Can you use the force on Toddlers? Fantasy SWDAS March 2016 FINISHED

[hnthomps]

Great report! You kids are adorable (even without showing their faces!)
Can't wait to hear what you thought about Star Wars Day at Sea!

Thanks! I'm eagerly following your report too! You had just started posting it before we left, so it helped get me in the mood!!

(And, spoiler: we were pretty into Star Wars Day)

 

[Conceptualice]

Wonderful report! I admire you sticking to your guns with scheduling. (You have my sympathies, we too have a determined 2 year old daughter!)

 

[hnthomps]

Tuesday, 3/22, Grand Cayman

We had our Disney Jr character breakfast at 815am. I’m sure normal people think that’s a totally great, possibly even early, time to eat breakfast. Not my monsters. We had thankfully liberated some bananas the night before, so they had a snack in their PJs on the verandah and played until it was time to go to breakfast.

The character breakfast was the only moment on the cruise when I felt the service was truly sub-par. It was complete chaos. The first minor disaster was right on arrival. J was wearing her Sofia dress, so a CM thoughtfully, and gently, explained that Princess Sofia was unavailable for breakfast that morning.

Oops.

Only the promise of a Mickey waffle got J settled down again. Well, that and the Disney Jr shows on the TVs (breakfast was in Animator’s).

We were told that characters would start arriving in about 20 minutes, and that it would work best if we got food first, so we needed to order quickly...and then instantly characters started arriving. First Goofy, who was of course awesome (though more or less shooed away by the server waiting to take our orders). And then a pretty long pause, and then Doc, which was totally exciting…except our food arrived at the same time as Doc, and all the food was wrong. Literally every order at our table (of 8, we were with another family with similarly aged kids) had something wrong or missing. J got normal waffles, not mickey waffles. P got plain (and actually, really dry and gross) pancakes instead of blueberry. D got bacon instead of sausage. I did not get coffee. P’s milk went to the kid at the other end of the table, no one got syrup, etc.

Anyway, Mickey showed up right after Doc. When he had moved on, we started trying to sort out all the food problems, trading around as possible. J, meanwhile, kept asking for her mickey waffle – for once saying please and not screaming – but it never happened. We did not see a server again until we had totally given up.

The last character was Jake, but we really didn’t care – we don’t watch his show, and we were all still grumpy and hungry. The servers were clearly overworked, which should have been avoidable given that it was a ticketed event. We made do with the food we had (I managed not to grab a coffee from another table, but it took some restraint) and got out of there quickly so as not to let it ruin the mood.

After breakfast, the boys went off to do another mystery while the girls wandered back to the room via portholes, princesses (we didn’t get in any lines, but observed from afar), and coffee and second breakfast as needed.

At 10am we were back in the room getting ready to get off the ship (P announced proudly that he had solved the second case all by himself. D did not bother to correct this minor overstatement). We watched the ship getting ready to drop anchor and the tender boats pulling up.

We headed to the Walt Disney theater for the tender process, and actually timed it perfectly – we were in line a few minutes before they opened the theater doors, but not too long before. We filed into the theater and sat for only a few minutes before getting on the first tender boat.

It was perfect weather - warm but not too hot, mostly clear, beautiful skies.

We had a submarine excursion for the boys in the afternoon, but because of J’s nap, didn’t plan to do much before that other than wander and grab lunch. I’ve been to Grand Cayman a few times (in fact, my extended family was on an annual trip that ended the day before we were in port), so had some familiarity.

We once again timed things very well, finding just enough shopping + wandering + lunch + photo ops to keep everyone occupied. J and I headed back to the boat for nap.

On the tender back to the boat, some friendly youth counselors (returning from a break) asked J who her favorite princess is. Perhaps as a way to get revenge on the actual-favorite Sofia, she replied “Doc”, much to everyone’s amusement and joy.

Back in the room, she was happy and ready for an on-time nap. I managed to remember to move the pack n play in advance so that I could spend her nap reading on the verandah instead of stuck in the dark room.

The boys, meanwhile, had an excellent submarine excursion

It was exactly the right type of excursion for our 4 year old, and he returned to the boat in an excellent mood…and ready to hit the pool deck until it was time to get ready for dinner.

