lindaso
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 24, 2001
- Messages
- 713
Thursday Nov. 9th…adventures in breakfast
I slept pretty soundly again that night. This cruising vacation is the best sleeping vacation I’ve ever had. I get up to go to the bathroom and Steph meets me on my way back to bed. “Can I go to the character breakfast?” she asks. I sigh in disbelief…how many hours has she slept? I check the clock and it’s 8:10. I walk out the door with full bedhead to see if the Boots have left yet. They’re still here and they agree to take Steph. Alyssa dances around the room and Kyle asks if Tommy can come. I tell him he’s still sleeping. I walk back into my dark cave of a room where Steph is already dressed and ready to go. Wow…that was fast! She’s out the door with barely a goodbye and I’m not back in bed for more than a minute before Tommy walks in.
Uh oh, I need to act fast. “Do you want to go to the character breakfast?” “YEAH!” comes the answer back at me. For the second time in the last 2 minutes, I walk into the bright hallway with my bedhead hairdo. They are still here! I ask if they can wait a few more minutes for Tommy and Kyle answers with a resounding “OH YEAH!” and starts his version of room dancing.
I go back to my cave (again), find Tommy some clothes and shove him out the door. I climb back into bed and listen to the silence. Well, except for Chuck’s snoring. Silence is relative, ya know. I doze on and off for the next 45 minutes or so. Kevin is still sleeping…in the other room…by himself. Have I mentioned I love cruising?
I eventually move myself out of bed and into the shower. As I have all week, I assess the seas with razor in hand and notice that it’s smooooth sailing. I have a little fight with the shower head as it doesn’t want to stay where I put it. If I wasn’t in relaxing vacation mode, it really would tick me off. But what’s the worst thing that’ll happen? I’ll flood the bathroom? Yeah, OK.
I dry my hair over by the desk and Chuck starts to stir. I inform him that 2 of his children are at the character breakfast and he grunts an acknowledgment. Kevin is still fast asleep. I wonder if I’ll have to wake him up. We have Palo brunch at 10:30…surely he’ll be up by then.
I get all ready for brunch, Chuck gets all ready for brunch and Kevin is still sleeping. I snap his picture as proof that he’s actually still sleeping at 10:07:
At 10:10, we decide to wake him up. I need to have him ready for the Boots who will be watching him. He wakes up in a fine mood and we get him dressed. He confirms that he’s spending the morning with Christine and Keith and says, “good, cause I don’t wanna go in the kids club.” Oh really?
We hear them before we see them…4 kids screeching in the hallway. Apparently I threw a KTTW card at Steph before she left b/c before I know it, the 4 screechers are in the room. The reason for the noise is that Stephanie lost her tooth on the stairs just seconds before. Yup, add DCL to the list of non-mundane places the child has lost a tooth. I hope the tooth fairy remembers her out here on the open seas! Kevin is thrilled to see everyone and we hear bits and pieces about the character breakfast. The kids had fun but the parents say it was just OK. Christine is happy she has pictures. I’m so glad to be traveling with my scrapbooking paparazzi friend. She got these shots of my kids while I slept:
And my favorite one...the action shot:
After breakfast, they went straight to the arcade where apparently there was an intense air hockey game between Tommy and Alyssa. Both have extremely competitive personalities and she was afraid that it wouldn’t end pleasantly. Fortunately it ended without bloodshed. Glad I missed it!!
Here are the competitors in action:
We look over the navigators and inform the boys about Detective School. To my surprise, Tommy says he doesn’t want to go. What’s up with that? Kyle wants to go so eventually we convince Tommy that it’ll be fun. The girls’ club is having Captain’s Corner and they’re not at all interested in meeting the captain so to mirror our Monday activity, Christine agrees to bring them to Bingo. We give her my KTTW card so she can charge the Bingo cards to our account, say goodbye to the kids, and hightail it up to Palo where we are about 5 minutes late.
We find our way to Palo where they are just starting to seat people. We are led past 2 trays of champagne in fancy glasses and the host explains the two different choices of complimentary champagne (or in cruise-speak, that would be "prepaid"). We both choose the one that has the fruit-something added to it. Neither of us really like champagne so we figure we have a better chance of drinking it if it’s sweeter.
We are seated at a window table for 2. The view is beautiful. The sun is shining, the seas are glistening, the Bonine is working…it’s the perfect day. I’m so glad we chose Palo for brunch so we can enjoy the view.
