Who lets their 7 yr old read "On Board The Titanic" before a Magic-al cruise!

[purplepeg]

I am really enjoying your TR so far. Keep um comin'!

Thank you I'm working on the next installment

 

[purplepeg]

I love the matching outfits that girls have on...to cute.

Thank you. I loved them too, I bought them at the Disney store last summer before we even knew we were going on a cruise. We had photos taken with some characters that eve but Dd3 decided to take off the hoodie so only the skirts are matching in those pictures. oh well I guess she didn't know mommy had a "cute" plan.

 

[purplepeg]

Enjoy reading your report. Pics are great too!!

Thank you, I love tr's with lots of pictures. It always makes me feel like I know the people better when I'm reading about their trip. I have lots more to come.

 

[purplepeg]

Today was Key West. Dh had been here before but I had not. When we booked this cruise we talked about shore excursions and decided that because the kids were small (relatively speaking) we would stay on board on port days. Our rationale for this was that the kids would want to be in the pools and they would be crowded on sea days and port days they would be less crowded. We didn’t bring a stroller for Dd3 either. It was just one more thing to bring and try and store.
So on to Key West day. I had a terrible sleep the night before. I usually sleep like a baby with the ship rocking but for some reason the ship did rock gently but then as I was lying there it would almost shake so it felt like someone was shaking me awake. Since I’m a fairly sound sleeper sometimes my girls have to shake me awake in the night if they want something. Soooo I was woken several times each night because of this. Maybe it happened on other cruises but before children I was never woken by shaking in the night. I was also never woken in the night by yelling “Mommy” by Dd7 to let me know she can’t sleep! Thanks but I was enjoying my sleep. Sorry, I digress. When we were in our room at POR I said to my husband, because we were going to have two early mornings, (one for the plane, and the other for the luggage pickup)” we are definitely sleeping in Sunday morning”. Well when we got to our stateroom there are our tickets for the character breakfast tickets for Sunday morning at 8 am! So I guess Monday will be our sleep-in day.
We set the alarm for 6 am and got ready. The kids got up at 6:45 and we showered them and got them ready for the day. Dd7 woke up instantly and happily….Dd3 not so happy. Late nights and early mornings were sure catching up with her. The shower in our room was really nice. I do have photos of our room so maybe I’ll post them now.

Any questions and I’ll be happy to answer them. Well now we’re at Parrot Cay for the character breakfast. I understand they have changed this but we didn’t know as this was our first time. The characters are all dressed up and are in the middle of the restaurant and the kids can get up and they do conga lines and dancing in the aisles with the characters. Our children wanted nothing to do with the dancing. I think the grumpies had arrived. When we first arrived the asst. server from a nearby section, who had interacted with the girls the night before, started taking away Dd3’s jam away and really playing with her and then “stealing”Dd7’s cinnamon bun. We had lots of fun with him. I have a photo but his nametag is covered. I think his name was Nermin and he was from Croatia or Bosnia? If anyone recognizes him let me know. He was great with girls every night even though he was in another section.

