A Hop, NO Skip, and Many Mishaps to a Disney Dream Days 3 and 4

[jenseib]

The first part of my report can be found here

http://www.intercot.com/discussion/s...d.php?t=181342


Day 3 ~ April 1st, Friday

Who’s the fool now? LOL! …..Ok, no one was, but I just wanted to say that since it was April Fools day!

I woke up around 6 AM…very rested and feeling refreshed.
This was the Navigator for the day.









I got dressed and headed out for some picture taking.
Carpet by the elevator.



He was out in the Elevator/Stairway hall by Cabanas.



The weather was fabulous, but windy. I tried to capture the sun rise. Not so good. At first I thought my focus was messed up.



Then I tried a picture of the Waves sign and bar.



Not much better….then it hit me…my lens was fogging up in the heat.

I found a spot to sit near the hot tub, wiped the lens off and waited for it to get used to the different temperature. I had brought my notebook along, so I wrote some more notes while I sat there.

I did a couple of test tries on the hot tub every so often.



After a few tries, it finally did clear up and I decided to walk around more and take some more shots.







Notice the plexi glass around the top of the ship. This really blocks the wind and makes it more comfortable up top.



I went on the other side of the plexi glass for this one. It’s the teen area. It was SUPER windy. It about knocked me over. I had a hard time standing in one spot to get this shot.



Sun is coming up now!

[jenseib]

More random shots as I walk around the ship.

















I just loved taking pictures of this sign…..

[jenseib]

After my picture and exploring tour I went back through Cabanas and grabbed a plate of food for Claire and I, and took it back to the room. Mom was awake when I got back.
We were getting near port, so Mom and I stood out on the Verandah and took in the scenery.



LAND HO!











And a few of the Verandah itself.









It was close to 8 and I tried to wake Claire up. She was dead to the world.



I tried to entice her to get up…reminding her of the fun day we had planned, she just kept sleeping. Claire can sleep through anything in the morning. If it was a perfect world she would stay up till midnight every night and sleep till noon every day. I always say she was born in the wrong time zone. She should live in California!

I decided I wanted to run up top one more time and take some pictures while pulling into Port. Sadly I never got that “great” shot I was hoping for. The sun was so bright and the reflection off the water made it hard to get great shots, but that didn’t stop me!

Somewhere along the line I took this picture. Must’ve been on the way up, but I have no clue where? Maybe in the elevator?



And here is what I wanted to get….The Lighthouse. I wanted a fabulous picture of it…and I’m not sure I really got what I wanted. But I took about a zillion pictures trying.



And here is one of the shots I had really wanted….except I wanted the water to be blue!! Dang sun was NOT cooperating.









I finally got a picture of the light house with blue water….but I also got some weird lines in it too. That darn sun!!!







Hi Dude!!!

[jenseib]

More pictures of pulling into to port.





I headed back down to the room and shot a few more from the Verandah then. Still trying for that perfect lighthouse shot……







And someone must like to watch the ships come in and sunbathe at the same time! LOL







Looks like we have some early partiers!





And one last picture of the lighthouse



OK! We now HAVE to get Claire moving. Claire and I had an excursion to go on. I basically had to pull her out of the bunk, but once she was up, she did get moving. She said she wasn’t hungry, but I made her eat something. When looking at pictures of food prior to cruising, she consistently said she wanted a chocolate covered donut, so I had brought one down for her. She licked the chocolate off and was done with that! LOL! She had a sausage link and maybe a bite of hash brown.
She had other things on her mind though. She was very excited about the excursion.
After we were all dressed and ready, we headed to the Buena Vista Theatre to meet. Mom had decided to go on her own that day, but she tagged along with us to the meet up and stayed with us till we left.

