2nd Anniversary + 2nd Chances = Our 2nd Cruise! 7/20 NEWS!!

After completing the second bike trail we both decided we were ready to head on to something new. On our honeymoon we had never taken the opportunity to head over to Serenity Bay and so we knew this is where we were headed next :thumbsup2

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I guess both of us had a feeling we weren't going to be in the mood for a swim or snorkel because neither of us had grabbed our swim gear on the way out of the room that morning. However, we were both starting to get very hot so we decided a walk along the edge of the water sounded refreshing.

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Even in pictures I cannot believe how crystal clear the water is! We were really enjoying the feeling of the water as the waves hit the sand and all the little fish at the surface. Normally I am a major water girl and would be dying to get out there and swim, but it just wasn't that type of day. That afternoon walking along the shoreline talking about the start of summer was exactly what we both needed. We probably spent about half an hour before I decided that I needed to eat and we started heading over to the picnic area. I had stayed perfectly hydrated with all the water stops along the bike trail, but I realized I had put off eating a little too long and was starting to feel nauseous from it :sick: At first we started to pick up the pace to get to food quicker, but that made it feel worse, so Candi just kept at my speed until we made it back "onto land"

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After a quick stop to remove all the sand from our toes we headed to the adults picnic area to eat. Candi helped me dump all our stuff onto a shaded table and let me sit while he went to go make me a plate of food. Normally I'm a "I can do it myself" type of girl, but at this point I was more than grateful for his offer. He quickly brought me a plate overloaded with food, which I picked at until he came back with his plate.

Now, I know that a lot of people rave about the adults only food area compared to the one on family beach. And we definitely enjoyed that it wasn't crowded which made it more peaceful. However, it was extremely smoky from the grills. I'm not sure if this seemed amplified to me because I was already not feeling good, but it definitely wasn't helping. I mostly just ate all the fruit Candi had got for me and just picked at the hamburger before I needed to leave the area due to all the smoke.

At this point Candi was starting to get concerned and decided that I needed to head inside from all the heat. I wanted to argue because I didn't want to leave Castaway Cay, but truly I knew he was right. So we headed over to the to wait for the next tram so we could head back to the ship ....
 
Glad that you're updating again. I enjoy your thread and am using it as reference for our upcoming cruise. Hope you are feeling well and getting ready for that "bundle of boy"!
 
I just got all caught up, great report and Congratulations on the Boy!! I completely agree with the bike ride, DH and I did that on CC and had a blast. Can't wait for the next installment
 
Oh, fun! Another update! I can understand how the smoke can get to you, it seems like you had a great day before that though. I am loving your report!
 

Thanks for all the compliments! What itinerary are you cruising?

I really wanted to do the 5 night with 2 Castaway Cay stops, but the budget got in the way, so we are booked on the Dream for 4 nights, leaving June 3rd. Not what I was hoping for, but I'm still very excited!
 
Great update! Serenity Bay looks lovely. I hope that you felt better once you got back onto the ship.
 
Glad that you're updating again. I enjoy your thread and am using it as reference for our upcoming cruise. Hope you are feeling well and getting ready for that "bundle of boy"!

Thank you! When are you cruising? Where to?

I just got all caught up, great report and Congratulations on the Boy!! I completely agree with the bike ride, DH and I did that on CC and had a blast. Can't wait for the next installment

Thank you very much :goodvibes

Oh, fun! Another update! I can understand how the smoke can get to you, it seems like you had a great day before that though. I am loving your report!

We did have an absolutely wonderful start to our day and luckily it didn't end there ;)

I really wanted to do the 5 night with 2 Castaway Cay stops, but the budget got in the way, so we are booked on the Dream for 4 nights, leaving June 3rd. Not what I was hoping for, but I'm still very excited!

Yeah, the price difference with and without the 2 stops is definitely drastic :sad2: You will still have a blast :thumbsup2

Great update! Serenity Bay looks lovely. I hope that you felt better once you got back onto the ship.

It really is beautiful :cloud9:
 
We are on for the Feb 5th cruise to the Western. DH and I did the Eastern on NCL two years ago when our DS #2 was only a few months old as he gave us cause to take a well needed break - definately different than #1! This time we are taking the boys (2 and 5) and decided DCL was the way to go. I bawled the first time we took my oldest to Disney World and he looked up at me as we entered MK and said "this is the mostest wonderful place on earth". I can't wait for both their reactions when we do both MK and the cruise! You are in for the best that life has to offer...motherhood!
 
