Disney Cruise

Where to being?

We left for vacation on a Saturday morning, bright and early.  We jammed the car full of people and luggage to get to the airport....6 people and 7 pieces of luggage (plus backpacks and purses).  We all fit like a puzzle.

Got to the parking lot, took the shuttle over, checked luggage, waited in a short line for security, then hung out for 90-ish minutes for our flight.  The kids enjoyed looking out the window at the planes and Trent was especially anxious to board!  Sadly for him we were one of the last people to board.  We knew boarding too early would put us at risk for having 2 restless kids even earlier than they would inevitably happen.  So we waited.

The flight to Florida took less than 2 hours and it was a smooth flight.  The kids were a bit restless, but well behaved.  We kept them occupied with food, toys, books, movies, the window....anything short of letting them sprint the aisle.

As you can imagine, a Saturday non-stop flight to Orlando included an abundance of families with children.  That made me feel very at ease.  We found the Orlando airport to be a rather fun place - the kids got to see a couple Mickey statues, Christmas decorations, and they got to ride a monorail to baggage claim. 

We took a shuttle 45-ish minutes to our hotel (the shuttle wasn't a nice experience, so I won't elaborate.  I'll just say to avoid Royal Shuttle if you're in the orlando/cocoa beach area).  We arrived at the Sheridan 4-point hotel in Cocoa Beach just in time to unload our bags and go downstairs for an early dinner.  We all ate breakfast super early and none of us had a proper lunch, so we were all starving.  The restaurant features a large fish tank, complete with sharks, a waterfall monument/statue, locally brewed beers, a fantastic happy-hour special, and an amazing balloon-animal-blower-upper (what are they called?).  Trent got an awesome motorcycle riding dinosaur!!!  And Claire got the cutest little monkey climbing an ever appropriate palm tree!!!  I'm not sure but I think I may have liked the balloon animals even more than the kids. 

We followed up dinner by shopping at the attached store (the Cocoa Beach Surf Company) then we toured the grounds and walked the 1.5 blocks to the beach.  The sun had long since gone down, but we put our toes in the water nonetheless.

The next morning we hit the beach again, but this time we stayed for a couple hours.  Even though we were in Florida and the water felt really nice, the day was overcast and the temperature was comfortable, but not hot, so I was very surprised when Kevin stripped off his shirt and dove into the water.  Nuts I tell you.  He's nuts!

Before long we were loading back onto a shuttle (a different, and very nice, shuttle) to head over to the ship!!!  The entire check-in process for the cruise went smoothly and quickly. 

Before walking on board the ship there were crew members asking for your family name.   They then announced your arrival over the speaker system as you walked on board.  It was super cute. 

Here is where I will mention that my in-laws (you know who you are) were several families ahead of us and we later learned that they pretended to be with a different family and snuck in without being announced.

Trent appeared to be very confused and kept asking when we were going to get on the big boat.  He couldn't grasp that we were actually on it! 

On the first night we ate dinner at Mickey's Palate.  This was a super fun restaurant.  The chairs looked like Mickey's pants, the centerpieces were cute little paint buckets, and the walls were covered with pictures and tv's with animated drawings on them.  Once dinner had officially begun the tv photos turned into an underwater scene and Nemo and the gang appeared and started interacting with all of the diners.  They played games with us and really kept everyone entertained.  It was so amazing the way they synced so many tv's to put on a show - and all kid stuff aside - the imagery was so beautiful!

We had dinner at 2 other restaurants during our vacation and both were very beautiful (the Enchanted Gardens and the Royal Palace) but neither was as fun and entertaining as the first).

The nighttime entertainment was always very good.  I believe there were 3 Disney related shows and 1 ventriloquist act.  Trent and Claire did pretty well focusing on the shows, but they fell asleep during 3 out of 4 of the shows.  We had to leave one show early because Claire lost interest and wasn't tired. 

Our first stop was at Nassau in the Bahamas.  We had no excursions booked and no real plans for the port, so we took our time getting off the ship and wandered around a bit.  We were hoping there'd be a beach in walking distance...but there wasn't... so about 3 blocks in we turned around and went back to the ship.  We spent the day at the pools and just 'hanging out'.

The second stop was Castaway Cay (Disney's Island).  A quick overview of this island:  beautiful beach, cold ocean water, not too crowded, a few shops, bathrooms close enough in each direction, a water area for little kids, no high traffic to deal with.  In a nutshell, it was great.  One of the fun free attractions they offered was a couple slides in the middle of the ocean.  You had to swim to get to them and swim back to shore before swimming back out.  The fact that you had to swim out and back, and the cold water, helped to keep the line short.  Of course Kevin and I (being the big kids that we are) took to the slide a few times.  It was totally worth swimming in the cold water (which, wasn't so cold once you swam several yards out). 

Claire wasn't a big fan of the sand or ocean, and Trent was only entertained by either for so long.  We hit the jackpot when we discovered the water area they offer small kids!  They could have spent hours in there!

At some point after lunch we all loaded up on some bikes and took a very nice bike ride.  I was so surprised at how much the kids enjoyed it and how well they did on the backs of our bikes!!  It made me want to purchase bikes and bike carseat things for the kids immediately upon returning home (which I did not do, by the way)

So, once we were boarded back on the ship and I was in shower there was an announcement that we would be staying at Castaway Cay all day the next day as well!  Initially we were supposed to leave Castaway Cay around 5 or 6pm and have a day at sea the next day before returning to Florida.  Well, the captain felt that we had subpar weather that day and he decided that we would stay!!  How lucky are we?!?!  Supposedly that was the first time the caption has even done anything like that!  

I'd like to mention that our first day at Castaway Cay was a very nice day in my opinion.  Sure, it was a little overcast for majority of the day, and yes we did have a short rain shower.  But the rain only lasted half an hour or so.  I was not disappointed at all. 

Our second day at Castaway Cay was very similar to the first.  We did the sand and ocean thing, we did the water park thing, we did the slides, we had another bbq lunch, we even did the bike ride again!  The sun shined the entire day and we even got a little color despite my constant application of sunblock.  The biggest different between the 2 days at castaway cay was that not as many people got off the ship that second day, so we had everything too ourselves a little more than the previous day, which was nice.

When we woke up the next day we were already docked :-(

Getting off the ship and through customs took no time at all, and before we knew it we were on the streets waiting for our (not so great) shuttle.  Shuttle took us to airport.  Plane took us home.  The plane ride home was similar to the ride out for Claire.  Trent, on the other hand, slept most of the way.

During one of the flights Trent suddenly started screaming "DADDY, DADDY", then "AHHHH".  It wasn't a panicked scream or anything - it was actually very funny!!  His ears were clogged and everything sounded muffled inside his head, so he started screaming to hear himself.  Claire's reaction to her clogged ears was much less amusing.  Poor thing just tugged on her ears and said, "ears" a few times.  We kept trying to get them to eat and drink to help their ears pop.

I know I left a whole lot out - so if you want to know more you can either ask me questions or, better yet, you can go on a Disney cruise yourself!!!