Magic-al Thanksgiving Cruise - Confession Time

Hi, I'm Lori and I am a running addict.

 (Not that this is a surprise if you've been here a while.)
As such, I get some really great views of dawn.

 

On the first morning, there were quite a few walkers and runners out on deck 4 with me, but they seemed to clear out after a couple days.

Anyway, here's one of my favorite spots to stretch so after a little walking warm-up, I claimed this bit of deck to do my pre-running routine.

 Then I settled into a nice little pattern. Run. Be awed by the beautiful ocean. Take a picture or two.

And back to running. So after a while enjoying the odd sensation of running on a moving surface (the gulf rolled the ship quite a bit, and once you add the jogging motion to that, it just compounds the motion, especially on the ramps on the forward end of the deck.) I claimed another bit of the starboard aft part of deck 4 to stretch again. Took another glance out at the lightening sky, judging that I could snap a few more pictures before the kids sprang awake. Afterwards, I headed inside to poke around a bit.
Thankfully, Animator's Palate stood open:

 

 

 One last peek at the dawn...

And I headed inside. Back in 5020, I started getting Chris and Kylee dressed, which required far less negotiating than usual. Kylee can be quite insistent on what she cares to wear, but on a suggestion from these boards, I'd packed each child's outfits in individual bags (each giant Ziploc contained an outfit containing the tops, bottoms, socks, underthings and even bows) labeled with their name and a day of the week. I didn't have one day where I had to explain what went with that top or searching for the hair bows or socks that went with something else. Chris helped out by finding the bags with the right day of the week. And since we're all quite modest, it gave them one thing to grab on their way to half the split bath to change. Ben still was out for a run, so the rest of us decided to go drop off some fish extender gifts.

The kids really enjoyed finding the different rooms and seeing all of the types of door decorations and fish extenders. Chris said his favorite was the Aggie decorated door and Kylee most enjoyed one with all kinds of princess magnets. The gift distribution took quite a bit longer than anticipated, so we arrived back to the room, we found Ben quite ready to hit Topsiders for breakfast. Kylee enthused over the prospect of pancakes, and I told her we'd see what they could do. 

Not a bad breakfast view.

As we arrived and got our trays, I asked the server at the front of the buffet if we could get some vegan pancakes. He scooted off to go get a chef, while I followed our omnivores through the buffet. They had packets of jelly and peanut butter on the buffet as well near the toast. Kylee and I picked from oatmeal and cream of wheat (both we were told were dairy free) and some fruit salad off the cereal bar (which I note contained Rice Krispies, and several other options Kylee can eat). They also had walnuts and almond slivers on the cereal bar and rotated berry types every day. The chef came out and asked Kylee if she would like some vegan pancakes. She enthusiastically said yes. It took a little bit, but Kylee quite enjoyed her pancakes when they did arrive.


Vegan (and apparently delicious) pancakes available on request

If she wanted to eat at the same time as everyone else, we would need to send one of us down earlier so they could request her pancakes before Chris headed down. We would've been better accommodated in the main dining rooms, but I don't know as the kids would've been happy to have three seated meals a day. Ben and Chris excuse themselves to head back to the room to get changed for the one thing both kids really, really wanted to do but hadn't gotten to the previous day, The Mickey Pool and slide. Meanwhile back out behind Topsiders, Kylee and I enjoyed a leisurely, if slightly windy end to our breakfast.


Aft deck behind Topsiders, Disney Magic.

On the positive side, after breakfast on deck, it was pretty simple to talk Kylee into letting me pull her hair back the next morning. We headed back down to get her suit on as well and headed up to the Mickey pool.

This post is Part 3 of an Ongoing Trip Report Covering Our Thanksgiving Cruise 2012