I forgot to mention that the night before we had tried to do the Dective agency interactive play thing onboard. It was closed at the time we went. Mom had promised Claire that they would do it on this day later on. While waiting in the theatre Claire talked about this a lot. Mom promised that they would indeed do it sometime after the excursion. Mom and I also talked of possibly checking out Atlantis when Claire and I got back as well. We decided to play it by ear.

Several Excursions met in the Theatre. The process was to grab towels, if needed, when you walk in. Again, you should walk in on deck 4, as they have nothing up on Deck 5 entrance. Then they line you up and you give them your tickets and they put a wristband on you for your excursion. We also put a sticker on our shirt so the CM’s could see which excursion we went too. I believe we got a Dalmatian sticker. And that sucker was STICKY. It came off my shirt through out the day but stuck to my arm. And it HURT to pull it off.

After we had all the right stuff, we lined up with our excursion mates and headed off the ship.
Once off the ship, we had to wait for an excursion leader to come and take us the rest of the way.
Now you are probably thinking…”OK, what excursion did they go on?” WELL……
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You will have to wait for that one!

[pdrlkr]

Thanks for the Report!

[jenseib]

Thanks for the Report!

Thank you!

[jenseib]

The next section is going to be scattered with pictures here and there. I left my SLR in our room. I didn’t want it going on this trip with us. I took pictures with my waterproof camera and my point and shoot on this excursion. Of course that card is the “infamous” lost card now.

So on to the excursion…what was it you ask?

It was the Dolphin Encounter at Blue Lagoon.

This was an encounter…NOT a swim. The Swim cost a lot more and I wanted to just give this a try and not break the bank.

I had debated over several excursions before booking this. We also just thought of winging it back when Skip was coming.
Claire had seen a commercial abut Dolphins and soon started asking to swim with them.
After some thought and research, I decided to book the Encounter. Blue Lagoon was rated better than Atlantis…and cheaper too. So I went with that.
Once Skip made the decision NOT to come, I asked Mom if she wanted to take his place. She said no. But she wouldn’t mind observing. I quickly tried to book her, but our time slot was booked for observers…..Though I actually saw very few observers there that day.

So…I had left off when we had gotten off the ship. We waited for a few minutes or so and then a new person came to direct us where to go. While standing there I took some pictures of the AquaDuck part that goes over the side of the ship...and some ship pictures, etc. Of course they are all gone now. …that still really irks me.
While standing there we saw that on that spot of the Aquaduck that comes over the side was a girl just sitting there. A CM crawled out to her and pushed the raft through and they crawled back in. I had heard this sometimes happen if you don’t have enough weight. No worries for us. Claire wasn’t tall enough to ride by herself and I had plenty of weight for the 2 of us! LOL!

Our guide led us to a boat to ride over to the island. It was a pretty long walk, but not much further than the walk everyone has to take to get to anything in port. I had that point and shoot in my hand and I took shot after shot after shot, just randomly aiming it. I even took a picture of a cool small boat that was docked and the guys who were working on it….Oh how I wish I could see those pictures now.

We got on the boat and Claire and I went up to the top and chose the back row seats. Soon we were on our way to Blue Lagoon. I shot lots of pictures on our way to the island….MOST on the lost card, but I did switch back and forth to the waterproof camera every so often, so I have a few to post.











There she is.













And then I switched cameras again for the rest of the ride over, so those pictures are lost.
It was about a 20-30 minute ride over to the island. Nothing too exciting, but there are a lot of HUGE homes and yachts along the way to look at.
I was told by several different people to bring a sweatshirt, as the ride over can be chilly. My suggestion is DON’T. Claire and I were too hot to wear them, which meant I had to stuff them in my backpack, along with 3 big towels. If you get chilly, I would just say use your towel to wrap up in. It will save on room. Of course the exception would be if it was really a cold day.
I could tell Claire was excited. She just looked around and watched the water with me on the way over, but I could tell she was thinking…..”let’s hurry up and get there!”
And soon we arrived!!!!
I took lots of pictures of the Blue Lagoon sign and the island as we pulled in, but again all lost.

