Sea Day with Mickey and Co.

Our first full day on the ship started out pretty fantastic!  We had our "character breakfast" on the very first morning.  Our Character breakfast was at the Parrot Cay, a tropical paradise themed dining room.  (It looked like the Tiki Room, and I kept expecting the birds to break into song, but they never did.)  While we were eating our breakfast many of our favorite Disney characters come around for a visit!

First we were visited by everybody's favorite dog, Pluto, and then Dale made his way over.  Nate was a happy camper because Dale and Nathan are tight, and even though Dale's BFF is Chip, Nathan has to be a close second.

Before long Minnie came by for a quick visit.  What a gal!

Check out Dylan's Mickey-shaped waffle.

Just to add to the fun, one of our 2 waiters for the entire cruise, Andre (from Jamaica), made us some festive Disney character headwear from our napkins.  Dylan is Peter Pan, of course, and with those big ears, I'm assuming Dennis is supposed to be Dumbo.

Nate got to be Eeyore, and I believe I'm looking much like Minnie herself.

Well Luke wanted a hat too, so our other waiter, Carlo (from Italy!) made him a Peter pan hat as well.  Apparently, Luke did not want to be Peter Pan, as you can see from the picture, and sat there sulking.  Give that kid a little pixie dust, will ya?

But Luke's spirits were lifted right up again when Goofy made his appearance.  Who doesn't love Goofy?

Later Dale came by looking for Chip probably, and this the Mouse that started it all, Mickey himself, dropped by to sign a few autograph books and snap a few pictures.

Our character breakfast was a great way to start the first morning of our cruise!

Then everyone took off to do their own things.  Bye.  Have fun. See ya!

The twins got to hang out at a place just for the 11-13 set, called 'The Edge' and today I discovered them playing some games up on the top deck in the front of the ship.  They were doing Goofy Olympics, and Dylan was in the basketball competition.  It was fun to watch his compete.

And Derek?  Well, he decided that the hula hoop contest was more his style.  You should have seen him swing those hips!  Yeah, baby!  And guess what, gals?  He WON!  Derek is the official Hula Hoop champ!  Yep, that boy has all the right moves.

Hanging out by the pool we eventually saw all our boys.  Here is Dylan with a pack of new friends getting burgers at the grill.  In case you are still hungry after breakfast and before lunch, there is a grill with burgers, dogs, and such that is open all day, as well as a pizza bar, and and, my favorite, a panini bar that also serves piles of fresh fruit, wraps, and salads.  Yummy!  My favorite panini? The bacon, tomato and brie!!!  I think I had nearly a dozen of those on this cruise.  I'll be making those at home!  It was not all kids' stuff.

We caught glimpse of Nathan too as he ran by looking for some odd thing for a scavenger hunt he was doing with a group of kids from 'The Vibe', the teen-only lounge.

Caleb and Luke were off having their own brand of fun at the Lab where a wacky mad scientist came and helped them all make their own slimy green 'flubber'.  You can't imagine how much fun they had with that crazy stuff!

Caleb also got to carve a car out of soap and race it.  He called it the Zombie Flash, and it was a winner!  I couldn't get Luke to stand still long enough to get his picture.  He was playing dodge ball and he was doing quite well - probably because he had a very different method - run and hide in the back.  Hey, survival of the fittest, right?

Meanwhile, back up on deck,  Dennis was engaged in a very serious ping pong competition.  He was looking forward to the contest, and even packed his own paddle!  He played several rounds and ended up winning the competition.  Ping Pong champ!  It was the lucky paddle, I'm sure.

Later that day when we went back into our stateroom there was a huge heavy envelope on the bed.  It was a large limited edition print of Mickey, Donald, and Goofy playing shuffleboard with a card of congratulations for being the Disney Wonder ping pong champ.  How cool is that?

After a while I was missing my kiddos, so I picked them up to go on deck and play by the pool.

They love it up there!

There is so much room to run and play and just be kids and enjoy the beautiful ocean and the sunshine!

And then plop into the pool, of course!

The water slide, supported by a giant Mickey hand, was a big hit!

Wheee!

As the day wore on, the boys enjoyed relaxing in the spa while watching Ratatouille on the big screen.  Now that is a way to watch a movie!

Every evening on the Disney wonder has a different theme, and Monday night was formal night.  Yep, this is us all decked out in our formal attire.  Clearly, we did not get the memo about formal night, and I wistfully thought of our nice Sunday clothes sitting in our car back in LA.  After church on Sunday the boys were a bit to anxious to shed all of the white shirts and ties, and somehow they never got on the boat with us.  Oh well.  At least Micky looks ritzy.

And why was it formal night?  They rolled out the red carpet because Monday night was the 'Golden Mickeys Awards Gala', like a Disney version of the academy awards, and the paparazzi were out in full force.

