Before I finish day 7 I wanted to mention some things I forgot along the way.
The kid's clubs are huge! The video and 360 degree picture on the Disney site just don't do them justice. And the counselors were great. I had good interactions with all of them. Nothing about the place or the system made me feel uncomforable or wary about leaving my kids there. I know at times there are some negative reviews of them on these boards, but I just didn't get one hint of that--and my kids are seasoned day care goers through various organizations/situations. (eg before/after care, preschool, the child care at the grocery store, the child care at my gym etc.). They loved them.
The screen at the Goofy pool needs a better volume control. Sometimes during the day, if they were playing a movie, it would be too loud to think. Then at night, when we were watching Cinderalla--you could barely hear it. Luckily, my whole family has seen that movie a gazillion times, but still...
Even though there were lots of kids around, I didn't feel annoyed. The whole setup of the ship was good.
Somewhere in the middle of our trip we found a boy, probably 4ish, lost in our hallway on deck 7 aft. Parents nowhere around. We called guest services from another couples' room and they came right away to get him. I wanted to know what happended, not to judge anyone, I just wanted to know. I think as parents, we would all be curious; It would be just one more piece of information to add to our arsenal of things to be watchful for. Anyway, I have no idea how far or short that boy was from his parents or how long his adventure away from them lasted.
I was glad we were seated with our friends at dinner. I am not the type to dislike meeting new people at all, but I could not imagine with that late seating, the slow pace of dinner and the sheer exhaustion of the day, of having to be "on" for people we didn't know. Being at our own table just took the pressure off, and we could enjoy it more casually.
Okay, that's enough of my "Deep Thoughts," onto the rest of day 7:
I think this was the night, (or maybe the night before) that we cracked open the champagne originally intended for our friend's birthday the first night. What a scene! We couldn't open it between all 4 adults. Our neighbors were on their verandah too. I asked if they had a saber, but they said no. Finally, the female of their party got the champagne open. I shared with her and we made a grand toast to a "great vacation!" Yeah, it was old and flat.
My mother-in-law offered it to me when we were in the grocery together and I told her that I wanted to purchase some bubbly. "I have some at home, just take that." she says! If that nice female is reading this, I just want to express, again, my mortification and that I owe her a drink!
We didn't go to the farewell show. We are boring. I wanted to pack more leisurely. We were gonna go to Topsiders, but we realized that they weren't open for dinner the last night. DH and I decided to go to dinner to give our tips. The kids chose to go to the clubs that night. It was just DH and I at dinner at Parrot Cay. We gave our tip envelopes and told them that our friends left theirs at guest services. They had to get up WAY early for the Disney transportation to the airport. They couldn't even go to the 6:45 am breakfast!
The kids didn't want to leave the clubs, so we wandered the ship a bit.
We didn't let them stay too long, 'cause we didn't want them up too late for the early am. We tipped our room host the suggested amount, plus an extra $15. I didn't know how much more to tip and I couldn't explain my reasoning for that amount if you asked. I think I was just a very tired person incapable of any math or logic.
Day to get off of the ship:
We waited in line for our 8:15 am breakfast time. It seemed ridiculous to wait like this, as we could have gone and had breakfast anywhere in the area--my mother-in-law was just 10-15 minutes away, but I had to savor my last moments on the ship. Here we are savoring those moments:
It was time to disembark. It was sad, but it was ok too. 7 days was a good amount of time. (Maybe too long for the kids--it was kind of a sensory overload, but nothing they couldn't pull through.) We still had two more day in Florida with family. It was nice to have that leisurely pace about getting back home. Just waiting in the pick up line for my mother-in-law, I heard two different sets of people having some major transportation mistakes/mixups about getting to the airport on time that day. I felt really bad for them.
Sunday night our plane was delayed a 1/2 hour. We are no novices as far as waiting goes, so that's what we did:
We didn't get home till about 11:00pm. We crashed HARD. So hard in fact that we didn't even hear the hard crash ofan oak branch at 5:00 am right outside our DD7's room:
Stupid ice storm! I knew we should have rebooked while onboard!
Well, that's it. It's not so magical in northeast Ohio right now, but in a few weeks (hopefully) it will be. Hope everyone liked this report. I enjoyed writing it. The only thing I might add are some Navigators, but I am missing one of them, so it won't be complete. Night, night!
The plan was that we would check the youngins into the kids club and my husband would go see the movie 'Tron.' Of course, one of them wanted to be picked up from the kids club 1/2 way through. My DH didn't mind as the movie was just ok. I hope to actually see a movie in the theater on our next cruise. The times just didn't seem to jive with our schedules. We never get to see a movie in the theater, unless of course, its a kids movie. I do wish that they didn't show every movie in 3-D. I know its all the rage, but I can't stand it and it seems a bit much for DD 4 to handle. Just an opinion. 
Also, she didn't understand why she had to provide ANY explanation. I asked if he had an attitude. She reluctantly stated that she thought so, but that she was going to let it go because she is on vacation and it should be "all-good." We decided that if this was the worst problem we had, we had no problems. It does make me wonder if this was all about the tips? We had all prepaid them, but they wouldn't know that. I understand that they don't get paid well and tips are a big source of income, but that should not permeate all of there actions. Again, our beverage server tried to push the chocolate milks. DD 7 drinks that only sometimes and DD 6, NEVER, she prefers H2O. Moving on...
That pup needs more love 
I was a little tense about getting off of the ship because of some of the stories on the Disboards talking about there not being enough chairs on the beach. I am a total sunburn-phob so I really wanted an umbrella for a break from the sun if we needed it. My husband is less type-A than me, so he was taking his sweet 'ole time eating breakfast. I was trying not to say anything, but eventually I was tired of looking at the island from the boat! Course, I don't think they have even announced that we could get off yet, but I'm getting anxious to start relaxing, darnit! 
I don't remember as a child, my face and lips tasting so salty when I got out of the water. I decided to just stop licking my own face. 
