The Drive, the Dream and DVC - A March 2011 Birthday Surprise TR(NEW 11/9 p. 32 END)

[Mndisneygirl]

Well at least you got one!!!!! I am sure it will get easier (although I have to say that I am still struggling with texting on my iphone - I need to feel the keys - A Sign of my age!)

Happy Easter!

My DH bought the iPad - so technically it's his. There are just some things I find easier to do on a regular keyboard etc. I am a traditional typist, so I really miss having the "WHOLE" keyboard right there.

Happy Easter to you too!!!!!!

Thanks - it was a nice day.

Congratulations!!!!!

Congrats!

Very nice!

Very awesome!!!

Hurray for getting more points officially!!!

Thank you all - I'm excited!!! Now to start planning how to use these points!!!

I love how much information you can learn on these trip boards - storing it all up for my cruise in the next year or so! BTW, your daughters are beautiful! I read that you want to do a Med cruise - may daughter did one about four years ago right after she graduated high school - she went with her girl scout leader and daughter (the mother is really well traveled and helped them plan this trip as "frugally" as possible!); they went to England and Scotland (which my daughter wanted to visit) and then went on a 3 or 4 day cruise from Italy to Greece and back - she loved it! She really enjoyed the stop at the Greek island, loved Rome, didn't like Athens so much, but she said she would definitely do it again, but longer.

These boards are awesome for sure!!
Thank you about my daughters! They clean up well, don't they? They do take great pictures - it's they're way of compensating for when they misbehave. It's like no one would believe me if I told them how whiny they were or how much they fight.
What a great experience for your daughter! Before I got married I traveled to England and Scotland to visit a friend who was teaching in Scotland. I definitely got the travel bug then!
Next year we are planning for London and Paris. The med cruise is going to have to wait a few more years. It is so hard, I have so many places I want to go, and I'm impatient. But they are all pricey trips!

Congrats on passing ROFR Sheree!! That is so awesome!!! WOOT WOOT

Thanks Jen!!!

 

[jeremysdisneymom]

Yay for more points! Congratulations!

 

[RinkyTinkyTinky]

Ok... so we are waiting to hear about what you are planning to do with these new points??? Another cruise maybe???

 

[Mndisneygirl]

oops

 

[Mndisneygirl]

Yay for more points! Congratulations!

Thanks!!

Ok... so we are waiting to hear about what you are planning to do with these new points??? Another cruise maybe???

Well, we don't know! Because we're going to go to Europe next March, we may just bank them and wait to use them. I've been told that cruises are not a good use of points, and I doubt we'd have enough for it anyway. I wish I could use them in Disneyland Paris, but we're not sure.


I want to apologize to everyone for my lack of updates lately! I've been so busy, had a garage sale last week and Mother's day fun and need to get my photos more organized. Working on our dolphin encounter pictures has proven to be more work than it should! Plus I have a few on our disposable waterproof camera that hasn't been developed. So, depending on how this week goes, I will proceed either with or without them and add them later!

So thanks for hanging in there with me! Maybe now I can get rolling again!

 

[RinkyTinkyTinky]

I want to apologize to everyone for my lack of updates lately!

You don't need to apologize for anything! You are not obligated to post anything here. We are glad that you do, but don't ever feel like you are on a time clock here. I'm am SUPER, SUPER excited to see your pictures, but we can wait! Hope you had a great Mother's Day!

 

[jenseib]

Take your time. I've been busy too!

 

[Mndisneygirl]

Okay so now that a month has gone by between updates, I sure hope you're all still out there! I finally got some dolphin pictures ready!!


We left off when we had to go buy PJs at 11 p.m.!!
FRIDAY MARCH 11
We woke up around 7 and we had not yet reached Nassau. Looking out from our balcony (I love saying that!), we could see the island in the distance, it was warm and sunny already!
We went to Enchanted Garden for breakfast. They seated us, and took drink orders, then we went to the buffet. It was nice, they had Mickey waffles, chocolate croissants, eggs, bacon, sausage and Krispy Kreme donuts! We were all satisfied with that! It was so nice to eat in there - it's like eating in a big solarium!
We must have gone back to the room before our meeting time for the excursion because I took a few pictures from the balcony as we approached and the time stamp is before our meeting time.

