It's A WONDERful 2015 - Feb Cruise, May WDW grand tour, and France/DLP! NEW 10/25 Nice & End!

[Imagineer5]

Holy cow...that apartment in Paris has a great view!!!

The Eiffel view was something I was dead-set on finding. JUst like when we went to Venice, I scoured the internet and found an apartment with a dock ON the Grand canal. The apartment is still cheaper than most of the hotels I looked at (mainly since they were requiring larger family rooms to accommodate 3 vs. 2). I am so excited!

Don't really have any advice as never been to Paris but the plans sound good. Not sure how you/Andrea/Aria do with jetlag and time changes but sounds like for most things there is enough flexibility to adjust as needed - other than the dinner and the Eiffel Tower visit (too bad they only had that one slot available)

I like that you are going to a lot of gardens that inspired artists - definitely makes sense. Are you able to see any of the scenes Toulouse-Lautrec painted?

Do people in Paris just not take kids out to restaurants or just to only more casual places? Seems like a place that families would go out to eat a lot

I am basing that first day on our last two big Europe trips - Italy in 2008 where we took a Rome tour at night after landing around 7AM and we thought it really helped us stay awake and adjust, and Holland in 2013 with Aria where similarly we had a really late (like 8:30) dinner with Aria and Marina & Erik and the next day we were good to go. We were certainly tired of course but pushing through that really helped us acclimate quickly.

I will have to look into Toulouse-Lautrec Monet is my favorite, but I mentioned earlier I'm not terribly into art (aside from Leonardo da Vinci and we love him for the engineering skills).

Well, a "restaurant" in paris is apparently a 3 hour affair, so children don't seem to be welcome nor do many parents consider bringing them. The cafes, sure, but I did want some good French food so I think we'll be in cafes mainly except those two dinners we have planned (and I mentioned Aria's age to them both to be certain she was welcome). Further out in the trip, I've found some really amazing Michelin starred places that also have children's menus so that's the best of both worlds right there! (Plus nice garden settings).

I love love love the room decorations! Too bad Aria slept through the big reveal, but I'm sure she was still excited when she did finally see it! I'm glad getting on the ship wasn't too stressful after the longer than expected wait. Hopefully the rest of the afternoon fell into place too!

The Paris plans sound really amazing. It's going to be such a fun trip going to so many different cities! The view from that apartment is insane. I'm not really any help as far as what else to do or not do, but it looks like you have a lot of great stuff planned so far.

I know, I am so glad I splurged for the decorations and the pillow/markers. It worked out since Aria went down early for her nap so it all fell into place nicely.

I am so excited about Paris. We aren't even big-city people but Paris is just a must-do. I hope by visiting all these museums, on our next future visit we can focus on other things too.

It's so fun to see the Wonder, since we will be sailing next June! I love the Birthday decorations- what a fun room to wake up to!

Paris sounds wonderful! My best friend just got back from there, and their apt. had a similar fantastic view!

Ooh that is wonderful!! if you come up with any questions please let me know! I think it is going in for refurbs soon right? We were VERY impressed with the ship and loved the size.

Interesting. I had looked at keeping ours longer, but I had such a good deal on the two days ($30/day) that nothing could compare.


It was! Definitely helped keep the room uncluttered and easy to walk through.


That sounds fabulous!


Good call!


Wow, that sounds like a lot! But I know our plans were similar - so many things to check off the list right away!


Sounds like you got all of this taken care of quickly, so that's great!


Binder blankie clips!


How nice! We asked for our desserts to go one night and they did the same - very cool.


Funny - we were on the Dream's Deck 8, but that's a few levels below the pools. I wasn't thinking about the size difference in the ships, so thinking your location was the same.


Yeah, it has its pros and cons. It came most in handy if one of us was using the bathroom or showering and the other needed to wash hands or clean something (thermoses, etc). I like double sinks. But the rooms were pretty small.


Well, you've gotta have priorities!


Agreed! It would be hard to take a cruise without one.


Wow, they showed up quick! And I agree about the excellent storage space. Much better than most cruise lines, I think.


Of course!


How great is that?! Hope you have fun visiting with them!


I think your plans sound great, but I don't know a lot about Paris. I think it's good that you aren't dead set on doing absolutely everything on your list, as it does seem like you have pretty aggressive plans. I'm sure you will get plenty of walking, eating, and people-watching in, though!


That's a bummer - I didn't know they were discontinuing the perk. It was a really cool treat that set DCL apart from other lines and, though small, helped justify paying a premium.

For the 9 day car rental I think we paid 250 and was able to use credit card points for it. I know on top of that we paid for the parking while away, but it was so convenient to be able to leave some things in the trunk and have it right there for disembarkation too so we could jet right down to the Keys.

Yes, actually after looking at the photo of the stroller I added those binder clips to my packing list for France. I don't need them on the city select since there are some perfect spots to tie the blanket but I do for the city mini.

While I loved the size of the wonder, the Aquaduck is really pulling me in, and I would LOVE to cruise on one of the bigger ships next

I was thinking maybe they were able to load the luggage while we waited in the terminal, so maybe that is why it seemed like the luggage was fast but if we had gotten into the room at 1 then we would have been waiting a while.

Yes the plans seem pretty aggressive LOL. I just hope our attitudes can stay positive. Andrew can get pissy without much rest and Aria can too. I get pissy without food. hahaha. I did stop and pick up a ton of different fun and not all that healthy snacks for Aria for the trip - a baggie of fruit snacks and she'll be very content for a while

 

[mandas08]

Just wanted to let you know I am following along but am doing and awful job at commenting. I will have to do a better just because I absolutely love all of your reports and appreciate all the time it must take you to get it on here. First of all Aria is adorable. I just love all of her outfits as well. Having two boys my days are filled with all things super hero and "bad guys" I am fairly certain I would go broke if I had a girl...haha. Your upcoming trip looks amazing. The Paris condo alone has me jealous let alone a trip to DLP.

I hope to get on Disney cruise in the future. We have done other cruise lines before our lo's but I just know that anything Disney touches is going to be amazing. It looks like your crusie is off to a pretty good start despite the mess at the terminal. I love the room decorations, how fun! Cant wait to read more!

 

[Imagineer5]

Just wanted to let you know I am following along but am doing and awful job at commenting. I will have to do a better just because I absolutely love all of your reports and appreciate all the time it must take you to get it on here. First of all Aria is adorable. I just love all of her outfits as well. Having two boys my days are filled with all things super hero and "bad guys" I am fairly certain I would go broke if I had a girl...haha. Your upcoming trip looks amazing. The Paris condo alone has me jealous let alone a trip to DLP.