I have to say the one thing I really enjoyed about breakfast was that as soon as you sat down they offered you a pastry from a tray. It sure helped tide the girls over until breakfast came and us too. I don’t remember what we had but it was good. Dd3 did get up with Angie for dancing at one point and Stitch was a real character, totally misbehaving. Overall we really enjoyed breakfast even though it’s not your traditional character meal. The girls were dying to get to the club so off we went. Dd3 was doing mousketeer in training and Dd7 was making flubber. We said we would come pick them up for lunch and then we’d talk about plans for the rest of the day.
We went to the Art of Entertaining the Appetizer. It was Crab Martinique. You have to love cruises when at 10 am you get a little wine tasting with your appetizer. The chef was Chef Oscar from Animator’s Palate. He was great and made it look so easy. He was pretty funny too.
After that I went to “Detox for weight loss”. I wasn’t at all impressed. There was only one other couple there besides myself and they worked out all the time. Have you seen my picture? I had to leave at 11:45 to pick up the girls so they wouldn’t be taken to lunch at the club. One was in the club and one in the lab. It was suppose to finish at that time. The fellow was still talking and hadn’t even got to the detox part yet. I sat for 45 min and didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know. I don’t know how much longer he rambled on for. I’m sorry if anyone enjoyed this presentation. Maybe he was just too wordy that day.
Dd3 was tired and cried a lot when we picked her up. They were playing freeze dance and she was having such a good time. She was sweating so I’m guessing they were dancing for a while. Dd7 was sad because her activities were in the lab so they didn’t have the club to play in. She had a great time making her flubber though and it didn’t stop her from going back later. We went to Topsiders for lunch along with everyone else. I don’t remember what I had but it was good. After lunch Dh and dd7 went to Key West for geocaching. For those of you who don’t know geocaching is like a treasure hunt with a gps. My husband had downloaded a few cache coordinates and they went exploring for them. They came across a rooster and dd7 was surprised it didn’t run away from her. It was very windy and the wind was cool this day. There was several shore excursions cancelled because of the wind. Dd3 and I went back to the room. I took a few photos from the veranda and then the two of us had a nap. She, reluctantly, and me quite willingly.
At this point it is probably a good time to tell you all how we got our children to behave and do what we wanted during the cruise. Whenever they would start acting up we would tell them they would have to stay with us instead of going to the kids club. I began to think about this and thought” since when did spending time with your parents become a punishment”? Oh well, it worked. When dd7 and dh got back we went up to the Mickey pool for a while. The wind was so cool but the kids didn’t care. Dd7 went down the slide but dd3 was too impatient to wait in line. There were more tears when it was time to leave but it about 4pm or so and we had Palo that eve. We originally had a ressie for 9 pm and they called earlier that day and said we could come anytime between 8 and 8:30.

Up next Parrot Cay with the girls and then on to Palo for us.

 

[purplepeg]

I had too many photos for my last post so here are more I wanted to include.
Appetizer, Key west, views of Key West from veranda.

 

[policycobb]

Enjoying your TR. I will be sailing with a 3 yr old in October.

 

[purplepeg]

Enjoying your TR. I will be sailing with a 3 yr old in October.

Welcome to my TR. I am working on my next installment and it should be up tonight

 

[Shir Kahn]

I love trip reports with lots of pictures as well. I hope I don't post too many! Thanks for the kind comments!

No such thing as too many pictures! Love the trip report so far! I'm also from Winnipeg, so I know all about our winters here! Can't wait to go on our trip and get away from sub-zero temperatures for a bit!

 

[purplepeg]

No such thing as too many pictures! Love the trip report so far! I'm also from Winnipeg, so I know all about our winters here! Can't wait to go on our trip and get away from sub-zero temperatures for a bit!

Thanks I think you're right, I love looking at everyones pictures.

 

[purplepeg]

Sorry it’s taken me so long to add to this TR. I have no valid excuse except laziness. I promise I will not leave you hanging anymore. On to Palo. I was really looking forward to this evening. I had read many reviews and TR’s including people’s experience at Palo. After we booked, and the only time we could get was 9 pm, I had second thoughts. I know….”what was I thinking?” I had thought maybe we would have such fabulous wait staff I wouldn’t want to miss a meal with them, or maybe the menu in Parrot Cay would be fabulous and I’d be sad I missed it. Well whatever little brain stall I had it was quickly calmed when we got to Palo. But let’s first start with the kid’s dinner. The kids were having PJ parties in the club and lab that evening. Pumbaa pj party in the club and Goofy pj party in the lab. They were very excited so we needed to get them through dinner first. The parties started at 7 pm. We went to Parrot Cay and I took photos of the menu. These pictures turned out blurry but I think you can make out most things.

I took one of the kid’s menus. It stayed pretty much the same but with a different feature each day.

