A disney cruise

Back in the summer, I realized Hannah had a whole 2 weeks off for Christmas so I decided to book a Disney cruise to the Bahamas for the first week. I had always wanted to do a Disney cruise because I have heard such good things but booking 6 months in advance is actually considered booking late so there weren't that many rooms open.

Saturday

Had a flight with a stop in Vegas. The vegas airport had a nice kid play area which helped with the layover though the slot machines distracted the kids a lot. We switched to a AA flight on the second leg and the airplane had awesome in flight entertainment which kept the kids completely silent the whole time. Actually when we landed, Hannah asked why the flight was so short! On this flight, we did carry on only because I was afraid of losing luggage so we got off the flight quickly and I decided to take public transit with the metromover and train since our hotel was right in front of a stop. There was someone to help with the ticket purchase which was super nice but we ended up missing the train and having to wait 20 minutes for the next one. Which would have been okay except christopher isn't all that safety conscious with trains and was way too close to the edge. A security guy actually came and told us to hold him back. Also our kids are not the best on trains because they just climb everything and touch everything.

Sunday

Water park onboard

Our checkin time was 1-1:30 but we headed to the cruise ship around noon. It was super crowded but the lines moved pretty quickly. After we checked in, we still had to wait for them to call our group number to get into the boat so I waited in line with the kids to get the kids club band. In retrospect,
I probably could have gotten this later I think because the line was pretty long but I didn't know at the time. Once we were on the boat, we hit the lunch buffet which was pretty good and then we went to check out our room. We ended up in room 6640 on the Disney Magic with a connecting room. It was a room with a Captain's Verandah which we liked though we didn't use it much because it was so hot when we first arrived in Miami. We unfortunately had second seating dinner so we had a lot of time to kill and our baggage wasn't there yet so we did some exploring of the kids club and then went to watch the show at 6:15pm. Dinner was at 8:15 at Animator's Palate (location rotates every night). The kids got some coloring sheets at dinner but it wasn't enough to keep them entertained and they were getting so antsy around 9pm that I took them to kids club and dropped them off. I then came back to eat in peace only to realize that they had a show the first night! So they missed some singing and animation in the dinner room. Oops. Apparently it was only the first night too in that restaurant too. But after dinner around 10:15, they had a special christmas show with disney characters and Santa Clause which we caught.

Key West

We had a tour booked - luckily it wasn't too early a meeting time and they took us to see the Butterfly museum and the aquarium in town. Both small but fascinating. We went back to the boat for lunch and swimming. Our room was on the aft side which made it convenient for the buffet area and kids pool. I thought I would have to go into the pool too but turns out they just went into the kids wading pool so I just sat on the side watching. The show that night was Tangled the musical which was really well done but Christopher had a potty accident in the middle so I took him out to change. Then I actually took him to take some photos. The great thing about the cruise was the many character meet and greets. It was like going to Disneyland.

Boat Day

Glad to have a day to relax on ship but we also took advantage of the kids club and hit the movie theater to see the new release Rogue One! We actually got in line an hour early and I thought the 3d was pretty poor but I really enjoyed it.

Bahamas

We went to a private island tour which had Dolphins and Seals. Not much to see snorkeling though the water was nice and shallow. It was also nice not to have to fight for beach chairs. I really should have signed the kids up for the Dolphin meet and greet but we did see the Dolphins as we were leaving. Pretty amazing

View of Castaway Cay from ship

Castaway Cay

Now here we probably didn't need to pay for the expensive 4 in 1 activity (stingray snorkeling + tube rental + bike rental) and just done a few things here and there. First of all, I loved castaway cay. The advantage of the small boat is it wasn't crowded on the island with plenty of shaded lounge chairs for all. We got to take a few pictures with disney characters when we arrived but I really should have brought sand toys with us since we ended up having to buy some. I took hannah snorkeling into the snorkeling bay and we had to go pretty far out and she and I were tired but we saw some sunken fake ships even with a mickey mouse down there which was cool. With such a long itinerary, I was wishing we didn't have to go biking but in the end, I was glad we did just for a change. They even threw in a child seat for christopher for free so that was nice.

Cool disney exhibits on the bike ride