I hope to get on Disney cruise in the future. We have done other cruise lines before our lo's but I just know that anything Disney touches is going to be amazing. It looks like your crusie is off to a pretty good start despite the mess at the terminal. I love the room decorations, how fun! Cant wait to read more!

Aw thank you for reading along!! And thanks for the sweet words

It is hard to juggle the $$ I WANT to spend on her wardrobe but it is my own little pastime and hobby and I love doing it for as long as she will let me.

How old are your boys? A cruise with them I'm sure would be amazing, especially a Disney one. They certainly set the bar pretty high!!

 

[Imagineer5]

So I last left off with us in the room. It was around 2:30 at this point and we were all unpacked. Aria had been sleeping a good 2 hours so we decided to wake her up so we could fit in some pool time before everything closed at 3:30 in preparation for the 4PM muster drill.

She woke up in a great mood, especially after seeing the decorations and her cruise pillow. She wasn't terribly hungry but had a few bites of her lunch and then we got her into a swimsuit and headed up a deck to the pools. Our room was directly under the spa (which I never set foot in) but I think it made for a pretty quiet area above us which was nice.

We had to walk past the adults only pool each time we headed to the main pools.



And then we made it to the mickey pool with slide.



I looked for slide rules and saw there was a 38" height requirement, max of 64" - which meant Aria had to go down by herself. I'm posting this because I couldn't find ANY info about the slide rules before we left. They do say it is for 4+ and Aria had just turned 3, but she met the height requirement so I let her try it out.



That was the first thing she wanted to do so I took her up to the top and Andrew waited at the bottom. They let me bring her up thankfully as she was a bit nervous, but was able to see Daddy down below and went down.







I ran down to meet them and Aria wanted to go up again so she went all the way up on her own.







She was yelled at for walking off the slide, but around that last bend the slide sort of loses momentum and you won't get anywhere without pushing off or walking (or maybe that was just bc she weighed so little).

After enjoying the zero lines for a while, we decided to go over to the "main" pool. I think this is my ONLY complaint. This pool is ridiculously tiny. Smaller than a backyard pool and very weirdly set up. I know they cover it up during deck parties but it could have been designed better IMO.





However we still had a great time in there and Aria enjoyed swimming with a life jacket on. It didn't take away from the experience at all - but this is the main reason I want to go to the bigger ships - to try out the Aquaduck and hopefully have larger pools.

After our pool time it was nearing 3:30 when they shut everything down. We headed back to our room for some quick showers and to change for the evening. There were many alerts counting down the time to get to our 4PM muster drill, but we still made it by 3:50 or so.



The drill was very hectic and all we got out of it was this was our "muster point" in case of an emergency. We also got to use some cool behind the scenes stairs to get there (it was on deck 4, the same deck we entered the ship on).

From the drill we headed back up to 9 for the sail away party which was at 4:30. We went right up to the stage and Aria found some other kids who were right at the line looking at the stage. She was quickly handed a pom pom thing (?) and enjoyed playing with that for a while.



There was a man there who was loudly telling everyone who came near that he had booked the cruise for his whole family just 2 weeks prior from vacationstogo for less than $500 each. It was annoying at the time, but I have been checking that site quite often for deals hahahaha. I think a last minute deal next year would be pretty awesome to snag!





Someone offered to take a family pic!



Our route



The CM who was head of activities (forget his formal title, maybe Activities Director?) was the main speaker during the event and we saw him quite a few times during the cruise - he has one very busy job!





Soon the dance party started with all the characters coming out - Aria of course LOVED this part!





Aria wasn't too impressed with the dance party once she was expected to dance (she has since become quite fond of dancing, but at the time she wasn't in the mood I guess)



Then we had a bit of conflicting plans - Andrew wanted to go to deck 10 and watch us leave Miami, and I wanted Aria to have some time to play at the kids club! So we spent about 10 minutes on Deck 10 and watched for a little while.



And sooner than Andrew was ready for we headed to the Kid's Club. We had hoped to do this before the muster drill but there wasn't time, but this worked out perfectly as dinner wasn't until 5:45 and it was about 5 at this point.



There was no line to enter and soon her magic band was scanned in and she was ready to play! I'm so glad we had this chance to go in and see it with her.



There is a main area which has a huge pirate ship play area with a slide. In this main area there is also a stage set up and some arts and crafts. Off to the side there is a quiet area with movies/shows playing and some cute things to sit on. There is a small room off the main area which has some computers and other craft areas.





While in there I showed Aria the girl's bathrooms. She typically goes with me (I have never sent her into a public bathroom to go on her own) so I wanted her to be prepared for when she needed to go in the club. I even took a photo bc the bathroom was very cute (no other kids were inside!). It had shorter doors so the CM's could check on kids if they needed to. We even went through the motions of locking/unlocking the door and washing her hands on her own. Since then, she has been very independent at home or other homes going potty.



Back to the pirate ship to play!



continued in next post!!

 

[Imagineer5]

Around 5:35 we headed out for dinner. Aria saw this Ariel statue and fell in love!


Our first evening was at Parrot Cay (where we had had buffet lunch earlier) on Deck 3. There was a short line up outside the doors as they didn't open until 5:45PM, but we all were scrubbing our hands with the provided towels and soon were led inside. We quickly found out that we were sitting at a table for 8!
Now, I toyed with the idea of requesting a table by ourselves (and also looked into dining rotations). I never did request a specific table nor rotation. From the main cruise TR's I read, Disney does a pretty good job pairing up families with similar aged kids and I hoped that'd be the case for us. As far as dining rotations, this one meant we'd be eating in Parrot Cay twice as there are 4 restaurants aboard and 5 nights. I don't think this is a preferred rotation, but we had to eat in them all and decide on our favorites for the next cruise
Anyway, shortly after being seated we met our servers. I made a faux pas for attempting to order drinks from the waiter. Apparently this was the first cruise they were working together, and they were a bit off but not bad. BTW, as a general rule, I drank my wine in my cup during the day and ordered a fun drink or two at dinner.

