The Land, The Sea and The Dark Side ... With a Toddler! The (cruise) TR! 8/27 UPDATE!

[ariel1025]

That's great to know! Thank you!

We are going on the June 1st Eastern Caribbean sailing on the Fantasy!

Ahhhh, so jealous I can't wait to cruise both the new ships!!

Hey Shannon, jumping over from the land portion of the trip, I'm so excited to hear about your cruise! Sounds like arriving at the port a little later is the way to go, minimal lines, no long waiting period to board and your room is ready right away!

Hello, hello! I know several people that push to get to the port early and be some of the first in line. To each their own. But, I much prefer being able to sleep in a little, enjoy some breakfast and have minimal crowds at the port when I arrive

 

[amandaw]

Those Sail Away parties sure get crowded, don't they? When we went on the Dream last year, we went above the pool deck too. It does seem like the best place to actually see the show.

So glad y'all enjoyed the party & are off at sea!

 

[LuvEeyore]

Love the update. I am a broken record...James is so cute!!

 

[lar42]

I believe the cruise director was Peter. We sailed on the last "Magic" cruise out of Port Canaveral in May before she set sail for New York.

 

[SOUTHERNtinkerBELLE]

I love all of the party pictures! All of the characters look so cute in their cruise outfits! It looks like so much fun. I'm so glad that your parents were enjoying themselves as well! I love that picture of your mom!

 

[ariel1025]

Those Sail Away parties sure get crowded, don't they? When we went on the Dream last year, we went above the pool deck too. It does seem like the best place to actually see the show.

So glad y'all enjoyed the party & are off at sea!

The Sail Away party is really the only time I feel congested on the ship. Even prior to James we never stayed on the pool deck. I would much rather have some breathing room; plus I'm too short to see the action from down there

Love the update. I am a broken record...James is so cute!!

Aw, thank you so much

I believe the cruise director was Peter. We sailed on the last "Magic" cruise out of Port Canaveral in May before she set sail for New York.

Peter! That definitely sounds correct, thanks! I'm not sure if we were the last cruise prior to going to New York, but if not we were next to last. Our serving team was talking about it a lot during our meals. Poor them, they were so nervous.

I love all of the party pictures! All of the characters look so cute in their cruise outfits! It looks like so much fun. I'm so glad that your parents were enjoying themselves as well! I love that picture of your mom!

Thanks Courtney! The Sail Away is so crowded, but so fun! I love how Disney is so great at making sure the characters always fit in with the atmosphere around them

 

[donaldseeyore]

Hi!!! Joining in on this one as we will be sailing in Feb with a 19 month old and really cant wait to see how this turns out!!!! Your little man is a cutie!!

 

[ariel1025]

Hi!!! Joining in on this one as we will be sailing in Feb with a 19 month old and really cant wait to see how this turns out!!!! Your little man is a cutie!!

How exciting!! What cruise will you be sailing?

 

[ariel1025]

While my parents were enjoying the end of the Sail Away party my little family of 3 was enjoying some relaxing time on the verandah watching the ocean move beneath us. Several times it looked like James might zonk out, but as soon as he realized he was falling asleep he would wake himself up and fuss. From experience the night prior I knew it was worse to have to wake him from his nap than it was not to have one, so I decided we should just get moving to prepare for that night's events.

Candi and the baby went inside to take baths (love, love, love that DCL has bathtubs!!) and I grabbed our clothes and headed to the laundry room to get everything ironed.

One of the things I really wanted to do each night on the cruise was take the professional pictures they offer to hopefully end up with some good family pictures. I have been great about taking millions of pictures of James (since I do all of them; whether it's day-to-day or professional) but I've been quite the slacker when it comes to scheduling family pictures ::hangs head in shame::

So, with family pictures on the agenda ironing was a must. Clearly it was a must for many other families too, as the line was out the door and down the hallway. Several people walked up, asked if I was in line for the iron, laughed at how long the line was and walked away. As I stood there (not moving) I kept checking the time on my phone and started getting nervous about making the show in time. I suppose I could have ironed them after the show instead, but I figured at this point I may as well wait it out. Luckily, the remaining people in front of me must have only needed touch ups as they were super quick and I was ironing my clothes 10 minutes (or so) later.

