We got back from our Tahoe vacation this afternoon.  And man, I tell you what, time-shares are the only way to travel when you have kids.  They may be the only way to travel period.  It was beyond awesome having full access to a kitchen, living room, laundry, parking, etc.  We ate out a lot, yes.  But we also were able to fix breakfast at the condo, make lunches, reheat pizza and whatever else we needed.  That was a godsend.  The kids loved having room to play and be themselves too.  The boys shared the second bedroom (with a TV in there!  Harry brought his Wii and promptly hooked it up and I heard a lot of Mario Kart going on in there) while Evie bunked with us in the pack n play.  I did diaper laundry in the washing machine and dryer, we watched movies on the dvd player, played board games at the kitchen table and stored our booze in the fridge.

What more could you want from a vacation?

I also discovered a yarn store in South Lake Tahoe and picked up some yarn for a gift for my sister’s new baby.  She was due Valentine’s Day.  Interestingly enough, my newest niece was born this afternoon!  So I need make with the knitting and get this done!  But YAY for a new niece!  She doesn’t have a name yet, as far as I know, but I’m anxiously awaiting that information.  And more pictures.  Dang, if I could be there to get in some good baby holding.  I loves me some baby holding.

We had a lot of fun while we were in Tahoe.  We constantly warred with our (in particular MY) inner cheapskates.  Kile would assure us that it was okay to pay out the nose for the horse drawn sleigh ride.  And eat out at the super yummy but rather pricey lakefront seafood restaurant.  And take the paddle-wheel boat ride to Emerald Bay and back.  It was a lot of fun, but I constantly fretted over the cost.

I’m such a kill joy.

But we did have some good eats.  The seafood restaurant I mentioned is the Blue Water Bistro and I heartily recommend it if you’re ever in the area.  It’s a little spendy but worth every penny as the fish we had there was beyond yummy.  And the service was spot on.  We did that on Monday night (Sunday was take and bake pizza from Whole Foods).  Tuesday night, Kile got take out from Izzy’s Burger Spa, a place well known among the locals for having awesome burgers and amazing onion rings.  It did not disappoint and take out was the perfect option so that we were easily in place for the big “Lost” premiere that night (side note: WTF??).  The last night, we appeased Harrison and went to the Hard Rock Cafe in Harvey’s casino downtown.  We couldn’t resist ordering drinks that came in souvenir glasses to go with the Hurricane glass I got at the HRC in Nassau over the summer.

All in all:  YUMMO.

It’s hard to sum up a trip like this with mere words, so in closing I’m just going to share some pictures that I snapped up there.  I didn’t take as many as I probably should have.  But here they be!

As you can see, Lake Tahoe is a gorgeous place.  I can’t think of a better place to vacation in the winter!

Even when there’s plenty to complain about (and let’s face it: in blogland, there is always something to complain about), I still know just how lucky I am.  In fact, I think I could be luckier than most.

I’m lucky that all of my kids like to sleep.  On the weekends, we usually don’t see any of them before 9 am.  On weekdays, Liam usually wakes up earlier because Harry gets up earlier to get ready for school.  And since Harry is incapable of being quiet while getting ready, Liam wakes up and is ready to go!  But Evie almost always sleeps until after 9 am on weekdays too.  Bless her heart.

I’m lucky that the little ones are so good with their naps!  Liam doesn’t always sleep but he likes to be up in his room, playing with the toys up there.  Harry isn’t there to rain on his parade and Evie isn’t there to steal his things from under his nose.  And I’m not there to get on his case!  Sometimes he snoozes too, sometimes he doesn’t.  And Evie takes a good 2 hour (sometimes more!) nap too. This gives me some great time in the afternoon to get things done and have a little “me” time!

I’m lucky that my husband has such a steady and secure job.  Working for the state isn’t perfect, but all things considered, it’s pretty darn good.  He has wonderful job security, even when the state is having troubles.  He has wonderful health insurance, at least compared to some peoples’ plans.  He gets plenty of sick and vacation days even if he doesn’t usually spend all of them.  At least we know that if something ever comes up (like when I broke my ankle or when Jackson died) he can easily take time off without worrying about it.

