Cruising into St. Maarten

Wednesday had us pulling into St. Maarten in the early morning, but our excursion was not planned until the afternoon, so we had some time so spare. We ate breakfast in Lumiere's, then went to see if we could change our excursion. We had the "Afternoon Beach Bash" planned, and although we knew about St. Maarten's 'clothing-optional' beaches, we assumed Disney would not schedule this family excursion for one of these. Steve had told us at dinner the night before that this was not the case. We were not happy Disney had not called this out specifically when we booked our excursion (and it did not appear on our confirmation), so we went to the Excursion Desk to cancel. The cast member initially said there was nothing we could do, but we persisted that we would not be taking our four-year-old to a clothing optional beach and if we had wanted to see clothing-optional bathers, we would have booked on Carnival. He then asked what we wanted to do and we asked if we could change excursions and we chose to do the Island and Butterfly Tour instead.

Butterfly Farm

We went upstairs and spent some time at the pool and had lunch before we had to meet for our excursion. We got off the ship, climbed on a bus and were taken on a tour of the island. The tour guide was very informative, telling us a lot about both the Dutch and French sides of the island and it was an enjoyable 25-minute ride to the Butterfly Farm. We were greeted by a fantastic local guide named Beverly who took us on a tour of the butterfly house. Rebecca became fast friends with Beverly, holding her hand as she talked about the butterflies. Beverly asked who Rebecca belonged to, because she was going to be staying on the island. We took pictures of the butterflies, enjoyed a glass of rum punch (plain punch for the kids) and boarded our bus back. Beverly gave Rebecca a butterfly ring as we boarded the bus, which was incredibly nice of her.

Philipsburg

On the way back, we stopped in Phillipsburg for awhile. We needed to find a restroom so we headed over to the air-conditioned mall which was a tourist trap. We bought a bottle of water and then went to the open market in search of T-shirts. Janie found one she liked and the woman offered us 3 for $10 so Alex and Rebecca bought T-shirts as well. Then it was back on the bus to go back to the ship.

Overlook

We stopped at a scenic overlook on the way back and Janie and the boys got out to take some pictures. Rebecca and J. R. stayed on the bus because she had fallen asleep, which made the ride back very relaxing for both of us.

Palo Dinner and Mouseketeer

Janie and J. R. had dinner in Palo tonight, so Thomas and Rebecca went off to the kids clubs to have dinner and Alex ate up on Deck 9. The adults had a light snack since we'd skipped lunch. Janie, Alex and J. R. went to see the early show, which was illusionist Mike Super. We aren't big fans of illusionists, but Super certainly had us scratching our heads and wondering how he had managed to pull off the tricks he had. Alex went up the Stack after the show and Janie and J. R. changed and went to Palo.

Palo was wonderful as always. J. R. had the grilled mushroom to start and Janie had the calamari and both were great. Janie had Penne Arrabbiata and our server talked J. R. into the filet mignon, and he was very happy as it was perfect. Neither of us are fans of the chocolate souffle (heresy), but tiramisu and cappucino cheesecake were more-than-adequate replacements. Unfortunately, the dreaded pager went off as the desserts were served. Rebecca wanted to come out of the club. J. R. called down and told them we were finishing up at Palo and would be down in 15 minutes and they had no problem with that. So we finished dessert and headed downstairs.

Alex and Thomas wanted to do "Who Wants to Be a Mouseketeer?" so Janie picked them up and they went over to Studio Sea while J. R. went to get Rebecca. When he got to the Lab and went to pick her up, she screamed and cried that she didn't want to leave the lab, probably because Mrs. Claus was starting telling stories now. We figured she had called because they were transitioning from the club to the lab and she didn't want to be in the lab. So J. R. spoke to the counselor and told Rebecca she could stay and she went back to story time and he joined the others in Studio Sea.

Coming in late was a lucky accident as J. R. got #21 and that was the first number called to be in the 'hot seat'. He took Thomas up with him and gave him the spotlight and Ray began asking us questions. We breezed through the first four, with Thomas turning out to be the savior as he knew the caterpillar was a character in "Alice in Wonderland", having read the book. Our last question was about where "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" premiered. We had no idea, so we did the 50-50 and it came down to New York and London. J. R. was pretty sure it was NY, but we asked the audience and they agreed, so we made that our 'final answer' and won! We won a couple "Who Wants To Be A Mouseketeer" pins and a paperweight.

Night Time

After sitting down and watching the next couple win, the pager sounded again and J. R. headed back to the Lab to see what was wrong with Rebecca now. Apparently she had bumped her head when another girl had kicked her coming off one of the beanbags. He picked her up and met the family back in Studio Sea and we headed for the rooms to go to bed.

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