Characters and Mayan ruins in Cozumel

Of course being on a Disney cruise, we got to meet lots of Disney characters. On the first day, as soon as we finished lunch, we found the "fabulous 5" at the deck party. Chip and Dale were also there. 

Story time with Belle. 

Excited to meet Peter Pan. Peter was so fun with the kids. On one afternoon, I was running back to our stateroom to get something, and as I got to the top of the stairs, I ran smack into Peter Pan running down the stairs. I said, "oops, excuse me", and then he giggled and ran away. I felt kinda bad about it, until later, the girls spotted him running at full speed up and down the halls and laughing. So then I figured I'm probably not the first person to run into him. He kinda had it coming.

There was one character breakfast. Evie was the most excited, but all of the kids loved it. 

They got to meet Mickey, Minnie, Chip, and Dale. Our server had told the girls the previous evening that Daisy Duck would be there, so Evie was a little disappointed not to see her there. 

Evie did not want to meet Captain Hook and Mr. Smee. She loved meeting them when we were in the Bahamas, so we were surprised that she didn't want to. She kept saying how naughty they are. Kiersten said that Hook was a gentleman. I think Ben told them that his mother told him to be nice that day. 

Meeting Dopey and Snow white. 

We had to bring Evie back to meet them later when she got out of the Oceaneer's club. 

after she met Snow White, Kara decided she didn't care to meet any more princesses. She would rather do science experiments in the Oceaneer's Lab. (And hang around with a certain boy who was in there)
So we took the 2 littles to meet Belle.

Evie loved meeting Cinderella. She was telling her a bunch of random things about carving pumpkins, and our house. Cinderella was really nice, and gave Evie many many hugs and kisses. 

Kiersten got so excited when she saw Ariel coming down the stairs. She whispered in her ear, and later wouldn't tell me what she had said. 

Dancing the Do-Si-Do with Snow White. Evie and Kara had fun, but if I remember correctly,  Kiersten was being quite a stinker.

Hanging out by the pool with Donald Duck. I forgot I wanted to get Ben's picture with Donald, since he has always had a soft spot for him. 

In Cozumel, we went on a tour of the Mayan ruins. I really liked it, and Kara says she did too. The other girls got bored rather quickly, but still behaved pretty well. 

I'm surprised how well Kara was listening to the tour guide. She was re-telling me several specific details the other day. 

All of the kids got super distracted by this iguana. I think the tour guide was relieved when it finally ran down a hole. 

The kids trying to figure out where the iguana went. 

As much as I enjoyed it, I don't think we will do anything like this again for a while. maybe in 5 years or so. 

After the tour of the ruins, we drove around the beach side of the island, and then had a couple hours at the beach. When we went to change into our swim wear, it was discovered that Kara's bathing suit had been left behind on the ship. So I got the little girls changed, and played with them on the beach while Ben took Kara to find a bathing suit in one of the shops. He couldn't find any for kids, so he ended up getting her a women's small. Definitely strange to see a 7 year old in a triangle top bikini, with the waist pulled as tight as possible. (luckily it had a belt thingy). In the ocean, there was a big blow up, floating toy with climbing walls, trampolines, slides, etc. I didn't intend to swim out to it. I just thought Ben would take Kara, but all the girls wanted to go play on it. So I swam out with Evie, which was a pain, because she was terrified of sinking, (despite the life jacket), so I was dragging her along, and swimming with one arm. Halfway out, We passed Ben on his way back to the beach. He clipped the camera to my life jacket, and I swam the rest of the way to the floaty thing. We played for a minute, but Evie was so terrified, and crying, so I decided we'd better go back to the beach. Just then, she slipped into one of the center pools, and was freaking out, so I jumped in to help her back up. But then I struggled to get back up, because there wasn't anything to grab hold of there. After a couple minutes, I pulled myself back up, but saw that my vest was unbuckled, and the camera was gone :(   Evie was crying, and Kiersten started crying when I said I dropped the camera, and then it started pouring. I wanted to wait for the rain to let up before swimming back with Evie, and while we were waiting, Ben came back. So I told him what happened, and after we got Kara, we all swam back to the beach. i was very impressed with kiersten's swimming. I thought I would need to help her more, but she kept right up with me. Kara did lag behind a little, but didn't need any help. I took the girls to get changed, and Ben rented some snorkel gear to go look for the camera. The water was about 12 ft deep, so he thought he might be able to find it, since I pretty much knew right where I'd lost it. About 5 minutes before we needed to get back on the bus, I asked my parents to take the girls and wait for us there, while I went to look for Ben. I could see him still out there, so I asked the guy at the snorkel shop if he had any way to communicate with the guy on the floatie, so they could tell Ben to swim back. Instead, he just sent someone out in a boat to drag Ben back. He didn't find the camera, so that was sad. While I was waiting for the boat, I noticed I didn't have Ben's shoes. So I started looking, and then remembered that I had taken them in the bathroom when we changed. They weren't in there, but I ended up finding them in the lost and found. I was relieved, because I imagined Ben would be pretty annoyed if I lost the camera and his shoes in an hour. On his way back to the beach, he dropped the snorkel mask, so he had to swim around a bit to find that. By the time he got in, we were already late for the bus, so we hurried as fast as we could. Luckily they hadn't left yet, and we weren't the only ones late getting back. Everyone on the bus was so sad for us losing the camera. the lady behind us kept talking to me about it, even though I kept trying to hint that I didn't want to talk about it. It turned out that she lives in Provo, and I went to high school with her daughter. I didn't recognize the name, but her daughter would have been in the grade below me, so maybe Angie would have known her. Anyway, I felt pretty mad and sorry for myself for a few hours, before I forced myself to get over it, and enjoy the rest of the trip. There are a lot worse things that could happen to a person, and we still have all of our fun memories, even if there aren't any pictures to go along with them.

