Dolphin Day

Ladies and Gentlemen, girls and boys - welcome to the Bahamas! Meet your excursion representative at the aft end of the boat bright and early . ..

We were always hearing about aft, topside, and astern side of the boat, which means I was always confused about where to go ;-).

So, this was the day of our big shore excursion. Last year our oldest daughter made a New Year's Resolution to "swim with dolphins" so we decided this would be her chance. We got off the ship and onto a much smaller boat, headed over to Blue Lagoon Island. Here, we split ways: Darren and the older kids went to "swim" with the dolphins and the youngest and I went a different direction to have an "encounter" with the dolphins. After putting on the dry suit, (that I just tried not to wonder about who wore it last), we stepped into the water with a full grown dolpin swimming circles around us and doing tricks and squeals. It was so much fun! The trainer was obviously very good and I particularly loved watching his "behavioral therapy approach" to rewarding the dolphin (actually fascinating to me -- isn't it Pavlov, anyway, cool stuff).

After a little bit, I see my husband and daughter walking toward our group. She had tears in her eyes and looked so sad. Apparently, swimming with the dolphins just wasn't her thing. These are some of my favorite pictures of the whole cruise - tell a million stories don't they?

Maybe she just needed her mother :-)

I did get to see footage from Darren and our son's swim with the dolphins and it was seriously awesome. They were gliding through the water with two dolphins pushing their feet. Darren said it was absolutely incredible.

The beach at Blue Lagoon Island was totally awesome (to use my 90s slang). If there is ever a next time, we are most definitely going to the Blue Lagoon beach. It was so clean and so crowd-controlled (meaning there were people there but not hordes). Ahh, I loved it. Darren and I have both remarked at how magical that beach was.

Kids can play in the sand 24 hours a day. I'm not even sure if the kids got in the water. Ahhh, wonderful.

Why not do cartwheels?

In case you are wondering, no dolphins in this section of the water, but when we crossed the little bridge back to the boat we could see dolphins swimming around. It was just beautiful.

We stayed on the island a bit longer than the others, this is a very happy moment in life :-)

Back on the boat, we hurried off to dinner and spa time and nightly entertainment. Busy, busy, busy, and definitely fun. It seems like we would get tired of the entertainment, but we didn't. That night's show was an illusionist, Jason Bishop. He was incredible. We were literally mesmerized the entire time. I have since looked him up on Facebook. I would love to see another show if he tours nearby. He was funny too, just an all around super family-friendly, fun evening.

I think he was having the kids help him lift the case to ensure everyone knew a human was inside. My son is the one with the napkin-cape, one of those proud Mommy moments :-)

This might have been the night of the deck party and have I mentioned the unlimited ice cream? That was a huge hit with the kids, in fact our older daughter spilled some on her shirt (that was supposed to be worn under a sundress, which is why it looks so small). I was thinking how glad I am that we took so many pictures of her wearing that ice cream :-)

One of the many, many character sightings on the ship.

Castaway Cay

All Smiles

Ladies and Gentlemen, Girls and boys, here at the Disney Wonder we may not be able to control the weather on Castaway Cay but we can definitely still give you a fun day.

My day started out bright and early, running a 5K on Disney's own Castaway Cay (pronounced Key) in the Bahamas. Isn't that cool? I got off the ship and literally walked a mile to the starting point of the race. I made friends with Marnie and her husband from Iowa. I also made friends with another girl during the race. When I told her (in complete disbelief over my own good luck) that I had won the spa drawing the previous day - guess what? She also won!! I think there were 3 winners total. What are the odds of the two of the winners even having a conversation? Crazy.

I loved catching a glimpse of what our day was to be like and being out in the warm, bright sun - ahhh. I didn't do terribly on the race - I think 26 minutes, not bad enough to hang my head in shame anyway :-).

All the runners got one of these:

I'm pretty proud of it :-) I may just have to frame it.

Once back on the ship, I tried to get my family out of dodge and off the ship so we could start our adventure on land. Hordes of passengers were actually coming back on the boat when we started to get off. A 10-minute or so downpour scared people off the island. We headed back out when it looked safe and sunny.

This is who we saw on the way.

Um yeah - she wasn't about to shake his hand :-)

The SUN is in their eyes -- Beauty! Captain Jack was pretty jovial and fun too.

 

The water was just incredibly beautiful. There was a big playground/slide thing out in the ocean that the kids attempted. We made some sand creations and then, and then we got shooed off the beach. We were some of the very last people off. I couldn't figure out why we couldn't keep playing, it was just a little rain. Check out the awesome waves hitting the rocks out there.

Don't worry, they weren't cold - We were in the Bahamas!!