Yay!!! I didn't miss it all! Subbing in. :) Congrats on the baby boy! I have one of each and personally I think boys are so much easier than girls! Girls have cuter clothes though. :rotfl: Can't wait to hear more! :goodvibes
 
We are on for the Feb 5th cruise to the Western. DH and I did the Eastern on NCL two years ago when our DS #2 was only a few months old as he gave us cause to take a well needed break - definately different than #1! This time we are taking the boys (2 and 5) and decided DCL was the way to go. I bawled the first time we took my oldest to Disney World and he looked up at me as we entered MK and said "this is the mostest wonderful place on earth". I can't wait for both their reactions when we do both MK and the cruise! You are in for the best that life has to offer...motherhood!

Ooohh, the Western is definitely on my list of "must do" :thumbsup2 I can't wait to hear how the cruise goes for your boys :goodvibes

Yay!!! I didn't miss it all! Subbing in. :) Congrats on the baby boy! I have one of each and personally I think boys are so much easier than girls! Girls have cuter clothes though. :rotfl: Can't wait to hear more! :goodvibes

Thanks for subbing! I am so excited to have a little boy, but get so frustrated at how much more things there are for baby girls than baby boys at the stores :headache: :rolleyes1
 
We didn't have to wait very long for a tram to make its way over to us. And, really, how can you not enjoy waiting in an area surrounded by beauty like this anyway?

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After we got off at the tram stop, we started slowly making our way to the ship. As we were walking by the family BBQ area I decided I needed to see if they had any of the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream that everybody is always raving about. Alas, they did not, so instead I stopped at Conched Out to get a (non-alcoholic) pina colada to enjoy the rest of the walk back to board. Granted $5.54 is a bit pricey for what is essentially a smoothie, but man was it good! It had just the right combination of coconut and banana taste and was nice and cool in the hot sun :thumbsup2

In what seemed like a matter of minutes we were leaving Castaway Cay

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Although I knew that we would be back at the end of the week it still made me sad to see this sign. As with every vacation, it was already going by way too fast and I tried hard not to do the "only 'X' amount of days left" thinking. We stopped to take a picture of each other before heading in, when a really nice runner literally stopped in his tracks and turned around to offer to take one of both of us.

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I've said it before, but I will say it again .... I never ever get sick of how nice everybody was on this (and all previous Disney) trips :goodvibes

With a smile on my face from how great the picture turned out (I, of course, checked it in the viewfinder) we made our way back inside.

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Once we made our way back to the room we decided the plan would be to shower, order room service and nap. We had the late dining rotation and weren't interested in that evenings showing in the Walt Disney Theatre, Once Upon a song. No offense to the performers, I just wasn't in the mood to listen to a combination of singing, even if it was Disney songs :eek:

We quickly made our way to the room and I jumped in the tub to relax and Candi ordered room service. More fruit, a cheese platter, a hamburger and tortilla soup! The food arrived just as Candi finished his shower, and once I started eating I realized how hungry I really was. I guess I just couldn't enjoy eating while being hot, sweaty and surrounded by smoke when I tried to eat on the island :confused3 All the food was very good and was perfect at filling my belly until dinnertime. After we finished eating we both dozed off to "Where the Wild Things Are" playing in the background.

I'm not really sure how long we slept but I stirred awake as the boat was pulling away from Castaway Cay (around 5:00) and headed out to our balcony to enjoy the views.

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Within a few minutes Candi had joined me outside and we just enjoyed sitting there with the ocean slowly surrounding us. Since we were both wide awake, we grabbed the navigator to decide what we wanted to do with the rest of our evening.

There was a a new round of the "Who Wants to be a Mousketeer" starting fairly soon so we decided to go join that. There were quite a few people there, including tons of kids anxious to get called on! Our number never did get called to go up, but we had a lot of fun playing from our seats. I must say, I was also thoroughly impressed with how much Disney knowledge Candi was starting to gain! Overall I thought the game show was really cute. The CMs really got into their roles, and all the contestants had a lot of fun playing.

Once the game show ended we walked around the top deck for a while before heading back to the room to get ready for dinner. This was our first night in the regular dining rooms and we were excited and anxious to meet our tablemates and serving team. On our honeymoon cruise we had an excellent serving team and some "not so great" tablemates. They complained about every single thing, from the atmosphere to the amount of ice in their drinks :headache: I'm not going to lie, I was not at all sad when they didn't come back after the second night :rolleyes1

Our first meal in the regular rotation was at Tritons and we were seated at a table for 8, in the right hand corner as you walk into the restaurant. We were seated with 3 other couples, all of whom were on their honeymoon! They were all very nice and we quickly hit it off with the couple sitting across from us. Our serving team came over right away to take our drink orders and introduce themselves. We had Mark from the Philippines and Aki from Japan, we loved them right from the start. Mark was very personable and informative about the menu and Aki was very bubbly and sweet. Our first meal on the regular rotation was definitely a great experience, our food came at a great pace and our drinks were never even close to empty. Plus they had Ginger Ale which thrilled me greatly!

