Disneyworld!

Well, it's no Disney Cruise, but Disneyworld was a blast. It is like comparing a really good burger to an extremely good burger with cheese. A burger is good anytime but a better one with cheese is the best!

We stayed in a house that held all 7 of us. It will get very poor ratings for being very run down, but at least it had beds for all of us.

We spent 5 days exploring the Disney parks. We started in Magic Kingdom. We loaded Dad's backpack with enough food for the day (sorry Dad, we owe you a massage at the end of the vacation). Our youngest loved the Dumbo ride and Under the Sea. The older two loved Splash Mountain. Dad and Grandma braved Space Mountain. The grandeur of Magic Kingdom is intense. So many people and so much to see. Being a busy time of year did not slow us down and we got to all of the rides and attractions we wanted.

Being New Year's eve we decided to go to a less busy park on our second day. We hear that the gates to Magic Kingdom were closed by 8:30 that morning be a use they were already at capacity! We went to Animal Kingdom. We all loved this park and even went back for a second day. Our youngest and Grandpa stayed behind as the rest of us went on Expedition Everest. My eyes seriously hurt at the end of the roller coaster because I had them closed so tight. Our middle guy, whom I was sitting with , claims I was yelling "isn't this over yet? " during the ride. I am not really a roller coaster mama.

We found Animal Kingdom a great mix of animals, rides and wonderful shows. My personal favorite was the Bug's Life show, it was 3D and also had water spraying at you (didn't expect it) and bugs crawling on the seats.

We skipped Epcot, thinking that the kids were not quite old enough. We did spend a day at Disney Hollywood Studios though. The car stunt show was hilarious, mostly because the kids were screaming and laughing and cheering. I spent most of the show watching our middle guys face light up with excitement and hoping he wouldn't aspire to be a stunt car driver. Grandma and Dad again went solo and took on the Tower of Terror, at least they had each other for the fast rides.

To sum up Disneyworld, it is a magical kind of place. You need to stay patient, get there early (as soon as it opens), bring your own food and drinks (I love diet Pepsi, but not $4.75 Diet Coke) and use your Fast Passes wisely.

Disney Cruise rating

Now that the Disney Cruise has been over for a few days we have thought it over and we are ready to give our ratings of our Disney Cruise.

Friendly

*5 appropriately sized smiles out of 5*

We expected the staff on the cruise to be friendly and nice but we were continuously amazed by how friendly they were. Our dining staff, which followed us around to each supper, were exceptional. They were professional and knowledgeable and did not push it. I was worried that they were going to act like TGIF servers on meth, luckily they weren't.

There were some staff that completely excelled. One woman asked if we needed anything when mom and I were looking at the salad baron deck 11 late at night on Christmas eve. We told her we were looking for some carrots because the kids wanted to leave some out for the reindeer. She said "I'll go look for some and I would be right back."

She came back 15 minutes later with a large carrot wrapped in saran wrap on a plate. She apologized for taking for so long but she "...had to go down to the main kitchen storage room on deck 1 to find a big carrot, little carrot sticks just wouldn't do it."

Cleanliness

*5 pumps of hand sanitizer out of 5*

It helped that the ship was fairly new, but it was always super clean. Staff were always looking to keep it clean. We saw a dude in white officer gear walking along and he stopped to pick up a few dirty napkins near a table.

What we really appreciated was that they wanted to keep us clean and healthy. Each time we went into a restaurant or buffet their were staff handing out wet wipes to sanitize with. We also mentioned the hand washers in the kids club rooms that everyone had to use each time they came through.

And our cabin was always tidy and clean. Our hostess was constantly popping in to take out garbage and wipe surfaces. It was unexpected but so nice. It never felt like we were in a tin can breathing stale germs air or around gross sick sneezes and germs bits. The staff always made sure that cleanliness was a high priority.

Food

*6 sea scallops (or chicken nuggets if you talked to the kids) out of 5*

Ermahgawd! Be prepared to gain about 10 pounds, just be ok with it, go with the flow and enjoy what they have.

The formal sit down supper restaurants had stellar food. The great thing was portions were not huge (because it was all fancy like), but with appetizers and soup and salad AND of course dessert, suppers were perfect! And they are always happy to bring something different or modify it of they can to suit your needs.

Our middle one wanted lobster and macaroni one night, because he wanted lobster. So Deniz our server brought him macaroni with fries, green beans and corn, and a lobster tail on the side. It made his night!

The other places on the boat were good as well. deck 11 was the pool deck,
And there were burgers (regular, veggie, chicken, salmon, etc.), chicken fingers, pizza, sandwiches, wraps, fruit, ice cream, salad, etc. available from 11:00 am to 11:00 pm. A perfect place for an afternoon snack or lunch, or late snack, or 'I'm bored snack'.

