Just before the weather got cold in Ohio in early November, I had the opportunity to board the Disney Wonder on a two night test cruise! Uncle Tyler scored us this awesome opportunity. However, Brian wasn’t really up for going, and I didn’t want to take Coraline myself. I thought two young kiddos myself might be a little much. It really worked out perfect though because Aunt Holly wanted to go, and we had a limited number of tickets anyway.
So Jameson and I boarded a plane (or three) for a three nights away from home. I tried to get us cheap flights since this was such a short stay, so the travel day was pretty grueling. Jameson was a trooper, and I hadn’t flown Delta before, but they treated Jameson like royalty. I really enjoyed our flights, aside from layovers (which was my own fault, trying to be cheap). That’s probably the last time I will do two stops for a trip unless there is literally no other choice.
Our first night, we stayed with Uncle Tyler in his apartment, and ate out for breakfast the next morning. Then we had a drive and wait time to board the ship. Our two night vacation was really spent with a lot of waiting. An exhausted Jameson was a little slow picking up on the surprise- we hadn’t told him anything. Though he was pumped about using a booster seat in the car! The ships were easy to see in the distance about 10 minutes before we pulled up, and it took Jameson until we were right upon them to notice!
We enjoyed the launch party complete with singing and dancing, but were disappointed that the kids pool area wasn’t open. The center pool was, so Jameson swam around in that instead and loved it, but we were all a little bummed because the kids splash area looked really fun! After all that standing, flying, driving and waiting though, we did have a cranky first evening, so, Jameson wasn’t in this photo, ha!
We sent Jameson away to the kids area that night while us adults watched the “Golden Mickeys” show the first night because of that, but Jameson enjoyed himself there despite that (I was truly surprised he let me leave him there, but it helped we had walked around to introduce him to the kids stuff earlier during the parent visit period Open House). It was pretty awesome, particularly the Toy Story themed area.
I got up early to get some shots with the good camera for the sunrise. We were graced with the presence of a helicopter, shooting footage for future marketing, which was pretty cool.
Overnight, we had been traveling to the Disney private island in the Bahamas, Castaway Cay (pronounced Key). This was such a blast!
We buried Jameson in the sand twice, used snorkel fins and swam to the first buoy, had ice cream 3 times, drank “fuzzy” lemonade, biked the island, loved the beach.
When you bike around the island, you get to bike down a huge landing strip. The expanse of that huge road narrows to proper biking paths. We made sure to explore all the roads before we returned our rentals.
Jameson didn’t really get a feel for the snorkel very well, but wore the goggles and fins pretty far out. It was hard work! I couldn’t get him to look in the water much once we were further out though, because he was convinced there were things at the bottom which were cause to fear. He was so brave despite and was pumped to reach that first buoy! If you go further, there is more stuff to see, almost like a scavenger hunt in the ocean.
That evening was much more pleasant for him than the first. On board, Jameson enjoyed more ice cream, the hot tub and pool. He stayed up late, met Louis the alligator at Princess Tiana’s restaurant (a truly stunning venue), watched a spectacular performance of Frozen the musical with us, and went shopping. He was introduced to Sprite, which is now his drink of choice when going out to restaurants. He loves the fizzy pop now.
We made sure to visit with another character, since Jameson missed out on the first one. We had to dance a little for our photo, haha.
The most hilarious moment of our short vacation was the family photo. The photographer assumed Uncle Tyler and I were parents to both Aunt Holly and Jameson. She made sure to snap some shots of just “the kids” together, and got some awkward and hilarious photos of Tyler and I posing together. We really weren’t containing our giggles, but played along.
Overnight, we sped back to port, and I made sure to capture some photos of the gorgeous sunset before our trip was officially over.
I can’t thank Tyler enough for letting us join him and see all his hard work aboard the Disney Wonder!
