Cruise report - day 7 (Castaway Cay)

It's the best day of the year - Castaway Cay day!!!

We got off the ship pretty early and found a great spot on the beach, right under an umbrella.

We invested in snorkle equipment (less than $50 + using gift cards - and it cost $50 to rent equipment at Castaway Cay), so I was all excited to try it out. Unfortunatly the water was FREEZING!!! After about 20 minute of 'getting used to it', we finally managed to submerge in the water.

We found the Nautalis, something we didn't find the previous trip. We gave up on finding the hidden mickey (we found it before). We were getting tired and hungry.

At 11am Cookies BBQ opened - and Jonathan put every different piece of meat on his plate. I was saving room for the best thing ever - cookie dough ice cream!!!

After lunch we walked around a little bit. We found the game room - which is an outdoor area with ping poing, pool, giant Connect 4 and a bunch of other stuff. I wanted to rent bikes for an hour in the afternoon, but Jonathan was having none of that. It was nap time for him!

So I road a bike around the island for an hour. I really wanted to check out the 3 story observation tour. It was pretty cool. In hindsight I could've walked to it - but that would've taken about 10X as long.

At 4pm we boarded the ship. We just missed the Bahama post office for Castaway Cay stamps - they closed at 4pm! Nuts! Oh well, another reason why we should go back!

More on day 6 tomorrow!

Cruise report - Day 6 (Day at Sea)

I don't have a clue what we did this day. I'm assuming it was a lot of movie watching. Through out the entire cruise we saw about 9 movies.


I'll bore you with the list here:

Enchanted (twice)
National Treasure 2
Wild Hogs
Dan in Real Life
The Game Plan
Underdog
Nancy Drew
Transformers
The Nanny Diaries
Are We Done Yet


The ship has a fantastic movie theater, which plays the same 6 movies over and over again. It took a little fanagaling with the schedule for the day, but we managed to see all 6.


Then the room TVs had 5 channels that played the same movie all day long. So the last 4 movies on the list were room channel movies. And, no, I didn't sit in the room all day watching movies. I watched bits and pieces of each of those movies every other day. So I didn't see the movie straight thru, but I think I saw 90% of them!

The captain of the ship (the ORIGINAL Disney Magic captain - since the beginning) had a autograph session in the morning. A couple days ago we had a professional photo taken with the Captain, so we had him sign that photo.

Judging from the photos I took on day 6, we ate a lot of ice cream (and Coke floats) and that's about it!

Cruise Report - day 5 (Cozumel)

This was the day Jonathan was looking forward to the most - Cozumel day. The main reason we booked the Western Cruise was b/c Jonathan wanted to see Mayan ruins.


The shore excursion warned us plain as day "do not book this if you get motion sickness". Well, I alway poo-poo that warning - dramamine will take care of me.


Let me just give all you who plan to book the Tulum Excursion and are ignoring the warnings. YOU WILL GET SICK!!!! Luckily the tour guide had barf bags to pass out. Sorry teenage kid I was sitting next to!


So we had to take a ferry boat from the island of Cozumel to mainland Mexico (that is what did me in). Thankfully after loosing my breakfast, I felt 1000X better. We walked a bit thru some Mexican area to some buses. We drove about 1/2 hour to some gift shop where we stopped for a break (I bought a Mexican gatorade), then another 10 minutes to Tulum. We also received a lunch - from SUBWAY. Sweet - but not very Mexican-y. Although the chips were some sort-of Spanish Cheetos. They were good.


Let's just say that the ruins were super awesome. We had a 45 minute tour and then we walked around on our own. We took a zillion photos.


Jonathan and I agreed that the shore excurion was super cool and worth it. However, all it all it was an 8 hour day, but only about 2.5 hours were at Tulum Ruins. The rest was traveling to get there and back.

Long story short - I threw up twice more that evening and missed the Pirate Party and fireworks. Grrrrr! Oh well, that's another reason why we'll need to go back soon.

Oh, and there were big, gross lizards in Mexico. At least they didn't move very fast or touch me.

Cruise report - Day 4 (Grand Cayman)

Welcome to Grand Cayman! No cruise ships dock on this island, so we dropped anchor and took tender boats to shore. Thankfully, they didn't make me sick at all!


We had no real plans for this day. I had heard about a town called Hell, and their 7-mile beach. I didn't want to pay an arm and a leg for a tour either.

Luckily, as we started aimlessly walking around, we found a taxi stand that said "$2.50 to Hell, $2.50 to 7-mile beach, etc." Jackpot!!! So we spend $10 on tolls and saw the entire island!

First stop - Hell. It was a total tourist trap - and I loved it. It's just a blob of weird looking black rocks. There is a geological answer for what formed the rocks, but I have no clue what it was. We took some photos, sent ourselves a postcard (which will be postmarked "Hell" - sweet huh?) and grabbed another taxi to the beach.

Once on the beach we just started walking back towards the ship. We didn't want to get sunburned by laying out, and we didn't have our suits on. We could se the ship infront of us, so how far away could it be?

Well about 4-5 miles later, we arrived at the tender boat. We were both pretty tired, but it was fun and exhilarating walk.

