A little rain and wind, but still "Magical" 11/26-12/3

[sara mom]

The planning

First off….a little bit on us being new to Disney cruising. This review is purely my impressions of our trip with a few comparisons to other cruise lines.


Me…been on 12 cruises (30’s)
DH..8 cruises (30’s)
DS….7… 1st cruise ever
DD..5..2nd cruise


We are so not a family that plans things out, especially Disney trips. I found this trip and was able to ‘sell’ the idea to my DH easily because it involved 2 stops (Grand Cayman and Cozumel) that we had never dived in before. He was scuba certified last year and I now can pretty much ‘sell’ a vacation to him that involves diving. A definite win in my mind! We booked this cruise 6 weeks out with a VGT guarantee, which led me to 4 weeks of reading all I could about Disney cruises and our ports/excursion options on the DIS boards and Cruise Critic. In the beginning, I could not figure out the whole rotational dining idea, but asked questions on the boards and many people responded with great detailed info! Planning in late October ended up being a great time of year to shop for the Pirate night…my son had planned on being Jack Sparrow already for Halloween and I was able to pick up a pirate costume for my daughter the day after Halloween.

Much discussion was had between my husband and I about driving vs. flying down. Flying/shuttle from upstate NY to Orlando would have been $2000+. So, we decided on driving (remember this was a last minute idea and we had not been saving up for this cruise). Then, do we drive the fuel efficient Civic Hybrid (42 mpg) or the minivan. Again, the ‘saving pennies’ won out and we decided to take the car. In hindsight, the only time we wished we had the minivan was about 12 midnight on the drive home. Taking a small car really reduced any chance of over packing (and buying too many souvenirs) because the hybrid trunk is smaller than a regular trunk. But we got the 2 large suitcases and my DH’s scuba bag in with no problem.

Now do we tell the kids yet….no! I informed their teachers they would be out and let them know about the secret. And since the ship left the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we decided to have our family Thanksgiving the weekend before. Kids found no problem in that.

 

[sara mom]

Drive down and pre-cruise stay
Wednesday am, we are on the road by 8am. Thank goodness for my new iPhone with Kindle app and DS’s. These kept the kids busy for almost the entire ride. Only one game of license plate bingo was ever played. When we got to North Carolina, we started looking for a hotel on Hotwire. We decided to go a bit farther and made it to Columbia, SC and stayed at a Holiday Inn Express Blythewood (sp?) for $55 a night for the 4 of us. While checking in, I overheard the receptionist quoting others a rate of $89 a night (love that Hotwire!).

So off to Orlando we go. We head to the hotel I booked on Hotwire for $35 a night…ok, I was cheap. Let’s just say you get what you pay for. But it was clean, I checked all the bedding in our suite and it was clean, so was bathroom and kitchen area. After all, it was only 1 night. We headed to Downtown Disney where we had made reservations for Thanksgiving dinner at T Rex. We tried getting a reservation there 2 years ago April when we were last in Disney, but they were booked). On Thanksgiving, not at all busy, you could just walk right in and get a table at 4pm. The kids LOVED it!

At this point, they think we drove 1300 miles to have dinner here and they were happy about that. We walked around Downtown Disney after dinner and got to see Santa and take more pictures of Lego sea monster and snow white. Then headed back to my ‘good deal’ motel.

The next day, we head to Gatorland. My kids are so interested in alligators and crocodiles, this place was perfect for them. Yes I know, we were in Orlando and most people would go to Disney. But not us, we do the things that are a bit off the beaten path. This place was great…a bit cheesy, but it was a memorable 5 hours. We watched a few fun and interesting shows about alligators and other critters, got to sit on an alligator (mouth was taped shut), and feed alligators. We have been to a few zoos in the past that have an enclosed area where you can feed parakeets with bird food on a stick and did that here too. My DD loved it! After we headed off to Cape Canaveral and stayed at the Radisson Inn at the Port. This room I reserved about 3 weeks out and we got a suite that was great (no penny pinching here). We headed down to the pool right after we dropped of our bags in the room. Great pool area. It was kind of cool out, who knew that it would be that way for most of our trip.