When we got off the boat we were all led down the dock to a little open aired classroom where we learned a little bit about dolphins.





The classroom was packed. Claire and I just squeezed in where we could.





We then were led to another area to get lockers and put our stuff away. I took this one on the way.



We put our belongings in the locker and then were directed where to go. There was a couple of spots for those doing the “swim” and a few for those doing the Encounter.

We had to climb down to a floating dock and the sit on the edge with our feet in the water. That water was COLD!!!!!!!
We then waited…..and waited….and waited a little more.



We could see these guys swimming over in another area.



And this guy swimming here and there.



Claire is still patiently waiting.



We see this guy walk over by the other dolphins and talk to them.



Another dolphin comes over to say hi.



Our instructor comes over and tells us that the dolphin that is supposed to come to us is not behaving. He/she wants to play with his friend and won’t leave the other area unless they both can come. He said they don’t make the dolphins do anything they don’t want to do, so he was going to try for another one, and basically it was a waiting game.

FINALLY we had one who wanted to play with US!



I believe her name was Dot. She was pregnant…..about 7 months I believe…..and they can go up to 11 months if I remember right. I just remember it was a random time, like between 9 and 11 months or something like that.

Our instructor gave us the directions, and told us how things would be happening and then we got started.

[jenseib]

Dot did a few tricks while our guy (I can’t remember his name, but he was really good and friendly) told us about her.
The photographer also told us about few options. One was a book and a CD of the pictures he took. No one wanted it. I asked about just a CD, and he didn’t know the price…which led me to believe that he didn’t take a lot of pictures unless you bought the book. I didn’t buy the book, but looking back, I wish I did.

Claire and I also wore water shoes, and they asked us to take those off.

















We then took turns getting into the water by families. We picked one family member to get a kiss from our Dolphin and they shot a picture of it. That water was SOOOO COLD! The adults had to crouch down into the water and WOW!...Quite the shock.
Another thing, the platform you stand on is full of algae. Really gross feeling. And slippery too.

I handed off my camera to another family to take our picture. That’s what most of us did while in the water. We just asked some another family who was not in the water to take pictures. It worked out pretty good. I know I took a ton of one family with their camera. LOL!







Take note of the girl sitting on the right side in the background looking at her camera…….



After each family got a picture taken with Dot, we then got called back into the water in groups to interact with her. This is when I realized I hadn’t put sunscreen on. Luckily we didn’t get TOO burned, but we both got red. I was sitting with my back totally exposed to the sun, and I knew Claire was getting hit hard too. But the sunscreen was up in the locker, so we stuck it out.

Every so often Dot would swim away and we would have to wait for her to decide to come back. And every so often we would get some other rogue Dolphin coming in for a visit.

[jenseib]

We were not in the first group to interact with Dot, so I just took some pictures and watched. I believe we were the 2nd group though.





Here she is blowing out her blow hole.



Our turn!!! We got to run our fingers across her teeth and feel them.



Dancing with Dot! I make some of the weirdest faces!









Can you tell she liked it?









And this is the copied redneck version from the site.











And the redneck version of Claire’s kiss.



Claire and I were done with our turn with Dot. We told her goodbye and headed back up to the dock.



Claire and I went back to the locker and got our things. We dried off and wrapped up in towels.

I got a tap on my shoulder and heard….”that certainly isn’t the camera you had last night”. It was the couple from the show who had asked me about my settings/camera. They had done a dolphin excursion as well. I laughed and told them no, that one was left back on the ship.

While we were gathering our things they played the video that was taken while we had our excursion. I asked Claire what she thought. She kind of wanted it, I wasn’t sure. I told her we would go look at our pictures first and then decided.

Of course Claire spotted the gift shop! She instantly fell in love with a pillow with a dolphin on it.
I made sure this was something she really wanted and told her it would be coming out of her spending money and she was fine with that.