I’m lucky that Kile likes to cook as much as he does and that he doesn’t mind fixing dinner for us every night.  In fact, there are some meals he makes that are on my list of favorite things to eat!  Like cowboy spaghetti or the mustard grilled hamburgers.  And he can blend a mean margarita too.  This man is a jack of all trades.

Speaking of him, I’m lucky that he is such a wonderful father.  There is little more important to Kile than his family.  His kids are his pride and joy and it shows.  He loves spending time with them on the weekends, riding bikes with Harry or playing in the backyard with Liam or swinging Evie around until she squeals with delight.  And these kids love him too.  It’s the most genuine and pure thing and it is just wonderful to be able to witness.  I love that I never have to question leaving the kids with him and that he doesn’t even flinch when it comes time to change a dirty diaper.

I’m lucky that we have a good house to live in and that is belongs to us.  Sure, the housing market has gone kablooie, but we have a nice place to live and it’s filled with nice furniture and things to make our everyday life simpler and nicer.

I’m lucky that we don’t have very much debt.  Debt always makes me worry, even if there isn’t any trouble paying it back.  You never know what will happen and if a source of income were to suddenly disappear, I would feel awful knowing I had debt that would be difficult to pay back.  Besides the house, virtually everything we own is paid for.  Even our cars!  Which is probably why we’re so reluctant to get a new one.   We’re talking about getting an LED or LCD TV after Christmas.  And I know that if and when we do, we will pay for it with cash.  This is so much easier on my peace of mind!

I’m lucky that I don’t have to work. We don’t necessarily NEED a second income.  Sure there are a few things we have to sacrifice.  But when it comes down to it, we don’t mind missing out on the things we have to sacrifice.  And being able to stay at home with the children, while frustrating at times, is worth it.

I’m lucky for all my friends. Yes, even though they’re online or otherwise so far away.  Maybe it’s not as convenient as having someone a couple blocks away, but knowing that I can get support, someone to chat with and someone to laugh with at a moment’s notice is a wonderful thing indeed. No drama needed here.  Just good old fashioned friendship.

I’m lucky to have three of the most adorable and sweet children on the planet.  Harry is fun to hang out with and very loving to his family members.  Liam is always good for a giggle and is getting smarter by the day.  Evie is so good natured and loves to have a good snuggle first thing in the morning.  There isn’t a single thing I would change about any of them.  They make everything in this world worth living.

And lastly, I’m lucky that I had such a great weekend with my family.  I enjoyed every moment, even though there was that whole thing on Sunday where my social anxiety reared it’s ugly head and made my stomach hurt with the mere thought of spending the day with some fun people.  I’d do it all again and again and again just to get to spend the time with the family.  Lunch at Texas Roadhouse, browsing sidewalk sales at Legends, watching parades in Virginia City… just awesome!

Now that I’ve bragged on myself and my family, what are the things and people that make you lucky?

I’m losing y’all, aren’t I? You’re beyond tired of hearing about this trip, aren’t you? I apologize. But I want to get it written down before I forget a lot of the details, mostly so that I can look back and remember it better. Having this record of our trip is so important to me. I assure you though, that after today, there will be no more “daily trip reports” and there will be only ONE more post about the Disney Extravaganza. So just hold onto your panties and be patient. We’re almost done!

Wednesday, August 12

Today was a day at sea and the only day that we didn’t wake up in port somewhere.  Outside our porthole was sea, sea and more sea.  And there was a lot of sea to see. (*snort*)

And yes… it really WAS that blue.  As Kile remarked, it was the sort of blue that you see in people’s water fountains where they dye the water to make it look blue.  But this water was naturally that blue.  Just amazing.

We slept a little longer than we had wanted.  We were wanting to try a breakfast at Triton’s on our last day and they stopped serving at nine (I think… see, I’m already starting to forget!).  We threw clothes on ourselves and the kids and headed down.  It was a table service breakfast so I ordered eggs benedict.  We got our orders in just before they closed the galley for the morning.  Whew!

