Saturday, July 8, 2023

Summer Trip Part 1: Disney Cruise

Well, we did it!  We successfully completed our one and only Disney cruise as a family and, to say the least, it was an unbelievably amazing experience.  From beginning to end, we had the time of our lives eating, drinking, sleeping, and playing on and off of this floating, Disney palace.  This is something that has been on my "mommy bucket list" for years and, I am so happy to say, it finally came to pass.  We left Seattle just three days after school got out on June 30th and then spent the next week visiting four different ports of call in the Western Caribbean in addition to having three days at sea to play on the ship.  The children all did a great job keeping up with the marathon pace (especially Emmett) and we had so much fun enjoying the incredible food, entertainment, pool and waterslide, and customer service on the ship.  In addition, we had such a great time visiting Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Jamaica, and Disney's private island, Castaway Cay.  Every stop we made was full of beautiful water, amazing activities, and friendly locals.  Overall, I would give this once-in-a-lifetime trip a 10 out of 10 and will forever treasure the memories that we made as a family this week!


June 30th:
Our long travel day from Seattle to Orlando started very early this morning.  Our flight was at 8 a.m. and we left our house a little after 5 a.m. after hearing that very long security lines were anticipated for this day due to people heading out of town for the 4th of July weekend.  After arriving at the airport and checking in our luggage, we got in the security line at 6:10 a.m. which I thought would be plenty of time since we still had 1 hour and 50 minutes until our flight departed.  To make a very long story short, we entered the longest security line that I have ever been in during my entire life.  After winding around the line for 1 hour and 10 minutes and seeing that we were no where near the front, I realized that we were going to miss our flight to Orlando and, as a result, miss our cruise ship that was supposed to be taking us on the most expensive trip of our family's career.  After coming to this horrible realization, I made the drastic decision to get out of line (without even telling Ron what I was doing) to find a TSA agent who would help us.  I truly felt like I was guided by the Spirit to walk up to a specific woman, who I had noticed several minutes ago, to plead our case and tp ask for her help.  After I received permission from her to cut to the front of the line, I went through the craziest, TSA experience of my life as I tried to pull my family out of line and get past a different TSA Clear agent who refused to let us walk past her.  Since this Clear agent was too far away from the other woman who had agreed to help me, she thought I was lying and refused to believe me. After getting in a full blown argument with her (while hundreds of people were looking on), she eventually relented and I was able to get the rest of my family out of line and walk up to the other woman who was waiting for us.  This kind woman lifted up the rope and let us walk right to the front of the line.  Within ten minutes we were through security and rushing to our gate that was thankfully in the main part of the airport and not in one of the satellite buildings.  Although we didn't have time to use the restroom or fill up our water bottles, we arrived at our gate as they were boarding the last group.  We collapsed in our seats and I was blown away to see that our plane closed the doors a few minutes later and actually departed at 8:06 a.m.  Needless to say, it took me a few hours to relax after that horrifying experience.  I will forever be grateful for that kind woman at security who took pity on my story and allowed us to jump to the front of the line which, in turn, saved us hours of stress and struggle of trying to catch another flight to Orlando by the next day. 


July 1st:
After arriving in Orlando yesterday afternoon and taking a shuttle to our airport, we walked to a restaurant for dinner before going to bed around 9 p.m. Florida time thanks to our early start that day.  We woke up on the morning of July 1st so excited that the day had finally arrived to go on our cruise ship.  Since I booked this cruise 14 months ago, it seemed like the day would never arrived, but was so excited to see on our Disney cruise app that the countdown (that we had been following for months) was done to 00 days (as pictured above).  We quickly packed up, ate breakfast in the lobby, and then caught our 9:30 shuttle that drove us almost an hour to Port Canaveral to board the Disney Fantasy that was waiting for us there.


