Day 3 - The Big Blue

Today was our first sea day, or as Crush the turtle says... the Big Blue, dude.

We all slept later than we had anticipated, but it didn't surprise me too much, since I sleep great on cruises. But it did make the little lady and I need to rush a bit to get to the Princess meet and greet. We arrived at the listed start time and there were at least 100 people in front of us in line. But Disney does this for a living and have it down to a science, so the wait wasn't horrible and we even got to meet a prince along the way.

Princess meet and greet

While we were meeting the local royalty, the boys were exploring the ship a bit and polishing off our quick breakfast. I dropped the little lady off at the kids clubs on board, which she has been LOVING, and headed back to the room...which had already been cleaned :)

Hubby hit the gym and sauna in the ships “Rainforest Room”. I dragged our son down to the shops before we had lunch. He picked out the required vacation T-shirt and a model of the ship to display at home. I got a cruise line beach towel and a mystery pin to add to my collection.

In the afternoon we all came back together to watch the ships executive pastry chef make apple strudel. It was part of the “Anyone can cook” series they have on board. It was low key and very interesting. Our cooking-channel-loving boy decided even Alton Brown could learn something from this chef, which made a few of the people seated around us smile, since he declared it in the middle of the presentation. We didn't stay quite to the end of the presentation, but we did sample the finished product. I hate to eat and run, but he was running a bit long, time wise and we had plans to see the afternoon matinee of Aladdin. So we ate and ran... sorry. It was good eats!

The show was fun, You know the story and have seen the movie, this was about an hour long and they did a nice job. The kids enjoyed it and once again we were off. This time to take them both to the kids club for an activity. With a very little time to ourselves we stopped at the future cruise reservation desk and talked with them about a future cruise and did some ironing before formal night.. hubby ironed clothes and I ironed my hair... curling ironed ;)

He picked the kids up and it was time to get all dressed up. By the way they were both talking a mile a minute about their club activity, it was a blast apparently :)

For dinner tonight we dined in Animator's Palate, and we had a special guest at dinner...Crush the turtle! Our serving team is getting to know our likes etc. -- They brought the second basket of bread before we asked tonight and I would expect them to have the kids drink orders down in the next night or two. Anyway, dinner and the show were great, we even still looked somewhat tidy when it was over, so we hit the photographers in the lobby on our way upstairs, and had a picture taken. We will see how it turns out.

both taken after dinner

Since we already saw the show for the night (Aladdin) we hit the pool deck. Yes, we changed first, a long dress doesn't work so well on the water slide ;)

On this ship the big water slide is called the AquaDuck.... and it's fast, you actually go up a hill at one point. We rode two to a tube (they are double seater tubes). I went first with our boy and Hubby and the little lady followed. Well, halfway down I was hoping at least one kid wouldn't want to go again ;) It was fun, but once was enough for me in a sitting. And when I saw our daughter's face as she climbed out I knew I had found the kid to hang out with. Our son LOVED it and he and hubby went back up the stairs to get in line, while us girls found the Mickey pool to splash about.

Ok, so now I have a minor gripe (I know, I am on vacation, and everything is sunshine and flowers, but this I don’t get). They have a screen - for movies and the like, outside by the pools. And by screen I mean HUGE screen. Its like a movie theater size screen. Now the idea of being able to show movies outside seems great....but the reality I experienced tonight was a pool full of people, sitting in the water, watching a movie. Not swimming, not playing, but watching Gnomeo and Juliet. Seems like you kind of miss the fun of swimming.  The movie had really just started when we got to the pools and our little lady was quite distracted by it, as was everyone else. (Maybe I just have it all wrong, people don’t go to swim, but to watch a flix, and hey, let's sit here in the water while we do? I am trying here.)

So we hung out til the boys had another go around on the AquaDuck, then declared it time for bed. The kids weren't happy to say the least.

So I haven't seen all of Gnomeo and Juliet, but I assume it doesn't end well for the cute little lawn gnomes.... not sure I want to get into all that with my 6 year old tonight.

Our departure from the pool deck was wrought with emotion - and bedtime didn't come easily. But they are asleep or at least quiet enough now that I can type for a bit. Overall it was a good day, despite having to leave the pool deck before they wanted to. When we asked our water slide loving boy how many times would have been enough, so he was ready to leave peacefully.... the answer came back.... “26”! Ha! Sure kid, keep dreaming :)

One last story from our day: Our son loves lots of things, trains being high on the list, followed closely by cooking shows - Good Eats has been a family favorite for years. As a toddler there were times when the only thing that would calm him was the opening credits of Good Eats (the song with the food kaleidoscope), just ask hubby about the 2004 election night, sometime. So it's fair to say he has seen every episode at least once, which is part of why he said with complete confidence that Alton Brown could learn something from the ship's executive pastry chef... I am still giggling about that. Well, tonight was formal night and our dapper boy wore black pants, a white shirt, a black vest and a black tie. He and hubby were heading to the dining room when he commented to his dad: “This is a great uniform...I look like a bartender.”. It took hubby all of 20 seconds to put the pieces together.... Good Eats has done a handful of episodes that had recipes (formulas?) for cocktails and in those often Mr. Brown dons similar attire to what our amazing boy had on this evening. To say hubby had a hard time containing his laughter would be putting it mildly.

So Alton Brown if you ever stumble across this, please don't take offense - in either my son's lack of faith in your ability to produce a superior apple strudel or his lack of interest in growing up to be a bartender.