Magic Western Caribbean Oct 7-14 '06 Family Fun Trip Report - Lots of photos!

[LaurlieMT]

Once we got home from our MAGICal 7-night cruise, DH sat down and started typing the first chance he got. These reports were not written specifically to post to the DIS, they were written to post to DH's blog so our long-distance relatives could see what we did on our family vacation. So they might not have some of the detail you might expect, and might not be as well explained as others. But they are fun to read, and first-time cruisers might use this as a starting point for what to expect on their cruise!

Note that you can click on the images to see larger versions!

The cast of characters: Me (Laurie), DH (Rob, the author "I"), DD(Hannah, 5) and DS(Jason, 3), my parents (Ron and Faye), my DB (Brian) and his family (Judy, Cortney and Paige). Hope you enjoy reading about how our kids spent their cruise. Best vacation ever!

 

[LaurlieMT]

I called this "Day Zero" because we weren't actually on the cruise this day - we were in Florida, though, and Ron & Faye graciously offered to watch the kids so Laurie and I could go to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

Our first stop there was the Rocket Garden, where many of the most historic rockets are on display.



We each took a turn climbing into a mockup of the original Mercury capsule, though it seemed much more spacious than the real things, because it didn't have any of the electronics inside of it.



They also had a Saturn-V engine on display. This guy was huge, as you can see.



Another stop on the tour was the Launch Complex 39 Observation Gantry, from which you could see the two shuttle launch pads (one of which is pictured below)



We could also look back and see the 525-foot tall Vehicle Assembly Building.



At the Apollo/Saturn V Center, we got to see a real Saturn V rocket, in all its massive glory, as well as learn lots of cool information about the Apollo program. To get a sense of how big this rocket is, the guy in the Hawaiian shirt is standing right below one of the engines.



Then we went to the International Space Station Center, where we could look down into the clean room where they are preparing actual components for delivery to the station.



We also watch the 3D IMAX film Magnificent Desolation, and visited the Astronaut Hall of Fame. All told, it was a great day.

 

[LaurlieMT]

This was the moment we had been waiting for - months of anticipation all leading up to this. The four of us, plus Ron & Faye, plus Brian and Judy and Cortney and Paige, were all headed for the ship! We were so excited that the drive to Port Canaveral seemed to take forever, but eventually we could see the stacks of the Disney Magic, and we knew we were almost there.



The baggage/terminal process was quick and easy - Disney sent tags for our bags that included our room number, so we just checked our tagged bags with a porter at curbside, and the next time we saw them, they were outside our room waiting for us to bring them in. The terminal building even had lots of fun things to keep the kids occupied until we were all checked in and our group was ready to board.



Soon, we were actually boarding! As we entered the ship, a uniformed crew member asked our family name, and then announced into the microphone "Welcome aboard the Smith family!" and lots of people clapped, and it was really neat.

Our rooms wouldn't be ready for a little while, so all ten of us went up to Topsiders for a buffet lunch.



We also spent some time learning our way around the ship - a couple of times this week we would get completely turned around, and instead of heading port side aft for our room on deck 6, we'd be heading starboard side forward, and not realize it. We also stopped by the Oceaneer Club, where Hannah could be dropped off and left with other kids her age. Jason could go if we stayed with him, since kids who stay in the Club are expected to be potty trained.

Our room was very nice, and while it was small, especially when Hannah and Jason were feeling a little hyper (which was often), it served its purpose. We really were almost never there except to change clothes, shower, or sleep.

We had one requirement that day, and that was the lifejacket drill. Every passenger was required to don their lifejackets and proceed to their designated assembly station. Once they made sure that everyone was there, we were free to go, and so was the boat!



While Laurie unpacked some of our bags, Hannah, Jason, and I went to the Bon Voyage party, where they played lots of loud, upbeat music geared mostly for the 8-13 crowd, but we still had a great time dancing. Of course, Mickey and Minnie showed up to see us off. Before long, the boat was in motion, and we went up to the bow on deck 10 to watch, and Laurie joined us there.



We couldn't stay long, though. Our dinner seating was at 5:30, so we hurried back to our room, changed clothes, and took off for dinner at the first of three dining rooms we would eat at during the week - tonight was Animator's Palate, certainly the most interesting of the rooms. When you first enter, the room, the artwork, and the servers, are all in just black-and-white. Throughout the course of the evening, things become colored in, until the very end, when even the servers are now wearing colorful versions of the clothes they were wearing before. It was fascinating. We also met the servers that would be with us the whole time. I'll mention here that the food was outstanding, and you can just take it as given that it was the same throughout the rest of the cruise.