Once I made it back to our room I ran inside and gave Candi everybody's clothes (reminding him not to put the baby's polo on if he was still snacking/drinking anything) and jumped in the shower real quick. It was an uber speedy shower for time purposes, but man did it feel good, I came out feeling a million times more revitalized and ready to conquer the night!

Knowing that the humidity mixed with the wind wouldn't be kind to my hair I opted to throw it into a ponytail (still mostly wet) and focus on doing my make-up instead. Once we were all spiffed up we headed next door to grab my parents and head to the show.

Unfortunately, when my Mom opened the door I could hear the shower running (my Dad was in there) and her hair was still wet and wrapped in a towel. Uh oh! Either she had heard me incorrectly or I wasn't very clear, but they didn't realize that the show was before dinner and thought they just needed to be ready in time for dinner. My Mom does this thing where when she's really upset (sad) about something she gets flustered and "attitude-ish" which is what she started doing while we were standing there. I really felt in a bind because I felt rude taking off to the show without them, but I really wanted to use tonight to gauge how Cinco would behave in the theatre the rest of the week.

Ultimately, we decided to head to the show. I tried to calm her by letting her know that tonight was more of a variety preview of the shows to come and it was the best one to miss so not to stress out about it. But, if they could make it we would sit near the back so they could find us.

We made it to the show just minutes before it started and grabbed seats as close to the back (and aisle) as we could find. Luckily, there were also a few seats near us that were vacant, so hopefully my parents would be able to sit there if they showed up.

I don't have any pictures as they very clearly stated that you weren't to take photography or video of any kind, so I left my camera in my lap. If I were to confess, I was secretly glad this happened as it kept me from trying to enjoy the show from behind the camera.

This night (as I had told my Mom) wasn't a full-run show. It started with our Cruise Director talking about the week to come, had a short act from Comedians Alfred & Seymour which was pretty funny and had some appearances from Disney characters. James did amazing, ooh'd and aah'd over the characters, clapped when everyone else clapped and laughed at things he didn't even understand just because everyone else was I honestly couldn't have asked for better. I have to admit though, I caught myself looking over my shoulder a lot trying to see if my parents had made it.

A little less than an hour later the show ended and I still didn't see any sign of my parents. We had talked about going back to the room to look for them, but since we had reminded them what time to meet for dinner, decided to go take our pictures instead. I knew if we waited until after dinner either our clothes would be ruined or the baby would be tired/irritable/uncooperative ... or all of the above, yikes!

We easily found one of the picture set-ups for that night and walked right up since there wasn't a line. The set-up we found was for the all white background which I was excited about because it was perfect for the clothes I had picked out. Since the flooring was white as well they asked for us to remove our shoes and then quickly began snapping away. They happily accommodated our request to do family pictures as well as pictures of just James, and even asked to do a picture of just Candi and too. The only thing that made me (kind of) sad was that James didn't want to smile; but I was still happy with a handful of the pictures which is all that matters.

His little baby feet make my heart melt

They had tried to get a shot of James laying on his belly, but he wasn't having it. At that time he had just started walking full-time so he wasn't content to be sitting still, let alone laying down!

While they were doing the last of James' pictures I had seen my parents roaming around so we easily located them once we were all done. It was still a little ways before dinner and I had seen that the statue of Mickey at the helm wasn't crowded so I suggested we all go take pictures there.

Aggghhh, I wish I would have thought to set my camera down

With all the "hoped for" pictures out of the way we made our way towards our restaurant for the night, Animator's Palate. Since we were still early and it was such a beautiful evening we all quickly voted to wait on the deck just outside the restaurant until they started seating people.

It had started to get quite windy

I am so lucky!!!

While talking, we learned that my parents did make it into the show just a few minutes after it started; which left me with a sense of relief!! Soon enough, it was time to get our handy wipes and make our way inside to enjoy some delicious food.

