Boundless Horizons

Day 3 – May 22 – Livorno, Italy

Ashore 07:00 – All Aboard 19:00

The key destinations from Livorno are Pisa and Florence, both of which involve a long coach journey. We’ve both visited them before, so it was a good day to stay on the ship!

We got up around 9am and decided to try breakfast in Cabanas. The Huevos Rancheros were tasty, and there was a good selection of fresh fruit to make my own fruit bowl. I was a bit disappointed in the Mickey waffles, which tasted like they’d been sitting out for a while, and the Eggs Benedict were dry as I couldn’t find any Hollandaise for them.

We might have just got unlucky because we were near the end of the breakfast hours – they started serving at 6:30am because of the early ashore time. Chatting with our servers at dinner, they were surprised how many people stayed onboard instead of going ashore.

After breakfast we’d thought about going for a walk around Livorno, but decided to stay onboard as it seemed like there wasn’t much in walking distance. We were keen to enjoy the pool deck while the ship was in port because so many people were on all day port adventures, though there were definitely a lot of people with the same plan. It felt like the Europeans stayed on the ship while the Americans headed off on Port Adventures! I suspect a lot of people like us looked at the price of the excursions and the time spent on coaches and decided we could grab some cheap flights to do a proper visit another time.

We changed into our swimwear and headed back to deck 11. It was easy enough to find some loungers to sit and read for a while, then we decided to check out the Cove Bar. Rhys had ordered the beer mug package before our trip because we thought we’d probably order a beer for him and a drink of the day for me each afternoon, but ran out of time on Days 1 and 2! The bartender said they didn’t have any beer on draft at Cove Bar due to a problem with the pipes, so we couldn’t use the mug there. Rhys ordered a red wine and I decided to try the Jubilee by the Sea anniversary cocktail. Cove Bar didn’t have the coaster or the bookmark, but the drink was very good.

We had a chance to try out the whirlpool spa as we spotted it was free while we were passing. The sign said it was limited to 15 minutes maximum but we only managed 10 minutes before deciding we were too warm! I wanted to grab a Dole Whip with rum so we headed around to Frozone Treats. The good news for Rhys was that they had Miami Weiss on tap so he was able to use his beer mug here (note: later in the cruise, they’d run out of draft beer here too, so we could only use the beer mug at the bars on the lower decks).

Lunch was a quick bite at Flo’s Cafe, Rhys wanted chicken tenders while I thought I’d try their Impossible burger. The quick service food on the pool deck was another thing we didn’t really get to try on our previous cruise. It’s mostly fast food type fare, but I enjoyed everything we tried. The opening hours are longer than Cabanas so I appreciated the flexibility for meal times.

The towel animals on the pool deck were adorable! After lunch the adult pool seemed a bit busy so we decided to check out Satellite Falls, where it was nice and peaceful. There were a few people quietly reading but lots of empty loungers and no one in the water. We had a quick dip, but dark clouds were approaching and we knew there was a thunderstorm forecast. By now it was late afternoon, so we went back to the stateroom to shower and get ready for dinner.

Dinner was at Royal Palace and we were ready with enough time to go around all of the photographers in the atrium first. This was particularly important because I’d looked at the menu in advance and knew I wanted French Onion soup as a starter – and I didn’t want to get soup on my dress before the photos! This was the only evening where we both ordered starters, Rhys had the breaded and deep-fried brie. For mains, Rhys had the oven-baked salmon royale, and I had the Chateaubriand-roasted filet steak. Dessert was Tahitian vanilla creme brulee for Rhys and classic Opera gateau for me. We really enjoyed this menu, even if Royal Palace itself is less interesting than the other MDRs.

A nice perk of switching to the early dining time meant we were done with dinner in time to watch us sail away with a glass of wine on the verandah. The Walt Disney Theatre was showing Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 at 8pm and we’d intentionally held off on seeing it at the cinema so we could enjoy it on the ship. We headed up to deck 11 to grab drinks but we were pretty full from dinner so didn’t bother with snacks. I was really surprised to find the theatre was mostly empty. We grabbed seats in the front row of the balcony – the down side is you have a safety rail which might obstruct your view depending on your height. As a short person, I tend to prefer to dodge the rail rather than gamble on a tall person blocking my view. There were maybe a few dozen people in the theatre in total. We both really enjoyed the movie!

We’ve both been trying to walk a minimum of 10,000 steps each day, which isn’t usually a problem on a Disney trip. After the movie, we realised that our day of lying by the pool had left us behind on our step count! We decided to head out to deck 4 for a few laps of the ship. We could see Elba on the Port side and Corsica on the Starboard side which was fun, though difficult to get a good photograph in the dark. We also saw some lights that we’re pretty sure were from a sailing ship from the shape. I’ve done a bit of Googling since we came home and I think it’s the Royal Clipper, which set sail from Portoferraio on May 22.

Once we hit our 10,000 steps, we headed back to our stateroom, and ended the night watching Corsica go by from the verandah.