Our Second Day at Sea

Our second full day aboard the Disney Wonder began as the first, with a breakfast buffet at the Beach Blanket Buffet. This time I thought ahead however, and stashed a spare banana and apple in our away bag.

Oh, one thing was different. We'd set a wakeup call and Mickey himself called to wake us up!

From there it was off the ship and on to gorgeous Castaway Cay, the beautiful privately owned island that Disney operates for its cruise ships.

Our first stop was the scheduled excursion of the day, the Glass Bottom Boat tour.

Here the girls again erupted in tantrum mode, and we began the trip wondering what we ever did to deserve them ;). They turned it around on a dime though, once the trip got going.

And it was worth the money - heck, it was almost worth what we paid for the dolphin encounter.

It wasn't that it was mind-bogglingly impressive, but it held the girls attention, which let me tell you is 99% of the battle. Moreover the guide was friendly, well versed in the fish and geography of the area (he should be, as a native), and was GREAT with kids since he has six of his own!

At one point the girls were made to stand on the boats step ladder and feed the fish some Quaker Oats, a treat which brought the local wildlife streaming their way.

How's this for a view?

Later the girls were allowed to sit on the glass bottom itself - well, the youngest in each family was allowed. YaYa kinda stretched the point to get herself down there, but she wasn't the only big sister to do it ;)

I was kind of nervous at times, with the boat going full speed and the girls' lacksadaical about hanging on, especially since both girls shared the boat with friends they'd made at the Oceaneers Club, one set of which was from San Diego.

Or as they put it "We're friends from the club".

Preoccupied with socializing, they all seemed oblivious to the water around them at times. Or I'm just paranoid.

This is LuLu telling folks her age.

Lu really adored our guide!

After the boat trip it was a quick tram ride to the family beach

[Here's the wreck of the Black Pearl.]

, where we set up shop on a lounge chair and hit the water for OUR FIRST EVER SWIM IN THE OCEAN!

[No, the penned in dolphin water didn't count]

Naturally, the first thing I did was taste the water.

And ya know what? The ocean is salty.

Oh, I knew it was, but I always assumed it was a subtle thing, a flavor that crept up on you, or some mild concoction that just left you parched.

Imagine my shock - seriously - when it was every bit as salty as the water my Grandma used to make me gargle when I had a sore throat!

The stuff stings when it gets in your eyes, too.

On the other hand it was crystal clear, a gorgeous pale blue, and warmer than Lake Michigan gets even in the height of summer. And the sand was so white and perfect . . what a way to get introduced to the sea.

Here's how the 45 minutes we spent on the beach went down. After a quick family swim LuLu and I spent the rest of the time in the water horsing around. Meanwhile Lisa supervised YaYa as she methodically hunted for seashells on the beach and the waters edge.

[BTW - for the first time in months, LuLu has actually referred to her sister as YaYa]

At noon we broke off for a quick bite at the Disney barbeque, where the girls had hot dogs and burgers and I tried couscous and mahi-mahi for the first time ever - and loved both.

Then we dropped the girls off at the Castaway Cay beach events; an archelogical dig by YaYa to uncover a whale skeleton and a scavenger hunt for musical instruments for LuLu.

Unfortunately, Lu was getting tired and bugged out about being left there. We stayed for a good 15 minutes to try and talk her into staying - heck, I even built a 5 tower sand castle with her - but it was no go.

We signed her out and went to pick up YaYa, who was having loads of fun, and luck too, having uncovered three different parts of the skeleton on her own!

[Side note: the kids began calling one of the Club teachers 'Picklehead', which I guess was a nickname he allowed, based on a skit he did with Captain Hook the day before]

Lisa was worried that I was annoyed/saddened/depressed that I got to spend so little time on the beach, as I'd stated all along that was my big 'thing' on the trip, but it was enough. I did what I set out to do, had some fun, and was in a good enough mood to put my kids first (and not be annoyed by it). So no big deal. I'll be back.

It was Lisa's idea to hit the famous Mickey Pool on Deck 9 while it was near empty with everyone on shore.

For a good hour we had a good time in the shallow water. YaYa went down the water slide about a zillion times

, and yours truly, Mr. Stick in The Mud himself, loosened up a bit and played a good deal with the kids, chasing them in the water and having Lu jump in to cadences of "Bada Bing, Bada Boom, Bada . . . Splash!"

Here's some views of the Cay from Deck 9 or 10:

A solid nap followed for all (tho' YaYa outlasted us all and just lay quietly) and then it was back to Animator's for dinner.

