Disney Destiny - Day 2: First Sea Day

So update on staterooms: we booked both a balcony and an inside this cruise -- obviously the balcony is more expensive, but a few other observances on the difference. For sleeping in, inside can't be beat. The ability to fully shut out all light meant that we slept until 9am this morning. Though I think tomorrow might be more difficult as they might be announcing our arrival in Cozumel (estimated for 7/7:30). The inside stateroom also has less people running by, less doors slamming by you, etc. But the balcony, besides the natural light making the room brighter, I'm happy to report DOES have the split bathroom still. So we are now sending L&R over to the second stateroom for morning get ready time. 

Since it was such a late morning start, we barely had enough time to get dressed to make it to the Avatar: Fire and Ash showing at 9:30. I think one plus of not seeing movies in theaters much anymore is that almost all the movies showing on this cruise are ones I haven't seen yet. There was the new Avatar, the new Tron, the new Fantastic Four, the new Zootopia, and the new Lilo & Stitch. I guess it is true all we have are remakes and sequels these days...if I remember, I'll take a photo of one of the two movie theaters tomorrow. They are much smaller than the ones on the other ships, but I like it because that means they split one theatre into two and can show twice the number of movies, variety wise!

Since today was a sea day, it was also our first opportunity to try out the huge Incredibles themed obstacle course. Baba and I raced each other (both twins actually wanted to race me because they knew they'd both beat me so).

It was actually a lot of fun! And I don't say that just because I won. 😆 

I think we proved that being smaller is a huge benefit when doing anything that involves crawling through smallish spaces. There was special session later in the day for only tweens and then only teens too, but R and L decided to skip it for more animation classes. 

This photo is slightly out of order, but what's a sea day without a ton of soft serve?

At least we paired it with some food. I have to say the brisket and ribs from the bbq quick service is probably the best food I've had on the Destiny so far. The buffet has variety, but for pure taste, the BBQ meat was so tender and well flavored! Baba also approved of the mac n cheese. 

After lunch we caught the diaper dash -- for a ship with so many more families, I was surprised that entrants in the diaper dash were almost half the volume of our previous ships. Spectators weren't as plentiful either. I think part of it might be the renaming. I don't know why they didn't just reuse Jack Jack Diaper Dash, instead they called it Little Hero Dash, which I bet confused some people. It was a great entertainment piece though! Watching some babies be told to crawl toward mama...and then they just sit there being confused. You're disqualified if you already can walk...and you wouldn't believe how many families try to judge that. Disney cruises create miracles I guess! So many first steps! 😆 

After watching that, most of us went back to the rooms for a quick afternoon siesta. We woke up in time to go to the theatre for the last third of the Avatar movie (it was too long so we had to leave early the first time to catch other activities). By the time the movie was over, it was time to get slightly dressed up and head to dinner again -- the displays on the walls are actually running though this Marvel themed trivia show that kept going throughout the dinner. I commented to Baba that I think the servers try a little less on these big ships (ie, less magic, less crayon brain teasers, etc) because they rely on the built-in entertainment mode. I feel like those screens were much better used for the Crush encounters in some of the smaller ships. But back to the food, here's R enjoying her steak: 

L ordered the scallops and pasta;

L&R had like four pieces of pizza each while watching the last bit avatar though so they ended up sharing a lot of their food. Best thing tonight might have been the scallop pasta. The steak entree wasn't as good as yesterday's. The appetizers we tried included chilled shrimp (not bad, but not as good as the sauteed version at the buffet), broccoli soup (Laolao and Laoye thought it was too salty), orange flavored bao buns (just okay, but we might be spoiled by all the Bao places in the bag area), sauteed mushrooms (this was a highlight! Would recommend!) and an "heirloom salad" that literally was just a bunch of arugula with 3 cherry tomatoes. That one was really disappointing.  For entree, I had the lamb schwarma salad (not that great), Baba got the gnocchi and the udon soup (both were okay, but not amazing). No one took the recommendation for the chicken schnitzel, we just didn't feel fried food...but I'm told it's very popular!

