"I never used to miss the chance to climb up on his knee
and listen to the many tales of life upon the sea
We'd go sailing back on Barcantines,
and talk of things we did
The world was just a day away
for the Captain and the kid"
When we left off last, I was face down on the bed. When the kids & Ron returned from the pool, I woke up in a panic. We only had a short time to get ready for the show & dinner
and it was Pirate night
and Lifestyle Portrait night
.So much to do, so little time.
There was lots of flustered scrambling about. In fact we had no choice but to double team the shub. Girls first, then boys. TWO people in one shub! Amazing!
Brendan was the only one who had a pirate costume. He had been one for Halloween last year. It was kind of an improvised thing, the top half was the Captain Jack costume from Target, the rest of it we just threw together. It was pretty cute, though. Problem was, he had gone through a pretty big growth spurt between October and March, and now it didnt quite fit. I thought it was so bad I questioned whether or not he should even wear it. Rons reply? Hes a PIRATE. Its fine. Besides didnt Captain Jack have his belly showing? Hmmm. Not this much, I certainly would have noticed! Ha!
Once again, we had to rush down to the Walt Disney Theater for the show. We were a little earlier than last night, but still late enough to have difficulty locating seats. Somehow, once again four seats magically appeared before our eyes and we rushed over to grab them. Yet again on the aisle, this time over to the right side of the theater. We scooted over there, and I was careful to not step on anyone this time. Tonights show was magician and illusionist Mike Super. The kids, especially Brendan, just LOVE magicians, and they were anxiously looking forward to it. Mike Super was very entertaining. The show was not cheesy, and all ages really enjoyed it. The illusions were pretty neat and involved audience participation. For instance, one audience member was levitated four feet above the ground. I dont know how he did it, it was really cool and looked real (there was no evidence of wires or anything like that). He also made predictions about what random audience members were going to tell him, which made up a cute vacation story. The predictions were locked in a box that hung in the audiences full view the entire show (it was one guys job to watch the box for the duration of the show for any evidence of tampering!). Then Mike threw a ball around in the audience and each person told him a word and when the box was opened, all of the words were magically on the paper inside it. At the end he produced snow from his bare hands. If I had to pick one word to describe this show, it was neato. I highly recommend if you are anywhere you can catch a Mike Super performance, dont hesitate! Hes fantastic!
After the show, we made our usual and planned stop in the atrium for photos. Tonight was the lifestyle portraits, the white background. I had made an effort in our pre-cruise planning to have all of our outfits match tonally, so our photos would look great no matter what night they were done. Pirate night, however
.? It just didnt work out. We didnt clash terribly; we just didnt match as well as I had planned. Savannah had switched dresses; Brendan was in his pirate getup. It wasnt the best night for the white backdrop but we didnt have much choice. The line took a bit longer, as the photographer was taking many shots of each subject. When it was our turn we also got a barrage of poses, most of which we bought. They did come out pretty decent: (If you look close at my arm, you can see my two-tone sunburn!)
Over on the other side of the atrium and down on deck 3, the sunset backdrop was set up. I have to say that this is my absolute favorite of all the backdrops. Something about that melting Mickey sun! We got some very nice shots done over there.
Then we happened upon Snow White, and she had no line at all. Woo-hoo! And then we had another picture we had to buy.
After that, we wandered about the lobby a bit. I know we separated for a short while, but I cant remember why. It was during that time, I spotted Captain Henry mingling with the guests over by guest services. I wanted to get a picture of the kids with him, but I had to wait around for Ron & Brendan to get back. When they finally did, we got lucky, Captain Henry was all alone, so we bum rushed him for a quick photo.
Unfortunately, Captain Henry- who btw was so friendly and polite- made the mistake of asking the kids if they found any treasure out on CC earlier in the day. OMG. Brendan spouted out a second to second play-by-play of the events that occurred at the little archaeological dig out in the OC. He was talking about bones, treasure, digging...oh my goodness. He didnt even stop to breathe; he was so excited to be telling the Captain about his adventures! Finally I had no choice but to cut Brendan off, he could have gone on all night. We bid good evening to Captain Henry, who Im sure was happy to finally escape!
