After a very enjoyable morning and afternoon on Castaway Cay, we headed back onboard to take care of some undesirable but necessary business-packing.
The clouds that had swiftly moved in had appeared ominous at first, but after a light sprinkling of rain they faded to just a gentle overcast. After Sarah was changed, fed, and put down for a nap the dirty work began. I took one Room and Ron the other and somehow we managed to get mostly everything packed up. We had a few more carry-off bags than we carried on, but that wasn’t really unexpected. More than one suitcase was sat upon and I believe we split at least one zipper. But we got it all done.
On the kids’ door we found a Disney bag hanging from the fish and wondered what in the world that could be. When we opened it, we were delighted to find a special keepsake for Sarah from her first cruise: a footprint cast made of her foot and a nice letter signed by the Flounder’s staff. What a nice touch!!
Ron and the kids headed up for one more swim in the pools and I took a nap. Instead of catching the Remember the Magic show, we decided to just enjoy the ship a little bit longer. We were surprised to see the photographers out still so we decided to get one last set taken of the kids. We thought that meant we would have to brave Shutters in the morning but we were told the pictures would be up in a couple of hours!
They did come out well, too:
Afterwards we headed to our last dinner onboard, in Lumiere’s. As always we were greeted warmly by Jakub and Candice. Tonight featured the 'Til We Meet Again menu, and it was my favorite meal the entire cruise!
Sarah liked hers too:
For an appetizer I chose the spinach, artichoke and jalapeno cheese dip with pita chips. It was bubbly warm and very good. Ron chose the chilled seafood medley of shrimp cocktail, smoked tuna, and scallops which he does not remember anything about. For salads, I had the bib lettuce with watercress dressing which was good and Ron had the Romaine salad with artichoke chips, and he doesn’t remember that either!
Tonight was the night of sad goodbyes to all of our new friends and as they stopped by the table to bid their farewells, we were both sad it was over and happy to have gained such wonderful friendships!
Before you know it the entrees were served. Minnie’s Mini Burgers one last time for the kids and Ron and I both selected the beef tenderloin with asparagus and potatoes William. The steaks were delicious, moist and tender, cooked to perfection (well done!). But the crown jewel of the meal, far and away was the potatoes William. Mashed potatoes shaped into a pear, encrusted and deep fried; they were outstanding!! Better than dessert! (Ok, almost).
Speaking of dessert, being the last night Ron and I splurged and chose 2 desserts each. I chose the much famed Celebration Cake and of course Baked Alaska. The Celebration Cake was cheesecake layered with vanilla cake, and was creamy and delicious, albeit a bit heavy on the strawberries. The Baked Alaska which is meringue coated iced cream, was also good although sadly it did not come out aflame. Why I did not choose the Chocolate Decadence I don’t know, although Ron gave me a bite of his and it was indeed decadent. He also got the Baked Alaska. Savannah got a last Mickey Bar, and Brendan decided on the Chocolate Decadence.
Enjoying their desserts:
After the big show in the dining room, we bid farewell to Jakub, Candice, and Fitz. We weren’t planning on doing the sit down breakfast in the morning so we took care of distributing the tip envelopes and said goodbye. What a wonderful serving team, I hope to see them again in the future!
After one more round of goodbyes to our new friends and cruise mates, we headed up to deck 9 for drinks. The pools were virtually abandoned and looked sad. Or maybe that was just us that was sad. The last night will do that to you, ya know…
Back down in our staterooms, the kids plopped in our bed to watch some Drake & Josh and Suite Life with Zack & Cody. I got Sarah in her PJ’s, fed, and to bed. As soon as she was asleep, Brendan watched her while Ron and I ran down to Shutters to close out our package. We had only grabbed about 2 photos of the package so far so we still had plenty of pictures available. I brought the folder and everything and we collected all of our pictures and headed out to find a corner to sit on the floor and sort through all the shots. It wasn’t very easy to narrow it down, since I had stuck to my promise to only get the smallest package. Once we had it narrowed down, we discovered that we didn’t have the card where it was marked off how many pics we had already bought. Ron went back upstairs to find the card and I made the final selections. Drea and Tonya came through and reminded me I should be taking pictures OF my pictures so in a way I would still *have* them all, but of course we didn’t have the camera. Ron came back saying he could not find the card. I wasn’t too worried since I knew they could see what package we had bought in the computer and I had brought all the pictures with me. Up at the register, however they insisted we needed the card and I began to really worry. What if I had accidentally packed it? Our luggage was already gone. Luckily he did find it on the floor between the nightstand and the bed and so we breathed a huge sigh of relief and headed up past the now quiet atrium to our room.