Since our boarding times were not until 12:30 and 12:45, we were unsure how long we would actually be required to wait outside the cruise terminal in the hot, humid Florida weather with no place to sit and wait.  Since Ron and I wanted to avoid this scenario, we immediately walked up to some Disney employees and asked about the possibility of being allowed in the terminal two hours early.  Much to our surprise, they said that they would allow us to go in now since we had arrived early enough before it had gotten too crowded with other passengers.  We couldn't believe our luck!  So, after showing all of our official documents, they let us pass through to the escalators that took us to the top level of the building where all of the passengers were waiting for their specific boarding time to be called.  As we came to the top of the escalator, we were greeted by two lovely, older woman who welcomed us to the terminal.  After talking to them for a few minutes and cracking a few jokes, we asked them how the boarding process went.  They explained to us that the back-to-back cruisers boarded first, then the "Family of the Day" boarded second, and then general boarding began third as families were allowed on the ship one at a time based on their preassigned boarding times.  We then thanked them for their time and went to sit down for the next two hours, but within five minutes, one of the ladies named Barb, found us and asked us if we wanted to be the "Family of the Day."  For the second time that day, we couldn't believe our luck!  We, of course, said, YES, and were escorted over to a special waiting spot for a few minutes before they called our name.   


Within five or so minutes, we were escorted over to the photo area where we got our family pictures taken first before anyone else.


Barb then handed us an official certificate and had us stand in the awesome, Mickey shaped entrance that led to the gangplank that took us out to the ship.  An employee then spoke over the intercom to the entire terminal and announced that boarding had begun with the Family of the Day.  He then said our name and the town that we are from and then the entire audience applauded us.  It was so surreal!


After Barb took our picture inside of the Mickey shaped entrance to the ship, she suggested that we also get our picture taken standing underneath one of the many TV monitors in the terminal that had our name and town written on it.  It was so cool to see our name all over the building.


After taking a few pictures of us, Barb then escorted us across the gangplank to the entrance of the ship where several Disney employees were waiting to greet us.  An official announcer welcomed us onto the ship over a microphone and then we walked into the beautiful lobby of the ship where Mickey himself walked up to meet us!  I almost burst into tears when he grabbed Emmett's hand and walked us to the bottom of the grand staircase to take a picture with him.  This seriously was a Disney dream come true for me!


One of the many awesome pictures that we were able to take with Mickey before he said goodbye to us and walked away.  We then were able to spend a few more minutes in the lobby taking pictures without any other passengers there.  We then got all of our questions answered by a lovely, Disney employee from England before she encouraged us to go explore the ship without any other passengers for the next few minutes!


Since I had literally spend hours and hours researching this cruise on YouTube, I knew that the first thing that we needed to do was to find a bathroom to change into our swimsuits before hitting the pool and the waterslide before the crowds started to come.  So, we quickly changed in a bathroom on the Deck 11 before heading out to the waterslide called the AquaDuck.  The lifeguard informed us that we were the first ones to go on the slide this cruise (which we couldn't believe) and we then went down this amazing slide three times before a line began to form.  This was only one of three times that we actually went on the slide due to how long the line was the rest of the week.  Here is an awesome pictures that I was able to take of Ella and Logan going down the waterslide that actually loops around most of the top floor of the cruise ship, hundreds of feet above the water!


Ron and the kids heading back up to the start of the waterslide.


Since I knew that the pool would be packed with people the rest of the week, I asked Emmett, Logan, and Ella to jump in it for a picture with NO one else in it!  This was really the only time we saw the pool empty the entire week.


Lia and Ella coming out of the waterslide.


Emmett and me laughing as we finished one of our trips down the AquaDuck.


After spending a few hours at the pool and eating our first meal (lunch) on the ship, we made it to our staterooms later in the afternoon once they were available to us.  We had such a fun time checking out our two adjacent staterooms that were connected by an interior door.  We were also surprised to see our luggage arrive early in the afternoon as we were told that it could take until the evening for all of it to arrive.  Our wonderful stateroom host, Heru, told us that we got our luggage first because we were the Family of the Day.  This was lucky because it allowed us to change into our nice, evening clothes before heading to our early dinner that was scheduled for 5:45 every evening.