Yeah, forget losing weight, I'm almost as heavy as the ship itself after this trip. The food . . ..crab cake appetizer with a jerked chicken salad and an entrée of melhi-melhi. Oh man. And desert . . .

It was Pirates In The Caribbean day at the restaurant (and on the ship) and as part of the festivities I donned a Pirate Doo Rag, as did the girls.

I also chipped in about a thousand "Arrr, cap'n" throughout the dinner. Here's Lisa's dessert. Note the 'parchment treasure map' menu for the night.

At the end of dinner all the kids danced around the room with the servers and limboed.

Then the girls were off to Oceaneers Club for an hour, LuLu for Story Time with Belle and YaYa for Flubber making, while Lisa and I had our first ever game of shuffleboard, then retreated to our stateroom for some, uh-hem, melhi-melhi of our own.

Alas, a screwup with the Club's clerical records left YaYa in LuLu's age bracket, thus denying her a dose of Flubber. She was disappointed and we were ticked off (does she look three???) but there was nothing we could do after the fact . .

We then went as a family to another show in the Walt Disney Theater, this time the Golden Mickey's, an 'award show' complete with elaborate renditions of some of Disney's greatest movie songs. Very good, and certainlyentertaining.

LuLu was a little vocal, but nothing over the top. Both girls enjoyed it.

Back in our room we ordered cookies from room service and settled in to watch the end of Toy Story and the start of Beauty and the Beast, and then off to sleep for another day . . .

Our first full day at sea

We began our first full day aboard ship by giving the girls showers before heading off to a breakfast buffet in the Beach Blanket Buffet room.

Nothing like smoked salmon and Mickey Mouse shaped waffles to start your day before heading off to explore the Bahamas J

Afterwards it was time to head down to WaveBands, our staging area for a shore excursion to Dolphin Encounters.

Let me be honest here: the girls were AWFUL. An unusually long wait to disembark, paired with two of the naughtiest kids ever, made the going tough. More than once we gave serious thought to chucking the non-refundable $366 excursion and heading back to our stateroom.

For those of you who are not parents, or whose parenthood days lay far behind them, DO NOT excuse their behavior by blaming the long wait. I guarantee you a wait rarely if ever creates a tantrum.

Quite the opposite; a tantrum is guaranteed to create a long long wait.

Once we were out the gangway it was a decent walk to our 20 minute ferry ride, past some women hawking their hair braiding "Lady, Lady, half off today lady, let me do your daughter's hair Lady" and a gentleman who claimed it was his job to give out 'free' necklaces to tourists.

From there, as I said, a relaxing 20 minute ferry ride over calm pale blue waters

 to our excursion site.

Here's some more pics from the boat ride.

 

The stickers on their back are part of the enrollment for the excursion.

The tantrums had passed, and both girls were again in decent moods.

[One word about the pacifier - what we call a didi - yes, she's too big for it and YaYa was off of it by her age. Lu quit too, but went back hardcore before the trip and I didn't care to draw a line in the sand while on the trip of a lifetime. We'll get rid of it soon]

Until we had to sit through a tedious 10 minute lecture on dolphin health and ecology. By the end of the talk both girls were squirming and LuLu was literally crawling all over me in an effort to get a piggyback ride.

Then it was on to the show.

The Dolphin Encounter itself was not what I expected. That's not a bad thing. It certainly lived up to its billing, I had simply created overblown notion of swimming peacefully among Mankind's friends . .

Here's how it played out.

You sit around the inside perimeter of a square area formed by a dock. A dolphin begins to swim by, eventually making casual contact. In time a trainer comes and leads one person from each family onto a metal platform 3ft below the water's surface. While a professional photographer looks on, the trainer has the dolphin come up and kiss the persons cheek.

Then the group is divided into parties of 10, each group of which is then led onto the platform. The dolphin performs several more tricks for the group; it gives each person a hug and a kiss, it let's you pet its belly and feel its teeth, it 'applauds' for you, and it takes a fish directly out of your raised hand. Each set of tricks is repeated for each group of 10.

YaYa soaked it up, as she does whenever the opportunity to be a ham presents itself. The minute LuLu saw the dolphin swim by, however, she FREAKED OUT. I mean serious terrified. "Shark! Shark!" she yelled.

Pat on the back for myself for quickly talking her down into only minor terror, and chiseling away at that too. By the end she was willing to dangle her feet in the water and scolded folks for 'being mean' to the dolphin and laughing along with his antics. When it came time for her to pet the dolphin however, she bugged again. No matter; I literally forced her to rub the dolphin with her foot (I couldn't finagle her hands at the time).

