Adventure In The Great Wide Somewhere

Thanksgiving Dinner, y'all!   Our servers said we were welcome to keep these menus!  So happy. Heading to the aft and Parrot Cay, our table already had the cornbread service and butter out, along with some nondairy rolls for the vegans. All apparently super yummy. Love this! Aromatic, light and flavorful. Kylee and I had preordered stir fried veggies and the servers brought us more couscous, since we’d liked that the other day. You aren't in danger of starving. They also brought us the Gingered Soba Noodles, “just to try it”. Stir Fried veggies. I think the noodles were pretty good, the couscous was quite yummy but the stir fried veggies had this greasiness that was hard to get around. Chris and Ben enjoyed their standard Thanksgiving Dinner with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry jelly, and cornbread and honey butter. I ran to drop Kylee for a short time in the club and headed back in time to eat some dessert. This showed up… Tort...

I think that the magic of a Disney vacation exists in three wonderful parts: the dreaming of planning, the pixie dust moments during trip itself and the memories you take with you for years to come. Since I can't live in the Cinderella Castle Suite or even on property year round, pictures help bring a bit of the fairytale back into my everyday life. In my enthusiastic pursuit of remembering the Magic, I take hundreds of my own pictures every vacation and hope to share a bit of my experience with you. I know you're on vacation, but sometimes, it pays to set an alarm, wake up before dawn and take some photos during the golden hour.  Sunrise through distant rain.  Beautiful This so called golden hour , the last and first hour of sunlight each day, offers beautiful, far less harsh lighting. If you've ever stood staring at sunrise thinking how completely blessed and beautiful it all is, you know the magic of the lighting. Som...

Welcome Foodie Friday Blog Hoppers! Specialita’ Del Palo: Antipasto Freddo Prosciutto, Bresaola, Parmesan Reggiano, Marinated Olives and Sun-dried Tomatoes Location: Palo, The Disney Magic Cost: $20 per person for the brunch plus cruise fare On arriving at Palo for dinner, after seeing the kitchen and being escorted to your table, you receive a beautiful bread course (which is a Foodie Friday post unto itself.) Then, while nibbling on bread and perusing the menu, your server wheels around the "Specialita’ Del Palo" the antipasto cart.  Beautiful Antipasti Plate Selecting delicate nibbles based on your preferences, your server loads up a plate. Then drizzles it liberally with your selection of vinegars (go for the balsamic!) and olive oil, unless you would prefer your plate plain, of course.  The vegan antipasto offered generous portions of olives, artichokes, olive tampenade and artichokes.  Thankfully, most of your bread is untou...

I finally got all of the kid's impressions from vacation recorded and decided it was time to get around to making my kids trip report into a book.  Castaway Kids Operation: Trip RePort by Christopher and Kylee Ketcherside | Make Your Own Book I love how it turned out! Have you ever printed off a vacation memories book? Do you have a favorite way to record your kid's vacation memories?

Welcome Fastpass to History Bloghoppers! My tenth anniversary comes up in January, so I'm feeling a bit sentimental...so here is the history of how I gained my very first pair of Mickey Ears. I grew up going to Walt Disney World (repeatedly) from the age of ten onward, however due to a certain affinity I had for Goofy in middle school (who isn't Goofy in middle school?) I tended to stick to the Goofy Ear baseball hats.  Chris loves trying on daddy's ears. Once I found out that Ben planned for us to honeymoon at Walt Disney World, I recalled all the beautiful bride Minnie Ears I saw over the years and decided we could definitely pick some up. Our first afternoon after checking into our hotel, we headed to the Grand Floridian, the Chapeau, and finally lucked out at Fantasy Faire in Fantasyland...but they'd just run out of bobby pins so we trekked over to Disney MGM Studios (back before it made the switch to Hollywood Studios and stopped in Villains in...

