Post by RobbW on Aug 6, 2012 23:17:07 GMT -6
'Spose I've kept you all waiting long enough. Well, here it is to the best of my memory:
So, we had been looking forward to this Disney cruise for quite some time. It was one of those dealios where we had booked a totally awesome vacation long before Summer was even a twinkle in my eyes. However, the cruise wasn't until October, well AFTER Summer had ended. So, being one who LOVES the Summer months, I was in the strange predicament of wanting Summer to last as long as possible, yet wanting our cruise to hurry up and get here!
Long story short, October eventually arrived.
As mentioned in previous posts, I had hooked up online with many other Disney fanatics who were all going to be on the same cruise. We decided to plan many group activities. I mentioned my love of the night skies and hope for dark skies at sea. Many of the group felt the same as I, and somehow I ended up volunteering/volunteered to host a stargazing presentation on board the ship one of the nights at sea.
In preparation for this stargazing extravaganza, I contacted Disney Cruise Lines to inquiry about special accommodations for the stargazing evening. In particular, I want to see if they could dim or turn off the deck lights in the immediate area where I would be hosting the event. The lady at DCL I was working with before the cruise was very nice, but unfortunately, she could not sway the ship officers to grant the dimming of lights. They claimed safety reasons, which I could understand at the time, but as it turns out, I think they have a very lax definition of "safety". More about that later. In the meantime, the DCL lady gave me the name and number of another lady on board the ship who I should contact once our cruise got under way. Maybe she would be able to pull some stings with the officers since she works directly with them on the ship. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.
In the meantime, I was telling you all about these FE Exchange Gifts that I was working on to give out to other members of the DISBoards group that we were sailing with. I ended up making a "Passport to the Night Sky" for everyone. It turned out pretty cool. I actually personalized the gifts for every member of the group (about 60 or so people). The "passports" included everyone's names, birthdates, zodiacal signs, cabin numbers, and a picture of their favorite Disney characters. The passports had a daily itinerary for the cruise including ports of call, the evening's dinner themes, and the rise/set times for moon and planets. I also included a "daily special" night sky object for each night of the cruise. Here are some shots of the passports:
Sorry about the numerous pics of the passports, but I was actually pretty proud of how well they turned out. They were very well received by everybody. In the back of the passports there were many pages devoted to character autographs. Everyone in the group used the passports to get autographs. Many of them related to me that the characters were quite impressed with them and had asked where they got them. Some of the characters apparently thought they were being sold in the ship's gift shops!
Anyway, we had decided to have the stargazing party on the top deck of the ship in the middle of the cruise. So, that would have been the Wednesday night after we left St. Thomas, USVI and were heading to Castaway Cay, Disney's private island. The first several nights on the cruise, I went out every night searching for the ideal location to host the stargazing event. We had set a preliminary location of the top deck at the front of the boat (forward), but I wanted to make sure I found the ideal location. This was a very tough task as the ship was lit up like the freaking Vegas Strip! This is such a shame because you are hundreds of miles out in the middle of the sea, far away from any land masses and their cities with all their light pollution. If it weren't for the ship lights, the night skies would be as dark as you can get. But it was not to be.
After much searching, I did find the best spot on the ship for stargazing. It was the second deck down from the top and all the way forward as far as you were allowed to go. This spot was right beside the ship's bridge. Of course, everything to the side and forward of the bridge has to be kept dark to preserve the navigation officers' night vision. The views from this spot were actually pretty nice even with the megawatts of light being pumped out by the rest of the ship. And as long as you only looked forward or straight out to the side of the ship (never aft) you could maintain some semblance of dark adaptation. I was even able to see the Milky Way!
Unfortunately, even though this was probably the best spot on the ship for stargazing (actually, forward of the bridge would have been the best, but the public isn't allowed there), it would not work for a large group event. The area was small and would probably only accommodate a few people comfortably. Plus it was very, VERY windy there, which would make it difficult to talk about the night sky. So, my search continued elsewhere on the ship.