The kids had mac and cheese, chicken tenders and strawberry shortcake for dessert and a Mickey bar. I was pretty sure by the end of the week they would turn into mac and cheese or matching Mickey bars!
I was really hungry tonight and it was hard just to order a couple of things. I figured since we were eating at 5:30 and our dinner wasn’t until 8:30 we’d be ok. I had the BBQ wings but I found them too spicy. I don’t have a very adventurous palate when it comes to spicy foods so don’t go by my judgment. Rodel said they were mild! I teased him about that. He and Angie seemed more talkative tonight. Rodel asked us what kind of work we did. He told us he has two girls at home (7&3). They are the same ages as our girls and he leaves for 6 months at a time and home for two months. He says he misses them terribly but when he goes home it’s all worth it! We didn’t know how he did it. We would miss our girls too much. Anyway, after the super spicy wings I had the mango-papaya soup. It was so cool and creamy! Fabulous! I ordered vodka and 7 tonight and boy was it strong. Again, not much of a drinker so don’t go by my palate. After dinner we went back to the room to get the girls changed into their pajamas for the parties. We dropped them off for 7 pm and we went back and got ourselves all “dolled up” for Palo at 8-8:30.

I can’t remember if I mentioned that Palo had called earlier and said we could come between 8 and 8:30 instead of 9 pm if we wanted. Before we went to Palo we went to the lifestyle portrait area and had our portraits done. We haven’t had portraits of just the two of us since we were married (except for cruises). I highly recommend the lifestyle portraits. They are the ones with the white background. I have to scan ours in. I don’t think I saw one set of photos displayed that didn’t look great. They also look great either dressed up or casual. I love how they do close ups too. I will scan some in and post them soon. We spent $600 on photos so needless to say we loved them all and have a lot to show. After we finished with the portraits we went up to Palo. I had read about taking the elevator so you don’t mess your hair outside. We took the wrong elevator! We arrived with messy hair, or at least I did. We were seated right away and our server was Sabucci from Hungary. He was fabulous and I would highly recommend him. He’s soft spoken, very professional and pleasant. He obviously knows what he is doing as well. We were looking at the wine list and menu. He asked us what kind of tastes we had for wine and food. We like a sweeter wine and were going to order a White Zinfandel, a glass each(again not big drinkers) when Sabucci told us we would be better off ordering a bottle because we would get more wine and whatever we didn’t finish would follow to each restaurant until it was finished. He said he had the perfect wine for us and it was $35.00. We agreed that was really reasonable and went for it. When he brought it to us he brought these glasses that had quite a large bowl but small opening to drink from. I think you can see one in this picture.

The wine was fabulous and we didn’t finish the wine that night but came pretty close! Where did those non drinkers go?! That would be the reason we didn’t get the picture taken by the photographer. I looked like I had had one too many.! We sure laughed about that one.

He suggested the Portobello mushroom with polenta for starter and my dh had the minestrone soup.

We had passion fruit sorbet for a palate cleanser

Then we moved on to the entrees. I had the lamb. It was like butter! I enjoyed it tremendously. Dh had the filet mignon and he said it was fabulous as well.

Sabucci also brought a pasta dish with two large shrimp and an alfredo type sauce. It was also fabulous. I’m pretty sure there is nothing there that doesn’t taste good.

Before we finished dinner Sabucci asked if he could order the chocolate soufflé for us because it takes a while to make and it’s best served right away. Of course we agreed.
He also brought us a panna cotta as well for us to try. I didn’t really enjoy it. I had been really looking forward to it because a lot of people prefer it to the soufflé but not me. That soufflé is something else. I really enjoyed the vanilla sauce as well. I actually prefer vanilla flavor to chocolate. I know, who is this woman?!