Since we rotated through three different restaurants all week long, we spent our first evening eating in the amazing Animator's Palate.  This restaurant is surrounded by TV screens that project different images and movie clips throughout the evening.  We enjoyed eating the first of seven incredible dinners on the ship while being surrounded by characters swimming around us on the different monitors from the movie, Finding Nemo.  We met both of our servers, Sonya and Iwayan, who followed us all week long throughout each of the restaurants.  They were both so kind and wonderful, and we loved seeing them each evening.


After dinner, we enjoyed taking in all of the many sights and sounds in the evening all around the ship.  We spent a wonderful time in the foyer where many Disney characters were wandering around interacting with the guests while live music was being performed.  Both Emmett and Ella agree to go out and hold hands with other children so that they could dance with Rapunzel.  It was one of the most magical Disney moments I ever watched.  I absolutely loved it!  Since there was no evening entertainment scheduled that night that we were interested in watching, the three younger kids and I decided to change into our swimsuits and go back up to the AquaDuck to go on a few runs while the line was short.  I must say that it was so cool riding around in the dark with the slide all lit up with changing colors.  I will never forget riding through this slide with Emmett in my tube, laughing together in the dark while the warm, Caribbean air blew past our faces.


After returning to our stateroom that evening, we were delighted to find the first of many animals that week that our beloved Heru made for us out of our room's blankets and towels.  Here are Lia and Ella posing with the large lobster that Heru made out of a blanket at the foot of both of our queen beds.


July 2nd:
Today was one of our two, full days at sea on the cruise ship.  As a result, I had Ron help make me make reservations 30 days in advance for the Royal Gathering which is a chance to meet four princesses at one time without a line.  After eating our first breakfast on board, Emmett and Ella went to the grand hall with me to meet Tiana, Belle, Cinderella, and Mulan in a matter of minutes. 


After noticing that Snow White was at the top of the grand staircase with a short line, we immediately took the elevator upstairs to meet her.


We then spent the next hour or so hunting down several characters for pictures and autographs.  This was really the only time that we devoted a significant amount of time on our cruise to doing this sort of thing.  We met up with Ron, Lia, and Logan during this time and got to meet one of our all-time favorites, Rapunzel.


Ron and the kids also enjoyed playing shuffleboard out on the deck during the morning.


We also ran into both Minnie and Mickey wandering around the ship and were able to take pictures with both of them without having to wait in line.  Here are the kids with Minnie.


And the entire family with Mickey.


After lunch, we then spent most of the afternoon playing in the wonderful pool area and enjoying all of the outdoor ammenities on the top deck.  The kids loved visiting the self-serve ice cream bar and soda fountain as much as they wanted.  Here are Ron and the boys playing in the Aqua Lab area on the upper pool deck.


Beside swimming in the pool, the younger three kids enjoyed going down Mickey's Slide several times which always had a very short line compared to the Aquaduck.  Here is Emmett stepping out of the slide.


Logan coming down!


After heading back to our room, we showered and got ready for our one and only formal night of the week. We went to eat in our second restaurant called the Enchanted Garden where our two servers celebrated Ron's and my 18th anniversary since it was the day after our cruise ended.


After a delicious dinner, a group of servers sang a song to Ron and me and served us a special dessert.


After we finished dinner, we made our way to the grand hall to have our pictures taken in our fancy clothes in front of the beautiful staircase.


I also had a to take a picture of just Ella in her stunning gown that she chose for the cruise.  We saw very few girls wearing as fancy a dress that evening on the ship.  She got many compliments that night!


The girls and me posing in our beautiful dresses.


After pictures, we headed to the Walt Disney Theater to watch their Broadway-caliber show of Aladdin performed.


