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!
