Our amazing first cruise 8/19-8/26, finished with a couple pictures to boot!

[Dsnylndlvrs]

Ugh, I don’t know if we should be excited about this day or depressed. It’s the second (and last) visit to Castaway Cay. It’s the last full day of the cruise. For the most part, I managed to get as much out of this day as possible, but there were times it just didn’t feel right.

Our character breakfast was scheduled for this day at 9:30 or 9:45. Something like that. We went back and forth so many times on deciding what to do. We really wanted to get over to the snorkeling lagoon as soon as possible and just generally take advantage of the Castaway Cay as long as possible, but the breakfast sounded fun. In the end, Castaway Cay won out over the characters.

So, here’s part of the reasoning. I had never been snorkeling before this trip. The CC Seahorse catamaran excursion (the one where I mostly just hung onto the boat) was my first ever attempt. My thought all along was that would be my first snorkeling trip, the one where I would start learning. The excursion on Cozumel would be follow up and more learning. Yes, if I saw fish or cool plant life along the way, that would be a bonus, but you can snorkel to see those things many places in the world. There’s only one place in the world to snorkel and see a Mickey statue. All the other snorkeling was building up to snorkeling in CC’s lagoon and finding the statue (and anything else Disney related.) Does that sound crazy? Considering this is DIS, I’m hoping not…

I still wish I didn’t have to miss taking fun pictures with Mickey and the gang, but that’s all past now. We did have breakfast at Topsiders again, outside with THE perfect seating to take some awesome pictures of CC as we docked. Then, it was off the ship and on our way to get the snorkeling equipment. Except, we lost something as soon as we got off the ship. DS was (quite happily I should say) hijacked. His friend Josh and another boy caught him and whisked him away on a treasure hunt around CC. That was fine, we knew he’d have a lot of fun. So the three of us got our equipment and got to snorkeling. Very quickly we found Mickey and some signs beneath the water. (Ah, success. Vacation complete.) We continued having a GREAT time snorkeling in the lagoon. It was just so fun, no waves to contend with and little surprises every so often. At one point we were way far out, about as far as you can go, and we stumbled upon (can you stumble in the water?) this area that had hundreds and hundreds of fish. It was AMAZING. Someone else that was there said they’d been to CC a couple years ago and had never seen that many fish in the lagoon. It was really hard to finally pull ourselves away from there and head back, but we figured it was probably time. Turns out we’d been snorkeling about an hour and a half! Oh, and as an extra bonus, on the way back we found treasure in a chest!

Changed out of our gear and headed to Cookies, desperately needing to down a couple glasses of lemonade. DS called us on the 2-way radio and graced us with his presence for lunch. So nice! When we were done eating, DS asked us if we’d go to Groupers Pavilion and play billiards with him. Oh my gosh! He WANTED to spend time with and play with us. You just can’t refuse that! So, the four of us, the whole family headed there together. At some point, I realized that I was having some camera trouble so I sat out and dealt with that and also quick wrote some postcards to mail on the way out. It is really nice and relaxing at Groupers, and out of the sun if you need that! Eventually, the FOUR of us made our way to the beach and the two kids got tubes to play with. They actually hung out in the water together and had a great time (no bickering, no angry voices – just relaxed, happy kids.) This is exactly the way to have a vacation as a family. Picture perfect. DH and I just sat under our natural umbrellas (otherwise know as palm trees) and enjoyed ourselves and the beauty of our children happy in the water. Again, PERFECT!

Eventually we needed to head back. A relatively quick trip to the post office (wonder if we’ll ever see those postcards???) and we were back on our ship. Notice that I say OUR SHIP, because by that point of the trip, it felt like OUR SHIP. Just wasn’t right that we would have to get off the next day, and it took a lot of work to continuously force that out of my head. We took in the Remember the Magic show and let the kids go to the club, while we did a little more packing. Then it was on to dinner at Parrot Cay. The menu for the night just didn’t excite me. Nothing really sparked my interest. I ended up with the lighter fare chicken and the apple cranberry pot pie for dessert. This is where it got a little weird. We’d just started our dessert and the next thing I know, it seemed like we were getting forced from the dining room. I can’t figure out exactly what it was, but everyone seemed to be making a mass exit at the same time and I didn’t feel like I had a choice in the matter. The desserts were left unfinished and I left a bit frustrated and confused.