After breakfast I took the opportunity to take a few pictures of the beautiful atrium.  I hadn’t had a chance yet.

That last picture there shows the line at Guest Services.  People wanting to settle their accounts, pay their tips, arrange for on-board airline check in, etc.  We didn’t have all our information with us, but Kile would return later.  They made a special exception for us and got online to get our Southwest boarding group for us.  Whew!

We put Harry in the Oceaneer’s Lab again today, though he seemed a little less than thrilled.  We promised him we would get him before we went to the pool later on.

In the meantime, we wanted to take the little kids to the splash zone up on Deck 9.  Kids that aren’t potty trained could play in the splash zone and they both really enjoyed it.  Especially Evie.  She had a BLAST.

We had lunch up on Deck 9 as well, grabbing sandwiches and burgers and such things at Goofy’s Galley and the other similar counter service places up there.  We sat by the pool (in the shade, of course) and munched and just enjoyed the atmosphere.   After lunch, Evie was feeling drowsy so I took her down to the room to nurse her and put her down for a nap.  Kile and Liam followed shortly thereafter.

We had arranged to put the littles ones in the nursery for a couple hours in the afternoon so we could enjoy time in the pools without having to worry about them.  We got Harry from the Lab and headed up to the pools yet again.  The boys tried the Goofy Pool which was SUPER crowded (and rather small, frankly) while I squeezed into a hot tub (that wasn’t terribly hot but that was FINE by me… the bubbles felt awesome).  I considered trying the adult pool but for some reason, felt a little intimidated.  Kile and Harry went over to the Mickey Pool so Harry would try out the slide at long, long last.  I’m not entirely sure what I did at this point as I’ve already forgotten.  But I think I went down to the room to chill out for a few.  The boys returned after a while, bringing the little ones with them.

Dinner that night was at Parrot Cay, but it was table service instead of buffet.  Everything was very colorful and felt very laid back.   I felt very resistant about it being our last night.  I wasn’t ready for the cruise to be over.

As you can see, Evie had quite the appetite.   She loved eating on that cruise.  She also turned into a total fruit bat and now will do anything for a slice of watermelon.  She also loved sitting on the end of the table and watching everything that happened.  This cruise was developing in her a deep love of the performing arts.

I also took the opportunity to take a couple of artsy-esque pictures.

I took a quick picture of Harry as we left Parrot Cay because I wanted to get a good one of him and I wanted to get a picture in one of the oversized portholes.  I had to use flash though… a real quality DSLR would have been awesome on this trip!

After dinner, we had an hour or so until the show (Disney “Dreams”, tonight), so we headed to our room to pack.  Yep.  Pack.  We had to have our bags outside the room by 11pm.  And we didn’t want to have to do all of it after the show so we wanted to get a good head start on it.  The good news was we had most of it done by the time we left for the show. Oh and I didn’t neglect taking a picture of our towel animal tonight: a swan!

And the show was AWESOME.  I think it was my favorite of all three stage shows.  There were a lot of really neato elements, such as sparkling lights, fireworks, bubbles… They really made it special for the audience.  And Evie just adored it.  Again, she sat very still for the show, as did Liam.

After the show, we had to get the kids to bed and we had to finish packing.  We had it done pretty quickly and were able to sit back, enjoy some more room service cheese and crackers and reminisce on our wonderful trip.  Neither of us wanted it to be over.

Alas, all good things must come to an end.  And the next morning dawned early for us.  While the trip home was something of a nightmare, we would have done it all again just to be able to do this trip again.  It was AMAZING.  And I’m so beyond grateful to my parents for taking everyone on it.

And thank YOU for reading along, if you have managed not to be bored to death so far.  It’s like looking at someone elses’s vacation slide-show, isn’t it?  But I had to share just how much this trip meant to us.  So thanks for humoring me and tagging along.