For lunch of breakfast we had good choices between a variety of sit down menu restaurants or buffet restaurants. We found the menu restaurants less busy, but fewer options compared to buffet. So each meal we got to decide whether choice or calm won over.

In all we did not have any major, or minor problems, with our food. The only draw back was the cost of alcohol and even the cost of pop. I could order a grilled salmon steak on pesto orzo with steamed asparagus for free with room service (I may have done that once or twice) for free (not free really because it is included in cost of the cruise), but ordering a pop with room service would cost $3.50. Strange, but not terrible.

One hint we would like to leave, order snacks in the afternoon. Sometimes we would find ourselves in our room in the late afternoon a bit exhausted and looking for a breather before our 5:45 standing supper reservation, so we would often order a fruit plate and cheese plate from room service.

Then lots of cheeses and crackers would come on a large plate paired with a nice big bowl of chopped fruit, these would make everyone happy for that last hour and a bit before we had to go out and be decent human folk again.

Rooms

*5 towel animals out of 5*

We can only really speak for our room and grandma and grandpa's room, but they were very nice! Not huge by any means but very nicely laid out. You can check out our earlier post about our room.

Everything in the room was great! Lots of storage, so you can easily unpack and hang things up. High bed so all your luggage can slide underneath during the week, a great cushion seat in the large galley window, a curtain that can be drawn to separate the room so the kids can sleep in piece while mom and dad stay up later. A small TV that can be pulled out so that it can be used in either side of the room if the curtain is drawn. And on and on.

Disney really did think of everything when they put these ships together....almost. My only beef with our room was the clothes hangers. Oh sure they worked perfectly and there were oodles of them to use, but if there were no clothes hanging on them they would sometimes clatter together at night if the sea was rough. Sad that that is my only problem (first world problem much!), but that also speaks to how Disney has taken care of all the big things.

Staff

*5 "No problem at all"s out of 5*

Putting aside the friendliness and helpfulness and niceiness of everyone, there were always staff around to help.

Disney has gone way above what I expected by fully staffing the ship and then adding more staff. It wasn't by any means over whelming with grabby hands and constant asks of "How are you doing", "Need anything? ", or "Can I help you brush your teeth?".

But staff were always there in every room or place so that you always had help IF you needed it.

I was waiting in a long-ish line at the service desk, to actually comment on a staff person who was amazing in how they had assisted us earlier, when an executive member of the crew came out and went down the line asking each person if they could answer any easy questions to help them avoid waiting in a long line. How smart! Way better use of a person than adding that them to another terminal at the service desk.

The staff we met were top notch, and we believe really made our Disney experience amazing.

Overall

*5 ...Sigh....Mickey ears our of 5*

Do it! It is pricy for sure compared to most options of how to spend a week, but it was definitely worth it.

The access to the Disney characters, the ship, the excursions, the activities, the staff, it all together really made this trip so unique and special it will go down in our family's history as #1.

The day we lost son #1. Don't worry, we found him again

It is actually surprising he didn't get lost sooner in the trip because our middle child, and first boy, is a wanderer. During supper each and every night on the cruise he would ask to go pee at least 3 times.

Each time he would be gone for 5 - 10 minutes, as he checked out a new bathroom or took a different way back from the bathroom.

But on this night it was actually after supper and he was separated from the herd in the ship's atrium. Mom, Grandma and I looked around and couldn't see him anywhere. We even enlisted our server Deniz, who prompting dropped everything and looked in the restaurant and atrium for our guy.

After about 5 minutes we were worried, not that he was actually lost on the ship but that he would notice he was lost and get scared, so Mom went to the room to check and I went to the front desk to ask for help.

I knew he had on a Mickey Band that we used to sign him into events, and I heard we could track him via it.

Sure enough after about 3 minutes from when I got to the front desk the fella assisting me told me that our lost guy was "In, or near, your room on deck 8."

Shortly after Mom had called to advise she found him in Grandpa's room with Grandpa.

That Mickey Band was prefect. Mom ended up finding him before I could call her to tell her what I found out, but the knowledge that it work, very well, left us all with a good feeling.

We also felt better letting him go find other different bathrooms at the next supper.

Oceaneers Club and Lab

On the boat they have various club rooms for different age groups. Vibe is for 14 - 17 year old teens, Edge is for 11 - 14 year old kids, and the Oceaneer Club and Lab were for ages 3 - 11, so it was where our kids hung out.

It was amazing. The Club and Lab were two separate places connected by a kitchen/workshop. The Club was geared towards the younger kids and the Lab was for the older ones.