There was a Bon Voyage stage show that evening, too, and that was great as well. More about the shows is coming as I get through the week.

After the kids and Laurie were in bed, I went to the free drink station on deck 9 to get a quick soft drink, and then went up to deck 10 (the top deck) to just feel the breeze and look at the darkness. To the west I could see the lights on the horizon from the Florida coastline. To the east, nothing but the full (or close-to-full) moon. I could hear the ship cutting through the water 10 decks below me.

It was truly an amazing feeling.

Tomorrow we would arrive in Key West.

 

[LaurlieMT]

We got up bright and early because we had our Character Breakfast scheduled for this morning at 8AM. We got the kids up, and went to Parrot Cay, one of the other dining rooms (the one, as it would turn out, that Laurie and I would never have dinner in all week, but we would have breakfast there a few times). This was our first experience with Mickey Waffles.



Yes, you’re seeing that right. Waffles in the shape of Mickey Mouse. Shortly after eating the waffle version, here comes the real one! The room was taken over by Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Chip, and Dale. They spread out, went table to table, signed autograph books, posed for pictures, generally made everyone happy. Except Jason. They kinda scared Jason.



After breakfast we stopped by the Promenade Lounge for a little exhibition on paper airplane making. Our host had us making a fairly complicated airplane, but when we were finally done, they really flew! Afterwards, Jason and I went up to Deck Ten to play in the basketball court while we were pulling in to Key West.





There was nothing we particularly wanted to do in Key West, so we didn’t plan to leave the boat. However, there were a couple things we could use from the local CVS, so while Laurie and the kids went to watch a movie, I went ashore and went shopping for night lights, a cheap watch, and some shorts. Heading ashore afforded me the opportunity to get this dramatic picture of the boat from shore.



After I got back on board, we had lunch, and then Jason played ping pong. We would play ping pong a lot this week.



Meanwhile, Hannah went swimming, discovering how much fun the slide can be.



After a while, with Hannah still swimming, Jason and I found our way to Diversions, the sports bar, so we could check up on how the Patriots were doing against the Dolphins. They have NFL Sunday Ticket in the sports bar, so I had a Guinness, Jason played pub games like Shoot the Moon, and we watched the Pats with a family from the Boston area. We couldn’t stay long, though, because dinner is a 5:30 affair every evening, so we had to get back to the room to get ready.

Tonight, though, would be a little different. Ron & Faye offered to watch the kids while Laurie and I got dressed up and went to Palo, the adults-only dining room. Our reservation wasn’t until 7 PM, so we had some time to ourselves that we spent just standing out on the deck and walking around the boat. It was a nice change of pace without any kids in tow. Soon enough, though, it was time for our dinner.



Palo was everything it was advertised to be. The food was excellent, the service was as well, and from our seats we could see the end of the sunset (though it was a little overcast to the west), and we could see the lights of Key West fading into the distance as the boat headed out into the Caribbean Sea.

After we finished our dinners (and desserts!), and rejoined the rest of the crew, we found out that the excitement of the day took its toll on ol’ Jason. He fell asleep during dinner. If not for a quick sliding of his plate by Faye, Jason might have used his dinner as a pillow. He fell asleep around 6:30, we figure, and when we caught up to them, close to 9PM, he was asleep in Ron & Faye’s stateroom, with Ron watching over him, while Faye had taken Hannah up to the Oceaneer Lab to make cookies.

Each kid had a job, like adding sugar, or chocolate chips, or mixing. Once the batter was done, the Disney folks took it into the back room, and came back 7 minutes later with cookies! Hannah says they were very yummy.

Transferring Jason back to our stateroom woke him up so much we were afraid he wouldn’t go back to sleep, but fortunately he did, and we all got a good night’s sleep.

Tomorrow we’d be at sea all day.

 

[LaurlieMT]

We were afraid that with Jason’s early bedtime yesterday, that we would be getting up early with him. Well, we discovered the advantage of the inside stateroom – no windows to indicate to your three-year-old that it’s morning! So, after a few days of getting up early (yesterday to get to the character breakfast, the day before that to start getting ready to get on the boat, the day before that to get moving to go to the Space Center…), we were able to sleep in a little bit, and then go upstairs to the Topsider’s Buffet for breakfast.

Afterwards, we took our grand old time getting ready for the rest of the day. Probably not the best use of our time on an expensive cruise like this... Oh, and Laurie did some laundry so we wouldn't have to be naked. Not sure they'd go for that on a Disney cruise.