After dinner, we rushed back to the stateroom to change out of dinner clothes, pack them, and pack whatever else there was to be packed. By the time we were done, the kids had already gone to their respective clubs and we started to put the luggage in the hallway. The stewards were pretty much lying in wait for that luggage because pieces were taken away as soon as we set them out. Basically, it was an assembly line – luggage piece from my hands to DH’s hands to steward’s hands and gone. We quick rushed to go see ‘Till We Meet Again and were disappointed – we’d JUST missed it. So, down to Diversions to take in Pub Night (I’d read so much about it on the DIS boards that I didn’t want to miss that too.) Pub Night is short, but a ton of fun. The final skit is absolutely hilarious and we learned that Pikey is quite naughty. Somehow, he managed to very swiftly get his hand behind Terese’s neck and pull the string on her bikini top (she caught it before anything showed!). Soooooo much laughter and Pikey was quite proud of himself. Kaz snuck behind Terese and tied the bikini back to normal and the whole thing was just so funny!

The kids pretty much finished out the kids activities for the night. Here’s a tip – if you like the sound of a beeper, then keep your kid in the club as late as they’re open on the last night. The closer it gets to midnight closing, the more beeping reminders to turn in the pager you get! While we were standing in line to turn in the pagers, everyone’s beepers were still going off! Pretty funny! So that’s a night…

(to be continued)

 

[Dsnylndlvrs]

Hi Everyone!
Thanks for all the nice words! I think I have a couple more additions to make - the disembarkation day and then some random forgotten thoughts and additions. May take a couple days to get those done (gotta get away from the computer a little on the 3-day weekend, ya know!) Happy weekend to all!
Kris

 

[Verandah Man]

I have enjoyed reading your TR!!!

Sorry we didn't get a chance to meet during the cruise.

 

[musicgirl]

I've really enjoyed reading your report. It's been hard for me to read many as I'm still getting over our double dip from June, post cruise blues.

I think the AP show is over hyped, it was our 4th seeing it, but it seems to have lost it's "sparkle" like the rest. needs to go into dry dock and spruce up the color or something.

Funny about the blister on your son's foot! Didn't you know anything that goes wrong is YOUR fault???!!

Tip for those who haven't tried this for blisters: moleskin!! As odd as this sounds this is the most awesome thing for blisters, but make sure you get the thin kind. We accidently got the thicker kind and although you would think it would work better, but it's actually worse.

Put moleskin on a blister and you won't even know you had one!!!

Thanks for sharing your memories!!! I'm trying to get back in the swing of things, because we really want to book for June 21, 2008.

 

[sftnslky]

There’s me, Kris, and DH, along with our DS(13) and DD(10) and we’re from Northern California.

So far your report is EXCELLENT. I do have one kinda odd question. We are also from Northern Ca... Stockton to be exact. We are flying out of Sacramento in a few weeks. Our cruise is the 23rd of THIS MONTH .... We are flying down on Thursday the 21st and staying at the Nickaloden Hotel. My question is....How bad did the time change effect you? and your kids? Was your flight also very long? Not including the lay over in Dallas we are in the air for over 7 hours... How did you do it?

We are cruise veterans, but this will be our first DCL cruise and our first out of an Eastern Port. We can't wait. again for such an awesome report.

 

[Dsnylndlvrs]

Hi Musicgirl,
OK, I have to ask, what is moleskin and where would you get it? And, yes, everything is my fault, or DH's fault, or DD's fault as far as DS is concerned! Really, though, he is a great kid, it's just a little bit of teenager has started sneaking in (so far at least!)

 

[Dsnylndlvrs]

Hi sftnslky,
You know we didn't have much problem with the time difference. We also had layover in Dallas. I think it helped that we got up early for the flights, kind of putting us on closer to eastern time. We're also used to eating late dinners on pacific time, so the late seating actually worked out GREAT for us and we'd do that seating again. Your kids are a little younger, but I bet the getting them up good and early to start your trip will help bump them into the time zone! On the way home, my kids slept a good share of the way and they seemed all prepped to be back on west coast time. Good thing - school started about 30 hours after we got home!!! Does that help at all? Any more questions, just ask away!
Have a great trip! We can't wait to go again!
Kris

 

[musicgirl]

moleskin comes in sheets about 5" x 6" (roughly-I guessed!) you can cut it into what ever size you want.

It is kind of hard to describe, but I'll try. One side is a soft material, kind of like felt, but softer. The other side is sticky and of course that is the side that will have the pull off part. This is also the side that you stick right over the blister.

It seems odd because we are soooo use to having that little white pad go over the blister and not having anything stick to the blister because normally the sticky part of a band aid would pull open a wound. As crazy as it sounds, the part that is placed directly over the blister has no little white pad, it is all sticky.

Now you may think, is that going to hurt when you pull it off. NO, it sticks very well and doesn't come off like a band aid, but for whatever reason, it comes off very easily. I gave some to a new teacher the other day who was amazed. She said it didn't hurt when she took it off, but she was back to band aids. That was my cue to offer her some more!!!

