Vacation Days 7 & 8: Jammies at Sea

Thursday was another lovely day at sea. There isn't much to say about it except that I felt so relaxed I was practically boneless, and I wound up reading about ten books on the cruise. Dad had paid $100 for 250 minutes of Interwebbinets time, and kept asking me if I wanted to check my e-mail or post to my blog, and I kept saying no thanks. As much as I love and esteem all of my forum & blog friends, the cruise was a complete vacation from my daily world, and I wanted to keep it that way.

Friday morning, we arrived at Disney's island, Castaway Cay. It's absolutely beautiful.





I don't know if Disney built or just re-created this island, but they don't allow you to take shells from the beach, and the lagoon has the ghost ship from "Pirates of the Caribbean" permanently installed in it. I'm pretty proud of how well these pictures turned out.





The day's plans were pretty simple--play in the water & on the beach, go for a glass-bottomed boat ride, eat lunch, go back to the beach. Phase one went well for everyone who made it. Unfortunately, Bookworm had some tummy trouble, so she wasn't able to join us, and Dad of course wasn't out of bed when we left and isn't really a beachy sort of guy anyway. The water was chilly but the whole experience was amazing. I got out there in my bathing suit and floated around on an innertube and played shark with my nephew (he was the shark, of course!).

Our glass-bottomed boat ride was cancelled owing to rough waters, but I didn't feel as if I'd missed anything. Lunch was an okay barbeque, but at least there was strawberry frozen yogurt and really amazing pineapple for dessert. After lunch, I was feeling the heat a bit, so I went back to the ship, showered and took a nap.

That evening, Mom & Dad took the kids so that the rest of us could have a grown-up dinner at the ship's fanciest restaurant, Palo. We had a great time with good drinks, phenomenal food, a cute and very good waiter and lots of conversation. As much as I enjoyed the amenities on the cruise, the best thing for me was the time spent with my family. I think I got alone time with everyone, and I do hope we do it again in four years.

The last pic here is one where I think I look pretty good, although I am eclipsed by Tinkerbell's cuteness. It was taken on the verandah of our room on Monday.