Then we pretty well split up. Hannah went into the Oceaneer Lab to make Flubber, Laurie went to see a cake decorating demo, and Jason and I went out to play shuffleboard.



After playing shuffleboard for a while, Jason and I switched to ping pong, which is where Laurie found us after her cake demo. And then she went to get Hannah, and the four of us had lunch outside under the canopy while a quick storm rolled through. They slowed the boat down, closed the pools, but really didn’t do much else – it wasn’t too bad of a storm where we were.



Later, Hannah and Jason entered Mr. Toad’s Wild Race, where kids compete to make their foam toad win a race against three other ones. It’s hard to describe. Unfortunately, neither Hannah nor Jason won their heat, so the didn’t advance to the semi-finals, but they both had fun, and they both received ribbons.

As soon as that was over, it was time for Hannah and Laurie to hustle off to have Tea with Wendy Darling, from Peter Pan. When they arrived, Hannah saw that some of the other girls were wearing their princess costumes, and she wanted to have hers on. So they ran through the halls, back to the room, changed in to her Snow White costume, and ran back. Once the tea started, Wendy taught the kids how to sit like princesses, how to properly drink tea, how to hold your pinkies up, ...



...how to take tiny bites, and how to dab your lips with your “serviette” (the French word for napkin). Hannah took it all very literally, and while Wendy was telling a story about Peter Pan, Hannah continued to take tiny, dainty bites of her “biscuit” (giant chocolate chip cookie). When the story was over, she had to wait her turn to have her picture taken with Wendy. While waiting, she asked if she could go back to taking regular sized bites, since she had been eating and eating, and was only about 1/3 of the way through her biscuit.



Meanwhile, Ron and Brian offered to watch Jason so I could go to a beer tasting they were having in the sports bar. It was very enjoyable, and I learned some, and even got to try a beer I had never had before (the other four he offered were ones with which I was already familiar, but I like them anyway, so I didn’t mind). I even won a free beer for knowing that the little “thingamabob” inside the Guinness cans that force-carbonates them with nitrogen is called a “widget”.

After our various drinking events, we met back up to get ready for our formal dinner in Lumière’s. Our seat was right by a window!



After the wonderful dinner, we took advantage of the evening to get pictures of us all in our nice clothes.





After the dinner, the show was called “The Golden Mickeys”, which models itself after an awards show like the Oscars, only it’s basically a tribute to many of Disney’s greatest animated films, with lots of live action and songs. The kids really enjoyed this one because they knew some of the songs. Snow White was there, as well as Tarzan (and his friend Terk), Cruella DeVil, Woody and Jessie from Toy Story, Sleeping Beauty, and, of course, Mickey and Minnie.



After this, it was off to bed. Tomorrow, Grand Cayman, and the beach!

 

[LaurlieMT]

Seven and a half years later, we’ve come back! It was 2,738 days before this that Laurie and I first stepped foot on Grand Cayman Island for our honeymoon. Back in ’99, we came through the air. This time, we came over the ocean.

After a breakfast at Parrot Cay, we got ourselves dressed for the beach, and hopped on board a tender for the ride in to shore. Yep, that’s right. At Grand Cayman, there’s no dockage – all the cruise ships anchor off of Georgetown, and tender the passengers between the ship and the island. It was a quick ride, maybe 10 minutes, which the kids really enjoyed. Plus, we got a good look at our ship as we were heading away from it.



Once ashore, we hopped a quick taxi ride to Sea Grape Beach Club, along Grand Cayman’s famous Seven Mile Beach. We paid to rent a couple chairs and an umbrella, and then the kids and I jumped right into the water. The water was as nice as I remember it being from ’99.

I guess I have to remember that it was a Tuesday, after all, but the beach wasn’t crowded at all. It was great. Part of it might have been going to Sea Grape, too, which Laurie picked out. Most people go to this other beach – it’s a little closer – but she had heard good things about Sea Grape, and it was well worth the extra cab fare.



Laurie stayed on shore for a little while, but before long she was in the water, too. Sure, we had beach toys for the kids to build castles and such, but that really didn’t hold their interest very long when there was warm water for their enjoyment. So we all just splashed around in the water for a while.



Sea Grape had a place to have lunch, naturally, so after a while we dragged the kids away from the water to a picnic table in the shade for a quick lunch. Afterwards, we found an even less crowded section of the beach to play in, and did lots more splashing around. Hannah even spent some time on a little playground right there on the beach. Late in our visit, we invented the game “Seahorse”, which is just like playing “Horsey” in the living room at home, only this is in the water (and I can therefore support both kids at once!).



