Who? Me (37), DH (40) and our 9-turning-10 year old twin DD's
Sunday: Easter in Key West
Woke up early and went to yoga before the character breakfast. (Note about spa classes: you have to sign up in advance, and most were full by the time I got to sign up on Saturday about 5pm. I was on the waiting list, but they told me to come to the classes anyway, since many people sign up but don't end up coming, and that was certainly the case that morning.)
We were going to skip the character breakfast, but it ended up being really fun. It was Easter Sunday, and the brunch in Lumiere's was packed. Later heard that there were only 18 people having brunch in Palo's that morning! The chacters were Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy and Chip & Dale -- all in tropical attire. They are very organized about circulating around the tables, getting photos and signing autographs. Hint: have your kids sit together at the table. We ended up having to move ours around to make the picture-taking more efficient. Have your own camera ready to take pictures if you don't want to end up buying a ton from this one event!
There were characters in the atrium giving out Easter candy and taking pictures. We each had a beautiful colored hard boiled egg on our plate at the character breakfast.
DH and I had our couples massage at 10:30 -- wonderful! The girls went to the club while we did this. We just loved the spa, beautiful facilities and top notch service. DH had Giselle as his masseuse, and I can't remember the name of mine, but she was great as well. We both wrote "no sales pitch" on our form, and they didn't say a word. They were as gracious as can be. DH and I both used the spa showers.
DH and I walked around Key West. We left the girls in the club, and told them they had to stay there til we got back; no signing out while we were off the ship. We walked around KW, it was really kind of hot and we weren't too impressed. We went to Margaritaville and had... a margarita and a Cheeseburger in Paradise. That was actually quite fun. We ended up just eating at the bar, the wait for a table was more than 30 minutes.
Then we walked to a place to have key lime pie -- WHAT A TREAT! That was one of the most yummy things I've ever eaten! Frozen key lime pie dipped in dark chocolate on a stick. Yum. Not to be missed. That was enough of Key West for us, and we just walked back to the ship. Our room was on the starboard side and we had a great view of Mallory Square at the dock. Very exciting to see the ship pull into port, but that was probably the highlight of Key West. It appeared that the sunset celebration was lots of fun, but we were happier on the ship. We did see plenty of things that I'm glad the girls didn't witness (such as a man passed out in the bushes) and they would have hated the heat and all the walking around. My advice is to leave kids on the ship and enjoy Key West as adults, or do an excursion. Some people we met said they enjoyed the catamaran racing excursion with their kids as well as the aquarium (don't need an excursion, you can just walk to that.) But we saw plenty of kids that were obviously unhappy at being dragged around Key West. Our girls were THRILLED to be on the ship in the club -- they had a blast doing karaoke and other activiities.
After we returned to the ship, we went to the pool with the girls for a while, and they visited the arcade with some friends they'd met in the lab. The show that night was Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer. I was suprised at how empty the show was. Definitely try to sit in an empty row -- we had lots of empty seats chosen that ended up going to someone else in the row. it seems like they mostly picked people in the center section (numbers 10 - 20), rather than the far side. We were close, but didn't get picked. It was a fun show though.
Dinner was in Parrot Cay. We loved ending the night by sitting out on the verandah watching the sea go by.
Go to Day Three
Sunday: Easter in Key West
Woke up early and went to yoga before the character breakfast. (Note about spa classes: you have to sign up in advance, and most were full by the time I got to sign up on Saturday about 5pm. I was on the waiting list, but they told me to come to the classes anyway, since many people sign up but don't end up coming, and that was certainly the case that morning.)
We were going to skip the character breakfast, but it ended up being really fun. It was Easter Sunday, and the brunch in Lumiere's was packed. Later heard that there were only 18 people having brunch in Palo's that morning! The chacters were Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy and Chip & Dale -- all in tropical attire. They are very organized about circulating around the tables, getting photos and signing autographs. Hint: have your kids sit together at the table. We ended up having to move ours around to make the picture-taking more efficient. Have your own camera ready to take pictures if you don't want to end up buying a ton from this one event!
There were characters in the atrium giving out Easter candy and taking pictures. We each had a beautiful colored hard boiled egg on our plate at the character breakfast.
DH and I had our couples massage at 10:30 -- wonderful! The girls went to the club while we did this. We just loved the spa, beautiful facilities and top notch service. DH had Giselle as his masseuse, and I can't remember the name of mine, but she was great as well. We both wrote "no sales pitch" on our form, and they didn't say a word. They were as gracious as can be. DH and I both used the spa showers.
DH and I walked around Key West. We left the girls in the club, and told them they had to stay there til we got back; no signing out while we were off the ship. We walked around KW, it was really kind of hot and we weren't too impressed. We went to Margaritaville and had... a margarita and a Cheeseburger in Paradise. That was actually quite fun. We ended up just eating at the bar, the wait for a table was more than 30 minutes.
Then we walked to a place to have key lime pie -- WHAT A TREAT! That was one of the most yummy things I've ever eaten! Frozen key lime pie dipped in dark chocolate on a stick. Yum. Not to be missed. That was enough of Key West for us, and we just walked back to the ship. Our room was on the starboard side and we had a great view of Mallory Square at the dock. Very exciting to see the ship pull into port, but that was probably the highlight of Key West. It appeared that the sunset celebration was lots of fun, but we were happier on the ship. We did see plenty of things that I'm glad the girls didn't witness (such as a man passed out in the bushes) and they would have hated the heat and all the walking around. My advice is to leave kids on the ship and enjoy Key West as adults, or do an excursion. Some people we met said they enjoyed the catamaran racing excursion with their kids as well as the aquarium (don't need an excursion, you can just walk to that.) But we saw plenty of kids that were obviously unhappy at being dragged around Key West. Our girls were THRILLED to be on the ship in the club -- they had a blast doing karaoke and other activiities.
After we returned to the ship, we went to the pool with the girls for a while, and they visited the arcade with some friends they'd met in the lab. The show that night was Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer. I was suprised at how empty the show was. Definitely try to sit in an empty row -- we had lots of empty seats chosen that ended up going to someone else in the row. it seems like they mostly picked people in the center section (numbers 10 - 20), rather than the far side. We were close, but didn't get picked. It was a fun show though.
Dinner was in Parrot Cay. We loved ending the night by sitting out on the verandah watching the sea go by.
Go to Day Three
