The Cruise Review You've Been Waiting For: Part 4

I know. Can there possibly BE anymore excitement? Why yes. Yes there can. We're on to part 4 of the cruise trip report. 

Part 1, which covers the Disney World portion of the trip, can be found by clicking HERE. 

Part 2, which can be found HERE, brought you with us as our cruise got underway. 

Part 3, which can be found HERE, continued the fun.

Let's keep moving!

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After the makeover, it was time to start delivering our fish extender gifts. The "fish" are decorative ornaments that hang outside each stateroom on the ship. Those who choose to participate in this "secret santa" type of gift exchange with other guests they meet online before the cruise is underway make a "fish extender," or a pouch where other guests can place the gifts they made/bought for you. Here, you can see our fish extender already full of gifts. You can also see the magnets I made (or had made, in some cases) for our door in the months leading up to the trip. 

We delivered our gift to 35 staterooms located all over the ship. This was no small task and, if I recall correctly, took us about 2.5 hours to do. My sister and I have this thing where we take a picture of how we *should* feel after such an endeavor. Here, we display for you our sense of victory, pride, and accomplishment.

And it's always followed by the picture of how we *really* feel. Here, we confess our utter exhaustion. 

My sister had earned herself a nap, and I earned myself some alone time to explore the ship and take pictures solo. Here is the front of the ship as she sails ahead. 

I like the composition of this picture with all lines against the brown floor and the curving staircase. 

Hannah loved the Mickey slide!

It's a rough life when you get to watch Disney movies on a jumbo screen aboard the pool deck of Disney's newest cruise ship. (In case you're wondering, this is "Brother Bear.")

Here you can see how far over the side of the ship the AquaDuck passes when you first start out on the water coaster. I wish I had a picture to show you just how high up you are when you are about to board, but I wasn't about to take my camera on this water adventure! 

Time for another ice cream stop!

As we walked to the aft of the ship, it was neat to see our trail stretching clear back to the horizon behind us. 

Skipping ahead several hours, it was time for dinner. Tonight was formal night. You can see our table mates, Glen and Ann (his aunt), seated with us. They were sweet people. She also was quite chatty, so we got to practice boundaries ignoring her sometimes in order to not have to listen to the same stories over and over. Like I said, though, they were very sweet people.

Our assistant server, Herry from Indonesia, was the happiest guy I've ever seen. Always smiling and trying to engage Hannah (she was frustratingly shy with people sometimes, including our servers, who she saw and spoke to every night. Go figure). Here, Herry was making her a duck out of her napkin, though by the look on her face you'd think like he's about to detonate a bomb. 

Our bread bowls were in the form of a carriage. Since this restaurant is themed after the princesses and named Royal Court, this was fitting. I loved those bread bowls!

Here's another shot of the restaurant. The lamps on the posts were carriages, too. I didn't take pictures, but the princesses and princes were in tiled mosaics around the room.

I took this picture because I loved the theming of the midship elevators off of the atrium (the busiest elevators on the ship). The indicator for the floor is Mickey's finger, attached to the ship. It's details like this that make Disney so unique in immersing you in another world. 

That night, we were welcomed by a dog!

The next day, Monday, we booked a brunch in the adults-only restaurant, Palo. The brunch is my favorite meal on board (well, second to Remy, which I'll get to later). Here you have various salad options and caviar (which I did have). There was also a table of just cheeses, one of breads and pastries, one of desserts, one of pizzas, and one that showed the made-to-order entrees you could have. Our server, Milos from Croatia, was awesome, and he encouraged us to try as much as we had room for. We made room to accommodate him. :)  

The glorious seafood table. Alaskan crab claws and crab legs? Yes please.

These were my dessert options. The only thing I could eat all of were the berries. Everything else was delicious but very rich!

Here we are after our brunch. I'm surprised we didn't have to be rolled out. 

The restaurant has 180 degree ocean views, so it's a lovely place to enjoy a meal.

I can't remember the name of the artist, but it's the same artist who designed the ceiling at the Bellagio in Vegas. These is the glass-blown ceiling outside Palo. 

Since Monday was another day at sea, we spent time at the pool. This picture demonstrates how long the hallways are. The very extremely miniscule tiny white dot in the middle of the floor at the end of the hallway is Hannah. Except it isn't the end of the hallway. The hallway curves slightly, and there's 2 or 3 more long stretches just like this one. 

There she is! Thankfully, the carpets had pictures of the earth sewn into them. As you looked at the globe, if it was right-side up, you were heading to the front (or fore) of the ship, and when upside down, you were headed to the back (or aft). That came in very handy as it was absolutely no fun to get allllllllllllll the way to one of end of the ship only to find out you needed to head the other way. (Of course, watching the room numbers go up or down could help, too, but I digress.)

It was time for some miniature golf. Oh, you didn't know the ship had miniature golf? Well, of course it did! With room for more than 4000 people, a theater for shows, a theater for movies, an adults club district with 4 clubs, a kids-only district with 2 clubs, your stateroom, three pools, a water coaster, a sports deck, and 5 restaurants (not including the quick service locations or buffets), not having a miniature golf course would have left guests sorely lacking with enough to do. It was only 9 holes, and the holes were very short, but still. 

I couldn't resist this shot. 

So, this is the moment we finished the game the first time. Hannah asked to play again right then, so we did. As we got to this hole, the last one, for the second time, Hannah gave her red ball a nice hard WHACK! It went flying against the raised edge of the hole... and bounced off... and soared over the side of the ship. We were a little stunned. I had visions of that episode of "Seinfeld" where Kramer hits a ball into the ocean and George later saves a beached whale, who had the ball crammed into his blowhole. 

I soothed myself with another shot of the pretty, pretty ocean. 

And we hurried off to the pool. 

Time to watch The Incredibles while Hannah enjoyed the pool. 

Here she continues her theme of rolling around in the water while lying down. She is giggling like crazy here. 

After we cleaned up from our fun and non-nature friendly afternoon, it was time to go to dinner. Tonight we dined in Animator's Palate. The theme here is of an animator's office. The screens around the dining room come to life with Crush, the turtle from Finding Nemo, sailing from screen to screen. He interacted with guests, able to identify us by outfits, ask us individual questions, and respond to ours. Again, Disney is amazing. 

The bread knives are paintbrushes! 

They were for sale in the gift shop!

I bought one!

And, Crush chose ME to talk to in our area of the dining room (about 8 tables in our area, so about 50 people). We had a good talk about the best things on the ship (I spoke well of the food :)). 

Afterward, Miss headed to the room to lie down for a bit, so Hannah and I went shopping. That might trying on ridiculously-oversized hats for her. Who can resist that face??? 

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Come back tomorrow for part 5!