Palo Brunch

Finally, it was the day before Christmas. With no activities planned for the morning, there was no need for a Mouse wake-up call and we all slept in. Janie and J. R. had brunch plans with some of our fellow DISBoards cruisers at Palo, so the only order of the morning was feeding Rebecca and getting her to the kids club. The boys decided they were going to go do the Mickey 200 and then go Cruisin' for Trivia again before heading to Ocean Quest. We dropped off Rebecca and dressed for Palo.

A group of us from the DISBoards had the private dining room at Palo for brunch thanks to Mary Ann. 12 of us spent the morning talking about our cruise, eating some wonderful food and even more wonderful desserts.

Napkin, Towel Folding and Animation

At 1:15, Janie and J. R. went to the Napkin Folding session we'd missed earlier in the week. It was good, but a pair of unaccompanied children slowed down the session. First, they were goofing off and making a lot of noise, so we had to change seats. (And then they moved to near where we were so they could see better). This was listed as an "adult" activity, probably because of the difficulty and these two could not follow the directions well, so they kept calling the cast member over to have her help them with their folding, which meant she had to rush back to move on with the next set of directions. Many may disagree with us, but if the activity is listed as "Adult Exclusive", then Disney staff should turn the kids away at the door. We did not bring our sons because it said it was an 'adult' activity in the navigator.

The boys wanted to do the Family Towel Folding at 2PM, so J. R. went off to the stateroom to begin doing some packing to make it quicker the next day. The plan was to meet back at 2:30 to pick up Rebecca and take to see Santa. We picked her up and when we got to the Santa line (which stretched all the way from the lobby to the Promenade Lounge), but she said she wasn't feeling well. She was a little warm and we asked her if she wanted to see Santa or go lie down in the room and she said she wanted to lie down. J. R. took her back to the room (destroying his plans to have a beer and watch the Bears game), gave her a children's Tylenol and turned on 'Lilo and Stitch' on the TV and they both took a nap. The only disappointing thing is Rebecca never got her 'gift from Santa'. We assumed there would be an opportunity for her to pick it up (it was a Pooh pillow), but apparently if you didn't wait in line for Santa, you didn't get one. But the second Santa visiting was from 4-5:30 and she didn't wake up until 4:45 and we had to get ready for dinner since it was formal night.

While Rebecca and J. R. were napping, Janie and the boys went to see Don "Ducky" Williams and learn how to draw. Alex created the first-ever fanged Mickey Mouse, but Janie did much better.

Photos

After the animation class, the boys headed off to Ocean Quest while Janie went martini tasting. She had her first taste of a "real" gin martini (shaken, not stirred) and decided she'd stick to her appletinis and chocolate martinis instead. When she returned to the room, we began getting ourselves all spiffed up for the second formal night. Rebecca was wearing her brand-new dress we'd bought her for Christmas Eve and was very excited. Janie wanted to get some photos taken since we were not pleased with the ones from the first formal night. (Quite frankly, we weren't pleased with much of the photography from Shutters this time. Part of it was our fault because getting three kids to all look the same direction and smile is difficult, but the photos seemed a lot more rushed on this cruise than in the past, with the photographers spending less time making sure everyone was lined up properly.) But our formal photos came out better on this night, although we still have to teach Alex how to smile and not smirk.

Holiday Menu

Dinner was a special menu and finally had the lobster Janie and J. R. were looking forward to. We were disappointed they had waited for Christmas Eve as that meant we'd have to skip the roast turkey in order to have the lobster, but we can cook turkey any time we want at home. Janie was prepared to ask for the 'surf-and-turf' on this trip, but she didn't have to, as Steve suggested adding a steak to the plate because he felt the lobster 'wasn't enough'. (On our last cruise, Janie and our female tablemate ordered lobster and our server did not suggest 'surf and turf' to them. But when J. R. ordered the lobster, the server offered it to him and also to our male tablemate. Both the ladies then also asked for steak.) The boys also had the lobster (sans the steak) and the lobsters were tender and delicious. We finished off the meal with double chocolate yule logs and the bottle of Asti we had ordered for the evening.

Disney Dreams and Mrs. Claus

After dinner, we went to the shops for a little while as Rebecca had some money to spend for being good at school prior to the cruise. She bought a Princess stamp set and a Minnie Mouse dressed as the 'redhead' from Pirates of the Caribbean. 'Redhead' would sleep with her for the rest of the cruise and accompany her on the plane home. Alex bought a Pirates toy set and Thomas a toy gun. Those would need to go in the checked luggage.

After shopping, it was time for "Disney Dreams". Rebecca needed another Princess fix and she was not disappointed. After the show, we headed down to the atrium to hear Mrs. Claus read a story and some of the cast from the show sing "T'was the Night Before Christmas", which was very enjoyable. Then we headed to Deck 9, grabbed some drinks and watched the "Parent Trap" on the Dumbotron. The boys had been asking to go to the arcade, so J. R. bought them a card and they played games for awhile before we headed back downstairs for the dessert buffet at Lumiere's at 11:15. Even though we had only had dessert a few hours before, it didn't stop us from piling our plates with more chocolate and pies and cakes. The strawberries and bananas dipped in the white chocolate fountain were a highlight of the evening.

It was time to retire to the staterooms as the clock nearer midnight. Disney greeted us with a selection of chocolates in our stateroom, which was a nice touch. We had brought gift bags for each of the kids, and since we wouldn't be seeing Alex in the morning because he had an excursion, we gave them their gifts to open. We had bought books for Alex and Thomas and had gotten each of them a DCL sweatshirt earlier in the week. Rebecca got a DCL Princess sweatshirt as well as a Barbie doll and clothes. The rest of our presents and Santa's would be opened upon our return home. We tucked Rebecca and Barbie and "Redhead" into bed, said goodnight to the boys, and with visions of Castaway Cay dancing in our heads, settled ourselves down for a short winter's nap.

Daily Navigators