You can see here, that we had our bread and drinks before our tablemates joined us. The bread was a warm banana bread with banana butter - and it was delicious!! Aria had been seated next to another kid's spot (they had kids menus and different water cups) so we were anxious to meet the family. Soon they arrived - it turned out to be grandparents, parents, and a little girl named Riley who had turned 3 in October, so only a couple months older than Aria. It seemed like Riley was also fighting a cold, so at least we didn't feel too bad with the occasional cough Aria was doing at the table.
We soon ordered our appetizers, I had the St. Maarten Stack which had grilled calabaza, zucchini and mozzarella with a tomato-basil vinaigrette.


And Andrew had the Ahi Tuna and Avocado Tower. Apparently he did NOT read the description: "with crispy noodles and wasabi dressing". This will come into play within about a minute of receiving.



Now at this point we were making small talk with the family and learning they were from Wisconsin (I THINK?!). The grandparents sat next to Andrew and were really nice, and the parents sat across from us so we didn't talk with them as much just because it was harder to hear them. Aria enjoyed sitting next to Riley and they were both doing their fair share of coughing - turns out the day before Riley had been really sick and had a fever...

Anyway Aria had a chicken noodle soup as an appetizer and corn dog nuggets as her main dish. Notice the mickey head shaped ketchup



So now, we were all worried about the people we might sit with. Thankfully they seemed really nice and it was nice having another kid Aria's age. Well, Aria loves Avocado and asked Daddy for some of his appetizer - he had only had a little bite so deemed it okay to give her. Well apparently the big green dollop of "avocado" he dipped her bite into was actually wasabi and soon we had a little girl throwing up in her seat. Apparently she inherited my dislike of wasabi, while I LOVE super spicy, wasabi is just disgusting to me! We had every napkin at the table and she filled them all. UGH! What a first impression for us to give them!! Absolutely mortified I took her out to the bathroom while Andrew rolled up all the napkins and cleaned up her area.

I had ideas of running back to the room to get her changed, but we were on the opposite side of the ship so I thought we could just clean her up and finish out dinner. She was fine once we were at the bathroom and her hands were all clean, thankfully.

A bit of foreshadowing, but this dress makes another messy appearance at our May Disney trip. I should just burn it but I spent a lot on it (Matilda Jane Platinum piec) and I am curious to see if she will throw up again the 3rd time she wears it LOL.

Back to dinner. I made it back and our main dishes had arrived. One big issue we had was the timing of the meals. Remember how we had our drinks & bread, and our meals ordered before our tablemates sat down? Well they slowed down our service through the dinner so we had a 2+ hour meal each night, even though we were more than ready to be done much faster. We also arrived a good 20 minutes before them each night. That was my main qualm with having tablemates I guess.

Anyway, Aria was happy and enjoying her meal and it seemed like our tablemates were not totally disgusted with us (though we joked with them they'd probably be at another table the next day!). My main dish was the Caribbean Roasted Chicken Breast - Chicken served with mashed sweet potatoes, corn and bell pepper stuffing with a spice glaze.



It had a nice flavor and I really enjoyed it.

Andrew had the Mixed Grill which had beef tenderloin, lamb, bacon wrapped sausage, and shrimp on mashed potatoes with asparagus and tomato.



He also enjoyed his meal.

As a special surprise, I had ordered a Mickey cake for Aria's birthday. The smallest one served like 8-10 people but I figured we would share it with the table. I didn't anticipate the episode earlier nor did I anticipate them having her bite out of the cake - but it was fun nonetheless.







And he had her bite it! LOL





We offered the cake to our tablemates but no bites (ha ha) so after eating a grand total of an ear, we brought the rest back to the room. It would have been really awesome if they could have stored it for us for each night, but they couldn't, and the fridge couldn't fit it, so it sat out in the room for the next few days. We did bite off of it here and there, but for the $65 price tag, I don't think we would order it again.

Aria was a bit crabby after dinner so Andrew took her back to the room while I decided to get some shopping done. I picked up Chip and Dale cruise stuffed animals, a cruise mug and a Wonder ornament and was happy with my purchases. I also spied some cruise PJ's but didn't buy them at this time. I got back and Andrew had left out the towel animal and navigator for me to see.



After a classic Mickey cartoon, Aria went to sleep in her little pull down twin and we pulled the curtains shut - we were able to rotate the TV so it was on our side of the curtain and we watched a little more before going to sleep ourselves. So this first night we missed the first show of the cruise - All Aboard! Let the magic begin. Hopefully we didn't miss too much!

One other thing to note - we did sign up for the free small amount of data. (you had to do this during a small window of time on this first day). Unfortunately that data went very, very quickly. Due to the new pet sitter and our snow situation, we did end up paying for some data during the cruise to check emails.

Coming up next - At Sea day! Some great character meets, a fever, and some fun

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Glad things worked out timing wise and you were able to get to the pool before the muster drill. Also glad Aria was excited about the room decorations!

I agree with you that the pool seems pretty small. I mean, I get that it is on a ship but still, seems pretty small. Speaking of small, Aria looks so small on that slide - but seems like she did great with!

The kids area looks like lots of fun to play in!

glad your table mates seemed nice and that they had a girl about Aria's age and that they got along. I would think that getting along or not with your table mates goes a long way to how your overall cruise experience is

Oh, poor Aria! So sorry about her throwing up at dinner! Hope she got it out of her system that one time though

Too bad how things worked out with the cake too ... definitely seems a bit pricey especially when it didn't really get eaten

Sounds like a nice relaxing first night though

 

[cindianne320]

Poor Aria! I'm sorry that she wasn't feeling well and then had yucky food on top of it! You (and your table mates) were troopers!

The kids club looks awesome! Our kids were 1 and 4 when we went, and we never had a chance to check them out.

 

[mandas08]

My little guys are 4 yrs and 6 months. We would love to go on a cruise right now, but we are also trying to pay down our house so we can move before or shortly after our 4 year old starts school. I just keep reminding myself that once all this no fun grown up stuff is taken care of and we are mortgage free we can have all kinds of fun cruises. Even with that being said I refuse to give up travel all together. My family drove to Canada every year for our vacation, so needless to say I didn't get much travel in until I met DH and we started making a travel budget a priority. Our last 3 big vacations have been WDW so there hasn't been much variety since our first was born. (We just have too much fun watching him experience Disney each trip)

What a fun slide. Did she end up having to scoot to the end every time? Also, is Aria tall for her age? I know my guy is short, but I think he is just now getting to 38 inches at 4 yrs..haha. Ya, that pool does look small, I don't think in all of my cruises I have ever actually used the pools. I'm not a huge fan of salt water unless its the ocean. Is Disneys pools fresh or salt water?