Much like spending your nights at Walt Disney World sleeping at the Grand Floridian in a Club Level room with a theme park view at rack rate, the Disney Fantasy Royal Suite price make these vacations seem astronomically expensive. And, oddly enough, nearly the same prices for the Walt Disney World high end packages as the Disney Cruise Line suites. They don't have to be ridiculously expensive and in many cases can even be more affordable for the average American family than a trip to Walt Disney World.  Over the years I've used varying tips and tricks to minimize my vacation expenditure so that I can enjoy a few more excursions, pedicures and Cove Café drinks without the bills following me long after the pixie dust settles. All of the below tips are either things I or one of my friends have successfully utilized, but as always, your mileage may vary. My Top Ten Fourteen DCL Dollar Stretching Tips: 14.) Get Hired By Mickey Cast member discounts can really save y...

Welcome Wordless Wednesday Blog Hoppers! Thank you Focused on the Magic for hosting the Disney Wordless Wednesday blog hop!

More than any other question, this tends to crop up in my everyday discussions with people who haven't been on either a cruise at all or a Disney Cruise Line cruise. Basically this question breaks down into two parts, is it worth it to "splurge" on Disney Cruise Line as opposed to another cruise line and is it affordable compared to a theme park stay at Walt Disney World. Is it worth it compared to other cruise lines If you are a Disney person, which, if you're reading my blog I'm assuming you may be, you love the quality, attention to detail and superb customer service that Disney offers on land. Comparing Disney Cruise Lines to Royal Caribbean is similar to comparing Walt Disney World to Six Flags; although the elements of each are the same, the overall experience is very different. That magical, pixie dust element remains uniquely Disney.  Just a little midafternoon story time. Apples to Apples, this is not.  On Disney Cruise Line, Belle reads ...

Welcome back for more fantastic Disney Trivia!  Thanks again to Jodi from  +Magical Mouse Schoolhouse , Heidi from  +Heidi's Head , and  +Mike Ellis  for co-hosting!   Have you ever wondered how many towels the average cruise uses? Towel Stingray Well there are the towels in the staterooms, a lucky few get to become towel animals, some hang out in the spa and fitness areas and some towels spend all day lounging by the pools. Waiting for sunbathers On a short three-day cruise, 6,525 pool towels will be used and washed. That's enough towels to give one to each athlete participating in the Olympic swimming competitions. Now that's a load of towels.

How does a first day really go down? Do you need to eat lunch somewhere before you board? What do I need to do the first afternoon? What can my kids do? Are the clubs open yet? Come along on our typical embarkation afternoon to find out! The shuttle departs as the jubilant crowd moves onward, the sense of excitement nearly visible in the air. The majority of the luggage disappears rapidly and the vacationers tote day bags and paperwork into the terminal. Our family of four is down to a backpack of essentials . Paperwork, identification and some notebooks and crayons to keep the kids amused on the shuttle ride and during downtime. After slowly clearing security, more quickly clearing check in at the desks and retrieving the Oceaneer Club and Lab Mickey bands for children, we queue to meet Captain Mickey. While the kids peer at the model of the ship, I peruse the Personal Navigator to see where our afternoon will take us. The family of the day announced, the ...

So after another nice morning run, Cozumel is still out there somewhere. in which the weather seemed to finally cooperate and be cool but I ran cute little half loops back and forth as the forward section of the ship was blocked off for mooring operations… DO NOT ENTER.  Oh, Okay! I stretched on deck four and watched the various people running around preparing the ship for our arrival in Cozumel. Quiet morning. It really is dizzying to look all the way down off the side of the ship at the dock.  I don’t know how the captain docks. Apparently, it's like looking down from the seventh floor of a building to parallel park.  My hat is off to the captain. Anyway, I walked back through the ship to good old 5020 and Ben headed out for a run. I took both the kids up to the (entirely abandoned) Mickey Pool. Honestly, if you stay on board when the ship is in port, you can really make the most of things. So they splashed and fell in the pool and ran around...