The Adventures of Mom's Booty - 10/4 Wonder..... NEW UPDATE 7/7! See Ya Real Soon!

[CRUIZEN MAMMA]

Hi, I've been lurking, enjoyed your last tr as well as this one, not expecting another update on the TR since you should have had the baby 2 days ago - but want a quick update on the baby- how are you and she doing? let us all know and post a picture of your new addition soon

[nenner1]

to our newest

Sarah Elisabeth Fredericks

Born Tuesday May 20, 2008 at 4:19 PM EST in Clearwater, FL
7 pounds, 0.4 ounces, 19 1/2 inches

Sarah is still in the NICU under the phototherapy lights for jaundice. She is doing fine and we are hopeful she can come home in the next couple of days. I am well and out of the hospital but the several times-daily commute back and forth (80 miles round trip) is taking its toll on us. I think she is just spoiled and demands round the clock concierge service.

I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. I actually wrote about one more paragraph of the next installment when I was still in the hospital, hopefully I'll get that done next week, lol!

Happy Memorial Day everyone!

[JDBlair]

Congratulations on your new bundle of joy. She's very precious!! You and your family are deeply blessed.

[RLccweems]

What a sweetie she is....

[taraandmike]

You have a beautiful baby girl! Congratulations!

[disneyfaninaz]

Congratulations. Another new DCL fan comes into the world!!

[CRUIZEN MAMMA]

Originally Posted by nenner1

to our newest

Sarah Elisabeth Fredericks

Born Tuesday May 20, 2008 at 4:19 PM EST in Clearwater, FL
7 pounds, 0.4 ounces, 19 1/2 inches

Sarah is still in the NICU under the phototherapy lights for jaundice. She is doing fine and we are hopeful she can come home in the next couple of days. I am well and out of the hospital but the several times-daily commute back and forth (80 miles round trip) is taking its toll on us. I think she is just spoiled and demands round the clock concierge service.

I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. I actually wrote about one more paragraph of the next installment when I was still in the hospital, hopefully I'll get that done next week, lol!

Happy Memorial Day everyone!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!

Sarah looks as though she is preparing for a day of sunbathing at Castaway Cay!!!

[PiratePug]

Congratulations Jen!!! Your daughter looks precious.

I just returned from my Wonder cruise tonight and had to log on to tell you thank you so much for your helpful information about Atlantis and getting to the Tortuga Rum Factory. Every thing you said was spot on. I'm so grateful I had your notes to read and plan ahead before we did the aquaventure excursion.

Thanks again and CONGRATULATIONS!!!

[PerTrainer]

Originally Posted by PiratePug

Congratulations Jen!!! Your daughter looks precious.

I just returned from my Wonder cruise tonight and had to log on to tell you thank you so much for your helpful information about Atlantis and getting to the Tortuga Rum Factory. Every thing you said was spot on. I'm so grateful I had your notes to read and plan ahead before we did the aquaventure excursion.

Thanks again and CONGRATULATIONS!!!

I notice that you just returned from a trip on the Wonder. I am going to cruise for the first time in Sept. on the Wonder. I was wondering if you knew anything about the banana boat excursion being cancelled? If so, is it a temporary thing. Also, will you be posting a trip report?

[nenner1]

Originally Posted by PiratePug

Congratulations Jen!!! Your daughter looks precious.

I just returned from my Wonder cruise tonight and had to log on to tell you thank you so much for your helpful information about Atlantis and getting to the Tortuga Rum Factory. Every thing you said was spot on. I'm so grateful I had your notes to read and plan ahead before we did the aquaventure excursion.

Thanks again and CONGRATULATIONS!!!

You are so welcome!!! I'm glad I was able to help!! Sorry I didn't get the CC segment up in time to help you.....it is coming soon! Glad you had a great time!!!

Originally Posted by PerTrainer

I notice that you just returned from a trip on the Wonder. I am going to cruise for the first time in Sept. on the Wonder. I was wondering if you knew anything about the banana boat excursion being cancelled? If so, is it a temporary thing. Also, will you be posting a trip report?

I saw that post on the main forum...wow we are so upset. We were planning on doing the banana boat again on our next cruise, especially since now Brendan is old enough to ride. What a bummer. I really hope they manage to find another operator to run this excursion, especially now that I know that people are *supposed* to fall off the boat!!! It's a shame....