We try the champagne and we both hate it. So much for the fruit-something. It reminds me of the sangria from last night. It sounds good in theory, but it tastes the same as usual. Oh well, I don’t feel like drinking at 10:30 anyway.
Our server comes over after a very short time. I believe her name is Louise [or was it Lorraine? I don’t have notes and it’s been almost 2 months…shame shame on the trip reporter!]. Anyway, she has blond hair and a British accent and is extremely nice. She escorts us over to the buffet tables to explain what everything is. The first table is seafood and I tell her that’s all I need to see. There’s shrimp (already peeled of course, not like at Topsiders), crab legs, oysters, caviar, and a whole bunch of other stuff I can’t remember. She then leads us over to the bread table where she explains the process of the bread with the whipped cream and the jelly. It doesn’t do much for me but Chuck’s mouth is doing the Homer Simpson.
We walk past the ledge by the kitchen and she explains the hot food we can order. Oh, they are going to have to roll us out of here! Then it’s over to the dessert table where she explains that everything is sample size so you can have a taste of everything. I chuckle to myself…yeah, cause a full size dessert would have really stopped us from tasting everything!!
She leaves us at the table and tells us to help ourselves. Woohoo! We head straight for the seafood and I load up on shrimp and crablegs. The shrimp looks interesting at the buffet. They are folded over with the tail wedged between the front part so they can stand up on the plate. Chuck, who spent part of high school working in the kitchen of a country club, is very intrigued by the presentation. I nod and pretend I’m interested too as I dig in to my 3rd shrimp.
That’s when it happened. We look out the window and there he is. Mr. Beer Belly wearing a bathing suit with no shirt stops at the railing right outside our window. OK, Mr. Beer Belly, move along now. Don’t you know there is fine dining going on in here? I’m trying to gorge myself and I don’t need a visual reminder of what I’ll look like when I’m done! He stands there for the longest time, having no clue that we are right inside the window, admiring him as he admires the sea.
We laugh and secretly thank him for not wearing a Speedo. Eventually he moves on and we continue our meal. We make our way over to the bread table where I find the sticky buns under the cover. They are hot, gooey and heavenly. They become my very favorite thing to eat at Palo brunch. That’s right, out of everything here, I fell in love with the sticky buns!!
Louise comes over and we order some hot food. I order eggs benedict and Chuck orders some seafood thing that he saw someone else have. We also order some pizza…half sausage and half tomato I believe.
We have a conversation with Louise about working on DCL. She explains the 6-7 months on, 2 months off. Chuck asks if she gets to enjoy the ports at all and she says they do but she tends to stay away from the beaches b/c she doesn’t want to be tired for her shift. We are both amazed at the dedication and the hours these employees work. I ask about sick days and she says they must see the doctor and have a note to miss a shift. Chuck asks about seeing her family on the holidays and she says that in 2 years, her vacation should work out so that she’s home for Christmas. These people really work their butts off!! I could never do it.
All of our hot food is very good although I’m not blown away by the eggs benedict. They are just good. The pizza is outstanding. I wish I was hungrier cause I’d like to try some more. Chuck enjoys his fish, which doesn’t taste anything like fish. I’m definitely running out of steam and getting full. We head over to the dessert table where surprisingly, nothing jumps out at me. I try a chocolate pudding-looking thing that is pretty good. I decide to skip the rest of the desserts and head back over for another warm gooey sticky bun…mmmmmm!!
We finish up and pay the bill. We have a discussion on how much to tip. Again, it would have been helpful to discuss this in advance with the Boots, just to get their opinion. We decide to leave a $20 tip so the total comes to $40. As we’re leaving I see Nancy at another table and go over to say hi. The girls haven’t really seen each other all week. She says Alison loves the kids club and has spent a lot of time there. Well, that could explain it then, Stephanie hasn’t spent much time there at all. She mentions that Alison is going to the lava flow activity that afternoon. I must not be reading my navigator thoroughly enough b/c I never saw that one, it sounds cool. We say goodbye and Chuck and I waddle out of Palo in search of our family.
Up Next…"I can make a swan!", semi-formal graduation, Moms' night out II…you know where!!
