Formal night for our cruise was Sunday night. We didn't do much for formal night. We wore nicer clothes but I wasn't bringing extra shoes (x6) for one night so we just wore flip flops or tennis shoes. There was definitely a mix of participation for formal night. Some people went all out and some people didn't participate at all.
I haven't really talked about dining either. For breakfast and lunch we ate at Cabanas (my parents did the sit down a few times but the kids were much happier with casual meals) which is the buffet on the ship. It is conveniently located right off of the pool deck so it was very easy to just pop over and grab food! Often in the mornings someone would run get a bowl of fruit and whichever kids were the early risers that day
For dinner we did the sit down each night. We had the main dining time (6). We originally were assigned the late seating (8/830...I can't rememner for sure which time it was) and our travel agent put us on the waiting list for main dining and a few months before the cruise we were moved! I am SO glad we had mian dining. The kids are used to eating at 530/6 so they were very ready to eat. Plus they went hard all day and so they were tired. Our servers were great and by the second day they knew we wanted the kids food first and they always had it ready quickly! The kids would get their meal about the time we got our appetizer and then the ones who wanted to go to kid's club could. Kids Club comes to the dining room and picks up the kids but our kids were done long before the time that Kid's Club came so one of us always just ran them up there. In general, everyone except Ruthie went to Kid's Club. She prefereed to sit with us and color everyone's coloring page and eat all the desserts! It's so rare for kid #3 to be the only child around and it was really fun to get to spend that special time with her.
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| Mickey Mouse bars for dessert every night. They were a big hit! |
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| When they put the ketchup on the plate it was of course in a Mickey Mouse shape! |
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| Emmie with our servers |
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| JP watching the show at Animator's Palate |
Our food was VERY good. My very favorite thing was the lobster bisque. So good. On the ship you rotate between 3 dining rooms. Each dining room has it's own menu and the menu changes every 3 days. You can also order off of any of the menus no matter which dining room you're in. (Except for the lobster. We discovered you can only get that in the dining room where it is on the menu.) You can also order as much food as you want. We had some people in our group (ahem...David Rainey) that had quite a collection of food at dinner!
Oh, and they even sang Happy Birthday to my dad on his birthday!
The dining rooms were Enchanted Garden, Royal Court, and Animator's Palate. Animator's Palate is really fun because you draw a person and then it is brought to life on the screens around the restaurant! I was able to get pictures of a few of our creations brought to life!
We also found lots of fun things to do around the ship! There was Kid's' Club which the kids loved. There was always lots of fun activities there. From cooking, to dance parties, to drawing, to science experiments, to games, there was something for everyone! (Below are some of the crafts they made.)
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There was also mini golf and the Midship Detective Agency which takes you all over the ship to find clues to solve a puzzle.
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| We found a cruising duck! They are the cruise ship version of the painted rocks. |
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| a mini door |
At night there was always a show after dinner. We went to most of these. Our Broadway show was Aladdin and it was SO good. We also saw one of the signature shows which was also excellent ( I can't remember the name now!). There was a ventriloquist who was hilarious and had Emmie and Ellie almost in tears they were laughing so hard and a magician.
Ellie spent a lot of time reading on the ship. She managed to read the entire last Harry Potter book while we were there. I ended up with a lot of "Ellie reading" pictures...which my little reader heart just loves! I didn't get any of her reading on the pool deck but she spent a lot of time reading there!
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| Reading on the Promenade Deck. |
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| My personal favorite reading spot...the verandah of our room. |
By far our very favorite thing on the ship was the pool! The kids spent a LOT of time in the pool and going down the Mickey slide and the Aquaduck. JP was so sad that he wasn't tall enough to ride the Aquaduck (which goes around the deck of the ship) but fortunately he was tall enough for the Mickey slide which he loved. He and Ruthie also spent a lot of time in Nemo's Reef which was the little kid splash area. There were 2 pools on the deck and a huge movie screen that always had a movie playing. Just to give you an idea of how great the pool is, one of the "at sea" days Ruthie and JP spent SEVEN hours in the pool area!
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| Did I mention there's an ice cream machine on the pool deck? That was a big hit with my crew! |
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