Vacation Is A Go!
Feb. 5th, 2018 06:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dodger_sisterI can barely contain myself for Saturday, you guys. Because…I am going on a cruise! Just me & Sis. No, no kids! Just 2 middle-aged nerds. It’s my first cruise. And it’s a doozy. A Disney Star Wars 7-night Caribbean cruise!
In case you don’t know what that entails, we start our first day setting sea and then doing a safety presentation followed by like 20 minutes of song & dance with all the Disney characters.
The next day we are doing a Frozen meet & greet, where we will get dress as princesses and rub elbows with Anna & Elsa. On Day 3, we are doing photo ops with Darth Vader & Chewbacca. We are also getting a Swedish couples massage. The day after we will be at Saint Maarten in the Virgin Islands, but as there wasn’t really anything accessible there, we decided to stay on the ship and celebrate Galentine’s Day together by getting facials. Then we hit Saint Thomas island, where we are doing a Coral Ocean Park, half of which is a slightly submerged submarine where we can watch the fish out the portholes. The other half is an aquarium where you can do things like pet sting rays.
And that evening will be Pirate Night. This consists of dressing up and going to either an early evening kid’s show with singing & dancing or a late night Pirates of the Caribbean event on the main deck, which I hear can be a little scary for the youngings, so I’m excited about that. Then there are over-the-ocean fireworks, the only cruise ship allowed to do this because Disney came up with ones that when they hit the water, turn into food stuff for the marine life, thus not polluting the ocean. The next day is Star Wars Day & we will be doing a photo op with C3PO & R2D2, as well as a Galactic Transformation, which is basically cosplay where they help turn you into a Jedi & do photos with a lightsaber. They also have crew from the Star Wars movies doing Q&As, (costume, makeup, etc). And at night an on-deck lightsaber performance of some kind.
That afternoon we also have an adult only French cuisine dessert tasting. The day after that, we hit Castaway Cay, Disney’s very own island. (of course they own their own island, they’re Disney!) Here we can rent sand-wheelchairs, so I can actually go to the beach! That evening we are going to do an adults only Italian dining experience. And then we come home in the morning.
This list doesn’t even contain it all, as there are on board theatre productions - our ship does the Aladdin musical & a Disney original of some kind. A movie theater shows Disney movies all day long & an additional theater will be showing all of the Star Wars movies all day long. There are seven different restaurants, from a Beauty & the Beast inspired ballroom setting to the Animators Palate with animation coming to life right before your eyes and you rotate to a different one each night. There are also multiple snack bars & buffets on every level, all inclusive. There is a scavenger hunt, a detective agency game, characters roaming the halls, several different pools (yes, they have a lift I can request so I can be transferred into any pool I want) plus a mega splash pad play park. They have a fun-club that does dancing, trivia contest, game shows, etc. And several adults only spaces, like an adult only pool, café, nightclub, etc.
And, of course, we got a room with a balcony over the ocean, so downtime will be wonderful too! Like I said, I can barely stand to wait! This vacation has been 2 years in the making - we decided on it a few months after Mom’s heart attack in Fall 2015, thinking we deserved a sister-vacation after several months dealing with so much stress. But between Mom’s health & unexpected financial things, we never quite made it. So now, here at last, we will be setting sail. Sister-vacation is a go!
In case you don’t know what that entails, we start our first day setting sea and then doing a safety presentation followed by like 20 minutes of song & dance with all the Disney characters.
The next day we are doing a Frozen meet & greet, where we will get dress as princesses and rub elbows with Anna & Elsa. On Day 3, we are doing photo ops with Darth Vader & Chewbacca. We are also getting a Swedish couples massage. The day after we will be at Saint Maarten in the Virgin Islands, but as there wasn’t really anything accessible there, we decided to stay on the ship and celebrate Galentine’s Day together by getting facials. Then we hit Saint Thomas island, where we are doing a Coral Ocean Park, half of which is a slightly submerged submarine where we can watch the fish out the portholes. The other half is an aquarium where you can do things like pet sting rays.
