September 7th, Day at Sea
We woke up to another picture perfect day. We didn’t have anything specific planned for this day. However, it was Churro Mickey waffle day, so I grabbed enough for everyone to enjoy back in the room. We also finished off the Norwegian treats we had brought back on board. At some time this day, DS2s family and I decided to enjoy some pool time. Despite this being our 3rd cruise on the Fantasy, I’ve actually only ridden the Aqua Duck a single time. Our first trip, DGS was only 2 ½, so I spent quite a bit of time with him, although that was the trip where I got my one and only ride on the Aqua Duck, we spent a lot of time in Nemo’s Reef.
The next trip, DGS was about ½ to ¼ inch too short to ride. It also was a pretty windy trip (It was Halloween 2024, and we were dodging hurricanes the entire trip), so there were only limited hours that Aqua Duck was open, and they often didn’t allow single riders.
So today was my planned day to enjoy this! DGS and I headed all the way up, after he was measured and got his wristband. But once we hit the top of the stairs, he balked. I don’t know if he actually understood the ride (Pro tip, we should have pulled up more
youtube videos to prepare him), and it wasn’t worth the struggle. So we headed down to the yellow Mickey slide instead. He probably went down that 20 times, and was happy as a clam.
DGD and her parents joined us then. I said “hey, want to ride Aqua Duck with Grammy?” But I looked up to see no water running through the tubes. Thankfully it was BEFORE we climbed all the steps! She joined DGS on the Mickey slide, and the adults just sat in the splash area watching the kids bounce between the slide and the Mickey pool. I did try taking DGS over to the other kids pool (I think it’s the Goofy pool?) but it’s really DEEP! I couldn’t touch the bottom, and I didn’t want to mess with a life vest given how busy the pools were getting. So back to Mickey we all went. I did see people on the Aqua Duck later that day, but it wasn’t worth getting changed and all wet again, especially since we needed to pack up.
I’m honestly not sure what else we did the rest of the day, but I’ll use this section to fill in the things we really enjoyed doing on the ship, without trying to remember exactly when we did it, or who took part in the activity.
We did enjoy the mid-ship detective agency. Both grandkids completed all 3 challenges at least once, and it worked better for us to have them do this activity separately. The 4 ½ year age difference really shows up in activities like this, where DGD gets annoyed with her brother when he wants to take every single step at his own pace. I have to say that the Muppets version is the most engaging, while the art theft is the least engaging. The kids could care less about historic works of art, and there really aren’t a lot of “clues” that contribute to the art story line. Several times throughout the cruise, DGS would giggle and say “Liar, Liar, pants on fire.... Wasn’t that funny?” (In the muppets story, you have the suspect take a lie detector test, and when he fails it, they actually set his pants ablaze). On the last sea day (or maybe the Norway afternoon), DGS drug my aunt all across the ship doing this experience. She hadn’t realized that you should pick one end of the ship and just cover all the decks on that end before moving down the ship, so they probably walked a couple of miles in the space of maybe 90 minutes.
DS2 and DDIL definitely enjoyed the various trivia games and activities, particularly in the lounge area. They won several medals (I know for sure that DGD won the Frozen trivia, essentially getting all the answers right without any assistance), and DDIL won at least one other trivia. They also did Match Your Mate early in the cruise. This is where being repeat cruisers on the same ship comes out. Yoyo made sure that they were picked for the Match your Mate show, because he knew it would be entertaining! A number of the crew remembered my family. In particular, the entertainment staff remembered DS2 and DDIL because they essentially were in CosPlay most nights, and our Halloween cruise was particularly costume heavy (a few pictures below). It turns out that Yoyo was DS2’s kids club counselor way back in 2004 on our 10 day Christmas cruise on the Magic. Mom and I did a couple of the craft activities, and we all went to some of the family entertainment including the guest Broadway performer’s cabaret act. Mom and I found time to play a few games of cards throughout the week, and DS1 and DS1S spent a lot of time watching movies, mostly in their stateroom.
One of the best things about a cruise is the variety of choices which means that everyone can kind of do their own thing. No one was forced to wait on someone else, and even the kids had their own preferences. For us, we used the morning breakfast time and the evening dinner time to catch up with the people we hadn’t done things with otherwise, which let it still feel like a family vacation – just without the forced togetherness.
Back to Day 7. As we finished up packing, DDIL asked for us to try to do a Mickey picture with at least a portion of the group. DS2 went down and got in the line while Minnie was still there, and I picked up DGS from the kids club. As we walked through the lobby, he noticed the light saber pictures and wanted to get in line for that. He even looked at the wait and said “Come on Grammy, it’s not that long!” But I told him we had to do Mickey first because that was Mommy’s request. We timed it pretty well, getting a few good shots with about 15 minutes to go until our dinner doors opened. So we headed down to the light saber line, which had about 5 families waiting.
The rest of the family came up when there was one family in front of us and we told them to go ahead and get started with dinner, because we’d be right there. Right, famous last words. The family of 5 that was in front of us literally had to do every single combination of pictures that could be had. There were only 2 light sabers, so they had three different sets in multiple poses with the kids so that each child was in two sets. Then the parents had to do all the poses, then all 5 of them. I kid you not, the took literally 25 minutes!
When it was our turn, I told the photographer, “faster is better than perfect!” Unfortunately, the light sabers were a little hard for the kiddos to handle, so it wasn’t just click click. But I do have to say the pictures were great. One of them is my new phone background.
Finally into dinner, which was Lobster night. We did get a picture with Paul, once he came back from back of the house duties. We didn’t plan on breakfast in the dining room (in order to avoid the chaos of the atrium on departure day), so we told them goodbye and thanked them for being a great team.
One last visit to the kids club while I got luggage out, and we were all tucked into bed for the last time.
Up next – Disembarkation and London part 1. “And just where is that driver anyway?”
