we’ll see if I end up with 2??? Sigh.
UPDATE: I was able to message my Office Coordinator from Mexico. She had no issue stopping by my home to verify yes, I already had the print. So later in the cruise it was returned with the crew members noting, “Wow you must really love that print!”
Kara: We also ran into my main Disney Squeeze - Pluto - as we were walking around Deck 3.
Back to the stateroom by 11am, Engineering stopped by to confirm they centrally adjusted our A/C.
At 11:30am we headed to the Buena Vista Theatre for Disney at Sea with D23!
Kara: I’ll take over for a bit. The D23 was basically a 30 minute Disney commercial for upcoming movies and attractions. There were no real surprises here and the Assistant Cruise Director, Anthony, definitely had some technical issues with his delivery, but it wasn’t a bad way to spend 30 minutes.
We headed up to Cabanas with the intent to eat there for lunch. We did a cruise through and while I can always fill a plate with peel and eat shrimp, olives, and salad - there was really nothing either of us saw that seemed all that appetizing so we opted for Chicken Tenders (with fries for me) from the poolside grill - a fave!
We came back down to the stateroom and napped/rested/chatted for a couple of hours before heading to Deck 4 to walk. We did our requisite mile although because of the ship’s motion my watch read out 5 miles - thank you sailing cruise ship for making that look like the fastest I’ve ever moved in my life.
We headed back to the stateroom to start getting ready for dinner. Our dinner tonight was in Royal Court and it was formal night. We saw loads of kids dressed up as princes and princesses.
Gayle: However, since this was to be a relaxing cruise, we only brought “regular” dresses, not our usual cocktail attire.
Kara: We took care of what we needed to at Guest Services and waited in the Atrium enjoying the musical group.
At dinner we headed back to our table and greeted Carlos, Amar and Rafik. This is one of our favorite menus. We both love the chilled shrimp and lobster appetizer. I love the farmhouse salad and the olive spread for the bread and then we both get the lobster pasta. Gayle tops it off with a Grand Marnier soufflé and I had a cup of coffee (don’t fret - our first trip to Sweet on You is planned for tonight.
We came back to the room to relax before heading up to the deck. We have seen Disney's Aladdin - A Musical Spectacular show many times and since Tangled is playing on Funnel Vision (one of G’s faves) we are opting to watch it outside instead of going to the show tonight.
Gayle: Skipping the Show = Disney Cruise Line blasphemy, right?!
Kara: As we entered the stateroom, Neil, our stateroom host was waiting outside of one of his other rooms and greeted us (in a suspicious way). When we went in we had a cute fox (I’m assuming from Turning Red) towel animal and then saw that the fold-down couch - a.k.a. G’s bed - had Moana sheets on it! We were both shocked. We had just talked about this before - how you can request character sheets for kid’s beds and we didn’t know how regularly it got done. Well kudos to Neil for giving us a huge surprise. Gayle popped back out into the hallway to tell him thanks and give him kudos for the surprise.
Gayle: I don’t know when we’ve ever laughed harder on a Disney Cruise!
We relaxed on the verandah and changed clothes and then headed up to the pool deck around 7:45pm to get our ice cream and find a spot for the film.
Gayle: For a good long while, watching a Funnel Vision movie at night was on my To Do list. We finally accomplished this for the first time on our Oct. 2021 cruise with Incredibles 2. Since Tangled is or among my faves, this was a no-brainer.
The other reason we skipped Disney's Aladdin - A Musical Spectacular was a couple of past experiences had us a little creeped-out by the Genie with his over-the-top efforts. Stay tuned to see how this came back around later in the cruise.
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!
As to Disney artwork, logos, and properties: ©Disney | Ship Registry: The Bahamas | CST# 2090317-40 / Fla. Seller of Travel Ref. No. ST37203