Disney Wonder

We had so much fun on our cruise. I was so excited for my parents to go, and it was so fun being on the cruise with them. Here we are getting ready to board. 

Mickey was there to meet all the kids before we got on the ship. I'm pretty sure I got some good shots of the ship from the outside, but since I lost my little waterproof camera in the ocean, you'll just have to imagine how great they were. 

The girls loved the Ariel statue. Kiersten kept saying we were on Ariel's ship. 

The girls wanted to put on their Minnie ears first thing. Then we headed up for the lifeboat drill. 

At first the girls kept fighting over who got to push which button on the elevator, but by the end of the cruise, Ben and I would just hurry and push it before they got a chance to argue about it. Kara and Kiersten were fighting a lot at first. Kiersten even got kicked out of the oceaneer's club for fighting with Kara too much. So they both had major talkings-to, time outs, and couldn't go back to the oceaneer club or lab for a while. After that they pretty much stopped fighting.

Kara had so much fun at the sail-away deck party. I can't remember why, but Kiersten was pouting, and didn't have as much fun as the rest of us. 

The only dolphins we saw were as we were leaving Galveston. 

After the golden Mickeys show, these 2 gathered up a bunch of streamers, and were a little bummed when Ben made them throw them away. 

Formal night. I wished I had gotten a more formal dress, but I got such a great deal on this one, so I can't be too regretful. 

We had the late dinner at 8:15, so we wouldn't feel rushed back from the ports, but several times, I wished we had the early dinner instead. 

The "wonder" is a little smaller than the "Dream", but still really feels pretty huge when you're on,  or near it. 

At breakfast one morning, the wait staff made hats out of napkins for everyone. Kiersten's was my favorite. 

Kara, Evie, and Mom all had the same hat. I think it's maybe supposed to be maleficent???

And of course, Dad, the king of pepper mill land. 

Kara and Kiersten were super excited to participate in the kids vs. adults game. The kids won, and they were pretty excited about their prize of free ice cream and soda, until Ben ruined the magic by reminding them that the ice cream and soda is always free. It was sad to see Kiersten's excited grin drop away so abruptly.

Since the waterproof camera was lost at sea, and that's the only one we took to Jamaica and Grand Caymans, I have no pictures to share from those ports. Hopefully I'll be able to get some from my parents. In Jamaica, we just shopped, and Kara got her hair braided. Then we found someone to take us to an old church we had spotted from the ship. It was a lot of walking, but still fun. And I got this delicious "bigga mango" drink! 

In grand cayman, we went for a ride in a semi submarine, It was pretty fun, and we saw so many interesting fish. the girls were the most excited about the sting rays. I think those are the pictures I'm the most sad about losing. After the semi-sub, we went to the beach for a few hours. It was a great beach, and we had a fun time there. Kiersten made a huge seashell collection, and was a little sad to leave it behind, until I assured her that another little girl would come along to enjoy the shells. I did let her bring home a few small shells. I think the beach here was my favorite part of the trip, everyone was so happy. I actually have some pictures from Cozumel, so I'll talk about that in another post. 

We had a weird vibration in our room that would come and go, but was particularly annoying at night. Ben complained, and they offered us a different room, but I didn't want to be separated from my parents, as they had Kara and Kiersten in their room. So we stayed in the vibrating room. The guest services showed up with these stuffed animals for Evie a little later. She was sure excited.

On pirate night, Evie and Keirsten both fell asleep early, and Dad stayed in the room with them. So it was just Ben, Mom, Kara, and me for dinner. 

I thought I was making a pirate face for all the pictures, but turns out, it doesn't look as pirate-y as I thought it did. so now I have all these weird pictures, haha. Ben and I decided to eat our entire dinner with our plastic hooks on. It was challenging, but funny. I did mess up a few times, but Ben was completely dedicated. 

Ben got tired and decided to go to bed with the little girls, so Kara and I attended the pirate deck party with my parents. She had so much fun. I can't remember the last time I've seen her truly enjoy herself like that. 

i lost all the pictures from the mickey pool and slide, but I do have a couple from this pool. We had really rough water on the last day, and the other pools were closed, since they're so shallow. So everyone was at the goofy pool. The water was sloshing back and forth, and it actually made some pretty fun waves.

I had to capture this fun moment! We definitely made use of the unlimited ice cream supply. My favorite was the mango flavor. It's a good thing they put that one out toward the end of the week, or I may have eaten a lot more. 

On the last night after dinner, I got a birthday dessert. But I had already ordered dessert, so they brought both. 

I'll post all of the character pictures and cozumel pictures in a later post, as this is getting long, and I'm kinda tired. So check back soon!