Towel animal for the day: Scorpion

Cruise report - day 3

Our first official day at sea. It was also our scheduled day for the Character Breakfast. Unlike WDW character breakfasts, the characters just danced in the middle of the room off and on. They don't visit your individual table. Since I really enjoy the breakfast buffett, I wasn't very excited about a sit down breakfast - and I was right. It was just "blah" for me. Our servers did make 'lovely' headgear for us (I can't belive I'm posting this photo - it's awful!).




After breakfast was watched Enchanted in the main theater. It was still funny the 2nd time. For the rest of the cruise we kept quoting Pip (the chimpunk) as he was pretending to be the evil hag. "Apple?" "No thanks" "It's gooooood!" Minnie Mouse (very randomly) joined us for the movie!



After that I have no clue what we did. We probably watched more movies. We probably walked around deck 4. We also sat down to read on the cushy deck 4 chairs.

Oh - I remember what we did. After breakfast was the Castaway Club get together. We both think we are cool b/c we're in the Castaway Club (for people who have taken a Disney Cruise before). There was a little scavenger hunt for people who have taken more than 10 Disney Cruises. We found Ralph and Mary Ellen who are on cruise #27. Pretty impressive - especially since Disney Cruise has only been operating for 10 years!


The dinner was 'formal night', which we weren't prepared for at all. A lot of guys had tuxes on - while we wore just some regular clothes (like you would wear to church - not black tie affair). All the characters were dresses up in their finest though. It was fun.






Towel animal of the day: Scary lobster!

Cruise Report - more day 2 (more Key West)

Did I talk about these crazy trees before? They are crazy! I don't know what kind of tree they are, but the rooms are really far off the ground. One of our tour guides said that one tree litterally grew as tall in the front yard of a house, then kind-of fell down and planted itself AGAIN in the backyard (like the St. Louis Arch of trees).












The all abord was like 6pm - and I didn't want to miss the "famous" Key West sunset. To be honest, the sunsets behind my house are pretty spectacular (although I can't get a good photo b/c there are houses everywhere), but Key West was very pretty too. Jonathan and I camped out on the 'secret' deck 7 area. It's not really on any maps - it's a very nice, quiet place on the ship!












Jonathan used his cell phone one last time in Key West, then they didn't work the rest of the trip. Yay!


Towel animal - some scuba diving lobster thing.

Cruise Report - day 2 (more Key West)

Hip hip horray for Key West!

I had booked a tour thru an outside tour company (not Disney) and I'm really glad I did. I think the comany was called Old Town Trolley. It was about $25 per person. It was a great deal b/c you could hop on and off the trolley all day long.

It turns out Key West is only about 2 miles wide, so we could've easily walked everywhere we wanted to go, but the trolley was 100X easier. Also the tour guides were really talkative and funny.

The cruise docked right near Mallory Square. It was full of tourist trap gift shops and other fun things - including a giant monster made of sea sponges (which I forgot to take a photo of).

I was most excited to see the tourist trap-y Southernmost Point. There was a big group of people getting their photo taken, which was a bummer. We snapped some photos and took off - not a lot of time to spend there.

It took us about 45 minutes on the trolley to get to the Southernmost Point - but it turns out we were really close to Mallory Square. So we walked around and looked at random stuff.

There were roosters everywhere! And they were loud.

We didn't go inside the Hemmingway House (although seeing a 6-toed cat would've been pretty sweet).

And we found the infamous "Mile 0". I tried and tried to buy a souvenier, but I just couldn't find anything worth buying! I wanted a sweatshirt (b/c the cruise ship is cold!), but they were all just too tacky and cheesy.

Cruise report - day 2 (Key West)

I was most excited to visit Key West, FL. I have never been there, and I heard it's such a fun and quirky place. And it really was!

We didnt' arrive until around noon-ish, so it was nice to relax, eat breakfast and lunch (free onboard!) and watch the ship dock.

Check out this huge sailboat! The masts are like 4-5 stores tall.

And look at this little tiny rowboat next to our giant cruise ship.

Off the island (key?) or Key West was this small island (key?) It was just full of gorgeous beach houses. Sweet!

Here are other random photos of us waiting to get off the ship. Check out my stylish purple Mary Jane (actually Minnie Jane) crocs. And a panoramic shot of the Disney Magic docked at Key West.

More about our sweet tour later!

Cruise report - day 1

Jonathan and I were on the Disney Magic cruise ship from Jan 12-19, 2008 celebrating our 1 year wedding anniversary. I can't believe it's been 1 year already!!


It was super fun! We both can't wait to go back on another cruise! Don't tell Jonathan - but I think he was getting a little misty eyed on the very last night at dinner, when they were having the big "good bye" celebration.



Saturday, January 12, 2008.


We left home around 9:45am (b/c I was still washing a pair of pants I wanted to bring along - turns out I never wore those pants!). After about 70 miles (anad $5 in tolls) we arrived in Port Canaveral.