Now you can't do this every day!

Room at the Radison. Kids slept on pull out couch. Our room had king sleep number bed and jucuzzi tub. If you want some fun with kids on a sleep number bed, inflate bed to highest number, have kid sit on one side then jump onto the bed next to them...it lifts them right up in the air.

 

[sara mom]

Ok, we finally tell the kids we are going on a cruise at breakfast! Very exciting moment! When we were coming over the bridge to Port Canaveral the day prior and the kids saw Royal Caribbean’s Monarch of the Seas they asked if we were going on a cruise on that boat, and we honestly answered “no”. Little did they know. We had signed up for the shuttle to the boat and the wait was not very long. We did have a problem with the actual shuttle. They fit 12 of us in a small shuttle van and it got very hot inside. DS had some difficulties with the heat for about 45 minutes afterwards.

Our arrival time was 1:00-1:3o but were able to check in when we got there. We quickly checked in(11:30ish), got our picture with Mickey, the kids bands, and our group was called by 12noon. We were onboard by 12:05. I thought the ears entering the gangway were a very nice touch. And my eyes did water a bit when they announced our name. From all my research on these boards, I knew to go to Guest Services immediatly to get our ‘Tea with Alice’ tickets. No problem there, and we were able to get a few Tasting tickets as well (wine, Martini, and Tequila…more on those later). We headed up for lunch to Topsiders Buffet and got through quickly ( I was a bit surprised by that). Our rooms were still not ready, so we thought we would go find the place where we could check and see if we could get Palo brunch reservations, as we were unable to online. By 1:30 there was a wait list of at least 10 names for Palo brunch and so we put our name on it (unfortunately we were never called). Off to the room to get bathing suits on (which were packed in carry on).

One big happy family!

We are really heading onto the Disney Magic!!!


The room…6056. As I said before, we booked a VGT so the only guarantee was that it would have a balcony. We loved this room! It was midship just off the stairwell/elevator bank. The only times we ever really noticed any noise was the days we were in the room for naps and heard some kids running down the halls and the last night when we missed the “Till We Meet Again” show, we could hear an announcer for about 3 minutes during the show.

Our room during some sea day.

OK…back to our story. Bathing suits on, check. A little bit of rum poured into aluminum water bottle, check…we are off to deck 9. We easily find 2 lounge chairs for the adults near the Mc pee pool. This is what I will continue to call it for the duration of the trip. I was surprised by the lack of waiters walking around selling ‘Drink of the Day’, as this is the norm on other cruise lines. It would of been nice, as I would of loved one sitting on the deck, but of well. I had my rum for rum and cokes. On subsequent days, the drink waiters were out more, especially during by brief time at the Cove (more on that in Day 2). I should mention that we brought aluminum water bottles for the kids, with the thinking we would put soda in them for our days at sea so they would not have to run to drink station often. This did not happen as we planned. The pink water bottle became mom’s rum and coke container when we were on deck 9.

Sail away party…darn it, my eyes start to leak again at this! What a fun time for everyone, not just the kids. My kids were at the front and we stayed back about 30 feet, we could see them on occasion on Funnel vision when they panned the front row. They just kept waving their streamers the whole time.

Dinner was in Lumiere’s this first day. DH had the tenderloin which he said was terrific, I had the Sea Bass. I thought it was pretty tasteless. As a note, on cruises I like to order fish as much as possible because I rarely get to cook it at home, as the kids and DH don’t much like it. But this will lead to one of my disappointments of my trip…Disney does not do fish well! Over the trip I will order it 3 different nights, it each night it was tasteless. But they do beef well!

We attended the Welcome Aboard show with a comedian that made balloon animals. We all enjoyed our 1st day onboard.