Dinner that evening was the big show night at Animator’s Palate. Once again, no one else knew what to expect. I was actually kind of sad to be so spoiled (I’d even seen a you tube video). P, D, and I had our drawings on screen, and P was SO THRILLED to see it (and then to find his name in the credits – for a 4 year old just learning to write, this is pretty Big Stuff). J’s scribble, alas, did not stay in the lines.

Bedtime was the usual disaster, but it was my turn to escape, so I went off to see the 8pm Return of the Jedi. It was, of course, awesome, and the perfect prep for STAR WARS DAY.

 

[chunkymonkey]

I have a question, is the Disney Jr. breakfast a kids thing? Did you see anyone who were adults only? Just wondering since I didn't think it was for us, but if anyone could sign up for it...then I wouldn't mind. I don't know much about Disney Jr. characters but if there is Mickey and Donald, then I'm down for that!

Sounds like a fun day at Grand Cayman! I like how your daughter said Doc was now her favorite princess, LOL.

Glad you were able to catch RoTJ in the theater, it's always great to see the classics on the big screen!

 

[schmass]

Yikes, that breakfast sounds like a mess! We are going to get tickets for it, but I'll go into it with low expectations...and will get some coffee beforehand!

The picture of the kids looking at the Magic is so cute!

 

[hnthomps]

I have a question, is the Disney Jr. breakfast a kids thing? Did you see anyone who were adults only? Just wondering since I didn't think it was for us, but if anyone could sign up for it...then I wouldn't mind. I don't know much about Disney Jr. characters but if there is Mickey and Donald, then I'm down for that!

We did not see any adults only, but we were back in a corner -- there might have been other tables with adults. And I think anyone could sign up. You do need a ticket for everyone in your party, not just 1 ticket per room, but I can't imagine they'd question it.

However, it's not a full breakfast menu. The dad from the other family at our table asked if he could see an "adult" menu and was told that was it (the non-kids-items were in a smaller font, but there).

I think they don't guarantee which characters it will be, but I was told it's usually 2 of the "big 5" and then 2 of Jake/Doc/Sophia. I'm sure that could change in the future.

 

[hnthomps]

Yikes, that breakfast sounds like a mess! We are going to get tickets for it, but I'll go into it with low expectations...and will get some coffee beforehand!

The picture of the kids looking at the Magic is so cute!

It was a mess - but I'm sure that was an anomaly! The other family at our table agreed with us (and I think complained about it), but I talked to a couple other people who had much better experiences. They may just have been short staffed in our section or something.

And thanks for saying my kids are cute

 

[hnthomps]

Sounds like a fun day at Grand Cayman! I like how your daughter said Doc was now her favorite princess, LOL.

Glad you were able to catch RoTJ in the theater, it's always great to see the classics on the big screen!

I meant to reply to these up above as well, sorry!

I thought it was so great when she said Doc was her favorite. I understand the allure of the princesses, but I think Doc is a better role model! Hah.

And yes, seeing RoTJ in the theater was awesome. It was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater...except I was so young I cried and had to be taken out. My older brother has possibly never forgiven me for that, since we all had to leave! Hah.

 

[stacaka4321]

I have a question, is the Disney Jr. breakfast a kids thing? Did you see anyone who were adults only? Just wondering since I didn't think it was for us, but if anyone could sign up for it...then I wouldn't mind. I don't know much about Disney Jr. characters but if there is Mickey and Donald, then I'm down for that!

I saw a family of 3 adults eating at the Disney Jr. breakfast.

 

[hnthomps]

Wednesday, 3/23, Star Wars Day at Sea

At last, the reason for the trip. I’ll give the summary up front – we found the day delightful, but don’t see a need to do it again. It’s not that it was underwhelming –we didn’t really expect more – it’s that we did it, it was fun, moving on. This will always be a special memory, but I'm not sure it would be worth an upcharge to do it again.

Back to the narrative…

The kids were up early (sigh) and eager. D, P, and J got into their costumes (Obi Wan, Luke, and Rey) right away, and we were at Cabanas right as it opened. StarWars music boomed throughout the ship all day (including the ship’s horn playing the Imperial March on three or four VERY LOUD occasions!), which really helped the mood.

The boys went to the 830am Trials of the Temple while the girls went … to Nemo’s Reef. Again. P wasn’t picked for the trials, but seemed ok with that (though he wanted to try again).

P & D wandered about to meet stormtroopers and observe the action in the (crowded) atrium. P really wanted to trade with Jawas.