Luckily, since Aladdin only lasted an hour, we were able to go back up to the top of the ship to attend the 25th Anniversary Deck Party.  Since Disney Cruise Line is celebrated its 25th anniversary this year, certain select sailings were chosen in 2024 to have a Silver Anniversary celebration on one of the evenings.  Since it was celebrated this evening, we enjoyed seeing the Disney characters perform and watching fireworks set off from the deck of the ship before heading back to our staterooms after a long and fun day.


July 3rd:
We got off of our ship in Cozumel, Mexico a little after 8:30 this morning to walk to the spot across the street from the port where we needed to meet our tour guide company by 9:30.  Here is the fun picture that the kids took as we walked off the pier where our ship had docked.


After our driver picked us up at 9:30, we drove to a marina where we boarded a boat for our excursion for the day.  We enjoyed cruising over the beautiful, blue water for 30 minutes before stopping at the snorkeling spot.


Thanks to our trip to Belize last summer, both Logan and Ella were comfortable using a snorkel and mask and happily swam around with us the entire time.  In addition, we had learned from one of our snorkel guides in Belize that Emmett could follow us around snorkeling while floating in a life ring.  We were able to use the same technique again while Ron and I took turns pulling him along side us.


Ella holding on to a life ring that one of tour guides pulled along.


Mother and daughter swimming in the brilliant, Caribbean water.


Lia and Emmett sitting together as we boated from our snorkeling spot to El Cielo.


After arriving at El Cielo, we then spent a wonderful hour enjoying this amazing location.  El Cielo means "heaven" in Spanish and it is a sand bar located off the Southern tip of Cozumel island that is only accessible by boat.  The water is so shallow that we spent the entire hour walking around in this beautiful water, playing water games, and eating the delicious guacamole and chips that our tour guides provided.  


A fun family picture we were able to have another tourist take of us.


Mother daughter shot.


One of the really special things about El Cielo is how many rays swim around in this shallow area.  We honestly lost count of how many we saw during our hour there.  It was amazing to just have them swim right by us while we were standing and walking on the sand bar.


After returning back to our pier, we walked through a local mall on the way to the ship.  Here is a fun picture I took of the children standing next to a large Cozumel sign.


A fun family photo we took with our beloved, Disney Fantasy ship in the background.


We enjoyed eating our third dinner in the Royal Palace restaurant which is inspired by several classic, Disney princess films.  We enjoyed another delicious dinner served to us by our wonderful servers, Sonya and Iwayan.


After dinner, we returned to the Walt Disney Theater to watch the musical production of Frozen.  Just like Aladdin, it was another Broadway-caliber show and was so fun to watch.  After the show, we returned to our room where we ran into our stateroom host, Heru.  He happily took a picture with the kids and then showed us how he made our towel elephant.


The kids posing with their sunglasses with the towel elephant and lobster we found on our bed before heading to bed!


July 4th:
We were able to get off our ship at 10:30 this morning to catch the tender boat to the dock in Grand Cayman Island.  Here are all six of us on the boat, ready to head to land.


A family photo we had taken once we got on the dock with the beautiful, blue water and our cruise ship in the background.


After waiting in a designated area near the port for quite some time, we were picked up by our shuttle to take us to the marina to catch our boat to take us on our 3-stop excursion for the day.  Unfortunately, we had a long wait at a hotel for some tourists (who never came) and then again at the marina waiting for our boat to arrive.  As a result, this was the one day that I worried for the entire excursion about getting back to our ship on time due to how late we left the marina.  Luckily, we made it to all three of our stops and arrived back at the dock with 45 minutes to spare.  Our first stop on today's excursion was snorkeling at Coral Gardens.  Just like yesterday, Emmett did a great job floating along in his life preserver while the rest of us snorkeled.


The second stop called Sting Ray City was our favorite of the three and the place that I had visited twenty years ago when I stopped at Grand Cayman while on a cruise with my friend, Kerry.  I knew that the kids would absolutely love standing in this beautiful shallow water in the middle of the ocean with sting rays swimming everywhere.  Here is a wonderful family picture that we were able to take while out on the sand bar.


