Disney Cruise Part II

One of our favorite parts about this trip was simply the cruise ship and accommodations.  I wasn't sure how to cover all the really amazing things about all of that and I probably won't even be able to do it justice, so this will be a pretty long post.

We really loved our accommodations on the ship.  Disney is great at detail and they managed to not only put our two rooms next to each other, but gave us ones that had adjoining doors, so we could move back and forth between the rooms easily.  We chose to have a room with a verandah and I couldn't have been more happy with that choice.  We loved being able to sit out there and enjoy the fresh sea air and relax.  We'd often catch Sarah out there on a chair with her nose in a good book. 

Mikey and I enjoying an early morning out in the fresh air

Tim and Mikey enjoying our Verandah at Port Canaveral

One of the things that was so touching to our family was when we arrived in our room there was a large gift basket filled with sand toys and treats and coloring books from Whitney's kindergarten class.  We were so touched they would remember us and we were wiping our eyes for a couple hours over that simple act of kindness.

The staterooms are small so we completely unpacked our bags and stored our things in the closets and drawers provided in the room.  We then stowed our suitcases under the bed. That was a great decision because it kept us organized and we could use our small space well.

The couches turned into comfortable beds at night for the children and we had turn-down service so our beds were prepared for us while we were at dinner.

Here we are chilling on the couch before sail-away.

Whitney and Spencer on the couch turned comfortable bed.  There is a bunk that pulls down from the ceiling that Sarah slept on in the other room (with Spencer on the lower part).  Whitney loved this bed.  Michael slept in a pack n' play provided for us.

And forget about all of the parties, pools and games on the ship.  Our kids just wanted to chill in our stateroom and watch the old classic Mickey cartoons and laugh their heads off.

Sarah will probably kill me one day for posting this picture, but really, what can you expect when you watch TV like that?

 Here's a couple more pics from our rooms.

The cruise provided all of our meals and there was unlimited ice cream and soft drinks.  We usually ate breakfast and lunch at Cabanas, a buffet style place with unlimited lobster, oysters, shrimp, sushi, well... I could go on, but it had a ton of amazing food. 

Sharing a meal at Cabanas

Even Mikey found something he liked and started eating pretty good after a couple of weeks of not eating much

Dinner was a special affair as we dressed up a bit and ate in the three different themed restaurants each night: The Enchanted Garden, Royal Palace, and Animators Palate.  The food was very fancy for what we are used to, but delicious.  Liz tried everything unique, Tim stuck with beef as much as possible.

These were taken at Royal Palace.  We had a lovely view of the ocean through the port holes.

This was taken of us at dinner by the ship's photographer.  Tim and I really like each other.

The kids enjoyed an array of basics like mac n' cheese or alfredo.  The Mickey shaped ice cream bars for dessert were a pretty big hit. 

We had the same waiters every night, so it was fun to get to know them over the course of the trip.  Gusti was from Indonesia and Rudy was from Peru.  Most of the employees on the ship are from countries other than the US. 

Here we are at the Animators Palate with our awesome waiters

 The Animators Palate had screens around the room that featured "Crush" the turtle from Finding Nemo.  He could talk and interact with the audience and they had several games they had us play during dinner.

Sorry this guy's head ended up in our pic.

 One of the things we loved about being on a Disney Cruise is that the entertainment is all family friendly.  Even the "adult-only" shows were clean.  Each night they featured amazing shows in the main theater, usually a Disney themed Broadway style performance.  One of the coolest things that happened was that one our very favorite comedians, Taylor Mason, was also on our ship and was the featured act for a couple of the shows.  Our kids thought he was hilarious.  But we also loved the Broadway style shows with music, singing and acting that was first class.

We couldn't take pictures of the shows but here are the girls waiting for it to start. 

I wish I had a good shot of the huge portholes throughout the ship.  At night it was especially fun to look out of them.  Disney's ship has lights just under the water they turned on at night so you could look down and see the water churning as we were traveling.  It was really cool.

I'll post more about our island adventures in the next post.

But one last story to end this post.  At the end of the trip I was on the bus at the Denver airport with Whitney and Spencer picking up our car in the long-term parking.  I asked Whitney what her favorite part of our trip was and she replied, "The elevators."  I didn't realize that the other people on the bus could hear our conversation but a lady in the middle of the bus said, "I hope you took her somewhere fun."  I said, "We went to the Bahamas."  Well, the whole bus erupted in laughter and some guy hollered from the back of the bus, "You could have just taken her to Park Meadows Mall and saved yourself some money!"
That was a good laugh and he was partly right.  But the elevators were really cool.  Here's a couple of shots of them - not great, but it gives you an idea.

The elevators were beautiful and Whitney loved that whatever button you pushed with the number on it, the elevator would take you there.

Trivia:  Disney says their ships are the only ones on the cruise lines with 4 captains on the ship:  the ship's captain, then Captain Mickey, Captain Jack Sparrow, and Captain Hook.