At 9:40am we met in the D-lounge for our first ticketed meet and greet, in “tatooine”. I was REALLY hoping for the droids, but we ended up with Darth Maul. I was very disappointed—haven’t watched episode 1 since it came out, don’t know anything about Rebels – but P was super excited, as is in a bad guy phase.

However, the line was really long, and by the time we were through, it was time to go to the 10:30 Trials of the Temple to see if P would be chosen. Once it was clear that he wouldn’t be, again, we left – it seemed unfair to force him to watch it twice, even though I actually really wanted to see it.

The kids were already overwhelmed by the excitement, and after finding some jawas and doing more gawking at characters, we headed back to the room for some downtime playing with star wars figures on the verandah and coloring. D went to the 11am Pool Patrol alone, taking lots of pictures.

We met at Mater’s at 11:30am to get some hot dogs and fries in the kids – the grownups had Remy brunch to get to!

The champagne brunch at Remy is awesome. We loved the food and the champagne and the (as usual) a+ serving team. The experience starts out with a somewhat-long explanation from one of the chefs and a champagne toast and discussion from the sommelier. One (mild) sour note was that they had forgotten I was a vegetarian…never mind that the online confirmation noted it, the reservation note delivered to our door the day before noted it, and the messages on our stateroom phone noted it…Anyway, they figured it out, but not before they’d offered me prosciutto. But I don’t mean to pick on that – the food and service were excellent. I could have done without the long explanations and notes from the chef, but I think if I hadn’t been nervous about how the kids were doing in the club/nursery, I would have enjoyed it more.

We got the champagne pairing, which I thought might prove to be a mistake, but…vacation. We hadn’t done pairings at Palo, we wanted to live a little. It was the right call. Totally delicious and delightful. I was VERY skeptical about the Moet Ice, but ended up enjoying it in spite of myself.

After lunch we picked the kids up. D found P having a grand time, but ready to leave (and pretending he wasn’t having an awesome time). He was still in his jedi costume and had been playing Star Wars games with several other kids.

The report on J was hilarious. We were told she had recently woken up from a 45 minute nap, and that she had “eaten an excellent lunch”…you’ll recall that she ate a hot dog and fries and ice cream right before being dropped off, and we planned to put her down for a 2 hour nap as soon as we were back in the room. Apparently she saw the other children eating lunch and asked for her own. And then said “naptime after lunch” and put herself to bed. I had absentmindedly circled all the “ok to feed” (or however it’s phrased) sections of the check in sheet, so I didn’t really mind, was just worried she wouldn't nap any more.

We went back to the room so P could change for the pool (duh). We let the kids goof off together for a little bit – we really wanted J to go down for a longer nap, and I wanted to sit on the verandah with my book while the champagne dissipated.

Much to our surprise, it all worked out as planned. The boys went off to the pool, I put J down…and she actually fell asleep. They also checked out the passenger costume gathering in the atrium, but forgot to bring a camera! Apparently it was pretty wild, and I was sorry to have missed it...though many people were still in costume for dinner.

After nap/pool we hung out in the room and got ready for dinner – this time all except J in jedi costume. She insisted on her Minnie Mouse dress instead. My strategy with two year olds is to pick my battles. I did bring her costume along in a bag just in case she saw all the other passengers in costume and decided she wanted to join in.

The Star Wars menu – as in the actual printed document, not the food, per se – was amazing. The kids’ menus were masks, which was also great – J kept trying to get hers to stay on her face, I had to promise her to attach ribbon when we got home (I have not kept this promise) . The meal itself, however, was one of the least successful. Luckily we were in Enchanted Garden, so we could distract the kids with the gorgeous lighting changes and flower buds. The various hitches were probably because the menu is new, and the teams were all figuring out timing. But the kids’ food didn’t arrive as quickly as usual, and there were some unusual waits between courses.

After the usual dessert (have I mentioned how much ice cream these children ate???) back to the room for bath/books/bed. My turn to deal with the shenanigans, D went off to see the Force Awakens and the fireworks. I’m told it was very loud in our room (deck 10) all night, but I was asleep basically as soon as the kids stopped acting out (the champagne still lingering, perhaps!), and missed all of it.

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

Great report so far!! Joining in!

