I awoke to some thumping and thunking on debarkation day. (Deparkation is fancy cruise line speak for "you spent your money, now get off so someone else can spend their money"). I don't recall exactly what time I woke up, but it had to be a bit before o'dark thirty. I laid in bed and didn't feel any ocean movements, so doubt was immediately cast on my dreams of the captain deciding to head back out to sea for a few more days. I quietly crawled out of bed and took a peek out of the porthole. The bright, vibrant theater of the port that I remembered from 4 days ago was replaced by a dark, ominous scene of port workers, illuminated in the orange glow of sodium vapor lights, hauling rack upon rack of luggage off of my beloved Disney Dream and into the terminal.
Since we were on the early dining rotation, we had to be back at the Royal Palace for breakfast by 6:45am. We still had plenty of time, so I quietly dressed and sat in the porthole, watching the porters driving forklifts hauling train after train of luggage.
I'd like to say that eventually everyone woke up on their own, but I'm quite sure we had to russel, shake, yell and possibly douse with water, the children to get them up and moving at that ungodly hour. Our bags had been picked up the night before. (tip: make sure you leave out clothes to wear the next day. Otherwise you eat breakfast and get off the ship in your jammies. Even if they are the cool one piece footy PJs with the flap in the back, you're going to get some strange looks.) We gathered up our few carry on (carry off?) bags, did a last sweep of the room to make sure that
a.) We didn't leave anything that belonged to us behind
and
b.) We didn't leave anything that belonged to
DCL and wasn't nailed down behind.
Stumbling into Royal Palace, we ordered breakfast off of the menu and a still cheerful Denis happily brought us everything we ordered. Of course he was still cheerful, he got to stay on the ship. We chatted a bit about his homeland of Croatia and how he and his wife were expecting a child soon. He had another month or so on his DCL contract then was taking all of the money he earned back home. I doubt this was a technique to eek out a bigger tip, because we settled all the tips with guest services the night before. But I am glad I gave him more than the suggested amount.
Disney certainly never pushed us out, but they did let us know several times that we were expected to get off as soon as we were done with breakfast. We did make a quick stop up a Shutters (the photo dealer) to pick up the pictures we bought from them and then quietly said good bye to the Donald statue in the atrium.
Getting off the ship is pretty easy - they organize all of the luggage into sections in the terminal and there are porters there ready and willing to assist you in finding it, loading it on their little cart, and getting you through customs. Our porter brought our luggage all the way to the curb where we were to meet our shuttle back to the Country Inn.
Let me play the next few hours in fast forward. I didn't take any pictures and nothing of real consequence happened. We went back to the hotel, loaded up the roof rack and back of the Explorer, took a quick potty break and were on the road, headed South. Yes, south. Disney World is West, but were were headed south to Disney's Vero Beach Resort. No, it's not a convenient cruise hotel - it's a good 2 hour drive - but it is one of the DVC properties that we haven't stayed at yet, so we decided that one night post-cruise would be fun. A brief supply stop at a grocery store and we pulled into the resort around 10:00 am or so.
The ladies at the front desk couldn't have been nicer. They seemed genuinely excited to see us and have us stay with them, then seemed disappointed that we were only staying one night. After plugging their onsite restaurant, they also gave some excellent advice on local dining establishments and were to eat.
We got our room key to a wonderful 2 bedroom villa and immediately found...towel animals!
I don't know why, but both the elephant and the turtle seem to have shifty eyes. I didn't trust either of them.
After a spaghetti lunch in the room, we all donned swim suits and headed for the pool! Because after 4 days of seeing nothing but water, we wanted to see some more.
The kids had some Cars-themed pool toys that would sink to the bottom for you to dive in after. The problem was that Evan was just too buoyant to sink down after them. He needed a bit of help.
Vero has a very nice recreation area including the pool, water slide, mini golf (we played. The kids cheated. But so did I), and, again, after spending 4 days on a boat the kids wanted more time on a boat.
Vero also has some pool games in the afternoon for the kids to participate in. I really hope Madison pulled that tongue in before she licked the limbo pole.
It was getting close to 2pm, and Bambi and I had some disappearing to do. I had looked into booking her a massage on the ship, but by the time we as first time cruisers got into our booking window, the only times left were during either dinner or the shows. I then checked the adult cabanas on
Castaway Cay. Holy guacamole, Batman! $$$$! So I did a little more research and found the Spa at Vero Beach offered a couples massage for roughly half the cost of a single massage on the cruise. I'd never done one before and we thought it would be fun few hours away together. So we left Madison and Evan in the care of their grandparents (neither Bambi nor her brother grew up to have any severe problems, so we figured the kids would be safe for a few hours) and headed to the spa.
We checked in and were led to a double room. They told us to undress and get down on the individual beds and under the sheet. It was then that I thought "
hmmm...I wonder if I put on clean underwear this morning?" Oh well, too late to worry about that now.
Bambi got a maternity massage and I got...some kind of rubdown. I don't really know. I know it was better than a police pat down and I felt pretty relaxed after wards, so it must have been worth the money.
Meanwhile, the kids were hanging out with grandma and grandpa.
I don't have any photographic proof, but I think that one of Madison is right before she did one of those judo flips to grandma and she ended up flat on her back in the ocean.
Well, she looks pretty dry here so maybe not.
We met up again and all drove down into Vero Beach for dinner. One of the ladies at the front desk suggest Mulligan's - a restaurant right on the beach. It was at the end of a small strip mall and had some nice open air seating just a few feet off the sand. We went for a quick walk on the beach, checked out a few local artists, and listened to some live music while waiting for our table. The food was good, but the sea breeze and the atmosphere really made the dinner.
After dinner it was back to the resort for a good night's sleep. For the kids anyway. I grabbed the camera and wandered the resort for a little bit.
You're probably wondering (but were to afraid to ask) why the resort lights are so very orange. Well, good question. It's because of the Sea Turtles.
COMING UP NE...
What? You're not satisfied with that answer? OK, I'll go into more detail. Sea Turtles come to Vero Beach every year to lay their eggs. Then momma turtle returns to ocean and swims away. When the little turtlelets hatch, they follow the light of the moon to the water. If the lights of the resort were a bright white, the poor little fellas would get confused an follow those lights right into a bush or fence. But they don't pay any attention to the orange lights and can find their way to the ocean just fine. So, with that further explained,
COMING UP NEXT: Sunrise over the Atlantic and Stuffing our Pie Holes at EPCOT.
It is so hard for fun times to come to an end. Glad y'all had more fun to look forward to!
See you Saturday!
, I went with the Roasted Wild Boar Tenderloin. Because where else can you get Wild Boar? Applebee's? I don't think so. (It was great, by the way. Thanks for asking.)
The price of the early seating.