That kids club is awesome. Was this the only day adults were allowed or do they have "open club" times? Wasabi...oh no poor girl. That stuff has some kick, I hope she didn't get too much. By the way, that dress is too cute. A few blgs I follow but their daughters MJ clothes and I am always loving the mixing of prints they use. I would be frustrated if my table mates were late every day, especially with a little one. I think when we go I might consider requesting a separate table although I would enjoy getting to know other people I wouldn't want their tardiness to effect my meal. That cake is super cute, too bad you didn't get to enjoy more of it.

 

[Dugette]

I looked for slide rules and saw there was a 38" height requirement, max of 56" or so - which meant Aria had to go down by herself. I'm posting this because I couldn't find ANY info about the slide rules before we left. They do say it is for 4+ and Aria had just turned 3, but she met the height requirement so I let her try it out.

Lucky Aria! I'm glad she was both tall enough and brave enough (if not quite old enough) to try it! Izzy desperately wanted to go on it, but she was a couple inches short. You know, if we do end up taking that potential Dec. 2016 cruise, they will both be tall enough and old enough to go - I'm sure they'd have a blast doing that together. (By the way, I happened to ask Izzy tonight if she remembered Aria and she was like, "Yes!!" and got all excited and smiley. I reminded her that Aria is getting a baby sister and she said, "Aw, I'm so excited!" Then I told her Aria was going to France and seeing the Eiffel Tower and she was like, "I want to go there too!" )

I know you said 56" max, but this sign shows 64" - which means I qualify!! (wow, finally a time that being 5'4" is an advantage! ) Of course, I might have a harder time passing for 14 years old.

It didn't take away from the experience at all - but this is the main reason I want to go to the bigger ships - to try out the Aquaduck and hopefully have larger pools.

Hmmm, you might be disappointed in the pools. Granted, we only spent a very minimal amount of time in a pool (Izzy was not fond of that and preferred the splash pad), but it didn't seem very big (the Mickey pool). The Donald pool was closed down for much of our cruise, so we never tried it. We each did the Aquaduck once and enjoyed it, though - I'd do that again! If it helps, I tried to find a picture of the pools in our pics and found this view of the Mickey (toddler) pool:



Donald pool was probably closed/covered. We didn't make it into this, but I have to try out that swim-up bar next time (the adult only pool):

It was annoying at the time, but I have been checking that site quite often for deals hahahaha. I think a last minute deal next year would be pretty awesome to snag!

Interesting - is it a legitimate site then? Do you have to sign up to see the deals?

The CM who was head of activities (forget his formal title, maybe Activities Director?)

Cruise Director?

Aria wasn't too impressed with the dance party once she was expected to dance (she has since become quite fond of dancing, but at the time she wasn't in the mood I guess)

Aw, sorry she wasn't into dancing at the time. Izzy is a little dancer lately - we were in a restroom over the weekend and there was music playing fairly loudly and all she wanted to do in there was dance. She actually said to me, "I just have to dance!"

There is a main area which has a huge pirate ship play area with a slide. In this main area there is also a stage set up and some arts and crafts. Off to the side there is a quiet area with movies/shows playing and some cute things to sit on. There is a small room off the main area which has some computers and other craft areas.

Looks cool! It's fun to see the different kids club theming on the other ships!

While in there I showed Aria the girl's bathrooms. She typically goes with me (I have never sent her into a public bathroom to go on her own) so I wanted her to be prepared for when she needed to go in the club. I even took a photo bc the bathroom was very cute (no other kids were inside!). It had shorter doors so the CM's could check on kids if they needed to. We even went through the motions of locking/unlocking the door and washing her hands on her own. Since then, she has been very independent at home or other homes going potty.

Huh, I had never even thought about this yet. Izzy always goes with either me or Dug, but never on her own yet. In the Dream nursery, there was a cute little potty that I showed her (and I think she used), but I believe they help them in there. Izzy is still pretty reliant on some help with pulling things back up, etc. That's great that Aria has been so independent since!

Around 5:35 we headed out for dinner. Aria saw this Ariel statue and fell in love!

So sweet!

We quickly found out that we were sitting at a table for 8!

Oh, wow, I wouldn't have guessed that!

The bread was a warm banana bread with banana butter - and it was delicious!!

Mmmmm, that does sound delicious! I want some right now.

turns out the day before Riley had been really sick and had a fever...

Oh no, that doesn't sound good.

Well apparently the big green dollop of "avocado" he dipped her bite into was actually wasabi and soon we had a little girl throwing up in her seat.

Oh my gosh, poor Aria!!!

We had every napkin at the table and she filled them all. UGH!

I think you guys need to bring a large pack of napkins on your next cruise, based on how they keep saving the day on this one so far.

A bit of foreshadowing, but this dress makes another messy appearance at our May Disney trip. I should just burn it but I spent a lot on it (Matilda Jane Platinum piec) and I am curious to see if she will throw up again the 3rd time she wears it LOL.

Well, that sounds like a cursed dress. It must clean up well, at least.

Remember how we had our drinks & bread, and our meals ordered before our tablemates sat down? Well they slowed down our service through the dinner so we had a 2+ hour meal each night, even though we were more than ready to be done much faster.

That's a bummer. I remembered that you'd told me they were late, so I made certain we got to dinner on time each night of our cruise (as we weren't really doing so good on getting to much else on time...) - we were successful and our tablemates were too! Our meals were a pretty good pace and the other family usually left before us, as their guy only had so much patience for sitting at the table (and they were all tired). Worked out pretty well for us. Sorry things got slowed down for you guys.

And he had her bite it! LOL

Well, that's different.

We offered the cake to our tablemates but no bites (ha ha) so after eating a grand total of an ear, we brought the rest back to the room. It would have been really awesome if they could have stored it for us for each night, but they couldn't, and the fridge couldn't fit it, so it sat out in the room for the next few days. We did bite off of it here and there, but for the $65 price tag, I don't think we would order it again.

Mmmmm, that looks so yummy. If that potential cruise happens and you want to celebrate baby's first birthday with one, we'd help you eat it.

I picked up Chip and Dale cruise stuffed animals

Cute! I debated getting those too, but managed to resist (we did get a Chip and Dale ornament, though).

One other thing to note - we did sign up for the free small amount of data. (you had to do this during a small window of time on this first day). Unfortunately that data went very, very quickly. Due to the new pet sitter and our snow situation, we did end up paying for some data during the cruise to check emails.