[PiratePug]

Originally Posted by PerTrainer

I notice that you just returned from a trip on the Wonder. I am going to cruise for the first time in Sept. on the Wonder. I was wondering if you knew anything about the banana boat excursion being cancelled? If so, is it a temporary thing. Also, will you be posting a trip report?

I just read the posts on that, too. I'm sorry I don't know anything about why it's been cancelled. I saw people riding the banana boat while we were at Castaway Cay and I thought it looked like a lot of fun.

I will definitely be posting a trip report, hopefully at least the beginning by this Sunday. This was a fantabulous trip - the best vacation I've ever had!! Lots of wonderful surprises along the way, exquisite service, beautiful weather...and I met so many lovely people. Stay tuned...

[nenner1]

After another good night’s sleep, dawn broke on another clear, beautiful morning.



What is even better than that gorgeous sunrise? Well…..THIS






Land Ho, mateys! We hurried to get ourselves presentable. (It’s a beach after all, I can get away with not doing my hair or putting on any makeup right?) We all threw on swimsuits and cover-ups and I gathered all the beach goodies. Meanwhile, the kids proudly showed off the flubber they created last night:



It still seemed fairly early to me (it was eight-something) when we headed up to BBB for the beef breakfast buffet (loooove that bacon and sausage!). The place does not seem too busy, we walked right into the serving line and fairly easily found an indoor table. I was a bit surprised…where was everyone? (We. Would. Soon. Find. Out.)



Any Dis’er knows that in order to procure a nice family beach spot on CC, you have to get out there early. To me, we did not seem any earlier debarking than we did on our last cruise…but when we went down to deck 1 to debark….there was a huge line. It took a few minutes to get past the throngs lingering around the gangway and get out on the island. And then of course I had to stop and get my pic at the Post Office, the one I wish I worked at:



That having been done, we saw a tram approaching and decided that last time we had missed the “Disney Experience” by walking to the beach instead of riding the tram. And since Captain Jack wasn’t due out til 10 am (still have not managed to make the elusive Cap’n Jack photo op) we figured why not ride. There is a very Disney-typical spiel on the tram. I had to video it (the file is too large to upload….sorry!) As we jumped off the tram, the kids spotted some sort of neat chameleon/iguana/lizard/reptile-ish thing in the bushes. I was loudly paged over to the strange-color-changing-reptile viewing area to photograph it, and sadly he/she/it scampered away as I approached. Oh well. No flash photography on the wildlife please…hee hee hee.



We headed over to the beach to grab a chair with an umbrella, and were ecstatic to discover that since our previous cruise last March (ahem….’07) that Disney had added many new hammocks out with the beach chairs all along the beach! Last time we had been there, there were only a handful of hammocks and they were located at the extreme ends of the beach or high up towards Cookies/the shops. Now there were many hammocks on banana frames right out at the chair line. (Or what the chair lines are that early in the morning, before everyone has dragged theirs down into the waterl!) So we skip-a-dee-dooh-dah’ed down the beach in search of an open one to chill in….but they were all already taken. Bummer. In fact the beach was pretty darn full for before 9 AM. All of the umbrellas centrally located on the family beach (by Cookie’s) were already taken too. So I found one further down by the play area. After I set everything up, Ron came by and said there are still a few empty hammocks at the faaaar end of the beach near the snorkeling area. While the location left a little to be desired, we had no excursions or plans for the day…just to chill out on the beach, so a hammock would be a good thing to have. We picked up camp and relocated back down to the other end. Sure enough there were still a few hammocks over there, and umbrellas, plus there was plenty of shade. It turned out to be a nice spot.

<<Con't in Next Post>>

[nenner1]

And so it was finally play time!!!










(Thanks to the nice lady who took this pic....I guess she knew how much I *really* wanted to be in it... )





The obligatory “feet pic”:




I could not believe how busy the beach seemed this time around. Don’t know if it was the uninformed 3 night cruise clientele (less repeat cruisers and Castaway Club members, plus less Dis’ers), or the gorgeous weather, or our location right at the beginning of the beach, or what but we saw many, many parties stumbling around looking for beach chairs. I don’t know if they were just picky (wanted/needed a hammock or umbrella or what-have-you), but it just seemed like there were too many families looking for a chair. All of the chairs around us and as far as we could see filled up pretty early, like well before eleven.