We met for our tour in the Buena Vista Theater. It was a pretty organized process, we checked in (one person per family please) got stickers and wristbands for our excursion. There were some other ones there, like the Blue Lagoon Beach Day and Blue Lagoon Dolphin Swim. Basically we were all going to the same place.

While we waited around,

look who stopped in!

He hadn't even bothered to get dressed! I think he was still a little sleepy. He put the arms up on the seats and just plopped down next to Paige! It was so funny!
We ended up leaving the ship about 10:30 and were escorted along the little bridge to the customs building. We walked past, not through it, along the side and turned left to the marina area. We had to wait for a second boat, but it was waiting to pull up. We had a really windy ride out to Blue Lagoon, about 30 minutes.

Looking back at our "home" and a Carnival ship.

Along the way, we saw some of where the other half lives - beautiful beach front mansions, yachts...Oh, and Atlantis too.

Not too shabby, eh?

Who wants to see some dolphins???

WE DO!!

cont. No really, I will have Dolphin Encounter pictures!!! I promise!

 

[RinkyTinkyTinky]

Oh my! Those Goofy pictures are priceless! Pajamas! I it!

That water in Nassau is just calling my name! Gorgeous! I cannot believe you are still dangling that dolphin carrot in front of my nose! Shame on you! I'll be right here until you get back!

 

[Mndisneygirl]

IT'S DOLPHIN TIME!!!

The first thing we did was gather in a "classroom" and learn about the dolphins and the Blue Lagoon facility and programs they have there. It was interesting, but there was a young toddler who just couldn't behave and it appeared there was only one adult with her and a couple other children. The girl kept fussing and whining and running around and finally the instructor asked if they would step out. Thank goodness!
Anyway, we learned about the dolphins and also spotted a cat who lives there, before going to our encounter area.

We were with a couple other families in our little U shaped section. Our trainer was so great - I wish I could remember his name! Very entertaining and funny. We sat around the water with our feet dangling in. The water was COLD!!! They had wetsuits available, but we thought we'd tough it out! One of the other families got them, but said the water was still cold! They were from Texas and we kept seeing them all over the ship! Very nice people - they had three kids, and we must have had similar interests since we were doing the same things!

We took a couple pictures with our underwater disposable camera, but then just bought the package of pictures/album/CD. Unfortunately, I never got the CD to work right, so we just did the redneck thing, and took pictures of the pictures, so I apologize if they are kind of blurry or whatever! They are the ones when we are in the water.

Waiting to get started - notice how Paige looks really excited? Um, that changed as we went along...

Our awesome trainer

Meet our dolphin friend - Auntie Vee!!

These look like my feet!

That thing in the water to the right is the platform that we would stand/kneel on. Each of the families took a turn to get in the water. I think we went second of the three. They had the adults kneel on the platform. Paige was TERRIFIED! The water was really cold and she was kind of being moved, swaying around in the water. Then she was really nervous about being that close to a big dolphin! She survived, and even managed to smile, but she had to hang on to one of us for dear life!
The first thing we did was get together and get the "kiss" picture.

Then we each got to hug and kiss Auntie Vee.

As you can see, Paige opted out of the kissing. She sort of hugged with me.
When Dave kissed the dolphin, he said "she tastes salty". The trainer gave a command and Auntie Vee splashed Dave!

Then we got to feel her teeth and rub her belly. We learned that dolphins have belly buttons, they can make a "lovely" noise with their blowhole (think gas). We also got to dance with her and feed her a little fish.

feeling her teeth - Paige looks thrilled, doesn't she?

just a little freaked out!

Dancing time

All in all, we had a great time! We had to wait for our pictures and album to be ready, so we just roamed around and looked in the gift shop. We saw lots of dolphins in the water penned areas. We could see a bit where they were doing the dolphin swim too. That looked cool. We got our album right before the boat came. I will have a couple more pictures of the area in the next post. We left the Blue Lagoon about 1:15 and headed back to port.

 

[Mndisneygirl]

Here's a few more pictures from Blue Lagoon.

Yup, we had fun!!

We stopped in the Tortuga Rum store and picked up some rum cakes before heading back onto the ship about 2:30.

This was inside that customs building we went through on the way back to the ship.

We now have three pictures like this!

But only one like this:

I love that - Welcome Home!

