Mayhem Marauders Meet-up Part Deux!

[elizabethswann]

I'm so jealous of these trip reports! One day I hope to join up with the Marauders whenever I return to Disney World. I'm aiming for 2015 since I'm working around my school schedules. Here's hoping at least!

We would really like to meet you, too. We've even talked about coming out to California and going to Disneyland at some point so we can meet you and some of the other Subbers from that area. Someday maybe we'll get a chance to do that.

I'm not sure when that will be since my pass expired in December and my mom's waiting until she finishes school/gets a new job before we renew again. Hopefully soon!

[Mousekedude]

I'm so jealous of these trip reports! One day I hope to join up with the Marauders whenever I return to Disney World. I'm aiming for 2015 since I'm working around my school schedules. Here's hoping at least!

We would really like to meet you, too. We've even talked about coming out to California and going to Disneyland at some point so we can meet you and some of the other Subbers from that area. Someday maybe we'll get a chance to do that.

I'm not sure when that will be since my pass expired in December and my mom's waiting until she finishes school/gets a new job before we renew again. Hopefully soon!

Just stay positive and keep looking for pixie dust.

[Len90]

Just a quick little note, I decided to switch the camera discussion to a new thread in the Off Topic section. I decided that we really should have a discussion about cameras on this board since picture taking is important at the Disney parks. You can check out the thread here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8639&p=227894#p227894

[Amy]

Just a quick little note, I decided to switch the camera discussion to a new thread in the Off Topic section. I decided that we really should have a discussion about cameras on this board since picture taking is important at the Disney parks. You can check out the thread here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8639&p=227894#p227894

Yay ~ I'm interested in learning more about cameras and the pros and cons of what people are using. Great idea Len

[Soarin08]

I'm so jealous of these trip reports! One day I hope to join up with the Marauders whenever I return to Disney World. I'm aiming for 2015 since I'm working around my school schedules. Here's hoping at least!

We would really like to meet you, too. We've even talked about coming out to California and going to Disneyland at some point so we can meet you and some of the other Subbers from that area. Someday maybe we'll get a chance to do that.

I'm not sure when that will be since my pass expired in December and my mom's waiting until she finishes school/gets a new job before we renew again. Hopefully soon!

It would be great to get to hang out with you again! Maybe soon! We all can only hope.

[elizabethswann]

It would be great to get to hang out with you again! Maybe soon! We all can only hope.

I did love the brief time we got to spend together! Hopefully next time we will be better prepared and I will let you know everything in advance.

[Mousekedude]

Mayhem on the High Seas!!! The Mousekecouple take a cruise, Part 3: At sea, and Ports of Call (continued).

Narrator: “When last we saw our intrepid seafarers, they were settling in for a good night’s sleep after an adventurous day at their first Port of Call, Nassau. There was promise of Mayhem on the next day’s horizon! Oh what thrills and chills await our bold travelers on their long-awaited second Port of Call, Castaway Cay! Oh, what mayhem lies in wait for them?! Let’s join them again as they awake the following morning…”

Ummm…. okay…. thanks, Dude (who invited that guy, anyway?! ). Better get comfy, y’all… this is going to be a very long post with tons of pics.

So anyway, as our illustrious narrator mentioned, this would be our second Port of Call, and the one we’ve been anticipating the most since the day we first booked the trip. So we awoke to find that the cold front that has been chasing us since we left port at Florida has almost caught up to us. The weather looks a little gloomy and ominous as we approach the island:


We could see the moorings up ahead, and were glad that we were on the Port side so that we could watch as the ship reached the dock.


This was going to be exciting in view of the bad weather that was rapidly settling in:


As the ship backed into its slip, we could see the dock hands eagerly waiting to tie her up. We weren’t sure what to expect, and we were just wondering how in the world the crew would be able to get the mooring lines into the hands of the dock workers, when we suddenly heard a loud “BOOM”… like a cannon going off! After a couple of seconds we realized that we were not under attack by pirates, but rather it was a clever device whereby the ship’s crew would fire a plastic ball out of an air cannon; the ball being tied to a light line, to which was tied the actual heavy mooring lines for the ship. The air cannon shot the ball over the gangway upon which the dock hands were standing, and they grabbed it with a grappling hook and then proceeded to haul the ship's mooring lines to within reach so that they could be tied up. How cool is that?!....



