Sunday, March 17th - At Sea

Sunday, March 17th was a sail day. We woke up to clear blue skies, and 77 degrees. It was gorgeous. 




It was also St. Patrick's Day, and a leprechaun visited us during the night and brought us some necklaces and decorations. The girls had matching green Minnie shirts. We had breakfast at Cabana's, the breakfast buffet. Evan was in heaven with the unlimited cinnamon roll assortment. Let's also just say that no shortage of Mickey waffles was consumed. 

We enjoyed this day thoroughly. We spent the day at the pool, on a lounger, or on AquaDuck. We had friends from Sacred Heart that ended up on the exact same cruise, so we met up with them and had a lot of fun by the pool. They have a daughter in Lauren's class, so it was awesome for Lauren. We had lunch at the pool, and more drinks than we needed. ;) Fun fact - a guy sitting across from us on a pool lounger had a Barefoot Bar shirt on. Turns out he grew up in Spencer, IA. Small world!

Have I mentioned the ice cream cones? Not only were they free, they were unlimited, and self-serve. On this particular day, the kids had one before AND after lunch. The 10:30 AM beers we had may or may not have played in a role in that decision. 

 

By 2:00, Scarlet was needing a little downtime. Us girls headed to meet Olaf, then went back to our stateroom, and enjoyed some Disney moves On Demand. On the cruise, you could watch literally any Disney movie ever created On Demand at any time. The guys went and checked out Goofy's Sports Simulator, but it was booked the entire week. 

We had dinner at Royal Court that night, and had many character greetings. We pre-purchased one of the photo packages, so we had our photo taken nearly every night before dinner. It was formal night, which wasn't super formal for the Raymer family, but some families were really dressed up. At dinner, they sang Happy Birthday to Scarlet. They brought her a little birthday cake. They also brought Lauren a special sugar cookie. When she went to pick up the cookie, a fake cockroach crawled out. It was then we realized our wait staff had everyone watching us to see our reaction to the cockroach. Both Lauren and I screamed out loud, so I think we gave them the reaction they were looking for. They all enjoyed a good laugh on our behalf, lol. When I booked the cruise, they told me they'd celebrate all March birthdays, so they sang to Scarlet one night, and Chad another night. We never saw another cockroach though. ;)

After dinner, we had plans to go the show that night. Every night after dinner, Disney put on a show, and Sunday night's "Wishes" show came with great reviews. The show was in the Walt Disney Theater at the front of the ship. This was the first time I noticed the ship moving, and I'd had a little too much sun, food, and alcohol, so I excused myself early to bed, but Chad & the kids LOVED this show. 

Tomorrow we'd be waking up in Cozumel!

Saturday, March 16th - Set Sail Day

Saturday was Set-Sail-Day! After all the excitement at HP, we slept great, and woke up ready to shift gears to all things Disney. 



Chad set off on an early morning Walmart run for a few last minute things we had forgotten and some breakfast, while the kids and I packed up the suitcases, and took a few pics of the hotel. 



 Everyone gave me a hard time for the 5 large suitcases I had packed, but guess what? We wore nearly everything I packed, and honestly, we could've used a few more things. Ha! 

Mears Transportation picked us up at 10AM at our hotel. It was about an hour drive to Port Canaveral. We finally laid eyes on our ship. The Disney Fantasy. It was huge. 

There were 3 or 4 other ships in port too, and they were also huge. We checked in and got a photo with Captain Mickey!

Then, we waited. We were Group #18 to board, which boarded at 12:30, so we had maybe a 45 minute wait at the port. But we were so excited it went fast.  

 They called Group #18, and we boarded through Mickey's head. 

Once we boarded the ship, we were overwhelmed by what to see first. Our luggage was going to meet us in our Stateroom, but not until later that day.



We had lunch at Animator's Palate, which ended up being our favorite restaurant on the ship. The kids loved the kids meals, complete with ketchup in the shape of Mickey, unlimited Mickey Bars, and Lauren tried carrot cake for dessert.

Our stateroom was ready at 1:30. We couldn't wait to see it! 1 of our suitcases was already waiting for us, the other 4 came shortly thereafter. We unpacked and organized for nearly 2 hours. The room was bigger than I had expected, but we still had A LOT of stuff to put away. We couldn't get over the view from our verandah. 

This is a little tour of our stateroom. 

We had to attend a mandatory safety assembly at 3:45PM. Then we headed to the top deck for the Sail Away party. We left the port at 4:30, and we were all amazed that you couldn't hardly tell the ship was moving, unless you looked out at the ocean. (Ask me this same question on Day #6). 

 

We had dinner at Enchanted Gardens that night. We were seated with another family, and although they were very nice, we requested (and were granted) a private table for our 2nd night.

By now, it was 7:00 PM and the kids still hadn't gotten their feet in the Mickey pool. It was dark and kinda chilly and windy on the top deck because we were still very close to Florida. We decided to ride AquaDuck, and the line was so short, we rode 3 times! AquaDuck is the water slide/coaster on board, and it was awesome. Even Scarlet loved it. 

After that, it was time for a shower and bed. The kids loved watching Danny (our stateroom attendant) turn down all the beds.  Chad and I had a king size bed, Scarlet and Evan shared a bunk bed with Evan's bunk coming down out of the ceiling, and Lauren had a bed fold down from the wall. Pretty neat. 