Next up….Key West

 

[GraciesMommy]

Thank you for writing up at trip report! We leave for a Western on the Magic this week and reading your TR is perfect timing for this week!

 

[sara mom]

Up early for us..it was wonderful to watch the sunrise from the balcony! We headed up to Topsiders for breakfast where my DS was amazed that he could have bacon, a donut, and a cinnamon roll for breakfast. I believe his comment was “This is the life!” Well, yes it was. Dropped the kids off at Oceaner’s Lab, the club is across the atrium to the left we would learn a few days later. It was Flubber day…a fun thing that the kids would make and it was done by 10:30am when we picked them up again. While the kids were away, DH and I thought we would go relax in the Cove (adults’ area) pool. Well, it was a bit chilly do to this still at 9:15am. We first walked up the stairs to deck 10 for lounge chairs, but realized the smoking section was below us and I really did not go on vacation to smell someone else’s smoke, so we headed back down to 9 first row near the pool. While we were relaxing, a family sat in the loungers 4 down from me with their 8-9 year old son. OK I thought, I’m sure the kids will leave soon and go to one of the other pools. Nope, I thought wrong. He stayed, talked loudly with his family of about 4 adults. So I head to the pool. The water was great! As I was in the pool, I notice 2 kids about 2-3 sitting with their feet in one of the hot tubs with an adult. Again I think to myself the kids will leave soon or some staff person will mention to the families it is an adult only section. Nope. I watch 3-4 bar staff, 1 cruise director staff, and 1 ship staff (the one’s that wear all white) walk past the 3 kids and their families and they don’t say anything to the families. Now, I normally have no problem voicing my concerns, but I remembered that I would be on this boat for the next 6 days with these folks, so I better play nice and keep my mouth shut! Finally, a waiter comes by and speaks to each family warning them they have 5 minutes for the kids to leave. As the waiter is doing this, 2 10 year old girls come running down the stairs from deck 10 to jump in the pool. The waiter tells the girls that this area is strictly (HA!) adults only and they complained the kids’ pools are too crowded. Ughh. So that is my clue to leave.

There was a Pirate Festival in Key West but we never did manage to find it, but I did get a picture with one of the guys that was advertising it.

Cool boat in the harbor.

Before we left on the trip, we decided we would get tickets for the hop on/hop off trolley in Key West. The ship offered a trolley excursion for $30 + per adult but it was not hop on/off; rather you had to take the whole tour at once. This did not appeal to me because I wanted to get our picture at the southern most point and go to the Butterfly garden near there. So we went online, ordered our tickets for $17 each for adults and kids were free. We used City View as they had padded seats. I remembered this from a previous visit to the island (the info that I retain some days amazes me). Real easy to find their ticket station…gave them our reservation # and we were off on a trolley. Doing my research, I learned that if you do not use your tickets, call the company up and they will refund you the price you paid. The trolleys run every 20 minutes, so if you get off at one of the many stops, you know another trolley will be around in less than 20 minutes. We got off for the stop for the Southern Most point in the US, and there was the butterfly place. My DD is in love with butterflies, as I am sure most 5 year olds are. We are fortunate to live near Rochester, NY where there is an awesome Butterfly exhibit at our local Children’s Museum. The one in Key West is nice, but not as nice as ours or the one in Niagara Falls, ON. But, I am still glad we went. We did the mandatory pics at the giant candy corn as my DD called it and back on the trolley. We stopped back in Mallory Square and mandatory pics with sponge man…we have these from every trip DH and I have taken there.. The boys went off to find Key Lime of a stick and the Mel Fisher Museum. They had a great time at the museum and have plans to go back again if we get to Key West again. It’s a museum based on the shipwrecks of a few famous ships in the area that went down hundreds of years ago. DD and I did some shopping and headed back to ship. There was a character meet with Snow White that I wanted to get to before dinner. During my planning phase, I bought DD a Snow White dress and was excited to get a picture with her in it and Snow White.

butterfly that landed on my shoulder

Guess where?