As the dock hands went about their business, we were surprised to realize that one of them was a woman. We never would have expected a lady like this to be working as a dock hand:


Now it was a race against time… the bad weather was catching up awful quickly:



As we watched the dock hands hustling around, we looked up and noticed a small boat speeding directly toward us! This kind of freaked us out because we weren’t sure what to expect… was it pirates attacking?!... was it lost fishermen running from the storm and looking to us for help?!... either way, it was unnerving that they were coming right at us like this:


Well, they went around to the Starboard side and disappeared, so we felt relatively safe for now (we later found out from a C.M. that it was nothing more than a local boat bringing workers to C.C. from another island nearby… Oh… okay…. ).

Now the ship was securely moored, and we were impressed with how it looked:


It was now time to prepare for unknown adventures in these beautiful waters:


Since we weren’t in any hurry to fight major crowds just to get out in the rain, we took our time and had a leisurely breakfast at The Cabanas breakfast buffet and then went back to our stateroom to put on sunscreen, put together our day pack, and wait for the disembarking crowds to disburse. Finally the weather and the crowds cleared up a little at the same time, so we headed out. First item on the agenda, get a couple of good pics of the ship and the gorgeous waters of the lagoon:




We saw Daisy and Donald in their cute Island garb and got some pictures with them, but I don’t like the way any of those look so I’m not going to post them.

After looking around a little at some of the other "touristy" attractions, and doing a little shopping, we decided it was time to head over to Serenity Bay (the adults-only beach) for a little R&R. So we went to the dive shop to check out our snorkel gear and such, and then headed off toward Serenity Bay. This is where the first bad Mayhem of the trip kicked in! We had to catch a trolley if we didn’t want to walk 30 minutes, so as we headed to the trolley stop, I started to get nervous when Mouseoholic wanted to duck into one more store and do some more shopping. “Oh great…” I thought. “Now we’ll probably miss our trolley….” Sure enough, as we came out of the store, we saw that the trolley had just arrived. So we high-tailed it up the pathway, only to be blocked by the massive crowd coming down from having just gotten off the trolley. It was like trying to get into a crowded subway car while everyone else was trying to get off! We finally fought our way up to the boarding zone, only to see the driver start leaving right when we were only ten feet away!!! “Heeeyyy!!!!” I yelled (much to Mouseoholic’s embarrassment…). No dice… we missed it! Of course, now there were at least three C.M.’s converging on me like I was some sort of criminal (much to Mouseoholic’s increased embarrassment…), telling me that I would just have to wait for the next one. Well, I was p’d off, because I felt like the driver saw us struggling to get there and drove off anyway just because he didn’t give a flip, and now we were going to have to wait forever for the next one to come!
Well, guess what? I had been under the misguided impression that it was like catching a park bus from a resort at WDW, where you have to wait 20 to 30 minutes (at least) between buses, but much to my shame and humiliation, a C.M. told me “relax, Dude… there will be another one in less than 5 minutes.” You can imagine how I felt when, less than 3 minutes later, another one showed up.
By this time, Mouseoholic thought the whole thing was so funny that she couldn’t resist taking a pic of me sulking as we rode to Serenity Bay:


By the time we arrived, she had calmed me down enough that I was actually having a good laugh at my own foolishness, and quickly got back into the good spirit of things (I love that woman… ):


Well, I’m really glad that it worked out that way, because this is the breath-taking beauty that now greeted our happy eyes:





You can imagine our surprise and glee to realize that we had practically the whole place to ourselves! For some reason, most people were apparently still in other parts of the island, and there wasn’t a high demand at the moment by singles or couples looking for a quiet getaway. We were VERY happy!
So we settled down in a secluded spot with no one else around for hundreds of yards, ordered a couple drinks (there were a couple waiters wandering up and down the beach to take drink orders, and since we were, like, the only ones there, we got quick service ), and soaked up the ambience. Well, suddenly… out of nowhere… GOOD MAYHEM! What should our astonished eyes behold, but the ultimate Castaway himself: Captain Jack Sparrow!!!!


