Disney Cruise 2010

We finally made it to our Disney Cruise from January 21-24, 2010! We went down to Cocoa Beach a day early to relax and do a little shopping before leaving on Thursday. It was a nice day, considering the cold weather we've been having, not hot but not cold, either. We hopped over to Merritt Island to shop, had lunch at Applebee's, then spent some time at Barnes and Noble's - Tanek wanted to stay there all day and play with the train they had. We finally got him out of there, went back to the hotel and went for a short walk on the beach. By the time we went for a walk, it was starting to cool off pretty quickly, so we didn't stay out long.

We stayed at the Quality Suites, which was nice and very reasonable. They have a Park & Cruise deal so you can leave your car there during the cruise and avoid the $15 a day parking fee at the Port. We actually left our car at the Radisson and took the shuttle from there at 10:00 am.

We were at the port by 10:30, got checked in, had our security pictures taken, had Tanek registered for the kids' club, and were on board the ship by noon! Here we are outside of the terminal before we boarded - Tanek did have to have a bit of an attitude adjustment because he didn't want to wear his armband/locator for the kids' club, but he eventually got over it (by the time he had to return the locator and beeper, anyway).

Tanek is all ready for his first cruise dinner, but still trying to get that armband off!

The sun was just beginning to set as we were heading out to sea. This was the closest we came to a beautiful sunset while we were at sea!

Here is Tanek getting ready for the emergency drill. He kept wanting to know if we were getting in the water. Ummm, no, I certainly hope not!

After lunch on Thursday, we let Tanek go swimming while we were waiting for our luggage to arrive at our room.

The pool and the slide were his favorite part of the cruise. Attitude adjustments were a necessary part of every afternoon when it was time to go inside!

He barely reached the minimum height of 38 inches, but he certainly wasn't afraid of going down the slide!

This is a picture of part of our room. I have to say, Disney's staterooms are much more spacious than the staterooms I've stayed in on Carnival! And the service is far better as well. Everyone we talked to was friendly and helpful.

Here is Tanek with our dinner servers. Lidia was our Assistant Server - she is from the Dominican Republic; Mladen was our Server - he is from Serbia. Both of them were awesome with Tanek, very friendly and seemed to really enjoy getting to know the guests. We had the late seating (8:15 pm), so Tanek was not the most angelic little boy by that time of night after a very active day. I know that may be hard for some people to believe, but it's true - just ask my Mom! He looks like an angel in this picture, but it is deceiving.

Disney is the only cruiseline that does fireworks at sea! Not quite as dramatic as the fireworks show at Disneyworld, but impressive nonetheless! They do the fireworks during the Pirate's party right after Mickey rides on a zip-line across the top of the ship. Mickey sure showed those Pirates a thing or two.

And, Tanek finally crashes at the end of the night. He had no trouble sleeping after all of his activities during the day.

On a side note, I have to say how impressed I was with Disney's attention to cleanliness - not only with the ship itself, but with the guests. You did not board the ship or enter any restaurant or buffet without first receiving (and using) a sanitary hand wipe. I don't know if this is a new thing or if they have always done it, but the attention to preventing the spread of germs was comforting. Not that it prevented me from wiping down our entire room when we arrived, but...it was nice to think that people were at least entering the restaurants with clean hands before touching anything (especially at the buffets).

Nassau/ Paradise Island, Bahamas

Friday we landed at Nassau mid-morning. We watched our arrival from our window instead of up on deck because Tanek was still asleep. This is a picture I took from the window of our room as we were getting closer to the island.

We woke Tanek up when we were closer to land so he could watch the ship come into port. He was quite excited and bouncing all over the place. I think his favorite thing to do in the room was climb up onto the window ledge and jump from the window to the couch - I think he only bumped his head once or twice when he fell off, though.

Here is a view of the ship from the port. I think we were the first ship to arrive, but within a couple of hours there were four cruise ships lined up at the port.