I think we finished about 9:30 ish. We went back to the room to change into more comfortable clothes. I could have done pj’s but we had those darn kids to collect! We discussed going to see a comedian. We looked at each other and said lets just get the kids and go to bed. How sad is that! We didn’t even have to get up in the morning. Maybe it was too much wine and too much food! As we left Palo we asked to be on the waiting list for brunch but alas never got called. I love brunch so I guess that will be something to do when we go back. I went to the club to pick up dd3 and dh went to the lab to pick up dd7. They were having a glow party at this point and all had on glow necklaces. This was the only time throughout the cruise that the club was crazy! It was noisy because the kids were having such a good time and there were a lot of them! I said to one CM that we were going to go out that eve and we decided we were too tired and just wanted to get the kids and go to bed. She replied that’s how it should be! Then I think she thought I might take that the wrong way and started saying “well only if the kids want to leave”. I thought it was funny. Those counselors work really hard and the kids have such a great time with them. I’m sure she was tired. I know I would have been. Any other time we went there it was surprisingly quiet (noise wise) and there were a lot of kids there. Dd3 was quite ready to leave tonight. She had fun but I think she was tired. They each colored a pillowcase tonight. Apparently even dd7 was ready to leave. We stopped off to see Belle. That is my sister's favorite princess, so we needed photos to make her jealous!

Off we went back to the room and to bed for all. I forgot to post our towel animal the first night but here is tonight’s.

Tomorrow is a sea day and I’m looking forward to sleeping in.

 

[purplepeg]

Hi all,

Try to be patient with me It was a busy Easter weekend and It seems it never stops. Anyway I will work on the next installment soon. Here are some random pictures to tide you over and get you through to the next installment

Is this a Sting Ray?

How cute are these sleeping beauties?

I'll get the next installment up soon.

 

[Malagueta]

I'm loving your TR--very cute family!! The pictures of the bathroom were especially helpful. I know that's an odd comment , but they made me realize why everyone's touting the shoe organizers. I wasn't going to buy one. Now I will

Malagueta

 

[purplepeg]

I'm loving your TR--very cute family!! The pictures of the bathroom were especially helpful. I know that's an odd comment , but they made me realize why everyone's touting the shoe organizers. I wasn't going to buy one. Now I will

Malagueta

I'm glad I could help. That's why I love the DIS. Just when you think you've seen everything posted someone post a helpful picture for you. We loved our shoe organizer. I packed an entire pharmacy for us in case anything should happen we were covered. It was also helpful for the hairdryer, brushes, body wash, shampoo, razors, sunscreen and anything else you didn't have a place for.

 

[purplepeg]

Here we go. It’s a sea day! I love sea days! It means sleeping in (before kids….what was I thinking?), no time schedule (except for what you want to see/do), and eating non stop. Oh, way a minute, you can do that everyday. So, according to my notes the ship was rocking a lot overnight so I had another bad sleep. Somehow it’s not so bad when you are on a cruise because there’s always naps, and sleep is overrated anyway isn’t it? I “slept” until 7 and then went out on the veranda to work on my notes. By the end of the day I’m so tired I just want to sleep. I know if I don’t write it down, though, I’ll forget it. It’s amazing writing the TR how much I’ve forgotten. Thank goodness I wrote notes. They jog the old memory and it’s like I was just there. Oh wait, I was. I just took out dd7’s hair wrap the other day. It was 2 months and 2 days since it was done. I can’t believe it’s been that long. Anyway focus, back to the TR.

It was so beautiful out on the veranda, blue skies, nice puffy clouds, and finally really warm. There was just a hint of a breeze in the morning. We got the girls up and showered and we headed for Lumiere’s for breakfast. I loved eating here. Today I ordered the waffles with the dulce de leche. I was expecting a lot of dll. There was a drizzle. Lots of cream though and the waffles were quite tasty. Lumiere’s is open until 0930 for breakfast and we were there about 09:10. At breakfast we went over the Navigator (like we did every day) with my different colored highlighters for everyone and we firmed up the plan for the day. I always read out to the girls when we got back to the room at night what was on for the next day and then at breakfast we would decide for sure what they were doing. They ended up being at the clubs from 10:00 until 4:00. Today for dd3 there was dancing with Snow White, fort making, a Pinocchio party, a nemo adventure, and an aloha luau party. Today for dd7 there was chocolate chip cookie making, Disney trivia, to infinity and beyond, make your own volcano, and then the same aloha luau party. They said they wanted to stay in the clubs for lunch today. I was all worried thinking it would be too long. I also worried about them getting enough to eat at lunch. Then I thought “ it’s not like they’re going to starve!” Sometimes you just have to let go. At least that’s what I kept telling myself.
Here's the rose from Lumiere's. That's Arnold our head waiter in the photo turned away. He was awesome. I'll be sure and talk about him later. I have a really good photo of him on pirate night.

