Come along as we continue our trip aboard the Disney Treasure! Day 3 included a change of plans, table drama, colorful fun, and more! Here’s part three of our 7-Night Caribbean Cruise report!

A Change of Plans

There was one big thing about the Day at Sea that I didn’t mention in Part 2 of this report. Apparently, a guest had a medical emergency, which forced the ship to divert back north toward the Florida Keys before continuing toward Cozumel, where we were scheduled to spend day 3.

I didn’t hear anything incendiary about this diversion, but I heard enough grumbling that I feel compelled to remind you this is 100% something that might happen during a cruise, and since we’d all want the ship to divert for anyone in our own family if necessary, there’s really no need to dwell on the matter. We just hope the passenger is okay.

The diversion ultimately led to the ship arriving at Cozumel around 2PM, and all excursions were cancelled. While we considered still getting off the ship, I decided that since I’d never been to Mexico, I didn’t want my first visit to be simply walking around near the cruise port for an hour. We were originally scheduled for a NatGeo beekeeping excursion, but with the changes we decided just to spend the day on the ship. Mexico remains the only country in EPCOT’s World Showcase I have not yet visited.

With all excursions cancelled and a late arrival, the ship’s daily itinerary got some new activities. By my count, we went from 168 to 211 scheduled activities, a pretty significant bump that’s a little shy of a typical day at sea (which I think was closer to 230).

Additionally, there was a time change overnight, with clocks going back one hour. One quirk of cruising is that you have to distinguish “ship time” from actual time. You’ll sometimes change time zones during the day—particularly when days at sea are involved—but it makes the most sense for the ship’s activities to stick to one time zone during the day. As a result, your devices might reflect a different time than the “ship time.” The ship time is available in the app. I used timers—instead of alarms—to wake up on time when these changes occurred.

Ka-Chow!

The Senses Fitness Center opened 5 minutes late and was basically immediately full. No doubt the time change and change in the ship’s itinerary played a role in the crowds this morning.

After my standard morning (run, bring Emily coffee, walk around ship, shower, breakfast), we knew exactly where we had to be—the 8:30AM showing of Cars on Funnel Vision. Cars is one of Zoe’s favorite movies, and the early time made it easy to grab a seat.

This was the first cruise where Zoe was well clear of 42” and able to ride the AquaMouse. The “water coaster” had some operational difficulties the previous day, but it managed to open on time this morning. Unfortunately, bad weather a few miles off the side of the ship caused it to close right when Emily and Zoe were the next guests after about a 20-minute wait. They managed to be among the first people in line when it reopened a bit later.

After the previous day’s operational issues, I was glad to see they got the AquaMouse running. Having the water coaster down most (maybe all) of a Day at Sea is problematic enough, but part of the reason your operations need to be sharp is to keep things moving when the unexpected occurs. When all the excursions at a port get cancelled, it’s important for things on the ship to be working well. So, kudos to the ship’s team for working out whatever problems there were.

Light Activities and a Long Lunch

After some pool time, we headed to Mouseketeer Madness (I think that was the name). This was a fun little game show in Sarabi where a (typically young) audience member was chosen to answer a few easy Disney questions. It was something of a trivia-lite, where the Crew Member gave a healthy amount of assistance to the young guests trying to win their medals.

We followed that up with a quick visit to “Who’s Behind the Curtain.” This is another simple show, this one in the Grand Hall, where younger guests are given a few clues and the chance to guess which Disney character is behind the curtain. It’s fun enough, but it seemed an obviously missed opportunity to have the characters actually mingle with the guests for a while. When it was done, they just waved and said goodbye.

Since we were already in the Grand Hall, we opted to try 1923 for lunch. ICYMI, 1923 is one of the three rotational dining restaurants you’ll visit for dinner, but it’s also available for a table service lunch.

On cruises, we almost always default to quick service lunch—either at Marceline Market / Cabanas or the deck 11 counters. If it wasn’t for this extra “mostly Day at Sea” and my compulsion to occasionally do things a professional reviewer should do, we would have stuck to the usual plan. But we had the time, so why not?

We wound up with black bean burgers for Emily and I and pasta for Zoe. Overall, lunch took an hour and 18 minutes—without dessert—and I was reminded of why I just don’t do table service meals very often.

I Don’t Want Any Questions About The Tables

After lunch we dropped Zoe off at the Oceaneer Club. After a round of trivia (generic movie quote trivia, not our specialty), Emily did a craft while I did some work. Emily’s craft was delayed by a table issue.

A Crew Member didn’t properly request the table, and another Crew Member was explaining that she needed to properly request the table. Hiccups are going to happen, but there really shouldn’t be table drama in front of guests.

