knock, knock
Huh? Wha?
knock, knock
Since I am closet to the door, I stumble over and open it.
I threw up.
Okay, now Im awake. It is 6:15 a.m.
(If you have a weak stomach, catch up with us later
.)
Christian is standing there looking pale. I follow him back to his room and am greeted by the smell first.
Remember that small space between the two beds? Thats where he chose to deposit his clothes the night before. They are coated with, um, ...glop. So is his bed and his brothers bed.
here are the beds in better, cleaner times...see how narrow the space between them?
Andrew is standing there not at all amused at being woke up because someone was puking on him. Caroline is managing to sleep through all this. Rick and I begin to clean up the mess. We have to remove all the linens from both beds, then
scrape the floor, nightstand, clothes, etc
..
We give Christian a trash can which he uses a few more times. I give him Bonine figuring hes seasick.
Everyone else goes back to sleep but Im wide awake at this point.
I go up top and get some coffee and watch while we pull into
Castaway Cay. Its a beautiful day.
Mickey is quiet at this time of morning.
After a while I head back down to the room, my whole family is sleeping (what luck!) I pack up our beach stuff and wake everyone. Christian is still not feeling great. I notify Chris, our cabin steward, who is very kind about the whole situation. I feel terrible for the mess but Ive cleaned it as best as I can. He assures me theyll have the carpets cleaned. (Yes we upped his tip amount.)
But then he does give me a heads-up about what to expect. He says that Christian needs to get better and fast. If he continues to be sick hell have to see the doctor and they will most likely quarantine him. He says its probably not seasickness but Norovirus.
I am heartsick at this point.
Months of preparing and anticipating and this poor child who always suffers with his health is going to miss the most fun day of all?
He heaves one more time then falls asleep. Caroline continues to sleep and I sit with the two of them while Rick and Andrew go eat breakfast.
When they return Caroline and I go up and eat. We return to the room and I gather our beach stuff. I dont want the other kids to miss out, too.
Its at this point that we learn that the boys stayed up late the night before and were hungry. Since I had forbidden ordering room service, Christian polished off the can of honey-roasted peanuts. And he decided the dump all the sugar at the bottom of the can into his stomach. Hmmm, this is sounding more and more like a case of self-induced misery*.
Rick volunteers to stay onboard with Christian while I take Andrew and Caroline to the beach. We agree to meet at 11 a.m. at Cookies. We leave the ship well after 9 a.m.; its very hot already. We had intended for the boys to do the Teen Wild Side excursion today but had not booked it yet because Andrew needed special approval (since hes 18). Im so glad now that we had not followed through on that or we would have been out the money.
We notice these CMs suspended from the ship painting or cleaning. (Isn't this Goofy's responsibility?)
Following the advice of fellow DIS-ers, we continue down the beach until we are near the play structure in the water. The area is already crowded but there are plenty of open seats so we stake our claim.
Andrew and Caroline get in the water right away and have fun playing.
Then look who shows up:
He is very funny, and totally in character.
About 10:50 I go up to Cookies to meet Rick and Christian thinking they might be out early. I wait and I wait. Finally about 11:25 they show up. Christian is feeling much better although not top notch.
We alternate eating lunch at Cookies (Christian is not interested in that).
Caroline plays in the water with her DIS friends.
We all enjoy the beach and the water.
The boys do some snorkeling.
We had brought our own masks so they rented the fins. Andrew seems to love this. He snorkels for two hours and is then exhausted.
One of their stateroom gifts I gave them was a disposable underwater camera.
At this point in the afternoon all the kids are tired and want to return to the ship. Caroline is not a big fan of the salt water or the fact that shes swimming with fish.
Next up: Serenity Bay & the meltdowns....
Something I learned:
There is plenty of cold water available on Castaway Cay. Although at one point, only one soda fountain was open (made for some very long lines) I could always get water. Next time I will bring a refillable water bottle and not worry about getting sand in the open cups they provide.
I should have warned Caroline about salt water; never even occured to me to do so.
*regarding Christian. Two days after we returned from vacation, he got sick with flu-like symptoms. I was concerned he had picked up H1N1. A trip to the MD confirmed he had a sinus infection; and that his sinuses had been dripping back into his throat, which is also a possible contributing factor to him throwing up onboard. Really I think it was the junk food so late at night, but it might have been a combination. Either way, he was fine within 6 hours and we don't believe he had anything that was contagious.
That lasted about 1/2 an hour and we were all ready to call it a night. 
Most of the time the Disney stars were pretty well isolated with their own family/friendswe heard of the occasional encounter with them, and of course there were staged events. 
I learned that they had been staying up very late every night. I think this is a testament to how sound-proof the cabins are. They were right next door and I never heard them.