I’m pretty sure I ordered the tarpon (fish) for dinner. My waiter even warned me that it was not the greatest dish, but I thought I would try it. I really should have listened to the waiter. I ended up with the beef for dinner after all. After dinner we headed up to deck 9 for the kids could swim and use the hot tubs. It was also Sunday night, so there just happened to be a football game on Funnel Vision. My DH was happy to see that. That was neat to see a game on that big of a screen. We ordered room service for dessert- Mickey Bars!

This is the way to watch football!

 

[devonsmommy]

Thanks for reporting! I'm heading there in March.
We are going to do the same City View Trolley tour. Question...do you have to pay at the butterfly place? Or any of the places you hop off?? Or are they free "landmark" type places?

 

[CitaPita]

So excited to see this trip report! We are leaving for the Western Magic on Saturday and am very grateful to hear recent details.

Sad to hear about the fish, though. I had certainly planned to eat as much seafood as possible on the trip...I might have to change my strategy!

Thanks again, this is great!

 

[WaterDA]

I love what i've read so far! We also leave for (the same, I think) western 7 night next month. It will be our first cruise EVER so you can only imagine our excitement. Can't wait to read the rest of your adventure!

 

[sara mom]

Thanks for reporting! I'm heading there in March.
We are going to do the same City View Trolley tour. Question...do you have to pay at the butterfly place? Or any of the places you hop off?? Or are they free "landmark" type places?

The prices were:
Adults $12.00
Children 4-12 years $8.50
Under 4 years Free

Our trolley driver gave us a $2 off coupon per person.

Most of the stops were touristy- Hemingway House (fee if I recall from past trips), Light House, marina, etc. Check out their website for the map/stops they make. I was happy with them. The padded seats were nice!

 

[devonsmommy]

The prices were:
Adults $12.00
Children 4-12 years $8.50
Under 4 years Free

Our trolley driver gave us a $2 off coupon per person.

Most of the stops were touristy- Hemingway House (fee if I recall from past trips), Light House, marina, etc. Check out their website for the map/stops they make. I was happy with them. The padded seats were nice!

Thanks!

 

[sara mom]

Another morning sitting on the balcony watching the sun come up with my son- priceless!
Today was our character breakfast at 8am in Parrot Cay. These are held on the 2 Sea days of the Western Itinerary. You meal tickets that are in your room when your board will tell you when and where your character breakfast is. There were quite a few tables that did not have anybody…maybe they were not morning people or did not see it on their tickets? Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, and Goofy were brought in around 8:10 and started to work the room. It appears they each have a set map/routine of where they go in order to make sure they get to each table. Families were asked to limit their pictures to 2 each character, but this was just not happening. Oh well! It took longer than we thought (comparing to character breakfasts at WDW), but we did get a few great pictures.

Afterwards, we headed up to Mc pee pool. My kids are 7 and 5 and were still interested in the fun of the slide at Mc pee. I was a bit nervous of the Goofy pool because I saw so many kids jumping of the wooden deck into the pool 4 feet below(even with the no jumping signs…after all they are kids), it just made me too nervous. I am not a fan of the Goofy pool set up and hope this has changed for the Fantasy and Dream. I understand they use the area for on deck parties, to me it was an accident waiting to happen. But anyways….up to Mc pee…and it starts to lightly rain. Not a horrible thing, just not what I want to happen on a Caribbean cruise. I let the kids continue to splash around (pretty sure they did not even realize it was raining) until I was getting too cold and wet. So I drag my 2 purple lipped kids out of the pool and go back and change. Kids program they go.
Now I finally put on my exercise clothes that I was sure I was going to use this trip…and I did, while I did laundry. There are 3 laundry rooms, deck 2 or 3, deck 6, and deck 7. We were off to the one on our deck. There is a wall of 5 washer dryer combos on the right wall. Washers on bottom, dryers on top. During my time in the laundry room, I realize it is a real crap shoot if you will actually get a washer and a dryer that work properly. One dryer had an ‘out of order’ sign on it while 2 others worked iffy at best and 1 washer did not spin out the clothes. Yeah…that’s pleasant. But if you have a problem, you can pick up the phone to call Guest Services and they will offer a refund…but you may still have a pile of soaking wet clothes. Note…the washers run an entire cycle, so you can not choose to just spin.

