So Saturday was a bit of a strange day from my perspective. Even though this was our 4th
Disney Cruise, it was the first that didn't go out of Florida...and when you go out of Florida you have
Castaway Cay...and then you steam back to port the very next day.
So it was a bit surreal and I kept having to remind myself that when we left Cabo we weren't in port the next day. But even when I woke up I expected to have that feeling...you know what I mean if you have been on a cruise...the feeling that you are back...and the dread of having to leave the ship.
But Alas! It was one more day at sea. Woohoo! (ok, so just to tell you, I typed woohoo 6 times to get it right. Clearly I didn't get enough sleep last night). Unfortunately we were unable to visit Beach Blanket Bingo Buffet....as we had our character breakfast. I know, I know...that's exciting. And the pictures are pretty cool.
To be honest this breakfast was the only place our server fell down a bit. Most of the servers make hats out of the napkins for the kids. While Terry made a few it paled on comparison. However...after having read Cruise Confidential...this may be an area that the servers find degrading and frankly stupid...so maybe that's why?

But the kids do enjoy that.
Connor's semi-hat. I guess that is Goofy?
Nick and Chris got theirs. No idea.
And then Kathryn was princess lea...and Connor ended up with a bandana. Again...not much effort on this one.
Dale came to visit
And Minnie
And Pluto
And the Big Cheese. *gasp* who is steering the ship. OH, so I was wondering...is Mickey Mouse a Admiral now that he has more than 2 ships?
Goofy of course
And Chip. At least I think this one is chip. the one with the black nose because he eats chocolate chip cookies. That never made sense to me...but it does to the kids which I guess is what matters.
After breakfast we hit the stores. I had decided I wanted a
DCL shirt...and the kids needed shirts as well. So we went there...and had a surprise when we hit the Treasure Ketch. Be vewwy, vewwy quiet about this one. As usual our kids had pins to trade and asked to see the CM's pins. This time a box was taken out with a whole bunch of loose pins in it. The CM said "take 4-5 each...but don't tell Mickey". It was one of those little moments of magic

as pixie dust was spread on us. Given that we had the Curse of the Gemstone Seminar following us all week long maybe we earned it?
anyway, the kids were beyond themselves thanking the CM who shall remain nameless so they don't get in trouble.
We got our shirts and then headed down for Disney Movie Trivia. This time it was time for us to rock and roll...and we ended up tied with another family from the DIS Boards (Andromeda9mm). DW and Andromeda9mm went up to do the tiebreaker. Obviously at this point DW was an expert at tiebreakers and ended up winning. However, they were going to give us more key chains...so we gave them up to the other family.
We ended up chatting with them for a while and eventually took them up to see the suite. The funny thing is, and I'm still wondering this, how much is bragging, and how much is truly that we want to show others how cool the cabin is. Honestly we weren't trying to brag (although if you read my last installment...how good do I look as a superhero?? but I digress), we really wanted to show people since most likely we would never see a cabin like that again! So if you’re out there Andromeda9mm, please don't think we were bragging.

now that I have protested too much...let's move on, shall we?
Today was a day for Mega Jackpot Bingo. I don't know about you, but I'm a fan of winning cash. Apparently enough to give up $60 for cards.
As a hook to get you into the bingo they gave you a free card on Saturday for any purchase in the stores. So naturally we had to go. And surely we couldn't just play that one tiny card, right? So in we went.
Did you know that they have electronic cards for bingo now? You don't have to punch out the numbers...in fact you don't even have to plug the number in the machine, it will do it for you. So essentially I could have paid for it and left and let it do it's thing. As it turned out the end result would have been the same! We bought the family pack which was an electronic scorer with 24 cards (I think) and another 2 packs of paper cards.
DW and Connor posing with the electronic scorer
And here I am after I took it back. It was mine! Mine I tell you!
So play we did. We were hot and heavy and came within two numbers several times. We didn't win squat. DW has now banned me from all future Bingo playing endeavors. Don't tell her this, but I agree. What a waste of money. I know a lot of folks go every day and play...and maybe they win. An interesting tidbit...not a single paper card won on any of the games we played. I thought that was kind of interesting. where are the conspiracy theororists on that one?
As we missed BBBB for breakfast...we had to hit it for lunch. Large shrimp cocktail.. mmmmmm. Ever wonder if the food starts to go bad toward the end of the cruise? as I chowing on my shrimp this thought crosses my mind and as shrimp is one of the things you can frequently get food poisoning from I thought about this. Then I popped another shrimp in my mouth. Nothing happened to me...and I suppose it will stay fresh in your fridge for a week no problem. but what about the 15 day cruises? is everything in deep freeze? Cruise Confidential did not share that with me. I need a detailed behind the scenes tour.
But alas it was time to start the not so fun stuff...we had to start packing. We didn't want to scramble that night so we started in the afternoon. I hate packing.
At 2:00 it was time to go listen to the Imagineer (Bob something) talk specifically about the Dream. His talk in general about Imagineering was cool...and we were going to be on the Dream so we wanted to do this...and we did. It was really cool to hear about the new things on the ship. Much like Quiltteddy had originally said she wanted to not know everything...I now know most if not all of what we will see and do. But I think it will still be fun...as i'll be experiencing it...not just watching it on a screen. needless to say it was cool seeing the Dream in Europe...covered in snow. Yes snow! Pretty crazy.