The Golden Mickeys was held in the big theater, and we were presented with scenes from many of Disney's greatest movies.  I loved it when Snow White came on stage with 'dwarves' from the audience.  I thought it was great how they really gave so many people, especially kids, and opportunity to have their special 'moment of glory' that they would always remember.

Musical scenes from Mulan, 101 Dalmatians, and Tarzan.  It was really too dark to get a descent pic, so the Tarzan one was messed up, but I actually think it turned out pretty cool!  Tarzan and the monkeys acrobatics were pretty amazing too.

The whole show was great fun!

Checking out all the action and people dressed to the hilt in the lobby.  I am probably the only one in my family the felt so bad that we were not all dressed up.  The boys were likely counting their lucky stars that I was not making them dress up like penguins.

Next time, for sure.

Dining that evening was again in Parrot Cay.  Even Carlo was wearing a tux.

After dinner, Carlo came out with a wine bottle, a few toothpicks, and 4 forks.  He did the coolest trick!  He wedged two forks together and stuck a toothpick between the two, and then was able to balance the other end of the toothpick on the tip of another toothpick that was sticking up out of the cork of the bottle.  Look at the picture.  It doesn't seem possible, but he did it!

Then he got two more forks and did the same thing on the other side!  Four forks balanced on the tip of a toothpick!  On an moving boat, remember.  Cool, huh?  Then Dennis tried his hand at it, and Carlo helped Dennis to do it.  Ta Da!

I told you Disney cruises are magic!

A Magical Bon Voyage!

Our family just went on the perfect family vacation!  We went on a Disney cruise.

In early December, Dennis came home and announced that he had booked all 8 of us on a cruise in January.  He had received an email from Disney announcing a rare two for one special.  He acted quickly and snatched up two of the remaining staterooms on the Disney Wonder cruise to the Mexican Riviera on the second week of January.  He got an awesome deal!

Of course, we decided to surprise the kids with it for Christmas, so on Christmas morning, after all the gifts were unwrapped, I told the kids that there was one more gift.  I told them too search the Christmas tree carefully to find an ornament that wasn't there before.  (I had looked everywhere for the perfect ornament of Mickey Mouse on a boat or something, but no luck. Finally, I found this glass sailboat.  It wasn't Disney, so I used glue and black glitter to add a Mickey head on each side.)  It took them no time all all to figure out what it represented - we were going on a Disney cruise!!!  Screams of joy and laughter and a million questions was the instant response.

Our ship sailed on January 8, which meant we only had 2 weeks to prepare!

The ships always arrive and depart from LA on Sunday, so we went to LA Saturday night, spent the night with Dennis' cute grandparents, and attended church with them the next morning before heading to the  harbor.

We were all pretty excited to finally walk down the gangway!

The ship was big and beautiful!  I was hard to believe that something so huge could float or that they were loading enough food onto that ship to feed thousands of people for a whole week!  Yes, we were really looking forward to the food!

Here is our welcome aboard photo, the first of MANY professional photos we took on board.  Last year, when we got our annual passes to Disneyland, we all picked out Disney hats that represent us.  (We couldn't find Luke's and Alex' was just too big). I insisted we all wear our hats the first day. (Yep, I'm that kind of mom, to my poor sons' chagrin.)  Be sure to look at what Luke is wearing around his neck.  We had come straight from church, remember.  CTR, Mickey. CTR.

It is so awesome.  When you come on board you step right into the grand lobby that is 4 decks high in the center of the ship they announce your name on the loudspeaker throughout the WHOLE ship.  "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Disney Wonder announces the VanBuskirk family cruising with us today!  Welcome!" Then all of the crew members who are lined up on both sides of us, and everyone else around cheers for us as we come aboard.  That was pretty darn cool!

Then someone kindly leads us to exactly where they know we want to go - to the food, of course.

At the front of the line to the all-you-can-eat buffet was this awesome ice sculpture of an eagle.  I love all the colors reflected in the ice.

The kids were in heaven, and they piled that food on their trays.  (Only then were they grateful that I had insisted that we had our fast Sunday the week before so we wouldn't have to fast on the cruise.)  They were pretty excited when they saw that the food line started with a huge pile of shrimp.  Shrimp! (My kids LOVE shrimp.)  And it just got better from there.

Once we had all had our fill, we took off to explore the ship.  Within minutes, all but Caleb and Luke had disappeared.  We figured they couldn't have gone far (one wonderful benefit of cruising) so we didn't worry too much about it.
 It is an awesome ship!  We loved all of the big round windows, and this area of the ship that looks like route 66 with old fashioned billboards on the wall.

The first thing the boys wanted to see, after the food, of course, were the two kids' areas, the Oceaneer Lab and the Oceaneer Club.  They are both on the same deck and steps away from each other, but both very different places with tons of stuff to do in each.  We just went in to look around, but they were immediately sucked in and didn't want to leave.