By then it was time for our dinner seating. Well, actually past time, again. Tonight was Pirates in the Caribbean dinner in Parrot Cay.
We arrived a bit late again, which is just as well. Who wants to wait in that big line anyway? As we came in, we were shown to our table since we had been in Palo the night before. (This was the 2nd night at PC in our rotation APPT) I have to say I like the way they do the repeated restaurant and Pirate night on the 3rd night. It works out really well on the 4 night cruise.
We noticed when we sat down that all of the servers had on cool Pirate outfits. It really made the atmosphere. I think PC is the best restaurant to be in on Pirate night, too. It just makes it seem that much more authentic. We put on our pirate bandannas and got ready for a great meal. We noticed not a whole lot of folks had dressed up in pirate wear. Or should I say, had dressed down. The ones that had were in matching POTC T-shirts and shorts. It sure would have been nice to go a little casual one night, in retrospect. This was the only night we saw shorts in the dining room, though
and not many of them at that. Simona came by and brought bread, and got our drink order. She did not remember our preferences, but I am not surprised by that on the 3 and 4 night cruises. It must be difficult with such a turnaround. Tonight, she left the bread basket on the table and it had a whole lot of crusty Cuban rolls in it. There was a thing going on where you could get a souvenir glass (actually a plastic tumbler) that lights up all different neon colors. It cost $3.50 with a purchase of a drink (meaning the alcoholic or specialty variety). Brendan was getting a vanilla smoothie anyway, so I told her to go ahead and bring it in the flashing cup. The kids liked it. Ron was surprised, he didnt know it cost $3.50, he thought it was like 99 cents. Oooooops! Here is a picture; you can see one of them on the table in the background, lit up in blue.
With the silly indulgences aside, it was time to get down to business, and by that I mean food. For appetizers, Ron had the Blackbeards Crab Cake. Im not too big on crab, but I tried a bite and it was good. I had the sun-ripened pineapple, which is just a pineapple wedge with a citrus and banana syrup on it sprinkled with coconut. It was a great starter, light and tasty. The kids asked JoJo for watermelon, and even though it was not readily available this evening he tracked it down. They didnt even end up eating hardly any of it, but we remembered his effort when filling out the tip sheet.
About this time the Shutters photographer happened by to memorialize the pirate festivities for us. The group shots were good, and the package is upgraded yet again.
Ron asked me later why I messed up this great shot with my Arrrr sneer. Because it was supposed to be a pirate pose, duh
(Thats a Captain Hook Savannah is doing, isnt she cute?) Of course Im buying it, too.
Time for the next course, soups & salads. Not surprisingly we again ordered the same thing, Hideaway Bay Salad. It was pretty good. I didnt eat all of it, like I had the one at Animators. And I dont know why it is that I keep forgetting to wait to dig in until Simona comes by with the pepper! I was used to regular restaurants, how they serve the salad and grind the pepper at the same time. Here, all the salads are served, and then the assistant goes from table to table with the pepper. We were inevitably last and I already had a good bit of it gone by the time the pepper arrived. Oh well. As far as the salad goes, the jerk croutons and the fresh shaved parmesan are really good. I cant recall what kind of dressing was on it, if any. Next time I think Ill try the chilled honeydew & mango soup!
JoJo stopped by and we got some pictures of him with the kids. You might notice Brendans face is a little flushed. We didnt notice it at the time, and later we were really wishing we did. Oh, but Im getting ahead of myself.
The main course was on its way. Ron & I both had to ask for drink refills. They took a while to get, too. We didnt know at the time that the assistant servers had to go all the way down to the galley for drinks. Would it be that hard for Disney to put at least one soda dispenser in each restaurant? Gosh. It makes it so hard on the servers. At least there is always water available, even though it has a bit of a funny taste. We had also finished the bread. I, for one was filling up already.