 

That "little" rain ended up being a major sideways, torrential, downpour that lasted probably 20-30 minutes. We were all cowered under a food pavilion. The rain wasn't a cold Seattle rain. Nope, it was a tropical rain. It was something else. I truly thought, "What if? I mean what if this storm wipes us all out. We are just a speck on earth . . "

 

I did get a kick out of the food. It was raining sideways and people were still eating their hotdogs and even going back for more. Crazy.

 

Soon after, we headed back onto the boat to dry off and get ready for our "Pirates on the Caribbean" dinner party. But, as a last hurrah to Disney's island,

In front of a little post office - how quaint :-)

we thought we'd get a little hug off the celebrity snowman. So Fun!

This Dining Room was really spectacular. The wall frames/pictures were electronic versions of Disney characters and changed every thirty seconds or so. All of the waiters and waitresses did a Pirate Parade around the room.

The kids got to be in the parade too!

Learning the ropes of a cruise

Ladies and Gentlemen, girls and boys, welcome to the Disney Wonder. Head up to deck 9 for the pool or buffet, specialty restaurants are on level five.

After touching down in Miami Florida, my first shockwave was the blanket of humidity that is the Florida atmosphere. I couldn't believe how suddenly I had that feeling, especially as it is the exact same feeling I had when I went to Jacksonville, Florida to live with my sister after high school. Crazy.

Nothing super eventful happened with getting on the cruise boat the first day which is actually AMAZING considering how many people are herded through all of the gates. Disney really does it right - we didn't have a single problem with anything AND, everyone was smiling.

We had adjoining rooms because my family is huge, a monstrosity of five people (ha ha ha). I really loved having two rooms like we did. Kids in one room parents in the other, it was very nice, until the end when I realized we would be tipping for two rooms as well (FYI - for any of you cruise novices, tipping is a pretty big deal and figured out for you by the last day -- how handy).

Our room was pretty spacious, especially compared to the one other cruise to which I can relate :-). And our bed was a true queen-sized bed, another huge upgrade from that other cruise. I loved having both a shower and a toilet-only bathroom in each room. So handy. Just to get the atmosphere in your head -- you can imagine what was on television . . . Disney movies! I know Darren and I watched other channels but my kids only watched Disney.

Soon after getting on the boat we got ambushed by the spa workers :-). I didn't think much of what they were trying to sell, but Darren was in super-best-Valentines-Day-is-tomorrow mood :-). We bought a spa package AND entered a drawing for $75 off a treatment AND I won! Can you believe that? That was just so cool . I got a facial. And, it has changed my life. When you see me again, you won't recognize me because I'll have such a youthful glow :-)



We are sitting next to the Am family for the last night of entertainment

That first night we got our first taste of excellence in dining and entertainment -- whoa, just completely blown away! The entertainment was first-rate. Our seats would've been good in the front or the back. My one negative point of feedback from the entertainment in general was that for all of the little babies and small children, the volume was just wayyyy too loud. I was covering my ears and saw the gentlemen behind me covering his as well. I just can't leave all of those audiology classes alone can I? I often worry about noise levels. See, you learn something new about me every day :-).

Shows

Peter Pan type show

Toy Story - the Musical

Jason Bishop Magic Show

Disney Princess type Show

 We met and dined with the nicest family from Canada. 

Our new BFFs - the Am Family

Orlan and Yanupa - pulling tricks with the camera



We also met our amazing waiter and waitress - Orlan and Yanupa. Seriously, these two made each meal so fun. They remembered all of our names, they did magic tricks at our table every night. Yanupa fashioned napkin headgear for our son most of the nights. I could have adopted Yanupa. I really liked the food in the restaurants. One night I had a mushroom/pasta dish that I must find again. It was so delicious. My kids ordered really exciting things like chicken nuggets, pasta, cooked vegetables and a mickey bar (every single night - no joke) which was basically ice cream covered with chocolate. My kids are sure to correct me when I tell people they ordered a Mickey Bar every night. One night they did get sprinkles on their Mickey Bar.

Every night, the fun wasn't over till after ten. The childcare centers were going later than that.
One last picture to add to this first day:

Disney's Goofy doing what he does best

I'm leavin on a jet plane . . .

Ladies and Gentlemen, girls and boys . . . (every morning Darren-the-cruise-captain's voice could be heard over the intercom; he was from somewhere else - all the cruise workers were - and had a cool accent. I met him one of the nights (that sounds bad doesn't it?) and told him how much we were enjoying the cruise :-) . . .  I'll start all of my cruise posts this way too.

The morning of our departure, I practically jumped out of bed singing, "I'm leavin, on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again." Only, sometimes I'd change the ending to say, "I may not come back again.". The weather in Washington was slushy and rainy mixed with snow. In fact, Darren, who drives a motorcycle to work every day, left his bike at work because of the weather and yucky roads. His bike stayed safe and dry all the time we were gone.

