Villainous Voyage - May 20th, 2006 7-night Western Caribbean **Completed, No Lie**

[RoyalVizier]

Cast of Characters
Ward - that's me
Cheri - the lovely wife
Sadie - the lovely 13 year old daughter

Thursday May 25th – Day 6 Part 1: A Wrinkle in Time and the Ship’s Scar

There comes a time in all family vacations where things just go a wee bit wrong causing angst among the travel party. In family and group dynamics it’s bound to happen, right? Circumstance and decisions turn against you. Well this morning was our morning…

I woke up at 8am (wow… really slept in this morning), got my shower, got dressed, grabbed the Personal Navigator and went up top for my morning routine. This morning we were scheduled for our Character Breakfast in Parrot Cay at 10am and I decided that I was really starving already. I decided to go through the line at Topsiders (still no ham and cheese) and got a few things to act as a breakfast appetizer. I sat up on deck eating and looking at the Navigator. It was a gorgeous morning and I was enjoying my appetizers. I noticed on the Navigator that Shutters opened at 10am and the ship’s stores opened at 9am. It was just a few minutes to 9am so I decided to head down to the stores to take a quick look around before going back to the room to get the girls up for breakfast. I took the elevators down to deck 4 and made my way forward by way of Shutters. When I got to Shutters, I was very surprised to find them open! The Navigator said that they didn’t open until 10am and it was only 9am. I guessed that they just decided to open early. So I stopped there and looked for our Pirate pictures from last night. We had one taken with Pirate Minnie in the atrium and one in Lumiere’s. I found them and liked them but decided to leave them there and purchase them at a later time.

So I ran into the stores quickly and then went back to the room. By now it was about 9:30am. I walked into a bustle of activity. The hairdryer was going and Sadie was running around finding clothes and shoes. I was glad that they were already up. But then my wife poked her head out of the bathroom and said, “Well? Did you figure it out?” Figure what out? What was she talking about? She said, “The clocks.” Now… have you all seen Finding Nemo? You know at the end where Marlin, thinking that Nemo has died, leaves Dory to go back home. And then Nemo comes up to Dory asking if she’s seen his dad. Then, when she finally realizes who he is, her eyes grow wide as her entire life (P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way Sydney) flashes before her eyes in a quick progression in a blur of epiphany. Yeah, I experienced that right at that moment. My eyes widened and behind my eyelids I saw flashes of Head Server Ronald telling us last night to turn our clocks ahead. Then time flew. It was suddenly no longer 9:30, but it was 10:30am.

Now, the problem was not really that Cheri and Sadie were mad that we were very late for breakfast. It was that Cheri thought that this breakfast was very very important to me and that I wanted to go more than anything. Well I did want to go and yes, I was looking forward to it, but it really wasn’t a big deal. I was having a great time and I had seen the characters all week so it really was okay. She asked me if I still wanted to go and I said no that we could just skip it. Well, she said she was okay with that, but then everything changed. She told me that when she realized that we had forgotten to move the clocks ahead she came up top to look all over for me and couldn’t find me anywhere. And then her and Sadie were rushing around getting ready and now I didn’t want to go. And Sadie couldn’t have cared less. So she didn’t mind either way. When things like this happen in my family, things get weird and awkward. We just kinda get sort of quite. It’s hard to describe but just know that the next couple of hours were sorta awkward until later when the ice melted and all was good again.

Okay, enough doom and gloom… on with the show. At about noon Sadie left us and Cheri and I went to the pool. We sat in the pool for a while and got in the hot tub. I lounged around on deck some. Pretty much just lazed about. Then we went to Topsiders for lunch and discovered it was an Oriental buffet that in all honesty didn’t look very good. Well guess what? As we were turning to walk away I noticed that the entrance to the left side of the buffet line had a sign reading Kids Buffet. Oh hallelujah! How could I have been on this ship for six days and not realized that there was a kid’s side? So we went down that side getting chicken fingers, and hot dogs and French fries, spaghetti… it was superb!

Next, Cheri went back to the room and I went up to Palo for the Art of the Theme Show Ship Tour. I would highly recommend participating in this tour for anyone interesting in trivia and more information about the ship. Jeremy from the cruise entertainment staff was our guide and he pretty much took us all over the ship on all decks pointing out details and telling us stories. Here is just a brief rundown of some of the things I remember:

• There are 120+ different types of carpet on board. Most cruise ships average 10 - 12 styles.
  
• There are 20 lifeboats numbered 1 – 21. There is no #13.
  
• If you look closely at the tables in Studio Sea you’ll see the names of Imagineers.
  
• The ceiling of deck 5 is shorter than any other deck because that is a child-focused deck. They wanted to make the children feel taller.
  
• The large paint brushes in Animator’s Palate have the #6 on them. The #6 brush was Walt Disney’s favorite.
  
• As most probably know, the ship was assembled in two peices then welded together. Jeremy took us out onto the deck 4 promenade to see the ship's scar where the two peices came together. Very cool.
  
• And the best for last… the ship has wings!! Remember I know not a thing about ships, but I had no idea about STABILIZERS! There are these trap doors underneath lifeboat 11 way at the bottom of the ship and these “wings” extend out 30 feet when the seas are rough to help with the movement. WOW! I had no idea!

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