Hi, everyone!
Well, I think we are all finally back to the real world. So much for a week long trip - It just flew by and I can't believe it's already over. I've finished all the laundry from the trip and the suitcases are empty. The last one to unpack was the rolling cooler, which no longer had wine and water bottles in it, but was full of FE and kids' exchange gifts! What fun it was looking through everything. I think we all have a good start on a state keychain collection! My kids (and Mom, too) loved checking the FE every time we got back to our room.
Thanks to everyone for making the long trek down to Deck 1 to our room. We've stayed in those rooms on the Wonder before and haven't had any problems, but this time, there was a terrible loud mechanical noise that went on all night and morning. Sometimes, just once or twice an hour, but others, every 4-5 minutes or so. We must have been next to some type of hydraulic lifts or something. I spoke with Danny (what a great guy) at Guest Services, but the best they could move us into were two rooms on Deck 2 that were 34 rooms apart - Not what was going to work for our family of 5. So, we stayed in those rooms all week. They gave us free earplugs and sent some trays of cheese, fruit, and other goodies to our cabins. Didn't seem to bother the kids too much, but DH and I were like zombies by the end of the week.
Then, after a great day in St. Maarten, we went to the Butterfly Farm in St. Thomas and then headed over to Paradise Point for the sky ride. Broken! We wandered around a bit, then went back to the ship. We went to Guest Services (Excursion Desk was closed) to credit our account and realized if we had come right back quickly, we could have switched to another excursion, but the last one had already left. So, we didn't see much of St. Thomas. But ... the officer (Kemisha) who helped us was Danny's "boss", so she already knew about our cabin situation. She must have felt bad for us because she offered to put a $100 credit on each of our staterooms! So everytime the noise would go off, we would say "There's a quarter!" It made a bad situation more tolerable.
Otherwise, we had a wonderful week. My DD8 Gina spent so much time in the Lab playing with her new friends Izzie, Abi, and Jeanne Marie and my DS11 Patrick couldn't stop talking about how much fun he had with Johnny (the Guitar Hero king). As for DS14 Eric, evidently there was a bit of a shipboard romance going on that I found out about the morning of debarkation when a real cute girl came to give him a hug goodbye. She emailed him even before we got home! She lives in Clermont, which is between Tampa and Orlando and her mom works at WDW, so we'll see if anything comes of it. Not exactly what I was looking forward to on our vacation! We spent a good part of the rest of the day at Downtown Disney, trading pins, and shopping. We also had lunch at T-Rex. It was kind of neat, loud, but fun. Owned by the same company as Rainforest Cafe, so a similar menu/prices. Glad we did it once.
We booked onboard for a 5 night next August, but we're hoping that there might be FL Resident rates earlier in the summer so we can switch and cancel. The 5 night next year is $1500 more than our 7 night just cost us in the same type/number of cabins! DH and I are going on a 3 night in December for our 20th anniversary and ... I'm seriously considering taking my oldest and youngest (the middle would be at camp) on a 3 night next month. The Disney Summer at Sea is going on and the 3 night on July 9 features all 3 stars (other than Demi L) of Sonny with a Chance AND CORBIN BLEU! So we're thinking about it.
Thanks again to everyone for making the cruise so much fun - We were a little bummed about the space shuttle, too, since we won't drive over for a launch, but that's the way it goes sometimes! Great pictures of the girls, Amanda - Gina misses Abi already (although she HAD to get a Club Penguin stuffed animal at DTD to get on there!). Have a great summer, everyone!
Rose
) and rough seas on our last day, DH pretty much swore off any 7-nighters.
I took photos off all the decorated cabin doors, spots on the ship, excursions, characters with my kids, all the food etc. I'm sure I will excite some friends with all of these and bore many others. I am going to make a photo book for my MIL as her final 70th birthday gift of the cruise. 
but will surely keep in touch with email.
My boys made some great friends on board, so much so, that I had difficulty getting them to even have dinner with us in the evening. 
They had plenty of freedom on board, although Dad still checked in them on a regular basis. They were told in no uncertain terms that I did not want to see "you tube" videos of them running rampant on the ship! 
