Disney Cruise: Day 2, Day at Sea

Today was wonderful.  We started out having our own church meetings.  We had one meeting with everyone in The Tube (which was kind of a strange place to meet for something spiritual, but it worked).  Tony gave the main lesson on enduring to the end. We then divided up into age groups.  The teenage cousins taught the classes.  It was wonderful.  Juli and Camilla taught the adults.  It was a good morning.  

After that we had tickets to meet all the princesses.  We made the boys join us for the first bunch, but then I let them go play while the girls went to see Elsa. I even got the boys to take a few pictures with them.  This took some prodding, but look how cute they are!

Lauren was so shy with all the characters. I was so surprised she was super shy with all the princesses as well.  They all do such a good job trying to engage the kids. 

 



Elsa was the one princess Lauren was super excited to see, so I was glad when she interacted with her.  She was so excited to get her signature.













Eye-Scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.  We ate lots and lots of cones.  All you can eat until 10 pm at night.  Yum!  Chocolate, Vanilla, or twist.  Then Banana, strawberry, or twist.  Delicious.  I would be curious to know how many cones just my family of 8 went through in our week.  I'm guessing upwards of 120-150, or perhaps likely even more.

While we were out playing shuffle board Minnie Mouse came by.  The kids had fun seeing her.  I thought Ashlyn would be so excited.  When she saw them from a distance she would scream with happiness and make animal sounds.  But, up close and personal made her cry.















For dinner it was formal night, and we ate in the Royal Court.  I was wishing I had my girls get in their princess dresses for church so they would have had them on for pictures earlier, but I didn't realize it until it was time to get ready for dinner that it was formal night. We got a good picture of us.  I'm glad my boys cooperated.  While waiting in line for the picture it took some cajoling to make it all work.

As Grandpa walked by during dinner at various times Ashlyn said "Papa" as she watched him walk by.  This was the first time she's ever said it. She is learning so many new words everyday right now.

We always loved to come see what animal was left in our room.

 

Disney Cruise: All Aboard!

We woke up bright and early.  We woke up at 5:30 Florida time (3:30 Utah time - ouch!) The bus was meeting us at our resort at 6 am.  It was crazy trying to get everything packed up in time.  Honestly I'm amazed we did it.  Of course the bus was a few minutes early, so he had to wait for us while we frantically finished throwing everything back into bags.  Luckily there really wasn't that much stuff out, but when you have 6 kids... just a little of each having a mess means kind of a big mess.  Once we were loaded on the bus we drove to the airport.  Devon and I had fun visiting with the bus driver.  He had quite a sense of humor.  

Most everyone else had just flown in that morning. They got on the plane around midnight and arrived around 6 am. I am so glad we didn't do that, especially how bad it wiped me out in Atlanta.  I couldn't imagine trying to keep my kids happy on a plane all night.  I think they would have cried most the way.  They just really like their beds.  

Once we picked everyone up, we headed to Golden Corral for some breakfast.  I think the kids took full advantage of the situation and may have had ice cream with their breakfast.  

Its so fun to hear the kids excitement when the see the boat as we approach.


Here is the craziness that exists inside the building as you wait to board.  This is just one small portion of this giant room that gets so full.  We were all lucky and got to be some of the first to board because Devon's parents had priority boarding passes and they let us all come on with them.  We were on the boat by 11:30, which was so nice so we could eat and then get settled in our rooms, then play!

Ashlyn was so excited to pull this little suitcase around.

This is the play area for the kids 3-12.  It is filled with all sorts of amazing and fun things. 

After lunch we had put on our swimsuits to try and go swimming, but it just didn't work out.  It was just before they were ready to do the safety drill.  So, finally after all that we were able to go swimming.  The kids were so excited!

Dinner was in Enchanted Garden.  I think just about all kids got the Mickey Ears for dessert the majority of the time.  It feels so luxurious to let everyone pick what they want, and they can get endless amounts of anything.  It would have been really relaxing if Ashlyn wasn't difficult at all the dinners and Austin and Lauren didn't need to go potty every 5 minutes.  But, I guess that's asking too much.

There are shows every evening.  This time around we only did a few of them.  Its fun, but its also fun to go do some of the other things on the boat in the evening after dinner.