With the help of one of our guides, all of us were able to take two turns with the rays.  We were first allowed to feed a sting ray before holding and petting it.  Here is Ella holding a ray.


Next was Logan.


Here is Lia holding Emmett while he petted the sting ray.  He was so brave!


Our last stop was at Starfish Point Beach where we walked along in the shallow water next to a beach that was full of starfish just laying on the sand underneath the water.  We were able to pick them up and hold them as much as we wanted.  Here is Emmett showing off one of the starfish he found.


All four kids holding starfish under the water.


Lia, Emmy, and me standing on the beach of Starfish Point.


After returning back to our ship with 45 minutes to go, we had to wait in line to board the tender boat and then again to disembark it before getting back on our cruise ship.  At that point in time, we only had about 20 minutes to get ready for our 5:45 dinner reservations.  Since we all needed to take a shower due to being in salt water that day, the boys opted for the quicker route and went to the splash pad on the ship so that the girls and I could use the showers in our staterooms.  We quickly got ready and made it to dinner on time to participate in the coolest dining experience of the week held in the Animator's Palate restaurant.  After being seated, we were given large pieces of paper where we were all asked to draw and color one character.  After giving our finished products to our servers, an cartoon movie played on all of the screens in the restaurant featuring everyone's characters moving and dancing to the music.  It was one of the neatest things I have ever seen.  Here is Logan showing off his completed character before handing it over to our servers.


One of the many pictures I took during the movie of all six of our characters dancing along to music.  Logan's character is the one on the right.


At the end of the movie, the credits rolled and everyone was able to see their name written in their handwriting.  Here is the picture I was able to take with all six of our names in the top three rows.


After dinner was finished, we all headed up to the deck for a large 4th of July party that our ship was hosting that evening.  We enjoyed music, dancing, performing, and fireworks.  Here are daddy and Emmett enjoying the party.


And the three older children, too.


July 5th:
After landing in Jamaica some time in the middle of the night, we left our ship bright and early at 8 a.m. this morning to meet our driver, Peter, who then drove us the 1.5 hours from Falmouth to Ocho Rios in our own private van.  We really enjoyed seeing a lot of the Jamaican countryside along the way.


After driving 1.5 hours we arrived at the Blue Hole natural park located in the Ocho Rios rainforest.  Our driver hired a guide waiting at the entrance to take us for the next two hours to explore the amazing rivers, waterfalls, and pools found in the forest.  The water was so beautiful, warm, and fun to jump into and swim in.  This was definitely one of the highlights of the week.


We had to hike uphill for several minutes along and across many rivers.  The scenery was absolutely stunning and it was so fun to cross the manmade bridges.  Here are the four kids crossing one of these bridges.


A family photo our tour guide took of us with a beautiful pool behind us.


Once we reached the point where we could get in the water, we began jumping over waterfalls, off of platforms, and even riding down ziplines.  It was so incredible!


The kids and Ron following our guide to a place where we could jump into one of the many pools.


Logan jumping off a small waterfall into a pool below.


Emmett was so brave and even jumped into the pool with Ron waiting to catch him after he landed in the water.


The three older kids and Ron jumped off of this high platform many times to a pool below.  Her is a fun action shot I was able to take of Lia on her way down.


The three older children also rode the zipline down to one of the largest pools.  Here is Ella flying down while Ron, Lia, and Logan cheered her on.


After spending a very fun two hours at the Blue Hole, we hiked back down to the parking lot where we found our driver.  Since we still had plenty of time to get back to the ship due to how early we were able to start out day, our driver suggested that we pull over to go swimming at a local's beach.  Although the sand and water were lovely, the beach was covered with so much garbage that we had to carefully walking to and from our towels.  Some local boys befriended us while we were swimming in the ocean and were more than happy to take a group picture with us when it was time for us to leave.