And that evening will be Pirate Night. This consists of dressing up and going to either an early evening kid’s show with singing & dancing or a late night Pirates of the Caribbean event on the main deck, which I hear can be a little scary for the youngings, so I’m excited about that. Then there are over-the-ocean fireworks, the only cruise ship allowed to do this because Disney came up with ones that when they hit the water, turn into food stuff for the marine life, thus not polluting the ocean. The next day is Star Wars Day & we will be doing a photo op with C3PO & R2D2, as well as a Galactic Transformation, which is basically cosplay where they help turn you into a Jedi & do photos with a lightsaber. They also have crew from the Star Wars movies doing Q&As, (costume, makeup, etc). And at night an on-deck lightsaber performance of some kind.
That afternoon we also have an adult only French cuisine dessert tasting. The day after that, we hit Castaway Cay, Disney’s very own island. (of course they own their own island, they’re Disney!) Here we can rent sand-wheelchairs, so I can actually go to the beach! That evening we are going to do an adults only Italian dining experience. And then we come home in the morning.
This list doesn’t even contain it all, as there are on board theatre productions - our ship does the Aladdin musical & a Disney original of some kind. A movie theater shows Disney movies all day long & an additional theater will be showing all of the Star Wars movies all day long. There are seven different restaurants, from a Beauty & the Beast inspired ballroom setting to the Animators Palate with animation coming to life right before your eyes and you rotate to a different one each night. There are also multiple snack bars & buffets on every level, all inclusive. There is a scavenger hunt, a detective agency game, characters roaming the halls, several different pools (yes, they have a lift I can request so I can be transferred into any pool I want) plus a mega splash pad play park. They have a fun-club that does dancing, trivia contest, game shows, etc. And several adults only spaces, like an adult only pool, café, nightclub, etc.
And, of course, we got a room with a balcony over the ocean, so downtime will be wonderful too! Like I said, I can barely stand to wait! This vacation has been 2 years in the making - we decided on it a few months after Mom’s heart attack in Fall 2015, thinking we deserved a sister-vacation after several months dealing with so much stress. But between Mom’s health & unexpected financial things, we never quite made it. So now, here at last, we will be setting sail. Sister-vacation is a go!
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Date: 2018-02-06 01:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-27 08:44 pm (UTC)Like some places, (the main kid pool for sure), were overwhelming at times because of the crowds, but I enjoyed watching the kids & families enjoy themselves. I enjoyed the little ones, barely toddling, running up to hug Mickey and refusing to let go. And the costumes from the guests, looking at all of those, watching the kids' costume contest.
One of my favorite parts of the cruise was being in the elevators - because the nicest kids were on this cruise, complimenting my outfits and asking what I'd done today and so, so eager to tell everyone where they'd been and what they'd done. The best conversations happened in the elevators! And it wasn't even just the kids, the adults were super eager to share about their day too! You'd strike up conversation in the pool and at the buffet, everywhere. And we struck up a conversation with a family straight away at the safety presentation on opening day and everyday after we'd run into that same family and we'd both stop to share how our day had been so far.
I think you'd love that aspect of it as much as the stuff Disney had to offer.
no subject
Date: 2018-02-27 09:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-06 01:59 am (UTC)Bon Voyage!
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Date: 2018-02-27 08:52 pm (UTC)We surely did! I just did an upload to my computer and it was 466 photos/videos. I thought, "We don't need that many, I'll par down." I paired down to 314. lol When we were meeting the characters, the attendant would just take your camera and take photos for you, but like the whole time we were striking up conversations with the characters (Tinkerbell wanted to know about our 'sisters' tattoos, so she could get one with her sister the frost fairy, Anna had to talk about clothes and how she got her outfit at a place on the mountain 'hard to get to but totally worth the trek!') the attendant was just snapping away. So there were whole streams of photos of us just gabbing it up with different Disney peeps, lol. I also took so many pics of the water, as I want to try some stuff with my new watercolor set and wanted all the different shades of blue the ocean had to offer.
Also get souvenirs in every port. We didn't do that and it's the one thing I regret.
I used this comment from you as a way to con my sister into getting me a souvenir everywhere we went! So thanks for that. ;)
no subject
Date: 2018-02-28 03:51 am (UTC)