Note- if you have any onboard credits from anything…using your Disney Visa card to book (we did), from your TA, or pre-paying your on board account (we did), you will get a little slip of paper in your cabin on the 1st day when you walk in your room. We actually got ours and the cabin next to ours, which led me to realize we did not get the credit for using my Disney Visa.so I headed to Guest Services to check on this. I spoke with Puna about it and he said he would call the reservation desk and get it cleared up. Within 2 hours, we called me in the room and told me he got everything resolved and we had our credit. Huge thanks to him for taking care of that!
Later in the day, we have our first Tasting- Wine! We sit with another couple who have their daughter and granddaughter on board with them. (lucky family). The host gave a history lesson in wines (blah, blah, blah) and we were finally able to sample 2 whites, 2 reds, and a sparkling wine. It was enjoyable, but I like fruity wines, and this was more of a cab and pinot kind of tasting.
Then off to Tea with Alice, which both kids enjoyed even though DS announced very loudly “Mom, you know its apple juice and not tea, right?”
Tonight was ‘formal’ night. I use this loosely. Formal on Disney is nothing like on other cruise lines. There were still people in jeans in the dining room. We were dressed up (not in the tux my DH had on our last Royal Caribbean cruise in May) and had a few photos taken with and without characters. The characters are dressed in a variety of ways for this trip…sometimes in Caribbean attire and sometimes in holiday attire. The electronic board in that Atrium is great. If you try calling 7 PALS from your wave or room phone, they talk so fast about character appearances; you won’t be able to write it all down.
Dinner…my notes tell me this was the turban night. Oops, sorry about that. The Rocky Road sundae for dessert was delicious!
At the Twice Charmed show (loved it), we are told that Georgetown, Grand Cayman has been cancelled for tomorrow because of weather…still raining and windy), BUT we are 3 of the 8 ships originally scheduled for GC that can dock on the other side of the island and will get bused by DCL to Georgetown. Whew…we got lucky there. In my planning for this trip I had planned a Stingray City excursion through Franks Water sports for 2 and the kids and was to meet them at the Georgetown pier at 9am. The company required an email confirmation, not an upfront deposit, so if I didn’t make it to the spot on time at least I wouldn’t be out any money. I had their phone number and was planning on calling them in the morning just to let them know where we were coming from. I have done ship sponsored Stingray City tours in the past and thought they were way too crowded, so that’s why I booked a private company. There are a few of them available if you go a Google or Trip Advisor search.

 

[sara mom]

Picture of our wine tasting

 

[sara mom]

Up at 6am to shower, grab breakfast, and be in the Buena Vista Theater by 6:45 to get our tender tickets. GC is a tender island, as there is a coral reef surrounding the island and ships cannot dock. I knew to be early so I could get one of the first tender boats to make sure I was on time for my private tour. If you had a ship excursion, no need to worry about tender tickets because they have that all worked out. So we get to the theatre, get our tickets and bus passes, and I start chatting with folks around me. One other group of 3 is doing a private dive tour, and they too need to get to the Georgetown pier by 9am as well. Thankfully my husband goes with the ship dive tours so he is off waiting somewhere else. We wait and wait. Then finally an announcement…which I am assuming will tell us we can start heading down to deck 1 to get on the tender boats! But no….GC is closed! No tender boats today due to rough waters (remember the wind and rain from the day earlier). The swells can be dangerous on the small tender boats. So it’s 7:30, what to do…kids vote for Mc pee. We already have our suits on, so why not. We head up there with a bunch of other families who had the same idea. 10 minutes later, it starts to rain. No worries, we are on vacation. 5 minutes later, it is raining sideways.