I get mine at my grocery store-Krogers, but grrrrr, they were out today. I would try drug stores, target etc. It is a Dr. Scholls product (at least the kind I get).

here is a site. You DON'T want the PLUS Padding, just padding

http://www.drscholls.com/prodselect.aspx?pgid=2

 

[zack&alexmom]

Kris - oh how it makes me want to be there again. I can't believe it has only been a little over a week since we got off the ship. Thanks for the great trip report.

Linda

 

[michelle9343]

Excellent trip report. I really have enjoyed reading it.

 

[curlybop]

What a great report!

 

[DMMarla07860]

So, down to Diversions to take in Pub Night (I’d read so much about it on the DIS boards that I didn’t want to miss that too.) Pub Night is short, but a ton of fun. The final skit is absolutely hilarious and we learned that Pikey is quite naughty. Somehow, he managed to very swiftly get his hand behind Terese’s neck and pull the string on her bikini top (she caught it before anything showed!). Soooooo much laughter and Pikey was quite proud of himself. Kaz snuck behind Terese and tied the bikini back to normal and the whole thing was just so funny!
(to be continued)

yes pikey is quite naughty lol, but Pub Night is deff great, and funny. No one old enough to go should miss it.

 

[Dsnylndlvrs]

So we’ve made it to disembarkation day. Not a particularly joyful day, but hey, at least it means we’ve actually been on a cruise. This is one day when we were really glad that we’d had late seating for dinner, as it meant the later breakfast seating for the last day. I have to say, as much as I didn’t like having to get all the luggage out the night before, it was really nice getting up in the morning and only having to grab the carryons. All the last minute looking under the beds and through all the drawers was all done the night before, so it was just get up, shower, get ready and head out. Surprisingly, I didn’t cry when we left the stateroom for the last time. (Although I get teary thinking about leaving the stateroom NOW!)

Anyway, we headed down to Parrot Cay for our last vacation breakfast and sat down at our table 30. It was a little strange, but nice to see our serving team in the morning. Their cheery voices and smiles make a nice way to start the day. When it was time to place our orders, Oka started with me. I tried to place my order, but my voice ended up cracking and the tears started. It was just too hard to place that last order with Oka. I just couldn’t do it. I really hadn’t expected to become so attached to our serving team. All I could do was motion that he should move on to taking DS’s order, which he quickly did. By the time he made it back around to me, I managed to mumble blueberry pancakes with a little smile. Never thought ordering breakfast would be so emotional.

Breakfast was very good and we said our goodbyes and gave hugs to Oka and Iwajan without too many tears, grabbed our carryons and headed out to the lobby. And just stood there. It did NOT feel right to leave the ship. It did NOT feel right to know someone else would be getting on the ship very soon and having our stateroom. For a little while, all we could do was just stand there.

Eventually, we did force ourselves off the ship and back into the real world. It was a little jarring to arrive downstairs in the giant warehouse of luggage. Our luggage wasn’t where we expected it, with the green Tinkerbells. After searching a few minutes, we had to ask and were told that some of the Tinkerbells were actually placed in another section too. Then we quickly found all our stuff and it wasn’t a very big deal. We’d arrived on the ship with five pieces of luggage but were now leaving with seven. A porter was handy and he helped lead us through customs (pretty much was just a very quick glance at our paperwork followed by an “OK, go ahead.”) and then out to the airline check-ins. While we were checking in, the porter worked with the airline people to get the airline tags onto the luggage and the luggage into a van. Meanwhile, the airline check in person asked if we wanted an earlier flight, which we jumped at. (Our flight was originally scheduled for leaving Orlando at 5:00pm, and we switched to a 12:30 flight – so much better than trying to while away 5-6 hours at the airport!!!) We were just so happy and pleased with the helpfulness of the porter and airline personnel at the port, as well as the ease of the whole process. Then it was a quick hop onto the Magical Express (very pleasant) for the ride to the airport. Everything on the flights home, stopover, etc. went well.

About a day and a half after arriving home, the poor kids were off to the first day of school and real life began again. Everything about the trip now seems more like a happy dream.

(to be continued with a few random additions, thoughts, tips, etc.)

 

[Keggy]

What a great vacation! Thank you so much for taking the time to post your trip report. It is so appreciated!

 

[sherrie]

thank you so much for the wonderfully detailed report and taking the time to write it. makes me wish may would come a bit quicker

 

[cheriemek]

Thanks for your TR! I really enjoyed it.

 

[SeaSpray]

Great trip report! I almost feel like I was there too! tee-hee!!

 

[Dsnylndlvrs]

You know, Terry, it almost felt like you were there too!
In fact, I think I had a vision of you on the very first day! It seems to me you were surrounded by green flowers of all things.

 

[PoohJen]

Great report Kris!!! Mind if I just cut-n-paste?!

 

[Dsnylndlvrs]

Great report Kris!!! Mind if I just cut-n-paste?!