Prior to the cruise I had hoped that we would start our dining rotation at Animator's for two reasons. The first being, I think it is the funnest meal to kick-off the cruise. But, also, because it was the one restaurant I would have been sad to miss on Palo night. I know that it is possible to make requests prior to sailing, but I decided to leave it to chance, and was ecstatic when we got our assignments and I saw this was the rotation we had!

We were lead to our table, on the left side of the restaurant, right by the aisle, a table just for us. Normally, I'm excited to sit with other passengers, but I was glad to be at a table with just my family for this cruise. The table was a four-top, with a highchair on the end for James, and his glass of water had a lid with his name on it. Gotta love the little details!

Within seconds our Assitant Server, Roman, came to introduce himself and take our drink orders. I decided a cherry coke sounded fantastic and everyone else followed suit. Well, except James, who got milk, because Momma said so

At some point in between receiving our drinks and placing our food order James decided he absolutely had to sit by Mom and Dad so I swapped around his highchair and my chair. When our server, Sadhir, came to take our orders he was worried we were upset with the seat placement and asked several times if they should change the seating the remainder of the cruise. We emphasized that we were completely fine with the baby being at the end of the table, that he just wanted to switch seats that night and they could set-up however was easiest for them. I felt bad knowing that he thought we were upset and hoped he believed us that they didn't do anything wrong.

As always, once our orders were taken the food came at a nice, pleasant pace; never a moment were there was a lag in the service. I didn't do food pictures, nor did I keep track of what everyone ordered. But, I can say that everyone enjoyed their choices. Especially Cinco and his chicken noodle soup, he finished his appetizer before any of us, complete with several rounds of "mmmmm's" to accompany his feast

But, as good as the food was, the real reason I was so happy to start in Animator's was for the show

I melt!

As the show came to a close, our Serving team quickly came over to make sure we were satisfied with everything. When we said we were, they wished us well and we started grabbing our belongings to allow them to clean up. As we started to walk away, they frantically stopped us, asked if we would be in Palo the next night, and when we said we both would, required us to stay put for a minute ...

Another Birthday surprise for my Mom!

Our Server and Assistant server on the far left; our Head Server on the far right

Everyone was already stuffed to the gills, so we thanked them for making my Mom feel so special, each took a bite and then waddled out of the dining room and headed to the shops to decide where my souvenir money was going to go this week

Not seeing anything I just had to have and feeling sleepiness set in, I decided to leave my purchases for another day and we all headed up to our rooms.

DVC goodies

A quick face wash and jammies for everyone and then lights out where we all quickly fell into a blissful slumber as we swayed with the gentle rocking of the ocean

 

[LuvEeyore]

Great update!!

 

[sager1969]

What a little cutie! Thanks for sharing. Enjoying your details.

 

[donaldseeyore]

How exciting!! What cruise will you be sailing?

We will be on the Wonder out of Miami the 2nd of Feb It will be the kids first cruise and we decided to take them on the ship that started it all for us....

I am loving your pictures and your family photos turned out so well! I am looking forward to those photo oportunities a lot, also considering the last child child to get a professional photo done was kid #3 LOL

 

[amandaw]

Loved the update!

The family pictures are really nice!

Dinner sounds great! I like that Sorcerer Mickey walked through the restaurant!

 

[Wanna be Ariel]

Just got caught up! I love it. I can't wait to hear about Key West. It is one of fav places to go

 

[SoonerGirl]

So many cute pictures of James in that update! What a little doll he is!

Odd that they told you in the show that NO pictures were allowed, when we cruised last year pictures were allowed as long as you didn't use a flash. Seems like their rules on this change all the time. I notice it in the shows at WDW too, sometimes it's ok and sometimes it's not

 

[ariel1025]

Great update!!

Thanks for continuing to read, even though it's taking me forever

What a little cutie! Thanks for sharing. Enjoying your details.

Thanks so much!