Bummer that you had to pay for data. Our free data got used up by background things before we even got to use it at all.

a fever

Oh no!

 

[Imagineer5]

Glad things worked out timing wise and you were able to get to the pool before the muster drill. Also glad Aria was excited about the room decorations!

I agree with you that the pool seems pretty small. I mean, I get that it is on a ship but still, seems pretty small. Speaking of small, Aria looks so small on that slide - but seems like she did great with!

The kids area looks like lots of fun to play in!

glad your table mates seemed nice and that they had a girl about Aria's age and that they got along. I would think that getting along or not with your table mates goes a long way to how your overall cruise experience is

Oh, poor Aria! So sorry about her throwing up at dinner! Hope she got it out of her system that one time though

Too bad how things worked out with the cake too ... definitely seems a bit pricey especially when it didn't really get eaten

Sounds like a nice relaxing first night though

The slide was pretty slow, but I was very happy that she wanted to go on it all by herself. I think it helped that it didn't land into a pool (she hates going underwater still). The kids area was GREAT. I'd almost wait until the baby was over 3 just so she'll be able to go except for the fact that is nearly 3.5 years away lol! At least they have the nursery too.

The best part about our tablemates was them having another little girl, as Aria really enjoyed having a "friend" on the cruise. We ran into them a few times during the cruise and it was nice having someone we sort of knew. This is a big reason I'd like to cruise with friends next time, so Aria has a friend on the ship!

Thankfully it was just the wasabi for her upset tummy!

The cake was still a good memory and I'm glad we got it, just may not do it again

Poor Aria! I'm sorry that she wasn't feeling well and then had yucky food on top of it! You (and your table mates) were troopers!

The kids club looks awesome! Our kids were 1 and 4 when we went, and we never had a chance to check them out.

I felt SO bad for our tablemates having to deal with that, though thankfully they did have their own kid coughing up a storm so we were all sort of a mess.

Ahh your 4 year old never went?! It was Aria's favorite part of the cruise lol. I wished we had been able to utilize them some more!

My little guys are 4 yrs and 6 months. We would love to go on a cruise right now, but we are also trying to pay down our house so we can move before or shortly after our 4 year old starts school. I just keep reminding myself that once all this no fun grown up stuff is taken care of and we are mortgage free we can have all kinds of fun cruises. Even with that being said I refuse to give up travel all together. My family drove to Canada every year for our vacation, so needless to say I didn't get much travel in until I met DH and we started making a travel budget a priority. Our last 3 big vacations have been WDW so there hasn't been much variety since our first was born. (We just have too much fun watching him experience Disney each trip)

What a fun slide. Did she end up having to scoot to the end every time? Also, is Aria tall for her age? I know my guy is short, but I think he is just now getting to 38 inches at 4 yrs..haha. Ya, that pool does look small, I don't think in all of my cruises I have ever actually used the pools. I'm not a huge fan of salt water unless its the ocean. Is Disneys pools fresh or salt water?

That kids club is awesome. Was this the only day adults were allowed or do they have "open club" times? Wasabi...oh no poor girl. That stuff has some kick, I hope she didn't get too much. By the way, that dress is too cute. A few blgs I follow but their daughters MJ clothes and I am always loving the mixing of prints they use. I would be frustrated if my table mates were late every day, especially with a little one. I think when we go I might consider requesting a separate table although I would enjoy getting to know other people I wouldn't want their tardiness to effect my meal. That cake is super cute, too bad you didn't get to enjoy more of it.

We are in the same boat actually, which is why 2016 is pretty dry trip-wise aside from the 4th birthday at Disney trip. We are working on paying down our mortgage so we can move in a few years. It won't be before Aria starts school (we are really underwater, bought in Dec. 2006 at the height of the housing market) but yes I am the same way - need to get to that point and then we'll have a lot of extra $$, BUT I don't want to put our lives on hold either. It's a tough balance, esp in these early years when I want to do so much!

Well despite being yelled at she generally did walk at the end of each slide lol. I told her she can't do that but I could also tell she was struggling with what to do. She is pretty tall for her age (although she is just a hair over 39" now, so unless she has a big growth spurt soon she has really slowed down!). Hmmm the pools are fresh water (had to look it up, I didn't remember them being salt but wanted to check).

There were a could random times throughout the cruise that the kids club had open houses. There are also two kids clubs - the oceaneer club (ages 3-7?) and the oceaneer lab (ages 7-10?) unsure on the ages but kids of all ages can use both I believe, but they are themed for younger and older kids. Aria never went into the lab, just the club, but both do have open houses.

The tardiness was annoying, I wish we would have said something to our servers asking them to speed up our meals (at least keep them on pace instead of slowing them down). Aria did really great with the long meals but we were all dragging after the 3rd night of them.

Lucky Aria! I'm glad she was both tall enough and brave enough (if not quite old enough) to try it! Izzy desperately wanted to go on it, but she was a couple inches short. You know, if we do end up taking that potential Dec. 2016 cruise, they will both be tall enough and old enough to go - I'm sure they'd have a blast doing that together. (By the way, I happened to ask Izzy tonight if she remembered Aria and she was like, "Yes!!" and got all excited and smiley. I reminded her that Aria is getting a baby sister and she said, "Aw, I'm so excited!" Then I told her Aria was going to France and seeing the Eiffel Tower and she was like, "I want to go there too!" )


I know you said 56" max, but this sign shows 64" - which means I qualify!! (wow, finally a time that being 5'4" is an advantage! ) Of course, I might have a harder time passing for 14 years old.


Hmmm, you might be disappointed in the pools. Granted, we only spent a very minimal amount of time in a pool (Izzy was not fond of that and preferred the splash pad), but it didn't seem very big (the Mickey pool). The Donald pool was closed down for much of our cruise, so we never tried it. We each did the Aquaduck once and enjoyed it, though - I'd do that again! If it helps, I tried to find a picture of the pools in our pics and found this view of the Mickey (toddler) pool:



Donald pool was probably closed/covered. We didn't make it into this, but I have to try out that swim-up bar next time (the adult only pool):




Interesting - is it a legitimate site then? Do you have to sign up to see the deals?


Cruise Director?


Aw, sorry she wasn't into dancing at the time. Izzy is a little dancer lately - we were in a restroom over the weekend and there was music playing fairly loudly and all she wanted to do in there was dance. She actually said to me, "I just have to dance!"