We found these in our room:

It's Pirate Night!! Here's a bandana for each of us, and an invitation to the Pirate parties and fireworks!

We went up to Deck 11 to get some food where all the windows are (Flo's V8 cafe). We tried pizza, a ceasar wrap, fries, ice cream etc. OH MY, the fries were so good!!!
We tried to do the Midship Detective Agency game, but the kiosk wasn't working, so we thought we'd try some other time.
We went to the 4:00 show of Villains Tonight since we were going to Palo at 6:30 and would miss the show otherwise. It was pretty fun, sort of an odd storyline, but the guy who plays Hades (from Hercules) was HYSTERICAL!!! Having not seen Hercules, we didn't know initially who he was, nor did we recognize Pain and Panic, but we figured it out from the context. Now that I've seen the show, I could skip it if I did another short cruise, mostly so I'd have time to do other things that I didn't do this time.
After the show, we were able to get the Detective Agency Badge and did 2 parts to it. It involves running around the ship and looking for clues that are hidden in some pictures and things. It's pretty cool, and Sarah loved doing it.

We told her she could finish another time since we had someplace special to go...Dinner for two at Palo!!!!

SO we dropped the kids off at the club and told them we'd be back to get them for dinner at 8:30.

Up Next - Palo and Enchanted Garden - Two dinners???? Are you kidding me??????

 

[jeremysdisneymom]

Wow, love the update! The dolphin experience looks like so much fun! The water in Nassau is just beautiful.

Can't wait to hear about Pirate Night!

 

[jenseib]

You had the same trainer that we had too! he was great and funny.

And some of your island pictures are ones I took too (and are lost on the lost card).

I had the same thoughts about Villains tonight too. I'm glad I saw it once, but I don't care if I see it again or not. That guy was really funny though. He was Claire's favorite...and he was the Genie the next night and he was good in that part too.

I love your dolphin pictures. You should email them and see if the ycan get you another CD that works. I would be mad if I couldn't get it to work after paying all that money.

 

[manntra]

So happy that you enjoyed your time with the dolphins!! So much fun! I have many of the same pictures of the mansions and yachts on the way out to the island
Ughhh I would contact them also and see if they can send you another CD.....the excursion and the pictures aren't cheap!!
Mmmm looking forward to your Palo dinner And you have me wondering if I could eat back to back dinners

Tracy

 

[RinkyTinkyTinky]

Love the dolphin pictures! I can't believe Paige was scared! That has me wondering if my DD will chicken out on me. I hope not. But between the COLD water and a VERY big animal, she might. She is not very adventurous. Personally though, I can't wait! Your pictures around the island are great. Do you think it is worth hanging around for a while or just going straight back to the boat? I've seen pictures of the beach area there and it had tons of cool blow up water things (like an obstacle course in the ocean). But I haven't heard from anyone who has actually gone over to the beach area.

I'm with Jen, I'd be calling them and asking for a new CD if it didn't work!

 

[Disney Mommy 3]

Loved the pic of y'all feeling her teeth...look at Paige's little hand!! She is not even close!! yeah...she looked a little tad afraid, did she not?! Bless her heart! Love the pictures and update!!

 

[Lovemy3babes]

Goofy in his pjs is hilarious!! Ha!

Look at all those huge mansions! Wow!

Your pictures are great Sheree! How neat to get so close to a dolphin. What an experience for sure!

 

[kid-at-heart]

Wow, the Dolphin gig looks like it was a lot of fun. I will add that to my someday wish list. OT regarding the Dolphin experience, but I wanted to say, I love your hair style. It makes you look like your entire face is smiling.

 

[Native NYer]

Great update! Your report is tempting me to book a cruise!
The dolphin encounter looks like fun. My nephews did one while they were at Harborside (the timeshare next to Atlantis). My older nephew(7) LOVED it, and the little one (2) couldn't get out of the water fast enough.

The whole detective agency thing sounds like so much fun!
Can't wait to hear about your Palo dinner.

 

[MEK]

I love your picture, even if they are copies. All the poses are so cute and it looks like so much fun! It must cool to be that close to a dolphin. Looks like a great way to spend the morning.

Two dinners???? I sort of remember you saying you were going to do this. I can't wait to hear about dinner at Palo. I am sure it was wonderful.

Fun update. Looking forward to more.