We boarded the ship around 12:30pm. It worked out very nice - by the time we ate lunch at Topsiders (my favorite place on the ship), our room was ready. We booked a category 8 room - which means we had a giant window. Plus it was on deck 5 (there are 10 total decks on the cruise) so we were never too many flights of stairs away from anything (especially the ice cream machine on deck 9).



For the rest of the day we explored the ship and throughouly (sp?) examined the movie schedule and the nightly theatrical show schedule and planned accordingly. I think the thing we were most looking forward to was watching all the free movies onboard (and we hit them all!)


At 6pm we watched DAN IN REAL LIFE. It was a pretty good movie. Steve Carrell is pretty entertaining. It was a little artsy for my taste and it just kind-of 'ended' suddenly, but I would still recommend it. We skipped out on the Sail-a-way party to watch the movie. We also caught part of the Saturday NFL playoff game in Diversions (the sports bar). I could've spend all my time in Diversions b/c they had the best nachos EVER. Jonathan was also drolling over their chicken wings.

Our dinner rotation was at 8:30pm - which is WAY TOO LATE for me to eat, but what can you do. We at at Lumier's on Sunday night. The first night is always kind-of awkward, b/c you are sitting at a table with 4 other strangers, so it's a real 'getting to know you' process. We sat with a travel agent couple from CA (who have taken over 20 cruises) and a couple from NJ. Both couples were in their early 50's (I'm guessing they were b/c they had kids in their late 20's). We pigged out on an appetizer, bread, main course and dessert, then went to bed.



Our towel (towel + blanket) animal for the night.

More later . . .

Grrrrrrrrrrr!

Will somebody please explain to me WHY nice pants (like office-style pants) always have the back pockets SEWN SHUT?

The pocket exists, but I have to carefully pull out the thread - usually while wearing the pants b/c I have a tentancy to put my hands in my back pockets.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Happy Birthday to me

On 12/15 I turned pretty old.

Jonathan and I celebrated by eating at Yak & Yeti - a new restaurant at Animal Kingdom.

For dessert I ordered the "free birthday dessert (sp?) please". I kind-of felt like a jack arse - but I had a free dessert coming!

I also took, quite possibly, the worst photo ever!

Lights, lights, lights!

I enjoying looking at tacky Christmas yards. I even hope to have one someday.

Great blog:

http://tackychristmasyards.com/

I just made a total elf of myself

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1667556086

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!

Greatest website ever!

http://www.attwheredoyoulive.com/index2.html

... well, maybe not the greatest ever, but it's super cool!

I think I need to ask for a Orlancago t-shirt for Christmas.

How Soon We Forget

4 weeks ago ... I found the very last gas station selling gas under $3/gallon.

2 weeks ago ... Gas prices are disturbing me, as I pay $3.03 to fill up - my first time EVER paying over $3/gallon.

Today ... I got a little giddy as I saw the local place lower prices all the way down to $2.98. How exciting is that?!? How soon we forget ...

Happy Black Friday!!!

I went to Super Wal-mart around 9am (somebody offered to take me at 3:45am, but that was a little nuts even for me) this morning. They had some stuff that I wanted for myself on sale. And since I'm on "vacation" (in Missour-A) visiting Jonathan's parents, for some reason it's ok to splurge.

In their ad I had made a list of things (none of which I needed): $4 crock pot, $4 chopper, $60 sewing machine, $50 pots and pans set and $159 digital camera.

They still had the 2 expensive things: sewing machine & digital camera.

I hee-haw'ed back and forth, and decided to purchase the sewing machine. I don't have a sewing machine (not that I sew much), so that was my reasoning. I already have a digital camera - so I'll wait until mine is broken to buy a new one.

Luckily for me, we stopped at ANOTHER Wal-mart on the way home (not a "Super" Wal-mart). They still had the $4 kitchen appliances. I decided that I didn't really need a $4 chopper, and the crock pot was really tiny. Although the pot would've been really sweet for chips & dip or something small.

However, I did see a large crock pot for only $15! Bingo!

So now I have 2 giant boxes to take home with me from Missour-A.

Happy (official start to the) Holidays!!!

The ultimate insult!

So yesterday I went with Jonathan to his hockey game.

If you are unfamiliar with hockey, each player has an enoumous amount of equipment. Any body reading this blog could EASILY fit into a hockey players duffle bag. They are enoumous.

Anyways, he asks me to watch his enoumous bag of stuff while he goes to the bathroom. So I'm standing in the hallway, right next to a huge bag.

A kid (although he looked about 35) who was there for the "open skate (aka: jr. high/high school hot spot)" asks me, "are you a hockey mom?"

(in my mind) "What?!? Do I look old enough to have a hockey playing child?!?"

In my defence, I was looking pretty crappy ... but still ... OUCH!

It's only 11/11, but . . .

. . . I have my Christmas stuff out.

Well, not really "out", but I did get it out of the garage. I unpacked everything, and it's laying on the floor in the spare bedroom.

Next weekend I'll be busy (working OT), and the weekend of Thanksgiving I'll be in Missouri. That's normally the week I would put everything up.

So this week was really just "prep" for when ever I put it up for real.

I just feel like it's too soon ... but I'm excited!