A New Ship | Personal Flurries

The exciting evening the night before and cruising into the Atlantic time zone combined to make our rising considerably later than normal. Like, the sun was up in the sky!
So strange.
After breakfast in Cabanas, the children begged to head over to the Oceaneer Lab. So off they went. Ben and I headed up to Meridian to wait for the beginning of what is usually one of our favorite presentations, the Art of the Theme Show Ship Tour.
Everything the cast member told us about was a fascinating tidbit, but forty-five minutes of the tour were us sitting in the lounge. So it was more a tell than a show and tell and I missed that angle on the presentation. My favorite new fact from this particular rendition?
From a family perspective, the reason that many people find vacations stressful is the complete swap of the routine. By allowing for the family to separate for individual activities and regroup for other activities, you preserve a sense of normal daily life. I love that Disney thinks about these tiny details, because it makes vacation soooo much more relaxing.
I definitely prefer the "show and tell" style presentation on the classic ships, but I'd still check out Art of the Theme on the Dream class ships again in the future.
The biggest ticketed event at Walt Disney World currently is, without a doubt, scoring a Meet and Greet with Anna and Elsa. On the high seas, they hand out tickets for the meet and greet on the afternoon you board the ship.
These tickets are included in your cruise fare (yay!) but not unlimited in quantity (boo!)
When we showed up for our meet and greet ten minutes before our meet, the queue of eager little princesses already chattered excitedly in the hallway. After a cheerful cast member collected our tickets, we wound through the tables, past the snowy personal flurries on the animated screens.

Patiently waiting for an audience with the royalty of Arendelle

As Kylee handed her gloves and purse to her daddy, apprehension built. The little boy ahead of her ended up waving from the edge of the backdrop and running of with his mom rather than approaching so by the time they turned to Kylee, a flight or fight reaction was in the works...so I asked if I could pretty please meet them first. She, predictably, did not want to wait another second to meet her favorites.



My Little Elsa

Of course, I needed to meet the princess and queen as well. I asked their highnesses if they had heard of the magic of the selfie. They had in fact and were happy to oblige.

Do you want to take a selfie?

We took Kylee out for a lunch at Cabanas for just the three of us. I love hanging out getting some time with just one of our children. It' a big perk to get to get one on one time with the kids, so we set aside half a day to hang out with each kid every cruise. After lunch, we wandered back through the concierge lounge to our suite and ran into Julia again. By this point in vacation, Kylee loved her "Miss Julia" and happily plopped into an arm chair while our concierge visited with us and asked in a somewhat hurt tone of voice why she hadn't seen us in the lounge more often. We admitted that we were enjoying our suite and didn't leave it as much as our previous staterooms. Julia offered Kylee a hot chocolate and Kylee launched into her "I can't have dairy" speech. Kylee beamed when she found out that she could get a soy or almond hot chocolate with no whip and Mickey sprinkles. Just like that, Kylee gained a new best friend and wanted to spend every moment not in the club in the concierge lounge. Julia said she'd see us for early breakfast before our excursion the next morning.

Pepe the King Prawn's stateroom, right next to the Oceaneer Club.

After a while hanging out with mom and dad, Kylee headed back to the club so she wouldn't miss the next round of "Get the Hook" in the Oceaneer Lab. The activity went almost all the way until dinner, so we went straight from the Lab to Royal Court.

By way of this random Christmas tree.

Dinner at Royal Court took a surprisingly long time or the kids were just exhausted.

Hanging out waiting for dinner time.

Possibly both.
After a dinner which I seem to eat every single cruise, (the Avocado-Citrus Salad with Pan seared Tofu, Roasted Zucchini, Eggplant and Red Peppers for the main course super good, if you're wondering) they surprised Kylee and I with a ridiculously wonderful strawberry sorbet. Not strawberry basil sorbet wonderful, but plenty delicious and all to soon the smooth, creamy, concoction disappeared. I dropped Kylee and Chris off to the Club and Ben and I cut by The District to check it out.
A short while later, we swung by to pick them up because we had an early wakeup call.
Next stop, the US Virgin Islands!

This is Part 9 of an Ongoing Trip Report "A New Ship." Additional sections will be found on the Trip Reports page after they are posted!