Welcome back! Ready for this? I promise lots of photo and not too much talking .... I hope! We left off last time with getting in our cabin. So here we are - testing out the porthole accommodations. Quite comfy, and I promise Katura wasn't the only one to spend time sitting in that window! After taking photos of every inch of our room we were ready to head to a meet and greet for those of us in the private Facebook group for this sailing. I was taking my girl to yet another bar!
We let her be our guide down the hallways. Aww, I miss that hall already. I'm happy they are narrow - because when you mix a girl with Meniere's Disease and a ship in the ocean - well I was all over those walls! But it was also fun so I totally didn't care.
We let her be our guide down the hallways. Aww, I miss that hall already. I'm happy they are narrow - because when you mix a girl with Meniere's Disease and a ship in the ocean - well I was all over those walls! But it was also fun so I totally didn't care.
Here's a photo of a cute girl and a cute mouse.
We visited Pub 687 for the private meet and greet gathering for those of us in the Facebook group for this sailing. Our time there was pretty brief since we wanted to explore the ship and get ice cream! But I met a couple people, helped them with their Bingo game, collected our bracelets and got some photos -- all while these two played checkers!
We also made it a point to go to the open house for the Oceaneer's Club. This is where Katura could go play with other kids without any parents around. She loved it! She had a lot of fun during open house and then made multiple visits throughout the cruise. Here are some photos of just parts of it. It takes up so much of deck 5, its super cool!
The kids cannot even start their play time until they have washed their hands. Check this out - they just put their hands into those holes and it does all the washing for them! Then they dry them off and they are good to go!
Is that not the cutest bathroom? Those sinks are so low, and so are the toilets!
The Oceaneer's Lab is connected to the Club and has slightly older activities that happen. She was able to freely go back and forth between the two. She could NOT, however, leave the Oceaneer area without one of us. We had to scan our card - which brings up our faces, cabin number, names AND a secret word. We had to give all of this info and then we were allowed to go collect her. Also, as a parent I couldn't go into the bathroom with her until they did a sweep of it and made sure no other kids were there. No adults alone with kids in the potty! Very cool!
She LOVED the hula hoop and cool floor. I had no idea she was so good at hula hooping. She gave a performance for everyone, too!
I had to get in on the fun, too, while the two of us piloted the Millennium Falcon!
Goofy even made an appearance for a dance party!
I'm so sad we never made it back here during our sailing - but there's always next time. Vanellope's! We love Vanellope and she had her own sweet shop up by the pool. It looks and smells so yummy in there!
What we DID make it to was the ice cream machine!
The fun had to come to a pause ... for the mandatory safety meeting. We were lucky and got to have our meeting area be the Walt Disney Theater. Sitting inside versus standing in the sunshine? Yes, please! No photos during that either, but basically we learned how to do our life jackets.
Once the drill was done everyone made their way to the upper decks for the official Sail Away Party! Katura doesn't like things that are loud (I hear ya, girl!) so she didn't want to be down where the party was. Basically the characters come out and dance and kick off the cruise, with the culmination being the loud horn playing a Disney song. It was cute, but you won't die if you miss it. A lot of young people being forced to wear awful fitting, pleated khaki shorts and dance - there, you've watched it.
So I watched the show and wandered around.
Katura and Shawn, believe it or not, did sports things the entire time!
I tried to insert the video so you could hear the horn. Blogger said no. Let me try to upload to YouTube. Hold please....
And then it was time to join my family in a sunset round of miniature golf - or should we call it Minnie Golf??
And finally the sunset. I knew right then this was going to be a fabulous trip!
Back in our room we found a towel animal wearing my sunglasses - and chocolates! Than, our stateroom attendant, was so cool and very sweet.
I had us change into nice clothes for dinner every night even thought it was not required. It felt appropriate! So we changed and went down to the atrium just in time for the official Christmas tree lighting ceremony!
Rapunzel was coming out after the party, so we slipped into that line for a quick photo!
And then the moment I loved .... forcing them into family photos. They all came out so nice. I was really happy!
After dinner... another photo shoot! The photographers were great. We just stood there and they would tell us how to pose!
Yeah, I did that. How could I not climb in a window??
Another event we happened to end up at was the welcoming of Santa and Mrs. Claus! We had good timing. Katura was able to get very close by sitting in a zone marked off just for kids. She had fun with that and we snatched her up at the end so she didn't feel lost in the sea of people. SEA of people - get it?!
The atrium was VERY excited when two sisters arrived to make it snow!
And finally it ended with dancing. Katura finished off her night dancing with Dale AND Pluto! She's one lucky little girl!
And that's the end of day 1. Walt Disney World. Traveling. Boarding a ship. Deck parties. Sports. Desserts. Drinks. Dancing. Characters. Snow. What more could we ask for? OH!! And remember that post about delivering our Fish Extender gifts? That happened after allllll of this!! Talk about a busy day!
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