As the afternoon wore on, we had to think about heading back – the last tender back to the ship was at 4:30 PM, and of course our dinner is 5:30, so we couldn’t dally. Getting back to downtown Georgetown was as easy as getting to the beach, and when we got there, I loaded the kids on the tender back to the ship while Laurie stopped off for a little shopping. Jason fell asleep on the tender, but unfortunately for him I couldn’t just carry him back on board – there was so much stuff to carry that I needed him to walk by himself. Poor guy. He was a trooper, though. Laurie rejoined us just a little while later to get ready for the evening.

And what an evening!

Grand Cayman has a rich history of being a popular hideout for pirates, especially in the 18th century, so this is the night Disney chooses to have Pirates IN the Caribbean night. Guests are encouraged to dress like pirates for dinner. Who are we to say “no” to a chance to dress up like pirates? We dined dressed like pirates, and the menu had a distinctly pirate theme. After dinner, we posed for pictures (of course!).



We had some time to kill after dinner, so we wound up in the Promenade Lounge, which we often passed through (it’s one of those places you can’t help but pass through, because the lounge includes the corridor you take to get from deck 3 aft to deck 3 midship), only this time they had live music, so we stopped off to dance!



After dancing, it was time for the show called Twice Charmed, an Original Twist on the Cinderella Story. The gist of it is this: after Cinderella and the Prince are married, Cinderella’s wicked stepmother gets help from her Evil Fairy Godfather to rewrite history. The Evil Fairy Godfather sends the wicked stepmother and the two ugly stepsisters back in time to break the second glass slipper so that there is no proof that Cinderella is the woman from the ball. I won’t tell you how it ends – you’ll have to cruise on the Magic for yourself to find that out!

It was a very good show, but I think it confused Hannah a little bit early on. She turned to me at one point and said, “Is this ever going to be like the movie?” I think I managed to explain to her what was going on, and she did really seem to enjoy it. Jason enjoyed it too, as long as he was able, anyway. After the show was over, this was the scene outside the theater.



Well, we weren’t done yet. I mentioned that it was Pirates IN the Caribbean night. Well, to top it off, they had a deck party at 9:45 PM that we went to. Hannah and I found our way down to the dance floor to dance.



The show starts with some of the popular Disney characters leading us all in a dance party when suddenly pirates drop down from the smokestack, and come out from various hiding places, whisk the “good guys” away, and take over the party. Captain Hook even shows up to lord over the pirate party. This goes on for a little while until finally Mickey soars in to save the day. I mean it – soars in. He came in on a zip line connected between the stacks, and then drops down in the middle of the pirates. The other “good guys” come back and help Mickey to run the pirates off. Mickey’s entrance was really amazing and exciting.

Of course, Jason missed it all.



Once Mickey saved the day, there were fireworks – apparently Disney is the only cruise line with approval to light off fireworks while at sea – it was something to see, that’s for sure. Then, after the fireworks, the party continued – they had food available, and were getting set to show the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie on the big outdoor screen, but we all went to bed (after a quick snack). Cozumel tomorrow, and more beach!

 

[LaurlieMT]

Well, after a big, big day yesterday, today promised to be… Almost as big. I guess it would be bad policy for the ship’s itinerary to be blank for a half-day, saying simply, “We think you need time to rest.”

We had another morning breakfast at Parrot Cay, as the ship pulled in to port at Cozumel. Afterwards, well, we decided not to rush off the ship. I took the kids up to deck ten to look across the pier at the Carnival ship docked parallel with ours, and then we spent a little quiet time at the shuffleboard court on deck 4, looking out across the water at the Mexican mainland, figuring out the best plan for the day.



When we figured it all out, Laurie went ashore with Ron & Faye to do some shopping, while I stayed on board with the kids, and took them down to this section called Ocean Quest – normally for 10-14 year olds, on this day they were having an open house, so anyone could go in (with a parent). One of the coolest things they had in there was a ship piloting simulator. A wheel, throttle controls, and thruster controls were only the beginning. There were 8 giant flat panel screens mounted on the wall to simulate the bridge view, and on the bridge console you also had several screens for radar and other external views of the ship. Hannah, Jason, and I safely (OK, almost safely) piloted the Magic through a rocky river.