I snapped a picture of Claire with the pillow



and then put that camera away and pulled out the point and shoot. So all the rest of the pictures are lost…….

I took a look at our pictures…and WOW! How can you refuse. BE AWARE!!!! If you go in thinking you won’t buy, you will be VERY tempted. Luckily I didn’t go in thinking that! LOL! They had 3 pictures displayed and I wanted them all. We found out that if you got the DVD, which was on sale, the price wasn’t too bad…Ok it was bad, but not full price bad. LOL!
I decided on the DVD and 3 picture package. It also came with some magnets and key chains with our picture on them as well.
Claire and I headed off to the bathroom while we waited for the DVD to be made. Remember that girl I had pointed out earlier, well she was in there and she was dressed…..in Disney kids club CM clothes. I asked her if she had the afternoon off and she told me that when they do good things Disney rewards them with prizes. Her prize was the dolphin encounter.
Claire and I then stopped for a drink and some ibuprofen from the little store. I think Claire might’ve gotten an ice cream bar of some sort too. We walked around a bit in the area and I took several pictures. We didn’t wander to far though, as I wanted to get my DVD as soon as it was done and be on the next boat back which was at 1PM.

About 10 till 1 the DVD was ready and we paid for our purchases and headed to the dock.

Here is what we got.












I have the video loaded on You tube...but I don't think we can post you tube links here.

[emerzmom]

Thanks for sharing. The pictures were great!

[KylesMom]

What a wonderful excursion for both of you! I'm sorry that so many priceless pictures were lost, though.

[princessgirls]

Very memorable experience.

Thanks for sharing!!

Julie

[jenseib]

Very memorable experience.

Thanks for sharing!!

Julie

Thanks for reading

What a wonderful excursion for both of you! I'm sorry that so many priceless pictures were lost, though.

It was really fun...a once in a lifetime thing.

Thanks for sharing. The pictures were great!

Thanks!

[jenseib]

After making our purchases, Claire and I walked the short distance to the boat dock and waited. The 1 PM boat was late, by at least 15 minutes, I would say. I took some pictures, but of course those are lost.
The boat came and we all boarded in a nice chaotic way. LOL! But we got on and Claire and I went to the top and back row of the boat again.
The ride was long again. I think it was just over 30 minutes. I shot some pictures of the gorgeous houses along the shores with intentions of telling Skip this would be our new vacation home.
The boat made 2 stops this time, 1 at Atlantis and then one back where we originally got on. We got off at the 2nd stop. I think it was close to 2 by the time we got back.

The Norwegian Epic was now in port too. She was huge as well, but not nearly as pretty as the Dream. I took pictures and eyed her a bit though. I have considered sailing her in the future…but after the Dream, it may be hard to switch lines.
We decided to head back to the ship. Claire declared she had to go potty. So we hurried. I didn’t see one as we walked though that customs building of shops, but I’m sure there was one there, I just missed it. In fact Claire said she saw one and was mad I didn’t stop.
The line was a little long to get through the customs area, but it did move pretty fast, but when you have a child doing the potty dance, nothing is fast enough.
We did get through fast. The guy never even wanted to see our Birth Certificates, just our room keys.
We made a mad dash, well I don’t dash well, but a fast walk, to the ship and again pulled the KTTW out and got through fairly fast, throwing our stuff in a basket to go through the scan. Again, they didn’t want to see our B/C either.
I asked a CM where the closest bathroom was and we ran to it. All was well then! LOL!

We then headed back to the room and found Mom there. She said she stayed on the ship for the most part. I think she said she got off for about 2 minutes, then just decided to get back on and relax. She said she read her book, explored a little bit and just had some “me” time.

Claire and I had a meet to go to, so we grabbed the camera and autograph book and got in line. The Princesses were coming out at 2:45. We saw the morning meets line and it was SUPER long, so I wanted to get in line as soon as possible. We only had a few families in front of us when we got there. It got long fast though.