I slept pretty soundly again that night. This cruising vacation is the best sleeping vacation I’ve ever had. I get up to go to the bathroom and Steph meets me on my way back to bed. “Can I go to the character breakfast?” she asks. I sigh in disbelief…how many hours has she slept? I check the clock and it’s 8:10. I walk out the door with full bedhead to see if the Boots have left yet. They’re still here and they agree to take Steph. Alyssa dances around the room and Kyle asks if Tommy can come. I tell him he’s still sleeping. I walk back into my dark cave of a room where Steph is already dressed and ready to go. Wow…that was fast! She’s out the door with barely a goodbye and I’m not back in bed for more than a minute before Tommy walks in.
Uh oh, I need to act fast. “Do you want to go to the character breakfast?” “YEAH!” comes the answer back at me. For the second time in the last 2 minutes, I walk into the bright hallway with my bedhead hairdo. They are still here! I ask if they can wait a few more minutes for Tommy and Kyle answers with a resounding “OH YEAH!” and starts his version of room dancing.
I go back to my cave (again), find Tommy some clothes and shove him out the door. I climb back into bed and listen to the silence. Well, except for Chuck’s snoring. Silence is relative, ya know. I doze on and off for the next 45 minutes or so. Kevin is still sleeping…in the other room…by himself. Have I mentioned I love cruising?
I eventually move myself out of bed and into the shower. As I have all week, I assess the seas with razor in hand and notice that it’s smooooth sailing. I have a little fight with the shower head as it doesn’t want to stay where I put it. If I wasn’t in relaxing vacation mode, it really would tick me off. But what’s the worst thing that’ll happen? I’ll flood the bathroom? Yeah, OK.
I dry my hair over by the desk and Chuck starts to stir. I inform him that 2 of his children are at the character breakfast and he grunts an acknowledgment. Kevin is still fast asleep. I wonder if I’ll have to wake him up. We have Palo brunch at 10:30…surely he’ll be up by then.
I get all ready for brunch, Chuck gets all ready for brunch and Kevin is still sleeping. I snap his picture as proof that he’s actually still sleeping at 10:07:
At 10:10, we decide to wake him up. I need to have him ready for the Boots who will be watching him. He wakes up in a fine mood and we get him dressed. He confirms that he’s spending the morning with Christine and Keith and says, “good, cause I don’t wanna go in the kids club.” Oh really?
We hear them before we see them…4 kids screeching in the hallway. Apparently I threw a KTTW card at Steph before she left b/c before I know it, the 4 screechers are in the room. The reason for the noise is that Stephanie lost her tooth on the stairs just seconds before. Yup, add DCL to the list of non-mundane places the child has lost a tooth. I hope the tooth fairy remembers her out here on the open seas! Kevin is thrilled to see everyone and we hear bits and pieces about the character breakfast. The kids had fun but the parents say it was just OK. Christine is happy she has pictures. I’m so glad to be traveling with my scrapbooking paparazzi friend. She got these shots of my kids while I slept:
And my favorite one...the action shot:
After breakfast, they went straight to the arcade where apparently there was an intense air hockey game between Tommy and Alyssa. Both have extremely competitive personalities and she was afraid that it wouldn’t end pleasantly. Fortunately it ended without bloodshed. Glad I missed it!!
Here are the competitors in action:
We look over the navigators and inform the boys about Detective School. To my surprise, Tommy says he doesn’t want to go. What’s up with that? Kyle wants to go so eventually we convince Tommy that it’ll be fun. The girls’ club is having Captain’s Corner and they’re not at all interested in meeting the captain so to mirror our Monday activity, Christine agrees to bring them to Bingo. We give her my KTTW card so she can charge the Bingo cards to our account, say goodbye to the kids, and hightail it up to Palo where we are about 5 minutes late.
We find our way to Palo where they are just starting to seat people. We are led past 2 trays of champagne in fancy glasses and the host explains the two different choices of complimentary champagne (or in cruise-speak, that would be "prepaid"). We both choose the one that has the fruit-something added to it. Neither of us really like champagne so we figure we have a better chance of drinking it if it’s sweeter.
We are seated at a window table for 2. The view is beautiful. The sun is shining, the seas are glistening, the Bonine is working…it’s the perfect day. I’m so glad we chose Palo for brunch so we can enjoy the view.
We try the champagne and we both hate it. So much for the fruit-something. It reminds me of the sangria from last night. It sounds good in theory, but it tastes the same as usual. Oh well, I don’t feel like drinking at 10:30 anyway.