 

[hnthomps]

Thursday – at sea

We were a little worried about this day. There was a time change (forward), and we had nothing scheduled other than Star Wars and Frozen character meets. We had booked some nursery time for J just so that we could have a break. The worry was for nothing.

The time change meant that for once we were at breakfast at a reasonable hour, and finished up just in time to meet Sofia (finally) and Minnie (again). I thought J would want to wear her Sofia dress to the meetup, but she completely refused.

P showed J how the detective game pictures move even when you aren’t doing the game, which was a HUGE hit. We watched Walt Disney draw some quick animations approximately 400 times…

After dropping the kids, we finally had some unscheduled grownup time. D soundly defeated me at mini golf, and then he picked P up for the Star Wars meet and greet while I went back to the room and did some pre-packing (and, let's be honest, verandah lounging).

P didn’t want to leave the club for once – he had just started the Piston Cup challenge. D told him he could stay and miss the Star Wars meetup, but he chose to leave. So he was whiney, but it was his own choice. The meetup was with Captain Phasma, and apparently she was great. P decided he wants to be her for Halloween, so clearly this was a hit.

After Phasma, they went off to do the final detective game while I got to keep reading in peace on the verandah.

Our Frozen tickets were for 12, so we agreed that I would pick J up at 11:30, give her a snack, get her into her Elsa dress (if she wanted) and then meet the boys at Animator’s at 11:45…anticipating a Princess Smorgasbord-esque disaster.

Well, turns out, if you wait until Thursday…no lines. There was no one else in Animator’s when we arrived, so they just let us go straight in. We later saw a similar scene at a princess meet and greet, so major advice – wait until late in the cruise for ticketed events, if possible!

Anna and Elsa were lovely, and gave the kids lots of time and attention.

We had lunch, ice cream, and then nap / pool. P started on the slide, then moved to the mickey pool where he watched the end of little mermaid and part of star wars rebels before making a friend with whom he played “Star Wars tag” (which, as he explained it, is just like tag, only in a pool, and you pretend to have lightsabers)

The friend suggested moving to the Donald pool, and P—to my shock – agreed. I got him a life jacket and then watched him basically teach himself to swim (or, perhaps, finally remember all the things he learned in months of swim lessons that had previously seemed utterly fruitless). The tag game continued until the pool needed a cleaning break, at which point it was time for the slide. His new friend disappeared, but P didn’t care, as Lion King was coming up on Funnel Vision. He then watched that whole movie from the Donald pool.

J & D joined us at 3:45, and after she had a substantial snack (there were grapes at Flo’s for the first time) I took her…to Nemo’s Reef, our home-away- from-home. At 4:30 J had had enough, so I took her back to the room for a bath and to change for dinner (she chose her Sofia dress, you know, the one she refused to wear to meet Sofia that morning). The boys joined us when Lion King was over and we headed down to meet Daisy at Preludes. We were third in line – continuing our trend of nailing these things – and had a good meetup (“she’s so little!” P said of Daisy)

After Daisy we went to the Atrium, and the kids started a dance party.

When they got a little out of control (more falling/wrestling than dancing) we took them to look for more animated posters before heading back to Enchanted Garden for dinner.

As usual, our severs were excellent, and we were in and out as efficiently as could possibly be expected. We headed to the room and put the kids down.

P was convinced this towel animal was a brachiosaurus.

My turn to go out, so after taking care of some business (adjusting tips, etc) at guest services, I headed up to currents for a glass of Prosecco and an amazing view of a far-off lightning storm.

 

[schmass]

Good to know about the Frozen meet-up being less crowded as you get further into the cruise!

Do you know what the Piston Cup challenge was? I'm wondering if my Cars-obsessed DS would be interested, or if he'll be too young for it (he turns 3 during the cruise).

Yay for P teaching himself to swim! It's such a great skill for kids to have. My DS LOVES to swim, and we actually used the pools on the cruise ship as a motivating factor to get him potty-trained.

Your alone time with Prosecco sounds nice!

 

[hnthomps]

Good to know about the Frozen meet-up being less crowded as you get further into the cruise!

Do you know what the Piston Cup challenge was? I'm wondering if my Cars-obsessed DS would be interested, or if he'll be too young for it (he turns 3 during the cruise).

I don't completely know. I think they were constructing some sort of cars and then going to race them? He was not entirely clear, and I was told not to bring it up again after I tried to get more info!