Looks cool! It's fun to see the different kids club theming on the other ships!


Huh, I had never even thought about this yet. Izzy always goes with either me or Dug, but never on her own yet. In the Dream nursery, there was a cute little potty that I showed her (and I think she used), but I believe they help them in there. Izzy is still pretty reliant on some help with pulling things back up, etc. That's great that Aria has been so independent since!


So sweet!


Oh, wow, I wouldn't have guessed that!


Mmmmm, that does sound delicious! I want some right now.


Oh no, that doesn't sound good.


Oh my gosh, poor Aria!!!


I think you guys need to bring a large pack of napkins on your next cruise, based on how they keep saving the day on this one so far.


Well, that sounds like a cursed dress. It must clean up well, at least.


That's a bummer. I remembered that you'd told me they were late, so I made certain we got to dinner on time each night of our cruise (as we weren't really doing so good on getting to much else on time...) - we were successful and our tablemates were too! Our meals were a pretty good pace and the other family usually left before us, as their guy only had so much patience for sitting at the table (and they were all tired). Worked out pretty well for us. Sorry things got slowed down for you guys.


Well, that's different.


Mmmmm, that looks so yummy. If that potential cruise happens and you want to celebrate baby's first birthday with one, we'd help you eat it.


Cute! I debated getting those too, but managed to resist (we did get a Chip and Dale ornament, though).


Bummer that you had to pay for data. Our free data got used up by background things before we even got to use it at all.


Oh no!

I have been confused about the Aquaduck - I saw a video of two people riding it - what is the height requirement on it? Is there a different height requirement to ride solo or with someone else? Aria would LOVE that one.

It would be SO much fun for Aria to have Izzy on the cruise. They'd have so much fun playing together whether it be in the kids clubs or pools or whatever. Aria definitely remembers Izzy too Since Andrew is selling his boat, it will be pretty hard to convince him of another Disney related trip next year but I am slowly working on it (waiting for a crazy deal to pop up that he just cant resist!).

Whoops, I meant to change it and must have typed 56" again lol! That is true, I am really only 1/2" over it, but I can say I never saw any shorter adults on the slide and I was told by a number of CMs I couldn't go on it when I was bringing Aria up.

The adult pool on your ship is awesome. That is a big wish for the next cruise - have aria be well enough to use the kids clubs more, and thus give us some more adult area time!

Yes the dancing bug has hit! Her favorite song is "All about the base" LOL! I don't even know how she heard it - I'm not big into music and only listen to my audible books in the car (or have it off) and Andrew listens to country. But she dances to anything now!

That is good the people at your table were pretty on time and timely with their meals too. Ours seemed like they could just sit for hours (maybe that was the grandparents doing, not sure haha).

Yeah, I think that is what happened with our data. It went way too fast I think! I should have just used it at the computer station and then background things on my phone wouldn't have been an issue, but It was so much more convenient in my room on my phone

 

[Stasieki]

I am enjoying your TR. Aria is adorable. I spied your MJ immediately. My girls have been wearing since early on. Maybe 2009. Also on MJ Addicts FB page. I def feel your pain about throw up on that gorgeous dress!!! Can't wait to hear about the rest of your cruise.

 

[Imagineer5]

I'm going to switch gears again and chat about the 2nd segment of our France trip!!

So for the next 4 nights we are staying at the Hotel New York at Disneyland Paris!

Day 5:

But first, we are going to spend the day at Versailles - so leaving our Paris apartment fairly early (around 7:30) and we'll head to Versailles. We have a King's Apartment private tour scheduled (upcharge of only 7 euros) - it's a 1.5 hour guided tour, and it gets us through the crazy security line which I have read can take 1-2 hours, so that was our initial reason for booking. But the tour does seem really neat too.

From the website description: Behind the walls and royal life of the Grand Apartments lie the private apartments of Louis XV and Louis XVI. Accompanied by a qualified guide, this tour gives you a look into the intimate atmosphere and the refined decoration of these living areas.

King's apartment:

"Originally “just” a hunting home, King Louis XIV moved his royal court to Versailles to escape the mayhem brewing in Paris. It was home to the royal family from 1682 until the French Revolution in 1789."

Queen's apartment - home to many including Marie Antoinette

After the tour is over, we will spend a little more time inside the castle, visiting the hall of mirrors and some other areas we missed -

At Noon the gardens open. We will grab a quick bite to eat, and then go either rent bikes (assuming they have a kid's seat and I feel comfortable biking) or we'll rent a golf cart and explore the gardens, including Marie Antoinette's hamlet

Around 2 or so I anticipate we'll head out. Aria will zonk out and it should be only an hour drive to Disneyland Paris! Hopefully our room will be ready and we can do some unpacking. BTW, I booked this package really early on - it includes 4 nights at HNY (a deluxe resort), daily breakfast, and 5-day hopper tickets, and it was about $1500 for the 3 of us. I thought that was a pretty good deal. I'd be lucky to stay at the Disneyland Hotel in CA for 4 nights for under 1200 and then park tickets on top of that would be another 800 or so. And the reason we stayed 4 nights is because they had a special where the 4th was free - so how could we not

I really wanted the Disneyland Hotel, which is built over the entrance to Disneyland park, but it was an upcharge of over $1K. At least HNY is within a 5 minute walk of both parks and Disney village!

It has an indoor and outdoor pool

At check in we need to book our breakfast dining times - I plan to request 7AM so that we'll be ready for the 8AM park opening times! Apparently we also have to tell them we're booked at some restaurants so they can confirm.

When we are ready, the plan is to head to Disneyland Park and just take it all in. I hope to watch Disney Dreams tonight - I didn't make a dining reservation in case we arrived much later than anticipated though.

I found this map online to show where everything is:

Day 6:

Today is a full Disneyland Park day! Extra magic hours are from 8-10AM and the rides open should be Space or star tours, Buzz, Peter Pan, tea cups, Dumbo and the Carousel. Subject to change I think people also start queuing for character meets during this time, but I am not going to worry too much about that. We also want to check out the castle and dungeons.

