A Day at Sea...

Our final full day on the ship was a day "at sea."  On longer cruises, sea days are used to get from one place to another.  On a short cruise like ours, where the ship doesn't really go that far, a sea day is really just a day where the boat goes really slowly.  Sometimes we felt like we were't even moving.  The point of the sea day is to give everyone a chance to enjoy all the amenities of the ship and that's exactly what we planned to do.

The day began with the usual, room service and coffee on the verandah.  But then for a change I took the kids to something called Wake Up! with Disney Junior.  It turned out to be a toddler geared dance party with Jake, our new best friend.  

The dance party was a lot of fun, but we only stayed for four songs.  There were two characters we just had to meet, and since they were only appearing one time on the cruise, I knew they would have long lines.  So we hightailed it out of the dance party and went to the atrium to get in line for our favorite Pixar pals, Woody and Buzz!

I was right about there being a long line, it was the longest of the cruise, about 20 minutes.  The cast member working the line said Woody would be first, and then there would be another line for Buzz Lightyear.  The family in front of me decided to send Dad to get in line for Buzz and Mom would wait in line with the kids for Woody.  Genius!  I used the wave phone, a 2002 looking Nokia phone that only works on the ship and Castaway Cay, to text Rob.  He came down with a cup of coffee and got in line for Buzz.

Woody was about 20 feet tall.  I can only imagine how big he looked to my kids!

After we met Woody, we joined Rob in the Buzz line.  But of course, Ryan had to go to the bathroom.  Thank goodness Daddy was there!  When the boys were walking out of the bathroom, they passed the door that Buzz just happened to be coming out of! So the boys got to walk next to him, which was pretty awesome because Buzz "Likeyear" is Ryan's favorite.  All in total we waited 30 minutes to meet both Woody and Buzz.

Afterwards, Ryan said he forgot to ask Buzz to shoot his laser.  There's always next time.

The rest of the day was lounging, Oceanear's Club, visiting the photo desk to buy some of our cruise photos, hot tub, a visit to the future cruise desk, sitting around looking at the ocean, and eating ice cream.  Oh yeah, and I had to start packing in order to put the luggage out after dinner.  All too soon it was time to get dressed for our last dinner.  But there were a few pictures I wanted to get first.

Each DCL ship has a different statue in the lobby.  For the Disney Dream, it's Admiral Donald.

In true preschooler fashion, my two were not up for  pictures.  So we moved on to the grand staircase.  I asked, "Could you just sit next to your sister and act like you love each other?"  This is not what I had in mind.

Alright, no more posed photographs.  Thanks kids.

It's a magical thing the way the characters seem to live on the ship, the passengers are just guests along on Mickey's vacation.  That evening before dinner, I just happened to look up and see Belle leaning on the Deck 5 railing, looking down at the kids running and dancing in the atrium.  She was smiling and just watching.  It seemed like she was on her way to get ready to join us for dinner, headed to her stateroom to change from her blue dress and white apron to her grand gold gown.  Later, I read in the Navigator she was actually on her way to read stories in the Oceaneer's Club.  Magic!

Before our final dinner, we had one final character to meet, Goofy.  We were towards the front of the line, so we got a special interaction with him before the photo-op started.  At one pointed he was rubbing Ryan on the head and pulled up Anne's pigtails like he was amazed by how lengthy were. 

For the final dinner, we were in Animator's Palate again.  It was the real show, which I won't spoil, but is totally cool.  Our server's were on point, as always.  Here is our head server cutting Anne's steak and removing the tails from her shrimp.  Her face says it all!

One final magic trick from our assistant server, Mr. G.

And two final Mickey bars.

After dinner there was more dancing and more sunset watching.  Then I had to finish packing and put out the suitcases.  Our time on the Disney Dream was almost over.