Day Two, Is that Cuba?

Greetings!  And thanks for coming by for another installment of Schneiders at Sea! 

Day two of the cruise, our first full day on the ship, was a day at sea.  Like most days, I was up at the crack of dawn.  Since the stateroom is fairly cramped quarters, I took my phone and journal and went in search of coffee.  Here's a little sampling of my wanderings.

Our stateroom door! I do it differently for each cruise. To be honest, this one is my least favorite I've done. The move just zapped all my creativity. More about the stocking later!

The Twist and Spout slide. The kids and I will ride this later on in the week and it will not be good. Oh, the foreshadowing!

Disney is always working on the ship. This morning I saw them changing light bulbs all over the pool deck.

All the pools and hot tubs get nets over them when they are closed. Unlike other cruise lines, Disney staffs the pools with lifeguards and there is no swimming when they are off duty.

This is Edge, which I believe is the tween hangout. Disney has dedicated spaces for every age group. They understand that the tweens don't want to be in the kids club, but they aren't ready for the teen club either.

Aren't these stairs pretty?

Lobby to the spa. We will be back here later today!

I don't know these people. I just thought it was so sweet that they were celebrating 50 years of marriage with a Disney Cruise.

After my walkabout, there was a continental breakfast in our room courtesy of room service.  Yum. Then we headed to the buffet for bacon, eggs, and Mickey waffles.  Double yum.   Full of sugar, it was time for Wake Up! with Disney Junior.  This is a really fun party (for lack of a better word) in the mornings for the 3-6 year old set.  A cast member leads the kids through some dances to their favorite Disney Junior songs.  At the end, a character comes out for a few dances.

With all our wiggles danced out, it was time to see our first character, Spiderman!  This was such a big deal for Ryan.  Last year while Rob was deployed, he took it upon himself to kill all the spiders for mommy.  And now he thinks that's what Spiderman does, he rescues people who don't like spiders.  Of course, Superhero Ryan thinks he will grow up to BE Spiderman.

Chatting it up with Spidey. He asked them if they ate their vegetables and were good for mom and dad.

Making muscles for the camera.

If Spiderman seems like a strange fit for a Disney Cruise, keep in mind that Disney owns the rights to Marvel.  It's an awesome draw for boys, and we loved having things that appealed to Ryan.  But honestly, our boy loves to meet Princesses too. 
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Speaking of Princesses, you can imagine they are a hot commodity as far as character meets go.  Disney controls the chaos by offering the Princesses only as a free ticketed event. When you check in to your cruise online, you can schedule your Princess Gathering for one of the sea days.  We had this for the second sea day, but here's an overhead shot of the gathering taken while we were waiting for Spiderman.

This is controlled chaos.  Off to the left, you can see the people waiting in line.  Then you move from Princess to Princess.  On this cruise they had Cinderella, Rapunzel, Tiana, and Belle.  It's actually a smooth process and took us about 15 minutes to see all 4, but we never felt rushed.  

With Spiderman checked off our to-meet list, the kids were begging to go to the Club.  I'm going to say it was about 10:30 am.  They kept asking to stay "more than just an hour," which is what we did last cruise.  We said it was ok, but they would have to eat lunch in the Club, which they agreed to, very happily.  When your kids want to go to the Club, it's a win-win.  They get a fun vacation and I get a break!

Once they were safely checked in, Rob and I wandered the ship.  All morning we had been seeing an island off the side of the ship and it was huge.  Rob thought it was Cuba, but I thought we were farther South than Cuba.  I mean, isn't Cuba only 60 miles south of Miami? No, Kristina, you are an idiot.  It is 330 miles from Miami to Cuba.  The Captain confirmed that Rob was correct when he made his morning announcement and told us we were passing Cuba.  

Yup, that's Cuba.

Rob and I enjoyed a lunch buffet where all I had to worry about was what I wanted to eat and if my own drink was full.  How's that for a vacation!  Then it was time for our trip to the spa, another treat I had arranged for us.

Each Disney ship has a room in the spa called the Rainforest Room.  I've read descriptions of this before each cruise and always wanted to try it.  Since we were pretty sure we would get a few hours with the kids in the Club, now was the time to try it. 

The Rainforest Room is a self service area of the spa.  When you go in, there are heated tile lounge chairs, a dry sauna, two steam rooms, and a few themed showers.  The showers are supposed to be aromatherapy with matching sounds and water.  So the "rainforest shower" feels like gentle rain, with the sound and smell of a tropical rainforest.

The photo above shows you the prices for a "length of cruise pass."  Since I research vacations EXTENSIVELY (read: too much, should probably be doing something else) I knew that a better deal was to buy a one day pass before the cruise for $16 per person.  Pre-cruise, you can actually buy as many one day passes as you want, but once onboard they only sell the longer package.  Unless you want to spend every day in the Rainforest Room, I suggest buying a one day pass.  We enjoyed the room, for sure, but not $169 worth. In the future, I think I will buy myself a pass for each sea day, port days are too busy in my opinion.

