Good morning everyone! Time for a ride in the front of the monorail!! I'm on my way to a Pirate Cruise!!
We woke up easily this morning (thanks to turning in early the night before). Ty was excited about his upcoming adventure, but a bit apprehensive, as we knew he would be.
We took a bus to MK then hopped on the monorail to take it over to the Grand Floridian, where Ty would be launching. We were supposed to be there at 9am (for a 9:30 departure). We made it in plenty of time.. must be our excellent monorail-driving skills...
A monorail shot of the Contemporary construction:
An attempt at a family self-protrait while passing thru the Contemporary:
Since niether of us have ever been to the GF, we had to stumble around a bit to find our way back to the Marina. Of course, when we asked a CM, they were more than happy to help us find our way. When we got to the dock, we saw the 'ship' waiting for us:
Detail on back:
Tyson thought it was hilarious. He said, "That's not a ship.. it's a RAFT!!!"

We checked in, paid, and got Ty's life jacket and pirate ears:
Can you see the look of concern on his face:
I think it was hitting him at this time that he was going to leave us behind. I know he thought the pirate thing was going to be fun, be the 3 of us were having so much fun together, he really didn't want to leave us. I think this pirate adventure would've been much more fun for him if we were allowed to come with, or if Shae was with him.
Several of the boys came with plastic swords, or other props. I felt bad that I hadn't gotten Ty anything (except his really expensive Captain Jack Sparrow shirt, but boys really don't care about shirts.. they want objects to swing around!) While we were waiting, Matt mysteriously disappeared. I thought maybe he had to deal with a cell phone call, but started to get nervous that he would miss the send off. Tyson got concerned, too. Then, luckily, Matt emerged from behind the Marina building with one of these:
See? I told you we spoiled him on this trip!
Time for a brief sword fight:
Finally, it was time to board... and Tyson made his way onto the ship with a bunch of yelling, jumping, raucous young men. It made me really see how calm, held back, reserved, and anti-social Tyson is... just like his Daddy!
The ship pulled away from the dock, sat there for a minute, then pulled back in...

Apparently, a few people neglected to pay attention to the reporting time and waltzed in at 9:32...

I HATE THAT!! We have been waiting around for 30 minutes because we PAID ATTENTION.. and now our poor sons have to wait for YOU because you didn't. GRRRRRR!!
AT LAST.. they set sail..
Time for a DIS MEET!!
I'll try to make a long story short.. but I had a dear friend in College named Brian.. we called him "E"... you don't need the explanation. Anyway... we reconnected on Facebook not too long ago and his Profile Picture was of him and his wife in Disney! Turns out, they just bought into DVC! THEN we find out we'll be there at the same time.. let's meet and say hi!!
So we planned everything out to meet at the GF while Ty was on his cruise. So here we are:
Wait, Sooze, you said this was a DIS MEET! Yes! It WAS!! See his lovely wife, Jen? She is a DISer! You may have seen her lingering on my TR... JenSop. So, not only did I get to say hey to an old friend, I got to have my first DISmeet.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to visit for too long. Matt and I were going to do some research on DVC (we looking to add on points). Next time, E and Jen, we are doing dinner or something!!
We hung out with the DVC lady and asked her a few questions. She wasn't really helpful... we really needed to talk with our guide, who, after we tried to call her, turns out she's out for a few weeks following surgery, or something like that. So NOW what? Matt headed to the hammocks on the beach and I headed.. back to the marina! It's WATER MOUSE TIME!!
45 minutes of me, the boat, the water, and a pirate ship to follow
I got some great shots of the back side of Kingdom Tower:
Here's my shot, where I keep a part of my body in it, to help me remember exactly what I was seeing at the time:
And I had to take a picture of this:
Why? You ask. We have video footage of this very spot from 1978 (it's 8mm tape) when my family first came here and we stayed at the CR. We have video of all of us sitting on that hill watching the boats and water skiers go by. Pretty cool.
And, yes... I FOUND the pirates and did a bit of spying... Ty looked fine, but didn't look like he was completely having a ball. I even drove past his ship once, and he waved frantically at me.. with a BIG smile!!
Here are the pirates leaving a beach after doing some searching:
Apparently, the pirates went from beach to beach looking for pieces of a treasure map. Once they got all of the pieces, they put it together, then went and dug up the treasure. Pretty cool!
But what did Tyson think of it? How did he deal with a RAFT full of obnoxious boys? And what do we do next? Stay tuned!!