Disney Cruise Part 4 - Halloween on the High Seas and Pirate Night

We had 2 different theme nights on our ship, Pirate Night and Halloween on the High Seas. I believe Pirate Night is a standard on all Disney Cruises but Halloween is only on certain cruises during the Halloween season.
For Halloween the kids dressed up in their costumes and Trick or Treated around the ship. It was pretty much an absolute madhouse. But the kids had fun and were excited about their candy. After the trick or treating they had a lot of the characters out dancing.

Apparently a quick video at dinner was the only "group picture" I got. We must have been rushing!

On Pirate Night there was a special menu at dinner and a pirate show right after dinner on the pool deck. The show was really good and we all enjoyed it. Then they had music and a dance party which of course the kids loved.

This ship was made of bread...so cool!

At about 10:30 at night they had another show and fireworks. Emmie was the only one who wanted to stay up for the fireworks so my parents stayed with the other kids while Paul and I took Emmie.

We kind of threw our  pirate outfits together at the last minute but I was really pleased with how they turned out!

I am not a "theme" night person by any means. That kind of stuff does not excite me at all. I will say that Halloween was fine but kind of chaotic and I wasn't pleased about having to haul Halloween costumes on the cruise with us. However, Pirate Night was really fun! I loved all the neat themed stuff they had on the ship and it was fun getting our outfits together. Most of what we wore was things we already had and I just bought some accessories to go with them.

Football Fun

Paul's dad coaches at Berkley High School so back in September the kids and I went down for a game. We love getting to go watch PaPa's players! We were originally supposed to go to a game earlier in September and stay the whole weekend but the hurricane messed those plans up :(. So the week we ended up going Emmie couldn't go because she had dance and we had to come back to Columbia the same night because we had a football game the next day. We're hoping next year we have better luck! We did end up there the same weekend as Blake and Emily so that worked out well. We had a half day the weekend that we went and so we were able to get to Summerville early and help GiGi with the team meal. JP especially loved seeing all the players!

It totally made JP's day when the players waved to him! (I was about a second too late getting the picture of this player greeting JP)

This past weekend we took the kids to the USC-App State game. We tailgated with Paul's coworker Scott  and the kids had lots of room to run around and tackle each other so they had a great time! The game was quite chilly so we stayed until after halftime and then headed home. Poor JP was asleep by the end of the first quarter!

JP prefers to have his picture taken by himself. I think he likes to fantasize that he's an only child.

Disney Cruise 2019 Part 3 - Grand Cayman

Our second port was Grand Cayman. One of the most popular excursions in Grand Cayman is Stingray City. Paul and I have done it before and it is really fun so we showed the kids some videos of it and none of them were interested (they were all scared about swimming with stingrays). So instead we did the Turtle Farm. When we were at the beach this past summer the kids got really interested in turtles so we thought they'd love it! Disney doesn't offer this excursion so we booked it through Discount Excursions. They were wonderful and I would absolutely use them again! When we did our excursion with Disney it was a large group and lots of feeling like you were being herded. With Discount Excursions we walked off the ship, stopped at the kiosk, and within 10 minutes they had us in a van headed to the Turtle Farm. We were able to explore the farm at our leisure and we met our driver back at the front at the designated time. It was a really good excursion for the kids. It was not crowded at all and there were many options for what they could do.

They have an area where you can snorkel with the turtles and Ellie tried that out with Paul and me. She had trouble getting the hang of the snorkel but we were able to get out to where a few turtles were so that was fun! They also had a pool with a water slide and a small waterfall and the kids LOVED that. They spent most of the time there.

There was also a "touch tank" area where you could hold the turtles and they had a tank you could climb in and hang out with the turtles which was really neat. Emmie was obsessed with the touch tank area and spent a lot of time over there.

They have a restaurant at the farm but we didn't even go check out the menu so I have no idea what it is like. We had ordered Uncrustables from room service (and asked them to leave them in the package) and had grabbed some cereal from the breakfast buffet so we just sat at the pool area and ate what we brought. I'm really glad we did this beceause it allowed us to eat quick and the kids didn't really have to stop playing!


My number 1 tip for Grand Cayman: BE EARLY! Grand Cayman is a tender port so the ship anchors and then the tender boats take you to the port. We got to the waiting area on the ship over an hour before our excursion time and we were still a few minutes late for our excursion so I recommend giving yourself plenty of time! (It didn't help that they were about 30 minutes late letting the first group off the ship so it had backed up pretty good in the waiting area.) Grand Cayman is a very safe island so if you get to the port area early you can always explore on your own.

The kids loved riding the boat to and from the port.

Disney Cruise Part 2 - Cozumel and Jamaica

Our first port was Cozumel. We did a dolphin excursion which was really neat! We don't have any pictures of us with the dolphins but it was lots of fun. We each got to pet the dolphins a few times, give them a kiss, and get a kiss from the dolphin. After the dolphin swim we were able to eat lunch and explore the park area before heading back. There was a pool area, beach area, and some other animals to see.

When we were getting ready to leave Cozumel we had a super fast rain shower that we saw from our verandah and it was pretty neat to watch it move quickly across the water. And it left a rainbow behind!

This was our view before the rain and below is our view as the rain moved toward us.

Our third port was Jamaica (don't worry...I'll go back and hit the second one!). We didn't book an excursion there and while there were lots of things that sounded like fun I'm so glad we had a break. The little kids, especially JP, were very ready for a low key day. The port area in Jamaica is really nice so my parents and Emmie went off for a bit and then Paul and I went off. None of the other kids had any interest in setting foot in Jamaica. Jamaica was absolutely beautiful. I would love to go back some time and do an excursion like Dunn's Falls, the zipline, or the bobsledding.

Breakfast with a view! 

Port area