Look kids, Grand Cayman.

Ok, back to the room. It’s now 8am. So, off to wander the ship/ play table tennis/nap/movies all by 1pm. I run into husband who was able to book a last minute hot stone massage…he loved it! He did mention the sales pitch was a bit much. The boys end up going to see Cars 2 while the girls nap.
New Navigators are printed with new activities for our Sea Day. We all head to the Dance Party in the atrium with the characters…what a fun time that was!

There is a DVC presentation that my husband wanted to get to that day. I think there were 4 on this trip. While I may have done research about the cruise, my husband has done research on DVC and I thought we would have bought it re-sale. Oh no….not us. The salesman was great- Roland. And I have to tell you I love my husband immensely, but he is a sucker for a good salesman. He bought the extended warranty on our Honda…umm….it’s a Honda…pretty sure it will last there honey, but I digress. So we end up going to the DVC presentation (informative, but most of the info he already knew from his hours of research), met with him later that night, and the next day and there goes $11,000. On a cruise ship! And they make it so easy if you don’t happen to have your checkbook with you (and who does on a cruise). There were incentives to get you to sign up. I wonder now if they were different it we had signed up at the parks, but of well…we did it! And, yes, I did agree to it, so it was not all on my husband. I think the $35 a night hotel room is a thing of the past now.

A bit after the presentation, we run into one of the DVC members that were at the presentation and we were chatting with them…and along comes Peter Pan up the stairs…talks with us for all of 10 seconds, and off he went. My DD talks about this encounter frequently. Later on when we pick up DD from Club, we see Peter Pan running around the Club with lots of little girls chasing him! That was fun to watch. During our trip, there were 2 times when our DD was in the Club and characters came in and meet and greets. They took pics of these events and left them out for the parents. Nice touch since we missed it!

‘Villains Tonight’ was the show…I loved how they made it into a comedy. Too bad my kids had never seen the movie ‘Hercules’ before, it would of helped with the plot. If you or your kids haven't, I would suggest renting it before you leave.

 

[sara mom]

Today our plans are for DH to dive and the kids and I to do the ship’s Cozumel Beach Break. As we enter the area where our tour is to meet, we are greeted with more bad news. The harbor master has closed all ocean activities for the day due to winds. UGH! I really, really wanted to be able to play in the ocean on the inflatable water slide and trampoline. But, at least we can get off the boat today. The ship staff offer refunds for anyone who now does not wish to go on this excursion, but I decided we are going as they have a pool there the kids can play in. So off we go. 3 buses are waiting for our group a short ways past the cruise terminal to take us to Playa Mia. Once there, we are shown to our area of the beach…they have flags surrounding our chairs. We put the bags down and start to explore. They have a playground area, with play set, trampoline, giant checkers, and soccer goals that we will use during our stay. Also found the hammocks right near the pool. My kids are the very first ones in the pool. Carrumba, it is one cold pool! (kind of a theme for this trip). The excursion is an all inclusive with drinks and a lunch buffet. From what I remember the drinks included margarita, daiquiri, pina colada, Miami vice, XX beer, soft drinks, bottle water, and juices. There are more, but those are the ones we tried. After a while in the pool, the staff at Playa Mia start games on the sand. They do one game every hour or so. Games include football passing, waterballon toss, musical chairs, and ring toss. My kids end up tying for 1st place in the water balloon toss and win a t-shirt. Shortly after the football toss, the kids and I head back to our chairs and I see my DH. Hmmmm…why is he not diving…oh yeah….ocean activities cancelled! Poor guy, I sweet talked him into going on this cruise with the promise of going on dives in 2 ports and that so did not happen. But I will tell you, Disney’s guest relations will provide EXCELLENT service one more time for us. With the dive being cancelled, my DH now has to find something to do for the day. Guest relations pulls up our excursion, gets him transportation there, and he then can search for us on the beach! So we end of spending the day together! We notice another area flagged off for Carnival cruise guests (the blue towels were a giveaway). But the whole place was not crowded at all! Lunch was ok..I was hoping for something a bit more Mexican than fajitas, but they have tons of American food (hot dogs, mac n cheese, salads, rice). We will eventually play in the ocean for a little while, but not long. I think the total excursion was from 10am-3pm.