While I was conducting my searches for the ideal stargazing spot for the group, I was also making inquiries with my DCL contact on the ship about getting some of the lights dimmed for stargazing. She was a nice enough lady and did her best to help out, but it was still not to be. The officers still insisted that ship lights could not be dimmed due to safety concerns for the ship's guests. This is very ironic, as you will see in a bit! So I continued my search for a location keeping in mind that no lights would be dimmed. I finally found a spot that would be good enough on the top deck on the starboard (right) side. There was a large spot where they had these three-sided wooden bench areas that were kind of walled off on three sides. The walls helped block some of the light at eye level and lower decks.
You can see one of these bench areas in the back of this image. You can also see deck lighting that is built into railings/walls that line the edge of the deck. These lights were pretty bright. Luckily, by dragging several deck chairs over and placing them strategically, I was able to block most of those, as well. So, I finally found a spot that I could probably make due with what I had to work with. Except for one more small problem. Every night at the exact time that I was scheduled to host the stargazing event, the ship's deck crew came out and closed down this portion of the top deck so that they could hose it all down and clean it! Fortunately, I was able to finally get some sort of help from my DCL contact. She was able to get the deck crew's schedule switched around so that they would be washing the opposite side of the ship on the night that I would be hosting the stargazing! Good on her!
With a spot picked and accommodations made to prevent our group from getting soaked, I was able to relax and enjoy the festivities of the cruise. Aside from the stargazing, one of the other events I was most looking forward to was "Pirate Night". On "Pirate Night", everyone gets dressed up like a pirate for dinner and activities afterwards. Even all the servers in the dining rooms were dressed up in pirate garb. Many of the ship guests really got into the whole pirate thing. Some more than others. Some folks simply wore a pirate bandanna supplied by their servers, while others went whole-hog and had packed full pirate regalia for the cruise. As it happens, I was one of those geeks who REALLY got into it. Maybe a little TOO into it!
I had brought along a pirate costume for the cruise, but not just any ol' pirate costume. Noooooo! As this was a Disney cruise, only the right honorable Captain Jack Sparrow would do! I had spent a considerable amount of time, energy, and money crafting and piecing together a passable Sparrow costume. It was by no means a Hollywood-caliber ensemble, but it would do for "Pirate Night" and Halloween once we got back home. Unfortunately, I had never done a full-dress rehearsal with my costume before the cruise. So I had no idea how long it would take to put the whole thing on. There was clothing, makeup, a wig, facial hair, boots, swords, adornments and accessories. It took me a whole hour and a half to put the full thing on. The rest of my party had already left for the special pirate dinner. I finally sauntered into the dining room just as they were getting ready to serve salads. So, I wasn't terribly late, but late enough to draw lots of attention to myself as I entered, which actually felt kind of cool. We were on this cruise with our best friends and their kids. Their son was just in awe as Captain Jack Sparrow entered the dining room and proceeded to sit at HIS table! Granted, my costume was nowhere near "screen accurate", far from it in fact, but apparently it was good enough to fool a 7-year-old!
That night, all the Disney characters were out around the ship dressed in their pirate best. You could get you picture taken with them in your pirate outfit. Of course, I HAD to go wait in a very long line to get my photo with THE Captain Jack Sparrow! Disney's character was SPOT ON for the real thing. Below is a photo of me and him that night. As if it wasn't obvious, I'm the one on the right:
After I got my photo with the real Jack, I was walking down the hall when several different families came up to me and asked if they cold get they picture with me. They said the line for the "real" Jack was just too long, and they thought I was just as good. That was pretty cool. It turned out one of the families was actually part of the DISBoards group I had made friends with. They didn't recognize that it was me!
Later, there was a dance party with all the pirate Disney characters on the top deck. They had a ton of food and drinks and lots of fun music. Many, many, MANY kids and people kept coming up and wanting to get a photo with me. It was so much fun getting all this attention! What was even cooler was that I wasn't feeling ANY of the anxiety and apprehension I usually do when interacting with strangers like this. I'm guessing it was because I was "in character" and knew that the next day, no one would even know that it had been me. My daughter was having a blast getting to walk around all night with Jack Sparrow!