Our server comes over after a very short time. I believe her name is Louise [or was it Lorraine? I don’t have notes and it’s been almost 2 months…shame shame on the trip reporter!]. Anyway, she has blond hair and a British accent and is extremely nice. She escorts us over to the buffet tables to explain what everything is. The first table is seafood and I tell her that’s all I need to see. There’s shrimp (already peeled of course, not like at Topsiders), crab legs, oysters, caviar, and a whole bunch of other stuff I can’t remember. She then leads us over to the bread table where she explains the process of the bread with the whipped cream and the jelly. It doesn’t do much for me but Chuck’s mouth is doing the Homer Simpson.
We walk past the ledge by the kitchen and she explains the hot food we can order. Oh, they are going to have to roll us out of here! Then it’s over to the dessert table where she explains that everything is sample size so you can have a taste of everything. I chuckle to myself…yeah, cause a full size dessert would have really stopped us from tasting everything!!
She leaves us at the table and tells us to help ourselves. Woohoo! We head straight for the seafood and I load up on shrimp and crablegs. The shrimp looks interesting at the buffet. They are folded over with the tail wedged between the front part so they can stand up on the plate. Chuck, who spent part of high school working in the kitchen of a country club, is very intrigued by the presentation. I nod and pretend I’m interested too as I dig in to my 3rd shrimp.
That’s when it happened. We look out the window and there he is. Mr. Beer Belly wearing a bathing suit with no shirt stops at the railing right outside our window. OK, Mr. Beer Belly, move along now. Don’t you know there is fine dining going on in here? I’m trying to gorge myself and I don’t need a visual reminder of what I’ll look like when I’m done! He stands there for the longest time, having no clue that we are right inside the window, admiring him as he admires the sea.
We laugh and secretly thank him for not wearing a Speedo. Eventually he moves on and we continue our meal. We make our way over to the bread table where I find the sticky buns under the cover. They are hot, gooey and heavenly. They become my very favorite thing to eat at Palo brunch. That’s right, out of everything here, I fell in love with the sticky buns!!
Louise comes over and we order some hot food. I order eggs benedict and Chuck orders some seafood thing that he saw someone else have. We also order some pizza…half sausage and half tomato I believe.
We have a conversation with Louise about working on DCL. She explains the 6-7 months on, 2 months off. Chuck asks if she gets to enjoy the ports at all and she says they do but she tends to stay away from the beaches b/c she doesn’t want to be tired for her shift. We are both amazed at the dedication and the hours these employees work. I ask about sick days and she says they must see the doctor and have a note to miss a shift. Chuck asks about seeing her family on the holidays and she says that in 2 years, her vacation should work out so that she’s home for Christmas. These people really work their butts off!! I could never do it.
All of our hot food is very good although I’m not blown away by the eggs benedict. They are just good. The pizza is outstanding. I wish I was hungrier cause I’d like to try some more. Chuck enjoys his fish, which doesn’t taste anything like fish. I’m definitely running out of steam and getting full. We head over to the dessert table where surprisingly, nothing jumps out at me. I try a chocolate pudding-looking thing that is pretty good. I decide to skip the rest of the desserts and head back over for another warm gooey sticky bun…mmmmmm!!
We finish up and pay the bill. We have a discussion on how much to tip. Again, it would have been helpful to discuss this in advance with the Boots, just to get their opinion. We decide to leave a $20 tip so the total comes to $40. As we’re leaving I see Nancy at another table and go over to say hi. The girls haven’t really seen each other all week. She says Alison loves the kids club and has spent a lot of time there. Well, that could explain it then, Stephanie hasn’t spent much time there at all. She mentions that Alison is going to the lava flow activity that afternoon. I must not be reading my navigator thoroughly enough b/c I never saw that one, it sounds cool. We say goodbye and Chuck and I waddle out of Palo in search of our family.
Up Next…"I can make a swan!", semi-formal graduation, Moms' night out II…you know where!!
LOL..LOL
Don't worry, if it had been you, I would have named you personally for all the DIS to know!!!
Looking forward to the rest thanks for all you have shared sofar!
I stand by my original pledge to finish. Maybe this weekend I can work on getting another part up.
. I need more!! Please?? Pretty please?? Come on, I have 4 kids (granted 2 are adults), they aren't that much work (yeah right). 
!!!