Checkers

Pool area...lunch was served under giant tent area

Note the red flag of doom, that meant no ocean activities.

not crowded at all

Very few times were we approached on the beach to but something. I can remember someone asking about hairbraiding, massage, and tatoos. This gentlemen came around with the birds and again with an iguana. We ended up buying the pics of the kids with the animals. I paid $20 for 2 5 x 7's.

 

[sara mom]

A few times on the cruise my DS had asked some cast members if Jack Sparrow was on the boat (a favorite of his) and many told him he must be on vacation. This saddened DS because by now he had seen Mickey, Minnie and a ton of princesses, but not his favorite. Around 4:30, I got the kids in the pirate costumes (this was not an easy task) and told them we were headed out to wait in line for a character appearance. By now, they were used to this. Se we headed down to the Jack Sparrow line without my son ever asking whose line we were in (and I was not going to tell him). When Jack Sparrow came in, my DS almost exploded! He was so happy!!! Many of the pics I took when we did make it to him were of DS looking up at Jack.I also loved how Chip and Dale were pirate themed.

My pirates

Pretty sure this was the highlight of the trip so far for DS. After dinner we headed to some pirate show which I can not remember the name of, but it was funny. Then off to the Pirate deck party. It was chilly and the kids ended up wanting their sweatshirts. Loved the Pirates of Caribbean Wii (maybe?) game that was played...super cool. DD announced she wanted to go to bed, so we head down to the room.

Giant Wii!

 

[devonsmommy]

Thanks for all of the great pictures!
At Playa Mia, was that through Disney as an excursion?
We were contemplating Nachi Cocum, but this looks a little more kid friendly with more activities??

 

[sara mom]

Thanks for all of the great pictures!
At Playa Mia, was that through Disney as an excursion?
We were contemplating Nachi Cocum, but this looks a little more kid friendly with more activities??

Playa Mia was a Disney excursion. I can't recall the prices. Nachi sounds good, but I've heard that it is not child friendly. I would suggest Playa Mia (very kid friendly) or I have heard good this about Mr Sanchos (not though ship) too.

 

[sara mom]

One more fish update. Pirate night I ordered the Mahi Mahi with toasted hazelnuts. And it was tasteless. My DH mentions something about trying something 3 times and expecting it to be different is just not that smart. OK, OK....no more fish dishes for me on this trip.

 

[sara mom]

We start the day off by swimming in Mc pee (the kids, not adults…I have my pink water/rum bottle), chilly but no rain this time. The purple liped kids only last about an hour at the pool. DD not feeling well, so she spends time with DH in room. I drop DS off in kids program and have a few minutes all to myself. I take my book up to deck 9, but it’s too chilly. I see people sitting in lounge chairs wrapped up in towels and blankets. Wave phone rings, DS really not feeling well. I then realize I took the kids Sea Bands (for motion sickness) off in Cozumel the day before and never put them back on. BIG MISTAKE! I head down to guest services for Dramamine for the poor girl. Poor DH in room with sick kid too. We medicate her and put Sea Bands back on and the room steward cleans up for us. Now we have tickets for martini tasting, but can’t go with sick kid. Well I could of gone, but I really did not want to go without DH (the whole drinking alone thing). So, I head back to guest services and they did refund the money as they knew we had sick kid. As I pass the atruim I notice it is princess picture palooza time. 4 or 5 princess are in a row and they are letting kids go through the line to have hugs/pictures. Now I am really feeling bad that DD is sick! So I pick up DS to feel a bit better about being a parent and we decide to go to the Muppet movie. For lunch this day at Topsiders is a seafood buffet with shrimp and crab legs but we pass on that to get to the movie on time. Oh yeah…mother guilt strikes again…DD’s favorite food is crab legs! Quick check on DD and DH…vomiting has stopped and she is sleeping. Off to the movie we go. Great movie, but theater was crowded.