To top off the evening, in the ship's main theater that night, they were showing "Pirates of the Caribbean 4: At Worlds End", which I had not yet seen. My friend Tony and I went to go see it while still dressed in our pirate get-ups. We were a little late getting to the movie (just a couple minutes) because we had to go drop off the ladies and kids at our cabins beforehand. The movie had just started as we entered the theater. As we were carefully making our way down a row trying very hard not to poke anyone with our swords, there was a sudden thunder of applause from the entire theater. I looked at the screen to see what was going on. NOTHING. There wasn't anything applause-worthy going on yet. That's when I realized the applause was directed at ME!!!! Bashfully, I turned and bowed to the crowd and waved at all my admirers! It was such a cool thing!
Anyway, back to that ironic thing I had mentioned before about the safety of the ship's guests. One of the other things that they do for "Pirate Night" is a fireworks display. So, here everyone is on the top deck of the ship partying their butts off! The music's pumping and people are dancing all over. The vast majority of the adults have a few drinks in them and are REALLY enjoying the festivities. Some have more than a few drinks in them! So, they do a countdown for the beginning of the fireworks. And just before we finish the countdown and the fireworks start, they turn off ALL the exterior lights on the ship. ALL OF THEM!!! It certainly made it easier to see the awesome fireworks, I'll give them that. But here we are on the top deck of a cruise ship out in the middle of the sea with a bunch of drunkards dancing all over the place, and they turn off ALL the lights!
Now answer me this, if Disney feels it is perfectly safe to turn off ALL the lights so a bunch of drunks and their kids can watch fireworks, why isn't it safe to DIM a few lights in a small, isolated location so people can get a better view of our dark night sky???
Anyway, I've gotten over it by now!
So, the Wednesday night finally arrives, and it's time for some stargazing. I head up to the top deck about 30 minutes early to start arranging all the deck chairs to help block the lights. Folks from our group slowly start to amass, and we finally get started. I had brought along a pair of my own binoculars for the trip and had encouraged everyone else to bring theirs if they could spare the extra weight. I also brought my brand new 200mW GLP for the show. I had everyone sit and just talk and stare at the sky for a bit while we waited for everyone to get there. This gave our eyes a chance to adapt to the darkness, or what little there was. It was definitely a challenge to put on a stargazing presentation under these conditions. There was a lot I would have liked to show them in the sky, but I had to try my best to avoid directing their gaze towards certain areas of the sky, because doing so would mean looking towards the ship's lights and destroying any dark adaptation.
I started off going through the major constellations that were visible and recognizable in the night sky. We toured Ursa Major and Minor explaining briefly about Polaris as the North Star and the Mizar/Alcor eye test. We had a look at Jupiter, Cygnus, the Summer Triangle, Cassiopeia, and the Pleiades. I demonstrated how the Milky Way runs right through Cass and Cygnus as it makes its way down to the central bulge just off the spout of Sagittarius. I discussed the Keppler mission to discover exoplanets in the Cygnus region.
As I used my GLP to point out objects in the night sky, I noticed more and more people were drawn to the pretty beam like moths to a flame. Pretty soon, our original cozy group of about 25 people had swarmed to 50+ with onlookers eavesdropping on the discussion. This didn't bother me, and it was pretty cool that I was able to attract more people and direct their attention to the night sky. I got several questions from the group about what they can see from their locations back home, when different constellations appear in the sky throughout the year, and why the stars appear to twinkle. I did my best to answer questions with the little knowledge I had. Everyone was very pleased with the presentation and had a great time under the stars. In all, the presentation lasted about 45 minutes.
Unfortunately, I did not get any photos of the presentation itself. However, we did manage to get this totally awesome photo of me participating in one of the more risque adult game shows the ship hosts at night:
Dig the bra, purse, high heels, and lipstick I'm sporting!!!
In the end, the cruise was a total blast! We all had the times of our lives. Disney really knows how to do a vacation on the high seas right! I highly recommend a Disney cruise to anyone and everyone!
