Boundless Horizons

Day 7 – May 26 – Palma, Mallorca

Ashore 08:30 – All Aboard 17:30

Port hours were extended by 45 minutes ahead of the cruise, our original all aboard was 16:45. We woke up to a really great view from our verandah. I’ve been to Palma before and it’s a beautiful city. The crew were doing some training with the rescue boat in the water just below us, so that was fun to watch.

We didn’t have any set plans, but as it was our last day on board we had a few things we wanted to do that we hadn’t found time for sooner. The live action The Little Mermaid premiered today, and we hoped we’d get it on board. It was originally showing in the app, but vanished from the schedule – we later heard that it didn’t make it on board, guess it was delayed with the 25th Anniversary merch!

We grabbed some breakfast on deck 11 and then decided we should get off the ship for a walk, similar to our day in Civitavecchia. We left the ship around 11:30am and followed the signs saying “To The City”. Now, in hindsight, we should have just taken the bus marked Port Shuttle Bus. However, as we wanted to go into Palma itself, we thought the Port Shuttle Bus was just for the port and that there would be alternative transport to the city. So we walked by the Mallorcan taxi drivers (much less pushy than the ones we encountered in Italy, these ones held signs saying “Taxi” and otherwise waited for people to approach them), and followed the signs “to the city”.

After walking for a while, we still hadn’t come across where the port shuttle bus was dropping people, or the bus for the city. We knew the Hop On Hop Off bus had a stop near the cruise port which had been an option, but we also hadn’t reached that yet. It was hot and we had made the mistake of leaving our water bottles on the ship. When we reached Castillo Museo San Carlos it said there was a bar, which sounded perfect.

The museum was interesting, but most importantly it gave us somewhere cool and shaded to stop. After walking around following the signs for the bar but failing to locate it, we found someone who worked there and asked where it is, which was a good opportunity to break out my high school Spanish. “Está cerrada” – it’s closed! Not what we wanted to hear! We were at least able to use the bathrooms before we headed back to the ship. We later learned from the cruise Facebook group that the port shuttle bus was dropping people off in the city near the Cathedral!

While it didn’t go as planned, we really liked our walk and it meant we were back on the ship around 1:20pm to spend the afternoon on board. But I wish we’d known that we should have taken the port shuttle to the city instead of following the “to the city” sign! I definitely appreciated that Disney provide some very cold water beside the gangway, it tasted so good.

The ship was busier than on our previous port days, so I guess a lot of people opted to enjoy the pool after those long Italian days. We headed back up to deck 11 where I had a Dole Whip with rum and pizza for lunch. After lunch, we finally tried gelato from Vanellope’s – it was amazing! I opted for hazelnut with chocolate sauce and Mickey sprinkles; Rhys had caramel sea salt with caramel sauce and chopped Twix. We took them back to our stateroom to enjoy on the verandah, then did a bit of packing.

We still had a bit of Midship Detective Agency to finish, so we got ready for dinner then played . Shortly before 6pm we started to sail away, so we popped out onto deck 4 to watch us sail out of Palma, and waved in the general direction of the webcam that my parents were watching!

Royal Palace was our final MDR for dinner. Rhys had the fettuccini with parmesan crusted chicken, I had the green pea and fava bean risotto. That risotto might have been my favourite main course from the whole cruise – it was cooked perfectly! For dessert Rhys opted for the chocolate lava cake, and I had the raspberry vanilla creme brulee. When our wonderful servers came over to say goodbye, we let them know that we didn’t think we’d manage to get up in time for the 6:45am breakfast on debarkation day. We overheard other people having the same conversation so I guess the early breakfast isn’t too popular!

After dinner, Rhys went to Bon Voyage to trade in their beer mug token for a mug to take home, and I stopped off in Mickey’s Mainsail to ask what we needed for the VAT refund process. As our sailing didn’t leave the EU, all of our purchases in the stores had VAT on top of the regular price, but we were able to claim this back since we’re not EU residents. We needed to bring the receipts, our passports, and the card where we’d like the refund sent. I’d looked out the receipts already (and divided them up by name – they need to match the passport to the guest name on the receipt), but I needed to run back to the room to grab my card. Be aware that everyone does this on the last night and they need to process each individual receipt, so it’s time-consuming. We were lucky that there were only three or four parties ahead of us when we joined the line because we still waited around 30 minutes. By the time we were done, the line was all the way through the shop! We processed Rhys’s receipts first then they headed off to finish Midship Detective Agency while I did mine.

After dealing with receipts, we ran back up to the stateroom to finish packing. We were packed and ready to put the cases outside the room just in time to run down to the Walt Disney Theatre for Disney’s Believe. The theatre wasn’t as packed as it was for Beauty and the Beast but definitely busier than The Golden Mickeys. We were back in our usual front row seats despite arriving bang on show time – with a quick detour outside to snap a photo of the tip of Mallorca.

Believe is a really fun show, and the Genie was brilliant! After the show, we headed back to Skyline bar, which we hadn’t managed to visit sooner. As the screens were showing Rio de Janero when we arrived, I had an Eco-Tini which was delicious and came with a souvenir acai seed bracelet.

The See Ya Real Soon show began at 10:15pm, so we finished our drinks and headed along to watch it. We found a spot up on deck 5 overlooking the atrium which wasn’t too crowded. Cruise Director Lee introduced the characters and they came out for one last opportunity for photos. Then we had a little show on the stairs to say “see ya real soon”.

Part of the reason for choosing our spot on deck 5 was that it was just along from our stateroom. Room service finished at 11pm on the final night of the cruise and we wanted to order flasks of coffee and hot water (for tea) – the flasks that hot drinks are delivered in keeps them warm overnight so this gave us drinks ready for the morning. Rhys set off just before the end of the See Ya Real Soon show to beat the rush – and it was already 10:45pm so there was just 15 minutes left to order.

In addition to the hot drinks, Rhys realised they hadn’t had a Mickey bar all cruise and I’d only had one on day 1! So we ordered those, some cookies for Rhys, and a tomato soup & grilled cheese sandwich for me. The room service soup is really tasty.

We enjoyed our last room service order with Disney’s Believe on the stateroom TV, it was a pre-recorded performance with a different cast, but still good (though I think our Genie was better). Then we filled in the guest experience survey and headed to bed.