Our Christmas Cruise - Day Two - Christmas Day

On Christmas morning Sawyer was the first to wake up. Right away he saw that Santa had come! Santa's haul was on the small side this year, since I had to carry everything for him (the reindeer have a hard time finding cruise ships!) but Sawyer didn't seem to mind.

 

Showing T-Rex the view

Since we got an early start to the day and I was still pretty tired, Eric took Sawyer to have breakfast at Parrot Cay and gave me the best gift of all - more sleep! I slept until 11:00 (!!) and woke up to find that they had brought me cereal and milk, my favorite breakfast. I ate it and then got up, got dressed, and finished unpacking and organizing our stuff. Sawyer wanted to play with his new toys so we hung out in the stateroom for a while.

When it was time for lunch we went to Lumiere's and I had a big salad with chicken. It had a lemongrass dressing and papaya and was delicious. We asked Sawyer what he wanted to do next and he said he wanted to go to the kids club. We tried to talk him out of it because we felt guilty about leaving him there on Christmas day, but he begged us to go so we dropped him off. He didn't even look back over his shoulder as we left. Eric and I took a walk around the ship and stopped at one of the shops to buy a few things we needed - a memory card for the camera and a canvas bag to bring to the beach. Then we went up to Deck 9 for some soft serve ice cream. There was no one else up there so we found some deck chairs and enjoyed the view.

Not the typical Christmas scene!

I don't think I had a good hair day the whole trip. Thank you, humid Caribbean air!

On our way to pick up Sawyer from the club I snapped a few pictures of the decor on board. It reminded us that even though we were in the tropics, it was still Christmas.

After a while we decided to pick up Sawyer, because we wanted to be sure his first visit to the club was fun and he wasn't just waiting for us to come get him (I know, we are overprotective parents!) He said he was hungry so we went back up to Deck 9 to get some more snacks. It was still pretty deserted.

We weren't too excited about going to that night's show (I was feeling tired and nauseous - are you sensing a theme?) and Sawyer was asking to play with his toys some more, so we decided to rest in our room until dinner. That night we were scheduled to be at Parrot Cay, and it was formal night for Christmas dinner. Sawyer had his usual. I loved how our waitress always brought his food right away, he was never sitting there waiting/complaining. Extra nice since dinner was at such a late time.

The food was delicious. I was feeling pretty sick (my "morning sickness" tends to be the worst in the evening) but felt much better once I got something in my stomach. Once again our dinner companions didn't show up, so it was just us. Eric had this fruit sorbet appetizer that was to die for.

My main course was turkey and stuffing. Really really good.

Eric with his dessert. He did not want to share.

My dessert. It was OK, but kind of Little Debbie-esque.

Chocolate pudding with Mickey sprinkles!

As soon as dinner was done we went back down to our room to go to bed. Eric wasn't tired so he left us there and went up to watch the Bears/Packers game on the jumbo screen.

Our towel animal made by Junior, wearing my shades. We couldn't tell what it was (a dolphin with legs?) but Sawyer decided it was an anteater.

Programs for the next day - Cozumel!

Our Christmas Cruise - Day One

The day was finally here! Christmas Eve, and time for the Magic to sail. We had arranged to take a shuttle from the hotel to the port, and it turned out to be absolute insanity.

On our way to the port

It seemed like every single person staying in the hotel was waiting in the lobby, most of them leaving on a Carnival cruise that was also sailing that day. After the ride, let's just say we were glad to be going on a Disney cruise and not Carnival. It was one of the loudest, rudest crowds I've ever been in. We were relieved when they all got off at the Carnival port. We arrived at the Disney terminal at around 12:45. It wasn't crowded at all and getting through security and checking our bags was quick and easy. We snapped a few pictures of the model ship....

...and then it was time to board through the big Mickey ears!

 

As we boarded they announced our family and everyone cheered. The ship was all decorated for Christmas and it was gorgeous, especially the ginormous, several-stories-high Christmas tree in the atrium lobby.

We were ready for lunch, so we headed up to Topsiders (a buffet style place) to grab something to eat. I had some salmon, a salad, and some of the best shrimp I have ever tasted. I seriously wished there was nothing else on my plate, it was so good. 

After lunch we went down to deck 2 and found that our room was ready for us! Our luggage arrived shortly after and we met our host, Junior from Jamaica. We started unpacking and relaxed for a bit. I was very impressed with the amount of space we had, everything was comfortable and convenient.

The couch Eric is sitting on turned into Sawyer's bed.

 I loved having a porthole and seeing that view! Next time though I think we'll spring for a balcony.

Pretty soon Sawyer wanted to go swim, so we changed into our suits and headed up to Deck 10. We stopped by the Oceaneer Club on the way to pick up his wristband and let him check it out. When we got to Mickey's pool he was a little overwhelmed by the crowd, but soon he was splashing around.

After playing in the pool for a while it was time for muster in the Walt Disney Theater. Then back up to Deck 10 for the Adventures Away party! It was a perfect day to sail - definitely the warmest Christmas Eve I've ever experienced.

Non-alcoholic drink of the day - I can't remember what this was called, but it was something with strawberries. Yum!

We found a spot near the railing so we could watch the show...and quickly discovered that we'd need to use our elbows to stay there! It was pretty cutthroat. I got kind of annoyed but at least Sawyer could still see. He loved the streamers and seeing the characters sing and dance.

When it was time to launch we walked forward where it was less crowded so we could watch the action. The sun was starting to set and it was so beautiful.

Eric does not like me taking his picture. Sorry honey, get used to it!

Launch! So excited.

After the launch we decided to go grab a snack at Goofy's (a fast food place by the pool) since we were on the late dinner schedule and we were all hungry. At the exact moment we were passing by the horn it went off. We had warned Sawyer about the loud noise during the show (he is very sound sensitive) but didn't know it would happen again right then. He grabbed me in terror, then 2 seconds later started laughing hysterically. He loved it! We got our food from Goofy's (bratwurst, hamburgers and fries...not the tastiest food I've ever had but hey, we were hungry) and then headed back to our room to change for the first night's show, "All Aboard." We had never taken Sawyer to a play before so didn't know how he would do, but he absolutely loved it. The ship was really moving by then and we could definitely feel it as we sat in the theater. I was a little queasy, but being 6 weeks pregnant it was hard to say if it was from the ship or just my usual state.

Having "dinner" at Goofy's

After the show we headed back to our room to get ready for dinner and rest a little bit. I was so tired I could have gone to sleep for the night (pregnancy strikes again) but I didn't want to miss our first dinner. That night we were scheduled to be in the Animator's Palate. We arrived to find that our tablemates hadn't shown up yet, and they actually never showed. We had been looking forward to meeting another family but given how tired we were it was kind of nice to be on our own.

And even though we'd already technically had dinner, we were hungry! Here's where I totally bore you by posting pictures of my food. I had the potato soup (really good), salmon baked in phyllo (not great) and for dessert chocolate cake (pretty good.)

Eric had butternut squash soup, risotto, and salmon. Sawyer had chicken fingers, fries and chocolate milk but as you can tell here, he didn't eat much of it. This is about how tired I felt too. He did wake up enough to take one bite of his Mickey Bar, but then we left early to get back to our stateroom and crash. We just barely missed Mickey's appearance but oh well. Maybe next time.

This is what was on our bed - Santa was coming soon!