Just a warning, if you are looking for detailed descriptions and/or pictures of the food, I don't have them. In fact, I don't even remember what we ate most of the time. As with the rest of the vacation, the camera was packed up each night at dinnertime so that I could enjoy just being with my Husband. I can tell you that we both very much enjoyed our meals this night and were pleasantly surprised at the end of dessert when each couple was brought a special piece of cake for their celebration. However, we were all so full we kindly asked them if we could get it to go back to the room. Mark quickly brought out a plate cover for each of us and wished us a great day in Nassau the next day.

After dinner, Candi and I took our cake back up to the room and changed clothes before heading to our next destination. When we came to the room we saw it had already been turned down and we had a little friend waiting to hang out with us

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After a quick clothing swap we headed back to the Cadillac Lounge for another piano tribute show, this time to Frank Sinatra. We were a little late but still enjoyed the rest of the show. Unfortunately, we ended up with the same server from the previous night. But, all we could do is just go with the flow of it all and ignore any of his antics we didn't enjoy. I will admit, he was slightly friendlier that night but still questioned me about ordering another Ginger Ale. I'm not so sure why he was so concerned with me not ordering an alcoholic drink, but I smiled politely and said I was sure that all I wanted was a Ginger Ale. Candi ordered some sort of coffee/alcohol drink that tasted like tar and had us laughing the whole night.

After the Sinatra tribute ended, which by the way was done by the same pianist and was fabulous, we headed over to the theatre for the late showing of Alice in Wonderland. I was so excited for this movie and was not disappointed. Candi was slightly confused as he has never seen the animated version, but loves movies so was thrilled just the same :laughing: It was after midnight after the movie ended and we were both pooped and decided it was time for some fruit from room service and a good nights sleep to prepare for our day in Nassau!
 
Loved your update! Glad your tablemates were excellent this time!


I have to agree with you! There is TONS more for girls than boys. Have you tried Old Navy? They always seem to have a bunch for both, at least here they do... My parents have also gotten a ton for DS at Carters. (There is an outlet close and they are ALWAYS outlet shopping:rotfl:)

Can't wait for another update! :goodvibes
 
Glad you enjoyed your tablemates this time! My DD10 (and I as her helper) played Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer on our cruise, and she (we) won!
 
Loved your update! Glad your tablemates were excellent this time!


I have to agree with you! There is TONS more for girls than boys. Have you tried Old Navy? They always seem to have a bunch for both, at least here they do... My parents have also gotten a ton for DS at Carters. (There is an outlet close and they are ALWAYS outlet shopping:rotfl:)

Can't wait for another update! :goodvibes

We've purchased a few items at Old Navy. I completely forgot about there being a Carter's outlet nearby here ... gonna have to go check that out :thumbsup2

Glad you enjoyed your tablemates this time! My DD10 (and I as her helper) played Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer on our cruise, and she (we) won!

Awesome for your daughter - I'm sure she was thrilled :goodvibes
 
Happy (almost) spring to everyone!

I can't believe it has literally been months since I last posted on here ... if any of you have left me I completely understand. However, I do have a great reason for abandoning the Dis ... I am beyond excited to introduce you to my son, Candido James V

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He was born on January 20 at 1:47 a.m. after 27 hours of intense labor. I won't go into the full fledged story, but my water broke on the 18th without me having any contractions. The contractions followed about 2 hours later and were immediately less than 2 minutes apart. We, of course, got all checked into the hospital, but for whatever reason I wasn't dilating. After (literally) 24 hours I couldn't handle the pain anymore and got an epidural which was followed by petocin to try and avoid a c-section. Three pushes later and my Son entered the world weighing 6 lbs 9 oz and measuring at 19 3/4 inches!

As I'm sure all parents can relate, I have about a bazillion pictures I would be proud to share but I will just give you the "highlights" of his weekly "birthdays."

** I apologize for the large size of the photos, I forgot to adjust before uploading

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Meeting Mommy and Daddy

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One week old

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One week old - couldn't resist!

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Two weeks old

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Three weeks old

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One month

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Five weeks old

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Six weeks old

And I have to share these two photos from this morning. They are his first (non gassy and wide awake) smiles

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I hope everyone is doing well. I will be back this week to continue with all things Disney related :goodvibes
 
Congrats:cool1: What a cutie! Glad you made your way back to the Dis. It's good to have some mommy alone time every once in a while:cloud9:
 


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