Our Dining in Disneyland columnist, Heather Sievers, is morphing into a Cruise columnist today! Check out this awesome Mojito Seminar!!

Looking for a fun and inexpensive way to get in some adult beverage time on your Disney Cruise? Go to a drink seminar! On our recent 11-day Mediterranean cruise we learned that there is no need to pay $10 for 1 mojito when you can pay $15 for four or more!

Being our third Disney Cruise, you’d think we would have heard about these special seminars, but, alas we had not…until our lovely concierge, Lynda, asked us if we liked mojitos.  Sure, we’ll check that out! Here’s how it works: Sign up, show up, drink up.

Specs

The seminars take place during the day in one of the ship’s restaurants. Ours was in Animator’s Palate.

There were probably about 30-40 people in the seminar. The event was set up with about 4 tables with 8-10 chairs each, which all faced our “instructor.”

When we sat at our spots, we saw that everything was right and ready for our lesson!

The seminar included learning how to make four different types of mojitos. Each glass was pre-measured with simple syrup, mint leaves, lime, and whatever additional fruit was to be included in the recipe. On the side we had our different types of rum, the ice, our club soda, as well as our muddlers. Yes, I got to muddle! So much fun.

Mojito Time

We started off the seminar with a little history of rum, the different types of sugar you can use (simple syrup, cane syrup, agave, etc.). The Disney Cruise Line uses simple syrup. After our interesting little lecture, we went on to make our first mojito.

This was was the “traditional” mojito, so our cup contained mint leaves, simple syrup, and limes. We were instructed to “muddle” gently, not crushing the leaves too much, but really getting those limes smashed up. It smelled divine!

After the muddling, you add your ice (fill to the top), pour the rum over the ice, fill the remainder of empty space with club soda, and stir! Which by the way is way more fun to do when you have a cute little Disney Cruise Line swizzle stick.

The next three mojitos had the same instruction, only they had fun extras already in the cup. Up next was the watermelon mojito; it had all of the same ingredients as the previous mojito along with two fresh watermelon cubes.

I muddled, iced, rummed, club soda’d, and stirred with my cute swizzle stick. I was actually expecting to not like the taste of the watermelon mojito but was super surprised.  It was really refreshing and ended up being my second favorite after the original mojito.

Third up was the pineapple mojito. Same process as the original, but with a few chunks of fresh pineapple in the mix.

The pineapple mojito was also tasty; I declare it my third favorite.

And 4th place, both in order and taste, we have the raspberry mojito. Again, same ingredients as the original, but with a few fresh raspberries thrown in and made with raspberry flavored rum as well.

I actually thought I would really like this one.  I think the flavored rum was just a bit much for me.  This drink was way too sweet for my taste buds.

Overall Review

Overall, this was a really fun afternoon event.  The thing I took away from this experience was that it’s pretty easy to “fancy” up a mojito by adding some fresh fruit.  The possibilities are endless!

Personally, I was not able to drink 4 mojitos. In fact I probably only drank 1 1/2 total, but there were people tossing those suckers back like you wouldn’t believe.  We didn’t stick around to see the final outcome, but I’m pretty sure the party might have moved its way into the nearby Promenade Lounge.  We didn’t participate in the “after party,” as we weren’t interested in picking our kids up for dinner totally mojito’d out if you know what I mean…

My husband and I only attended this one beverage seminar.  We arranged it through our concierge, Lynda, but you can also give guest services a call to secure a spot.  If you are interested in a specific one, it’s best to call as soon as possible so they can tell you on which day and time the different seminars are being offered.  If you do see a seminar in your Personal Navigator (daily ship schedule) and decide last minute that you want to attend, you can drop in & pay there, but only if it hasn’t sold out.  Anyone in attendance must be 21, so check those kiddos into the Oceaneers Club pronto.

There are several drink seminars that the Disney Cruise Line offers: Wine, Sommelier Wine, Tequila/Margarita, Beer, Whiskey, Cognac & Mojito.  What a great way to save some money on your bar bill!

*On a side note: If you can’t drink 4 mojitos, they bring out “to go” cups. And if you do drink 4 mojitos and want more, they’ll let you use any extra supplies left on the tables. Talk about getting your $15 worth!