(click on pics to enlarge)

Today is day 4, the mid point of the cruise already. Yikes! Time really does fly when you’re having fun, and even more so when you’re on a ship with no concept of time. It’s easy to forget what day it even is. Luckily, the Navigator app tells you each morning where you are. This is our Jamaica port day!

In the past, we would always get off at each port and do one of the Disney excursions that take you around the island and see some key sights. We like doing this to learn about the island and see some highlights via a vetted, guided tour, especially if this is our first time at that location. However, this time around, there weren’t any excursions like that for Jamaica, and none of the other ones captured our interest. I think the number and types of activities that they can do nowadays is also reduced, which is understandable. We don’t bother doing the beachy type ones, which alot of the excursions usually are about, because we already get a gorgeous beach at the Castaway Cay stop. Why pay for another beach one when there’s no cost to use the Castaway beach? And with cases rising at the time, we figured it would be safer not to venture around too much anyway.

We decided on this sailing to just treat our remaining port days as sea days and just hang out on the ship, taking advantage of an even emptier ship when some folks are off at the port. However, it seemed that a good number of others had the same idea. We didn’t notice a great reduction in people around the ship. I have no idea what percentage of folks actually got off though. Either way, it was great to have another chill day relaxing on the ship. There were still tons of activities and movies scheduled, so it just seemed like any other day.

Note: If you do want to get off the ship at the ports, make sure you’re clear on what you need to bring, especially nowadays with some places requiring vaccine cards to enter restaurants, etc. Some ports will require you to have your Passport, or whatever ID document you use, to get back on the ship. Also, check the requirements when you sail to see if there are any restrictions due to the pandemic. At the time of our sailing, kids that couldn’t be vaccinated could only go on the Disney specific excursions. You couldn’t just take them off with you and wander around the town yourself or go on an excursion with an outside company. Most importantly, make sure you’re clear on what time you need to be back on the ship by. Double check which timezone they’re using when they state that return time and set your watch/phone to the same timezone too. Set an alarm and leave plenty of time for traffic. Some of those island roads are crazy narrow and cars often have to stop or pull aside, taking turns, so it may be very slow going. If you’re late, the ship may not wait for you, especially if you’re not on a Disney excursion. That’s another big reason why we just stick with the Disney ones. And, of course, as with anywhere you go, use your street smarts. Don’t think you’re in some Disney bubble. Not to scare you, just usual travel tips.

So, having said all that, since we had decided to just stay on the ship, we just slept in and had a leisurely breakfast at one of the sit down restaurants again, this time at Enchanted Garden. Our servers were enchanting as well, making us origami flowers throughout the meal. Hee hee! The food was delish too.

Note: the servers in the restaurants for breakfast and lunch will not be your usual dinner service team that follows you around for the dinners. They all take turns being assigned to random locations for the daytime meals. You can ask if your dinner team happens to be there, but if not, they’ll just seat you at the next available table. It’s fine, we’ve never encountered a bad server, but if you have dietary needs, you’ll just have to tell them since they won’t know already.

Afterwards, we went out on deck to look at the area around the dock. There’s a whole shopping complex right there. That immediate area definitely looks very nice. We were tempted to go check that area out at least.

Usually, while at port, the ship crew does all sorts of maintenance and drills. They go so far as repainting railings and even the outside of the ship pretty often. It’s crazy the length that Disney goes to to maintain an immaculate looking ship. We’ve seen them clean places that we would never think to clean, at least not on a daily basis.

This time, while out on deck 4, we were able to watch them do a practice drill lowering and raising one of the lifeboats. That was really neat to see. That whole mechanism that holds the lifeboat swings all the way over to the side of the ship. It’s an amazing feat of engineering. We were also able to see what the inside of one of those boats looks like. I always wondered. But, now that we know how it all works, that’s good enough. Hopefully, we’ll never need to use them.

As with most other days too, there was a constant stream of characters that wandered around the ship decks or rotated thru the designated photo spots around the atrium throughout the day. So, we were able to get pics of a few more.

There were also plenty of other activities to partake in and movies constantly playing. They did reduce some things due to reduced capacity, like instead of having 3 trivia events a day, there were only 1 or 2 now. However, there were still plenty of options to choose from throughout the day, like animation drawing, game shows, crafts, etc. Of course, you can always just go up on deck and lounge in the sun, swim in the pool or do other water fun, grab a snack or ice cream cone, play mini golf, or catch a pickup basketball game in the sports zone.

Alot of times, we just like to grab a cone and walk around the decks, catch a little of whatever’s playing on the FunnelVision, and watch the waves go by. In between, we may pop our heads into the various venues where activities are taking place just to check them out a bit. You’re not committed to stay for the whole thing. It actually made for a more chill day because we didn’t find ourselves compelled to run from activity to activity or feeling like we were missing out because two things were going on at once that we wanted to do, which has often happened on past cruises.

This time, we did another Disney trivia game and did a craft, making a 3D Simba. That was much harder than it looks, with so many tiny cuts and folds. Here’s our final result. He’s kinda cute, just don’t look too closely at the lines. LoL

A port day is also a great time to have fun in the pools and do the Aquaduck coaster since there will be less people in line. This coaster is really fun!

We had awesome skies as we pulled out of Jamaica. Check out these clouds! I don’t know why, but I love cool clouds. They’re especially beautiful against the setting sun.

That night, we had our 2nd night at Animator’s Palate and it was animation night! This is really fun! When you arrive at your table, there will be a sheet where you can draw your own little character!

The servers will collect them when you’re done and send them to get animated. Make sure to take a picture of your creation before you hand it in because they can’t give it back to you now due to reduced touching. Towards the end of the dinner service, they’ll play a cool video on the giant screens around the restaurant where you can see your character in animated form dancing with other famous Disney animated characters! It’s always fun to hear the excited “There’s mine!” squeals around the room when someone spots their character pop up on the screen.

This is something that we always look forward to, even though we are totally not the best artists. It’s still fun to see your funny drawing on the big screen. Make sure to find out which night will be your animation night and don’t be late for dinner that night. Be sure to stay til the end to see the final result too!

Of course, the food that night was delish as usual. Beef Wellington! Yum! I’ve lost track of how many desserts we’re up to now.

That night was also considered our “Pirate Night”, which is where they normally would have some pirate themed events and photo ops, and then a pirate themed deck show and fireworks. Nowadays, everything is toned down a bit, so they didn’t do alot of that, but some folks still dressed up and they did the fireworks after dinner. That was still cool to see. Disney is the only cruise ship authorized to do fireworks at sea! Those fireworks are biodegradable and become edible fish food when they fall back to the ocean, so that’s good.

Just note that the crew members up on the top deck will direct your group to stand on socially distanced spots, so everyone isn’t just crowded all together, as in the past. Make sure to arrive about 15 minutes early incase it fills up. The fireworks launch off to the side from the back of the ship, so as long as you have a view of the middle-back sides, you should be able to see them. Ask your servers or a deck crew member which side of the ship they will launch from that night, if you really want to be on that side though.

Afterwards, they covered up the pools and opened up a little dance floor for awhile. That’s always fun!

When we got back to the cabin, this guy was hanging out there, ready to wish us a good night!

I’ll leave you with some info about Jamaica. It was another great day!