The menu cover

You can see the highlighters in my hand here at breakfast

After we got the kids settled in their clubs we had talked about a DIS meet on the meet thread. We had tentatively said 10 am by the adult pool by the bar there. So I raced up there and waited for about 10 minutes and no one showed so we raced down to the art of entertaining. It was dazzling desserts today. The white chocolate domes. We were told there would be no wine but lo and behold, wine again at 10 am. I love cruising! The Chef was the same as before and as he was preparing the domes he said he was all done and someone pointed out he had forgotten to put the raspberry stuff in the middle. He laughed and said he was testing us and see if we were paying attention.
The adult pool, no DISsers found I hope I didn't post photos of anyone who didn't want to be famous on the DIS!

the white chocolate dome

After the dessert demo we went up to the Ariel view TV to watch a virtual bridge tour. We grabbed a “Sunken Treasure” and a “Bon Voyage” drink. The alcohol went right to my head so I needed food. I checked out Goofy’s Galley and then I think we ended up with a burger and a hotdog and fries. They were very good but by this time of day (12:15) wind had really picked up and I thought the fries were going to blow away. The seas were quite a bit rougher this afternoon as well. I got a plate of fresh pineapple at Goofy’s and was in heaven. Boy there’s nothing like fresh pineapple that’s been peeled and cut up for you. Of course sitting on deck on The Disney Magic while you’re eating it probably makes it taste better too, because it never tastes that good at home. After that we went to see “the making of the Disney Magic” in Rockin’ Bar D. They had two officers there to answer questions, one from the bridge and one from the engine room. They had said they had 10 ft seas predicted for last night but it wasn’t that bad. I wasn’t so sure! The fellow from the engine room had a very deep voice and was very gruff whenever he answered any questions. It was very interesting and we really enjoyed ourselves.

We missed the DVC presentation and thought we would catch it the next time it was offered. After we did these things we went shopping. Who doesn’t love shopping? We bought postcards and Christmas ornaments and looked at the towels. We thought we’d bring the girls with us later so they could pick out their own towels and they had some money to spend of their own. When we checked out they gave us a coupon good for 20% off on Thursday (the next sea day). Needless to say we brought the girls back but told them they couldn’t buy anything until Thursday! DH took the shopping back to the room and I went to shutters to look at our Palo dressy portraits from the night before. They turned out really well. I still have to scan them in to show you guys. Dh did some videotaping of the ship while away as well. As I was looking at the photos the kids club paged me. Something about dd3. Since I was only a few floors away I just went up and saw Paulita there. She’s one of the kids counselor and she is so effervesant (?sp) and happy. I guess I looked really concerned and all it was was my dd3 had gone to the br for a bm and didn’t wipe well and it was all down her legs! Paulita had wiped her up but she was pretty sure she needed new shorts and panties. Of course dd3 didn’t want to leave. Paulita talked to her and told her I was going to bring her right and then they could dance together at the Lilo dance party. Dd3 was all for that. I was shocked that she had even gone there because up until that point she did all #2 business in a pullup. I of course had been reviewing with her until I was blue in the face that she either had to go in the toilet or have them page me and I would take her back to the room for a pullup. I guess I should have reviewed wiping! Anyway, away we went back to the club and we were all happy. Later I made dh come with me to go check on the kids because we had left them for so long. Well dd7 was watching a Bill Nye the Science Guy video about volcanoes before they made their own. Bill is dd7’s hero. She loves him! So we knew we didn’t have to worry about her. We checked on dd3 and she was busy coloring with a group of kids and didn’t even notice us standing there. I was happy they were happy but it felt weird not spending all our time with them like we usually do on vacation. I then went to cake and plate decorating. I can’t remember what dh did.
Here is the beverage menu by the pools, I think you can make out the ingredients of some of them.

