Trip log, day two. Nassau, Bahamas.
4-Night Halloween on the High Seas Bahamian Cruise from Port Canaveral
October 27, 2015
Day 2 – Personal Navigator

AGood morning! I woke up rested and ready for our first full day of the cruise in Nassau. Emily headed up to the gym early at 6:15am, while us kids were still asleep. Even though we are on vacation, our internal clocks are not. Not complaining, as this works well because we had a nice uncrowded breakfast just after Cabanas opened up for the morning then we headed off to the pool deck. We were already resting in our seats as we arrived at the Port of Nassau. Upon docking the Disney Dream did it again… She played the Frozen horn… I wonder if Disney realizes that in the coming weeks and months there will be a resounding NO shouted when a decent percentage of passengers are escaping cold snowy weather for the Bahamas. Who knows — I may be thinking about this too much; after all it is just a small detail and we know Disney is all about the details. At the end of the day, people love Frozen so who am I to complain about all of the Frozen additions everywhere – it was a good movie that has become so successful that it is everywhere. Remember — Hercules had all those endorsement deals too. Ok, this fresh air on the pool deck is getting to me now. Lets get back to the trip log. (Another side note – our daughter isn’t a Frozen crazed fan either. Oddly enough, her favorite Disney movie is Hercules.)

I’m writing this from a lounge chair facing Funnel Vision while my better 2/3s are enjoying a mixture of a good book, the pools, the Mickey slide, and the AquaDuck all while dealing with me and my laptop. The first movie of the day was Emperors New Groove and we have moved on to Hercules, but for one reason or another we are listening to music and not the audio from the movie. There must be something going on with the sound system or a side effect of the crew abandon ship lifeboat drill announcements as the volume at times has been ear piercing loud to no movie sound to now music over Hercules. Regardless, the weather is nice so I cannot really complain. However, Emily has noted that we are typically among the first guests to arrive at the pool deck, and no matter the ship, it seems as if they start with the Emperor’s New Groove A LOT. We have seen this movie A LOT on the ship. Again, not complaining, but a movie rotation would be nice considering the Disney Animation and Pixar catalog contains nearly 70 films.

Today, Isabelle ‘rope dropped’ the Funnel Puddle pool, the Mickey pool, the Mickey slide, and the Donald pool.

The water was pretty cool & didn’t seem at all heated. This would be good when it’s in the 90s with high humidity, but now that it is fall, heated water would’ve been nice.

The good part about being early birds is that we are typically done with our deck time when things start to get packed and busy. This reminds me of the Epcot Food & Wine festival – rope drop the booths early & avoid the crowds. We spent from about 8:30am-12:30pm on the pool deck before heading to lunch. I grabbed a small sandwich at Flo’s then we all headed into Cabana’s. Em & Isabelle are big seafood eaters, so there is always something good to find for them in there.

Note the Cabanas Bar wine pour!

Our after lunch activity was a round of mini golf.

Following mini golf, we made our way back to the stateroom to clean up for the afternoon and evening. I worked on editing photos before it was time to head down to the atrium for Mickey’s Masquerade Party. This is a character dance party with trick-or-treat stations, as well as stations with cast members manning games. Isabelle went to each station – there was ring toss, and a few other little fun games. After each game, the player was awarded a Halloween Disney temporary tattoo. At one point Isabelle had two full bags of candy, but we encouraged her to give back about 60% of her haul. The Oceaneer Club had an open house and a scheduled Star Wars program, ‘Experience the Force.’ We arrived about 10 minutes prior to the Star Wars experience and Isabelle took advantage of this time to show us what Anger from Inside Out can do in the world of Disney Infinity. It was interesting to see how the swapping out of figures goes. I feel bad for the Youth Activities Counselors working in the Disney Infinity room as they are the only ones who can place new figures on the bases of each X-Box game station around the room and they field a multitude of never-ending requests for new figures.

It was now time for the Star Wars ‘Experience the Force’ program in the Millennium Falcon. The program teaches the kids how to use the Force for good with interactive elements coming alive around the Millennium Falcon. The program was excellent and one child’s reaction to the ending had to have made the day for everyone who worked hard to bring Star Wars to the Disney Dream. There were even a few surprise visitors. I will post video in a future Oceaneer Club Star Wars centric overview post.

Tonight was another night for Isabelle to get room service and head off to the Oceaneer Club while we dressed up in our best halloween costumes for Remy.

