Disney Cruise: Day 4

The next morning we hurried up to Topsiders to get breakfast. There’s nothing I like more than breakfast buffets. Seriously. I love breakfast. We finally found a seat and Lydia ate one of everything.

(look at her tired face!)

After breakfast we began the best discovery of our week. The child care called The Oceaneer’s Club on the Disney ships is phenomenal. I know there are kids who never want to leave! (Which is a totally different post, but still…) Well, Lydia is too young to go to the childcare but we still wanted her to experience some of the stuff. So, we followed along in our Navigator (the big schedule of events) to see what was going on in the Oceaneer’s Club.

This morning was Do-Si-Do with Snow White. We walked into the Oceaneer’s Club and asked if we could hang out for awhile. They gave us Visitor tags and said, “Have fun!” We walked into the room—which is really a giant pirate ship complete with riggings to climb, a stage, slides, tv’s, computers, games books, tables and more! All the kids were being instructed to stand on the white line. I don’t know why, but this was so cute!

Lydia was then given a paper heart on a ribbon to hang around her neck. She knew something very special was happening.

Soon, Snow White entered and began telling her story! Lydia was dumb-struck.

Snow White had everyone do a special Seven Dwarves Do-Si-Do and all the kids walked on the white line around the room with her. Lydia had no idea what she was doing but was very obedient and stayed right with the kids next to her. She was even holding the hand of the little girl sitting with her!

At the end, each child got to give their heart necklace (which was really a wish) to Snow White so she could put them in her wishing well. It was a cool way to let every child personally interact with Snow White. She was so good–corralling the kids, making them stay in line, etc all by herself…and still acting like a Princess.

(side note about this Snow White: on the Disney boats, there are only a certain amount of people that play the characters. I noticed it a lot more this time than last. This Snow White was also Cinderella in one of the evening shows. I noticed lots of the “handlers” were also some of the Princesses, so they must have taken turns being characters and handlers. Anyway, this was the best Snow White I’ve ever seen. She was like the cartoon come to life. Amazing.

Here’s a few more shots of the Oceaneer’s Club:

Lydia and me in the rigging at the top of the boat.

One of the big slides.

Another slide.

The stage where the counselors led the kids in games. Or they would pull different curtains across to set the scene for a new character.

After our dance, we headed out to the deck to check out the water. This is really my favorite part of the boat. When I’m an old woman, I’ll go on cruises just to read and watch the water from a deck chair.

We headed indoors to see what else was going on. Lydia enjoyed just looking around. As we were sitting here watching some kind of game downstairs in the atrium, Lydia suddenly jumped into my arms and started wailing. I had no idea why. Then I looked up and saw that Goofy had just passed us.

He had terrified her!

She was screaming so loud and so hard that Goofy’s handler came back to check on her! Poor little thing. She still talks about how tall Goofy is!

After our Goofy fright, we headed off to Lumiere’s at lunch. There is just nothing like wearing shorts and sandals…while dining at a table with linens! Every time you walk into restaurant, someone hands you a santizing hand wipe. Lydia thought thse were great fun and wiped everything she could find.

We tried the pool after lunch and a nap. But it was so windy we didn’t last long.

After the pool, Lydia went sans clothes to watch Peter Pan in the room. (My other fave thing about the boat–Disney movies all day long!)

After the movie (and a few clothes), Lydia found her streamers from our deck party. She began jumping and dancing around proclaiming we were having a party in our room!

(not the best video, but look at her cute feet!)

We did a little more exploring of the boat,

then headed back to the Oceaneer’s Club for Toddler Time. This is when all the other kids are gone (for who knows what exciting thing) and they lay out games, books and toys for toddlers and their parents to use. We also got full run of the place and played with EVERYTHING!

(wow, we’ve all got some crazy hair going on!)

That night our show was The Golden Mickeys. It had all of the favorite characters in it and is a very enjoyable show. If you get there early enough, you can even be on the big screen-pre-show! We were there early, but hadn’t dressed up, so we didn’t get interviewed. Oh well.

After the show, we decided to skip dinner. *gasp* I know. We just wanted Lydia to get to bed earlier to alleviate the crazy not-sleeping thing. So, we had a picnic on the floor with room service while Lydia entertained us with ballet.

But we should have just stayed up because I don’t think Lydia went to bed until about 2am.

Oh, and one more shot of the sunset…

Nice, huh?

Day 5: Grand Cayman, Sea Turtles & Belle