All Aboard!

Look what I spy in the distance…..

Yay! Wow, the ship is HUGE. More on that in future posts.

Let me back up and say that the children had been somewhat worried about this vacation. I mean, they really had no concept as to what a cruise ship looked like, how big it was, etc…. Avery had been superbly worried that Sunshine was going to fall overboard. A week or two before the trip, Will announced that he was worried because we were going to be close to Cuba (kinda sorta) and Communism could spread rapidly to where we were. Ok…..

Avery asked us on the drive to Florida if we were going to have to swim out to the boat and climb on (like we have to do in Beaufort sometimes) and how were we going to keep all of our stuff (and Sunshine) dry??? I bet when she saw the size of that ship she was glad we weren’t trying to swing our leg up over the side and climb aboard!!

We get to the Port and get parked and this is where the waiting started…..waiting in line to get in the terminal. Waiting in line in the terminal. Waiting to board the ship. It was a lot of waiting for 2 very excited little ones. There aren’t a lot of pictures, well, after the first waiting line at least, b/c no one was particularly thrilled with waiting and didn’t really have picture worthy looks on their faces!!

But we did get a few cute ones waiting to get into the terminal.

Our obligatory overpriced cruise photo. Oh Avery….

Around the ship’s atrium….Avery absolutely LOVED this chandelier! And all the Halloween decorations were so much fun.

 

We headed straight up to the pool deck for a yummy lunch. We had an outside table and it felt good to finally be in vacation mode. It was a little windy up top!

And then it was pool time! I had done all the internet research and knew the lines for the AquaDuck would be shortest right after we boarded so off we went. The kids really liked it! Avery was full of her excited, nervous giggling first described in the Kings Dominion post. It was a neat ride and I wish I had remembered to look out to sea instead of always to the pool deck. Or the back of the head of whatever child I was trying to hold down with my legs so they wouldn’t fly out!

See Will’s toes!

Avery and me on the AquaDuck…

Matthew and Will….

Around midafternoon our rooms were ready. I wanted to go put our carry-on’s away and then everyone decided they were excited to see a cruise ship stateroom so we left the pool. I was hoping we could come back but once Will and Avery figured out every Disney movie ever made and all the Disney Channel shows were On Demand on the TV, well, there was no dragging them away!! Which was fine because I had to do some administrative running around….getting Princess Meet and Greet reservations, talking with Guest Services about a few things. I got my first taste on just how big the ship was! And how crowded the elevators always were, which caused me to take the stairs. A lot.

Our rooms were so nice. Much bigger than I envisioned, with a super comfy bed. We had adjoining rooms with Mom which was wonderful. We were even able to open up the wall between the 2 balconies creating one big balcony.

A few fun photos around the ship before dinner.

Dinner our first night was in Animator’s Palate, which had a Crush the Turtle show similar to the attraction in Epcot.

We met our table mates for the first time and we lucked out! They had a son Will’s age and the 2 boys were instant friends. The boy was quite a bit taller than Will, but Avery still called him “Will’s little friend” the whole trip, which was just too funny.

After dinner the children all went to the kids’ club for a while until the show. They loved the kids’ club and they both wished throughout the trip they could have spent more time there.

Everyone got to bed super late that night! But hey, what is vacation for!?