If anyone is interested in all the photos from our cruise, they can be found right here!
So, we had been looking forward to this Disney cruise for quite some time. It was one of those dealios where we had booked a totally awesome vacation long before Summer was even a twinkle in my eyes. However, the cruise wasn't until October, well AFTER Summer had ended. So, being one who LOVES the Summer months, I was in the strange predicament of wanting Summer to last as long as possible, yet wanting our cruise to hurry up and get here!
Long story short, October eventually arrived.
As mentioned in previous posts, I had hooked up online with many other Disney fanatics who were all going to be on the same cruise. We decided to plan many group activities. I mentioned my love of the night skies and hope for dark skies at sea. Many of the group felt the same as I, and somehow I ended up volunteering/volunteered to host a stargazing presentation on board the ship one of the nights at sea.
In preparation for this stargazing extravaganza, I contacted Disney Cruise Lines to inquiry about special accommodations for the stargazing evening. In particular, I want to see if they could dim or turn off the deck lights in the immediate area where I would be hosting the event. The lady at DCL I was working with before the cruise was very nice, but unfortunately, she could not sway the ship officers to grant the dimming of lights. They claimed safety reasons, which I could understand at the time, but as it turns out, I think they have a very lax definition of "safety". More about that later. In the meantime, the DCL lady gave me the name and number of another lady on board the ship who I should contact once our cruise got under way. Maybe she would be able to pull some stings with the officers since she works directly with them on the ship. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.
In the meantime, I was telling you all about these FE Exchange Gifts that I was working on to give out to other members of the DISBoards group that we were sailing with. I ended up making a "Passport to the Night Sky" for everyone. It turned out pretty cool. I actually personalized the gifts for every member of the group (about 60 or so people). The "passports" included everyone's names, birthdates, zodiacal signs, cabin numbers, and a picture of their favorite Disney characters. The passports had a daily itinerary for the cruise including ports of call, the evening's dinner themes, and the rise/set times for moon and planets. I also included a "daily special" night sky object for each night of the cruise. Here are some shots of the passports:
Sorry about the numerous pics of the passports, but I was actually pretty proud of how well they turned out. They were very well received by everybody. In the back of the passports there were many pages devoted to character autographs. Everyone in the group used the passports to get autographs. Many of them related to me that the characters were quite impressed with them and had asked where they got them. Some of the characters apparently thought they were being sold in the ship's gift shops!
Anyway, we had decided to have the stargazing party on the top deck of the ship in the middle of the cruise. So, that would have been the Wednesday night after we left St. Thomas, USVI and were heading to Castaway Cay, Disney's private island. The first several nights on the cruise, I went out every night searching for the ideal location to host the stargazing event. We had set a preliminary location of the top deck at the front of the boat (forward), but I wanted to make sure I found the ideal location. This was a very tough task as the ship was lit up like the freaking Vegas Strip! This is such a shame because you are hundreds of miles out in the middle of the sea, far away from any land masses and their cities with all their light pollution. If it weren't for the ship lights, the night skies would be as dark as you can get. But it was not to be.
After much searching, I did find the best spot on the ship for stargazing. It was the second deck down from the top and all the way forward as far as you were allowed to go. This spot was right beside the ship's bridge. Of course, everything to the side and forward of the bridge has to be kept dark to preserve the navigation officers' night vision. The views from this spot were actually pretty nice even with the megawatts of light being pumped out by the rest of the ship. And as long as you only looked forward or straight out to the side of the ship (never aft) you could maintain some semblance of dark adaptation. I was even able to see the Milky Way!
Unfortunately, even though this was probably the best spot on the ship for stargazing (actually, forward of the bridge would have been the best, but the public isn't allowed there), it would not work for a large group event. The area was small and would probably only accommodate a few people comfortably. Plus it was very, VERY windy there, which would make it difficult to talk about the night sky. So, my search continued elsewhere on the ship.