We head back to room because we have tequila tasting tickets that start in about an hour that I am assuming I have to get our money refunded for those too. But…DD is awake and looking a lot better. Dramamine and the Sea Bands seem to be working! We take kids to the kids program and are assured DD can be there even if she had an upset stomach earlier due to motion sickness (yahoo!) and off to tequila tasting we go. (we keep wave phone on us just to be sure) That was a great time! 3 shots and 2 margaritas. Now the timing of this is just odd because right after is the Friendship Rocks program. This is kind of a cumulation/dance party/send off of the kids programs from the week. And some parents (like us) have been drinking for the past 40 minutes. I guess it made it better!

strawberry margarita and blue agave margarita

After the program, DD is not herself. DH volunteers to stay with her in the room while DS and I go to dinner. It’s lobster tail night and I have my DS who will try anything once, try it. It did not go well. Our servers sent 2 lobster tails to our room for DH that had sick duty.

 

[sara mom]

DD wakes up not feeling well. She feels a bit warm so I head down to guest services for children’s Tylenol or some generic form of it. Head back to room with it. Guess what, it’s not a fever, it’s still the sea sickness (we are hoping). We realize her Sea Band turned during the night and the pressure point is not on her wrist area. So we fix that and give her more Dramamine. Call down to guest services and learn that the medical office opens in an hour. Now I have not yet mentioned that I had planned to do the Castaway Cay 5k this morning. My plan was to jog/walk it…that I was sure I could manage even without running at all during the week. But it was so not looking like that was going to happen with a sick kid. Oh well, maybe next time.

The 3 of us watch the boat pull in and dock while DD sleeps a bit more. (room steward came in to clean up at some point…..man did we leave him an extra big tip). After about 30 minutes, DD feeling better. Yup, boat is not moving! So it’s looking like we are all getting off to have another fun family day together. YAHOO! Off the boat and get our mandatory pictures. We had purchased the package that included snorkel equipment, bike rental, tubes/floats, and a stingray encounter for our day on the island. We start by snorkeling. The kids have been practicing at our neighbor’s pool all summer because DH does scuba diving and they wanted to as well. So we get their gear on, head to the water and stop immediately. Yikes! That water is freezing. We go out about 20 yards, see maybe 5 fish, and head back to land because the kids have purple lips. DH stays out to do more snorkeling and take some pics.

The tree even had fake snow flying around.

Doesn't the boat look like it's listing a bit to the right?

We warm up, have a quick snack and head over to the water slide area. Kids under 48 inches need to wear a life jacket. They were strict with this as my DD is about 47.5 inches. That was a great deal of fun, but purple lips emerge again so we head off for our bike ride. Just me and the kids- 4 ½ miles of fun. They have good paths you can take around the island for bikers and walkers.

Now its float/tube time…back in the chilly water we go. Kids decide to try Pelican Plunge again, but the lines have gotten way too long and it’s almost time for our stingray adventure. I am super excited for this because we never got to go to Stingray City in GC. We get to feed the stringrays shrimp, stringray jello (nutriants), and calamari. Both kids were a liitle nervous at first because we were warned that when the stringray eats from your hand it will feel like a vacuum cleaner, and it did. They do not have teeth.

you cold snorkel with them too, but it was too cold for the kids

The stringrays are trained to swim through those rainbow table things that you see on the beach. A cast member pulls those out in the ocean for the guest to feed the stingrays.

Stringrays are kept in a fenced in area.