Tuesday, August 11

We woke up in port again, and yet again, I didn’t feel a thing.  We were sleeping like stones at night.  A by product of the busy days at WDW and on the boat itself.  The kids even slept through the night without barely a stir.

The difference this morning is that we were woken up by a phone call.  It was Harry, up in my parent’s stateroom.  My parents were going to breakfast and Harry wanted to go to breakfast with us.  Did he know the way down to our room?  Of course not.  So Kile had to throw on clothes and go get him.

It was earlier than we might have otherwise gotten up, but it wasn’t an entirely bad thing either.  We were hoping to get off the boat and get a good spot set up on the beach under an umbrella.  I had heard that if you don’t get their relatively early, you can miss out.  And if there’s one thing I knew about myself: without shade, I was not worth a whole lot.

On our way to breakfast, I took a quick picture of the hallway outside our room.  It was a very long hall:

That’s looking forward.  It’s a long way forward from our room.  But that was okay, because we grew to have a fond spot for the aft portion of the ship.  Forward was for squares.  Midship was for pansies.  Aft was where it was at.  HAR!

Okay, so we decided to do the Parrot Cay buffet for breakfast.  And it was MUCH better than the Beach Blanket Buffet.  We were rather pleased as we gorged on breakfast goodies.  There’s no end to the food on cruise ships, just in case you were wondering.  It’s EVERYWHERE.

After breakfast, we had to get ready for….

Castaway Cay!  And yes, that IS the Flying Dutchman there on the right.  It may not look like much from here but Castaway Cay is where I want to go to die.  It’s just awesome.  And completely stress-free.  We stuffed ourselves into our swimsuits, sprayed ourselves down with sunblock (I have to give mad props to Banana Boat for Kids/Babies (we had both) tear-free sunblock because NO ONE got burned when we used it.  And we didn’t have to obsessively reapply either.  And in case you weren’t aware, I’m entirely white and prone to burning so that is a BIG DEAL) and were ready to hit the beach.

Again, we could have waited for the tram but we decided to just hoof it.

It was like something out of a Corona commercial.  I kid you not.  We even spotted none other than “Captain Jack Sparrow” on our way to the beach.  This guy did a good Captain Jack, too.  It was uncanny.  He had the voice and the mannerisms DOWN.

See him?  No?

How about now?  He was a crowd favorite that day.

We dropped Harry at “Scuttle’s Cove” which had all sorts of children’s programming on the island.  But I sorta wish we’d kept him with us.  He didn’t get any chance to play in the water with them and I think some of the activities kind of bored him.  Kile had gone to check on him at lunchtime but wasn’t able to ask Harry directly if he wanted to stay.  Oh well!  NEXT TIME!

We were able to quickly find the perfect spot on the beach to set up camp.  It was under not just an umbrella but a palm tree as well.  We gathered a bunch of chairs and loungers around, just in case anyone wanted to join us (and eventually they did).  It was… heaven.

White sand beaches?  Check.  Blue-Green ocean?  Check.  Palm trees?  Check.  Bright umbrellas?  Check.  Just awesome.

We pretty much went in the water right away with the little ones.  And yes, you could just walk right in.  It was like bath-water.  One of the ships photographers came along and took a picture of Evie and I (yes, while in the water!) and Kile bought it on our last moments on the boat.  Beware for my hideous-ness but Evie was sure cute:

Liam loved the ocean too and I think we could have stayed out there all day.  But I didn’t want Evie to get water logged too much at once.  So we eventually returned to our little “nest”.

After the kids played on the sand a bit, we went back for another dip in the water.  It was hard not to!  If we hadn’t had the little ones to chase around, I would have liked to rent an innertube and float around like I saw many other people doing.  That water was intoxicating!

Eventually, we got hungry so we dried off and went in search of food.  The cruise had a BBQ buffet set up just down the path from where we were.  We went and loaded up on bbq ribs and a very tasty mahi-mahi sandwhich along with chips and cous-cous salad and lots of lemonade.  Being out in the sun makes you hungry!  After we ate, we stopped by the souvenir stand to see if we could find anything we loved there.  We knew we wanted some postcards, since we’d heard you pretty much HAVE to send a postcard from Castaway Cay.  And Kile and I still hadn’t found any t-shirts we loved.

