Tip Tuesday: Drink of the Day Glass (DCL)

When boarding a Disney Cruise, especially if you get an early port arrival time, you'll have plenty of time to hit the deck and lounge around, or grab a bite to eat. You'll be greeted as you come out on deck by many cheerful cast members offering several beverage options for purchase.

They'll be offering beer packages (delivered to your room), wine packages for dinner, adult beverages to drink now, and the "Drink of the Day" or beer mug. All of these options are, of course, an additional charge which will be added to your stateroom bill. Soda machines will also be found on deck and are included in your cruise fare. Feel free to bring those Yetis and fill 'em up!

Our favorite is the "Drink of the Day" (DotD) cup which we find to be a pretty good value. Each day a new Drink of the Day will be listed on your Personal Navigator. The DotD is a 12oz serving of yummy beverages like a Bahama Mama or Yellow Bird for only $4.75 (plus tax and 15% gratuity).

For around $12 you can purchase this cup (filled with the current DotD), and the cup is yours to keep. The perk or value, you ask? For the remainder of the cruise, when purchasing the drink of the day you get a larger 16oz refill (only when using this cup) for the same low price of $4.75!

When lounging around the pool, servers will take your cup and bring you a fresh new glass each time you order. Though, I will say, we've found the better beverages are from the real bars throughout the ship. Most of them don't have the DotD made in large batches like they do around the pools, so you may get a heavier pour there. We did on several occasions.

Enjoy!

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Foodie Friday: La Cantina de San Angel

La Cantina de San Angel

in the Mexico Pavilion of Epcot

I don't know about you, but I love Mexican food. Tacos, burritos, nachos, chalupas... you name it. So, on our trip in September I had to stop in Mexico and grab a bite to eat. Seeing how we could eat "anywhere in the World (Showcase)" my husband opted for fish'n'chips from the UK.

This is a popular Quick Service restaurant located on the lagoon side as you walk around World Showcase. Tables can be hard to come by because of its popularity. It's a good idea to have someone grab a table while someone else does the ordering.

Here are some shots of the menu (click on them to enlarge)

Oh, and we can't forget about the margaritas!

I wish I'd been able to snap some pics of the food coming out of the window before mine. They not only looked delicious, but the portions were huge. This is definitely a QS meal to share!

I went for the nachos (minus the tomato) and a sangria. You get plenty of chips, a heaping helping of nacho cheese with seasoned beef and beans, and they add some sour cream and jalapenos... I'm in heaven. Handling my tray I wasn't able to get a picture of the salsa bar, but they have an area where you can help yourself to various salsas to spice up your dishes.

These were pretty good for what they were, but after having seen some of the other items come through the window, I wished I'd have tried one of the taco meals or the Pollo Cascabel. The sangria wasn't the best I've ever had, but it was certainly refreshing on a hot September afternoon.

These nachos could definitely have been shared, as could all of the dishes I saw. Actually, I would quite recommend sharing all QS meals you might have walking around the World Showcase. This little tip not only saves you money or a QS meal credit, but this way you can also sample fare from multiple countries as you make your way around.

Being a QS restaurant, these items (minus the alcoholic beverages) are covered by all of the Disney Dining Plans. Those churros would make nice use of a snack credit, too!

Enjoy!!

Let me know if you've been in the comments. What did you get?

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Keeping the Magic Alive

I announced yesterday on my Facebook page that my husband and I were very recently given an opportunity to go to Walt Disney World this weekend without the kids. We could have said no, since we're going as a family in November... or because the kids aren't able to go... or because it's for such a short time, or any number of excuses...

Or, as we decided, we could find excuses/reasons why we should take this opportunity and run with it! Sure, it would simply be fun to get away for the weekend, but the more we talked about it the deeper it went.

We both stay very busy with work and other obligations. Our daughter plays softball (2 Fall Ball leagues right now) in addition to other school functions; our son is joining scouts. My husband works a lot of overtime; and I'm pretty busy between my full-time job and my blessing of a second job. I'm a caregiver to my Nana who lives on her own but is becoming more dependent on others. It's hard to squeeze in personal time, but we're both also trying to take better care of ourselves by exercising regularly and eating better. There just aren't enough hours in the day, let me tell ya.

We may not be a well-oiled machine, but we somehow make everything work.

There's certainly no trouble in paradise here, but as you can imagine with such crazy schedules, sometimes you get in a funk. I'm sure others can relate. The grind of the day-to-day takes over, and it seems like your head is no sooner hitting the pillow than your alarm is going off. You simply start going through the motions. Living your life for others- working countless hours, school/daycare drop offs, practice pickups, late games, grocery shopping, doctor appointments, meal prep and pharmacy runs, late night quotes, laundry... the list goes on and on.

When do you get the time to focus on the two of you again? To focus on each other and the magic that created this beautiful chaos? I'll tell you when...

When you make the time! That's when!

As I said, we're not in bad shape or anything. We love each other very much and are very fortunate to have these crazy schedules. It means we have people in our lives whom we love deeply and are blessed to care for. It means we're able to work and can provide for our family. It means we have a home to call our own. These are our privileges and we couldn't be more grateful.

Things don't have to be going wrong in order to make the time to focus. Sometimes you just need to make that time to keep the good going. So, when presented with this opportunity, we talked about it for an evening or two, realizing how nice it would be to share a couple days together. We could adventure together and laugh and play. We could be on our own time and not watching the clock for our next appointment. For two whole days we could be present with each other without distraction from the real world.

Let's do it!

What better place to keep the magic alive than Walt Disney World?! It's been several years since we've been to Disney without our kids (yes, we've done it before!), so we're quite looking forward to this adventure. We haven't done FastPasses or anything. We're just going to wing it and see where the day takes us! I can't wait!!

Follow along via Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram as we work on
#KeepingTheMagicAlive this weekend!

Custom button by CrowleyCastle on Etsy

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