2017-12-25: Merry Christmas from the middle of nowhere!

Patrick had us all up by 7:45a.m. this morning.   Turns out Santa found us, and Patrick was excited about it!  He found a note from Santa telling us he has left a little something here and the rest would be waiting for the kids at home.

We each took our stockings and picked a chair on our balcony.  The boys each got a small Lego, a book and some chocolate and candy.  Darrell got some chocolate and a new watch.  Amanda got a card game, a couple of books and some chocolate. Jim and Linda even got a box of chocolates from Santa.  Next, we opened the one gift we brought for Christmas … new pajamas all around.  Patrick got new Darth Vader pajamas with a cape, Michael received Incredibles pj’s and Darrell and Amanda each got a new pair of Mickey and Minnie pj’s respectively.

We got cleaned up and headed down for breakfast in the Royal Court.  Santa was taking pictures with families in the atrium again.  We went into breakfast thinking we would get ours taken after breakfast.  Service was slow as the dining room was busier than they are used to.   The staff struggled to find enough coffee cups for our table and breakfast took a long time to find us.  Once we had finished breakfast we got in line for Santa pictures and to get the kids gift from Disney, but after talking with the kids we decided to forego the hourlong line for pictures and went to Preludes to pick up their present and get on with our day.

Jim took some time to go tour the ship while the kids took a little down time and started watching Brave.  The movie channels on the ship are awesome!  You can watch pretty much anything that is out right now.  Star Wars the Last Jedi was playing in the theater at 12:30 so off we went to watch it, except for Michael, he went to the Oceaneers Lab and sent some time playing with the other kids.  The movie was fabulous, and Michael had a fabulous time hanging out with the kids in the Lab.  We decided to head up to Cabana’s for a snack since most of us had missed lunch, but it closed at 2p.m. until 4p.m., so we made our way to the pool deck and tried to get food at the only available spot, with 2 theatres full of people getting out the place was crazy!  Jim and Linda gave up and went back to their room to get away from the zoo.  Amanda, Darrell and the boys stuck it out but it was painful.  There was no room to move and the staff couldn’t seem to figure out what had happened and where all the people had come from…  It made for an undesirable experience, which was disappointing.

After a bite to eat, we made our way up to the mini golf course.  There wasn’t a line up which was nice, so we played a round… Darrell took the win overall and Patrick had the best score in the kids’ division. While we were playing, we pulled alongside one of Disney’s other ships, the Disney Magic. The ships sounded their horns back and forth. The Disney ships have horns that play a short section of various Disney tunes including it’s a small world, it’s a pirate’s life for me, and when you wish upon a star.  Darrell and Patrick decided to play some ping pong and Michael decided to go for a swim, Amanda watched Michael in the pool and enjoyed some of A Muppet Christmas Carol on the deck screen.   What would Christmas be without the Muppets!

By the time we all got back to our room, it was time to get ready for dinner.  Our second night of three in the Enchanted Garden and Christmas dinner.  There were many delicious options on the menu including a turkey dinner.

The evening show was Aladdin. The live production was well done and while abbreviated kept a good order and made sense.  The costumes were beautiful.  The one thing missing was the animal side kicks.  It isn’t quite the same with out Rajah and Abu.  The Genie was awesome… really corny jokes, but funny… He left the stage looking for Dory, when he returned he made jokes about how a”Dory”able we all think she is but he thinks she’s a little bit fishy… haha!  Patrick decided he needed a light saber to go with his new Darth Vader pjs, so we stopped on our way up to our room.

Time for bed!  It has been a great day. Tomorrow our adventure continues in Grand Cayman!