Continuing on...Cruise Details!

Our first full day on the cruise, May 3rd, we docked at Key West around 1130 a.m. Very nice port with some serious money floating in the water. Check out the picture of this yacht with the helicopter on back. Wowsers.

After some research prior to the trip, we'd decided to buy tickets on one of the Trolleys. It was a little pricey ($64 for the four of us), but they had 12 stops all over the island and you could get on/off at your choosing. At first I thought we had made a mistake...we got on the trolley and were HOT. Once it got moving though-there was a fabulous breeze throughout the trolley and our driver told us all sorts of interesting things and pointed stuff out as we zigged and zagged around the island. A word about our driver...we are still debating if it was a man or a woman. This being Key West anything is possible--it was a rather large person, with some manly hands, boobs, long hair, and deep voice. Their name was Ms. Vee. When we were driving along and I wasn't looking at him/her but just listening- you'd swear it was a guy. but every now and then you think it was a girl. No one got a good enough look to search for an Adam's Apple :) hee hee. Anyways we got on at stop 1, rode it for about 40 minutes to stop 10-so we could get pics at the Southernmost Point of the US.

We could have waited for another trolley to come along, but that would have been about 10-15 minutes, so we hoofed it a few blocks to the Key Lime Pie Factory a.k.a. the Blonde Giraffe. I'm not big on keylime pie-- but let me tell you--chocolate dipped keylime pie on a stick--YUMMY. Why I had it in my head it would be shaped like a banana or popsicle, I don't know. What I got was a big ol wedge of pie, on a stick, dipped in chocolate :)


A side note...I want to know who is reading this. Leave me a comment. First "x" number of comments will get a little pixiedust /something fun for your kiddo in the mail if I know your address. If I don't, leave your email addy in your comment and I'll email you. I'm testing you to see if you are reading this.

We got back to the ship a little while later. The Barnes' and the grandparents stopped in some shops, we went back to get Hannah down for a nap. I must tell you here that there was a pop machine at the port. With $2 bottles of Diet Dr. Pepper. At this point in the trip...I'd gone 5 days without Caffeine. I don't like coffee, coke, or diet coke....the only caffeine available on Disney property and at Disney Cruise lines. I would have paid $10 for a DDP. It wouldn't take my dollars and I didn't have change. Spongebob-overprotective-pants Matt didn't think I needed to get off the ship again and come back to get a DDP. I was a little peeved.

I should have journaled on the trip and I didn't. I was working hard to keep my head on, do all the fun things I wanted to do, and keep track of cameras, pacifiers, and room keys.

May 4th-Monday- was a day at sea. I wasn't sure how much I would like this, but I kept busy enough that I did seem to enjoy myself and didn't think too much about being out in the middle of the ocean where I couldn't swim myself back to shore. We went to "The Art of Entertaining" where the head chef demo'd how to make Crab Martinique-an appetizer from the night before. Brooke was in the kids-area, and Matt was snoozing with Hannah. Had some lunch, did some shopping and running around. More napping for Hannah, more kids-zone for Brooke, and some Bingo for me. They were giving away a cruise at that Bingo session. I did not win.


This night was formal night on the ship. Not to be confused with Captain's Gala night-- I don't understand why the Captain's Gala night is not the formal night. Anyways, we got dressed up and enjoyed a yummy dinner. The show that night was "the Golden Mickeys" which is a wonderful show. So the dessert I had was --you guessed it- the Golden Mickey-- a chocolate delectable delight. They even had little chocolate tickets with "Golden Mickeys" written on it in gold dust. How very neat.


We all went to the show after we got out of our formal clothes. I had Hannah in her jammies and after about 30 minutes of squirming and trying to rip my tank top off (she had a thing about my boobs all day. Do you think she remembers the first week of her life when she was actually breastfed?), she fell asleep so we were all able to enjoy the show. We put the kids down and then Matt and I went and explored the ship a little bit and bought some souveniers. We also stopped and talked to the guys at the Disney Vacation Club desk. We talked to them 2 yrs ago and were still interested, so we chatted a little with them. I'd picked the brains of some people on the trolley with us in Key West and it sounded like incentives were good... worth stopping by at least!


Tuesday May 5th we were in Grand Cayman. I was excited about this port, we had an excursion booked on a Semi-Submersible submarine. It was a short trek from the ship to the excursion (led nicely by a castmember holding up a big Sebastion sign on a stick so we could easily follow them thru the crowds). The Semi-Submarine thing was pretty neat. Got a little long, but all the kids really did pretty good with it. We even saw a few stingrays which was cool. On the way back, I took the time to actually look at all the crap they give you when you get off the boat and saw about three different "get a free pair of gemstone earrings" type coupons, etc. Ah-hah. The jewelry stores were trying to get you in there by giving you free stuff in hopes you'd buy something. between GrCay and Nassau, I came home with about 5 sets of gemstone necklaces/earrings for pretty much free. Yippee!


That evening back on the ship was Pirate Night. It is my favorite menu of the whole week. I think I wanted one of everything. I didn't indulge that much, but I did get two different appetizers- because I could! Yummy Yummy!! I think this was the first night where Hannah just could not sit at the table any longer. She was tired and CRABBY. Her teeth were hurting her like crazy. She was on tylenol strike. So I took her back to the room and Matt brought my dessert back with him. Gma and Gpa took Brooke to see "Disney's Earth" which was playing on the ship while we tried to put Hannah down for 2 hrs so we could then get her up at 945 to go up to Deck 10 to watch the Pirate Party. The ship is taken over by Captain Hook, there's some dancin and jammin, then Cap'n Mickey flies in to save the ship-- and fireworks are shot off the boat. It was a fun time...but Hannah was just exhausted. Matt and I had both missed the fireworks on our last cruise, and didn't want to miss them this time, but it wasn't fair to Hannah. So I took her back to the room and put her to bed, pouted a little bit (it's my blog, I can be honest here!), but was actually able to see the fireworks from the balcony so it all ended up okay. It was a late night and everyone was ready for bed.


Coming up - the last few days of the cruise!