Then the kids spent time just having fun. Jason played video games for a bit, and played some board games with me. Hannah spent some time coloring and playing games. The counselor who was running the show checked the computer a few times for me so I would know when Laurie had come back aboard the ship. At that time we met up, had lunch, changed for the beach, and headed ashore. Walking down the pier between the two cruise ships made you feel kind of small.



We had to walk past lots of shops just to get to the taxis, but getting to our desired destination, Mr. Sanchos Beach Club. Just like in Grand Cayman, it’s free to get in, but they expect you to purchase some items from them while you’re there. We bought a bottle of water. Being afternoon, the sun was not so brutal as it was on Grand Cayman, and the beach was quite deserted. Judy, Cortney, and Paige wound up coming to the same beach (at almost the same time!), so we all had a good time together.

Jason pretended the beach was eating him.



And, of course, had lots of fun in the waves.



Everyone had lots of fun in the waves.



Paige even did her best impression of Troy (another of our kids' cousins), being so nice and wonderful to spend so much time playing in the water with them. She even played Seahorse with them once I was tired of it.



Well, we decided that we would skip our planned dinner that night so we could stay at the beach until closing (sunset). As we were getting ready to go back out front to head back, one of the people from the beach club shouted into the ladies’ room at Laurie that we had to get going – they were closing. When we got out to the front, there was one taxi left, and the shops and the club seemed to be all closed up. In retrospect, we probably weren’t that close to getting left behind. We were a fare, so someone would stick around to get the fare, but when we were first back on the ship we wondered for a while if we had come close to being stranded on Cozumel!

Walking back to the ship, the sun was setting, and the Magic was all lit up, and it looked just wonderful. Good thing the Carnival ship had already left, or there wouldn’t have been a picture!



We went up to Topsiders to eat dinner – during the day Topsiders is a buffet, but at night, they have sit-down service instead, so we had a nice dinner, even though it wasn’t with the rest of our traveling party.

After dinner, Hannah got into her Snow White outfit again, to go meet Snow White later in the evening. While we waited for that to start, we stopped off in one of the clubs to see the karaoke show, and Hannah and I got up on stage to sing “Just Can’t Wait to be King” from The Lion King. Unfortunately, this was an impromptu event – we hadn’t planned it – so the video camera was back in our stateroom. I assure you, though, Hannah did a great job.



We then went down to the lobby to see Snow White. I think she liked Hannah’s outfit.



There were other characters around, too. Hannah also met up with Cinderella, Pinocchio, and even Mickey and Minnie!



After that, yep, you guessed it, we went to bed. Tomorrow would be another day at sea, but those aren’t exactly relaxing – they’re non-stop fun, too, so we need to get our rest while we can!

The other thing I remember from this night – as I drifted off to sleep, I realized that we were winding down the trip – there were only two more days before they were going to make us get off the ship and come back to reality… You know, for as little as $1.9 million, I could get a 600 Sq. Ft. stateroom on the Magellan, a cruise ship that is also your home… http://www.residentialcruiseline.com/. Of course, I’d want something a little larger than 600 Sq. Ft… Hmmm…

 

[LaurlieMT]

Another day at sea before the big blowout tomorrow at Castaway Cay. After breakfast, Laurie and Hannah went to decorate a kite that we could fly at the beach tomorrow. They provided nice, plain-white plastic kites, and the kids color on them with markers. We got an extra one for Jason to color later.

Meanwhile, Jason and I headed up to Deck Ten to play in this scheduled event called the Hockey Shootout. I was a little worried what that might entail, ‘cause it might have been full of big kids. As luck would have it, though, there was almost nobody interested in playing. In fact, when we arrived, the cruise staff member was nowhere to be found – he was going around trying to recruit people to play. He returned without having had any luck.

So, for most of the time, it was just Jason and one other boy, who was about 7 years old. The staff member played goalie, and the boys tried to score past him. Since this was Jason’s first time with a hockey stick, the staff member didn’t exactly try to be Gilles Gilbert (that one’s for all you hockey aficionados!) in there, he was just trying to help Jason succeed. And you know what? Call me a proud papa if you want, but he got pretty good at working the puck around with the adult-sized hockey stick before we were done.



The other boy left about 2/3 of the way through the scheduled time for the event. When it was over, Jason was the only one left, so the staff member gave Jason a medal for winning the hockey shootout! Jason was very excited.



Afterwards we met up with Hannah and Laurie, and decided to head back to another Ocean Quest open house, to have more fun with the big kid toys. Unfortunately, it was much more crowded this time than it was yesterday, since we were at sea, not at Cozumel. The kids still had fun, though.