Our Remy dinner started with a refreshing new Colette. We loved the new flavor and I think we may be searching for the ingredients the next time we hit up Total Wine.

We were given a few additional menu options. The first was a 2oz serving of Miyazaki Beef from Japan for an extra $55. If that doesn’t intrigue you, the White truffle menu may. The special White Truffle menu in Remy guarantees 10 grams of white truffle in each course for $250 extra. The current price for the Remy dinner wine pairing is $105. Emily briefly considered the wine pairing after skipping it the night before in Palo, but decided to wait for the champagne pairing later in the cruise during Remy Brunch. Emily did go with a glass of Taittinger Prestige Rose.

We were given a water menu (I’ll add this to the menu section when I get home), but choose to stick with plain ‘still’ water which turned out to be a fancy Evian at $5.50 per person we discovered when we received the bill. I think at brunch I will make it a point to request tap water.

The bread service arrived along with the awesome fried tomato soup bite!

This evenings Amuse Bouche was fois gras foam, macadamia nut with salted carmel at the bottom.

Emily and I really do not care what we eat at Remy. If our server is game, we will just ask them to surprise us as long as my dishes do not have any shellfish and Emily’s do not include pork or red meat. To this point, we have never been disappointed.

The first course I had a beautifully plated pork and carrot stacker. I was not blow away by the flavor, but it was still enjoyable.Emily received the Gulf Shrimp. This was delicious and the olives flavored the dish nicely.
For the second course, I had veal three ways. The darker piece at the top of the plate was extremely tender and reminded me of a pot roast. The onions provided a wonderful secondary flavor to the dish.
Emily received the Langoustine Royale, which were lobster tails from Scotland with a lobster cream and vegetable crisp on the bottom.

We both were served the salmon with white and green asparagus for our third course. I’m the type of person who usually prefers their fish overcooked and dry. However, I always go to Remy with an open mind. The salmon was delicious. The bottom was seared and the top just melted in my mouth. Emily’s salmon was served with a deep fried crab cake.

Moving along to the fourth course, I was served the lamb and Emily had halibut. My dish was very flavorful, but after tasting the halibut, I wish I had it instead of the lamb. Those roasted onions were absolutely glorious and neither of us had had onions prepared like that and taste like they did, and we are adventurous eaters. The yellow wine sauce was also incredible. Emily commented that this was her favorite so far. 

The pinnacle of Remy dinner was next… The cheese cart arrived and after a brief overview of each cheese, a sampling plate was created.
We were instructed to start the the cheese at the 1 o’clock position on the plate (hard cheeses) and work clockwise. The apricot chunks were provided to cleanse our palate between cheeses. The server knew that Emily loves brie, so we received two slices of it. The highlight of the plate was the ash coated goat cheese topped with Florida honeycomb.

Generally, I’d be happy with a cheese plate for dessert. However, at Remy the cheese is just a pre-dessert course. Emily received the Chocolate dessert from Hunnel’s side of the menu. It was essentially a chocolate truffle mousse with raspberry foam.The Coconut Panna Cotta with a Creme Brûlée base topped with mandarin served in an egg shell to look like an egg was unlike any dessert we’ve ever tasted.
I was presented with Lallement’s Chocolat Menthe. Just look at this dessert; the plate is dusted perfectly with chocolate powder.
Under the top layer of chocolate and edible gold leaf is chilled mint ring with chocolate ganache in the center.

Remy dessert continued with two tarts; on the left was coffee with a black pepper dusting and the other was chocolate with lime zest.

Our server bagged up the orange and mint suckers, vanilla bean pots and box of chocolates to share with Isabelle.

The 19th dessert of the night was chocolate bark with hazelnuts & dried fruit. Not a bad way to bring a few of the ingredients from previous dishes into a final treat!

We finished dinner with their delicious coffee, which was a good thing as I still hadn’t managed to get the day 1 trip log posted.
I tried to upload photos from the stateroom, but the uploads kept failing. My better 2/3 were ready for bed so I headed out the deck 4 to work on the post under a full moon. Even with a laptop in on my lap typing away, it was really relaxing. It was now time for bed and Castaway Cay in the morning.

Complete Trip Log Index

• Day 1 – Port Canaveral
• Day 2 – Nassau
• Day 3 – Castaway Cay
• Day 4 – Sea