Best day at the beach you'll ever have.

Stroll out of your stateroom, down onto the dock and you're off to the beach. Disney bought this island in 1998 as far as I can tell. I can't describe how incredible this place is. There are 4 sections to the half of the island that they've developed. A marina and boat rental bay, two family beaches, a private cabana beach and a 18+ beach.

The ship experience is replicated on the island, they run an optical link form the island onto the ship then you use your room key to make all purchases on the island! You can hire snorkeling gear, inner tubes, paddle boats, cats, bikes, etc. We go to a stingray experience first thing on the island where we get to feed stingrays! Next we head along to the second beach all fully decked out with umbrellas and lounges we set up camp and the kids head off on the in sea floating water slide, two of them run down three stories to the ocean, awesome!

The kids discover the eateries, all self-serve like on the ship. Max disappears for half an hour, then returns telling us he's onto his third soft-serve :) The waiters walk up and down the beach taking orders, beautiful sunny day, I resist the beer option.

I have a go of the slide, I step off the grip pad and fall hard on my rump too late to pull out I'm already sliding down. Laughing my head off at how fast I'm going I hit the ocean and skim for a meter or two before I stop. Then I'm laughing and cringing at the same time as I realize I've done my back. Good excuse to lay around in the sun for a few more hours. Then we head back to the ship - to the hot tub specifically :)

Dinner tonight is the second show in the Animator's Palate. When you first sit down you're asked to draw a character, anything you like, but within specific boundaries for head, torso etc. Soon after the first course Mickey pops up to tell us he's doing something special with our drawings, after the entrée he comes back out and presents the results of our drawings. They have animated all of our drawings into a movie, how cool to see your drawing dancing around on screen, then dancing around as part of some classic Disney movies!

This is our last night, Anson had tried to get Gab her favourite desert from the week but it wasn't available, instead he got her the recipe. He also put on some tricky magic for the kids keeping them out of Kids club for the night they were so entertained.

The final event of the trip is a farewell from all the characters in the lobby. The kids are all sitting in the front row as Mickey and friends and all the princesses come out to say goodbye to everyone. We run around saying good bye to all the characters, I even got to kiss Minnie's hand. We head up to the top deck for Max's final self-serve soft-serve before they head off for the night.

One last scotch in Meridian bar before heading to bed for the last time. We've got to be all packed up and down at The Animator's Palate for our final breakfast by 8am tomorrow.