The pictures above were of the Club, it has a awesome interactive dance floor where the staff would play games and dance, there were themed play rooms like Andy's Room, the Monster Inc. room, and the Tinker bell room. There kids could play and explore and the staff would lead crafts and creative centres where kids could learn, play and all that jazz.

And as our youngest said "they just let me play and play until I got to go pee, then they took me to bathroom!".

The other picture of the submarine had computers that kids could use to play games. The whole entire space was fantastic!! I would say each of the Oceaneers Club and Lab were an easy 6000 square feet each of space to play.

The Lab had more video games, bigger and better crafts, a large room where kids could watch Disney movies (surprise surprise), and a few cool simulator games. It was perfect for our middle guy, he seemed to enjoy relaxing and hanging out there.

...there were a lot less fights between the kids for the 3 hours after he was at the Oceaneers Lab.

We would check the kids in, like you would with your coats, if there was something going on they wanted to do or if they just wanted to hang out, and when any of the kids wanted out the staff would call and text the cell phones they provided.

It happened a few times that we would get a text that our middle guy wanted out, but when we made our way there to get him he would say "No I want to stay, I just wanted to see if you missed me?".

But the absolute BEST thing about the kids clubs were the hand washers! It is the picture above of a machine in a cabinet that had two hand holes in it. You stuck your hands in and jets of warm water and soap would spray all over and clean your hands, in a very gentle massaging motions, awesome. Each and every kid, and parent picking up any kid, had to use it going in and out. It was like how I envisioned hand washing in the future, but with less robots and ligers.

Castaway Cay (aka. Disney disney disney, disney disney)

Our second last day on the Disney cruise was spent on Castaway Cay, their private Disney island.

It was awesome, we snorkeled, swam, ate bbq, went on a water slide, ate ice cream, and swam so more.

Our little guy was blown away with the white sand beaches. He kept digging his hands in and saying "Ohhh smooth like my bum!". We built a sand castle and splashed around for most of the afternoon.

Once we had got settled on the beach we picked up snorkel equipment and went out. They had acres of water, not sure if that is the right descriptor, buoyed off for us to flipper around and see what we could see. Dad saw a ray swimming along the sea floor, our middle guy saw a jelly fish, and our daughter saw lots of these weird cauliflower looking animals that crawled along the sea floor. It was so much fun to snorkel out a couple hundred feet and have it only 10 feet deep. A must!

It was a hot day so we made sure to drink lots and eat lots of ice cream. It helped that the kids saw our server Deniz at one of the ice cream machines, he made sure to keep them loaded up with the cold stuff.

It was a beautiful island and our whole Disney experience transfered over from the ship seamlessly. Free food and drinks, except alcohol, and the staff came off too so the kids saw lots of friendly faces.

Getting on the shop was the hardest that day. It was so relaxing and fun on the beach that we didn't want to go back...but when we did, after 6 hours on the beach, the kids and Mom went straight up to swim in the pool on the ship and take one or two last slides on the Aquaduck.

The only down side to the island, that damn fine sand is still stuck places it shouldn't be.

The days aren't particularly long, but they are FULL

We have always considered our family to be very good at vacationing, but this Disney cruise has given us a run for our money, and we are only 3 days in!

Each day we get a schedule of what events are planned. There is at least 2 or 3 things that each kid could do for each moment of each day, so we have to do a lot of picking and choosing. At least most activities happen again another day.

Along with the scheduled activities there is always the pool, mini golf, kid's club rooms, spray pad, or just relax in the room.

By the time supper rolls around at 5:45 in the evening the kids are a little tired. Our little guy finished supper tonight, but didn't make it to dessert.

Our cabin

When we booked our cabin for the cruise we decided against the 'diving board' balcony out of fear of what would go over board. Luckily we opted for the cabin with the awesome port - hole window.

Our cabin is has been excellent for our family. The large window has a cushioned seat that the kids use to watch for ships and fish. The couch folds into a single bed, a second bed comes down out of the ceiling above the couch and a third bed folds down from the wall beside the couch.

Perfect for the five of us!

There is a tiny room with a wee tub and shower and sink, the other tiny bathroom has the toilet and another little sink.

And storage, lots of room for us to unpack and put everything away. And a nice little desk for our daughter to colour, write and do what ever else she does with all her paper and markers.

The room is not massive but even with the five of us in it we still seem to fit nicely.

Caution!

During the shuttle to the cruise mom saw a caution sticker on the seat in front of her and our little guy.

Mom pointed at it and said "See we have to be careful on the bus and buckle up."

His response was "Yeah, no dancing on the bus or you get hurt."

Caution!

During the shuttle to the cruise mom saw a caution sticker on the seat in front of her and our little guy.

Mom pointed at it and said "See we have to be careful on the bus and buckle up."