Since we got all dollied up, we took our Grand staircase portraits today:

I bought the photo package -- I imagine the lighting with their professional cameras is much nicer. Though because of limited wifi signals, I also didn't have time/bandwidth to adjust brightness/coloring/etc. 

Baba and I caught the "comedy show" before tonight's theatre show -- I was expecting a stand up comedian...this was more like a variety improv show. I also didn't get at all why it was adults only, maybe to have kids hooked bc they want to come back to Disney cruises to see more things when they become adults?

The theatre show tonight was actually a pair of Broadway stars singing their favorite Broadway melodies. Between them, Bradley Gibson and Hiba Elchikhe have played Simba,  Hercules, and Jasmine on Broadway, along with a bunch of non-Disney starring roles, so their vocal pipes were STRONG. 

After the show, we were getting tired, so Baba headed to bed while L and R and I went around collecting some ghosts from the Destiny version of shipboard detectives. Using magic bands to activate the screens and mirrors around the ship is kind of fun, plus I get more steps in. 😆 

We called it quit around 10:30, time for bed because tomorrow is our Cozumel dolphin adventure day!

Disney Destiny - Day 1: All Aboard!

It's been almost two years since we last went on a Disney Cruise - a lifetime it seems! 😆 So for ski week this year, we are shunning the slopes (turns out it was a prescient plan -- conditions have not been the most favorable this winter) and headed to Fort Lauderdale and a sailing on Disney's newest ship -- the Disney Destiny!

For perhaps the first time ever, we actually arrived at the port right when our Port Arrival time was scheduled for -- L commented on this as well, and I responded that perhaps it's because this was the first time we uber'd to the port instead of driving ourselves in a rental. Perhaps a learning we will carry across to future cruises as well! 

Port Everglades felt a bit less crowded than the previous sailings we've done from Port Canaveral and San Diego, no lines to get anywhere...though maybe this is again because of our earlier arrival. 

As Castaway Gold members, we were part of boarding group 6 and made it to the ship practically as they were opening up the buffet. No lines and plenty of seats/food. 

Favorites: Mama: sauteed pepper shrimp. L: teriyaki salmon, Baba: potstickers, R: Mac n' cheese.

This is Marceline's - the Destiny equivalent of Cabanas on the older ships. It seemed fairly similar in offering though.

This is Edna's ice cream shop (I think it's called Edna la mode?) - equivalent of Peneleope's, L is not pleased that it's an extra charge. 

Good thing the soft serve is still free-flowing!

We wanted to go immediately on the Aquamouse but it's closed! Not open until 4:30. So much for all of us being in our swim gear! I guess we will use this time to check out the Dr. Facilier Parlor encounter instead.

No pictures were allowed inside but suffice it to say it's a small group card trick magic show experience. You only go in with 10-15 people at a time so both Baba and I managed to get picked as the volunteers (we were there with another family of 5 and most of the room was children). It was decently impressive. Worth waiting for...though I'd suggest lining up early enough so that you aren't waiting for more than 20-30 minutes. 

Luckily after that it was time for the sail away celebration (Spiderman made an appearance) and then the Aqua Mouse finally opened! Warning: they ensure you get VERY wet. 

We managed to take some showers, get changed, and by then it was time for dinner. Our first dining room rotation for this cruise was the 1923 Steakhouse. 

Baba and L both got the signature 1923 filet mignon. Actually quite tender. Would recommend. 

R got the salmon special of the evening. Also well done, tender and orange sauce that was quite nice. 

I opted for the lobster salad to keep things on the lighter side -- nothing to write home about, except that it was a decent amount of lobster -- I hope that isn't our only lobster of the trip! We didn't take a photo but the burrata appetizer was actually my favorite thing of the evening probably. The sesame crostini with fig and prosciutto and burrata all together was a really satisfying combination.

R finished with her first ice cream sundae of the trip:

L went for the churros instead.