"There," I said, "Now you can always say you touched a dolphin"

It was fun, it was somewhat educational, and as advertised it was pretty darn close to a once-in-a-lifetime event. I believed that strongly enough to pay $48 for a video of the day and $14 for a great 5x7 pic of Lisa and YaYa with the dolphin.

If I have one caveat, it's that I came away thinking it was just a tad exploitive, all this talk of ecology and conservation as they dished up the animal for our incredibly rehearsed and structured side show.

And wouldn't ya know it? All the lectures on ecology and waste management and YaYa dropped a sucker stick (accidentally) into the water before we left.

On the way back to the boat both girls fell asleep, which meant we bypassed their naptime.

 Instead we grabbed a quick lunch of 'fast food' and then took the girls over to Oceannear's Club for a bit where YaYa played Pirate and saw Captain Hook, for whom she seems to have a fondness, while LuLu hunted for Huffalumps on Deck 4.

[Later in the cruise YaYa would confess: "You know, I think I like all the bad guys a little, like Captain Hook and the Queen of Hearts. They just seem more fun, you know?"]

Around this time the girls also met Belle, Lu's All-Time Favorite (I mistakenly called Snow White her fave, but she's 2nd)

Lisa and I took this opportunity to explore a bit of Nassau. I forgot the camera. "Good," Lisa said, "You should remember the sights in your mind anyway"

I soooo disagree.

Nassau is much like you see pictured on TV, a collection of American franchises tossed halfhazzard among souvenir, jewelry, and duty-free shops. There is a general feeling that the area is run-down, and some folks openly drink from paper bags on the street.

Don't get me wrong: save for one guy who called me 'Big Man' and offered me a 'doobie', everyone was polite (or more frequently, just ignored us). We hit several little stands before walking into a crowded, bustling market where we picked up two wooden toy turtles that move realistically, and a carved wooden statue. On the way back to the ship we stopped again at one of the original stands and picked up another statue.

All the purchases were haggled/bargained over, and we spent a total of $23. The two statues should fit in well with the carved wooden pieces my Dad passed on to me years ago.

We retrieved the kids and headed over to Animator's Palate for dinner.

This restaurant begins the night entirely clad in brilliant white and stunning black

 Over the course of the evening color is slowly 'added', until by evening's end the entire room is 'colored in' as if it was a finished animation sketch.

Pretty impressive.

So is Disney's before mentioned method of having the same servers follow you evening to evening across different restaurants. Kecha was there, so was Veronica, and most impressively they still knew our names, still had two booster seats waiting, and had a carbon copy of last night's drink order waiting on the table.

You really do feel pampered, and you get to develop what feels like a personal bond with your waitstaff. The girls in particular were very happy to see Kecha again.

Dinner was magnificent. I had tomatoes stuffed with vegetable rice for an appetizer, Butternut  soup, and maple glazed salmon for dinner.

 Even the presentation is wonderful. If I escape this ship with less than 10 additional pounds around my middle it will be a miracle.

Dear God how I hate the way the middle of my upper lip sags when I smile.:)

The head server came up and chatted with us for awhile, complimenting YaYa on her daring choice of outfits, saying he was pleased she wore blue as "All the Princesses here seem to wear pink" at which point LuLu, clad in pink, objected. "Hey!" she said with her eyes narrowing theatrically.

Here's Veronica, the assistant server.

He later brought over yet another cake, this time to celebrate our Anniversary, and led some waitstaff in a song for us. It was grand.

We dropped the girls off again at the Club so they could 'Doe See Do with Snow
White" while we window shopped on board. Then we took the whole family to see "Hercules: The Muse-Ical" in the beautiful Walt Disney Theater. Check out the nifty 'ghost' in the shot, lol.

It was an entertaining show, and as it's about the 8 millionth musical they've seen, they were both dolls for the duration. However, a little girl one row back sniffed and snorted snot the entire time. Lisa and I both wanted to strangle her, and her oblivious or ignorant mother.

Oh, here's somethign neat Dalton, the room attendant, did each night; he created a towel animal.

Afterwards, a loose bedtime. We let YaYa watch the tail end of Superman Returns (amazing how much of it she recalled) but that was a mistake as she wigged out when we wanted to change stations. After a good 15 minutes of tantrum/reprisals, she calmed down and they fell asleep to Sleeping Beauty.

A busy day, full of ups and downs. But fun J