I think your DS probably would be interested, but he won't be allowed in the club until his birthday (have to be 3).

 

[hnthomps]

Picking this back up...

Friday – Castaway Cay

We had been looking forward to this day for a LONG time. The kids knew we’d packed beach toys (we used them as bath toys) and that, therefore, a beach was planned (we’d also thought we might get beach time at Cozumel, and they'd overheard some of that discussion).

It’s hard to believe, but on this of all days P slept past 7am for the first time in … years. J was up and talking, asking him to wake up, for half an hour before he stirred.

We were distracted by the view for a little bit

We got into our beach attire, packed a backpack full of everything we could need, and headed to breakfast. After breakfast we stopped back in the room to apply sunscreen and then basically headed straight off the boat -- I'm not sure exactly what time it was, but certainly before 9am.

It was awesome, of course. A slightly overcast day, but perfect temps. We took our time walking from the boat so we could take in all the little Disney details.

We got a good location on the family beach. The kids enjoyed sand and water play while the grownups alternated supervising and relaxing. We carefully put all our stuff on only one beach chair, since the kids were never out of the sand/water, and we'd heard enough whining about people who claimed chairs they never used! But it didn't really matter -- most of the time we were out there, there were plenty of chairs for all who were interested.

At around 10am I gathered the kids up so that we could go back to the post office to meet DONALD. He was the only character we hadn’t met yet. It took a while to organize/coordinate/find the tram (the kids were Done with walking). We ran into photo ops with Minnie and Goofy on the way, and saw Mickey and Pluto coming on to the island. This, of course, inspired total delight.

The kids were less delighted that I had not thought to bring any snacks. We passed a fruit stand, but were told it wasn't open, and we couldn't have anything. My frustration must have showed, as the guy slipped me an apple, a little surreptitiously. I then took a second one, as I didn't think my kids were really feeling like sharing.

We got to Donald slightly before he arrived (NB I had not realized, stupidly, that we’d have to cross back through “security” and had left my ID with the beach stuff. The guard took pity on us and let us through after I flashed my key to the world card and pointed at my children).

When we saw Donald approaching, J started bouncing up and down with excitement. Apparently a full week of character meets hadn't dulled the excitement!

After we met Donald, we slowly made our way back, with stops along the way. A potty break turned into a game of mini golf, which was going well until the children realized they were missing crucial sand time.

Back at the beach, P wanted to swim out to the monkey bars, which was pretty ambitious for him, so I escorted him and he tried it a couple times, much to our delight. Sand play was a little harder now, as many many people had dragged beach chairs down by the water so they could sit with their feet in the water. I would have understood if they were supervising small children, but they mostly weren't. We found this incredibly annoying, as there was just so much less good sand/water space compared to earlier in the morning. However, my kids have only ever been to city beaches, which are always crowded, so they didn't really notice!

Soon it was time for lunch, though J disagreed. She wanted to stay on the beach forever, but was also showing some clear hunger-meltdown- signs. Finally we made it to Cookies, where the kids ate approximately everything in sight (hot dog, corn, chips, bread, fruit, veggie burger, more corn, more fruit, ice cream…) – swimming apparently worked up quite the appetite. We were pleasantly surprised by the food, as I had heard it wasn't particularly great. There were not a lot of options for me (vegetarian), but if you approach it as backyard cookout instead of gourmet restaurant, it's better-than-adequate. It started raining right as we were sitting down with our food, but by the time we were done the rain had stopped.

After lunch --and a brief stop to watch some crab races --we split up again. D to take P to Scuttle’s Cove (after a few games of mini golf) and then go on an adult-only snorkeling expedition (one that involved rum!) and I took J back to the cabin for nap / packing. She was ready, and knew it was nap time, though she did ask to stay on the tram “little bit more” as a token protest. I obliged, as we accidentally got on the wrong tram to begin with, so she got to see more of the island.

(apparently on Castaway Cay her usually unruly hair will simply dry into perfect curls with absolutely no effort or intervention, even when half covered in salt water. Yet another magical feature!)