While I was conducting my searches for the ideal stargazing spot for the group, I was also making inquiries with my DCL contact on the ship about getting some of the lights dimmed for stargazing. She was a nice enough lady and did her best to help out, but it was still not to be. The officers still insisted that ship lights could not be dimmed due to safety concerns for the ship's guests. This is very ironic, as you will see in a bit! So I continued my search for a location keeping in mind that no lights would be dimmed. I finally found a spot that would be good enough on the top deck on the starboard (right) side. There was a large spot where they had these three-sided wooden bench areas that were kind of walled off on three sides. The walls helped block some of the light at eye level and lower decks.
You can see one of these bench areas in the back of this image. You can also see deck lighting that is built into railings/walls that line the edge of the deck. These lights were pretty bright. Luckily, by dragging several deck chairs over and placing them strategically, I was able to block most of those, as well. So, I finally found a spot that I could probably make due with what I had to work with. Except for one more small problem. Every night at the exact time that I was scheduled to host the stargazing event, the ship's deck crew came out and closed down this portion of the top deck so that they could hose it all down and clean it! Fortunately, I was able to finally get some sort of help from my DCL contact. She was able to get the deck crew's schedule switched around so that they would be washing the opposite side of the ship on the night that I would be hosting the stargazing! Good on her!
With a spot picked and accommodations made to prevent our group from getting soaked, I was able to relax and enjoy the festivities of the cruise. Aside from the stargazing, one of the other events I was most looking forward to was "Pirate Night". On "Pirate Night", everyone gets dressed up like a pirate for dinner and activities afterwards. Even all the servers in the dining rooms were dressed up in pirate garb. Many of the ship guests really got into the whole pirate thing. Some more than others. Some folks simply wore a pirate bandanna supplied by their servers, while others went whole-hog and had packed full pirate regalia for the cruise. As it happens, I was one of those geeks who REALLY got into it. Maybe a little TOO into it!
I had brought along a pirate costume for the cruise, but not just any ol' pirate costume. Noooooo! As this was a Disney cruise, only the right honorable Captain Jack Sparrow would do! I had spent a considerable amount of time, energy, and money crafting and piecing together a passable Sparrow costume. It was by no means a Hollywood-caliber ensemble, but it would do for "Pirate Night" and Halloween once we got back home. Unfortunately, I had never done a full-dress rehearsal with my costume before the cruise. So I had no idea how long it would take to put the whole thing on. There was clothing, makeup, a wig, facial hair, boots, swords, adornments and accessories. It took me a whole hour and a half to put the full thing on. The rest of my party had already left for the special pirate dinner. I finally sauntered into the dining room just as they were getting ready to serve salads. So, I wasn't terribly late, but late enough to draw lots of attention to myself as I entered, which actually felt kind of cool. We were on this cruise with our best friends and their kids. Their son was just in awe as Captain Jack Sparrow entered the dining room and proceeded to sit at HIS table! Granted, my costume was nowhere near "screen accurate", far from it in fact, but apparently it was good enough to fool a 7-year-old!
That night, all the Disney characters were out around the ship dressed in their pirate best. You could get you picture taken with them in your pirate outfit. Of course, I HAD to go wait in a very long line to get my photo with THE Captain Jack Sparrow! Disney's character was SPOT ON for the real thing. Below is a photo of me and him that night. As if it wasn't obvious, I'm the one on the right:
After I got my photo with the real Jack, I was walking down the hall when several different families came up to me and asked if they cold get they picture with me. They said the line for the "real" Jack was just too long, and they thought I was just as good. That was pretty cool. It turned out one of the families was actually part of the DISBoards group I had made friends with. They didn't recognize that it was me!
Later, there was a dance party with all the pirate Disney characters on the top deck. They had a ton of food and drinks and lots of fun music. Many, many, MANY kids and people kept coming up and wanting to get a photo with me. It was so much fun getting all this attention! What was even cooler was that I wasn't feeling ANY of the anxiety and apprehension I usually do when interacting with strangers like this. I'm guessing it was because I was "in character" and knew that the next day, no one would even know that it had been me. My daughter was having a blast getting to walk around all night with Jack Sparrow!
