Friday!
It was hard to believe our cruise had gone by so fast and this was our last full day. After the lethargy of Thursday, we awoke with some renewed energy. (Disclaimer: I might be using a royal ‘we’ here. When it says ‘we’, read ‘I’. 😛 )
No one planned to eat much breakfast this morning as our not-included-in-the-price-of-the-cruise brunch at Palo was at 12 pm.
I did a 5 km walk around the exercise deck in anticipation.
I didn’t want a shrunken stomach though, so I enjoyed a final Swiss Bircher muesli with grated apple, nuts, and yoghurt at Cabanas.
I read for a while at a table near Funnelvision, where Alice in Wonderland was playing. Then I joined some of our group at a comfy seating area at Signals bar where we drank coffees from Cove cafe next door. The iced latte was yummy. My next coffee, also my last one, will be free! Every sixth coffee is free.
We were just beginning to get dolled up for our special brunch when we got an official text inviting us to arrive a half hour early. There is a dress code for it.
This was good for us ‘throw- a- dress- over -our- head-and -we- are- ready’ gals, but threw the boy cabin into a bit of a spin, especially seeing as I still had Flynn’s good shoes in my suitcase.
As we waited at the Palo entrance, we got chatting with a waiter about the masks on display. Kara has studied commedia dell’arte and had a great chat with him about it all. Due to our rapport, the waiter, Getano was assigned to our table.
A table had been set up for us in a private room, due to the size of our group.
Getano really made the experience so much more special. He explained everything on the menu and then began with our drink order. The mocktails and wine were complimentary.
Bo’s extra spicy bloody Mary was not included!
The bread service alone was amazing. Soft focaccia topped with savoury deliciousness, crispy bread sticks, poppy seed-laden wafers, croissants nearly as good as the ones we enjoyed in Paris, swirled Nutella- filled pastry and berry-custard pastries.
And that was the bread service before we even clapped eyes on the menus.
Getano helped us navigate the extravagant menu.
Being Italian, he steered us away from American offerings like pancakes and waffles.
And if we didn’t order a dish he thought we should have experience, he would say. ‘Ok, I am just going to bring it anyways.’
I started with the crab claw antipasti plate, and shared two plates of poached eggs with hollandaise sauce with Pam. One featured smoked salmon and caviar, the other had rosemary ham and spinach. Both were great. I could understand Getano’s bias towards the ham, it was a very heady, pungent ham.
Kara and I shared an apple cinnamon waffle. It was an enormous Mickey waffle which Getano painstakingly dressed with cinnamon scented apple and sultanas, then poured maple syrup over. We had whipped cream and berries also. It was INCREDIBLE!
It was funny watching him dress Flynn’s strawberry waffle with dollops of strawberry sauce and maple syrup. The 18 year old can be a bit of a picky eater at home. But he surprised us all by eating every bite!
We didn’t order any of the wood- fired flat bread or calzone range, so Getano brought out one of each, along with two of the calzones out to our table so we didn’t miss out.
I will wax on about the breads in a minute, but see the view of the deck in the image below? Well, that was our view. And because of it being in a far corner of the top deck, it was like this most of the time. However, I found it very amusing every time guests departed. They would walk past, but because of the huge winds, it looked like they were infants learning to walk for the first time ever. It was kind of hilarious and the glazed windows meant they never realised we were able to see them. When we left, we chose not to put on a show, and we went down the elevator. 😛
If I had room, I would have eaten more of that goats cheese and tomato flat bread. The spicy sausage flat bread tasted great too and the calzone was perfection.
I ordered a stuffed eggplant. But, like yesterday’s this one was nothing to write home about either. After one bite, I pretty much just ate the mozzarella off it.
The lasagne bolognese was just divine. Nothing like the Australian-ised lasagne I make at home. This one packed so much depth and flavour into those lasagne sheets.
I had my heart set on a warm apple cinnamon bun for dessert before we had sat down, but the combination of being so full and Getano tuning up his Italian nose at the idea: I went with the limoncello cake instead.
Getano brought out his favourite dessert, as we had not ordered it.
Zabaglione – I have never had it before but it was the dessert of the cruise for me. It was sublime.
We literally rolled out of that place. Food coma is an understatement. But it was a wonderful experience.
Two and a half hours of deliciousness rendered us unable to do anything but nurse our li’l food babies.
Actually, we did have to hustle to get our gratuities sorted out and notes written to our amazing service team and the lovely Art who cleaned our room each day and created our towel creatures.
At our last dinner at Animator’s Palate, paper placemats and coloured markers greeted us.
We each created a character on our placemats, which were collected. Later on, our drawings came to life on the screens around us. It was loads of fun.
I barely ate a thing, being still so full from brunch.
We gave our gifts to Noel and Deresta and said a very fond goodbye.
The final show ‘Wishes’ blew us away!! The stage filled with our favourite Disney stories brought to life. Wondrous backdrops, engaging story lines and fabulous voices. It was amazing and incorporated many of our favourite Disney movies.
After, our farewell party in the atrium where it all began, saw nearly every princess and Disney character avail themselves for photo ops all around the ship. It was beautiful bedlam.
I slipped away to join Flynn in Cadillac Lounge to listen to his favourite performer and play cards.
At midnight, we said goodnight. One more sleep until it was all over.
If this towel creature doesn’t say ‘holiday’s over,’ I don’t know what does…. 😛
Some of the fam stayed up to watch the Disney Wonder go under the Harbour Bridge at about 1:30 am. Not I!
Saturday- debarkation day!
We woke at 6 am to see that we had arrived at White Bay. We chose to do express leaving, which meant taking our luggage with us to breakfast, but leaving before the crowds. A quick breakfast proceeded lots of confusion as to where to wait to get off, with all our luggage.
We ended up being the second group in the queue and it was a smooth,speedy exit. We breezed through customs.
Because we got out so quickly, we were able to cancel our prebooked and very expensive Ubers and book new ones for half the price.
When we arrived at Central station at 8:30, our next goal was to try to get an earlier Murray’s bus due to our flexi tickets. We were told we could only catch the 10am, but just after snagging my last Starbucks, we got told there was room on the 9am!
So I said farewell to my final Starbucks before chucking it in the bin and jumped aboard. Best first cruise ever!!
Dory the Explorer 