Disney Cruise Concluded

 This is a hilarious video of Willa dancing. She LOVES to dance and the functionality of a skirt or dress is related directly to its ability to twirl. Hence, ever putting her in pants or shorts is a huge battle which I normally don't fight. Anyway, late one night after seeing Goofy and Daisy, she saw this singer and another little girl dancing and she was dying to join them. It's so funny that my reserved little girl can really pull out the stops if she wants to.

 They have a 5k fun run the morning the ship docks in Castaway Cay. We ran it with my dad, brother, and his girlfriend Roxy. I lumbered along wheezing next to Roxy who was running in sandals with the legs of a gazelle. Ryan won first place, but it was strictly a fun run and there were no timers. Still, it was a fun thing to do together and a nice way to start the day. It also gave us a good feeling for the island so we knew what was around and didn't feel like we were missing out later for mainly staying on the beach.

The same day as Castaway Cay, we had an appointment for Willa at the Bibidi Bobidi Boutique. I wanted to make the appointment for a different day, but by the time I went online to sign her up before the cruise, they were all booked up! We spent all morning on the island, then came back around 1:00 for the appointment, then headed back to the beach again.

This place is soooo darling. Carrie and I have been planning to take our girls there from the very beginning. You can choose a princess dress and they will do your hair and make-up, or they have a cruise-only option for a mermaid package, or you can just get hair and make-up done. We were planning on the mermaid, but I brought some of Willa's dresses just in case. No need paying for the full package, which was about $200 including the dress and all the accessories, when I had a bunch of really nice Disney dresses that I'd gotten on some sweet sales for about $10. The mermaid option was still a shocking $100, but she would get a cute little swimsuit with it. So we went in preparing for the mermaid, but then she saw the Rapunzel dress and WANTED it. So... I let her have it. But, as they started doing her hair I fretted and fretted. I thought she probably really wanted the mermaid but got distracted and I thought she could probably be talked back into it. So, I started talking and the workers were really nice. The brought out the mermaid outfit and said she could go try it on. Luckily, it did the trick and she went for it. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Prices are all inflated at Disney things, but for me $100 is still a lot of money and believe it or not, $200 is even more, and I just wasn't ready to pay all that, but I still wanted her to be happy.

They brushed out her hair first, which took a while since she'd just been at the beach that morning. I kind of laughed that we were paying money to have them do what she yells at me about every morning. Then they did put some "mermaid stripes" on her cheeks, which was sunblock that she got to rub in later.

 They painted her fingernails.

 Finally, they used a magic wand to sprinkle pixie dust all over her hair to make it sparkle. It was adorable.

There she is, our mermaid princess.


Presley and Willa together. The "Fairy Godmothers In Training" were so good. They didn't break character once. We kept trying to ask them how long they had worked on the ship, but all they said was that it take 100 years or something to become a Fairy Godmother and that they were training hard. The girls got the swimsuit and little skirt/fin cover up, the princess sash, a little flower clip for their hair, a pink bag, the little tubes of sunscreen they used on the face, and their own special sparkly nail polish that says Bibidi Bobidi Boutique on it. It was our only splurge on the trip and very fun to do something just for Willa that she thought was amazing. She wore her special Elsa shoes, if you can see.

This is a picture of our door. We found out that most people bring things to decorate their doors, so my sister Carrie made the cutest one for my parents that says 50th Anniversary, and since she is awesome and I am horrible at this type of thing, she pulled one together for our family too. 

The other picture is dessert one night. June is having a Mickey Mouse dilly bar and Willa is having ice cream that has mouse ear sprinkles. They are usually about done by the time dessert rolls around.

The cruise was awesome and amazing and so worth it. I know that Disney is all kind of expensive, but they just do it all better than everyone else. Every night they had amazing, Broadway-quality shows. My favorite was a new Rapunzel one, it was amazing and they've only just started doing it in the last few months. The special effects for everything were just amazing. The last night the show was a mixture of all the big songs from the Disney movies and each song was out of this world. I mean, just the costumes and the props for each song was crazy. For Let it Go, it snowed. The Lion King had all the costumes and props that you see on Broadway.  It was just amazing. It was so fun to watch with the girls. Willa kept catching her breath every time at each new song; it was magical to see it live.  One night they did a magic show, which sounds not that interesting, but was really amazing. Magic Dave was his name and he was perfect for both kids and adults. The tricks were really cool and everyone was laughing. I just love how Disney makes things accessible for both kids and adults. On a regular cruise, none of the shows would have been kid-friendly.

We would eat dinner, then my mom and Debbie and a few others would go to the theater and save seats for everyone. Ryan and I usually headed back to our cabin to bathe the girls and then we would bring them in the pj's to the theater. It was fun having all 27 of us there sitting in the same seats and cheering at night. Curtis got called up and had to Whip and Nae Nae for the cruise director. Just silly, fun things.

On the Grand Cayman day, which was the second full cruise day, Ryan and I decided to spend the day on the ship with the girls instead of going on land. I think it was a good decision. The weather would have been nice for the beach there, but the beach wasn't right where the boat docked and you had to take a small tender to land, then get a taxi to take you to the beach. Anyway, it just seemed like a lot of work with the girls (and trying to fit a nap time in) when we would be doing the beach on Castaway Cay. So we stayed on the ship and enjoyed having the pools and everything to ourselves and the few other people who stayed. It was nice to just spend time swimming and playing without all the crowds.

The ship had a movie theater that was playing all the latest movies. Ryan went and watched the new Star Wars while the girls napped one day. I wish we had taken the girls to the kids club one time and gone to another movie together, but the times never worked out with everything else we wanted to do. It was just a perfect family vacation. It also sold me on doing the Disney vacations at other spots, like I think they have one in Hawaii. Just to have a family friendly environment and a really good kids' care available makes all the difference in a vacation. I think of going to Hawaii and not having all inclusive food or kids care, and it just doesn't seem relaxing. For us on the cruise, we wanted to spend most of our time together and swim and play with the girls, but it was soooo nice to have the option to drop them somewhere where they had fun so that we could spend time together and try things that maybe they wouldn't be interested in. That's all I can think of for now, it was just a very fun time. I know these posts are a little discombobulated - must be from writing them over the period of a month :).