Then, well, we couldn’t resist. The kids had already seen the movie Cars twice in theaters, but here it was on board our cruise, and we had no plans, so we watched it again. Like any Disney/Pixar movie, there’s more to see each time you watch. If you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend it highly.

After the movie, we had a quick lunch.

We dropped Hannah off at the Oceaneer Club, where all the kids were going to rehearse for a show called Celebrate the Journey. We had no idea what it would entail, but we dropped her off anyway. A little while later, all dressed for the semi-formal dinner this evening, we showed up in the big theater where they do the stage shows to watch Hannah’s show.



It came off like a graduation ceremony. When it got going, all the kids (hundreds of them), wearing matching T-shirts and graduation caps with Mouse Ears, filed in from various entrances and all lined up on-stage. There was a song that they all clapped to. Then Mickey came up to give a commencement speech and wish them all well.



Honestly, that was pretty much it. Hannah filed right by us on her way out and waved. She was having fun.



As soon as this was over, we had to pick her up and head to our dinner. Once again, we were dressed up nice for dinner in the nicest dining room. This time Jason and I got the window.



After dinner, Jason and I went upstairs to get him some more activity – he finished dinner early and was getting restless. It was a great time to be up on deck. The sunset was magnificent – no photo could do it justice.



We found our way to the sports section of Deck Ten again (it was Jason’s favorite place – go figure), and a few kids were in there playing soccer, so of course Jason joined in.



Then we met back up with everyone else for more dancing in the Promenade Lounge, and then went in to see another stage show – this one was Disney Dreams, in which a girl gets a visit from Peter Pan. Peter teaches her to fly by showing her that all she needs are faith, trust, and a little Pixie dust. To help her, she is visited by many of her favorite Disney characters (such as Aladdin, Cinderella, Ariel, and Belle), and songs from their movies become big production numbers on stage. Once again, a great production, the kids really enjoyed it. It just doesn’t get any better, you know?

And by now, you know the drill… Off to bed, got to get some sleep, lots to do tomorrow, right?

Wrong! Tonight there was a special surprise. At 11:15, they had a dessert buffet down in Lumière’s. I stayed in the stateroom while Laurie went down to sample the desserts. They had a cruise ship made of chocolate and a bouquet of fondant roses in a sculpted sugar vase to look at, and twenty different desserts and a chocolate fountain to enjoy. She even brought back a few for me, what a sweetie! Good stuff, most definitely.

Then we went to bed to get some sleep. Tomorrow would be our last full day, spending the day in the sun and sand and water at Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay!

 

[LaurlieMT]

This day was the big final day. The last splash. The port of call that makes Disney different from everyone else. Castaway Cay. Back when Disney was planning its cruise line, they bought this deserted island in the Bahamas, built it up, dredged a channel for the ships to use to dock, and made it a little slice of paradise.

The previous night, we ordered room service to be delivered to our room first thing in the morning. We figured that would save us some time in the morning, where we could be eating while we were getting ready for fun in the sun. When I got up and turned on the “View from the Bridge” channel on our stateroom’s TV I saw…

…Rain???

Yeah, there was some rain falling. I hopped down to Deck 4 to look out, and we were moving through a fairly decent rain shower. So we ate breakfast and got ready, keeping our fingers crossed that the weather would improve.

Good news. By the time the boat had docked and we had gotten all dressed for the beach, the sun was shining, and it was shaping up to be a fine Caribbean day. We grabbed our island map, and forgot all about the morning’s rain.



We started walking to the tram stop that would take us to the beach, and stopped at a nice photo spot.



From this point, we could also see the ship they used as the set for The Flying Dutchman in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean 2 – Dead Man’s Chest



If we had wanted to wait in line, we could have had our photo taken in front of it with Captain Jack Sparrow at our side, but since it wasn’t Johnny Depp, well, we didn’t bother. Besides, we wanted to get to the beach!

After a quick tram ride and a quick walk, we started heading to the section of the beach where Brian told us we would meet the rest of our party. Sure enough, there they were.



And, just like at our other stops, it was all we could do to put our stuff down on the beach chairs under the palm trees (aaaah – it’s relaxing just to think about that) before the kids wanted to go get wet. And who can blame them, frankly? It was warming up nicely, and the water was warm and inviting.

Brian had rented a couple of rafts for us all to use, and that was probably Jason’s favorite part.