A few pictures while waiting.







And then They came out 1 by 1. It was very exciting!









I then noticed that the other 3 Princesses were on the other balcony.



Then they all proceeded down the stairs and got in place.





Our wait wasn’t too long. Soon we were visiting with Snow White.







And here is what the ships photographer took.







And then on to Belle, one of Claire’s favorites.











And here’s what the photographer took.

[jenseib]

Aurora was the next Princess





And the photographers, which came out better, as mine all were pretty blurred.







Tiana was next. This was Claire’s first time to ever meet her!









I hate to admit it, but Mom is not totally familiar with all the Disney Princesses…Shame on her! She asked who this one was. I told her Tiana. Mom thought she was just beautiful…..and she was...but after all, she is a Princess!



I really like this one!



And here’s what the photographer took.









Claire’s other favorite Princess….Ariel!











And the photographers







We now had one Princess left to visit. Who could it be?..
…
…
..
..

[jenseib]

Well it was Cinderella…of course!







And the photographers





That was fun…we had seen all the Princesses….or had we? Wait, ……What do I see? I look up and see ANOTHER Princess up on the next deck having a Meet and Greet as well.
It’s a must do for us, so we hike up a flight of stairs and get in line.

I took a few shots while we waited.

This is the Vista Café, tucked away in the corner.





And then it was our turn to visit one last Princess. She did a few Swirls for us!





Princess Minnie!!!!!









And the Photographers



After all the Meet and Greets it was time to get the Detective card so Claire and Mom could start a new adventure. Claire WAS NOT going to let us forget about this at all!









We now had our card in hand and activated. We had found that you could only activate a card to do this at certain times during the day…but I “think” you could do the actual adventure at any time of the day once you had the card. We also grabbed a map of where each picture was for the mission. There were 2 to choose from and Claire and Mom decided on one they wanted to do. The card would work for both though.

Here is a copy of the map. I don't remember if there were 2 separate maps for the 2 missions, or if it all went off this one map. Since I wasn't involved, I really don't know too much about it. This was the only map we brought home though.

The map is also much bigger than my scanner, so this is what you get. LOL!







One more thing had to be done before they went off though. We needed lunch!
We hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and Claire hadn’t eaten much then. She griped a bit, but gave in when we told her there would be no mission unless she ate something. We headed to Cabanas to find that they had very little out at that time of day.

There was enough to make Claire happy though and I filled a plate for her.



Mom went off in search of the fast food services. She came back shortly and said she couldn’t find them, so I left her and Claire and went and looked. They were quite a ways down…on the other side of the pools. I got a plate of a few items for Mom and I and headed back. It was all decent food. I don’t have a picture of the wraps we had because they were so good we both gobbled them up immediately.



After we ate, we headed back to the room once again. Mom told me that she did talk to Dad (she had phone service in the Bahamas) and that he did make it to his sisters house. He was frazzled, but made it. He told her a bit about his day so far. My cousin and her family were also visiting and he said they had all left to go to the beach for the day, so he and my Aunt and Uncle were spending the day together.

I decided to stay in the room and get cleaned up while Mom and Claire went off on their mission…well actually Claire told me I wasn’t even allowed to come. LOL! She said it was something special for just her and Adda! (Pronounced Odd-ah…that’s what the kids call my Mom).

[jenseib]

Before Claire and Mom had left, I realized that the “gift” and “note” of the day had not been left out that morning. So I quickly just flopped it on the bed and told Claire I saw something. She was surprised to see it in the afternoon, but happy. Here’s the note.



I can’t remember for sure what the gift was, but I think it was a package of Disney Princess underwear. She’s very picky about her underwear. You have to have a Princess on your butt at all times! I think she even wore a pair after her bath that day.

While Mom and Claire were off solving mysteries, I decided to turn my laptop on and try to upload some photos. While the laptop was starting up I went out on the verandah and took some pictures of Atlantis. This was another one of the “shots” I wanted to get. I played with some settings and then some editing too.