We got Brendan and Savannah situated in their beds. Their towel buddy tonight was this cute little guy who made the journey home with us:
We had an adorable puppy in our room, by the way:
Before you know it we were asleep, and then awake again to the soft lights of Port Canaveral. We got cleaned up, bags packed and headed down to the atrium to debark.
The saddest pictures of all (almost):
We skipped breakfast since the kids and Ron had football games to get to and we had just enough time to comfortably get home, get changed, and then off to the field. But when we got in the terminal, they had blocked off the escalators and all of the passengers were backing up in the hall. We had to wait a short time, between 5 and 10 minutes before we were let downstairs to the luggage bay. We discovered this was to let customs clear out a little.
We got a porter and gathered our mounds of luggage with no problem. The customs lines were still long but did move fairly quickly. When we got up to the front I provided all of our birth certificates and photo ID’s (I am the only one with a passport). The customs agent asked to see my passport. Uh oh. I had misplaced it somewhere in Mexico (and although I was sure we had it somewhere since I used it to get back on the boat that night, I had no idea where it might be now!!) Now I was pretty sure they weren’t going to let me out until I looked through all nearly 20 pieces of luggage for it, but luckily the customs agent just had me verify a million questions and then let us pass (thank you friendly customs man!)
I didn’t know it yet, but a much worse surprise was in store when we got to the van:
Yep. A flat. So we dumped all the luggage in the median and surrounding parking lot and Ron prepared to change the tire…except it wasn’t in the back compartment (which we don't really have since we have stow-n-go seats), or under the tailgate……it was in a locked up case underneath the middle of the vehicle! There was a crow bar type tool and no instructions on how to use it to get to the spare. After about 20 minutes of us lying on the ground trying to figure it out, we gave up and called AAA. (That’s what they’re for, right?) So I trotted up to the parking lot security gate to let the guards know they needed to let the AAA guy in when he arrived. They said there would be no problem and asked our location so they could escort the AAA person to us in the lot. So we waited…and waited… Ron was still trying to figure out the whacko tire configuration but neither of us had a clue. So we waited, and watched as the parking lot slowly emptied of sad sack cruisers heading back to real life and watched cars full of smiling arrivals line up in the turn lane. Onboard all was quiet, and the only people in sight were cast members in yellow jumpsuits cleaning windows up on deck 9.
After about an hour the phone rang, and it was the AAA guy wanting to know what was up. He had been waiting at the gate for a security escort for over a half an hour and was forgotten. So I schlepped back across the parking lot to the gate, and he was already being escorted in by a golf-cart driving guard. So back once again across the large parking lot I went. Right away the AAA dude groaned, he knew right away about the spare tire configuration in Town & Country stow & go vehicles. Oh, well at least he knew what to do. Apparently the crow bar looking thing attached through a hole under the console inside the vehicle (gee, how could we have not known THAT!?!?) and by turning it, it unlocked the container and the tire dropped to the pavement below.
Look at this….This pole sticking up out of the floorboard is the “tool”…crazy, right?
About this time Erica and Lionel drove by and asked if we needed some help. Thankfully we had it under control now and I sadly waved them adieu. The AAA guy had the tire on in about 10 minutes:
Yay, we get to drive home on a donut…and we’re in a hurry!
By the time we were heading out of the parking lot, the new cruisers were heading in and we were ready to go. The beautiful Magic loomed above us as we drove by in her shadow and another lovely cruise was over.
The End!
I want to say thank you to all my friends and readers for sticking with me. I know it took a long time, but here it is….finally done. Thank you all for your praise, encouragement, support, and gentle prodding when necessary. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed reliving it all for you.
I’ll see you real soon!
Jen
Exactly what I was bound & determined to avoid with all my planning. Oh well. Sometimes that's just how it goes...it did move really quick, WAAAY faster than the last time we were at Crystal Palace! 
You know it's my job to bug ya til you book..LOL
) I'd better get to bed I have to get up at 6! 
.
That was the name Drea's boys wanted! Whoopsie! 
Of course when she cruises next year on 10/30/10 she can get one (but she refuses to acknowledge it...in fact with E gone she needs to send the boys to Grandma-for real this time- and get on board!) 
....
Drea we have to have our first one TOGETHER next November!!!!!!! And our second....and our third.....
Awesome idea, I tell ya.....!
Actually I saw a recipe on here awhile back, I wished I had saved it. Ever since I lost my Nutty Uncle recipe (PF Changs) I need a signature drink to replace it...