Hannah, meanwhile, had been excited about snorkeling, so I rented a child-size set of gear, borrowed a set of Brian’s that he had brought along, and taught Hannah how to snorkel. At first she was very tentative, and unsure of what to do, but I invented the “clamp and breathe” method, right there on the spot (OK, it’s not rocket science, but it worked!). It was basically the two things that Hannah needed to remember to confidently stick her face in the water: clamp on the mouthpiece, and breathe through it. It took some practice, and some false starts, but she finally got it! There was one point where I figure she had her face in the water for at least ten breaths, maybe fifteen.





Paige, once again, was being a huge help. She entertained Jason for a long time. She was quite the trooper, letting Jason climb all over her while she’s in the water.



Jason briefly tried snorkeling, but didn’t much care for it. The kids both also dug in the sand for a bit, Hannah even helped another kid build a big sand castle, but for the most part, it was all about the swimming.

As you can imagine, all this fun in the sun can cause one to work up quite an appetite. Well, once again, Disney does it up right. It’s their island, their rules. We didn’t have to trudge all the way back to the ship to eat, oh no, they brought the food out to us at this big outdoor (but mercifully covered – it was getting hot!) dining area. They had burgers and ribs and chicken and potato salad and fruit salad and corn on the cob and gigantic cookies and corn bread and even a soft serve ice cream machine. They had the soft drink stations just like up on Deck 9 on the ship. It was just like eating on the ship, just a lot closer to our beach chairs!



After lunch, the kids and I went to this place called Monstro Point, where they get to dig on an “archaeological site” with a whale skeleton in it (replica, I assume – I overheard one of the staff members saying that they found a whale skeleton here when they were first getting the island ready for cruisers, but I can’t imagine that this one was the real one).



Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay long, because right as we were arriving, they were getting it set up for kids in the Oceaneer Club to come in and do an organized program. But they had fun anyway, got to dig a bit, and got to take a souvenir casting of a sea creature. Hannah picked out a starfish, and Jason picked out a trilobite.

We got back to our spot on the beach, and took a minute to sit in the shade of a palm tree before climbing back into the water for more fun!



And then, before long, it was time to wind it up and get back on the ship. We cleaned up, and started making our way back to the tram stop for the ride back to the boat. Jason fell asleep again (this poor guy was just run ragged this week!), and you would think he fell asleep on the tram ride. No, while waiting for the tram, with Laurie holding him, he conked out. She was holding him, and Hannah came over to tickle his feet or something, and Jason turned to her and said, “Hannah, leave me alone, I’m trying to go to sleep!” He slept all the way back to the stateroom.



We realized, upon returning to the stateroom, that we had completely forgotten to take Hannah’s kite that she decorated yesterday. But we did bring it home with us, so we can try flying it here sometime.

We were able to let Jason sleep for a little while, but soon enough it was getting to be dinner time, so we woke the poor guy up, got changed into our dinner clothes, and had one last dinner with the servers who had served our group every night of the cruise. After dinner we were underway headed back to Port Canaveral, and we stepped out onto Deck 4 for one last shipboard sunset…



…and one last game of shuffleboard.



That reminds me – this actually goes back to the first time Jason played shuffleboard – at first, Jason just wanted to smack the discs with the cue, rather than push them. So, to teach him, I came up with the “tap and shove” method, where he would tap the discs with the cue, then shove. I think we saved some wear and tear on the game pieces this way.

Well, anyhow, after that, he started calling the game shovelboard, since you shove the discs across the board. We thought it was terribly cute and funny. Well, in researching the game for this cruise report (to find out that the equipment is called “discs” and “cues”), I come to find out that the game we call shuffleboard, is a descendant of an Old English game called – you guessed it – shovelboard! So Jason was not only terribly cute and funny, he was terribly old world as well.

But I digress.

After sunset, there was one more show for us to go see, called Remember the Magic. It was one part variety show, with a juggler who balanced huge things on his head and a ventriloquist who made a dummy out of a real kid from the audience, and one part compilation show, revisiting some of the exciting moments from the other shows on the cruise. The big finish had lots of characters from the various shows all on stage singing the final number.



Laurie elected to skip the show, but I took both kids, that way she could get packing. All our checked baggage needed to be in the hallway outside our stateroom by 11 PM. The next time we would see those eight bags would be after we left the ship in the morning, down in the baggage claim / customs area.