As it so happens, Kile found the PERFECT t-shirt and they happened to have ONE more in his size!  It was perfect for him and he was very happy with it.  I got desperate and went with a t-shirt that had a picture of the beach and the boat, said Castaway Cay and 2009 on it.  Pretty good, but it was quite larger than I would normally get.  And it wasn’t the sort of cut I was hoping for.  But every “girly” shirt I saw was outrageously expensive and this one was a very reasonable price.  The cheapskate in me caved and I got it.  We were able to send all our purchases (sans the postcards, of course) back to the boat to pick up later.

We returned to the beach and hung out there with some of my siblings for a while.  Evie was exhausted so she took a nap on one of the lounge chairs.

Too cute.  Kile and Liam went back into the ocean and I found some reputable family members to keep an eye on Evie while I went back into the water myself.  Again, I could have stayed out there forever.  It was just bliss.  And the water was SO salty, that I was able to lay back and float with no trouble at all.  Ahh…

I only returned to shore because I saw Kile holding Evie, who had woken up.  It was getting close to the time we had agreed to head back to the ship.  We wanted to be out of the super heat of the late afternoon and we also wanted to catch a screening of “Up” in the theater on the ship.  We had even arranged to put the wee ones in the nursery while we did it.  So it was time to pack it up and head back to the boat.  Kile went to get Harry from Scuttle’s Cove and we found out he hadn’t been in the ocean at all.  Kile offered to take him down there for a few minutes and I took Evie back to the boat myself, since she was DONE.  I sensed she wanted to nurse, but wouldn’t consider the sippy cup.   I took a few pictures on my way back, mostly of the Flying Dutchman.

Back on the ship, it was time to get clean.  Evie and I both were a little sandy, despite having rinsed off at the beach showers, sticky from the sea water and greasy from the sunblock.  Bleh.  My plan, flawed as it was, was to bring Evie in the shower with me in hopes that she would stand or sit still while I washed my hair, then I would pick her up and wash her down.

It didn’t go quite that smoothly.

She wasn’t terribly interested in staying still.  And as the Disney Cruise doesn’t believe in no-slip bathtubs, she fell down.  A lot.  And cried.  A lot.  But we got it done eventually.  And while we were in there, Kile and the boys came back and I was able to holler at Kile to fetch Evie and dry her off so I could dry off myself.  While I was dressing her and nursing her back to her old self, it was Kile’s turn to take a shower with Liam, though Liam cooperated a lot better than Evie had.

Once we were all dressed and ready, we dropped the little ones off at the nursery, which was conveniently located right next to the theater.  We grabbed our 3-D glasses and headed in.  The theater is truly a full-sized movie theater and I’m a little sad we didn’t try to go see more movies there.  But G-Force and Hannah Montana didn’t appeal to us that much, believe it or not.

The 3-D was AMAZING.  The glasses irritated me a little but it was worth it.  Almost like seeing a different movie!  And it was nice to see “Up” outside of the drive-in and I caught more details this time than I had on the first viewing.  Best of all?  FREE.  Free is good.

After the movie, we killed a little time and then picked up the wee ones.  It was time to head to dinner, so we took a quick picture of everyone out on the deck before heading back to the Animator’s Palette.

They were all a lot happier than this picture lets on, believe me!  And yes, we were back at sea, the boat having left Castaway Cay at 5pm.  And this time?  I didn’t feel it at all.  I was getting VERY used to it.

It was Pirate Night and the Animator’s Palette was the best place to celebrate, I’m sure of it!  All the waitstaff was dressed up like pirates, the table cloths and linens were colorful and we had festive, themed menus.  Let the fun begin!

