So we just got back from our Disney cruise and this blog is my play by play of our vacation. It was amazing and fun, but seriously, I could have fun with my family no matter where we go. I had been looking forward to this trip for almost a year and had a horrific nightmare a week before we left that I was on our way home, but couldn't remember a single thing. Thankfully my memory is intact and I am going to blog the heck out of it just to be safe. This is going to be a long one folks.
So we wanted to do this cruise up right, which meant we wanted to cruise in the Caribbean and because we were cruising with Natalia for the first time, we went all Disney with it. Of course, Jeremy failed to mention that Natalia and I could have had two bags a piece and because we are divas all the way, we would have filled them both had we known. We did manage to whittle things down to the essentials and just have one large bag a piece - each bag weighing as much as Natalia. Well, then there was the garment bag for the dresses.... but does that really count? I didn't think so either.
Okay, all my East Coast-ers will understand that traveling back there (even for a few hours) meant this was our opportunity for splurging on the food we miss so much. I'm sorry Idaho, but with the exception of Brick Oven Bistro, y'all don't know nothing about food. It's kind of sad. We hit up Chik-fil-A (not my fav since EVERYTHING there tastes the same), Jason's Deli, Waffle House, and Sonny's. Ahhh, Sonny's. How I miss southern BBQ with Texas toast. We'll have a moment of silence...... We tried to hit up a Disney Outlet to stock up on some magical gear on the cheap, but this ended up being the kind of place where you find the Disney reject stuff. Like the Mickey Mouses with a full set of teeth or princesses with the wrong hair color so they don't violate the copyright. We left laughing, well, Natalia was disappointed because she is seven and even junk looks exciting.
Now Saturday was finally here and we got up bright and early to eat our free hotel breakfast and charge into our ship. In true Disney style, boarding the ship was organized and easy, and Jeremy and I have been on enough cruises to know you pack your swimsuit in your carry on and head straight for the pool. We had pre-registered Natalia for her Oceaneer kids club and they gave her this little lo-jack bracelet that was the size of a watch and absolutely drove her crazy all week. She gets that from Jeremy who also never wears a watch because he can't stand anything around his wrist. So we headed to the pool, Natalia took to the slide, Jeremy got us some drinks and our vacation started off with perfection. What is funny is this is the only time Natalia played in the pool for the whole week. She was just too busy with other stuff to bother with the boring pool. Hello?! Been there, done that. She had moved on.
Let me fill you non-cruisers in on some info. There are two basic types of cruisers out there. The eaters, and the activists. Some cruises have phenomenal five star meals and food available all the time with limited activities. Some cruises have amazing activities and a great party atmosphere with never a dull moment, but slack a bit on the food. We are more activity based cruisers instead of foodies. It's a good thing because the food was like Golden Corral without the good rolls and honey butter. It was kind of disappointing, but it did keep us from gaining the typical ten pounds we usually pack on when we are vacationing on a floating trough. Also, with drinks $7 a pop, we mainly stuck with iced tea. When we did drink, we went for "The Shauna": Vanilla vodka, ginger ale and a splash of coconut rum. Potent, delicious, effective and nothing says vacation like coconut. Being the rather "slow on the uptake" family that we are, we did figure out that there is a separate card for room service breakfast that we could have been using for a wake up call. We figured that out on our last day.
One of my pet peeves is that hardly anyone on this cruise dressed up for ANYTHING. Hello?! You just dropped some mad cash for this vacation. Stop looking like you are ready to go grocery shopping at Wal-mart. Supposedly dinner is a time when you dress up somewhat and dine. Not eat, dine. It annoyed me that people came to a four course, sit down dinner dressed in NASCAR t-shirts, shorts and hats, with mothers looking dowdy and bleh. There was no excuse. Daycare was free so every parent could shower, shave and spruce up. Anyway, I'll step down from my soap box and say that Natalia and I were some of the most fabulous girls on the ship, hands down. We even got our hair tinseled before we left. Fabulous. We both wore high heels every night and took an hour to get ready. That was Jeremy's pet peeve.
The Disney kids program was amazing and I can't say enough about it. The first afternoon we brought her there she pretty much ditched us and Jeremy and I were left standing in the middle of the room like a couple of tools having to show ourselves out. The next night at sea we tried three different times to pick her up and she kept telling us to come back later. We had a lot of time to ourselves which was great because we like each other a lot. Well, we got done doing all the adult things that mommies and daddies do when the child isn't around and still ended up waiting outside the club for Natalia. I'll try and speak in code here since Natalia reads these, but that was another magical thing about the cruise. There were plenty of opportunities for Jeremy and I to go back to the room while Natalia was in the Oceaneers club. That may be a plus or a minus for you. I'll leave it at that.
She baked cookies, made flubber, had stories read to her by Disney Princesses, joined pajama parties with Goofy, put on a High School Musical productions with her fellow Oceaneers, played computer games, got to bounce from club to "lab" as much as she wanted without consulting us, went on a ship-wide scavenger hunt, had makeovers complete with manicures, got a "tattoo", danced, sang and had an awesome time. All of this was while Jeremy and I hung out in the room, napped, layed out in the sun and read books while drinking "The Shauna", and had conversations that were uninterrupted. Amazing all around. In the evenings we would eat dinner together and catch a show. A couple of nights we tore it up at Studio Sea singing karaoke. Natalia took to the stage like she was made for the spotlight. The first time she had me sing the song with her, the second time she had me sing back up. At least she let me on stage with her.
