Disney Adventure Day 3, December 23, 2012 (Day at sea)

Today's post has the pictures mixed in with the text, and since there are lots of pictures, everything is after the jump.

Coffee, coffee, coffee!  I woke up at 6:30, happily ready to face the day.   I went out on the veranda and watched the sun rise over the sea, and forgot to take pictures.  Oops.  Fortunately, that failure was a good reminder to get back in the habit of carrying my camera.  I didn’t feel like getting dressed and finding a breakfast buffet, so I called room service and ordered coffee for two.  When it came, I tapped on the connecting door, and when no one answered, went outside and tapped on Mom’s door and then left a note saying “I have coffee if you want to come over.”  When I got back into my room, Mom opened the connecting door and said she’d heard me knock but wasn’t sure which door I was at. J  I invited her in for coffee, and she said, “OH YES!”  I got to start my day with the sunrise and coffee and a quiet conversation with my mom.

Mom went to the gym with Captain Crossword, Bookworm Mathgeek and Jeeves, but when she came back, we went for a walk around the ship.  We took the stairs down to the fifth floor, which gives you a really good view of the atrium, and I pointed out all the peacock-themed décor, which is really lovely.

We toured through all of the on-board shops, finding really neat canvas tote bags half-off at one of the stores, so we each got one.  The high-end store with the booze and jewelry had a ton of the sliding charms, but only one hanging charm—the ship, in either gold or silver.  Mom said how long it had been since she got a charm for any of her bracelets, so I resolved to come back and get her one for her birthday.

Dad was awake by 11, so he had time for coffee from room service and to get himself woken up and ready to face the day.  He wondered if the shirt Mom had picked out for him was “a girly color” but I assured him it was a light red and that he looked very nice in it.  We went to lunch in the Enchanted Garden again, because it is Princess Mathscience’s favorite (after a day on the ship *grin*).  As we were standing in the buffet line, Princess Minnie announced "Daddy, I want an ear full of shrimp!” which made me giggle.  The young lady handing out the plates smiled and agreed that Princess Minnie's request wouldn’t sound good anywhere that didn’t have Mickey plates.

From the windows in the restaurant, we could see the coast of Cuba!

I have been trying to be good and treat my stomach gently on this cruise, but I couldn’t resist a helping of cucumbers in sour cream with dill.  I was saddened to find that there wasn’t much of a dill taste, although there was a lot of dill visible.  Ditto the rosemary-thyme polenta cakes—the polenta was good, but the spices were faint.  I wonder if perhaps Disney under-seasons their food deliberately, to appeal to a larger number of palates?  Captain Crossword says if so, why bother to have things like rosemary-thyme polenta cakes?  I don’t have an answer for that.

Big surprise, after lunch I took a nap. :) 

I spent a little time reading, then started getting ready for formal night at dinner and hopefully a family portrait on the grand staircase afterwards.  My best outfit is reserved for Friday night at Palo, so I wore a full lavender gauze skirt, a sleeveless ivory jersey top with soutache trim around the neckline and a darker lavender cardigan.  When I asked Mom which of my necklaces I should wear, she said they were both too delicate and I should wear the amethyst one my aunt made for her, so I did.

We had dinner at the Animator’s Palate, and at dinner, Mom told the kids that Dad's sister taught us to tie a knot in a cherry stem with our teeth.  After trying, they were skeptical that it could be done, so Captain Crossword demonstrated.

I was fine from the appetizer (tomato slices in a mustard and balsamic vinaigrette) through the main course, (ginger-crusted beef tenderloin with wasabi mashed potatoes), but shortly after half my dessert (white chocolate cheesecake), I got severely nauseated again.  :(  I managed not to barf this time, but standing in line for the formal portrait was agony, only complicated by Jeeves whining about how he didn’t look good enough for pictures and didn’t want his taken.  *eye roll*

We did get our pictures taken, and I came back to my room, got some cash out of my purse and went back to the store to get charms for Mom and myself.  I put them on my room card, then went straight to Guest Services and paid cash and had them remove all traces of the charge so Mom won’t see it.  Clever Jammies!

Princess Mathscience was having a marvelous time being a detective in a wonderful program Disney has on the ship, where the kids get to run around everywhere getting clues and solving mysteries, the first of which is who stole the Muppets’ prop trunk.  At lunch, she had told us about some of her explorations, and Captain Crossword had gone on to explain that some of the pictures in the public areas were interactive.  Mom and I had already found a place where there was a steering wheel and speed lever which controlled a boat in the painting on the wall, but after I got my secret shopping done, I wandered around waving my card in front of pictures and taking pictures of what popped up.  I found a map with a ton of neat stuff which popped up, a picture which showed tiny clips from Fantasia, and two posters which looked like vintage posters from Dumbo, but had cartoons which went back and forth between the two posters!

Once I was done wandering the ship and looking like a doofus, I went back to my room and changed.  I read for a bit, then went down to Jeeves Lady Margo’s room for some company.  Jeeves is my brother and I love him, but he really sucks at bedtime.  He gets the boys all crazy-riled-up and then they don’t want to go to bed.  Lady Margo made a comment about I could see who the sane one in the room is, and Jeeves then called her the insane one, so I snapped that I’d wondered for years what she saw in him.  The Awesome Nacho was impressed with how cold that was.  When the boys were in bed, I headed back to my own room, but not before offering Lady Margo refuge with me if she ever needed it. ;)

The towel animal du jour was a very cute bunny, and after I'd removed him gently from my bed, I curled up in it and slept very well.