I had scallops and shrimp and it was fantastic.  I’m not even a big scallops person and they were awesome.  Evie LOVED all the extra excitement of the evening and kept everyone entertained the way she clapped and cheered while the waitstaff paraded around the dining room for us, whooping and hollering.  It was all a big show to her and she ate it all up.  Loved every single minute.  The girl, she knows how to party.

The staff had a cake for us that night, for my parents.  In honor of their fiftieth anniversary this year.  That was pretty cool.

The show that night was “G-Force” in, you guessed it, 3-D.  Kile and I weren’t terribly hot to see it and the little ones were getting rather desperate for sleep.  So my brother’s family offered to take him with them.  Sweet!  We took the little ones down to the room and found our nightly towel animal waiting for us:

I also realized that I had been very remiss in taking pictures of our towel animals to date.  The first night we had a dog, and the second night it was an elephant.  Both were adorable and I’m a fool for not taking pictures.  But at least I got the towel monkey!

The little ones went to sleep VERY easy that night after their big day.  We watched some TV but started to feel bad about missing the big pirate party above-decks.  Around 10pm or so, we came to a decision:  the little ones were well asleep.  We could run up there, watch the fireworks, and then head back down to our room.  No harm, no foul!  Right?

We hoofed up to Deck 10 (no small feat since there were areas closed off and elevators to nowhere and all that fun stuff).  There was the dance party underway which we didn’t really care about, but it was fun to watch anyhow.

We cruised around the deck a little bit, went as far forward as we could.  It was dark out on the ocean.

We returned to the party where things started getting a little more interesting, what with the introduction of pirates and Mickey Mouse himself. And then? The fireworks.

The perfect end to the perfect day. Truly.

Coming up: a day at sea! And our last day on the boat. Aww, nuts.

Getting tired of these posts yet?  TOO BAD!  We’re only halfway through.  It was a looooong (and awesome) vacation.

Sunday, August 9

We woke up early, to make sure that we had all our bags ready to go when the porters came by at 8 to pick them up.  We were going to have a few small bags with us, such as my purse and Kile’s carry on/diaper bag.  The rest were going on the bus!  Even the carseats since you can’t use carseats on buses.  Did you know that?  I didn’t.  Now I do!

We hurried but we still were running short on time and weren’t quite 100% ready when they came for the bags.  Luckily, they were busy dealing with the rest of my family so we were able to catch the last minute things and gather them together.  And then?  Our bags were GONE.

We had a decision on what to do that day.  We had several hours until our bus was leaving for the boat.  Not enough time to go to one of the parks, but too long to sit around an empty hotel room.  We could have gone to the pool but I didn’t want to have to deal with wet suits.  We decided to go back to Downtown Disney.  Harry had missed out on going back on our first day and he still needed to pick out a souvenir from the Disney store and he desperately wanted to see the Lego store there too.

The boats weren’t running quite that early so we took the bus, which stopped at Typhoon Lagoon first.  It made me sad we weren’t able to do the water parks while we were there.  Something to add to our “must do” list for next time!  When we got to Downtown Disney, nothing was really open quite yet.  We took our time walking through and took some pictures of the Lego sculptures outside the infamous Lego store.

Yes, ALL of those were 100% made out of Legos.  Amazing.  And awesome.  Harry was entranced (as you can see).  While the boys waited the few minutes remaining for the store to open, Evie and I went next door to the World of Disney store that was opening already (for the  ”Bibbity Bobbity Boutique” located in the girl’s section which was already cranking out little princess in tiaras and sausage curls at this early hour).

Yeah… not too impressed with the princesses just yet.  And I am perfectly okay with that, otherwise just walking into that store would have cost me a small fortune.   We wandered around the store, in a daze pretty much, until we met the boys over there.  Harry decided he wanted a t-shirt as his souvenir.  He wanted something with Epcot on it, specifically, but if you can believe it we weren’t able to find anything.  We did eventually find a great shirt that had all the parks on it and he was happy with that.  I also got a “Cars” themed WDW shirt for Liam that I had had my eye on for several days.  And I found Evie the most perfect “My first trip to WDW” tshirt.   But for me and for Kile?  That’s where it got sticky.  I was pretty particular with what I wanted.  And also cheap.  Everything I wanted was really expensive.  Everything that was more reasonably priced, was too flashy for my taste.  I didn’t want something emblazoned with brightly colored Disney characters.  But I wanted something that said Disney World or something akin on it.  And the year wouldn’t be bad.  A tall order!