Now, I had checked out all the menus online prior to sailing, and aside from Palo, the one I was most looking forward to was Pirate Night. I had eaten a fantastic Macadamia crusted mahi mahi at Bonefish Grill not too long ago, and when I saw the same thing on the Pirate Menu I pretty much decided thats what I would have. For some reason though, this night I just wasnt in the mood, even though I had planned on it for months. Dont ask me why. Instead I was drawn to the Pirate Island spiced chicken breast. Ron decided to get the mahi mahi, so we could split if I changed my mind. I didnt though. A full breast of chicken, bone in rubbed with jerk-like island spices came atop a pile of red beans and rice with whole fried okra. Now the okra isnt southern fried little nuggets, like I am used to, it was whole okra pieces only lightly dusted. Still good. The chicken was great and the red beans and rice rocked the house. I ate them all. I didnt finish the chicken because it was a huge breast. Ron had some though. I tried a small bite of the fish and I was glad I had the last minute change of heart. It was bland, and the macadamia crust was soggy. He wasnt impressed, either. The kids both had cheeseburgers. Savannah barely ate anything, as usual. Brendan ate the whole burger. And a lot of fries too. And dont forget a bunch of bread. And vanilla smoothie. (You SO know where I am going with this, dont you?)
My favorite part of the meal was next, and although I was very full I still had room for some Walk the Plank triple chocolate cake (and licked every crumb off my plate). Ron selected the Lost Banana Treasure, and his luck had not improved. It was basically one half of a banana, split, with some caramel sauce. It was supposed to be served flambé (or more accurately the flambé was to be done by the head server) but we did not see much (if any?) of Jeff that night. I did watch around and saw there were no flaming desserts anywhere in the dining room that night, so it wasnt just him. He was still disappointed. The kids, as you have probably figured had their usual:
There would be no plates of "nothing" on our cruise!
Simona came by and asked Brendan and Savannah if they would get up and dance with her after dinner. This was our first cruise so we werent exactly sure what that entailed. We werent in suspense long. Savannah was being shy, as she thought it would just be them & Simona in front of everyone. Come to find out, it is a huge conga line & limbo through the dining room set to loud festive island tunes. Too cool! All the kids were up participating (and some adults snuck in too). Lucky for us, the limbo bar was set up right by our table, so we had the best seats in the house. We saw the kids go by the fist time, still right with Simona. As they approached the second time, I was waiting with the camera, ready to snap a picture. I saw Savannah, and snapped a photo of her
but where was Brendan? I scanned the line quickly but by then Ron said Uh oh and had hopped up from the table. I followed his line of sight up the middle aisle of the restaurant, there was Brendan, barfing right into the conga line!
Oh the horrors!!
Simona was right there one hand on his back, trying to direct the stumbling congo-ers around the ummm
mess. It caused a bit of a chain reaction behind them. Nobody fell; they all just sort of smashed into the back of one another. Ron scooped Brendan up and hauled him quickly off to the restroom. I felt terrible for the family sitting at the table right there. Fortunately for them, dinner was pretty much over and they could-and did- get out of there in a hurry. But what happened in the meantime was more of that Disney magic! As if choreographed, a group of servers descended on the vomit like vultures on prey and lickety-split had it cordoned off and covered with a tent made of three chairs and a tablecloth! I was impressed. I am just thankful they did not bring out the pink absorbent puke granule stuff, like they sprinkle on it in elementary school! (I did see some of that the next day out on deck by the Mickey pool!)
Savannah and I waited a few minutes and then I settled our check. We met the boys outside the bathroom and dragged back up to the room to clean up. Ron said the CMs were all asking our room number and we hoped we would not be quarantined. In fact, it was no virus. Brendan had just eaten too much bread. This had happened twice in the past month at other restaurants. (We were not quarantined, or anything. Nothing ever became of it)
Waiting for us back in our home away from home was our new pre-Easter bunny friend chilling out with some chocolate-mint-gold-coin-booty on the bottom bunk!