Also, there is such a thing called a Pink Pass at Disneyland paris for pregnant women. So I'll be stopping at town hall for one! There are a number of rides that Disneyland Park has deemed unsafe for pregnant women including Peter Pan, Pirates, Dumbo and a number of others. I am hoping to ride these anyway. However the pass allows you quick access to:

Railroad
Phantom Manor
Riverboat
Alice's Curious Labyrinth (walkthrough)
Carousel
Le Pays de Contes de Fees (storybook boats)
Buzz lightyear
Les Mysteres du nautilus (walkthrough)
Captain EO

At some shows at Disney Studios - there are zero rides that are deemed safe at the Studios for pregnant people.

So my list is pretty short, but I will not hesitate to ride the FL rides such as Pinocchio, Peter Pan, Dumbo, etc and have already been planning out outfits that hide my belly so a CM won't stop me. I'm certainly not going to hop on Big Thunder or anything! Apparently the lap bar is a big reason for this - but honestly Andrew's belly will stop that bar before it hits me!

Some things I am looking forward to:

Alice's curious labyrinth - like a maze
Adventure Isle - like Tom Sawyer Island
Snow White (not supposed to ride)
Pinnocchio (not supposed to ride)
Buzz
Casey Jr (not supposed to ride)
Railroad
Dumbo
La Cabane des Robinson (treehouse)
Carrousel
Le Pays des contes de Fees (storybook boats - one of my favorite rides at DL!)
Les Mysteres du Nautilus
Orbitron
Pinocchio (not supposed to ride)
Peter Pan (not supposed to ride)
Phantom Manor
Pirate play area
Pirates (not supposed to ride)
Castle & dungeon

And some things Aria and Andrew will get to do:

Autopia
Big Thunder
Tea Cups
Star Tours

Andrew will enjoy (Aria can't ride):
Indiana Jones
Space

Anyway moving on from rule breaking, we'll have plenty of time to enjoy the park today. At 1 we have lunch reservations at Auberge au Cendrillon - which is similar to Cinderella's Royal Table. Suzy and Perla will be there!

After lunch, Aria will nap in her stroller and we may head back to the room for a while, or else Andrew can ride Indiana Jones and Space or something. Maybe I'll do some shopping at the Disney Village

We have no dinner plans but I'd love to see the 5:30 parade, and we will stay for Disney Dreams if we missed it the night before.

Day 7:

This morning we may skip the EMH and just plan to get to the Studios at 9:30 - the park opens at 10 and I want to get to Ratatouille first! It's their newest ride and I've only heard amazing things about it. I know pregnant people have ridden it but youre not supposed to.

We'll also try to grab fastpasses for later. From here we'll see what the line is like for Crush's Coaster so Andrew can ride. I might take Aria on the flying carpets.

Other things I am looking forward to are the Toy Story play area, Art of Animation, and the Cinemagique show. Andrew will be able to take Aria to Tower of Terror, Cars Road Ralley, Slinky Dog Zigzag spin, and toy soldiers parachute drop, and on his own he can ride the RC Racers and RnRC.

For lunch we are heading to Chez Remy! So excited for this one.

After lunch I bet there will still be a number of rides left for Andrew to ride, so he can do that while Aria naps.

When we are ready to head out, we have dinner plans at the Disney Village at Café Mickey (like Chef Mickeys), so until then we will check out the shops in the village.

After dinner we'll have some swim time before bed.

Day 8:

Today we'll head back to Disneyland Park - it's pretty open though so if there are things we'd like to do again at the Studios we can hop over there in the morning or afternoon. We will probably do the 8-10AM EMH to revisit those rides.

Lunch today is at Walt's on Main Street.

It's on the 2nd floor overlooking Main Street. My original goal was to have dinner here our first night, but it is only open during lunch in the "off season".

After lunch we'll do whatever sounds good - back for a swim or more rides.

Dinner we have at Inventions at the Disneyland Hotel. I really wanted an excuse to check out the resort, and this is a character meal to boot!

The characters are random (reminds me of Disneyland at Goofy's kitchen where we had totally random ones show up) - so no idea who to plan for. One reviewer said they saw Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Gepetto, Goofy and Eeyore. Despite the high price tag, it should be a nice way to end our Disney portion of the trip!

After dinner we may try to catch Dreams again, or just head back for some pool time and packing. The next day we are leaving early to head into chateau country!

 

[Imagineer5]

I am enjoying your TR. Aria is adorable. I spied your MJ immediately. My girls have been wearing since early on. Maybe 2009. Also on MJ Addicts FB page. I def feel your pain about throw up on that gorgeous dress!!! Can't wait to hear about the rest of your cruise.

Hello fellow addict!! <3 wonder if we are already FB friends on my closet page?? Love finding a closet mama also into Disney! Thanks for commenting

 

[schmass]

Hi, I think I'm all caught up now!

It looks like you had a great first day on the cruise (except for the throwing up!). I'm with you on the wasabi - I can't stand the taste, or even the smell of it. Poor Aria!

I agree, the main pool is way too small. I think it's bigger on the newer ships, but there are twice as many people, so it is still small.

I will have to check out the website that guy was talking about - that is a great deal!

We've always had such good experiences with our tablemates, I was actually disappointed when we were at our own table last cruise!

I'm glad that you had a chance to check out the kid's club with Aria. I hope that we can do that next cruise, as Rory will turn 3 on the cruise.

Your France plans continue to look awesome! That is great about the Pink Pass for pregnant women! The restaurants you are eating look very nice!

 

[Imagineer5]

Interesting - is it a legitimate site then? Do you have to sign up to see the deals?

Hi, I think I'm all caught up now!

It looks like you had a great first day on the cruise (except for the throwing up!). I'm with you on the wasabi - I can't stand the taste, or even the smell of it. Poor Aria!

I agree, the main pool is way too small. I think it's bigger on the newer ships, but there are twice as many people, so it is still small.

I will have to check out the website that guy was talking about - that is a great deal!

We've always had such good experiences with our tablemates, I was actually disappointed when we were at our own table last cruise!

I'm glad that you had a chance to check out the kid's club with Aria. I hope that we can do that next cruise, as Rory will turn 3 on the cruise.

Your France plans continue to look awesome! That is great about the Pink Pass for pregnant women! The restaurants you are eating look very nice!

I've been tracking that site for a while and while I've seen some fairly decent deals, it is the last minute deals that get me. I'm such a big planner that it would be hard for me to jump on something (usually because I have too much other stuff planned). Considering we don't have much planned next year I am really hoping to be able to take advantage of something like that

Yeah IDK what it is with wasabi - I LOVE LOVE super duper spice. But this just has this disgusting flavor and smell and ughhh just gross. That is true about more people in the other pools I understand they are working with limited space, but at least on the Wonder I think it even looks funny to me how small it is on that deck.