With bags all packed and the morning’s plan all sorted out, there was nothing left to do but go to bed and wish that this was our first night on board, not our last. This time tomorrow, we’d be back in Indiana, with no one to serve us three meals a day, no free soft drink station, no shuffleboard, no ping pong, no private islands, no pools, no stage shows, no dance parties, no beer tastings, no teas with Wendy, no karaoke, no pirate night, no meeting characters, no soft serve ice cream station, no midnight dessert buffets, and most importantly, no one to turn down our bed every night and leave little chocolates on the pillows and make cute towel animals (I never even mentioned the towel animals!).

We’ve heard of some people taking back-to-back cruises, where they just stay in the same stateroom for the second week. That was sounding awfully good right about now.

 

[LaurlieMT]

It’s never easy to get up early in the morning to do something you don’t want to do. Saturday morning found us dragging ourselves grudgingly out of bed and getting dressed. The alarm clock went off at 5:30!! By 8AM we were expected to be out of our staterooms; a whole new group of lucky cruisers would be boarding in just a few hours.

But, hey, we didn’t want to be “those guys” who didn’t vacate their stateroom in time, so we got moving and left our stateroom, our carry-off bags on our shoulders, around 7:30 for a final breakfast at Topsiders.

Around 7:45 I remember hearing the call over the intercom that the ship (which docked around 6:30, I think) had cleared U.S. customs, and we were “free” to debark.

Of course, we didn’t have to get off right away. We had to actually be off the ship at 9:00, or something like that. So after breakfast, we went up to Deck 9 for one last walk around the ship. It was very peculiar. Most of the people were already ashore, and those that weren’t, well, they weren’t up here. The only other people on the entire deck were a couple of employees, cleaning and repairing. We walked around like we owned the ship!

We found ourselves up near the bow looking across the Port Canaveral channel, and we could see the Disney Wonder across the way, finishing up its stint in dry dock. Then we stopped off for one more game of ping pong. Hannah and Laurie lounged on one of the double-wide lounge chairs and pretended the cruise was just starting.

But, we realized that we were just prolonging the inevitable (and our ride to the airport was probably wondering what in the world happened to us), so we went down to the lobby where there was a big banner that said “See you real soon!” As DCL employees with big, white “Mickey” gloves on waved goodbye, we took one last look around, and stepped off the ship and back towards reality.

Since we had a late (2:30, I think) flight out of Orlando, we were able to avoid the mad rush to debark the ship, claim baggage and get through customs. When we got down to the cruise line’s baggage claim area, I think it was around 9:00 AM, we found a very organized setup. The bags were segregated by stateroom groups, so all the 6100s (for example) were in one area. And at this time of the morning, there wasn’t much left except our bags. Porters, who were waiting with carts, loaded up all our luggage for us. Getting through customs took all of 3 minutes waiting in line and 1 minute while the customs official looked over the paperwork.

And just like that, we were outside, on our way to the parking lot.

It sure had been lots of fun, no question. For all the fun we had, for all the stuff we did, there were probably five times as many things that we didn’t do. We’ll just have to go again someday! As soon as possible!

 

[tjeagle]

What a wonderful report! What a treat to be able to sit and read a report from start to finish!
Loved it!!

 

[tksbaskets]

Ditto! It was a great trip report and I loved the pictures. What a nice way to start my Sunday morning

 

[Bee]

Loved your report. We were on the Wonder 10-27 to 10-30-05. Now looking at going on a 7 day.. 3 days was too short.. but had been first cruise, so we just wanted to see if we liked it. So, now we are looking at going next October 20 on the Magic.

I hope it works out. Glad you had a great time.

Bee

 

[abbs25]

What a great report. Disney Magic at its best!

 

[DeloreanGirl]

Thanks for the great report! I love when they're all connected as one!

 

[E&BMom]

Thanks for the great report!!! Sounds like you had a great time!! DId you book another cruise while on the ship????

 

[teach22180]

I also wanted to say thanks for the great report! I love the way you guys have such good understanding of your kids' needs. I bet when they're teens, they will still be talking to you since it's clear you LIKE them as people. What a great family! Thanks for sharing with us all!

 

[tamim]

Fantastic report! Loved reading it all at once! I hope our trip in September of 2007 is as great as yours was! My kids will be 11 and 13 when we cruise so it will probably be me in the pictures sleeping!
Thanks for the report.

 

[elightyear]

Thank you so much for this report. I was on this cruise and it was the most magical and memorable 7 days of my life. I loved every second of it and have been so sad since i came home! could have happily stayed on the ship and still be there now. So nice to hear other peoples experience too. I can't wait to go back!! Truely was the Disney Magic.

 

[curlybop]

What a great report! Thanks so much for sharing.