And this one is probably my favorite, though not perfect.



So I cropped it. And this is what I wanted to get!



And then I took a picture of these guys doing some work.



And remember that light house…you didn’t think I was going to give up getting a shot I liked, did you?







And then I turned back to Atlantis again.





And these guys again!

[jenseib]

After taking several shots of the same things over and over, I hooked the camera up to my laptop. I waited for the little light to turn blue on the camera, meaning I could do the simple upload. It never happened. My camera just kept saying it was busy. I don’t use the laptop much for photos, but I have given it a try at home to be sure it could do it. It wasn’t happening this time around. So I went to my computer and found the pictures on the camera. I tried to get them copied that way and again, I couldn’t get it figured out. The laptop is Vista, and it’s so much different than XP. I think since I have come home now, that I got the settings turned to the right thing to copy the pictures, but I will have to check it out again to be sure they stuck! LOL!
Anyways, I messed with this stupid laptop for WAY TOO LONG. I just couldn’t get it to work. I was supposed to be showering and getting ready this whole time, but NO, I was frustrated and trying to conquer the “Vista”.
Before I knew it, Mom and Claire were hopping back into the room. Wow, where did the time go…Oh yeah,…. it went with a lot of cussing at the laptop.

They said they had a ball doing the mission and I think they even started the 2nd one. Mom said she was very tired. There was a lot of walking to the front and back of the ship and up and down as well. She said she was very sore….but Claire was still hopping all around with excitement. The plan was to finish it up later on.

I jumped in the shower finally and got ready. All nice and pretty. We got Claire cleaned up as well.
This was pirate night, so Claire and I were going to join in the fun with all the other Buccaneers. So we had our pirate geer on. Mom declined the use of my extra pirate hat, but she did wear the bandana left in the room. I think she tied it around her neck.



It was time to head out to the show again.




We walked THROUGH pink this time, kind of by accident. I had wanted to come here one night and try out the special champagne, but I just never had the time. I also wanted to take more pictures of it, but again, I never did. I think this is the only one I took inside the whole time.



And I guess I took a quick shot inside of D Lounge too.



Claire wanted to sit in the balcony again, so we headed that way. We found a perfect spot, dead center in the balcony, but as we were going to sit, two young teens, quickly let us know they were saving 20 plus seats for their family. This irked me. There is no seat saving allowed at the shows, but rather than cause a scene, I just glared at them and turned around and told my Mom, “They are saving the seats…even though Disney doesn’t allow it”. So I’m sure they heard it, and hopefully thought better next time. We find a spot very close to where we had sat the night before and waited. That family, by the way, came in at the VERY last minute.

The show for the night was Villains Tonight. This was my least favorite show. It was OK, but in the future, I would personally skip it. This was Claire’s FAVORITE show however. …..Which is funny, because I debated going to it since she has such a fear of villains lately. The guy who played Hades was funny and good and I know he was ad libbing at times. I didn’t care for a lot of the music, nor did I really think the story line was very good. Great costumes again though!



I believe this is Pain and Panic, and I believe they are from Hercules….which we have never seen. Ok, I think years ago I might’ve watched part of it, and I think we have it on VHS somewhere, but I don’t know much about the story all.
Claire thought they were funny…I thought they were kind of dumb.















Claire does NOT like Ursala at all, so she was a little scared when she came out, but she did fine.





















And then my card ran out of memory, so I fumbled in the dark to change it…but while doing that, the lights went on and an announcement came on. There was a technical error and the show would resume shortly. Hades then adlibbed a bit and he was so funny. He then went off the stage and Pain and Panic came back out and interacted with the audience for a few minutes till the show restarted.

[faline]

Looks like you enjoyed your time with the dolphins!

[jenseib]

Looks like you enjoyed your time with the dolphins!

It was such a neat experience.