To top off the evening, in the ship's main theater that night, they were showing "Pirates of the Caribbean 4: At Worlds End", which I had not yet seen. My friend Tony and I went to go see it while still dressed in our pirate get-ups. We were a little late getting to the movie (just a couple minutes) because we had to go drop off the ladies and kids at our cabins beforehand. The movie had just started as we entered the theater. As we were carefully making our way down a row trying very hard not to poke anyone with our swords, there was a sudden thunder of applause from the entire theater. I looked at the screen to see what was going on. NOTHING. There wasn't anything applause-worthy going on yet. That's when I realized the applause was directed at ME!!!! Bashfully, I turned and bowed to the crowd and waved at all my admirers! It was such a cool thing!
Anyway, back to that ironic thing I had mentioned before about the safety of the ship's guests. One of the other things that they do for "Pirate Night" is a fireworks display. So, here everyone is on the top deck of the ship partying their butts off! The music's pumping and people are dancing all over. The vast majority of the adults have a few drinks in them and are REALLY enjoying the festivities. Some have more than a few drinks in them! So, they do a countdown for the beginning of the fireworks. And just before we finish the countdown and the fireworks start, they turn off ALL the exterior lights on the ship. ALL OF THEM!!! It certainly made it easier to see the awesome fireworks, I'll give them that. But here we are on the top deck of a cruise ship out in the middle of the sea with a bunch of drunkards dancing all over the place, and they turn off ALL the lights!
Now answer me this, if Disney feels it is perfectly safe to turn off ALL the lights so a bunch of drunks and their kids can watch fireworks, why isn't it safe to DIM a few lights in a small, isolated location so people can get a better view of our dark night sky???
Anyway, I've gotten over it by now!
So, the Wednesday night finally arrives, and it's time for some stargazing. I head up to the top deck about 30 minutes early to start arranging all the deck chairs to help block the lights. Folks from our group slowly start to amass, and we finally get started. I had brought along a pair of my own binoculars for the trip and had encouraged everyone else to bring theirs if they could spare the extra weight. I also brought my brand new 200mW GLP for the show. I had everyone sit and just talk and stare at the sky for a bit while we waited for everyone to get there. This gave our eyes a chance to adapt to the darkness, or what little there was. It was definitely a challenge to put on a stargazing presentation under these conditions. There was a lot I would have liked to show them in the sky, but I had to try my best to avoid directing their gaze towards certain areas of the sky, because doing so would mean looking towards the ship's lights and destroying any dark adaptation.
I started off going through the major constellations that were visible and recognizable in the night sky. We toured Ursa Major and Minor explaining briefly about Polaris as the North Star and the Mizar/Alcor eye test. We had a look at Jupiter, Cygnus, the Summer Triangle, Cassiopeia, and the Pleiades. I demonstrated how the Milky Way runs right through Cass and Cygnus as it makes its way down to the central bulge just off the spout of Sagittarius. I discussed the Keppler mission to discover exoplanets in the Cygnus region.
As I used my GLP to point out objects in the night sky, I noticed more and more people were drawn to the pretty beam like moths to a flame. Pretty soon, our original cozy group of about 25 people had swarmed to 50+ with onlookers eavesdropping on the discussion. This didn't bother me, and it was pretty cool that I was able to attract more people and direct their attention to the night sky. I got several questions from the group about what they can see from their locations back home, when different constellations appear in the sky throughout the year, and why the stars appear to twinkle. I did my best to answer questions with the little knowledge I had. Everyone was very pleased with the presentation and had a great time under the stars. In all, the presentation lasted about 45 minutes.
Unfortunately, I did not get any photos of the presentation itself. However, we did manage to get this totally awesome photo of me participating in one of the more risque adult game shows the ship hosts at night:
Dig the bra, purse, high heels, and lipstick I'm sporting!!!
In the end, the cruise was a total blast! We all had the times of our lives. Disney really knows how to do a vacation on the high seas right! I highly recommend a Disney cruise to anyone and everyone!
If anyone is interested in all the photos from our cruise, they can be found right here!