After arriving back to our ship, we showered and got dressed in our pirate costumes that we had brought with us for Pirate Night which is a tradition on all Disney cruises.  Since I had ordered custom, pirate-themed magnates for our stateroom door, I had the kids pose in front of our door while they were all dressed in their pirate costumes.


Although our dinner reservations were not until 5:45, we decided to head upstairs at 5 p.m. to get in line to meet Jack Sparrow while we were in our pirate costumes.  Much to our surprise, we learned that we weren't the only ones with this idea as the line was incredibly long.  Within a minute of getting in line, one of the cruise employees "closed" the line which meant we were the last ones to meet Jack.  After waiting in line an hour, we finally got to meet this favorite character of ours and have some pictures taken with him.


We then raced off to the Animator's Palate 15 minutes late to our dinner reservation.  We were entertained for the next hour or so by amazing pictures and sketches of scenes from the different Pirates of the Caribbean movies and also the ride due to it being Pirate Night.  Since we are such POTC fans, it was so cool to see several scenes of the ride and the movies drawn by artists before actually coming to life.  If we had been dining in one of the two other restaurants on this night, we would not have been able to see all of this pirate artwork.  Here is a fun family photo that one of our servers took of us.


The special menu we were given on this night actually turned into a pirate hat.  Here is Logan showing off his hat while posing with the cool, pirate-themed dessert we were served after dinner.


The three younger children posing in one of the large, round windows that we always passed on the way to the Animator's Palate.


To finish off the evening, we headed back up to the deck for a pirate-themed party.  Although there we no fireworks this night, we still had fun watching the performers and dancing to the music.


I had to take a photo of the picture that was on the screen at the end of the party as it says, "Pirates IN the Caribbean" instead of "Pirates of the Caribbean."  How often do you get a chance to say that?!


July 6th:
Today was our second, full-day at sea and it was a much needed and appreciated break after having three, port-of-calls three days in a row.  We enjoyed moving at a slower pace and spent quite a bit of time at the pool between breakfast and lunch.  Emmett and I finally found the time to go and explore Nemo's Reef, the darling splash pad designated for smaller children.


Emmett loved going down the awesome, Mr. Ray water slide over and over again.


We all enjoyed eating lunch in the Cabanas restaurant.  This was the restaurant where we ate breakfast every morning and the lunch buffet during our two full days-at-sea.


After lunch and a little more pool time, the kids and I headed over to the Buena Vista movie theater to watch the live action version of The Little Mermaid that was currently playing in movie theaters all around the world.  It was so fun to watch this movie for free when we would have had to pay for tickets if we had chosen to see it this summer back at home.  After the movie, we went back to our staterooms to change in our semi-formal clothes for the evening.  We dined back in the Enchanted Garden restaurant for the second time this week.  Since we had to walk through a small gallery of Disney paintings on the way to the restaurant, Lia just had to stop and take a picture next to Cruella de Vil who she played a few months earlier in NWTL's production of 101 Dalmatians.


All six of us sitting around our table after dinner was served.


A nice family photo that our server took of us after dinner was finished in front of the golden, Mickey fountain in the center of the restaurant.  We then checked the three younger children into the amazing Kids' Club (for only the second time that week) while Ron and I explored the ship and even attended a trivia night in one of the lounges while Lia went back to the our room to read.  An hour or so later, we picked the kids up from the club to head to bed before the final day on our cruise.


July 7th:
Today was our final port-of-call to Disney's private island in the Bahamas called Castaway Cay.  This is a place that I have wanted to visit for years and it did not disappoint.  We started off the day by disembarking the ship a little after 8:30.  We then stopped to meet Daisy Duck as she was doing a meet-and-greet on the island outside of the little Post Office.


After walking to the second cove of the beach, we found some chairs to put our belongings on and then spent the rest of the morning playing in the water and on all of the amazing play structures that are built in lagoon.  Here is Logan attempting to climb across the rope ladder to kick the wooden Mickey head on the other end.