Mickey Pool with no one in it. A rareity. Although I see now a rope preventing anyone from entering. That might have something to do with it!

Bathroom near Rockin' Bar D, I know, weird photos but I thought it was a pretty cool bathroom!

dd3 coloring and not missing us!

I love this chandelier!

Cake and plate decorating

 

[dreamcometrue]

loving your trip report!! You have a great looking family! Only a little over 3 weeks for us!!

 

[cnj]

Great trip report! Don't stop please!

 

[Hypermommy]

Great TR!!! I'm loving all the pictures!!!!! Especially the really helpful ones for newbies like me such as the pics of the bathrooms and the room so I'll know what kind of storage I'm looking at.

I love trip reports with lots of pictures as well. I hope I don't post too many!

Not possible.... you just keep posting lots and lots of pictures, please!!

The kids were pretty excited to get on the bus and I loved the item they show enroute to get you more excited. <snipped for brevity> If you think the Tiatnic is behind us think again!

That's the one thing I think we miss out on by living so close (North Florida). While it's great to be able to drive down there, I do wish we could take ME one time.

Can't wait to hear more about the Titanic!

The pictures of the bathroom were especially helpful.

Same here! Those kinds of photos are really, really helpful!!!

Bathroom near Rockin' Bar D, I know, weird photos but I thought it was a pretty cool bathroom!

Again, loving these types of photos!!!!

Thanks for such a great TR.... can't wait to read more!!!!!!

 

[purplepeg]

loving your trip report!! You have a great looking family! Only a little over 3 weeks for us!!

Thank you and I hope you have a wonderful time! You must be so excited...I know I would be!

Great trip report! Don't stop please!

I will work on our formal dinner tonight and hope to get it posted tonight. I do, however, have housework to do. Hmm TR vs. housework. What do you think will win out?

Great TR!!! I'm loving all the pictures!!!!! Especially the really helpful ones for newbies like me such as the pics of the bathrooms and the room so I'll know what kind of storage I'm looking at.
Not possible.... you just keep posting lots and lots of pictures, please!!
That's the one thing I think we miss out on by living so close (North Florida). While it's great to be able to drive down there, I do wish we could take ME one time.

Can't wait to hear more about the Titanic!
Same here! Those kinds of photos are really, really helpful!!!
Again, loving these types of photos!!!!
Thanks for such a great TR.... can't wait to read more!!!!!!

I will work on our formal dinner tonight and hope to get it posted tonight. I do, however, have housework to do. Hmm TR vs. housework. What do you think will win out?

I'm glad you love the photos!
Don't forget the over the shoe organizer. I really liked it. I'm a visual person so photos of the room really helped me know what to expect.
Oh I should win Mother of the year for that one (the Titanic comment)It comes up again in Grand Cayman
Thanks for the kind words. It makes writing this that much better, to know people are appreciating it.
By the way love your siggie.

 

[Hypermommy]

I will work on our formal dinner tonight and hope to get it posted tonight. I do, however, have housework to do. Hmm TR vs. housework. What do you think will win out?

<snip>

By the way love your siggie.

Well, duh!!!! TR of course!!!! Hey, the house is just going to get messed up again, right? So why even bother? On the other hand, you have several DISsers out here waiting for the next installment of the TR. The dishes can wait, woman!!!

And thanks about the siggie. I enjoyed making it. Learned to do something new in Photoshop and I imagine I'll be using the heck out of that when I start scrapping this trip. We leave in 16 days!!!!!!

 

[purplepeg]

Well, duh!!!! TR of course!!!! Hey, the house is just going to get messed up again, right? So why even bother? On the other hand, you have several DISsers out here waiting for the next installment of the TR. The dishes can wait, woman!!!

And thanks about the siggie. I enjoyed making it. Learned to do something new in Photoshop and I imagine I'll be using the heck out of that when I start scrapping this trip. We leave in 16 days!!!!!!

You crack me up
I can't imagine how excited you must be Next installment coming right up