After dinner we decided to hit up Disney's version of the "get free charms at sea" activity -- for the first night, you get a bracelet from which to hang all of the other charms you'd pick up every day of the cruise. I think the effy birthstone necklaces might be more wearable, but the cruise bracelet is a nice souvenir. 

After the charm excursion we headed to the first theatre show: Disney Seas, the Adventure. It was super short (only 30 min) so I don't think it really compared to the other shows we've caught over the years (Golden Mickey's, Believe, etc). But Baba was happy bc he didn't want to go to a long show anyhow. Since today was actually Valentines Day, we came back to a lovely swan couple.

Quick note on staterooms: they seemed smaller than the ones on Dream/Fantasy and Wonder/Magic. First off there was no split bathroom (made morning and evening routines harder for a family of 4. The amount of closet space was also decidedly lower -- maybe this is also because they are mostly sailing 3 and 4 night cruises? Otherwise, the Staterooms seemed similar to ones we've had in the past. 

It was 10pm but only 7pm for us Pacific Time folks so L and R headed off to an animation session while Baba and I checked out the adult only lounges. Very impressed with the theming for the adult lounges on the Destiny. It seems with each class up, they are making more adult only experiences. Here is the de Vil Lounge:

We managed to catch one of the extended visit/musical experiences with Cruella and the two song/story cast members who emcee a bunch of the smaller shows on the ship -- it was surprisingly very entertaining (I was not expecting much so it was a big hit in my book). 

There is a funny video of me helping write one of the lyrics...and holding up the sign with the lyric for everyone to sing...but in the excitement holding up my sign upside down...I would blame the alcohol except that I didn't even have any! 

Oh -- tip, don't get the fur drink. Baba thought it tasted like Windex. They definitely had some fancy cocktails though. Our table mates ordered this one...and apparently there are only 4 glasses total so if you order one and four other people also did, you have to wait until one of them finishes before you get the drink!

Closing out the evening is a shot of the main lobby lit up in Green from when Loki took over. I didn't manage to catch it, but it is a nice show of a mostly empty main stage otherwise. 

Tomorrow -- first sea day!

Galapagos - Day 10/11: Journey Home / General Thoughts

Technically today isn't our last day (we stay the night in Quito tonight before our morning flight back to CA), but it is basically the end of vacation fun. I've gotten so used to waking up for these early morning excursions that the disembarkation time of 8:00 was no issue at all. 

One last zodiac ride! Bye bye Gemini!

Good time to recap thoughts on National Geographic/Lindblad Expeditions generally. I'll just go through these based on the photos that I took of the ship. Here's the life jacket/wetsuit/snorkeling gear loading area -- we wore life jackets on literally every zodiac ride, even if it was only a few minutes long and they would NOT let you on the zodiac unless all the straps were buckled. I appreciated the attention to safety. It was also nice having them here drying -- there were separate racks with wetsuit and dive bag hangers for every cabin as well so you could take them off immediately after snorkeling, rinse them in the fresh water buckets and then hang them to dry. 

Down on the zodiac boarding level, they had spray nozzles so we could clean off our sandals and feet after each wet excursion. They also had these little shoe cleaners for the dry excursions to make sure we don't inadvertently bring back soils and other organisms by mistake. 

Here's the breakfast and lunch buffet area -- had more than enough room for all of us - lovely views all around as you ate as well. The food was consistently quite good -- the suckling pig and roast chicken were probably the standouts for me. But really even the worst things were just "ok" - nothing was ever truly bad tasting. Well, okay maybe towards the end of the trip, I sometimes got one or two watermelon or cantaloupe cubes that tasted a little funny. But that's probably the only negative point I can think of. 

Here's the full bar -- all drinks were included (though if you wanted top shelf liquor you'd have to pay for that). The head bartender knew us all by name -- very impressive! I don't drink a ton of alcohol these days but the few drinks I had were quite good! The free wine selection was also not bad - I recall a Pinot Gris and a Malbec that were both quite nice. 