We had three ports of call and of course, Disney built themselves and island. We took a tour train in Key West, Natalia confiscated the camera and took pictures of everything and we ate some key lime pie on a stick. In Grand Cayman it rained in the morning, which was perfect because that was our horseback riding day. Now, I am not a fan of things that I cannot control, so therefore I do not especially like horses. I also made Natalia wear a helmet because I am a nurse and therefore slightly nutty and ever paranoid. I'm glad I did. Not that anything happened, but because she loved it so much she refused to hold on to the horse or the reins and spent a lot of the ride back turned around backwards talking to Jeremy and I. Good thing she was tethered to the experienced lead rider. Jeremy's horse hated him and wouldn't do a thing he tried to get it to do. Natalia said his horse's name was Naughty. Jeremy said it was because his horse was a female. Let's all roll our eyes in unison.
Cozumel was pretty much a shopping day and I did some pretty good haggling. I am a horrible haggler usually because I feel like it is impolite. I figured out a sweet southern girl approved way to politely haggle that worked like a charm. I even got to go all drama in one shop, where I grabbed my heart and pretended to have a near coronary because of the price. The guy rolled his eyes and I think he muttered something about cheap Americans. I told him Mickey stole all my money and he ended up giving me a good deal. Natalia wouldn't come out of the Oceaneers club at first, but we went back to get her (and more money) and she was unstoppable. Thank goodness the rain dampened her shopping and sent us back to the ship. She was really into buying souvenirs for her friends back home and is a very "thoughtful" shopper. That is my polite way of saying it takes her forever to make a decision whether it is appropriate, the right color or if there is a better deal two shops over.
Okay, now to my favorite! The Disney island Castaway Cay (which is pronounced Key, unless you are Jeremy, then you just keep saying Kay). The weather was warm and just windy enough that you didn't swelter. I actually miss the humidity, so it didn't bother me at all. I wasn't all that impressed with what it did to my hair, but that's just me being vain again. Anyway, there were water slides to play on (Natalia forgot to close her mouth when she hit the water), snorkeling gear, plenty of beach loungers with umbrellas and palm trees where we all took a nap in the sun, food and drinks, bars, stingrays to play with if you wanted to pay extra, a private adult only beach, and the Oceaneers club would whisk your kid away from you for a full day of activities. Thankfully Natalia actually wanted to be with us that day. After our naps we scrounged up some hermit crabs and had them race. Natalia's won, mine was "special" and kept going the wrong way and Jeremy's was so small he didn't stand a chance.
My best part of the trip was bike riding. You have to understand the monumental-ness of this. Natalia taught herself to ride a bike three weeks ago and Jeremy and I decided to take a chance by renting bikes on the island. When I say "just taught herself", I mean it. She could ride maybe a block and usually hit a couple of mailboxes on the way. We expected to be slow going, possibly nurse a scraped knee or two and really not go very far. We were so wrong. Natalia took off peddling and led the way for an hour long beautiful bike ride across the whole island. It was so much fun and we were amazed by how independent and fabulous she did. After that we headed back to the beach to play in the water where we realized that I am the Great White Mother. For some reason these white fish about the size of trout kept swimming up to my legs, would face me and just stare at my legs. They followed me all over the place and we even sent Jeremy to a different spot to see if we were just being dramatic and silly. Nope. Wherever I would go, they would follow. Natalia was totally freaked out by the fish at first and would climb on Jeremy and I like a spider monkey. We had to put a stop to that after a couple of near miss wardrobe malfunctions. She is an adaptable human and got over it quickly. This goes back to her being more afraid of mommy than pretty much anything else.
There really weren't enough hours in the day and we were frustrated that our bodies needed sleep because it took away from all the things we could be doing. I am so glad we did the Disney cruise, but once is enough and I am a huge Disney freakish fan. Next family cruise will be when she is older and we'll stick with Royal Caribbean. I just like the parties and fanciness of the nicer cruises - oh, and dressing for dinner. This was a family centered cruise so you gotta take the bad with the good. There were a lot of tantrum kids, screaming toddlers, scolding parents (Jeremy and I like to listen and laugh) and noise. Oh there was so much noise. That's when you head for the adult only places or the hidden bars.
The following Saturday it only took us about 15 minutes to get our luggage and get off the ship. Now if you have cruised before, you can appreciate what a big deal this is. Sometimes debarking can take an hour. Our plan was to take this extra day and go to Animal Kingdom since it will probably be years before we make it back to Florida. Yeah, not so much. It wasn't just pouring, there were flood warnings and wind advisories. Instead we headed to this place called Wonder Works which was totally overpriced, but people were willing to wait out in the rain for anyway. Not this girl, but other strange individuals of our populous. The only redeeming quality of this chaos riddled free for all was the ropes course where you got to wear a harness and walk a series of tightropes and beams 35 feet above the crowd. Jeremy (who has a heights issue) lasted 15 minutes, then took some fabulous pictures from the ground of Natalia and I. Natalia started out first, but honestly I was concentrating so hard on my own balance I kind of stopped watching her. She had taken off anyway and evidently has no issue with heights or balance. Remember when I said she forgot to close her mouth off the water slide? She took a small lung sip of ocean water that day too. Guess who had a 102 fever and a gnarly upper respiratory thing going on by Wonder Works day? We actually had to beg her to finish the seven minutes of laser tag and loaded her up on Triamenic on the way home after a stop at Walgreen's. I'll spare you the story of the tears and pain during the flight home when she couldn't get her ears to pop. Southwest people are so sweet and went all out to help her feel better. They were so nice.
Really though, It was a crazy fabulous vacation. Sometimes I am in wonder of my own life and all the cool things I get to do and people I get to be with. Love it.
I told you this one was going to be long. :)
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