Catherine's Chatter - Waiting for Hannah

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Disney Cruise 2015 ~ Second Sea Day–The Day of Clothing Changes!

(Monday, Feb 23, 2015)

LOL – It wasn’t until I was creating this post that I realized how many different outfits Hannah wore this day!

We started our morning sleeping in a tiny bit and then visiting the princesses. Unlike last year, to visit the princesses (and some other characters) it is done by pre-booking a time. It took some of the pressure off as I knew from the first day of our cruise when we would meet them. Princess Hannah chose her Mulan dress to meet fellow royalty!

While we waited to meet the princesses we ran in to Ava who was on her way to hang out in the Oceaneer’s Lab. Royalty everywhere we looked!

After a quick change into bathing suits Hannah and I headed up to the 9th deck to chase our breakfast…literally! This was the only time that we ate there when it was super windy and it made our breakfast quite comical! I wish I’d thought to take a video of our bacon running across the deck or croissant sliding across the table. It’s all about what you make of it though and we did nothing but laugh, chase our food and enjoy the breathtaking scenery!! Oh yes, we could get used to this!!! Take us back!

After enjoying a few hours in the pool we headed back to our stateroom for a little bit of down time.

Similar to the morning we had a date with Anna and Elsa in the afternoon. This was set up so well! We went in to the meet ‘n greet area where Hannah and I were directed towards our own private table and she was provided with colouring sheets. There was no rush and we enjoyed some sweet time together chatting as she coloured.

When it was Hannah’s turn she went up to visit the sisters, enjoyed time visiting with them, getting their autographs and Hannah was kind enough to pose with them for their cruise memories! Winking smile

After gracing Anna and Elsa with her presence we popped back to the room to prepare for the optional formal night.

One of the treats of sailing on a Disney cruise is that our servers cut up the children’s meals….young and not so young! Winking smile Rebecca thought the world of Beata and Beata taught her a lot about food options while we were on the ship.

Hannah ordered macaroni and cheese again this night

but after just a few bites she was once again down for the count and was recharging for the fun still to come.

She did wake up long enough to say thank you to Beata for her cozy tablecloth blanket!

The night was still young for my well rested travelling buddy so she posed with Mickey,

went the the live show in the theatre with the family and then after a quick change into her pj’s Hannah was off to Pluto’s Pyjama Party. It started at 9:30 and when I went to pick her up at 10:45 she begged for more time as she was having so much fun! Yes, we sure do keep different hours on vacation! If left her there until 11:45 and then convinced her it was time to head back to our room. She’d had a blast in the clubs and this time allowed me to make a huge dent in our packing Crying face so it was a win-win for both of us!

Up tomorrow ~ Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Disney Cruise 2015 ~ Ship Time

(Sunday, Feb 22, 2015)

When we returned to the ship from Grand Cayman we enjoyed time doing a variety of things.

Hannah and I took some time and delivered some of our Fish Extender gifts. (A Fish Extender (FE) is something you hang outside your stateroom door and it has pockets on it. We signed up for a FE group on FB and there were 14 other cabins involved. We left a couple of gifts in each of the other cabins FEs and they left gifts in ours.)

I knit dishcloths for each cabin with Mickey on them.

The teen to 8yo’s received a Canadian candy called Smarties.

Children 7 and under received crayon roll-ups that I’d made.

It took some time to prepare our gifts but it was such fun and I worked away on them for about 5 months. My friend Norma also came over one afternoon to help out which was a lot of fun.

After we returned to the ship from Grand Cayman, Hannah and I delivered some of our gifts.

From there it was off to the pool for a swim before supper.

We took time for some character photos before supper.

Soon after we sat down for supper and even before eating, Hannah was asleep in my arms so Rolly pulled up a 2nd chair for her and voila, a bed was formed. So cute!

She slept for well over an hour, woke up to watch the show and then was raring to go! We went to the live show called, ‘The Golden Mickey’s’ in the Walt Disney Theatre. It was excellent! After that Hannah was still full of energy so I signed her in to the kids club for an hour so and then at 11pm we ordered room service as my sweet girl was hungry!

She polished off this macaroni and cheese and then we headed to bed. Tomorrow was another sea day with lots to do on the ship!

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Disney Cruise 2015 ~ Grand Cayman Island ~ Our Stingray Adventure!

(Sunday, February 22, 2015)

We woke Sunday morning to another beautiful day and were anchored at Grand Cayman Island. We went to the buffet on the 9th deck to enjoy a quick breakfast before meeting our tour. Mom and Rebecca had chosen to go to a combination tour of dolphin encounter and stingrays. They were happy to sit in the boat and watch from there and unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of their excursion but they said they really enjoyed it.

The rest of us chose to swim and snorkel with the stingrays and it was AMAZING!!!

Grand Cayman is a port that anchors and we took a tender into the port.

(In the picture above you can also see Hannah’s brown Jasmine sticker. Each person in our tour group was given one of these stickers and we followed the Jasmine sign to our tour. It makes it very easy to find your group as many different tours arrive at the port at the same time.)

Welcome to George Town, Grand Cayman Island!

From the port we took a short bus ride with the tour company to the dock where our excursion boat was located.

In quick order we were on the boat and skimming our way to the sandbar where the stingrays are located. Dad and I have remarked a few times about how far we travelled on this boat (probably 15 – 20 minutes) only to arrive at a sandbar where we were walking in the ocean in water only up to our thighs!

As we arrived at the sandbar we saw many different tour groups there and seeing all the boats, people and the stingrays swimming amongst them was pretty cool…and a little unnerving! Seeing stingrays from the boat is one thing but knowing we would soon be walking and swimming amongst them was another!

Our tour company was MarineLand Tours and we can’t say enough good about them! Very knowledgeable, friendly, helpful and more! They took great care of us from start to finish! Some of the added bonuses that we appreciated were a boat with a restroom and also a very handy staircase that lowered into the water which made entering and exiting the water easier which we appreciated on the wavy, wavy day that we were there! Isn’t this amazing??!!!

As we spent time in the water our confidence grew. (Well, others might have been confident from the start but it took me a few minutes.) On top of that the rougher waters made it more of a challenge holding Hannah. She enjoyed seeing the stingrays from above and was brave enough once to quickly touch one but that was enough for her thank you very much! I can’t blame her either as when I put her down a couple of times not only were the stingrays close to her but the occasional wave would go right over her head but she was a trooper through it all! She just chose to catch a ride when she could! Winking smile

We started out standing in a circle with the stingrays swimming around our as our tour guides described things about them. Unfortunately I missed most of what they said. Heh!

We were each given an opportunity to touch a stingray and eventually hold one too! (The smaller one dad and Larry are holding is a male and the larger one I’m holding is a female.)

By this point Hannah was content to watch from the boat so I took her back there. Next we had the opportunity to feed the stingrays. By this time I was feeling more confident so decided to give it a try. They gave us these little octopi to feed them.

Dad did great! Me? Well…just watch!

Oops! I either pulled it too far under water, held it too tight or…both! Needless to say I was the proud owner of a stingray nibble!

I can honestly say it didn’t hurt, just surprised me!

So, we had an AMAZING time and cannot recommend this opportunity more highly! If you’re ever in George Town, Grand Cayman Islands, go for a swim with the stingrays!