Before too long I headed out to take a swim. In March the water seemed so cold, I could hardly enjoy it, so I was really looking forward to the WARM summer bath water. Eh. Nope. It was still cold. How in the world this shallow water in the baking early Oct. heat could still be so brisk is beyond me. So I took a short dip and headed back to the warmth of the hammock. Ron and the kids headed out to snorkel.

A Konk Kooler made it my way, and it was heavenly. I found myself napping in the breeze in paradise. Ahhhh.

Before I knew it, Brendan was running up to me screaming at me to follow him. Ron was right behind him yelling to hurry up. What in the world was going on? A fire? So I jumped up and stumbled after them. I hadn’t even stopped to wonder where Savannah was. We approached the pavilion near Cookie’s, and there she was…in a circle with other kids wearing a curious hat…


(sorry, not a great pic, I know. Things were beginning as I approached) And this thing I speak of was…the Castaway Cay hermit crab race FINALS! How exciting! I guess how this goes is kids who want to play get assigned a number and get to wear a cute crab hat and their numbers correspond to a particular crab (Savannah’s was #4). If their crab is the first one to the outer ring, well….they win! You had to be there? Okay, here’s the video!




So…she didn’t win, but it was still pretty exciting. I figured since we were up (since I was up…out of the hammock, lol) we might as well grab lunch at Cookie’s before it got nutty. Isn’t it funny how, just like the ticket booths at the park, all the traffic goes to the center lines, and the ones on the end were empty. We headed to the empty left hand (end) line for our grub. I don’t know what Ron had to eat…probably one of everything. Last time I had the blackened fish sandwich – which would have been wonderful had it not been for the generous amount of mayo slathered all over every sandwich (they are pre-assembled). I *hate* mayo. So this time I just grabbed two plain hot dogs. Nice and charred, just the way I like ‘em. I also grabbed a bunch of cole slaw forgetting it has pineapple in it, which I don’t like (not in my slaw anyway, I’ll take it in a foo-foo alcoholic drink any day). Probably some corn, and a piece of the apple bread and a cookie for sure. Here’s what the kids had:




I enjoyed the food more this time. The dogs were good. The only issue I had was there were CM’s staffing the drink station again. Does this mean there was an illness outbreak? It never makes much sense, b/c noone was there earlier in the day and nobody was there later, just at the lunch rush, which totally does not help the traffic flow. And I don’t get my tea the way I like it. Meh. But I am so on Castaway Cay right now, do I seriously have a right to complain??? We left plenty of room for our fave dessert, which was awesome as always:




A hidden cookie dough Mickey:



We headed back out to the beach for a little while. It was blistering hot and a lovely CM happened by to refill our KK’s. We also asked for a few waters and this fast talker sold us on a DCL soft sided cooler filled with like 10 waters and ice for $20.00. Actually it was a nice cooler, larger than the average lunchbox style one yet not too bulky and cumbersome. And, though not free, it was nice to have the convenience of having an ice cold bottle of water at arms reach.

We hung out on the beach for a couple of hours longer….til I had enough of the heat.
How wonderful is this beach???





Finally we decided to head back onboard. The kids wanted to hit the Mickey Pool, we had to stop by Shutters, the Reservation Desk, and maybe catch the Disney Dreams Matinee and later Bingo. It was to be a busy evening.

We hitched the tram back and as we approached the ship again marveled at how the near gangway had a line about 200 people long and the gangway at the far end of the ship had maybe 20 people queued up. As we strolled over to the short line, we caught a glimpse of this rat trying to stow away:







Still to come: The last hurrah (The 3-night cruise is way too short!) And this TR took way too long!!!

[PerTrainer]

I have so looked forward to your CC section! I hope you and the baby are doing well and happy!!!
I do have a question though.....how do you assure the safety of your things while you are on CC? I have been wondering about this for some time. I do not want any of our things taken while we are enjoying the island.

[disneygirl1972]

Jen- would you happen to have a picture of the cooler?