But we still had more to see - like the pools!  There are 3 pools on the Disney Wonder (4 actually, since the crew gets their own pool away from the guests at the front of the ship.)  One is for adults only, another Mickey-shaped shallow pool with a water slide for kids only, and the mid-ship main pool for everyone.  Above the main pool is a giant TV screen.  When we went up they were blasting party music and showing music videos on the big screen.  Other times they would show movies on the screen that could be seen from two decks or even from inside the pool or spa!

But no self-guided tour of the ship would be complete without finding the all-you-can-eat soft serve ice cream machine!  Yep.  All ice cream, all the time.  We quickly learned that if we somehow lost a kid, we would just have to hang out by the ice cream machine, and they would eventually show up there.

Before disembarking, everyone on board had to have a lifeboat drill, then everyone headed up to the top decks for the big Bon Voyage party where everyone was given sparkly streamers to wave.  The main pool had somehow been transformed into a dance floor, and all 2,000 passengers were there ready to party with Mickey.

We were ready too!

There was so much excitement in the air!  This was it.  We were ready to take off, finally!  What adventures and magic would this week bring?  We could only imagine.

The crowd was pumped, the music was thumpin', and everyone was ready to hit the seas!

First they introduced us to the different counselors and activity folks.

There is Derek up on the big screen looking so sullen during all the festivities.  Pretty funny.  I guess I was caught on the big screen too.  I was trying to yell at Derek to get his attention in all the noise, and pointing to where we were so he could find us, but on the big screen, Dennis said, I just looked like a yelling pointing mom among all the revelers. The camera was right on me!  Hilarious.

Man, what a party!

I made my way up stairs to see if I could get some different shots and capture some of the immense spirit of this party.  I worked my way around, and turned a corner and saw this...

Yessiree!  It was Captain Micky and his gal Minnie, getting ready to make their big appearance!   SO awesome!  They posed just for me, and let me take a bunch of pictures of them!  I couldn't wait to go back and show the kids all the pictures.

Of course the audience didn't know they were coming, so when Mickey and friends made their appearance, the crowd EXPLODED!

They did a dance, and Mickey officially welcomed everyone aboard!

Everybody was ready for a grand adventure!

After the characters left they opened the stage for all the kids to dance.  I love this picture as is gives you a good idea of the energy and excitement of the moment. There were several hundred very happy kids on that ship!

Caleb and his Jack ears on the big screen.

Then, just as the sun was setting, there was an explosion of streamers and the ship set sail!  (I absolutely LOVE this picture, by the way.)

Woo Hoo!

Leaving the LA harbor.  I love the full moon.

The revelry calmed down a bit as we watched the sunset in the west while the Disney Wonder headed out to sea... ice cream cones in hand, of course.

Beautiful!

We managed to gather all the kids together to see the welcome stage show.  We had heard that every single stage show was wonderful, so we insisted that whatever we all do each day separately, we all had to get together as a family to see the stage show every evening.  The first night's show was really great, and it only got better each night from there.  The dancing and singing and costumes were great, not to mention the barrage of streamers and fireworks.  But what I liked was that all of the shows had a message - that if you believe, dreams can come true.

Magic, pure magic.

After the show we had dinner.  There are two times for dinner, and early seating at 5:45, or a late seating at 8:15, and the stage show and all evening activities are also repeated during those times so that  nobody missed anything.  You either ate first then saw the show and did the activities, or vice-versa.  We had the late dinner, so we watched the show, then still had time to do another activity together before dinner started.  Then after dinner we could break up and go have some later-evening fun throughout the ship.

There are also 3 dining rooms, and everyone is on a rotating schedule so that they get to eat in all three at least twice.

The kids were most excited about eating in this dining room - the Animator's Palette, so they were thrilled that we were assigned here on the first night.

This is so cool because when you start dinner, everything is in black and white, like an animator's sketchbook.  The ceiling and walls, even the pictures and the waiter's vests.

Then, as we ate, things started changing.  The pictures on the wall were suddenly in color...

and the pillars in the room that looked like giant paintbrushes started to change color.

By the time dessert was served, the walls were aflame with color, and even the waiter's vests had been turned inside-out to colorful tie-dye as they marched out of the kitchen with Mickey himself, dressed, of course, as the sourcerer's apprentice.  He danced through the aisles and welcomed his guests.  It was rather dark in there by then and Mickey was kind of far away, so I didn't get a good picture, but it was pretty fun.

When dinner was over the kids all took off to their various hangouts and Dennis and I were left alone together, just the two of us and a ship full of activities and things to do.

 Alone.  Together.

That is when I knew, this was going to be one fantastic family vacation