The kids almost immediately passed out. They were exhausted and with Brendan not feeling good, I wasnt too surprised. Before they had even gotten undressed we had asked them if they wanted to see the deck party and the fireworks and the said no. They were so tired. Ron went for a drink run, and he came back gushing about the dessert buffet. He offered to go grab me something, but I too was so tired and full, I wasnt even interested. Imagine that. That is true fatigue, folks.
And another magical day was over.
Sounds like we'll have some really really good people on board with us. If you haven't checked out that forum, I highly recommend it! We cruisers are already planning games to play with eachothers room doors, kids to connect with one another prior to the cruise so they have some familiar new friends when they go to their exclusive camp activities, pulling together school supply donations to schools of the kids in the country well be visiting, planning high tea and brunch dates with one another, and so much more (did I mention drinks?) 
I was on the boards last week and I noticed my ticker and I started yelling, my husband was wondering what I was screaming at, he thought I got hurt or something. No......it was just my ticker went down from 17 months to 16! HA! LOLLLLL!
Two more!!
) . Somehow we arose early that day and had about 45 minutes to kill before breakfast. We discussed it and overwhelmingly decided to head up to BBB instead. Next cruise I will definitely try one of the sit down breakfasts, from what I’ve read the food is much better than the usual buffet fare (which was exactly the same every single day). We headed up expecting to find long lines and were pleasantly surprised to find BBB the slowest we had encountered yet! We grabbed our trays and food and actually found a big booth inside the restaurant! Shocking, I know. I’m pretty sure we all just ate the usual, Mickey waffles, bacon, sausage, and biscuits. I think Ron got an omelet, as he tended to do daily. The orange juice was predictably watery. And a little tidbit: the soda dispensers in BBB do not have iced tea in them. So if you want tea, you have to go to the drink station to get it. Or wait….is it ice they don’t have? One or the other. I don’t recall for sure except that something was not right!! 
As we turned to the gangways we saw the big banner that says “See Ya Real Soon” and there was the CM waving goodbye to us with his big white hands! 
Once you disembark the ship, you make a sharp right hand turn and go down an escalator into what I can only describe as the bowels of the terminal. As soon as your feet touch the concrete floor, a porter is there asking who needs help, but we declined for the time being as we wanted to get our bearings and find our bags first. The luggage room is a huge, cavernous and warehouse-like. No fancy art-deco touches down here! There are lines of luggage every way you turn, but we quickly and easily found the Orange Goofy area. I began pulling out our bags. They told us on the debarkation talk that they try to line the bags up in order by room, but none of our section was in order. All of the bags were easy to find, though and by the time Ron had retrieved another porter, I had gathered all nine, yep- still nine, of them. Our friendly porter loaded up our massive pile of bags on his cart. I was afraid they would not all fit, but he managed to get them stacked on there, with the very last suitcase balanced precariously on top! He then carted the load through the baggage area to the customs area, which looked the same except for the long lines of people, people with luggage, and people with porters with carts of luggage. Amazingly enough, the lines moved fairly well, and our porter had guided us into the shortest and quickest moving one. When you finally approach the podium with the customs official, you just hand over your declarations and they ask you questions like do you have food items or vegetation in your luggage. I said no, with the exception of massive amounts of rum cake. He smiled and waved us on our way. That was simple!! No inspections, nothing. I could have easily smuggled back the booze (or even the leftover cookies!) back in my bag… Darn! With that done, we exited the terminal and headed off across the street to the car. Our friendly helper porter guy unloaded his massive load and we handed him an appropriately sized tip. Ron commented on how much money was to be made being a porter for just a few hours on Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. And we loaded the trunk and headed home. Traffic was light and we were tired and excited, sad and happy, fat and- well, fat…all at once. By 11:30 am, we were home. 