Here's the lounge where we had all of our naturalist talks and presentations from the visiting researchers. We would also hang out here for the cocktail hour each night. They were clearly making an effort to ensure every seat had a decent view of the screens but it wasn't always perfect -- so getting down early to snag a good seat was often a priority!

Here's the menu wall where you sign up for the next day's dinner entrees. You weren't held to your choice but they wanted us to pick things so that the kitchen would have a sense of which dishes might be more popular to give them some idea of how much they should prepare. There was always one fish entree, one meat entree, and one vegetarian entree. You were encouraged to do combo meals where you would get half of each so I often did the veggie and meat combo. 

I didn't get a picture of the bridge, but here is the panoramic view from the bow of the ship. I channelled my inner Kate Winslet to take this photo. 

Finally, here's a photo of the library just a couple doors down from our cabin - when we first came onboard we thought we'd spend so much time here but honestly the itinerary was as so packed that we ended up only coming here to get tea and coffee or take advantage of the wifi. 

Speaking of wifi -- it was pretty decent in the common areas (not for streaming shows or anything but at least for browsing the web, making WhatsApp calls, etc), but pretty much sucked in the staterooms. So make sure you download some videos if you want to do a little YouTube or Netflix before bedtime. 

I feel like we would have chatted and gotten to know other passengers more if Baba hadn't been sick, but the ship certainly tried to encourage it. They actually passed out these name tags for all the passengers to wear each day...but they were of the pin type and I didn't want to punch holes in all my tops. I'd prefer magnetic ones - feedback I'll leave for the company!

Other thoughts:

The naturalists truly were amazing. Here's three of them at the airport waiting with us to go home.

They not only had so much knowledge about everything Galapagos, but we're so genuinely excited to be seeing things (even if it was their 10000th time doing it). Very impressed with the entire team.  Special shout out to Salvador there on the right - he seemed like the "lead" naturalist and also was in charge of underwater cinematography -- he made this amazing video of all the creatures we saw on this cruise. I'd share it here except it is too long to upload. If you're curious, send me an email (zoubavacations@gmail.com) and I'll find a way to share!

Would I cruise with Lindblad again? I'm not sure. I did fill out a form for the onboard 10% discount -- I might put a deposit down on a cruise to the Norway Fjords or maybe to Costa Rica with the kids. But it is definitely a cruise line for learning and education. If you're in a learning mindset, it's great. But if you want activities and options for entertainment, this isn't the right cruise line for you. If you are the type who enjoys lectures about random science, history, or cultural anthropology topics, I highly recommend Lindblad/NatGeo. 

Would I come to the Galapagos again? Probably not. I suppose maybe when we are the 60-70 year olds and R&L really want to come, we would consider it. But I feel like I personally saw everything I would have wanted to see over the course of this week. Doing another week would have just been repeating things -- still cool I'm sure, but the marginal return would be going down. 

Things I would do differently if I came again:

1. I would ABSOLUTELY invest in a full length wetsuit for snorkeling. The waters were too cold for comfort and it seriously impacted my willingness to stay longer in the water. 

2. I would have invested in an unwater camera. I intend to return these Amazon things. They were pretty worthless. 

3. Probably could have left the down jacket at home...but it was actually very useful as a blanket for the flights. 

4. I would have downloaded more videos for evening viewing from the stateroom. 

5. I would have forced Ian to take more vitamin C in the week leading up to the trip...and perhaps both worn masks on the planes to avoid getting sick. 

Things that went well:

1. I think my footwear packing was pretty spot on. Had keens, normal sandals, water shoes, and hiking shoes. Used all of those. 

2. The time difference adjustment actually went pretty well. I think going to bed by 10/10:30 allowed me to feel pretty rested by 6am. 

3. The seasickness behind ear patch seemed to work - I never got nauseated even when there was some serious choppiness. 

Final parting thoughts: I was very impressed with the Quito international lounge as well. Made-to-order sandwich/panini bar! I'm signing off on this trip even though it's not technically over (waiting for flight to Miami and then connecting to SFO). South America is a FAR trip from SFO. I think I'll have to leave even more buffer room on each end for future trips. It's very tiring to think about going back to work tomorrow morning...