I found the perfect  sweatshirt that I desperately wanted.  However, I couldn’t reconcile myself to the price.  Even now, I wish I had gotten it because I loved it so.  But oh well.  Too late now!  It’s what I get for being so damned cheap.  Of course, it turns out there were about fifteen thousand other Disney stores in Downtown Disney that we never even saw.  I guess we should have explored some more!   Kile and I decided we would just have to try to find tshirts on the cruise.  We picked out a few things for the co-worker who was kind enough to shuttle us to and from the airport.  And then we were on our way back to the resort.

The boats were running by then so we caught one and rode back, trying to savor our last trip along the lazy, winding river system.  Back at the resort, I thought I should maybe take a couple pictures of it to remember it by.  I never did take pictures of our hotel room but I can assure you it looked something like this.

Looking down towards the pool area

The lobby from the “inside” of the resort

We found a table to situate ourselves in near the lobby and the cafeteria.  I had the munchies (no breakfast that morning, but again, not much point since shortly we would be on the boat and it would be EAT EAT EAT, all the time!) so I grabbed a drink and a toasted bagel from the cafeteria.  The rest of my family started trickling in, as did other guests who were going on the cruise.

We didn’t have to wait too terribly long before the employees prodded us outside and onto t

he waiting Disney Cruise bus.  Time to say goodbye to the French Quarter and to Disney World!  It felt sad to leave, even though we were embarking on another amazing adventure.  I wish I could have stayed another week!

The bus ride wasn’t terribly long but Evie was VERY squirmy and I had a hard time keeping her still.  The bus had movie screens on it and they showed some Disney cartoons as well as some promotional material for the cruise to get us all jazzed.  I think I was beyond being jazzed at that point though, and was mostly just frustrated trying to keep Evie happy and NOT scratching my sunburned neck.  (Yes, I had been STUPID that first day and didn’t put sunblock on before our first trip to the parks.   A mistake I did NOT repeat, thank goodness!) (Also, notice my out of control bangs.  It did not matter that I straightened them hours before.  My straightener had NOTHING on the Florida humidity.  UGH.)

It wasn’t long before we were pulling up in front of the boat in Port Canaveral.   I didn’t take many pictures at this point because I was so frustrated with dealing with Evie and just wanted to get the show on the road, so to speak.  It was all a lot better once we had her back in the stroller where she (and her sharp claws) (note to self: clip fingernails before trip next time) was contained.

Checking in was a piece of cake since we had essentially already done all of that at the resort.  All we had to do was go up to a gal, get Evie a  “Key to the World”card (we’d already gotten ours at the resort) and have her snap some quick pictures of us to put into the system.   Then… it was onward to the ship!   It was only now that I thought, “Hmm… I should take a picture!”

We checked in with our cards and then got an embarkation portrait done (in which we all looked like zombies so we didn’t purchase one).  Next thing we knew, we were walking onto the ship, being greeted by the staff and found ourselves in the gorgeous atrium.

Since it was after 1pm at this point, we could get into our rooms so we headed right there.  We made a mistake in taking the midships elevators.  We came to hate the midship elevators because they were always SO busy.  And we needed an entire elevator to ourselves since ourselves and our two strollers took up the entire thing.  Eventually, we got down to Deck 2 and then worked our way aft towards our room.  (Aft is “the back of the boat, to the nautically challenged out there.)

Woot!  The room was small, yes, but bigger than it could have been.  And our “porthole” was awesome.  We all settled ourselves in (but we didn’t unpack… something else I would probably change should we ever do something like this again) and took some pictures.