His response was "Yeah, no dancing on the bus or you get hurt."

Beach Day

After lunch we decided to go to the beach, that was because we wanted it to be hot.
We followed a little pathway from the hotel through a whole bunch of palm trees.

It was beautiful! Everything smelt nice, it cleared up my runny nose. It was low tide so we walked down the sand and jumped in the waves.

The waves brought lots of sea shells up onto the beach. They were a bit sharp on our feet, but the sand was soft. Lots of the shells had a small hole in them, that is from a starfish eating them.

My brothers and I built a big sand castle that kept washing away. We covered it in seaweed and then our castle lasted longer.

We played until mom and dad made us go when the sun went down...then we went to the pool.

Grandma and grandpa came after supper. tomorrow we go on the boat, it was a fun day.

- Big Sister

Golf N' Gator

We came across this place in Cocoa Beach called Golf N' Gator. It was advertised as two 18 hole mini golf courses and feed the gators.

Absolutely!

A short 5 minute bus ride from our hotel, the Courtyard Marrott, we hit it up. Luckily it was early so no one else was there. The golfing was awesome with lots of little lizards darting about. At the end there was a large tortoise that was munching an apple. Our little guy loved it, but was a little worried it might climb out and get him.

Afterwards we each got to hold a baby alligator, Columbian boa constrictor, scorpion, tarantula, and a few other snakes.

Our young guy was the first one to volunteer to hold the gator, though his face showed his regret in the pictures.

Mister tilly hat was very interested but VERY reluctant to actually hold anything, but in the end put his hand out to allow the tarantula to walk across. Turns out tarantulas are terrifying to look at but very gentle and fragile.

Now our daughter was the stand out! She wanted to hold everything, touch everything and had a blast.

Then we bought a cup of cut up hot dogs and we're able to feed the alligators via a bobbie pin and pole. It was awesome.

The people at Golf N' Gator were fantastic. Highly recommend people go when it isn't busy because we got first class access to the animals.

Day 1 - no one got stabbed, but one guy pushed his luck

This morning we started our 2 week Florida Vacation by waking up at 4:00 am for our flight at 6:45. Big thanks to the best neighbours around for the drive to the airport!

Our little guy was super excited for his first flight, ever! By the end of the first 2.5 hour flight he stated "planes are boring, we done this now?"

Now on with the stabbing, or lack there of. We had quite the lengthy lay over in Minneapolis of 3 hours. After we did customs, ate, walked around, got coffees, and looking in a candy shop we had only 2.5 hours to spare...

So the boys sat at the gate, and got great seats by the way, and the girls went off to get pampered. Our oldest got a hair cut and mom got a pedicure, purple sparklie polish if you wanted to know. Dad on the other hand got and elbow to the neck (from the youngest) and a stomped on toe (from the middle child).

As time carried on and the girls were not back yet the gate was filling up and the wee one began intermittently saying "Gotta pee!" "Gotta pee!!".

So as the frequency of pee bursts was increasing I had to act. I packed up all our bags and dragged the boys down Gate F looking for a bathroom. Then 5 minutes later we made it back to our gate and there was the guy I wanted to almost stab.

He was sitting in the middle of the seats we had, which isn't actually that bad because we did leave them. But he was sitting in the middle of 7 empty seats (3 empty seats on each side of him). There were actually no other blocks of seats for us so we had to go back to our original seats and try to make this work.

As we approached the guy just sat there, with his giant sun glasses on, ripped designer jeans, and a t shirt that was way to tight and a neck line that plunged way to low. He didn't offer to move over or even acknowledge the fact that we were looking for seats.

I know that may not seem that bad but that instant of time was a convergence of events, people, lack of sleep and douche heads, and I actually felt like hurting this person until he offered to move over so we could have 5 seats together. Gladly I did not cause him physical harm.

After that the trip was pretty uneventful. We rode a monorail to get our bags in the Orlando airport, got to ride in an eleven seat Mercedes mini bus to the hotel, had a quick swim, ate supper, and realized we have to turn around to go home....

We lost our daughters stuffed dog on one of the flights.

Time stood still for about 45 minutes and the sobs and tears were a flowing. Everyone is now asleep except her and I and she keeps muttering "dad, I miss nuff-fluff." Time to go distract and get her to sleep.

Packed and ready to go!

The kids are asleep, the fridge is emptied, and the bags are zipped up and sitting by the front door, tomorrow we are off to get steeped in the Disney tea for 2 weeks!

At the end of it all we will either walk around all glassy eyed with Mickey ears and love Disney or have a deep seated hate for Walt himself and everything lovable.

Stay tuned for the play by play of our quest into the gloriously unknown goes.