Ella kicking the Mickey head on one of her many trips across the ladder.  A fun story to note is that several boys (including Logan) tried to make it across the rope ladder without success.  After waiting her turn in line, Ella was the first person to make it to the end due to her amazingly strong upper body from hours of gymnastics practice.  Several parents had watched all these boys fail before Ella succeeded and were seriously impressed by her.  It was so fun to see!


Emmett and Lia also enjoyed running around this fun play structure in the water.  Here is a picture that I managed to take of the four of them after waiting several minutes to get them all in the same place at once!


After playing in the second lagoon for quite sometime, the six of us headed over to the third bay where the Pelican Plunge water slide is located.  With the exception of Ella losing her swim goggles, we had a great time going down this floating water slide several times before taking a lunch break.


I couldn't resist having our family stop on the way to lunch to take this cool picture of the beautiful lagoon and our ship in the background.  This really was such a fun place to explore!


After working up an appetite all morning long, we all enjoyed the lunch buffet at Cookies BBQ.


After lunch, we spent the next hour or so doing my favorite activity at Castaway Cay.  Thanks to the advice of my brother, Eric, who had visited this private island the year before, we all put on life jackets and rented snorkel gear and swam out into the lagoon to find all of the hidden "treasures" that Disney had placed on the ocean floor.  Emmett did a great job riding on Ron's and my back while the older kids swam next to us looking for the sunken items all over the bay.  From a treasure chest full of gold to a miniature submarine to a statue of Prince Eric to a seat from the Dumbo ride, there were so many fun things to look for.  Since this activity isn't really advertised on the island, there very few people swimming in bay looking for these treasures and so it was really cool to have it almost to ourselves.  We made sure to find every "treasure" before we called it quits and swam back to the beach to play for another hour or so.  Here are Logan and Emmett enjoying the beautiful sand and warm water.


By 3 in the afternoon, the kids and I had all decided that we felt like our Castaway Cay experience was complete.  Although Ron wanted to stay a little longer and do some shopping, we convinced him to walk down to these large, painted balls that are located along the main pathway from the ship to the beach for a family picture.  This picture perfectly captured the storm that was about to blow in as you can see the ominous clouds approaching the blue skies from the right side of the photo.


The kids and I managed to catch a tram ride back to the drop off area where we only had a 5 minute walk to the ship.  Right after we started walking, a torrential downpour hit.  This is the picture I managed to take of the kids right as the rain began to fall.  By the time we made it back to the ship, we were completely drenched!  Our original plan was to return to the ship an hour before it left to go on the Aquaduck water slide a few more times before the ship got crowded and the lines got long.  Sadly, thunder and lightening arrived with the storm, causing the water slide and pools to be closed by the time we made it back to the deck.  Although Lia and Logan opted to go back to the room to warm up in the shower, I stayed with Emmett and Ella who played in little baby pool that stayed open since it was under a covered area on the deck.  Ron also got rained out of his afternoon shopping and made it back to the ship a little bit after us.


We finished off our final evening on our beloved Fantasy by eating dinner in the Royal Palace for a second time this week.  We had to get a picture with our wonderful servers, Sonya and Iwayan, after dinner was over.  They were both so wonderful and worked so hard every night to make sure that our dining experience was amazing.  We were seriously so sad to say goodbye to them after spending seven evenings in a row with them.  After dinner was over, we checked the three younger kids back into the Kids' Club before Lia, Ron, and returned to the Walt Disney Theater to watch the third musical production of the week called Believe.  After the show was over, we picked the children up from the club before heading back to our room to madly pack our large suitcases that needed to be placed outside our staterooms by 10 p.m.  It made for a bit of a rushed, last evening on our ship, but I am so grateful that we were able to finish off our final night with dinner and a show before departing the ship early the next morning.  And that's our Disney Cruise experience in a nutshell!  It was an amazing week and an experience of a lifetime that I am so grateful we were able to share together as a family!

No comments:

Post a Comment