This is the first view one has of Nassau when getting off of the ship. It is much different than it was when I was here the first time (of course that was almost 14 years ago, my how time flies)! Anyway, we weren't interested much in shopping, so we didn't bother walking around downtown Nassau. I don't think many people did since there has been an increase in tourist robberies recently. We took a taxi and headed over to Paradise Island to check out the Atlantis resort.

Here is the famous Atlantis. It is really beautiful and much, much larger than it was 14 years ago. I couldn't even tell where the original lobby entrance was. It is hard to believe that there are people who can afford to stay in the $25,000/night suite in the middle of the two towers. There is a four night minimum stay for that suite and it is booked for the next five years! Amazing, huh?

This is part of the domed ceiling in the lobby. It is hard to catch the grandeur and detail in a picture, but it is like this all the way around.

This is another area in the lobby.

There are several walls in the lobby that look into the aquarium. This was all we could look at without paying about $50/person, and Tanek was happy with this, so we didn't worry about seeing all of it.

We were able to see enough fish and stingrays to keep Tanek occupied for a good while!

What we could see of the grounds was beautiful, too. I think for about $125/person one could have access to all of the resort amenities (aquarium, grounds, waterpark, beach, etc.). Personally, I find that a little ridiculous, but I'm sure older kids and teenagers would love that!

Here is Nana and Tanek sitting in the large chair outside of the Atlantis Casino.

The marina at the Atlantis.

I think these condos are somehow part of the Atlantis, as well. I think the Atlantis must own about half of the island now. They also bought the old Club Med resort and are rebuilding/ renovating that property, too.

This shack was built as a prop for some James Bond movie.

Here are the four cruise ships. From left to right they are: Carnival Sensation, Disney Wonder, MSC Poesia (a European line), and the Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas. The Oasis of the Seas is the newest, largest cruise ship in the world.

Here are a couple of pictures of the Oasis that I snapped from the ferry back to Nassau. It looks like they have some cabins on the inside with balconies on this end of the ship, but it's hard to tell for sure. In the back were some very large rock climbing walls and either some type of ropes course or bungy jumping (or something).

Here is the side of the ship. It is truly a massive ship - not the prettiest or classiest ship, but definitely huge and impressive!

Disney has adds these special touches - no other ships have a "Welcome Home" sign to greet you when you get back on the ship!

Castaway Cay - January 23, 2010

Saturday, we enjoyed a beautiful day at Castaway Cay (Disney's private island). I took this picture of the ship on our way to the beach.
There is a lot of construction happening on the island right now in preparation for next year when the new ship, the Disney Dream, makes its debut. They are adding new areas (such as private massage cabanas) to accomodate more guests and to make the island even nicer! This new play area should be open in a few months!

Tanek wanted to say hi to Mickey and have our picture taken. He wasn't interested in having his picture taken with the other characters this time, though. Somehow, we did miss seeing Pluto - I'm quite sure Tanek would have wanted his picture with his favorite character! Pluto showed up on the beach sometime later in the day.

Here we are in front of the Pirate ship.

You can tell Disney put a lot of work into this island and its beaches. They created a large "lagoon" type area that is fairly shallow and safe for swimming and snorkeling. The color of the water is beautiful!

This picture is looking down on the island from the ship - you can see some of the construction in the background.

Here is Tanek after we finally convinced him it was time to leave Scuttle's Cove (the kids' activities program) so he could have some time to swim in the pool. He was covered with sand, so we went to wash him off at the showers before going back to the ship. By the time I could put our stuff down to help turn the shower on, he was standing there naked! Luckily, there was only one other person who showed up at the showers before I could get him dressed again! He can be so funny sometimes!

Tanek was having great fun at the beach digging in the sand and making sandcastles!

Such a cool little dude! Once he realized he could dig all he wanted to with all kinds of sand toys, he was ready to go to Scuttle's Cove and spend some time at the kids' club. When we went to check on him, he was having the best time eating lunch with the other kids. Hopefully, he ate better being around the kids than he does for us!

And, of course, another picture of the Disney Wonder from the island.