It was totally awesome to see him all alone like that in his “natural habitat”, so I naturally had to run up to him and ask where all the rum had gone. We had a pretty funny conversation… totally in character… for a couple of minutes, and really enjoyed ourselves. Due to the fact that there was almost no one else around, his “handler” (wise man that he was…) had been keeping pretty much out of sight just so we could enjoy the experience, but then finally he came up and got a good picture of us all together:


Finally, Captain Jack moved along, and I got ready to go snorkeling. The weather wasn’t too bad at this point, although the wind was a little chilly. But although Mouseoholic was too cold to get wet just yet, I just had to go for it. I was a little miffed that they made me wear this gangly neon yellow life vest… :

…they explained that the reason for that life vest was not because they didn’t think I was any more competent to swim alone than a child, but it was actually so that they could see where I was just in case something went wrong. Turns out that it wasn’t such a bad idea… which I’ll explain in a minute.

The first thing I did upon entering the water, of course, was to take some pictures:



Well, the wind was starting to pick up and the water was getting a little choppy…. and a little murky for that reason. So I swam farther and farther out, hoping to get to deeper clearer water… and hoping to reach a reef that I had heard about where there were good sized sharks and such. But the further out I swam, the rougher the water became, so that I was now getting waves washing over the top of my snorkel… which meant that I was inhaling mouthfuls of seawater… so now I was glad I had that darn life vest on because it helped me float in place to clear my snorkel (and my lungs). Well, I finally got tired of fighting the waves, and started heading back. I never did get any decent pictures of that part of the adventure, so I was a little disappointed. When I finally got back close to the beach, I saw Mouseoholic standing anxiously by the water’s edge waiting for me. It turns out that she had lost sight of me in the waves and was worried that I had been swept out to sea (now I really could see the wisdom of the ugly neon yellow vest… ). So after climbing out of my gear and reassuring her that I was never really in any danger, she wanted to know how far out I had actually gone. So I showed her (I’m pointing at an orange buoy off in the distance; you can see it right at the tip of my finger in this pic):


Well, now her spirit of adventure was aroused, so she agreed to come into the water for a frolic with me. Naturally we had to do the obligatory “one-handed self-portrait” shot:


Finally, after thoroughly enjoying ourselves in the water, we went over to Serenity Bay BBQ for some excellent chow. This was also part of the adults-only area, and one family actually got run off for bringing a kid into it for a drink. While we sort of felt sorry for the family, we were at the same time pleased to see that the rules were being strictly enforced. When you pay good money for “adults-only” areas, you expect it to be enforced that way.

After gorging ourselves on yummy slop, we realized it was time to head back to the main lagoon area for our Stingray Excursion. So we hopped back on the trolley:


Can you tell I was in a much better mood this time…?


When we arrived at the location for our Stingray adventure, we just couldn’t resist getting a shot of the ship across the lagoon:


Now it was time for our Stingray Excursion. We were first given a very informative class on the different varieties of stingrays in the local waters:


We were then instructed as to how to feed the ‘rays. They had these U-shaped platforms where the ‘rays were actually trained to swim up one ramp, feed in the “U”, and then swim down the other ramp:


We were given these cool “Mouse pads” that the ‘rays were trained to look for. The idea was to hold a piece of food between our fingers, palms down flat on the “pad”, and the ‘ray would swim up over our hand, suck up the food like an aquatic vacuum cleaner, and then swim down the other side (not unlike a McDonald’s drive-through… ):




I thought it was kind of cute and funny that these fish kept hanging around with the ‘rays, hoping to snatch up some scraps. They were fearless little dudes… I even touched one of them, they were so close:



With the feeding part over, we were now free to swim out into the lagoon and mingle with the ‘rays. The deeper water is where the bigger ones were lurking. This guy was about 60 inches across, from wingtip to wingtip:


By now the cold front was in full force, it was starting to cloud up again, and the wind was chilling us to the bone. So we decided it was time to bail out and head back to the ship. Mouseoholic insisted on getting one more pic of me getting out of the water with the ship in the background:


We caught the trolley back to the main pathway, and as we walked back toward the ship we noticed that we weren’t the only ones getting back on the ship early due to the cold. Look at this line:


After the first 20 minutes or so, I was really wishing I had gone to the bathroom back at the ‘ray excursion (sorry… TMI… ), but we finally did get back on the ship in time to avoid any embarrassing occurrences.
Note: while we were waiting in line to reboard, we saw Chip and Dale cavorting about. We got a couple pics of them in their cool island outfits, but I didn’t really like how they came out, so I’m not going to post them.

After we got back to our stateroom, we looked back down at the line to reboard and were really glad that we came back when we did. Now the line was all the way back to the trolley drop-off:


After a brief period of relaxing and refreshment in our stateroom, we went out to watch the ship set sail. Our stateroom was on the Port side, you’ll recall. So we had gotten a great view of the ship mooring up upon arrival, as you saw in the earlier pics. But now we staked out a good spot on the Starboard side’s Promenade Deck to watch the ship push off and get a good view of the island as we left:

By now the weather was turning really nasty as the cold front blew through, but we managed to catch some nice pics of the island as we sailed away:




Bye, bye, Castaway Cay…. (sniffle…).

But wait…! Our adventure this day was not yet over! There was more mayhem to come this evening! Stay tuned, Mousekesailing fans!

[Soarin08]

I love it!! That yellow vest suits you perfectly!

That pic of Jack- love it! I love how his attendant didn't even hang around much. That makes the setting brilliant for keeping his character.

[Mousekedude]

I love it!! That yellow vest suits you perfectly! ..

Oh, sure... mock my shame...
Okay, since you're such a good friend, I'll let you get away with it....

[Amy]

Beautiful pics once again M-dude. I love the blue of the tropics ~ so pretty! Those stingrays are really neat. I love how they feel
Glad you weren't swept out to sea

[NaCler]

Wow M-Dude, all of your island pics are making me want to book a cruise now. Our 15th Anniversary is coming up but the wife doesn't want to do a Disney cruise due to the kids! She's killing me!

I'm sorry that your adventures on CC were cut short due to bad weather. It's something you don't really expect as it's always sunny and beautiful in the Caribbean, right? But, it looks like you guys made the most of it. And to think, going back to that amazing ship isn't a bad consolation prize, right?

I'm sorry all of the character pics didn't turn out. It's cool to see characters that we are used to dressed in islandy garb.

Keep the report coming as I am living vicariously through your memories.

[Soarin08]

You keep me on my toes waiting for more!!

[yodiwan1]

Seeing Capt. Jack must have felt like one of those surreal Disney moments! TOo abd you didn't go snorkel in the main lagoon. It is amazing, and when you see the old Nautalus from the ride, it gives ya chills! Great pics so far, loving the report!

[JenMuse]

I've never thought about a Disney cruise before, but with all these ah-mazing pictures, I can't remember why not!

Keep 'em coming!!!!!

[Mousekedude]

Amy: Thanks.... and me too, on all counts.


Soarin': Stay tuned for more.... hope your toes hold out.


Yodiwan1: We didn't know about the Nautilus! Actually, it probably wouldn't have mattered anyway... the main lagoon was way too crowded, and we wanted to get to Serenity Bay.


JenMuse: Well, there's a first time for everything! We resisted the idea for years ourselves because we were worried about getting claustrophobic and seasick. But now we see that our worries were groundless, and we're totally hooked on cruising! Hope we can inspire you to try it.


NaCler: Your 15th? Congrats, buddy! Tell her to leave the kids with someone and you two go by yourselves! As far as returning to the ship "early", well... it was only a couple hours early, and yes... the ship itself is well worth it anyway!
And since you were so disappointed not to see any character pics, I went ahead and uploaded a few of the less offensive ones:






We really got a kick out of the tail holes in Chip n Dale's shorts...

Remember now, more mayhem was about to transpire that evening. Stay tuned for the continuation!