Overall we were so happy to have tablemates. It was our own fault for not saying something to the servers about hurrying along the meal a bit - next time we'll do that if we end up in the same situation.

The restaurants are the things I can get excited about (along with treats in the parks!), since I'm unsure about the ability to ride most of the rides lol and can't drink lol! Ugh! i'm just trying to be excited for what I CAN do and know we can always go back in the future (like when Baby starts to wonder why Aria has been to WDW so many times, Disneyland, and Holland, Germany, Italy and France...maybe Andrew will relent and go back ha).

 

[TheMaxRebo]

The tour at Versailles looks pretty cool and definitely seems worth the 7 Euro upcharge to skip that line.

Wow, $1500 for all of you? that seems like a really good deal as all I ever hear about Disneyland Paris is how expensive it is! Seems like you have pretty good plans laid out - I really would like to see that dragon that is under the castle in person. And I hear Disney Dreams is amazing so definitely see having that penciled in for a couple of nights. Your meals look fun too - too bad Walt's isn't open for dinner as that does seem like a fun "first night" meal.

 

[cindianne320]

Your Paris trip just keeps sounding more amazing! I can't wait to read all about it! (And if you were able to sneak on the forbidden rides!)

I've just discovered MJ for my DD. I bought her her first dress for the baby's baptism.

We only were on a 3-night cruise, so that's why we never made it to the Kid's Club- too many other fun activities packed in, and we had 4 adults and 2 kids, so DH and I still got to sneak away for adult only time.

I want to go on the Dec. '16 cruise. Darn school calendar!

 

[Imagineer5]

The tour at Versailles looks pretty cool and definitely seems worth the 7 Euro upcharge to skip that line.

Wow, $1500 for all of you? that seems like a really good deal as all I ever hear about Disneyland Paris is how expensive it is! Seems like you have pretty good plans laid out - I really would like to see that dragon that is under the castle in person. And I hear Disney Dreams is amazing so definitely see having that penciled in for a couple of nights. Your meals look fun too - too bad Walt's isn't open for dinner as that does seem like a fun "first night" meal.

I am very excited for our day at Versailles, and am glad we're very flexible that day in case we want to stay even longer.

Yes, 1500 total for the 3 of us. I looked again a month or so ago (just to see if I got a good deal, not a good idea with my flights!) and it had gone up significantly. But yes for a deluxe resort including breakfast, walking distance to everything, park tickets, etc I thought that was a very good price.

I'm excited to see the dragon too! I bet Aria will be afraid to go down there.

Your Paris trip just keeps sounding more amazing! I can't wait to read all about it! (And if you were able to sneak on the forbidden rides!)

I've just discovered MJ for my DD. I bought her her first dress for the baby's baptism.

We only were on a 3-night cruise, so that's why we never made it to the Kid's Club- too many other fun activities packed in, and we had 4 adults and 2 kids, so DH and I still got to sneak away for adult only time.

I want to go on the Dec. '16 cruise. Darn school calendar!

Thank you!! I scoured the internet after learning how many rides were restricted, and did find two Trip Advisor TR's for pregnant people who also thought these were pretty silly restrictions and they were able to ride. I think they did do a little belly hiding which is why I've been sorting out my DLP clothes lol.

Aww - which dress did you buy? That is sweet

I see, even on the 5-nighter and we wished we had more time! Glad you got a little time to yourselves though!

School is another reason I'm trying to do so much now!! We still have another 2 years until Aria starts Kindergarten though so that is good at least. A few years ago I had a whole trip plan in place which included a 3 week Australia trip before she starts school, but I don't think that is happening for a few more years with the baby and the huge price tag that I can't seem to reduce lol.

 

[cindianne320]

She has the Miss Fancy Tank Dress. Hope you don't mind if I share a pic:

(Goofy pic of the rest of us- but only full length of the dress. I'm in the green. )

I'm a teacher, and DS does start K this year, so we are really tied down to the school calendar now.

 

[Dugette]

We are working on paying down our mortgage so we can move in a few years. It won't be before Aria starts school (we are really underwater, bought in Dec. 2006 at the height of the housing market)

I know we talked about this before and we have the whole bought-at-the-wrong-time-and-lost-oodles-of-value thing in common (we starting building late 2006 and closed in March 2007). I forgot to ask if you've looked into refinancing, though? We did a HARP refinance 3 years ago and brought our interest rate down a fair amount, so that helped us pay down the principal a bit faster - and we were only able to do it then because of HARP eliminating the LTV requirements - we were WAY underwater then (our home's value was like 65% of purchase price at the refinance appraisal ). I just recently started thinking about refinancing again, as the rates are even better and our value has come up and our principal has gone down enough that we MIGHT just squeak by the 95% loan-to-value requirement (can only do HARP once, so that's out). Anyway, just thought I'd mention it. But I feel for you - 8 years of paying things down and we still - BEST case scenario - would walk away from a sale with no money for a down payment on a new house.

I have been confused about the Aquaduck - I saw a video of two people riding it - what is the height requirement on it? Is there a different height requirement to ride solo or with someone else? Aria would LOVE that one.

Yes, I know there are different height requirements for one vs. two riders and I know Izzy was still too short, but I can't remember the specifics.

Since Andrew is selling his boat, it will be pretty hard to convince him of another Disney related trip next year but I am slowly working on it (waiting for a crazy deal to pop up that he just cant resist!).

Well, maybe he'll miss his boat enough that a Disney boat will be a good substitute.

BTW, I booked this package really early on - it includes 4 nights at HNY (a deluxe resort), daily breakfast, and 5-day hopper tickets, and it was about $1500 for the 3 of us.

That sounds like an amazing deal!

Buzz lightyear

I'm surprised this one is allowed, based on the others they forbid. Is it like the one at WDW that can whip you around pretty fast with the joystick?

and have already been planning out outfits that hide my belly so a CM won't stop me.

I've gotta say, I am really anxious to see this and how you pull it off.

Apparently the lap bar is a big reason for this - but honestly Andrew's belly will stop that bar before it hits me!

Are there any rides where you will have to ride with only two in a row vs. three? If so, that could be an issue because Aria won't stop the bar and if you're by yourself, well, you'll have to find a large friend, I guess.

Anyway moving on from rule breaking

I am totally picturing you in Disneyland Paris jail.

Your plans are sounding great and all of the dining seems really fun too!