J was quietly in her crib by about 2pm. I had thrown everything onto the bed so that I could pack, which occupied me until the wave phone kept buzzing wildly with reminders that Scuttle’s Cove would be closing soon (30 minutes, 15 mintues, 10 minutes, 5 minutes, now closed). Apparently D had arrived right as it closed and was able to check P out, though they had discussed in advance that he might have to walk back to the boat with counselors. But the system thought he was still there, so the phone kept buzzing with ever more demanding messages. The wave phone buzzing woke J up, but she was still in a good mood from all the beach time, and was pretty adorable trying to help me pack as we waited for the others.

P had a great time at Scuttle's Cove. It was hard to figure out exactly what he had done, never having seen the facility (so "we played with the thing by the ropes!" was not a helpful description). I did laugh when he told me "We played capture the flag and my team came in second place!" It took a lot of restraint for me not to reply "that means you lost" since, AFAIK, there are only two sides on capture the flag...

The boys got back with exactly enough time to rinse off and get ready for the See Ya Real Soon party. This is basically 15 minutes of a character mosh pit followed by some photo montages and minimal dancing – in other words, utter perfection.

The kids got to hug and say goodbye to basically all the standard characters + princesses -- Belle was missing, but that didn't matter much to my kids. It was far less crowded than we had expected -- most people must go to the later one -- which meant there was plenty of space and it was easy to see and interact with all the characters.

After the party wrapped, we steered the boat on deck 5 (which we hadn’t discovered until the night before) for a little bit.

We then quickly changed for dinner and headed to Royal Court for, improbably, the first time. It wasn’t our favorite dinner location with small children – we were off in a corner, and there was no interactive element (and by this point they expected something given Animator’s and Enchanted Garden). They also aren't old enough to really appreciate the "royal" elements of the theme. However, the service was, as always, excellent!

After dinner we let the kids watch the last Mickey Clubhouse on the On Demand while we finished packing (sniff sniff), and then tried to settle them quickly as it would be such an early morning.

After the kids were asleep, we had various luggage and debarkation panics, as we had conflicting information in different handouts, not to mention a confused person at guest services. Ultimately we decided to trust that it would all be fine, and put our bags in the hallway (knowing we wouldn’t see some of them again until Chicago). D took one last trip around the boat taking pictures of the ship, and then we went to bed early.

 

[hnthomps]

Saturday – debarkation

And here we are at the end!

We woke up early, gathered our things, and were at Royal Court at the appointed hour of 6:45, day bag and key cards in hand. P ordered—and devoured—four sausages, while J stuck with two bowls of Rice Krispies. P, J, and I all sighed deeply and tried to make breakfast last as long as possible, in denial that we had to leave, but D had been sufficiently terrified by the printed warnings that we had to be off the boat by 8am or risk losing our luggage that he hurried us along. He was flitting up and down from the table -- picking up our USB key from Shutters, checking on the line developing in the atrium, distributing tip envelopes -- and clearly ready to hurry along.

We were in line to debark by 7:30, and the process went very quickly (we were amused to note that the Welcome Aboard banners we had noted on the way on to the boat were printed "see ya real soon" on the other side). We picked up our hand luggage, found the buses, and with amazing Disney efficiency pulled into the airport at 8:30am… way too early for our noon flight…which was then delayed…

(a note about the luggage process: because of the small children, we basically decided to have as little to do with luggage as possible. We had 2 big checked bags, a small rollerboard, the children's small suitcases that they can pull or ride on, and two backpacks. Our airline participates in Disney's express bag check in thing --I forget the real name -- and we were entitled to two free checked bags because of our frequent flyer levels. So we left the two biggest bags in the hallway the night before to be magically whisked directly onto the airplane without our seeing them in between the boat and Chicago. We also left P's suitcase, the smaller rollerboard, and one backpack to be taken off the boat and left at the Port Canavaral terminal in the morning. We were left with one backpack and J's suitcase to deal with ourselves. We had remembered to keep a change of clothes ready for the morning, and stuffed PJs into the backpack and the children's stuffed animals and nighttime stuff in J's suitcase, which was also our only way of transporting her, since we hadn't brought a stroller. In retrospect, we could have dealt with all the carry-ons ourselves and not bothered to pick them up in PC. However, it also didn't really delay us, so it didn't matter).

We had a somewhat challenging several hours at the airport--one can only spend so much time staring at a fountain--but we boarded the plane each in one piece at 1:30. Both kids slept on the plane – a minor miracle – and soon we were back in Chicago.