We will be on the Wonder out of Miami the 2nd of Feb It will be the kids first cruise and we decided to take them on the ship that started it all for us....

I am loving your pictures and your family photos turned out so well! I am looking forward to those photo oportunities a lot, also considering the last child child to get a professional photo done was kid #3 LOL

Ahhhh, Disney Wonder! Love her! She started it all for us too

Wow, #3? How many kids do you have?

Loved the update!

The family pictures are really nice!

Dinner sounds great! I like that Sorcerer Mickey walked through the restaurant!

Thank you! Thank you! Dinner really was great. I know a lot of people complain about the ship food, but we have had very, very few complaints ourselves

Just got caught up! I love it. I can't wait to hear about Key West. It is one of fav places to go

Key West, coming up next

So many cute pictures of James in that update! What a little doll he is!

Odd that they told you in the show that NO pictures were allowed, when we cruised last year pictures were allowed as long as you didn't use a flash. Seems like their rules on this change all the time. I notice it in the shows at WDW too, sometimes it's ok and sometimes it's not

Thank you so much

Yeah, in a future show they didn't make the same announcement so I think it most definitely varies. But, I spend so much time behind my camera that it was nice to have no choice but to set it down

 

[ariel1025]

Hey everyone, sorry for the delay. I've been working a lot of extra hours - great for the checking account, sucky for my Dis time In addition, James is cutting his canine teeth, which I'm here to say is 10 times more miserable than molars!! Of course, I guess it doesn't help that he's getting 3 all at once! My poor bubby Now I've been hit with my first head cold of the season. So what better to do when you can't breathe, need a kleenex every 30 seconds and can't keep your eyes from watering? Why, update about Key West and pretend you're there of course

We were awoken slightly earlier than planned when our room phone rang at about 9:15 a.m. It was the Manager from Palo contacting us about a message we had left them the night before. See, when we planned our trip we had asked that our reservations be linked together for dining purposes. We had intended for it to be meant for the main dining rooms. However, I wasn't really clear about that so when we both made Palo reservations (same night, different times) they merged them both together onto the earlier time slot.

Now, I love my parents and they love us, but we were hoping to be dining at Palo separately for several reasons. One, we were celebrating our anniversary and wanted to do that alone. Two, we wanted a later slot so that we had time to feed Cinco dinner at his normal time. Three, my parents were excited to have a romantic, fine dining, dinner together for the first time in years ... alone!

When we got the call from Palo they were very pleasant and understanding and let us know that it was fixed back to the original times no problem. They also apologized for the mix-up. For the record, we weren't upset and didn't blame them, we were just hoping to get it switched back.

After all that was sorted out we decided to just lounge in bed relaxing until our alarm clock went off since James was still snoozing away. In our bed. He had woken up in the middle of the night and we were worried about him waking other people up so instead of encouraging him to go back to sleep in his pack 'n play we just put him to bed with us. Where he fell back asleep instantly.

When the alarm finally did go off, at 9:45, I jumped in the shower and asked Candi to start pulling out everything we needed for the day. This was super easy for him since all Cinco's stuff was in a ziploc marked "key west" and I had hung our clothes in the order I planned on wearing them. Still, it was one less thing to worry about doing when I finished getting ready for the day.

When I got out of the shower Cinco was awake and Candi said he had been crying for me. I went over to ask him what was wrong and he wrapped his arms around me and gave me a big kiss before crawling off to explore. I guess he just wanted his morning snuggles!

Once everybody was ready I went next door to see if my parents wanted to join us for brunch. They weren't quite done getting ready so we agreed to meet in the buffet at 11:00. The buffet was your normal offerings, nothing spectacular, but nothing horrible. We opted to dine inside versus out which totally changes the ambiance thus my liking for the buffet But, it was "free" food and it served it's purpose.

After we had our fill at brunch we headed back down to the room so we could grab our day bag and stroller as I didn't feel like lugging it through the buffet with us earlier. We still had a little time to kill before we could disembark so we relaxed out on the verandah until the announcement came on.