After about 2 hours apart, we picked Zoe up and headed to the Toy Story Splash Zone. The Splash Zone is placed around the back of Funnel Vision (i.e. with no view of Funnel Vision), and it’s got a few very small slides plus one not-as-small slide just next to it.

As I research it now I see that the Toy Story Splash Zone is for kids 4 and under. It’s a little unfortunate that Zoe’s technically aged out of this space because it’s so much fun and there’s no big-kid equivalent. As mentioned in an earlier post, the main activity in the other pools is just sitting and watching movies. Splashing isn’t even allowed. I’ll note the Disney Fantasy actually has an additional large splash area for bigger kids—definitely a good idea.

Cozumel looks nice.

Around 5:15PM, there was a performance of Disney Victrophonics playing some classic Disney favorites in the Grand Hall. It was a nice way to bring a little life to the space, and Zoe got to dance with one of the performers.

I faulted two shows (starring Disney characters) today for not actively encouraging enough guest participation, while in this performance they were really working to get kids involved to little success. Vibes are just off, maybe.

Hero Zone — It’s a Hit!

Next up we headed to what wound up being one of Zoe’s favorite space—Hero Zone. You might recall we already visited Hero Zone when it hosted the Incredi-Course, but this was our first visit to it in its standard state.

Hero Zone serves as an indoor version of the sports decks available on the older ships. There’s space for basketball, bags, foosball, air hockey, and table tennis, split across Deck 12 and a balcony on Deck 13. This was Zoe’s first major encounter with air hockey, and it was a hit.

At 6:15PM we tried our hands at more trivia. This time it was Aladdin trivia. We managed to be among the higher scores this time, but considering we watched the movie a few weeks ago that was still maybe a bit disappointing. After a quick visit to one of the theaters to watch a few minutes of Elio, we headed toward the main piece of entertainment this evening—Mickey’s Color Spin Dance Party.

Mickey’s Color Spin Dance Party (Party? Show?)

Mickey’s Color Spin Dance Party is held in front of Funnel Vision on Deck 11. There was a bit of pre-show music and dance before the show properly started at 7:45PM. Overall this was a fun show that could have used a little more direction.

On the “fun” side, the colorful aspect of the show really shined in my eyes. I realized that when you’ve spent a few days surrounded by the relatively sophisticated (by Disney standards) aesthetic of the Disney Treasure, it’s actually fun to be hit with a punch of bright color. (Always nice to have a bit of Pop Century thrown into those Grand Floridian vibes.)

But the show itself lacked identity. Mickey and some of the cast are in themed costumes, but most of the characters are in their most common outfits. The show seemed like it wanted to be a “dance party”, but they couldn’t really get the crowd into it. And without crowd participation, it winds up feeling just like an underdone version of a castle stage show or dance party. Sort of like a Disney Cruise Line version of Cool Kid Summer.

Dinner in 1923

Dinner was in 1923, site of our lengthy lunch. For what it is, 1923 is actually really cool. All of the ships have at least one restaurant where all you’re doing is eating—no show. Of those, 1923 is the only one that springs to mind as having any real character. The displays of Disney memorabilia throughout are pretty cool.

Of course, if you’re actually interested in that stuff, you’ll have to visit during lunch. During dinner, it’s way too crowded and busy to walk around and look at things. And honestly, I’m not even sure how encouraged that would be during lunch. So, it winds up being a little bittersweet—lots of cool displays, but each basically only gets to be admired by the few tables near it during a given cruise.

This meal had a few (operational) quirks.

First of all, our Server was missing and was replaced by the Assistant Server (who was himself replaced by someone else in his original role). There’s no problem with this, but we found it odd no one ever addressed this. Disney hypes up your server team “rotating” with you, so a break from that should be acknowledged. But there’s practical issues, too—the meal usually has a very clear flow where you learn which requests to direct to which person. This one was clunkier.

Second, our server had mentioned the night before that she’d order us something else vegetarian as an option beyond the menu. This is common on Disney Cruise Line and an option I’ve used before. I usually grow tired of the limited vegetarian menu and request vegetarian Indian food, which is typically available because it’s what many of the crew eat. In this instance, we hadn’t requested it but I guess she was being proactive just in case.

In any case, since she wasn’t there it didn’t come up until the Head Server came over mid-meal to ask if we wanted our burger. We didn’t, but I hope it didn’t go to waste (and I guess now I know you can just order a burger).

After dinner, Emily saw that her favorite cruise ship game—Majority Minds—was being played in Triton Lounge. The game was delayed a bit by door issues (at least it wasn’t tables). She also went and saw Magician Zak Mirz, who she called “incredible.”

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