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

Loved your report! Loved the description of the mosh pit character session a.k.a. perfection

 

[Flossbolna]

This was a great report, I really enjoyed it! Thanks for making the effort to post. And I did like all the kids "without faces" pictures! It is fun how you can still recognize moods from body language. Looks like your kids had a lot of fun!

 

[hnthomps]

Notes, Musings, & Things that didn't make it into the report, despite how many words I wrote:

-I'm going to post several negative things below, but I don't want that to create the wrong impression: overall we had a wonderful time and were quite happy. If we had to do it all over again, we would have waited until J was 3 (though I'm not sure what we would have done instead this spring break!), but otherwise it was amazing (and more on that below).

-We booked a placeholder reservation, of course. The children have asked several times when they can go back, and the adults have emailed each other sample dates and itineraries a dozen times. However, I'm pretty sure we will wait until spring 2018.

-We've told everyone we've seen that it was absolutely amazing.

-Our experience would have been even more magic -- and we would have booked a second cruise right away -- if there were some sort of play structure / playground / climbing apparatus / swingset / gross motor play area somewhere on board. If, for example, one room in the Oceaneer's club had no screens and instead a playground-esque apparatus. We would have taken J there during open houses, and P would have willingly stayed in the Club more often. Little kids need a lot of physical play time, and while we got a lot of that walking around the ship and up the stairs...they would have liked more variety.

-I worried a lot about meals. While formal night dinner was hard, and there were some challenging moments most nights, I really shouldn't have worried. Our servers were very helpful, and there was lots of pixie dust and things to help the kids. The buffets were a little hard because we needed to have one parent sitting with the kids while the other got trays of food (and then we'd switch). While of course this works great in theory, sometimes we'd finally sit down with the grownup food and find the children finished.

-I was prepared that we would need to relax all our usual screen time rules while on a Disney boat, for obvious reasons. Also, we're not THAT strict. However, with kids as little as ours, who are so easily distracted by screens (to the detriment of all else) and lack some of the self regulation that older kids have...I would have really preferred more non-screen areas in the Club/Lab. By which I mean maybe one non-screen room! Hah.

-A lot of parents set it up so that their children will eat and sleep in the clubs -- scheduling nursery time over nap, etc -- but we did not want to do that. We have not had luck letting our children stay up past their bedtime, and were already pushing it as it was (they go to bed at 7pm at home, we were rarely even back to the room by then on board). I know lots of parents would go pick up sleeping children and carry them back to the room, or put them straight back to bed, but that was not a strategy we thought would work. Or, rather, it might have worked for 4 year old P (though he would have stayed up too late in the Club first!), but would not have worked for J...and at that point we already had one sleeping child to contend with...

Cruising with a 2 year old: I would not cruise again with a 2 year old. I would bring a baby along on a family trip (especially one who will nap in a stroller or carrier), but a toddler was hard. We knew a lot of this in advance, but to lay it out clearly:

• We were very limited in excursions (both what was available to buy and what would work with her nap schedule)
• We spent a lot of time either trapped with a sleeping child or worried about whether we'd be able to get back in time to let her sleep enough to avoid a meltdown.
• We knew going in that a lot of activities start at age 3. However, I don't think we had fully appreciated that J would basically be "stuck" with Nemo's Reef as her only activity. She's potty trained enough that we probably could have let her go in the pools without a swim diaper, but we are rule followers and didn't want to risk it. So Nemo's Reef was it for water. There was a toddler play time on a high deck a couple of times, but I believe only when we had the nursery booked. The open houses in the clubs were fun when she went, but there are too many screens for a 2 year old -- she was just constantly distracted by them, and then annoyed that she couldn't quite interact with them. The activities in D Lounge were too loud.
• One thing we really should have thought through in advance is that obviously the Clubs would have been more fun if the kids could have been together. P was able to make some temporary friendships, but if they had been there together it would have been much much easier.
• On the plus side, I had worried that J would be too old for the nursery, or bored by the babies, or that they wouldn't have reservations, or whatever. None of that was true. The nursery was great. The CMs were great. The toys were great. We were able to change our reservations with no problems.
• We'd had additional spa time booked, but ended up cancelling it. My facial was lovely, but there just wasn't an easy way for us to have one adult off duty when the children were awake. This was entirely because of the under-3 thing--the kids were rarely in the same space and are both too young to be unsupervised. There were a few times, of course, when P played in Nemo's Reef with J, and I did let P do the Mickey Slide while I was supervising J in the Reef and D was off somewhere else (aquaduck or working or getting snacks), but for the most part, we needed one-on-one parenting. I think this would be a very different scenario with a youngest who was 3+ (so both kids could be together) or with kids over 6 who could have more freedom.

