A New Ship | Kisses and Castaways

Kylee and I parted ways with Ben and Chris in front of Mount Rustmore.



As the sun began to lower behind our friends.

Kylee cried for a minute or two when she realized Ben and Chris wouldn't be at the cabana the remainder of the afternoon. Then she realized that meant she got a whole cabana almost entirely to herself.

Yes, Chris went back to the ship without his sneakers.
Boys.

I told her she could play in the sand for a bit while I gathered up the remainder of our sandals and scooped them into our beach bag. Everything ready for our last minute departure of the cabana, with the exception of our IDs in the room safe. I laid out our dry clothes and towels so that once we were good and dry we could take the time to get redressed to go back to the ship.

I decided to pop out on the porch, let Kylee swim and I could snap some pictures.


So peaceful.
See how they are drilling with the lifeboat at midship?

Unfortunately this is when everything fell apart.

Almost everyone had left the new cabanas shortly after one (odd, but it is what it is) so Kylee had our whole little body of water to herself. I asked if she wanted her water shoes as the shore still had quite a few sharp shells in this area and she'd cut her feet up a bit wading during the morning. Being a tough little princess, she said no and ran into the water barefoot with a floating lounge. No sooner had she plunged in than she squealed and pulled herself entirely out of the water onto the raft and would not put her feet or legs back in the water.

She was floating about ten feet from shore, in four feet of water that she could easily swim in but she refused to put her feet in the water. Figuring she'd gotten sand in one of her cut feet, I sighed and waded into the cool water and dragged her back in. She refused to walk on the sand so I carried her over to our shower to see what was troubling her so much. I rinsed her feet off. That's when I noticed a line of welts on the top of her foot.

She got stung by a jellyfish.

I showed her how to push the shower button to keep the water running on her foot while I washed the extra sand off of her hands and legs. I calmed her down explaining that getting kissed by a jellyfish wasn't fun, but we talked about the part in "Finding Nemo" when Dory wants to keep the tiny jellyfish all for her own and ends up having to give it up and yell "Bad Squishy!" That got some laughs and gave me a moment to pull everything together and fish her cover-up out of our bag. After easing her foot into her flip flops, we headed slowly back to the shuttle. By the time the shuttle reached the part of the island closest to First Aid, Kylee wanted to get back to our stateroom more than visit a medical center.

Chris enjoying another Mickey Bar and movie kind of afternoon.

We made it back to our stateroom barely forty-five minutes later than the guys and all but collapsed onto the sofa to watch the end of The Lion King. First, though I showered off and changed into dry clothes.

While Ben supervised Kylee's fifth re-enactment of her misadventure (this time while showering off the sand), I packed up the majority of our stateroom and poked in all the odd cabinets to pull together our luggage so that all we would need to do that evening would be change into night clothes and put the bags out. Kylee, much impressed at her own adventure,  told our concierge staff all about her encounter with the stingray.

Last pictures with his favorite Chipmunks!

We headed down to the atrium late that afternoon to catch "See Ya' Real Soon" with all of our favorite Disney characters. Chris stood for this for about two characters before he begged for just a little more time in the Oceaneer Club.

Ariel was very understanding about jellyfish.

I think Daisy would love Jazz class as much as Little Miss Jazzhands.

Kylee had to tell Ariel all about her aquatic mishap with Squishy then give hugs to Minnie and Daisy and Chip and Dale and Jasmine and and of course Daisy!


Daddy Daughter Happy Hour

Then she asked Ben for one last trip to happy hour in the Concierge Lounge. Miss Julia brought Kylee a non-dairy cocoa with Mickey Sprinkles and explained the process for expedited debarkation the following morning. This is a perk that we hadn't really though about or used on our previous concierge cruise, but would learn to love very shortly.

The under rail lighting did not block our view of the stars, but did keep us from tripping over the loungers.

Our final dinner onboard returned us to Animator's Palate. Wherein, the children each ate as quickly as humanly possible so that they could go back to the Oceaneer's Lab for a final visit. Our room already turned down, Ben and I flipped on the porch lights and went out onto our verandah for some last night star gazing.

These are impossible when you cruise concierge.
No matter how "excellent" our servers were, our concierge excelled far above that.

And standardized testing.

Kylee loved her last little peacock towel animal and decided to snuggle with it rather than add to her menagerie.

These reviews always take me back to the SATs and pulling out sharpened number two pencils.
We fetched the children around nine so that we could change everyone into jammies with plenty of time to return our bags to the hallway.

Chris delighted in his "Oswald"

Kylee and Chris quickly dropped off to sleep while Ben and I headed back to our room to enjoy the starlight for one last evening.

Lining up for debarkation.
Before six in the morning.
That's dedication.

Very early the next morning, I cut past the atrium on a walk with Kylee as we set out to see what cereal boxes we could scrape together for an early breakfast. We were amazed to see anybody lined up so early when debarkation wouldn't begin for at least an hour.

Good Morning!

We enjoyed our sunrise breakfast and hung out on our verandah.

Sunrise in Port Canaveral

It is hard not to want to linger, but I maintain that knowing that it is "See Ya' Real Soon" rather than goodbye makes it much easier. We arrived in the Concierge Lounge just before they appointed time and followed our group down through the forward elevators with Julia leading us around, past the Guest Services desk and showed us directly off of the ship. I have never disembarked so smoothly and quickly. After collecting our children by the hand and walking straight to the customs agent (we wouldn't see our luggage until we arrived in Houston) we left the terminal and boarded the porthole buses. The whole bus alternated dozing and half watching Disney cartoons when suddenly, it was time to get off of the bus. Breezing through airport security (we were waved into a fast line and could keep on our shoes and jackets!) we had plenty of time to relax at the gate, collect some snacks for our flight and reminisce.
Kylee re-enacted her stingray adventure, this time with swords and dragons thrown in for good measure. Chris eagerly anticipated our flight as he got to enjoy the window seat on the way home and another round of "I Spy" in the SkyMall Magazine. Ben and I compared pictures and notes and dreaded checking our email. Kylee spent the entire two hours of the flight home talking to the little girl across the aisle. She had just finished up a week at Walt Disney World Resort, and they happily chatted the miles away.
While we were waiting for our luggage, Kylee discovered that not only were they the same age, but they even live in the same neighborhood of the same suburb. The more we travel the more we realize it really is a small world after all.

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This is Part 19 of an Ongoing Trip Report "A New Ship."
Additional sections will be found on the Trip Reports page after they are posted!