All Aboard!

It’s cruise time! We packed up our small apartment this morning, made a final bakery run and were ready for Roman to pick us up to go to the boat. Checkin was chaos with families and bags everywhere. People were in a wide variety of outfits from princess dresses to matching shirts to adults wearing Minnie ears. It was quite the scene.

We dropped off our luggage outside for the porters to load on the ship and headed through security. Once inside, we navigated our way to the check-in desk. The kids were so excited they could hardly contain themselves. We had our pictures taken in front of the 25th cruise anniversary sign and made our way up to the sky bridge to board the ship. As we entered, they announced our name and we were welcomed with applause by some of the crew!

The lobby atrium is beautiful with a large chandelier and staircase. The kids spotted a character on the balcony so we rode the glass elevator up a level to get our picture with Minnie. Whitaker loved her! Across the way was Ariel and then we saw Belle. Ainsley couldn’t contain her excitement!

After a few pictures it was time to explore. Odin desperately wanted to go swimming so we navigated our way to deck 11 to find the pool even though it was barely 70 degrees. There is a Minnie pool that is about 2’ deep and a Donald Duck pool that is much deeper. Neemo’s Reef is a splash pad for Whitaker. There’s also a big twisty slide and a raft tube ride that goes around the whole upper deck.

The kids swam for a few hours and we grabbed some lunch from the buffet at the Cabana’s. Then it was time for a safety meeting before we departed. The pools closed and Odin was mesmerized by the decks moving and covering the pools. We quickly changed, learned what to do in case of emergency and then it was back to the pool deck for a party! The kids sat up front and Mickey and all his friends came out for dancing and singing.

After the party we grabbed an ice cream cone and headed to the kids club open house so the kids could see what it was all about. We hustled to the room to change for dinner. The kids looked great and we were off to Animators Palate. We met our servers who will be with us all week. The theme of Animators Palate is obviously animation and the decorations were all concepts of different characters. The Turtle from Finding Nemo provided entertainment by visiting different sections of the restaurant via the screens and engaging with everyone. The food was excellent and the kids loved the Mickey bars for dessert. Whitaker was a hit with the wait staff.

They were exhausted after dinner but we powered through to the big theater for our first show: Paul Zeldin the ventriloquist. He was great. Whit was entertained, Liam laughed uncontrollably and we all had a great time. As we left the theater, Belle was in the hallway, this time in her ball gown. We grabbed a picture before finally heading to the room. All the kids slept in one room (bunk beds for the boys, huge bed for Ainsley and a pack-n-play for Whit) and Keely and I unpacked and organized until well after midnight.

What a magical first day at sea!