We got out the door and down the road in plenty of time. As soon as we showed our boarding passes to the attendants, our youngest asked, "Are we on the plane yet?" We answered, "No". Then we got inside the jet way and she asked the same question and got the same answer. With big hopeful eyes (that the flight attendant must have seen), she asked the question yet again right before stepping on the airplane.

At this point, the flight attendant became hypnotized by the children or something because she directed them right into the cockpit of the airplane! She was in no hurry. The captain and his assistant weren't in any hurry. I kept trying to back out and get to our seats and they encouraged the children to sit in the seats and push buttons. We asked questions. We learned about how the assistant captain got to sit in the cockpit of an airplane when he was a cub scout too (see -- I'm telling you, we got life history, I'm surprised we didn't exchange facebook info). The captain asked our older daughter if she wanted to welcome all of the passengers to the flight. So she did.

And, the special treatment didn't end there!! We headed back to our regular seats (which I assure you were not first class). About halfway through the flight (seems like that first flight was to Chicago), the attendant leaned over and asked if I minded her giving the children freshly baked chocolate chip cookies . . . .

Seriously, can you believe this? I can't. She didn't offer me or Darren one, just the kids.

I LOVED sitting next to Darren all the time :-). I had him trapped next to me. He had to listen to me go on and on about whatever. I think we raced each other part of the time doing a Sudoku puzzle. It was awesome.

My one complaint was my own ears. I couldn't get them to change pressure because I had major congestion. That was annoying. I was pretty sniffly the whole week, but, the fresh ocean air felt a lot better than the overcast air I had been breathing in Seattle.

Lastly, the girls spent oodles of flight time (after the cookie experience) drawing a nice picture and writing letters for the "plan workers". The thank you note went something like this,

 "Dear Plan Workers,

 I am going to have a lot of fun

on a Disney Cruise Boat in the Bahamas.

Thanks for the chocolate chip cookie."

 

Darren and I are kicking ourselves for not taking a picture of the letter, it was incredibly sweet. Our youngest daughter also wrote a letter, but hers didn't have real words ;-).

The Gift

Ladies and Gentlemen, girls and boys welcome to the Disney Wonder cruise ship . . .

Ahh, yes. It is fact. We went on a cruise and it was all smiles, thus I'll record our fun :-). Starting way back from the beginning which was probably five years ago when I first started some gentle nudges towards this type of vacation. Our friends from college, Brad and Camille, were the first to tell me about the great "Disney cruise vacation" and that was awhile ago. This has been a l-o-n-g time coming. :-)

Before Christmas, Darren agreed to the vacation and I excitedly planned ways to give it to the kids. He adamantly said, "No, this one is for you. I am giving it to you." A few days before Christmas, the boys from this household spent quite a bit of time at Darren's office working on gifts.  This is what he came up with, isn't he sweet?

When I opened the voucher on Christmas morning, I exclaimed and oohed and ahhed, then started naming off familiar friends' names that I could take on the cruise as one of my four guests :-)  The kids looked at me in disbelief, then said, "What about us?"

Then I changed my mind and invited them to be my guests. :-) We excitedly talked of the cruise for the next month and a half. The kids had no cruise baseline whatsoever (I can't think of how a non-therapist would say what I am trying to say which is that my kids haven't ever considered or known anything about a cruise). One day, when we showed the girls  pictures from the internet of our boat and various activities, our daughter declared, "You are freaking my mind out".

The weekend before the cruise, we all headed to the salon to get our nails done (another awesome gift given the girls and me for Christmas included a mani/pedi at a local place). I've never done something like this with my girls and they were just pure joy to behold. From the first drop of water that hit their bare feet, they were wide-eyed and loving every second of pampering (watch out boys).

Our oldest emphatically declared she had chosen her career in life - to work in a nail salon. She thought this was simply the greatest occasion. Ironically, she didn't choose to have her fingernails painted because she has a tendency to pick at nails and be "bugged" by the polish after painting. I was impressed with her self control. That is, until she watched her little sister and me get our nails painted. She decided she would just have to paint her nails at home because our nails looked so very cool.

Cue the disaster button, for when we arrived home with beautifully painted toenails and fingernails, she disappeared for twenty minutes to begin her career of being a nail painter. Tearfully, she returned to my presence with two hands that looked, no joke here, like she belonged in a horror movie. She had chosen bright red fingernail polish and had made such a mess of her fingernails. Crying real tears, she said, "I can't ever be a good nail painter."

Bright red nail polish doesn't come off very easily so it took a few days of looking like she had been dipping her hands in blood before it all came off. Poor girl, having to refocus her career goals at such a young age . . .