The best part of our stateroom was Danny. He came twice a day, or more, made our beds, cleaned the room, organized everyone's shoes, and brought us an endless supply of extra towels, blankets, pillows, made blanket animals, and left chocolates for the pillows and things we would need the next day in port. We loved him, and I think he was pretty sweet on Scarlet himself. About 2 days into the cruise, he noticed that I had plugged in the hair dryer over by the bed. It had a weird, non-American end to it, and I couldn't figure out how to plug it in anywhere else. So, one night, we came home and Danny had plugged in the hair dryer correctly and left it out for me to see. :)

It was a great 1st day of cruising.  

Friday, March 15th - Harry Potter World

We woke up bright and early Friday morning ready for all things Harry Potter. The forecast was for sunny skies and 78 degrees. Our hotel was a quick 8 minute walk to Universal Studios. We had a quick breakfast at the hotel, and headed to Universal. We got there just a few minutes after the 8:00 opening. The rest of the crowd wouldn't show up until 9:00 AM, so we wanted to make the most out of this glorious hour. 

Scarlet on the path to Universal. I love it when she skips. 

We headed straight back to Diagon Alley at Universal. It was incredible. The crooked buildings, wizards, witches, and magic were just like we had dreamed. 


 

We had planned on riding the Gringott's ride first, but it was down for the moment. So we headed to Ollivander's wand shop. Ollivander's was really neat. They re-enacted Harry choosing his wand. After the show, all 3 kids picked out an interactive wand as a souvenir. Evan picked Dumbledore's wand, Lauren chose Hermoine's, and Scarlet chose Ginny Weasley's. 




They had dozens of little magic spells you could perform with your interactive wand all over Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. While walking through Diagon Alley doing magic, the dragon on top of Gringott's woke up and blew fire on us. This scared Scarlet to death, and she never got quite used to the giant dragon looming over us. We rode Gringott's right when it opened. We only waited about 10-15 minutes. We planned on using the Child Swap for Scarlet since it appeared a bit scary, but she decided to ride it, and met the height requirement. It was awesome! We were all a little scared on it though. The snake came out and it truly felt like he was going to eat us. 

This 10-15 minute was our longest wait of the day. The ExpressPass worked so well, and I'd be willing to say that I wouldn't go to Universal without it. Many of the rides (especially in Harry Potter) had 60+ minute waits, and we literally walked on them with 5 or 10 minute waits. 


Scarlet was a little unsure of the Gringott's goblins...but the rest of us loved it. They looked and behaved just like the goblins in Harry Potter. 

Looking really cool in our 3D glasses. 

We then rode the Hogwart's Express train over to Islands of Adventure.

Platform 9 3/4

 On the Hogwart's Express train. We saw dementors, Hagrid, Harry, Ron, Hermoine, and Draco on the train. 

Once we exited the train station, the giant Hogwart's castle came into view. It was incredible. We headed straight toward the ride inside Hogwart's castle (Forbidden Journey). This was our favorite ride of the entire day, and quite possibly the best ride I've ever been on. We did use Child Swap on this one because Scarlet wasn't tall enough, and I'm glad we did, because it would've been too scary for her. We ended up riding it twice, which meant Lauren and Evan got to ride it 4 times because of Chad and I taking turns staying with Scarlet. 

By now, we were ready for lunch. We ate lunch at Three Broomstick's and had a frozen butterbeer. 

We toured the rest of Hogsmeade and tried to savor every moment of The Wizarding World. Once we had our fill of doing magic with the interactive wands, we decided to venture out of Harry Potter. Scarlet had been a trooper during the semi-scary stuff, so we headed towards Seuss Landing for something a little more her speed. 


The One Fish, Two Fish Ride

We left Seuss Landing. Evan & Chad rode the Jurassic Park T-rex ride, and the girls & I played in Camp Jurassic. 

We were losing a little steam at this point, so we rented a stroller to save Scarlet's little legs. 

An ice cream stop gave us our 2nd wind. 

We ended up very near Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls at this point. Chad & I both remember this ride from years ago when we went with my family. It's awesome. And intimidating. We hadn't seen the giant hill yet, so we quick got in line with our Express Passes before anyone could back out. Scarlet chose to ride it with us, although somewhat unfairly since we hadn't told her ALL the details of this ride. My family still gives Scott a hard time because he took the chicken out exit. I don't remember how old he was, but he was definitely way older than Scarlet, ha!

 Well, we did get soaked. But it was so fun. Not sure Scarlet would've ridden it twice, but she sure was proud of herself for braving a ride that Scott was afraid of. 

We rode the Hogwart's Express back to Universal Studios, and began working our way to the exit. 

We rode Minion Mayhem on the way out. Funny and cute AND we got to meet a few Minions. 

After 9 hours in the park, we called it a day about 5PM. We took the water taxi back to our hotel, which interestingly takes 15 minutes to ride, and it only took 8 minutes to walk. Hmmm... But our feet were tired, and the water taxi felt good. 

 Good-bye Universal & Islands of Adventure. What a great day. 

Once we got back to our hotel, we were dragged almost immediately to the pool by the kids. We ordered pizza from Papa John's, ate it poolside, and enjoyed the evening. 

We got our Harry Potter jammies on that night, and packed up to head to Port Canaveral in the morning.