-This sounds like a lot of whining! I'm sorry. Some practical things that didn't come up elsewhere in my report:

• We brought clothespins, which had MANY uses: hanging wet clothes in the shower, pinning together the curtains, etc.
• we brought a small LED nightlight for the bathroom, so that no one had to turn on the INCREDIBLY bright light in the middle of the night.
• we brought a clock for the children's side of the stateroom. There was one on our side, but it was helpful for them to have one on their side of the curtain
• We found there weren't quite enough snack options readily available, even though there was a ton of food overall. We had brought some pretzels and raisins and the like, and were very sad when we ran out (well, we = the children). We tried to remember to take extra fruit from the buffet in the mornings, but it wasn't always practical. So we ended up having to go to the poolside quick serve for snacks, where usually the fruit options were pretty limited, and there weren't any kid-friendly snacks that wouldn't also count as a meal or ruin a future meal. So, anyway, more snacks! Or order the cheese plate from room service more often.
• We wished we had come up with a clear gift shop policy before getting on the boat. We ended up with some easily enforceable souvenir rules, but had some open discussion on the first day in front of the kids, which led to some whining that should have been avoided.
• All the things we had pre-ordered for Star Wars day were also available in the stores (since we weren't interested in any of the limited edition things). We probably would have been more circumspect had we waited
• We were given the stateroom decorations by a relative, which was adorable. However, D though the things hanging from the ceiling just got in the way, and took them down immediately. Hah.
• I did laundry a couple of times. This was really easy early in the cruise, when there was no competition. Later on I found that the machines were all full, and closely guarded. Plus sometimes people wouldn't realize that opening a dryer to see if it's in use (which wasn't easy to tell!) totally reset the cycle. So they'd screw someone else without realizing it! Deck 10 has a laundrette with 2 washers and 2 dryers, deck 9 has a much bigger one. In the future, we will try to avoid laundry, or else remember to do it on the second day (washing travel clothes and 2 sets of underpants does help a little with packing!!).

About our room:
-We were in a Cat 4A room on deck 10. We loved the room, and didn't have too many issues with noise / etc. However, in the future we'd prefer deck 9 -- it never woke us up, but you could still hear pool deck noise. We did like being really close to the pool deck, and being starboard was great for views.
-Family category rooms that sleep 4, not 5, have an armchair that is usually by the verandah window, I think (where the murphy bed comes down in a room that sleeps 5). However, we had to move it to set the pack n play up. We asked if it could be removed from the room, and our stateroom attendant was super willing, but said he'd need to get the carpenters to come take the arms off, etc. We told him not to bother with that, and just left it shoved up against the closet and covered in stuff. It would have been better if it could have gone away, but not enough to involve carpenters.
-The room size was perfect for 4 people. It would have been even better without the pack n play, of course, but even with it was fine. Plenty of room for everyone. The split bathroom was helpful at times, and the little round bathtubs were great for the kids.
-We debated whether or not to get a verandah for a long time, and ultimately decided that since we might never do this again, we might as well go big or go home. We did end up using it a lot. The adults were out there during nap time, and the kids were out there in the mornings and as we pulled into port. They thought it was so cool to have our own little outdoor space.

I can't think of anything else I could possibly add at this point, so I'll call it finished!! Thanks for following along.

 

[TestingH2O]

-Our experience would have been even more magic -- and we would have booked a second cruise right away -- if there were some sort of play structure / playground / climbing apparatus / swingset / gross motor play area somewhere on board. If, for example, one room in the Oceaneer's club had no screens and instead a playground-esque apparatus. We would have taken J there during open houses, and P would have willingly stayed in the Club more often. Little kids need a lot of physical play time, and while we got a lot of that walking around the ship and up the stairs...they would have liked more variety.

I wonder if this has to do with the huge age spread in the clubs though. If they are going to put 3-12 year olds in one space, I bet some attorney told them they shouldn't let them get too physical without really close supervision a la a scheduled activity.

While DD didn't complain about the club, we only took her for activities. I too would have liked some age appropriate physical play options.