The view out our porthole at the Carnival ship docked nearby

As you can see, it’s rather tight near the door (and the doors to the bathroom and shower) with the strollers there.  We would constantly be battling where to park the strollers and often folded them up and put them in the closet to get them out of the way.

We headed back out to get some lunch at Parrot Cay up on Deck 3.  It was the nicer of the two buffets and we were hungry for some good cruise food!  We wandered around a little after that, exploring the upper decks to see the pools.  There were already quite a few people in the pools, particularly the Mickey pool with the slide.

We also checked out the children’s programming.  We got Harry signed up for the Oceaneer’s Lab and stopped in to check out Flounder’s Nursery too.  Since Liam isn’t potty trained yet, we couldn’t use the Oceaneer’s Club for him, but we could put him in the nursery if we wanted.  We were thinking we needed a break from the little ones so we made a reservation right then and there to put them in for two hours later on so we could enjoy dinner in peace.  It was $6 an hour for the first child, $5 for the second.  $11 an hour seemed a small price to pay for the sanity.

We headed back to our room for the safety drill.  We all had to suit up in lifejackets and follow the instructions on the PA system.

There was even a wee little lifejacket for Evie which she didn’t care for in the slightest.  We found our assembly point and assembled.  A crew member kindly told us we could take the little ones out of their lifejackets to keep them settled.  That helped a lot!  It wasn’t too long before we could go back to our room.  Our luggage wasn’t there yet, but we set up the pack n’ play crib for Evie and checked out the movies on the television.  We could watch Disney movies at any time of day, and even some other flicks like Star Trek (which I did end up watching several times) and Monsters vs. Aliens.  We chose to sit out the Deck Party/Send Off up at the pools, rathering to chill out instead.

We were underway!  And we could DEFINITELY feel the motion of the boat.  It was almost like flying, but with no turbulence.   A constant, gentle motion.  And the constant but quiet thrum of the engines below.  Still, it took some getting used to.

We still weren’t used to it when we went up to Deck 3 for dinner at Tritons later on.  We had dropped the little ones off at the nursery and they hadn’t even been sad to see us go.  They had their eyes on all the fun toys in the nursery and couldn’t have cared less about us!  Unfortunately, Harry wasn’t feeling so well.  I don’t think it was entirely seasickness, I think he was tired (again from the super long day we put in the day before and the late night the night before that) and a little dehydrated.  He had a headache and felt dizzy and tired.   Kile eventually took him down to our room so he could sleep and then rejoined the rest of us to eat.

The food at Tritons was great, it was “French dinner” night and while Kile was brave enough to try the escargot, I stuck with the french onion soup.  I had a wonderful lobster pasta dish for dinner and a sampler dish for dessert (I would have the sampler dessert every night, so I could try a little of everything!).  It was all very good but my stomach was definitely not used to the rich food yet!

After dinner, Kile checked on Harry, who was content to stay in the room and then we picked up the little ones from the nursery.  There was a show that night, “The Golden Mickeys” and we all went to see that.

The little kids really enjoyed the show and stayed surprisingly still while it was on.  Evie just loved the song and dance and fanfare.  The applause was probably her favorite part.

By the time the show was over, we were all bushed.  We headed back to the room where the luggage had been delivered (Kile had actually seen it when he first took Harry down to the room during dinner).  We got the kids all set in bed, with Harry in the pull down bunk, Liam on the fold down sofa bed (with a bed rail) and Evie in the pack n’ play.  We pulled the curtain across to block the light in the room from them and settled down.  This is where we found a serious flaw: the tv was located on the kid’s side of the curtain.  We couldn’t have the curtain drawn and watch TV at the same time.  On later nights, we would just pull the curtain across enough to block most of the light while we could still see the TV.  But it would have been nice to have a TV across from our bed.

We ordered from room service and got the infamous cheese platter we had heard so much about.  It didn’t disappoint.

We didn’t stay up terribly late though… we were rather tired from our exciting day.  So with the engines thrumming beneath us and the boat ever so gently rocking, we all fell fast asleep.

Coming up: stopping in Nassau!