Let me start by saying you get a complimentary robe to wear while in the spa, as well as a locker and flip-flops.  Next time I will bring some cheap flip flops to wear.  The ones they provide were not comfortable at all, but I didn't want to wear my nice leather ones into the spa. Oh, and you wear your bathing suits, in case you were wondering.  There is also hot tea available, ice water, room temperature water, lemon water and cucumber water.  

We started in the warm sauna, which was a room covered in tiles, and all the benches were curved to fit your back.  There was even heated tile foot rest.  This room was awesome and a great way to ease into the experience.  Next we laid on the heated loungers.  I had read before the cruise that these were the best thing on earth.  Maybe they are better on the Disney Dream where they face the ocean.  On the Magic, they are in the center of the room, and while they were cozy, I couldn't have laid there all day.  

After lounging a bit, we tried the steam rooms.  One was aromatherapy and smelled like eucalyptus and the other was just a big room full of steam.  I enjoyed the traditional steam room way more than I thought I would.  I'm not a fan of hot tubs and I expected the steam room to be like that.  It wasn't, I found it very relaxing even though I was sweating.  

Of course the sweaty steam room made us want to try out the showers.  Keep in mind this is one big room, with the steam rooms having doors off to the sides, but the loungers and the showers are in open areas. The showers don't have curtains, but the wall sort of half curves around it for privacy.  Other people are coming and going from the room.  So while it is quiet and relaxing, in no way is this a private experience.  You are showering in your bathing suit.

We lounged a little more, but I can only lay on a lounge chair for so long before I get bored.  I needed a book or something to do.  Rob was done too, so we headed to our respective locker rooms and changed.  Here is where I made a mistake.  It took me longer to change than Rob, so he was left alone in the lobby of the spa for a few minutes.  Long enough for him to read the menu board and chat to the lady behind the counter.  

When I came out he asked if I minded if he booked a spa package.  He also offered for me to do the same.  I'm not a big fan of massages, something about them set off my anxiety so they aren't relaxing for me.  Rob doesn't have this problem, so I happily agreed for him to book whatever he wanted and we parted ways, he went back into  the spa and I went to explore the shops.

Here are a few pictures I took of merchandise.  This being Disney, they have all sorts of ways to part you and your money.  Usually I see a lot of cool things, but I'm not big on souvenirs, so I settled on photographing them for your enjoyment.  Except the frame.  I did go back and buy the frame on the last day, but that is something I had planned to get.

Oh yeah, and I took a picture of the sailor dress and the captain's jacket because I want to try and make them for the kids before our next cruise.

After purchasing nothing, I went and sat in a chair looking at the ocean and read a book until it was time to meet Rob.  Then we swung by the Club to pick up the kids.  I think it was about 3:30pm.  They had been in the club all day and I expected them to be dying to get out. Nope.  They were playing in Andy's Room, which is themed after Toy Story and has a slinky dog slide and huge toys that are scaled to look like the kid is a toy too.  So imagine a kid sized piggy bank with huge coins to put in.  Very fun.

When Ryan saw me, he took off running in the opposite direction.  I thought wow, he had such a good time he doesn't want to leave! But really he was running to the arts and crafts room to show me what he had made.  It was a Captain America shield and mask and he was so proud.  Anne had colored a Moana picture but hadn't put her name on it so we couldn't find it.  She was sad but said she would make another one next time.

Ryan Schneider, Captain America.

​Once we were all showered and dressed for dinner, I asked if we could please take a family picture.  This was formal night on the cruise and how often can you take a formal picture on a cruise ship? Exactly.  I knew from our past cruises that they would have several back drops to chose from.  When we arrived in the lobby, our choices were: the main staircase, a backdrop that looked like the ship's railing with the night sky behind it, or a backdrop with a photo of the ship sailing at night.  We tried the main staircase and the ship's railing.  

My plan was to purchase whichever looked better and put it in the frame I had seen earlier in the day.  It turned out the main staircase picture was pretty much perfect, and I have to say it looks great in the frame in our new house.

Hugging or fighting, who can tell?

Dinner that night was in Animator's Palate.  This is similar to the one on the Disney Dream, but the dinner show is different.  On the Dream, Crush from Finding Nemo comes around and talks to all the tables.  On the Magic there is a ten minute movie at the end of dinner which is a compilation of all the Disney animated features.  There is a huge surprise at the end, which I won't give away, but it had me crying and cheering all at the same time.  Seriously, you guys, it is so well done and may be my favorite moment of the cruise.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Here are some pictures from dinner.

Ryan ordered the steak. This is our assistant server, Lucia, cutting it for him.

Two pretty ladies enjoying dinner.

Rob was entertaining Ryan by showing him how he could take apart his thumb.

Ryan enjoying the show and his apple pie, ordered off the adult's dessert menu.

I think Anne's face is magical.

I ordered the cookies and cream sundae. Yum-o!

We also chatted with Sarah and Grant during dinner.  Turns out Grant wasn't willing to go into the Kid's Club so they had spent the day at the pool.  But the boys had a fantastic time playing with cars at the table.

​Time for a towel animal and bed!