Disney Magic 2.0 Day 4: Nassau, The Bahamas

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Today the ship ported in Nassau, The Bahamas. We decided months ago that instead of getting off the ship like last time, we would stay on the ship and take advantage of a lower on-board population.

Here is the navigator for the day.

It was a little foggy when we pulled into port.

I woke up at 5 a.m. but managed to drift back to sleep until 6:30 a.m. I showered and we all went to breakfast at 7:30 a.m. This was the Princess Gathering morning!

The Princess Gathering is a meet-n-greet of a group of princesses in the atrium. There is only one line, and you go from princess to princess. The Princess Gathering happens twice on a 4-night cruise, once on the Nassau day and again on the day at sea. I heard that it's a little less crowded on Nassau day because some families have port activities to get to, so we decided to plan to attend on Nassau day. However, I've also read that you can spend over 2 hours in line to see the princesses. So based on advice we read, we decided to have Brian go wait in line as our placeholder while I finished breakfast with the kids and got Alyssa in her princess dress and the boy ready to swim. Brian got in line about 8:05 a.m. (the gathering started at 9:00 a.m.) and he was second in line! I arrived with Alyssa about 8:55 a.m. and it was a smooth transition. The boys went with Brian to the pools while Alyssa and I waited just a few minutes for the princesses to arrive. I highly recommend this strategy, as Alyssa wouldn't have done very well waiting in line for 1-2 hours. And the line gets very, very long.

We did not attend the Princess Gathering on our two previous cruises, so this was a first for Alyssa. She was so excited to see the princesses that she couldn't stop staring at them. We didn't get any pictures of her looking at the camera. That's ok.

Cinderella, Belle, Tiana and Rapunzel were at this gathering. The number and identity of the princesses varies by ship.

We were done with the princesses by about 9:10, so we went back to our room to change for the pool. It was a great morning for the pools--sunny and 74 degrees. My younger two kids preferred to play at the Aqua Lab pool, which is new. It has a shallow pool in the center and some interactive spray spouts on the side. A little later, the new Twist 'n Spout water slide opened. Joshua went down it many times in a row. I even tried it once---it's a little slow for me, but it's made for kids and they all seemed to be having fun.

Nathan preferred to hang out at the family pool and hot tub while watching a movie on funnel vision.

Later in the morning, we got dressed and went into the Oceaneer Club as a family during open house. The boys watched the Iron Man activity while Alyssa tried on some costumes.

Then we went back to the pool deck and fed the kids lunch. Hot dogs and ice cream.

After lunch, we dropped them all at the kids' clubs so that Brian and I could enjoy a quiet lunch by ourselves. We ate at the sit-down restaurant, Lumiere's.

I was ecstatic to discover the restaurant was serving my absolute favorite dish, mango soup! I had this on the Dream in 2012 and I just can't describe how yummy it is.

I also ate a fabulous key lime pie.

Around 1:00, we picked up our younger two kids from the club to see if they could take a nap in our stateroom. They were a little short on sleep. Brian went to workout in the gym while I stayed back with the kids. Alyssa fell asleep for 2 1/2 hours.

Brian came back from the gym, picked up Nathan from the lab, and they rode on the Aqua Dunk a few times. They said it was thrilling, a little scary. See this video for a look at this steep-drop water slide.

We were still docked at Nassau. I ordered a batch of chocolate chip cookies from room service.

After Alyssa woke up, I decided to take her to another meet-n-greet with Minnie Mouse, who would be in her formal attire.

At the same time, the boys went to a Captain America meet-n-greet.

Then we dropped the kids back at the clubs, where they would eat dinner, so that Brian and I could enjoy dinner by ourselves at the new restaurant, Cariocas. This restaurant replaced the old Parrot Cay restaurant, and it has a South American theme and menu.

We both had empanadas for an appetizer. So yummy!

Brian had ceviche:

And I had black bean soup:

For my main course, I chose the lobster, shrimp and mahi mahi skewers on a bed of quinoa. The salsa mixed with the quinoa was my favorite part of the dish!

We were going to skip dessert, but Senol talked us into trying a coconut tres leches cake. We ate it before I could take a picture. I'm not a big coconut fan, but the coconut flavoring was subtle and the dessert was delicious.

After dinner, Brian and I decided to attend a comedy act, Mike Holly. It started at 7:30 and I figured I'd pick up Alyssa after it was over. We were maybe 5 minutes into the show when I got a page from the kids' club that Alyssa had a potty accident. I left Brian at the show so at least he could enjoy it while I picked up Alyssa.

So it turns out that Alyssa decided to follow her brothers to the lab side, and she didn't know where the bathroom was over there. She's too shy to ask. So the next time I took her to the clubs, I took her to the lab side and asked a youth counselor to show her the bathroom on that side. She never had another accident. The youth counselors were very helpful--they bagged up her wet clothes and gave her some gray shorts to wear until I picked her up.

After I changed Alyssa, we went to see Daisy Duck.

And came back to find this towel dog on our bed:

Brian picked up the boys from the clubs, and managed to get one asleep by 10:00. Nathan and Alyssa were still up giggling. I left for an hour to deliver our fish extender gifts.

Up next: Sea day