Lots of Characters

So, the one and only thing (in my opinion) that makes the Disney Cruise Line standout is meeting the characters. This portion of the trip truly was priceless. Ella was especially adorable to watch during teh character meet and greets. She must have truly believed that the characters were the same ones she saw on the tv. For the most part, characters had scheduled meet and greet times. Occassionally, we were able to run into a character in the elevator or elsewhere on the ship. The characters were so good at playign the part. Especially the princesses, who were dainty and formal all the way down to their goodbye wave. Very cute.

Ella noticed right away that Belle was in her "reading dress" when we ran into her on this particular day. She was on her way to read stories to the kids in the childcare rooms. After talking with the girls about how fun it is to read, Ella and McKenna wanted to go to the childcare right away. We let them!

Princess Tiana. Don't think the girls will be seeing this movie anytime soon. Somehow they still knew precisely who she was.

Princess Aurora, aka Sleeping Beauty, aka Briar Rose...

Little Ella had to have her arm around the characters as much as possible.

Not sure why, but...Donald felt impelled to turn around, slightly bend over and shake his tail feathers ever so often. This of course, is now randomly mimicked by the girls.

This was one of the formal dinner nights. You will notice lots of the characters were dressed in their formals, as well. The girls were especially smitten with Daisy Duck.

We bumped into Captain Hook and Mr. Smee in the hallway.

A perfect pirate pose. You see where Ella gets the thing with her arm? Remember all of these pictures? The girls were very excited to see Mr. Smee and Cpt. Hook. They pretended to be the Croc from the movie and said, "tic toc, tic toc..." and Captain Hook SERIOUSLY ran all around the main floor lobby and atrium letting McKenna and Ella chase him. I think the others in line were annoyed (he he he). But, the girls will likely NEVER forget the day they chased Captain Hook.

Notice their autograph books. I love the expression on their faces. They LOVED talking with the characters. Most of the time, the characters were patient and spent a decent amount of time with each child.

He was quite dramatic with the girls. They were telling him that they just saw Captain Hook.

Funny pose. I think that is the "I can fly" pose.

We randomly ran into Snow White and she graciously posed for a picture. Again, Ella with the tongue!

Captain Mickey and First Mate Minnie

Castaway Cay

Castaway Cay is a Disney owned and operated, private island in the Bahamas. Read it's brief history; it's interesting.

The temperature was perfect for walking or laying in the sun! 77 degrees and sunny. It was not, however, the Caribbean anymore and the ocean temp reminded us of that! Brrr! The water was very cold. What you see here is about as wet as we got!

We walked around and looked through the shops. We had a BBQ style lunch. We played in the sand, a lot. It was probably one of the most relaxing days of the vacation.

Have you seen Pirates of the Caribbean? Here's the ship from the movie.

Ella and McKenna both with hair wraps and souviners. Ella was quite the shopper on this particular day. She wanted something from every little shop....bracelets, pencils, bags, etc..

The girls had been saving their money for some time for this trip. They each walked on with a solid amount of spending money. Good for them!

Even Mammy got a hair braid. I did too, there just isn't a picure of it.

Oh, yeah! We read this sign as we entered the beach area of the island. Sea Lice? Ick!

Nothing like a warm welcome, right!?

St. Maarten

First Port of Call: St. Maarten

And, yes, I spelled it right. There are lots of different spellings for it. Click here to learn more about the island!

We visited the the Dutch capitol of Philipsburg. We saw the beautiful beach and, well, didn't get much further than that. By the time we walked to the end of the pier the girls were already miserable with the heat and walking. We decided that spending time in ocean might be the only thing they could tolerate. They're such high maintainance princesses! (Arthur would say, "like their Mom!"

The locals were walkign up adn down the shoreline trying to sell their various items or talents!

Hair braid? Aloe massage? Fresh drink?

31 Flavors!

McKenna wanted her picture taken by this tree.

Not just any ol' dinner

If you have ever cruised before, you know about dinners at sea. They are meant to be grand, delicious, unique, exquisite, and remarkable...

For the girls, it was! They had so much fun ordering cheese pizza almost every night. Ella was adventurous with a few of her appetizers-ordering soups. They enjoyed teasing Alvin, our server from the Phillipines. They couldn't wait for each night's dessert menu.

In my opinion, the food was good. Not the afore mentioned remarkable, but good. Understand, I was looking at the cruise through the eyes of a mom and then through the eyes of a critic hoping to publish a review. More on that later....

Our server was friendly and helpful. He worked HARD to keep all 20 of his guests happy. He was sarcastic, which took a bit to get used to. He was also smitten by Ella and thoroughly enjoyed teasing her or hiding her little toys. One night, he brought her a bowl of ice cream with literally one drop in it, while McKenna's bowl was overflowing. This almost brought Ella to tears....which, I wonder-might have been his goal =(

Here are Alvin and the girls. We learned that Alvin's wife still lives in the Phillipines with their 4 children (oldest is 19). He works 6 months and then has 8 weeks off. We don't fully believe that this is his given name-rather one he created for himself out of ease for Americans.

For some reason, you will notice Ella's tongue is sticking out in way too many pictures.

Uncle Dale, Sergio and McKenna

Sergio is from Spain. He hasn't been working with DCL very long. He mentioned that he isn't sure how much he likes it. (Keep in mind that I asked lots of questions to the servers. Getting to know them was a fun part for me.)  He was EXCELLENT at memorizing our names and recognizing us outside of the dinning rooms. Very nice guy. Very gentle spirit.

We also celebrated Ella's birthday while on the ship. Alvin brought her this giant slice of cake. It had so many yummy layers. That cruise ship on top? White and Dark chocolate!

Not sure why but Alvin decided to encourage Ella to put her face into the cake and McKenna quickly chimed in. He also fed Ella her first bite!

DCL dinning differs from others in that it offers rotation dining. There are 3 different dinning rooms on board: Parrot Cay, Lumiere's, Animator's Palate

Animator's Palate was my favorite. As you begin your dinning experience the room and servers-lack color. Everything is black, white or gray. As the dinner progresses colors start to appear and characters begin to become animated on the wall. Very cool. By dessert everything is vivid.

Parrot Cay was my least favorite of the three. It felt like a Old Country Buffet to me (Or, Shoney's) minus the "help yourself buffet line." Here's McKenna enjoying too much Jello at Parrot Cay.

Lot of the food is shaped like Mickey! Even the ketchup!