Next trip: Disney Cruise on the Destiny!

Galapagos - Day 9: San Salvador & Bartholomew

Alas, what seemed like a long vacation is now coming to an end. Once again, I feel like I should retire as soon as possible so I don't have these "ugh, we have to go back to work" feelings. Today was a relatively low-key day, we are back on the San Salvador (also known as Santiago or James) Island, the adopted island of Lindblad Expeditions. If you recall from the earlier post, this is the island that used to be overrun by 60,000-80,000 goats but is now down to zero goats and the iguanas have returned. 

Breakfast was scheduled for 7am again, with the first excursion going out at 8. Today really wasn't about wildlife anymore (maybe they acknowledge that we've hit all the big ones now and would not be as adequately excited about what we would be seeing); instead it's about landscapes. Off to the zodiacs again!

Okay I guess we can fit in a penguin sighting too - can't have a completely animal-free day!

The morning hike was over a lava flow landscape from an eruption about 120 years ago. Most of the lava here is of the “pahoehoe” kind -- which is rounded corners rope-y lava, as opposed to the sharp edges brittle “aa” lava. 

Check out all of those different lava patterns!

It was kind of cool seeing how clean these cracks in the lava are from when they cooled down -- you can see exactly how one side fits perfectly into the other. 

The pictures really don't do it justice -- in a way, it reminded me of the death valley landscape, though obviously this was a lava field instead of sand dunes. 

Obligatory cheeky shot of me falling into the lava crack.

Yeye got into the spirit as well -- here's him being chased by the lava:

I actually was curious how fast this lava would have moved and our guide (Felipe) told us it was like a thick ketchup or spaghetti sauce - so we could in fact probably run away from it. Good to know! Quick note on Felipe -- his grandfather, Rolf Wittmer, was the first registered birth in the archipelago (born in a literal cave). 

The entire island was just very other-worldly. 

Some of the shots of where the lava flow stopped reminded me of the retreating glaciers we saw in Alaska, instead of slowly melting ice, we had slowly cooling lava "tongues" through the forests/valleys. 

After lunch, the boat repositioned to Bartolome, and there was another snorkeling opportunity from the beach there. I decided to pass in lieu of packing -- I think I made a wise choice as Yeye (who braved the waters once again) said that the water was only 62 degrees!! It was very clear so great visibility but man, I would NOT have lasted long in that temperature. I did venture out for the last sunset hike though -- there was a sea lion blocking the stairs at the landing again - he just wanted to make sure we could say every excursion had SOME wildlife. 

But biggest news is that Baba was finally feeling better enough to join us!

Baba may not have realized he signed up for the ONLY true "hike" of the entire trip. Normally all of the "long" hikes or "fitness" hikes are still pretty tame, but this time it was a very uphill climb to the island summer -- about 350 feet up.  

The landscape here was similar to what I've seen in moon shots. Because of the drought conditions, few plants survive here and as a result no animals come either. Here's one of maybe two or three cactus plants I saw during our entire excursion here.

I think this is one of the classic landscape shots of the Galapagos islands though. 

Proof that Baba made it to the top! Sadly now that Baba had largely recovered (it seemed to improve pretty rapidly after he took the antibiotics), Nainai was rapidly descending into her own sickness cycle, so she wasn't able to join us on the excursions today. 

That leaning cone looks odd right? Turns out it was formed by a target practice exercise by the US military. Apparently during WWII, Ecuador agreed to let the US establish a military site here and released some bombs/artillery on the uninhabited islands -- one bomb hit what used to be a mound and half of it broke off and fell into the ocean, this leaning tower is the half that was left standing. 

And with that last sunset, we headed back to the ship for the farewell bbq and final bits of packing. Tomorrow, we say goodbye to the Galapagos Islands and fly back to Quito!