Once we docked it didn't take too long for them to announce the all clear and we were off the ship at around 12:15 p.m.

We had originally planned on buying our excursion tickets prior to leaving, but with the major forecast for rain we decided against it. We weren't choosing a Disney offered excursion and buying beforehand would have saved us about $3 a person. Totally not worth it if we didn't end up doing it though.

So, as we disembarked I told my Dad the name of the company to look out for in case it was hard to find. It was not. In fact it was right on the pier, one of the first stands, on the right side. Old Town Trolley Tours.

This same company is offered through Disney however it is quite a bit more pricey and it doesn't offer hop on/hop off privileges. So, for the first time ever, we purchased our excursion independently.

The guys selling were very nice, not at all pushy, and our transaction was complete in less than 5 minutes. My Dad was ahead of us so I stood behind him and he ended up paying for everyone. Not my intent, but I was thankful nonetheless. With our tickets purchased we got directions to the pick-up spot (Mallory Square, Stop 1) and made our way over there. We weren't sure how long it took to walk over there, or how long it was round trip on the trolley so we slightly hustled with plans of sightseeing near the pier at the end of the day.

Once we found the pick-up point they let us know that the next trolley would be leaving in about 15 minutes and pointed to the right one for us.

With some time to spare we all ducked into a souvenir shop, full of typical touristy stuff - shot glasses, t-shirts etc. I wasn't interested in anything so I made my way back out and saw that the trolley was already filling up so I gathered everyone to board so we wouldn't have to wait for the next one after that.

Pretty much right on schedule the trolley driver loaded up, made the standard safety announcements and we headed off. Our plan was to ride all the way to the Southernmost Point where we would get off and then come back around and hop back off at stops that sounded interesting along the way. We knew there was no way we would have time to do everything so it would become a majority vote what stops we did utilize on the second trip around.

I have to say, I really enjoyed our tour guide we had, she was laid back, funny and full of facts. I'm sure they utilize a script, but it didn't feel like she was just reciting something to us. She was very into her job and you could tell she was comfortable enough with her information to ad lib along the way Between that and the beautiful scenery it was a very enjoyable ride to the first stop we hopped off at.

I thought this was both, humorous and awesome!

Someone was getting very sleepy

One thing I should point out is that it was HOT that day. The trolleys are open air, thus no air conditioning, so without any wind you felt pretty sticky right away. They did pass out those little paper fans to everyone as you were boarding and let me tell you, everyone was using them

Once we made it to the Southernmost Trolley Stop (#10 out of 12) I noticed that Cinco was still fighting his sleep, but more concerning, was looking overheated. We all had water bottles on us that we all utilized, including him, but he just didn't look right and my Momma worry started setting in.

As we made our way down the street and towards our destination I saw a sign for an ice cream shop and knew we needed to make a stop in there

I was hoping a vanilla ice cream and new (ice cold!) bottle of water would help things out. When I reached into my bag to pull out the money to pay I spotted the pedialyte I had brought. Score! Make that two bottles of water please.

The pedialyte I brought was the powder kind in individual packets (like crystal light packs). These were awesome and I would pay the high price for them all over again. Highly recommended if traveling with a little one!

Once I got out of the ice cream shop I knew that James was definitely not feeling well. This boy will eat ice cream all hours of the day and he didn't was refusing every bite I offered. So, instead of heading out to take pictures we all stopped in the shade for a few so I could coerce to take some bites as well as drink some "flavored" water for me ...

 

[Mickcruiser]

Hopping on the ride. I've been a lurker for a while so I made an account. Enjoying your TR.

 

[SoonerGirl]

Glad they got your Palo reservations fixed! Like you, I would have thought that linking them would be for the main dining room only - good to know that is not the case!

Isn't Key West pretty? I've been twice, once on a girl's trip and then again this summer when our cruise ship stopped there. I love it.

You've got me worried about James, hope he feels better once he cools down!

 

[amandaw]

Loving your pictures of Key West. I would really love to go there one day.

Poor little James.....I hope it was nothing serious & that the Pedialyte helped.