Here's the report from what should have been our CC day.
I wake up at about 6:30 and the room is a little shaky—well, this can’t be good—I check out the veranda and figure I’ll watch the sunrise with no company since everyone is still asleep. They really don’t need to be up until 7 so I just leave it be and head out. It is super cold out there and I run back in to wrap a blanket around myself before going back out. I watch the sunrise then I go back in and make a bit of noise hoping to stir them awake. I come back in and figure I have to wake them anyway so I may as well shout “Land Ho!” I do, and they are not amused. Sarah makes little grunts to show she is awake but please don’t poke the bear and Josh heads for the shower figuring he can trump Pat who is just kind of stirring a bit. I am already dressed so I say I’m heading up to get my breakfast—this moves Sarah knowing that the boys will take forever to shower and get dressed she checks out the balcony, sees
Castaway Cay tosses on some clothes and joins me upstairs for some quick breakfast. I have a blueberry muffin and some pineapple. She has pineapple and a chocolate croissant. Coffee for me and juice for her and we head back to the room hoping we will dock and the we’ll change into our bathing suits while the boys get breakfast. So far so good we are ready when we hear an announcement that the waters are too rough and we will not be able to dock. Sarah’s face drops and she is very disappointed, today was the day she was really waiting for—she thinks she wants to be a marine biologist so her day was well planned out—feeding stingrays, snorkeling and learning as much as she can about the creatures was really her goal. Josh was planning on kicking back and enjoying the laid back lifestyle and well, honestly I was looking to the stingray feed if for no other reason than I had spent so much time psyching myself up to be able to do it. I managed the birds on my head yesterday and today I was going to move to sea life! Our cruise director, Peter, quickly explains that a new activity sheet will be printed and pretty much today will swap for tomorrow so we’ll be able to enjoy Castaway Cay, it will just be tomorrow rather than today. We go up to meet the boys and figure we may as well have a real breakfast so we stop in Beachblanket for waffles, bacon and more coffee.
When we finish we go back to the room and I notice the message light on the phone. I have several messages. First I hear from Palo that we will be switching brunch to today. Cool. Next it is the spa switching to today. Finally Palo again, now we are not switching to today it will be tomorrow. I call back ask to ask if I can cancel for the next day—no way am I going back to the ship for a semi formal brunch at 11AM and cutting into my beach day! He says I can cancel but why not wait until tomorrow. Ok—little did I know this would be foreshadowing. Pat and I go to the adult Pool deck and sun on the lounge chairs for about an hour. I guess we should go check on the kids. We meet them in the room and show them where to leave us notes of where they will be and how long they think they will be there. They are also instructed to come back to the room to write a new note every time they change locations. Yup, I’m a control freak—but too bad that is how I do things!
Sarah heads out, looks for her friends and they head to the movies, College Road Trip is playing and they want to see it. Josh hangs out and gets some reading done on one of the lounge chairs on deck. Pat and I see if there is room anywhere near the adult pool—nope all chairs are taken so we head to a lower deck. Sorry, but it is really cold out here so we check the navigator to see what there is to do. I turn in my request for a quote on another cruise vacation—hey we’re having fun here and I like the pace—I’m sure I’d love it even more if I could go to that private island but they are going to try again tomorrow and I haven’t heard too many reports of not being able to dock two times in a row so why not at least ask! Lunch time, no kids , we look at each other--woo hoo Triton’s for lunch! We are promptly greeted and seated! The host teases that he has a great table right next to a family with 10 children—I laugh. We are seated in a quiet little corner and order a really nice lunch. We skip dessert since we are full. At 2 pm we have our spa treatment. Now Pat has never been to the spa—he treats me every year to a great package at the Spa at Saratoga Springs Resort but still doesn’t really understand the whole thing. Well, since this is his birthday cruise I make a reservation. He gets it now! We are fully exfoliated and relaxed. Sometimes life’s just good—we soak it up and enjoy. We stop back to the room where we find a note from each of the kids and oops Josh’s room key. We try to find him—oh well no luck. We grab a drink of the day and sit on the upper deck. Hopefully tomorrow will be less windy and the waves will calm. We return to the room and find both kids there. When Josh realized he left his key in the room he just hung out until Sarah got out of the movies so he could get her to let him in. For a minute I’m impressed that there was nothing I needed to do—they figured it all out on their own! Somewhere in between I stopped at shutters and found some photos I liked, but mostly photos I didn’t like. I had some time to kill so I figured if I took the kids back I could show them what I didn’t like so maybe, just maybe we could get some good group photos.
Pirate night, we get dressed in our casual, albeit not quite pirate gear and head up for some photos. We redo some and have a lifestyles set done. These turn out great by the way. I am now happy. I have an updated, professional quality photo of my family.
Off to the Golden Mickey’s where we enjoy a very good show and some serious surprises. I am still in awe of the props and costumes—what a talented group of performers.
We have about an hour after the show until dinner so we head over to have retakes with Captain Jack. He is eclectic as ever and fully in character throughout the meet and photo taking. It is getting close to dinner time and I am worried that we will not be able to get to the big Pirate deck party since our dinners do last so very long. My worries are put to ease when we arrive and it is very casual and rushed. I am happy about that and we hurry through dinner to get to the deck party. Once dinner is complete we head straight up to the deck party where it is in full swing. The kids dance and enjoy the music and then they find their friends and they are off to have even more fun. What a great show and I am still in awe of the whole thing. It amazes me what Disney can do to set itself apart from others. The desserts look lovely but we really are not hungry after just having eaten dinner. The kids head to the room after the party because it is too cold to sit out and watch the movie on the big screen. It is also getting late and we are supposed to do that first sting ray excursion in the morning so Pat and I grab another rum drink and sit for a few minutes before we head to the room as well.
Another towel animal—we think it is a puppy, but one child isn’t sure it might be a pig—big debate on ears, nose and tail we conclude that it is a dog.
I have fish mail—it is the quote for a seven day cruise—holy…are you sure that includes the 10% off discount! I’ll have to look at that later when I am not so tired.
Next: “we’re docking, no we’re not; we’re docking, no we’re not; we’re docking, no we’re not….”
is your lead into of your next installment..... We're Docking, no we're not docking, We're Docking, No were not. Can't wait to read your next post, cause I kinda felt the same!!!
