Disney Wonderland

Ok, it's about time I get some cruise pictures on here. I'm enjoying getting ready for Christmas, so I've been ignoring things such as blog, paying bills, work...you know the normal things :) Just kidding, I paid my bills and am going to work, I've just been spending more time putting together elf pictures than doing work (www.elfyourself.com) But, what is Christmas if not a time you can have fun rather than work and be serious!

So right, back to the cruise. It was spectacular. I really never thought I would be a cruise person, and I still don't think I'd be a cruise person if my goal of a trip was to travel, but if the goal is to sit around and relax and eat good food - cruise it is! And when you take your mom and your sisters that also helps in the fun department! One of my friends from grad school was getting married and invited Sandor and I to the wedding and cruise, but since Sandor can't get paid leave from work mom, Brandy, Nikole and I went. It was a Disney cruise, so our ship was full of Disney-ness - walk through a Mickey head to get on the ship...

...the kids pool was a Mickey...

...the hands of the elevator were Micky arms...

...and all the characters were there - which Nikole was VERY excited about!

But, despite the fact it was a Disney cruise there was a TON of stuff to do even if you weren't under the age of 15 :) Each night we were greeted by a cute little towel animal and a 4 page sheet of events for the next day. Since our family is not known for it's ability to relax we did end up taking advantage of a number of those events, but we did a good job of forcing ourselves to have some down time. We took advantage of this awesome 'Rainforest Spa' thing where for a whole day you could use this room filled with different saunas and eucalyptus showers. We also enjoyed Bahama Mamas in the hot tub and sat on our balcony overlooking the totally empty ocean around us.
And one night we went to a martini tasting where they let you have these cute little martinis so you could taste different kinds. My favorite is still the chocolate one :)

Our first stop was Nassau where we went on a Discover Atlantis excursion. It was quite fun - Atlantis has this huge outdoor aquarium that you walk around and below and through.

my favorite was Zeus the manta ray!

I had always heard people say the food on cruises was good, but I definitely did not believe it was as good as it was! Each night you were assigned a different restaurant and there was a theme. Plus you could get food at any time of the day or night, and let me tell you the french fries that we had at 3:00 were hot and delicious, not soggy and gross like they were sitting around since lunch. The first night we ate at the French restaurant and the theme was just cruise casual. One of our servers was new and so the head server person kept telling him to do things. My mom was getting over being sick and so she had been carrying around this bottle of water everywhere she went - including to dinner where you were going to get a glass of water, but you can never figure mom out :) At one point the head waiter told our assistant waiter to pour the bottle of water my mom had sitting on the table into Brandy's glass I guess thinking that Brandy was picky about the kind of water she drank. But then my mom didn't want Brandy to drink the water because she was sick but we didn't want to make the poor guy feel bad for just doing what he was told, so we had to switch out Nikole's empty glass with the sick water glass since Nikole was drinking soda, and so 40 seconds after he filled the glass with the bottle it looked like Brandy had drank all the water and the bottle was gone. We probably confused him more than anything ;)

The next night we were at the Italian restaurant and it was Pirate night. Everyone got these bandanas at their plates so we had a bit of fun with the camera. Nikole is not one to enjoy having her photo taken, but she played along in the end.

The second island we went to was the Disney island (Castaway Cay). It was really nice because we were the only cruise ship there so the beach was pretty empty and you didn't have to worry about dodging people selling things and going through customs. Jen and Dennis got married in the morning and then we spent the afternoon riding bikes around the island and laying on the beach/water. That night, fittingly we were at the Island restaurant so we got some delicious food to finish off our day.


Not a bad way to spend a December weekend, not bad at all!